Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The realization sinks in at the worst possible time. 

It’s freezing cold, the chill making Tommy lose feeling in his fingers, and he wraps his arms around himself to try and keep the biting wind away. The simple cape over his shoulders is a weak shield against the weather, and his clothes aren’t much help either. 

He just keeps moving, keeps walking, farther and farther away from l’manburg, what used to be his home, and he grits his teeth and squints through the snow, and realizes, at the worst possible time-

This wasn’t just Dream, was it?

This wasn’t just him. Even though the bastard had been smug as hell, happy that things were going his way, he hadn’t been the one to read out the order. He wasn’t the one who read out the order for exile, for Tommy to be kicked out and leave his home behind-

Quietly, in the back of his mind, Tommy had known where this was all leading. He had known that eventually, Tubbo wouldn’t be there at his side, if he took on the role of president. He was already drifting away from Tommy with each day, and Tommy refused to look at the truth, stayed in his little bubble of denial until it popped. 

Tubbo had left him behind. Tubbo had thrown him out, thrown him away, and for what?

Tommy wipes the back of his hand across his nose with a sniff, frowning as he sees the dried blood smeared on his skin. His arm aches, his fingers are numb with the cold, and he’s pissed off as hell. There’s a dying flame in his chest, a furious rage that had been burning when he was running away from l’manburg, trying to escape without being harmed. 

The flame is starting to snuff out, instead being washed away with a cold sorrow, and a frozen disbelief that this has happened. He’s been cast out, and for what ?

Why was it that Wilbur had fallen, again? Why was it that he had been torn apart, burnt up in his own flames.

Power, Tommy thinks. Power, or, roles of power, roles of leadership. L’manburg. It took Tubbo away, made him turn on Tommy, it took Wilbur away, made him perish to his own mind, and now-?

Now he’s out here. 

Tommy looks ahead, glances back at his footsteps in the snow to make sure he’s keeping direction. He stares at the snow for a bit longer than usual, his breath coming out in puffs of smoke as he feels his throat grow tight. He keeps moving, trying to think. Trying to form some sort of plan. 

“Don’t you see what’s happening here?!” Techno’s voice rings in his head, and Tommy closes his eyes, grits his teeth and feels them chatter together. He pulls at the cloth over his shoulders, even though it doesn’t do shit against the wind. “Don’t you see history repeating itself?!”

At the time, Tommy didn’t want to hear that at all. At the time, he didn’t even take in what Techno was even saying. What he was warning against. 

Power corrupts, it always has, it always will. It’s torn apart what Tommy had, and now it’s ripped away his home too. 

No, this is Dream's fault, Tommy’s mind throws out. An angry jab at the person responsible for all of this, responsible for Tommy’s trial. If he hadn’t gone to such lengths over just a bit of arson, Tommy wouldn’t be here. This is his fault, all of it, every single bit. 

But Dream wasn’t the reason Wilbur slowly fell victim to his own paranoia in the walls of Pogtopia, when Tommy had still been hiding out there. Dream isn’t the reason why Tubbo kept drifting away, kept choosing his responsibilities and his role as a leader over Tommy. 

No, this is Dream’s fault! Everything is! 

Isn’t it?

Tommy wants to scream and curse out that green bitch, he wants to put the blame of everything painful onto Dream’s shoulders, so then Tommy will have someone to hate. Then, Tommy will have his reason why, he’ll have his enemy to take down, because this is Dream’s fault, Tommy’s lost his friends and allies, he’s lost his home, he’s lost it all, and it’s because of-

Tommy stops abruptly in the middle of his walking, even though the sharp wind is biting at his skin and the cold snow is piling up around his feet. He stares ahead in the storm around him, and he tries to swallow back that pressure that’s being held around his heart, that crushing feeling that makes him inch closer and closer to breaking apart entirely. 

His hands are trembling badly, and he can’t tell if it’s because he wants to scream into the dark sky, or if because the cold is seeping right into his bones. 

Power corrupts. Those two words are spoken softly in Tommy’s mind, and he bites his tongue, squeezes his eyes closed again to try and block out the way his brain keeps thinking and thinking and jumping to ideas. He’s reminded of Techno again, of his words, of his warning, and Tommy remembers how he just hadn’t listened. 

He doesn’t want to admit it. He doesn’t want to see Technoblade of all people as being the person who was right. No, he desperately wants to stay stubborn, he wants to put all of the blame and hatred onto Dream, he wants to fight and yell, curse out everyone who’s against him.

A sob tries its best to crawl its way out of Tommy’s throat, and he chokes it back, feels his eyes burn and the pressure in his chest grows with the crushing feeling of shame and frustration. He holds back the way he wants to cry, and he realizes Techno may have had a point, with everything he said. Heroes don’t get happy endings. 

Here’s Tommy. Trying to be the hero. And look where it’s got him. How the hell can he get his happy ending, then?

He doesn’t want to end up like Wilbur. 

He doesn’t want to be the bad guy, he doesn’t want to turn to such measures, but what options are left? 

Tommy’s alone, with nothing but the bitter taste of defeat on his tongue and his dirty, thin clothes on his back, doing nothing for the snow that’s soaking through. His lip stings, his face hurts, from where he was hit harshly after he fought to stay, struggling with Dream so he wouldn’t have to be thrown out of his own home. Tubbo had yelled for Dream to stop, to be careful, but he hadn’t helped. He didn’t help, and instead just watched as Tommy kicked and screamed and ran on his own. 

Here he is, having gotten away. Here he is, having escaped, but only just barely. 

He stares at the snow on the ground, stares at his own feet, which he can barely even feel at this point, and he can barely see them too, underneath the layer of snow. The snowstorm hardly shows any sign of letting up, even though Tommy’s come all this way, and he can feel the freezing cold take away the very last bits of his energy. 

This is...a lot.

This is too much. 

Tommy can handle a lot of things, he’s sturdy. Stubborn to the end, kicking and yelling and being a firecracker of rebellion and determination. But he’s tired. 

Right now, he’s so tired, so exhausted with the feeling of failure weighing heavy on his shoulders. He admits it to himself, and only himself, with no one around to see him give up. No one is around to see him be a coward, and sob quietly as the chill takes hold of every limb in his body. 

Maybe Techno was right, in some parts. Tommy wasn’t wrong to ignore him, no, Tommy’s never wrong and he’s never made mistakes. But even then…

Power corrupts, he thinks again. And like a fool, he’s handed over his best friend to that power, and in return, he’s lost it all. He’s lost it all, and now he’s here, walking into the wilderness, moving through a plain field of snow, with only a vague direction to follow. He doesn’t even know what’s at the end of this road. 

It’s so cold.

Tommy tries to keep walking, trying to continue where he’s left off and step out of the pile of snow that’s rising up around him. His legs feel slow and numb, as if they’re logs he’s trying to drag through this snow. He sighs out into the wind, a cloud of smoke blowing past, and feels a surge of emotion overflow his head, disappointment and frustration and anger all rolled up into one. He bites his tongue so hard he thinks it may bleed, and he holds back the urge to cry. 

He has to keep moving. He has to keep going, this direction. Even if he doesn’t know what’s at the end, even if he doesn’t know if it’s going to help or not, he has to keep going, because it’s not as if he can turn back. 

He wouldn’t be allowed back. 

He has to keep going, has to keep moving, even though there’s tears blurring his vision, his throat burning as he tries to hold back a sob, he needs to find shelter. He just needs to keep walking, he can keep going, he can’t just-

His legs give out, seeming to give up on him right there, frozen in the cold. Tommy trips, falls forward and doesn’t even make an effort to slow his fall. He just lands into the snow, exhausted, tired, and cold.

With a sharp breath, Tommy lifts his arms over his head, curling his fists in front of him and grabbing handfuls of the snow as he tries to push himself up. He tries to take a deep breath, tries to calm himself, but it comes out as a gasp for air. 

Tommy cries, tears falling onto the snow underneath him, and he hates the way his shoulders keep shaking, he hates the way he’s grown so weak, the way he’s become so terribly exhausted. He hates it all. 

And he’s so tired of it all. 

He tries to get up again, pushing himself up and falling back into the snow with a guttural sob. Wiping a hand across his face, he winces as he feels his fingers sting, and he lets his hand drop beside him. He stares off into the distance, his head turned to the side as he tries to take deep breaths.

Maybe, he can just rest for a minute. A single minute, that’s all. He can just lay here, in the snow, and try to calm down before dragging himself back onto his feet and continuing to travel again. 

Yeah, that sounds good. 

The snow keeps falling as he lays there, coating him in white, the ice sticking to his clothes, his hair, soaking through and making him shiver badly. He ignores it at that point, though, his eyes half closed as he wonders if he could just sleep for a moment here. It’s soft enough. He’s slept on worse surfaces. The snow is comfortable, in a way. 

He’s nearly about to drift off when footsteps approach, and Tommy’s heart jumps in panic and fear, but he doesn’t move. His hands twitch a bit as he considers trying to get up, but he doesn’t do so, and instead just hopes that maybe he’s imagining it. Maybe he’s hallucinating those footsteps, the crunch of snow coming closer and closer, then stopping. 

Tommy strains his ears while trying to hold onto staying awake. He tries to figure out if that really is someone out here in the snowstorm, just like him. He closes his eyes, sighs quietly under his breath, and when he opens them again, there’s warm hands grabbing at his arms. 

He’s being tugged up from the snow, away from the cold, and Tommy tries his best to tilt his head and see who it is, but he’s so tired, and his eyelids refuse to lift. Something soft is wrapped around him, some sort of blanket, and it keeps the wind away. Tommy tries to grab at it with his frozen hands, wanting to pull it tighter around him so he can burrow into the warmth. 

Someone else does that for him, pulling it over his shoulders, and Tommy slips off into sleep just as he faintly processes the fact he’s being picked up off the ground.

Chapter Text

Technoblade finds Tommy in the snow. 

There’s a lot of things Techno was prepared for, being out here. There’s a lot of things that his head tells him to be ready for, and there’s a lot of ammo he has just waiting, on the off chance that violence always comes calling his name again. (It always does. When does he ever get peace?)

He’s ready for an attack shielded underneath the cover of this snow storm raging on. He’s ready for an ambush, for a threat. He may be technically retired, but he will never be defenseless, not with his experience. Weapons or shield be damned, he is perfectly capable with just his fists, but he doesn’t want to resort to that ever again. He’ll stick to his crossbow, thank you very much. 

Although, even with Techno’s wariness, it’s not an attack. It’s not a group coming to ruin his retirement, it’s just one single person, trudging along through this storm. Someone a little too small, curling in on themselves like the cold is freezing them solid. (And Techno has no doubt it is.)

When Techno sees that figure out in the snow, he leans in towards his window, and watches with a held breath. And when he sees it’s just a single person, someone stumbling and falling, he-

He panics. 

He runs , right down the stairs, right out the door, barely taking the time to pull on his boots and tug on a cape to shield him against the fierce weather outside. 

Because no one knows where Techno resides, no one has any clue of where he’s hiding out, except for Phil. And Phil does seem like the type of idiot to try and walk through a snowstorm, just to get to Techno. 

Technoblade runs right through the cold with the freezing wind biting at his face, and he squints through the storm to try and spot where Phil’s fallen, so Techno can try and see if he’s injured, try taking him inside for shelter. He cups his hands around his mouth, and takes a deep breath, about to yell Phil’s name, but he spots someone in the snow right then, and he forgets about even saying anything. 

He makes a beeline right to him, hands held out to cover his face from the cold wind, and he falters when he realizes the person on the ground is too small to be Phil. 

It’s not Phil at all. 

Technoblade finds Tommy. 

And that is the last thing he could have ever been prepared for. 

“What?” Techno breathes out, questions already piling up in the back of his mind, and he realizes he’s come to a complete stop in his steps, just staring ahead at the teen buried in the snow. Tommy’s only a few steps away, and from here, Techno can easily see how terribly prepared he is for this type of weather. Gods, he’s not even wearing a coat. Just that same red shirt, which looks dirty and soaked through at this point. 

He looks like he’s just collapsed onto the ground, his face pressed against the white snow, his limbs sprawled out, like he was trying to crawl. Technoblade finds his feet moving before he even makes a conscious decision, and that’s when he notices the blood. 

Dried blood, smeared across Tommy’s face, coming from his nose, his lips. There’s bruises on his fists, tiny cuts on his skin, clear evidence of a fight Tommy didn’t want to lose, and Techno’s head roars with questions. There’s not a single answer in sight.

It’s just Tommy. Only Tommy, on his own, running from something in the middle of the tundra. 

Technoblade reaches down to him and grabs him by the arms, pulling him up to try and get him out of the snow. Tommy’s eyes open and close, but they don’t really focus on anything. The kid tilts his head up towards Techno, trying to see who’s pulling him up off the ground, but his eyes stay closed, and he looks just plain pathetic, with that injured face and being mostly covered in snow. 

Tugging his cape off his shoulders, Technoblade gives it to Tommy instead, wrapping the red fabric around him to try and keep some of the cold off. He brushes off snow from Tommy’s hair, from his clothes, and then puts an arm underneath the teen’s legs and lifts him up into the air. There’s not a chance in hell Tommy can walk on his own, and it’s really not that hard for Techno to carry him like this. He’s light, surprisingly.  

Tommy gives one more good attempt at trying to open his eyes, trying to wake up, but there’s little success. His head falls limp into Techno’s shoulder, and the slightest bit of tension bleeds out from his shoulders, Tommy going entirely unconscious. 

Techno frowns down at Tommy’s busted up face, and he holds him a little closer to his chest, turning back and staring at the footprints Tommy’s left behind, mostly buried away by the storm at this point. 

There’s no one that seems to be following him, and it looks like he came here entirely on his own. Tommy’s freezing in Techno’s arms, and he’s too still, too quiet. It upsets something deep inside of Techno, and so he starts quickly making his way back to the house, carrying Tommy the entire way. 

Kicking the door open, Techno walks in, and pauses for just a moment, to try and work out a plan, to try and figure out what he’s supposed to do in this situation. He’s got a passed out half-frozen Tommy in his arms, he’s entirely on his own, with just his own supplies, and he doesn’t have a clue if someone is going to come running after Tommy soon. 

First things first. Don’t let Tommy die. 

Techno kicks the door shut behind him and heads to the fireplace at the corner, placing Tommy down on the ground beside the fire, and placing in a bit more wood to keep it burning. They’re going to need the warmth tonight. Tommy stays sleeping, and Techno pulls at the cape over his shoulders, trying to tuck it around him like some sort of blanket. 

Blankets. He needs those. Potions, those too. Food?

No, Tommy can eat if- when he wakes up. 

Technoblade pulls off his boots and puts them to the side, traveling upstairs to grab whatever blankets he can spare, and throwing them down the stairs. He searches for potions, grabs two bottles, and heads back downstairs with a slight rush to his actions. 

He’s not panicking. He’s calm. He’s the definition of calm. So what if he just found Tommy passed out, injured, buried in the snow in the front of his house? That’s not Techno’s issue to worry about. 

Technoblade takes the blankets and sets them beside the fireplace, placing the potions on the ground beside Tommy’s sleeping figure. Layering the blankets on top of each other, Techno leans back on his knees, and then goes back upstairs to grab just a few pillows, throwing those down the stairs too so he can move them in front of the fireplace. 

He takes a sword and keeps it nearby, just on the off chance that Tommy was followed here, and there is something he was running from. (There had to have been, right? Why is his face so bruised up? What could’ve made him come to Techno , of all people?)

After there’s a makeshift bed made in front of the fire, comfortable and warm, Techno turns to Tommy, who’s curled up in his sleep, hands holding on loosely to Techno’s cape over his shoulders. Slight flashes of distress come across his expression every now and then, and Techno scoots over to Tommy’s side to take a better look at the damage.

His face is still as messed up as before, bloodied and hurt, and his shirt is in a serious need of a replacement. The sight is so strange to see, Tommy being so incredibly vulnerable and defeated, because Techno knows the type of person that Tommy is. He knows that Tommy is stubborn, loud, strong in his own way. This isn’t how he remembers it. 

Techno needs a new shirt for him. And- And something to clean his face. Yeah. 

Just about two minutes later, Techno’s back with damp cloth and a shirt picked right out of his closet, a simple white button up that he always wears. It’s not going to fit on Tommy at all, but it’s better than that shirt. 

“Tommy.” Techno shakes him to try and get Tommy to open his eyes, and Tommy hardly even stirs. “Tommy, come on. You need to change out of that shirt, at least.” He shakes Tommy again, pulling off the cape from Tommy’s shoulders, and Tommy’s eyes flutter open with a deep frown painted across his face. 

“Mhm?” Is all Tommy has as an answer, and Techno gives a small huff of relief. 

“Sit up. Just change into this shirt, then you can go back to sleepin’, alright?” Techno bargains, and Tommy groans when he’s forced to sit up, Techno tugging at his sleeves. Tommy’s little help with swapping shirts, but it’s easier to do this with him sitting up rather than passed out on the ground. 

“You’re not...” Tommy mutters as Techno puts Tommy’s shirt to the side, buttoning up the buttons for him. “Techno..?”

“Hey, Tommy.” Technoblade greets back, quickly finishing up with the buttons and reaching towards Tommy’s shoes. “Here, give me your shoes while you’re still awake. These have seen better days.” 

Tommy scoffs and weakly kicks a foot at Techno’s hand, but he doesn’t give any other protest after that. 

By the time Techno’s placed Tommy’s shirt and shoes beside the fire to dry, Tommy’s already gone back to sleep, choosing to curl up on the ground, Techno’s cape loosely placed over his shoulders. He looks strangely peaceful like that, as if his face isn’t covered with dried blood, and as if he didn’t just come out of the snow half-frozen. 

For a single moment, Techno just stares, mind running too fast with questions, with the need to shake Tommy awake and demand why he’s here, why he’s hurt, and who the hell sent him running. 

But the kid needs his rest, and Technoblade will let him have it.

So, instead, Techno moves Tommy off the floor to beside the fireplace, on top of the make-shift bed made out of several layers of blankets and a few pillows thrown around. He reaches for the potions he has nearby, setting them beside Tommy as he stands up to grab some sort of cloth, and a bowl of water. 

Tommy doesn’t wake up even as Techno scrubs away at his face, using the water and the cloth to get the worst of it off. Seeing this up close, Techno wonders who exactly knocked Tommy across the face so hard for it to turn out like this. 

And quietly, at the back of his mind, he wonders how exactly he could return this ten-fold.

He checks to see if Tommy’s nose is broken, but nothing seems out of place, if anything, just kinda bruised, so he leaves it be. He wrings out the cloth into the bowl of water beside him, and then soaks it entirely in the healing potions he has at his disposal, cleaning Tommy’s face a second time. 

The potion won’t heal this overnight, not with how it’s currently being applied. Technoblade would prefer if he could get Tommy to drink this, instead, but he doesn’t look like he’ll be awake any time soon, so this is the next best thing. At the very least, with this on his face, it’ll prevent any wounds from opening up and starting to bleed again, and it’ll prevent infection, hopefully.  

Techno takes one of Tommy’s hands and uses the cloth on it, feeling a small upset tug in his chest at the sight of those banged up knuckles. He knows exactly how Tommy fights, he knows that the teen puts his absolute all into something if he’s determined to win, and this-

This just seems like the result of a desperate attempt to not lose. This just seems like a result of a fight that went south too quickly, and Techno wants to know what happened. 

(He thinks that maybe, if he knew what happened, maybe it’ll simmer down that burning anger that’s starting to rise up in his chest.)

After a few minutes, Tommy’s hands are clean, and the tiny cuts and bruises are incredibly obvious to see now. They stand out against his skin, and it leaves a bad taste in Techno’s mouth. So he takes another potion, soaks the rag again, and continues to clean Tommy’s hands, even if there’s nothing more to wipe off. 

Tommy slumbers on, a soft snore just barely audible underneath the sound of the crackling fire, and Techno listens to it, tries to focus on it, and tries to breathe. He tries to copy Tommy’s breathes, slow and steady, but there’s white hot rage that’s threatening to overflow, and he-

Techno places down the cloth beside him, turning his gaze onto Tommy’s face. He tries to ignore the injuries on that young face, and instead tries to focus on Tommy alone. He wonders how exactly Tommy would be screaming and kicking right now if he knew Techno was right beside him. He wonders if he’s going to have to be worrying about making space in his home for a little while. 

Turning his head towards one of the windows, Techno watches the snow fly past, freezing cold wind howling just outside his walls, threatening to snuff out the fire keeping them warm. It’s a bad storm tonight, he doesn’t get these types of storms all that often, but when he does, he knows that those are the nights he should just be staying inside. 

If Tommy had been caught out in the storm, and Techno hadn’t brought him inside, he would’ve frozen to death, wouldn’t he? There’s no doubt about it. Tommy’s not dressed for the weather, he’s hardly used to it, compared to the usually sunny climate in l’manburg. Techno’s surprised he lasted long enough to make it to the house. 

The storm rages on outside, and Technoblade sighs, picking up the bowl of dirty water, and taking the stained cloth too. He goes to put them away, and lets Tommy sleep the night away. 

Technoblade doesn’t sleep a wink for the rest of the night. He stays watching over Tommy, and he stays watching the storm. 

---

Tommy doesn’t really wake up until well past morning, and by then, the storm has only lightened up mildly. It’s not nearly as bad as last night, but it’s still too windy and cold for Techno to want to venture outside, so he stays indoors, and spends the early morning cooking. 

Yawning as he prepares food, Techno slices vegetables up with a knife and lets a pot on the stove start to boil. He takes his time with it, wanting to make something that’ll last him for a good couple meals, and every few minutes, he can’t help but step out of the kitchen to check back on the teen sleeping in his living room. 

He knows Tommy is fine. Already, with the rest, the potions, his face and hands are looking better, and he seems comfortable amongst all those blankets and pillows. But even so. Technoblade just can’t shrug off the worry that sits on his shoulders, and he keeps checking on Tommy again and again, just to make sure he hasn’t been set on fire while asleep, or something. 

The smell of stew fills up the kitchen and travels throughout the house, and Techno takes more than a few bites of the food as it’s cooking. It’s far too hot, and he’s pretty sure he’s burnt his tongue a couple times, but it’s worth it. 

Once the food is about ready, Techno serves a bowl and carries it over to the next room, half-expecting Tommy to be up by now. Tommy still sleeps on, a bit more sprawled out on the makeshift bed, his face buried into a pillow. 

Technoblade sits down beside him, carefully placing the bowl to the side, where Tommy won’t be kicking it over anytime soon. He reaches over to the teen, shaking him by the arm to try and wake him up. 

“Tommy.” Technoblade hesitantly says, a slow realization sinking in that Tommy...might be a little hostile when he finds out who’s house he’s in. “Tommy, wake up.”

“Mhm.” Tommy gives a vague noise, a sign that he’s slowly waking up, but other than that, he doesn’t do much, and tries to scoot away from Techno’s hand to stay sleeping. 

“Tommy.” Techno repeats. 

“Hmm?”

“Wake up, come on.” Techno shakes him again, with a bit more force. He jabs Tommy in the side, the teen flinching with a startled noise, and he whips his head towards Techno with squinted eyes. 

“...’the fuck?” Tommy mutters, Techno snorting at the bewildered face he’s giving towards Techno’s face. He looks nearly offended, appalled at being woken up, but also incredibly confused at who is waking him up. “Wait, you-” Tommy blinks. “What?”

“Good morning.” Techno deadpans, nudging Tommy to rise from his grave. “Look, I’ve got food for you, wake up and sit up, and I’ll let you have it.” 

Tommy’s face scrunches up as he tries to comprehend what’s going on, but he does somewhat listen to Techno’s words, yawning wide as he pushes himself into a sitting position. Technoblade goes to reach for the bowl put to the side, and as soon as he deems Tommy awake enough to hold something and not spill it, he hands it over with a spoon. 

Tommy blinks down at the stew like he’s hallucinating it, and he doesn’t even try eating it for a long moment, instead just tilting his head up to stare at Technoblade with a small frown. 

“...what?” Technoblade asks after a solid few moments of silence, raising his eyebrows. Tommy just narrows his eyes at him like he’s trying to piece together something in his head, and quietly, he mumbles out-

“Your hair is short.” 

Technoblade blinks. “Oh.” He raises a hand up to his hair, the pink strands sitting just above his shoulders. “I cut it a while ago.” (As a sign of a new start, and as a way of mourning, but Tommy doesn’t need to know the details.)

“You look weird.” Tommy blurts out, not a hint of hesitation in there. “This is weird.” He stares down at the warm bowl in his hands. “This is a weeeird dream.” He mutters, just under his breath, and Techno tilts his head to the side. 

“S’not a dream.” Technoblade says, a slight bit of sympathy slipping into his tone. “I found you passed out in the snow last night.”

“No, this-” Tommy pauses, then shakes his head, stirring his spoon through his stew. “This has to be a dream. I’m probably- asleep. Or dead? Oh, that would suck.” 

Technoblade frowns, not just from Tommy’s words, but from the strangely calm voice he’s taken on. Maybe he’s just still half-asleep, but he’s too quiet, for usual Tommy behavior. “You’re not dead. You could’ve died last night, if I didn’t take you inside, but you’re pretty alive right now.”

“I feel dead.” Tommy huffs, taking a mouthful of stew and chewing it thoughtfully. “I feel like shit.”

“You’re still healing.” Techno says slowly, wondering when the scale is going to tip, when Tommy is going to snap out of the strange daze he’s currently in. “Speaking of which, I wanted to ask. What happened? I’ve been wondering all night, your hands were bruised pretty bad, and your face wasn’t any better.”

Tommy pauses half-way through taking a mouthful of food, and he lowers his hand to look at his knuckles, staring at the bruised skin there. “That’s-” Tommy says, not continuing. 

“What happened last night?” Technoblade presses, trying to stay patient, but it’s honestly killing him a little because he wants to know, and he wants names.  “What happened yesterday?”

Tommy blinks, eyes going a bit wide as he places his spoon down in the bowl, his gaze flicking up around him. He looks around the living room, taking in the interior of Techno’s house, and Technoblade swears he can see the exact moment it sinks in. 

“This isn’t a dream.” Tommy breathes out, and there’s the barest hint of horror etched into his expression, something panicked. “It wasn’t a-” Tommy looks at his hand again, taps at his face, tapping at those injuries, and then he looks at Technoblade. 

For a single second, they both just look at each other, silent, the calm before the storm. 

Then Tommy flings the bowl away from him, towards Technoblade. Technoblade dodges to the side, the stew spilling across the floor as the bowl hits the floor. It makes a mess that’ll be a pain to clean up, but Techno doesn’t even think about it because he’s focused on the fact Tommy’s gone into immediate fight or flight mode. 

Tommy decides to make a run for it, or he at least tries to, jumping onto his feet and running towards the direction of the front door. It’s not hard to stop him, mostly because only two steps in, his legs give out on him, and he nearly slams back down onto the floor, Technoblade catching him at the last second. 

“Tommy, Tommy-” Technoblade tries to speak, but Tommy’s then struggling and kicking as if Technoblade is holding him by the neck, rather than just keeping him steady by holding onto his shoulders. 

“Let go- !” Tommy yells, trying to move past Technoblade, but Techno moves his grip onto Tommy’s arms, and Tommy’s honestly just using him for balance at this point. “Get off, fuck off! Fuck you!”

“ Please stop trying to fight me.” Techno pleads, and Tommy responds by giving his mightiest kicks towards Techno’s ankles, swearing loudly the entire time.

“Shit, shit, fuck! Get away! Get back, or, I’ll- I’ll-!”

“Tommy, you’re not very threatening right now, I hope you know that.” Technoblade practically drags Tommy away from the door, the teens feet skidding across the floor as he continues to yell and hit Techno. “Sit down, just- stop. Tommy, stop.”

Tommy gives his best attempt at swinging towards Techno’s face, and Technoblade just leans his head back and pushes away his hands, trying to keep his voice calm. “Tommy.”

“No! Fucking- Get off-!”

“I’m trying to help you stand.”

“I can stand on my own!” Tommy insists, and he pulls his arms away, Techno letting go and taking a step back. Tommy stumbles backwards as well, having to steady himself on a chest behind him, and he leans his weight against it whilst glaring daggers at Technoblade. “Don’t come any closer, bitch. Or- Or else.” Tommy spits out, and Technoblade just raises an eyebrow, slightly skeptical. 

“I’m not planning on hurting you.” 

“Not yet.” Tommy warily eyes Techno, looking at the bed he just woke up from. 

“Not at all .” Technoblade stresses, trying to put as much honesty as he can muster in those three words. “Not at all.” He repeats, a bit gentler, and he hopes that gets through to Tommy’s mind. 

Tommy must hear something in the way Techno says it, because he falters, and then glances down to the bed he just woke up from, then the stew that he’s spilled all over the floor. A flash of something like guilt crosses his face, but it’s then replaced with a deep, unhappy frown, and he leans back even more onto the chest behind him. 

A beat of silence. “...Why am I here?” 

“I was going to ask you that.” Technoblade dryly responds. “You show up in my front lawn in the middle of a snow storm, passed out on the ground, looking like you picked a fight and then lost.”

“I didn’t lose .” Tommy immediately protests, lifting his chin up with a defiant look. “I- Well, it wasn’t really a fight.” 

Technoblade raises his eyebrows. “So you just got beat up, is what I’m getting?”

“No!” Tommy sighs. “No, it- Actually, why do I have to tell you? I don’t even want to be here.” Tommy sniffs, turning his head away. 

“You came here.” Technoblade says. “You just showed up!”

“Well, I didn’t know that the compass would lead to you!” Tommy waves a hand, pushing his weight off the chest and standing on unsteady legs. He seems fine for the most part, but he obviously needs more rest, and his sheer stubbornness might be the only thing keeping him upright. “If I knew it was you I was going to, I would have turned around.”

“Okay, well, you didn’t.” Techno crosses his arms. “You’re here, I carried you inside, and, I’ll also just add, I uh, saved your life .” Technoblade huffs. “No need to thank me.”

Tommy squints at Technoblade with an angry face, copying Techno and crossing his arms across his chest. “Thankyou.” He says, lightning quick and muttered under his breath. 

Technoblade is a bit surprised at that, but he gives a nod of appreciation anyway. “You’re welcome.”

“And-” Tommy pauses, glancing down at the mess of stew on the floor. “Sorry for the- uh, soup.” 

“It’s fine. I have more, anyway.” Technoblade says slowly, keeping his eyes firmly on Tommy, because he keeps eyeing the door. 

“Can I leave now?”

“Did you seriously only apologize to try to leave?” 

“Can I LEAVE now?!” Tommy asks louder. “I’ll be out of your hair, super far away. It’ll be like I was never here.”

Technoblade takes a small step back, actually considering it for a few seconds. He takes in the state of Tommy, takes in the way he looks like he’s about to trip in the next minute. He wonders about the cause of those injuries, and the cause for Tommy being here. 

“No.” Technoblade makes his decision, and Tommy’s face falls. 

“...what.”

“Nope.” Technoblade shrugs. “There’s still a snowstorm outside, you’re not suited for the weather, and I have questions.”

“I don’t want to answer your stupid questions.”

“That’s fine.” Technoblade responds, and Tommy’s eyes light up with a bit of hope. “We can wait until you do want to talk.” The light fizzles out and dies.

“I’ve got places to be, Blade. I’ve got shit to do!”

“Well, you can do that after you tell me what happened .” Technoblade insists, voice going just a little sharp. “Because I found you outside, passed out, with a worrying amount of blood on your face. You were knocked out. You could’ve frozen to death .”

“I was resting.” Tommy mumbles, but it’s a weak response and he knows it. “I was going to get up-!”

“Or you could’ve just stayed there. In the middle of a storm. In the cold, with nothing even keeping you warm.” 

“I was fine-!”

“You were half buried in the snow-!”

“ Holy shit, why do you care?!” Tommy throws his arms up, seeming to give up and standing and sitting down on the floor, at the corner of all the blankets beside the fireplace. “Last I remember, you betrayed us and fucked off to who knows where! After setting off multiple withers?!”

“I care because I-” Technoblade falters, just a bit. “I regret that. Slightly. And I care, because I want to know what happened, and I want to do something about it.”

Tommy stares, for a little longer than comfortable, and Techno doesn’t have a clue what that face means. Eventually, though, Tommy turns his attention away, inspecting the small cuts on his hands. 

“There is not much you can do.” Tommy mutters quietly. “Nothing happened. I went exploring and shit and got lost.”

“You said a compass led you here.” Techno says, and Tommy goes still, eyes wide. “There’s only one compass that leads straight to me, you know.”

“It wasn’t-”

“Tommy.” Technoblade says, and Tommy’s mouth clicks shut. “Where did you get Phil’s compass?”

Tommy stays silent, and he seems to hold onto that silence as a way of not telling the truth. He looks anywhere but Techno. “It wasn’t Phil’s.” He lies, and Technoblade sighs. Walking around the mess of food on the ground, he steps towards Tommy, who scoots back closer to the fireplace, tucking his legs against his chest. 

Techno kneels down in front of Tommy, keeping a steady gaze with him, and Tommy stares right back, guilt painted across his features, like a kid who’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Except with this, there’s a slight bit of true fear woven in there, and Technoblade isn’t exactly thrilled about that. 

“Alright.” Techno starts, pointing at the bowl behind him. “I’m going to clean this up. You’re going to eat something, take a potion for your injuries, and then, we’ll talk. Okay?”

Tommy looks like he’s about to immediately say absolutely not, but he stops at the last second, and his eyes glance to the blankets and pillows he woke up on, to the soup that had been given. His hand pulls at the sleeve that’s rolled up on his arm, and Techno knows he’s probably wondering where his old shirt went. 

“Okay.” Tommy agrees, giving a short, jerky nod.

Chapter Text

Tommy is in a predicament. A problem, a situation, if you will. 

He was already in a pretty bad situation before he woke up to a face he’d thought he’d never see again, but now this is much worse, in his opinion. This, although it’s objectively better than the cold raging on outside, is frankly fucking terrible. 

Because Tommy had a plan here, okay? Maybe not a good one, and it probably had a lot of holes that needed fixing, but it was a plan, and he was going to follow it. He was going to figure out a safe place, he was going to recover and rebuild and get weapons, and then he was going to return to l’manburg, and kick the shit out of Dream. 

That was the vague plan. Solid, pretty much. It was reasonable. 

But now that plan seems like it’s out the window, because his entire path has been derailed, and rather than finding a good, safe base for him to settle in while he recuperates, he’s found himself in Technoblade’s home. 

Why couldn't the compass just lead to some extra base of Phil’s?

Tommy sits at a table with a bowl of soup in front of him, a spoon beside it, and he stares off into the distance, trying very hard to pretend like there isn’t anyone sitting across from him. As if there isn’t a traitor, a no-good wrongun, sitting at the table with him. 

“Are you not hungry?” Techno asks, his voice light with a twinge of worry, like he actually cares if Tommy is going to eat his stupid soup or not. 

Tommy looks up at him with a huff. Technoblade stares back at him with raised eyebrows, and Tommy feels bitter sorrow at seeing that face again. Techno looks weird, looks familiar, even with the new haircut, the lack of armour. 

He looks at home, relaxed in this quiet little kitchen. It’s a stark contrast from the days of Pogtopia. That ravine had been something of safety, but it was never really home. The conflicts were always too high for it to ever be called home.

Sitting up in his seat, Tommy drags his sight away from Techno back down to his bowl, and after a moment of consideration, he decides he’s going to need all the energy he can get, so he might as well have this, even if it’s not wanted. He picks up the spoon sitting on the table, and leans forward, beginning to eat. Techno hums, as if that action alone was a real response. Tommy doesn’t look back up at him.

The food is good, hot and well-made. Tommy can’t remember the last time he had a proper meal that wasn’t rushed or just eaten on the go. He’s been busy the past few days. Trying to defend his case, trying to push against Dream, trying to not get fucking killed. 

He supposes all the efforts don’t mean much now, though. Look where he’s ended up. 

Tommy spares a glance at the kitchen around him, noting how clean and homey it is. It seems strange for Techno of all people to be living in a house like this. He’s a warrior, a fighter, someone dangerous and not to be messed with. Yet he lives in a tiny old cabin that’s warm and quaint. 

Well, Tommy will admit; he knows Techno. And he knows that underneath the threat of violence, the guy is also just kinda soft. Human, even with his hybrid features. 

Techno leans back in his seat with a quiet sigh, and Tommy chews slowly on a piece of carrot. The air feels a little heavy. 

Tommy knows he said he was going to talk, but that was before he sat down and had his mind go rampant with the reminder that Techno was a traitor. That was before he realized this can’t be a safe place for him anymore, being by Techno’s side. That was before he got common sense. 

New plan. Tommy can adapt, easy, this is actually good. He’ll just refuse to talk, wait till Techno goes to sleep or something, then he’ll steal his shit and make a run for it. Then boom, Technoblade is out of sight, out of mind, and Tommy is a step ahead with having food, potions, weapons and all that. 

Easy. 

Tommy eats for a while more in silence, and when he’s nearly finished, Technoblade stands up out of his seat, his chair being pushed back with a quiet squeak. He walks out of the kitchen without a word, and Tommy watches him go in the corner of his eye, curious and wary. 

He comes back with a red potion in hand. 

Faintly, Tommy remembers Techno mentioning a health potion after he was done eating, and now he supposes he’ll take it. He’ll take that and much more, thank you very much. Then he’s out of here, so he can go and try and fix the way everything has gone sideways. 

Technoblade places the bottle down gently in front of Tommy, and sits back down as Tommy finishes the last bit of his meal. He wipes at his mouth and grabs at the bottle, drinking it without a single word. He half-expects for Techno to demand it back after the first sip, but the man doesn’t say anything, so Tommy just ends up chugging the whole thing. 

When he places it back down, empty without a drop left, he looks up to find Technoblade with his arms crossed, something pleased in his expression. Tommy’s hands tingle, and he rubs at the still healing marks on his skin. 

A long moment of silence drags on. Tommy fiddles with his spoon. 

“So.” Techno starts off.

“No.” Tommy says, before Techno can get another word out. 

Techno huffs. “No?”

“Nope, no, I’ve changed my mind, actually.” Tommy declares, lifting his head high and looking anywhere else that isn’t Techno’s face. “I don’t want to talk.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” Tommy hums. “I do not want to talk at all with you.” Tommy stares at the spoon in his hands. He turns it over in circles between his fingers, over and over, twirling and twirling and-

“Well, I’m the only person around for a while, so I think you’ll have to settle for just me.” 

Tommy bangs his spoon against the corner of the table, frowning as it makes a sharp noise on the wood. He taps at the wood to see if he’s left some sort of indent. Part of him wants to leave a mark, gain cheap childish revenge on Technoblade through ruining his kitchen table. 

“Tommy.” Techno says, maybe in an attempt to gain his attention, maybe in an attempt to get the teen to actually look at him. “What happened?” He asks, quiet and frustratingly patient, so out of place and yet familiar-

 “I think I’ll go now, actually-” Tommy stands up, his chair screeching back across the floor. 

“Sit down.” Technoblade narrows his eyes, and Tommy holds his gaze for a few seconds, considering his chances. 

It’s snowing outside. No clue where he is. Techno can probably run faster than him. Tommy doesn’t even know where to get his hands on a weapon. 

He sits down. 

“Bitch.” Tommy mutters out, banging his spoon against the corner of the table once more. “I didn’t even want to be here, in my defense-”

“Who did this?” Technoblade asks, and oh, now there’s the serious tone. Now it’s interrogation time, now this means business, because according to that tone, if he doesn’t get an answer soon, there’s going to be hell to pay. Tommy swallows, squeezing the spoon in his hands tightly. 

“Fuck you.” 

“Just give me a name, and I’ll drop it. I’ll get you another bowl, if you’re still hungry.” 

“I don’t want any of your food.” Tommy turns his head away, staring out into the main room where he woke up, beside a warm fireplace. The door is right there, in sight. What if he just- goes for it? Chances be damned. Anything would be better than this conversation, because Tommy knows where this is going. “I don’t want anything from you.”

“I just want to know who sent you running.”

“No one sent me running!” Tommy snaps. “I wasn’t running, I’m NOT running! I’m doing great, actually, fantastic-”

“You came here-” Technoblade starts.

“-never even been better, sure, I’ve got a few problems to deal with-” Tommy barrels right through him, ignoring his words, ignoring the chance of that concern being real, because holy hell, he is not dealing with that, he is not-

“-half-frozen and passed out on the ground-”

“-but I think I can deal with them on my own-!”

“-with blood on your face and hands!” Technoblade stands up, looming over the table, over Tommy. “You were hurt, you were running, and you came here with the directions from Phil’s compass. Maybe I don’t need to know. Maybe I don’t need to care. Maybe I should send you off into the snow and let you deal with it.”

Tommy clicks his mouth shut, gripping the spoon in his hands so tightly he thinks he may end up bending it. 

“But I won’t. I'm not going to.” Techno grits out, and it’s true that it would be easier if he just let Tommy go. Trying to give help to him is like trying to pull teeth, especially when he gets this stubborn. If Techno were smarter, he would drop it. If he were less hopeful, he would leave it. 

But when has he ever been one to sit out during a good fight worth winning?

“So talk.” 

Tommy bites down on his tongue and places the spoon onto the table, keeping his eyes looking right past Techno. What does he say? What can he admit? Part of him wants to rip it off like a bandaid, so he can get past the hurdle of Techno being insufferably smug. Part of him is still considering making a break for that door. 

Part of him just kinda wants to burst into tears. 

The thing is, Tommy knows that this isn’t a good situation. He knows he’s been absolutely screwed over, and he knows that this is getting dangerously low to the point of victory seeming impossible. He can hold his head up high and refuse it all he likes, it won’t change the facts. 

He’s been thrown out of l’manburg with nothing but the clothes on his back, and right now Technoblade is the best chance he has at getting anywhere good.  

“I don’t want your help.” Tommy mutters, but it’s tired and quiet, and Techno only tilts his head to the side, just a bit. “I don’t need your help.” 

He’s lying right through his teeth, and he knows it. 

Technoblade wants a name, who knows what for, but Tommy isn’t even sure what to give him. First knee-jerk instinct is to spit out Dream, but he wasn’t the one who read out his exile order. He wasn’t the one who made that decision. 

The sharp, painful feeling of betrayal comes resurging back all at once, and Tommy chokes back the urge to sob. He can’t say it. He can’t tell Techno. If he does, it’s like he’s truly admitting it, truly letting it happen. 

It’s like he’s accepting defeat. 

“I’m offering it anyway.” Technoblade says, and how dare he say that like it’s so simple. Like he’s going to give trust into Tommy’s hands again, even if it all ended in fire the time before. “Names.” He asks.

Tommy drops his head forward, nearly banging it onto the table. He digs his nails into his palms, tastes bitter failure on his tongue. He is pissed off, he is done, and he is tired. And this is the best he is going to get. 

“Tubbo.” Tommy spits out, like the word itself is cutting through him. “Tubbo exiled me from l’manburg. Dream was the escort. Happy?” That’s as simple as it can get. Techno can figure it out for himself how it went after that, he can piece together the clues and know Tommy wouldn’t have cooperated with Dream for long. 

Tommy braces himself and waits, waits for the worst of it to pass so he can reap his benefits and maybe gain an ally. He waits for Technoblade to ask more questions, to demand more details, to laugh. He waits for the smug grin and the exasperated scoff that he knows is coming. 

Instead, there’s a hand that rests on top of his head, messing with his hair for just a moment before pulling away. Tommy looks up with a hand held to his head, as if he’s been struck, and Technoblade is standing beside his chair with a carefully blank face. 

No grin. No scoff, no laugh, no mockery to be seen. 

“Alright.” He says, and that’s that. That’s all. 

There’s only a faint hint of a smile, on Techno’s face, but it’s nothing cruel. He reaches in front of Tommy to take the bowl on the table, and walks around him to where there’s still a warm pot on the stove. 

“Do you want another bowl?” Techno asks, and Tommy blinks, stares. “Or do you want to go rest some more?”

“I-” Tommy opens his mouth, closes it. He tries again. "What?"

“Hm?”

“That’s it?” Tommy asks, stressing his confusion. “Aren’t you going to say ‘I told you so’? Or, ask for more?” 

Technoblade just looks at him for a moment, like he’s trying to think. Then it seems he’s decided that Tommy will have another bowl, and he fills the bowl in his hand with more soup. 

He walks back to Tommy, placing it in front of him. 

“Told you so.” Technoblade says, but it holds no real weight. “Now eat.” 

Tommy hesitates, mouth hanging open as he tries to pull together the right words, the right response to give. There’s none he can think of. 

Through the shock, Tommy listens, and he picks up his spoon. 

Chapter Text

“You want to rest by the fireplace or upstairs?” Techno asks later, after Tommy’s eaten his second bowl of soup and gotten over the numb feeling of absolute disbelief. Tommy stands in the doorway between the main room and the kitchen, leaning against the frame, and he watches as Technoblade pulls on his boots, a hand held against the door to keep him steady. 

“What are you doing?” Tommy asks, rather than give an answer. He aims to make the question sound cold, but he just sounds tired. 

In all honesty, he feels tired. 

Technoblade huffs, standing up straight with his boots on, heading over to the fireplace, where the mess of blankets and pillows still are. He reaches down and picks up his cape out of the pile, and only then does it click in Tommy’s head that he had fallen asleep with that same cape around his shoulders. The pure thought of it makes him want to place all his internal walls back up, but it’s not as if there’s anything to defend against. Technoblade isn’t pushing for answers, emotions, confessions.  

Which should be a good thing, but it’s more insufferable, if anything. Tommy just feels thrown off, and frankly, he’s not very appreciative of it. There’s so many questions he wants to ask, and he also just doesn’t want to talk at all. He wants to run. Or sleep. Or maybe just stare into a wall to try and sort out his thoughts. 

“I’m going to go check on something in my storage.” Technoblade responds, pulling his cape on and securing it as he turns to Tommy. “I’ll only be gone for a few minutes.”

So don’t get any ideas, he seems to add, in that quiet look. Tommy frowns. If he weren’t planning to rob Techno later on, he would burn this house to the ground. He’s already gotten into deep shit over a little bit of arson, what’s one more?

“What are you checking on?” Tommy persists, and Technoblade waves a hand as he walks up towards Tommy. Tommy steps back, and Technoblade stops. 

“Supplies.” Techno shrugs. “Didn’t expect a guest, so I should probably make sure I have enough to spare.” It’s the truth. Or at least part of it. Techno doesn’t need to mention the way he’s also going to go see how much more tnt he’s going to need to get his hands on. “You want to head upstairs while I’m out?”

“No.” Tommy crosses his arms. Hesitates. “I’ll stay by the fireplace.”

“Alright.” Techno hums, and that’s that. “I’ll be back, don’t blow up the place while I’m gone.” He turns around and heads to the door, opening it and letting a big gust of cold air in. Tommy shivers with the drop of temperature, and now he really realizes just how bad the weather is outside. 

“I’m not Wilbur.” Tommy mutters under his breath, a dry attempt at a joke. 

Technoblade pauses for just a second at the doorway, turning and giving Tommy a strange look. “No.” He says, Tommy lifting his head in surprise that he even heard that. “You’re not.” 

You never will be, he promises quietly in his head. He will never lose anyone else ever again, not if he can help it. 

The door shuts closed behind him with a quiet click, and Tommy’s a bit embarrassed to admit he stares at the door for a bit longer than necessary. He blinks, eyes burning a little, and he holds back the urge to cry and shoves down the swarm of thoughts that want to eat him alive. 

Technoblade is being weird. 

He honestly expected a lot more payback, some sort of revenge, maybe; after all, isn’t Techno the violent type? There should be a grudge of some sort going on here after all the shit that happened on the day l’manburg went up in flames. 

Instead, Tommy finds this. A make-shift bed beside a warm fire, two bowls of soup, and a healing potion for injuries he won’t say where he got. Maybe Techno is planning something later. Maybe he’s just going to make sure Tommy is alright enough to stand on his feet, then he’ll send him back out into the cold, throw him back out without a second thought. 

Tommy’s mind wanders. 

He holds up his hand, stares at the quick healing bruises on his knuckles. 

They ache a little bit, and he kinda wants to sit by the fireplace to warm them up. He curls his hand into a fist, reliving the moment where he had to keep slamming that same fist down for dear life, kicking and screaming and-

“Dream,” Tubbo stares at him, right at him, not breaking eye contact even as he seals Tommy’s fate. He looks far too calm, and Tommy can’t help but wonder if there’s a secret plan here, a message he’s trying to give. He searches all he can, but there is nothing in Tubbo’s eyes. “Please escort Tommy out of my country.” There is no kindness offered in his eyes. 

Tommy curls his fist even tighter, digging his nails into his palm until it stings. 

“You can’t be serious.” Tommy breathes out, laughing a little. “Tubbo.” He steps back, stumbles back- “Tubbo!” 

Tommy thinks he might end up breaking skin.

“TUBBO!” Tommy screams, and Dream is too close, too harsh, too violent. Tubbo keeps watching, he just keeps watching and watching and Tommy is running- “YOU CAN’T, YOU CAN’T-!” 

Tommy’s fingertips feel wet. 

“THIS IS MY HOME-!” 

Tommy opens up his hand and stumbles forward, giving a quiet gasp. He shakes his head, looks around. 

Not anymore. It’s not his home anymore. He can’t go back, he’s not allowed back. Not until he fixes it. 

How can he-? 

“Fuck, fuck.” Tommy holds his hands to his face, pacing around in circles. “Okay, okay, fuck.” This is not the time for crying. This is not the time for resting or mingling with Technoblade of all people, holy shit, what is he doing? 

He’s got to go. He’s got to get to business, he needs supplies, weapons, a plan, maybe. An actual one. 

First things first, he needs to leave. 

Tommy makes his way towards the chests placed up against the wall, and picks one and rummages through them for his shoes, or a coat, and instead he just finds random building materials, wood and cobble and a few pickaxes. It’s all a mess. Tommy expects nothing less of Techno, really. He’s got it all in abundance but nothing with organization. 

He takes some cobblestone anyway. He takes the basics, and wishes that there were diamonds in here instead. He would go upstairs to look, but Techno had made it clear he would be gone for only so long, so Tommy is on a time limit. 

Stepping back from the chests, Tommy sets his sights on the blankets by the fireplace, and he kicks it around, looking underneath and around it for his shoes. Sure enough, they’re there, worn and looking like they’ve had better days, but they’re there. 

He pulls them on and considers the cold outside, the freezing snow. Maybe he could grab one of Techno’s capes? Would he have any upstairs? Does Tommy even have time to check? He shouldn’t, but-

Ah, fuck it. 

Tommy stumbles onto his feet and runs up the stairs, grabbing at the railing like it’s a lifeline. It might as well be, with how quickly he’s rushing. He goes for the first door he sees, and slams it open to find a room with a bed, a desk, a bookshelf and chests-

Okay, that’s a lot of things. Tommy just needs a cape. 

He goes for the chests once again, searching through and finding more valuable stuff in here. There’s ores, tools, a few potions. There’s a more vague sense of organization in this chest. Tommy swipes a few diamonds and shoves them into his pockets before heading onto the next chest. 

All he needs is a coat. A cape. Literally anything so he won’t immediately freeze, out there in the cold. How hard can it be to just find a- oh, here’s one.

Tommy pulls out a long blue cape, something soft and new. He tugs it over his shoulders without a second thought and goes running out the door, heading down the stairs. He doesn’t even notice the symbol that’s woven into the cloth, the flag he’s unknowingly wearing. 

His shoes slam against the steps as he nearly falls down them, and he jumps off the third step and lands on the ground with a stumble, reaching out for the door. No time for hesitation, no time for waiting, he is going, he’s practically already gone. By the time Techno is back, Tommy is going to be so far that they’ll never cross paths again.

Swinging the door open, Tommy runs out onto the front porch, the cold wind pushing against him and being too sharp against his skin. Oh, he already wants to be back in front of that warm fire. Not a choice, though, he’s got big man shit to do. 

He makes it exactly one stone step down outside before he comes face to face with Technoblade. 

Tommy freezes, hand held onto the railing beside him.

Techno freezes too, eyes wide, and the wind howls around them, snow flying through the air, landing into their hair, onto their clothes. The storm is a bit better from how it was yesterday, but it’s still very fucking cold. 

Techno’s face shifts into something of suspicion, eyes stuck onto the stolen cape sitting on his shoulder. “Tommy.” He starts, a hint of a warning in his tone, and that’s all Tommy is giving him. 

“Nope!”

Tommy leaps over the railing, choosing to give up on the stairs entirely, since Technoblade is in the way of that escape route. Techno reaches out for him, but Tommy lands into the snow ungrabbed, a scream falling out from his mouth as he feels just how cold it is around his ankles. 

He pushes himself up and runs, kicking snow up behind him, and very much ignoring the fact that Technoblade has jumped right over the railing after him. There’s footsteps on his heels, and Tommy sprints through the snow, trying to not trip, trying to see through the wind on where he can head off to. 

There’s trees far off, a spruce forest nearby, and Tommy sets his eyes on it, forcing his freezing legs to go even faster. Maybe he could lose Techno in the trees, then he could travel out of the cold, figure out a base in a better biome-

His cape is yanked from behind him, and Tommy shrieks as he’s pulled back, his balance being thrown off. He falls backwards with his arms held out towards the trees, as if the forest is going to help him anytime soon. Technoblade wraps an arm over his shoulders, and sends them both crashing to the ground. 

“GET OFF-!” Tommy yells, kicking his legs behind him and trying to aim for Techno’s shins. “GET THE FUCK-” He lets out a strangled yell, something frustrated. 

He digs his hands into the snow beside him, and smashes a handful right into the general direction of Techno’s face right over his head. Technoblade gives a grunt, moving away, and for a second, Tommy can taste victory, then he’s tasting snow, Technoblade rolling them both over with his arm still around Tommy. 

“Fucking- bitch-!” Tommy spits out the snow, swings his fists back behind him with his feet still kicking. “Let go of me!”

“Stop kicking me!” Technoblade yells back, trying to sit up with Tommy still held close. Tommy tries to bite his hand, just out of sheer burning spite. 

“You started it!” Tommy protests, and he twists around in Techno’s grip, Techno finally letting him go. Tommy immediately tries to make a break for it, and he’s getting yanked by the cape again. 

“Stop it.” Technoblade huffs, and the words hold weight, maybe a threat. Oh, he’s not happy. 

Tommy kicks his feet against the snow, hands grasping at the cape to try and unclasp it, but it’s no use, because Techno’s got a grip on his ankle and now the cape doesn’t even matter. Tommy turns around in the snow, trying to scoot back, and he screams when Techno literally drags him forward by the foot. He lands with his back against the snow, face up to the sky, and the hand around his ankle loosens considerably. 

“Are you done?” Technoblade asks, Tommy breathing in deep. 

“Fuck. You.” Tommy breathes out, his breath visible in the air. “Let go of my foot.”

“No.”

Tommy looks up with a withering glare.

Technoblade only looks back with a steady, unyielding stare. “No.” He repeats, a little softer. “You won’t last out here. You’ll freeze to death, even with that cape.”

“I think I’ll manage.” 

“Tommy.”

“Technoblade.” Tommy mimics, trying to say his name as if it means something. “Let go.”

“Still a no.” Technoblade sighs, and his eyes seem to focus onto Tommy’s face with a confused look. “Is that blood?”

Tommy blinks. He raises a hand up to his cheek, and Techno’s eyes go a bit wider, and he reaches out and grabs Tommy by the wrist. Tommy opens his mouth to give a swear, but Techno isn’t yanking him around, he’s only turning Tommy’s hand to show his palm. There’s little divots in his skin, crescent shaped marks, and Tommy hadn’t even realized in his rush that he was actually bleeding from earlier. 

“What is this?” Techno asks, sounding concerned, and Tommy wants to scoff and scream and shove some more snow into his face. He yanks his hand away. 

“Nothing.” Tommy says. He pulls at his leg. “Let go of my leg.”

Technoblade narrows his eyes with a near frown. “I left you for what, five minutes?” 

“Let go of my fucking leg.” Tommy grits out. “I’m going, I’m leaving!”

“To where?” 

Tommy opens his mouth, and-

Falters. 

“To-” Tommy starts, and he tries to think. Where does he go, actually? Where can he go? He’s not even sure where he is right now, out here in the cold. 

“This is my home-!” Tommy screamed, feet dragging across the ground.

“Not anymore.” Dream said, with a fist raised in the air and Tubbo watching, just watching, why did he only-

“I don’t know.” Tommy admits, something shaky and quiet. He stares at his own feet, blinks back tears, and he watches as Technoblade slowly pulls his hand away. “I don’t know.” Tommy repeats, hanging his head and staring at the snow sitting on his lap. It’s cold. 

Technoblade sighs, like he’s been exhausted from just this tiny chase. “Let’s get back inside. You’ll freeze out here.”

“And you won’t?” Tommy responds stubbornly, just to argue. 

“I’ve lived here for a while. I’m used to the cold.” Technoblade shrugs with one shoulder, and he stands up on his feet, brushing snow off his clothes. Tommy stays sitting down, staring down at his knees. “Come on, Tommy.” 

“I don’t want to.” Tommy says stubbornly, closing his eyes tightly, telling himself that he’s shutting his eyes so he won’t have to look at Technoblade. He ignores the way a sob wants to crawl up out of his throat. 

“You want to just keep sitting out here in the snow?”

“I want to go.” Go home, he wants to say. But it’s not home anymore. He can’t have it anymore. 

Not until Dream is gone, not until he gets Tubbo to listen, not until he fixes this and gets his shit together and leaves this freezing biome- 

A hand rests against his back, and he opens his eyes, finding Techno kneeling down beside him. 

“Some other day.” Techno promises, and he sounds honest, sounds true. “But not today.” He tugs at Tommy’s arm to get him to stand up, and Tommy grabs a handful of snow and shoves it into his face. 

Technoblade wipes off the snow and looks at Tommy with something unimpressed. Tommy stares back with a burning gaze, as if daring for Techno to retaliate with something a hundred times worse. 

Techno only blinks at him and pulls at his arm again. When Tommy doesn’t budge, he narrows his eyes, then leans forward and grabs Tommy right up off the ground. 

“HEY!” Tommy shrieks out as he holds on for dear life, hoping to not get dropped. Technoblade just makes a direct beeline to get back to the house, and Tommy considers screaming, kicking, scratching at Techno’s face until he lets go and he can make a break for it. 

But where would he go?

The air is freezing cold, and Tommy’s shivering badly, even though he’s only been out here for so little time. Inside the cabin, there’s a warm fire, food, and a place to sleep. 

That’s better than anything the wilderness can offer. And Techno is right, even if Tommy doesn’t ever want to say it outloud. He can’t last in the cold on his own. 

So he lays limp, closing his eyes, and quietly hoping that if he just closes his eyes for long enough, everything is going to turn out to be a bad dream. 

Technoblade makes him change into clean, dry clothes, taking the stolen cape and instead swapping it for the one he had on. Tommy takes it without a word, and he throws it beside the fireplace, sitting down on the pillows next to it and staring into the burning wood. 

His shoes have been put to the side, and he’s back at square one, at the mercy of someone he’s not sure he should be trusting. He wants to, but there’s always consequences, and part of Tommy is just so convinced that he could fix all of this on his own if he was just given the chance. 

Tommy hears Techno walk around through the house, into the kitchen, into the room, upstairs and then back down, and he stares into the dying fire and ignores it all. 

He’ll wait until night time. When Techno’s asleep, then he’ll try again. 

Only, Techno doesn’t head off to bed. 

The day passes slowly, Tommy sleeping and drinking another health potion and sleeping again, refusing to even look Techno in the eye, and when he wakes up once more, the sun has gone down, and the fire is roaring once more, more wood added to it. 

The snow outside is still falling, and the wind is still howling, and Techno is still up. 

Sitting in the kitchen with the lights on. 

Tommy crawls out of the blankets, blinking sleep out of his eyes, and he hides by the doorway, barely peeking past the wall. Techno sits at the kitchen table, writing down on a piece of paper. A letter, of some sort. Tommy can’t make out what he’s writing from here, but it looks important, judging by how quickly he’s scribbling it down. The pot on the stove is steaming, like it was just cooking, and the air smells like food. 

Only now does Tommy realize he hasn’t eaten since the late morning. He kinda wants a bowl of soup, but he also wants Techno to head upstairs and pass the fuck out so he can rob him and leave. 

And then he can go… somewhere. Anywhere. He’ll figure it out. 

“Hello, Tommy.” Techno says, without even looking up, and Tommy jolts in place. 

“How did you-” 

“You’re not very quiet.” Technoblade answers, humming as he writes down one last thing, then puts the pen down. He lifts his head up to Tommy. “You want to eat?”

Tommy frowns. “A bit late for dinner, isn’t it?” 

“Maybe.” Technoblade lets the silence drag on, and Tommy huffs. 

“Yeah, I’ll have a bowl.”

Techno nods, and he stands up from his seat, going to serve one for Tommy. Tommy heads to the kitchen table, taking a seat with a frown. Maybe Techno will head off to sleep after he’s done eating. 

“What were you writing?” Tommy asks, sliding the paper towards him and turning it so it won’t be upside down. Before he can read a word, Technoblade grabs the paper out from under his hands. “Hey!”

“Just a letter.” Technoblade says, putting the letter on the counter, out of reach, and yeah, that isn’t suspicious at all. 

“To who?” Tommy demands, resting his fists onto the table. 

“To Phil.” 

Tommy blinks. “Phil?” 

“Yup.” Technoblade sets down food in front of Tommy, hot and ready with a spoon beside it. Tommy stares at it for a moment, before just going ahead and eating it. “Wanted to invite him over sometime soon.”

For a possible plan in the imminent destruction of l’manburg, but Tommy doesn’t need to know all the details. Frankly, all Tommy needs is more rest. And maybe a napkin. 

“For what?” Tommy asks, wiping a hand across his mouth. Technoblade leans against the table beside him, crossing his arms over his chest. “Where has Phil been, anyway?” 

Techno hums, tilting his head. “Around.” Searching. Exploring. His crows don’t tell much in terms of info, but it’s enough to give the fact that Phil is busy with something. 

Busy or not, though, Technoblade thinks he can make time for something like this. 

“You’re being weird.” Tommy mutters. 

“Sleep deprivation does that.” Technoblade responds. Tommy gives a slightly surprised look. Of course, how could he know that Techno hadn’t slept at all the night he showed up? Or the night before, when he had woken up quickly to a bad dream and just decided working the rest of the night away was better than resting? “I’ll go to sleep later.” He says, in response to Tommy’s face. 

“You could go to sleep now.” Tommy offers, trying to keep his voice as innocent as possible. 

“And risk you setting the living room on fire? I’d rather not.”

Tommy scoffs. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“No.” Techno hums. “Well, maybe. But you would probably make another run for it, instead.” 

Tommy glances up with another slightly surprised look. 

“You’re not fooling anyone, Tommy.”

“Oh, for fucks-” Tommy throws his spoon onto the table, his soup half eaten. “What do you want?”

Technoblade raises his eyebrows. 

“What do you want? Why am I here?” Tommy presses. “Is there something you’re waiting for? Are you expecting me to say that you were right? I’m not saying that, just for the record. I'd rather die.”

“What do you think I want?” Technoblade asks, and Tommy swears he is being difficult on purpose, that prick. 

“How am I supposed to know, I’m not a fucking mind reader.” Tommy deadpans. 

Technoblade only rolls his eyes. 

Tommy taps his fingers against the table. Fine. He’ll bite. “You want me to apologize?”

“Eh.” Techno shrugs. There’s a slight bit of shock at that sort of response, but Tommy brushes it off. He wasn’t going to apologize anytime soon anyway. 

Tommy gives a huff. “You want…” He tries to think. “The cobblestone I stole?”

“You stole my cobblestone?” Techno asks. 

Tommy blinks. “No.” He lies. 

Technoblade squints at Tommy a bit, like he’s not really surprised. “Keep it. I have plenty.” 

Tommy nods, staring back at his soup, hand reaching out to his spoon. He holds the spoon in his palm, but he doesn’t go to eat. 

“Do you-” Tommy thinks, hesitating. “Do you want to know about the exile?”

Technoblade doesn’t answer right away, and Tommy doesn’t look up towards him. Of course. Of course, that’s it. He wants the details, he wants to know how Tommy literally got dragged out of l’manburg just a day before. 

“I want you to talk when you want to talk.” Technoblade says, and Tommy snaps his head up towards him, eyes wide. Techno holds his gaze with a blank face. “I want to know what happened.”

Tommy tries to search for answers in that expression of his, tries to find some sort emotion that will give him away, but there’s nothing, it’s just carefully blank, perfectly hidden away, and Tommy is left with no choice but to open his mouth and ask-

“Why?” 

Techno’s lips curl up into a ghost of a smile. He leans towards Tommy, just a little closer to his eye level, and there, Tommy spots it. 

“Because then, I’m going to do something about it.” Technoblade promises, and just underneath his eyes, there is burning anger, something furious and upset, simmering into a roaring flame. 

Somehow, Tommy knows it’s not for him, and he’s not even sure what to make of that. 

Chapter Text

Tommy finishes his bowl and leaves the kitchen. 

He goes to rest in front of the fireplace, feeling a little thrown off and confused, and he stares into the flames, waiting for Technoblade to head upstairs for the night. Techno does no such thing, instead just staying in the kitchen and doing whatever the hell a Technoblade does at this hour. 

His words ring around in Tommy’s head a little. 

Do something, he says. He’ll do something. Should Tommy be worrying about that? With the way it was phrased, it sounded so much like a threat, like the sharp edge of a knife, but the blade wasn’t pointed at Tommy. 

There had been anger, there. Something dangerous and cold, and the last time Tommy remembers seeing that was when they had fought with withers shrieking over their heads, craters dug into the soil that he called home. 

That, he remembers, had been anger. Technoblade had looked at him with something bitter and hurt and he had warned Tommy, in his own little fucked up way. With a story about a hero and destruction at his hands. (Fitting, really, for him.)

But this isn’t the same. 

Tommy turns over in his bed, buries his head into his pillow. Technoblade’s cape is draped across the ground by his feet, a deep royal red, and Tommy feels a pang of familiarity, hope. He feels confused over it all. He feels tired. 

A quiet part of him is considering sticking around. He could let Techno keep him here, figure out what exactly is his deal, his motive. (Why the hell does he need to know about the exile? He lives so far, he’s done his part, this isn’t his fucking fight, nor problem.) Tommy could stay, settle and recover, pretend as if this is a safe place for him to live indefinitely. 

He crushes down the consideration and the thoughts before they can fully form into an option.  

No. No, he is not about to go living here in Techno’s house, as if it could ever be a home. He’s not going to say a word about l’manburg, about Tubbo, about Dream. He will not give anything, because Technoblade is not someone to be trusted. 

Even if this entire day is painfully reminiscent of before, of shelter in a hidden ravine, with people he had come to consider family. 

Tommy means to continue waiting, to pretend to sleep until the night has gotten late enough, but eventually exhaustion creeps back up on his shoulders, and he’s yawning with the sight of a dying fire beside him. His thoughts only offer so much distraction, and the silence that sits in the house is calm, peaceful. 

Technoblade still hasn’t gone to sleep. 

Maybe he’s passed out in the kitchen. He hasn’t left it, the lights are still on, and Tommy hasn’t heard anything sneak past him, so he should still be there. He could’ve just fallen asleep at the table. Tommy knows he’s slept in weirder spots.

The light from the fire has dimmed considerably, and Tommy’s blinks keep getting dangerously long. He should get up, check if Techno is unconscious and if the coast is clear. But the house has gained a bit of a chill, with the fire dying out, and it’s warm underneath these blankets. 

Just a minute more. 

Tommy sighs out under his breath, something impatient and yet content curled up in his chest. He needs to get back to l’manburg, he needs to talk to Tubbo, and gather up some ammo. He needs to come back swinging, come back-

There’s footsteps going through the kitchen doorway. 

Tommy closes his eyes, feigning sleep as best he can, while also trying to not drift off entirely. He can hear Technoblade slowly make his way up behind him, standing beside his makeshift bed for a moment. Is he watching Tommy sleep? Or does he know that Tommy isn’t sleeping at all?

Technoblade doesn’t stand in place for long, only for a moment, then he goes on towards the chests, grabbing something from his storage of items. 

Tommy doesn’t dare move a muscle, keeping his breaths slow and even, but he does crack his eyes open just the smallest bit to see what Technoblade is doing. Techno moves back beside Tommy, his figure visible from the corner of Tommy’s eyes, and he reaches over the teen to drop a piece of wood into the fireplace. 

Oh. 

Sparks fly up as the wood lands into the fire pit, but it doesn’t quite reignite it back to how it was. Technoblade returns to the chests and adds two more pieces of wood, seeming satisfied when the flame grows enough to provide at least some warmth for the main room. 

Tommy slips his eyes shut again as Technoblade reaches down by his feet, and he stays asleep, stays still, and feels a drowsy surprise course through him when another layer is thrown over his body. It’s adjusted over his shoulders, and then Technoblade leans away, footsteps sounding out again, grabbing one more thing from the chests, and returning back to the kitchen. 

Tommy opens his eyes with caution, and he finds a familiar red cape sitting over him, keeping him warm. 

With the fire and silence and the soft layers of blankets weighing him down, Tommy makes the mistake of closing his eyes again, and he falls into sleep, forgetting about the fact he was meant to sneak out when Technoblade went to bed. 

---

The week passes by slowly. 

Technoblade keeps being insufferably patient and persistent. 

The man doesn’t sleep. Maybe he’s just lost the habit of needing to sleep at all, out here in the cold. Tommy spends the first two nights trying to wait Techno out, passing time with rest and a few books that Techno so graciously offered. 

They’re all boring. But it’s better than nothing, so Tommy finishes the whole book in two days, and starts the next one, waiting. He eats when Techno calls him to dinner and he explores upstairs for a bit, if only because Techno wanted to give him a tiny tour. 

There wasn’t much to see. There’s the basement under their feet, the kitchen, the main room that Tommy’s gotten to know very well, and upstairs, the bathroom and two small bedrooms. 

“The guest room is usually for Phil, though he’s been busy lately.” Technoblade had told him, pushing the door open to show a room that looked cold, dark. There were touches of life there, evidence that Phil was here, with arrows stored away in the corner and a bow on the wall, items stored away, but it was still clear that Phil hadn’t visited in a while. “You could move up here, if you want, instead of being by the fireplace.”

Tommy had refused the offer. He’s not going to be here that long to be needing a room. Techno had shrugged and accepted it, although he had made a vague remark about how Tommy couldn’t go sleeping on his living room floor forever. 

Tommy had scoffed in response, shaking his head, because he was sure that by nightfall, he was going to be out of this biome entirely. 

But Technoblade didn’t sleep that night. Or the next night. He hadn’t slept for at least three days, instead staying downstairs with Tommy, never going too far, always in the kitchen, writing something down on paper. He never lets Tommy read it, always putting it away when the teen walks in. 

If Tommy was a little more curious, he would go pestering Technoblade to the ends of the earth to figure out what he’s doing, but he’s only a little petty, and annoyed, so instead he pesters Technoblade to let him leave. 

“Nope.” 

“I’m not even injured anymore!” Tommy yells, slamming his hands down on the table, Techno raising his eyebrows as he eats his dinner. “I can walk and shit, look-” He makes his point by stomping around the kitchen. 

Techno just snorts. “That’s good. We can quit with the healing potions, then.”

“I didn’t need them in the first place.” Tommy mutters, his fingers grazing over his healed knuckles. “And that means I'm in perfect condition to head off, yeah?”

Techno chews on his food thoughtfully, settling Tommy with a nearly amused look. “Yeah.” 

Tommy smiles. 

“But.”

The smile is gone. 

“I’d rather you not.” He shrugs with one shoulder, scooting his chair back. “I don’t want you running off and getting yourself killed or something.”

“I think I’m plenty capable of not dying, Technoblade.” Tommy deadpans, crossing his arms across his chest as Technoblade stands up to put his bowl into the sink. 

“The way you arrived after gettin’ kicked out of l’manburg begs to differ…” Technoblade trails off, Tommy huffing out aggressively. “You still haven’t mentioned anything about that, by the way.”

Something upset rises up at that, and Tommy lowers his head, staring at the ground with another huff. Quietly, in the back of his mind, there is fear slipping into his heart, but he hardly even notices. 

“Well, maybe I don’t want to talk about it, Techno, have you considered that?” Tommy asks, raising his eyes from the ground, looking at the table. The little mark from where he had banged a spoon against it is still there. It’s tiny, barely noticeable, but there. 

Technoblade gives a vague nod of his head. “That’s reasonable. I doubt it was fun.” 

“It wasn’t.” Tommy says, turning his head away, and they fall into silence for a moment, Techno cleaning his bowl at the sink. “It was shit.” 

Techno hums. “Really?”

“Dream is shit.” Tommy insists, and in his memories, there is a flash of struggling, hands grabbing for him, screaming, his own voice, ringing out through the air. Tommy holds his arms around himself with a frown. 

“He’s not all that likable, I’ll give you that.” Technoblade agrees. “Is he the one you were fighting?” The question is placed casually, easily, as if the fight was just some scuffle, and not a desperate frantic attempt to resist being dragged out like a criminal. 

Tommy hesitates. 

He stares into the back of Techno’s head, wondering if he should answer at all. One question will lead into more, no doubt. 

But in all honesty, Tommy will take any chance to talk bad about Dream. Even with Technoblade. 

“Yeah.” He admits, sounding nearly defeated. “Yeah, he was supposed to escort me out, or something. I escorted myself out.” 

Technoblade makes a noise of acknowledgement, as if he’s waiting for Tommy to go on. 

“I broke into Phil’s house, to try and get away from him. He broke the door down anyway, but that’s where I found the compass. It was in one of the chests.”

Techno stills. “Did you leave it out?” 

“No.” Tommy shrugs. “I dropped it back where I found it. I was- dropping shit everywhere, I didn’t have time to steal anything useful, I just had to go, or else I was going to get murdered.” 

“I thought Dream was only escortin’ you?”

“He was.” Tommy nods. “But he wasn’t nice about it.” Tommy hesitates. “He ended up-” 

“Tommy. Run.” It’s a hissed out warning, practically right by his ears, and all Tommy sees is Dream walking towards him, Tubbo behind- “TOMMY, RUN!”

“He- Quackity- he was there, for my trial, he got his arm broken, I think.” 

“You think?”

“Yeah, I-”

There’s a hand grabbing him by the arm, yanking him back, and a scream is ripped out from his throat, Tommy trying to pull away. Dream lets go, but not by choice, only by distraction, because Quackity’s jumping onto his back, scratching at his mask. 

“GET THE FUCK OFF HIM!” He yells, Dream stumbling back as Fundy screams in the background. “TOMMY GO! GO, TOMMY!”

“He tried to buy time for me. Dream, he-”

Tommy steps back, slowly, stuck in shock and in horror as Dream grabs Quackity by the front of his shirt, pulling him over his head and slamming him down into the ground. He turns, too late, too slow, and Dream goes to follow, his ankle being grabbed by the same person he just threw to the floor.

“Dream had-”

Tommy glances back, legs moving, and he looks just in time to watch Dream yank his ankle out of Quackity’s grip. He lifts his foot up, Quackity just barely raising his head through the pain, and he kicks.

“He-” Tommy stammers through his words, and there’s a hand resting on his shoulder. 

“Tommy.”

Tommy flinches away like it’s burnt him, and he looks up to find Technoblade standing close. When did he move from the sink?

He looks at Tommy with something strange in his eyes, something like worry, and Tommy steps back. 

“What.”

Techno tilts his head, narrowing his eyes like he’s trying to see something. Tommy narrows his eyes in a glare. That’s enough talking. Tommy’s said enough, he’s not answering anything else anymore.

“You want to head outside?” Technoblade offers, rather than ask another question. 

Tommy blinks. “Eh?” 

Technoblade lifts a hand, pointing a thumb towards the front door. “The weather has been better the past few days. We could go out, take a walk. You’ll have to eat something first, though.” 

The words don’t quite process at first, Tommy’s mind working a bit slow, still fuzzy with memories. Techno’s speaking strangely, softly, as if he’s trying to keep the house quiet with his words. 

Tommy shatters the silence with a high pitched scream of joy. Technoblade’s face looks as if he regrets his current life choices.

“Fucking FINALLY-!” Tommy nods, running out of the kitchen, Technoblade making a failed attempt at grabbing him. The teen runs out into the main room with a near jump in his steps.  

“Eat something first-!” Techno calls out, and Tommy wholeheartedly ignores him, instead just searching around for his shoes and pulling them on. 

“I’ll eat after!” Tommy yells back. Yeah, right, after. More like never, because the second Tommy is out the door he is heading towards freedom, victory. A place where it isn’t so fucking cold. Holy shit, Technoblade must not be thinking right at all, maybe the cold has gotten to him, it doesn’t matter, Tommy’s taking advantage of it. He’s going to run. 

“Coat.” Technoblade reminds, hovering by the kitchen doorway. 

“Don’t need it!” Tommy turns, runs, makes a grab for the door. Surprisingly, Techno doesn’t stand in his way, only watching with an unimpressed face. 

“You’re going to end up saying otherwise.” Technoblade calls out, Tommy pulling the door open and heading out to the front porch, heart racing with the rush of finally getting his chance, his victory. 

The air is frigid. It bites at his face and goes right through his clothes, and Tommy breathes out with a grin, seeing his breath float up in front of him. He looks off past the railing, seeing a field of white, untouched snow. 

He leaves the door behind him wide open as he jumps down the steps, and he lands in the snow, feeling freedom. It feels cold. He’s already shivering a bit, but there’s no regrets, because he’s setting his sights on the forest up ahead, kicking his feet through the snow. 

He breaks out into a run, sparing a glance behind him, finding that Techno hasn’t even followed him outside yet. What a fool. Tommy’s won, he’s winning, Techno never should have let him out if he didn’t want him to leave entirely. 

Tommy’s shoes are horrible for the snow, as are his plain clothes, but he’s pushing past the sharp chill and running as fast as he can, feeling high on the feeling of actually being out of that tiny little cabin. The storm is gone, the sky clear, and Tommy’s never been so grateful for the fresh day air. Once he’s slowed down, he’s going to end up just passing out again from sheer exhaustion, probably, but it’s worth it, because Tommy is out, he is free, he is winning-

And he gets hit in the back of the head with a snowball. 

The sudden impact makes him fall and roll into the snow in front of him, and he slams down with a curse, the snow sticking to his hair, falling to the back of his neck. 

He looks up with the noise of laughter ringing out, and he finds Technoblade a little far behind, clearly the culprit. 

“What the fuck!?” Tommy rolls over and sits up, yelling out at Techno. 

“I told you to duck!” Technoblade yells back, and Tommy had not heard that warning. He’s holding a blue cape in one arm, his signature red one draped over his shoulders. 

“No you did not!”

“Maybe.” Techno shrugs. Tommy glares across the distance, pushing himself back onto his feet. “I got a cape for you.”

“Fuck off!” Tommy turns and goes, leaving Technoblade behind. He screams when another snowball inevitably comes flying in his direction. 

It misses, but only just barely, and now Tommy’s running for an entirely different reason. Now, instead of running for the sake of getting away and starting on some sort of rebellion plan against Dream, he’s running for his life so he won’t get murdered by a peice of snow. Techno’s following, he knows it, and Tommy shrieks as another snowball lands on his back, making him stumble. 

He still goes towards the forest, hoping that the trees are going to offer shelter against Techno’s terrifyingly good aim. 

Grabbing a handful of snow from the ground as he runs, Tommy packs it into a ball, glancing behind him and ducking when he finds another snowfall flying his way. It lands into the tree behind him. 

Tommy chucks the snowball with a yell, Techno laughing again as Tommy resumes running. Tommy laughs too, although it’s also blended in with screaming, since this is not a fair snowball fight. 

This doesn’t feel quite like a chase. It feels like a game, a game where the stakes aren’t life and death, rather just the threat of having snow down your shirt. Tommy ducks and rolls across the ground with a scream, a laugh bubbling out from his mouth as he watches the snowball fly over his head. 

“You missed!” Tommy grins, a little too cocky. He gets hit in the forehead for his efforts. 

He lands on his back with a grunt, wiping at his head to try and get the cold off, feeling it melt against his skin. There’s footsteps getting closer, and he gets on his feet, grabbing another snowball and packing it densely as he heads for cover behind a tree. 

He hides, his breath coming out in short pants, and he risks a peek, finding Techno not all that far behind. He’s wandering through the trees, walking slowly and with purpose, a snowball held in his hand out of sight. Maybe he’s meaning to catch Tommy off guard. Not today. 

Tommy crouches down and makes another snowball, throwing the first one far off, letting it hit a tree. Techno’s attention snaps to it, his defense up, but it’s only a distraction, because Tommy’s pulling back his arm, aiming, stepping out from his defense-

He misses. 

But it startles Techno quite a bit, making him jump back, so Tommy’s frantically grabbing at the ground for more ammo, trying to use his half-frozen fingers, and then Techno’s spotted him through the trees. 

Tommy gives up on making ammo, instead holding his hands up and yelling out. 

“No, no, no-!” 

He gets a snowball right in his chest, and Tommy groans with it, landing on the ground with a noise of suffering. It didn’t exactly hurt, but his pride is wounded, and also the snow is starting to really soak into his clothes. It’s uncomfortable. 

“That’s not fair.” Tommy pants, holding his hands to his chest as Technoblade walks up to him. “That’s not even- I had that! I could’ve- Nonono, don’t, don’t-!” Tommy laughs frantically, pressing himself into the ground and holding his hands up when Techno reveals he’s got another snowball in his hand. 

Technoblade smiles down at him with something evil, but he lets the snowball fall out of his hand, landing beside his boots instead. “I win.”

“No, you don’t.” Tommy protests, laying on his back with another groan. “You weren’t- that wasn’t even a proper game.”

“You’re the one who took off running.” 

“Yeah, because you’re a bitch.” Tommy responds, like that’s a proper answer. Techno just hums. 

“I still got a cape for you.” He says, holding up that same blue cloth, and it looks so soft and warm with the way Tommy feels terribly cold and wet. 

Tommy sticks out his hand. “Give it.”

“Get up first.”

“Uhg.” Tommy does sit up, his hand still outstretched, and Technoblade hands it over, Tommy pulling over his shoulders as quick as he can. It’s not quite much against the way his shirt is already soaked with snow, but it’s something. 

“We should probably head back.” Technoblade says, brushing his hair back out of his face. “You’re goin’ to freeze.” 

“Am not.” Tommy stubbornly insists. “It’s just cold.”

“You were rolling around in the snow.”

“Because you sent a snowball into the back of my head.” 

“I warned you the first time.”

“No, you did not.”

“Yeah, I didn’t.” Techno smiles, and Tommy fumes a bit. “We should get back inside though. I’ve got to go to the village nearby.” Technoblade turns towards the trees, looking off into the distance. Tommy could so easily just run off right now, right into the trees. He might even lose Techno in the forest, if he places his turns well enough. 

He doesn’t do it, though. 

“Why?” Tommy asks, Techno turning his eyes back on him. “Why the village?”

“Your shoes aren’t good for the snow.” Techno explains. “You need new ones. And maybe some better clothes. You keep stealing my closet.”

“You gave me these.”

“And now I gotta give you more, because you’re half-soaked.” He steps towards Tommy, holding a hand out to him. “Come on.” He says, an offer to head back to that warm little cabin, an offer to stay. 

Tommy could say no. He could swear at him and turn around and stomp off on his own. He could throw snow into Techno’s face, break off into another run, sprint until he’s lost him. 

“You still haven’t ate.” Techno adds, and something tugs in Tommy’s chest. 

He grabs Techno’s hand, letting him pull him up off the ground. 

“I’ll eat later.” He promises, and he lets Techno lead him all the way back to the cabin. 

---

The sun sets slowly. Tommy takes a bath, steals some more of Techno’s clothes, eats a bowl of hot food at the kitchen table. The cabin stays comfortably silent, and for once, Technoblade goes upstairs to work on whatever he’s been working on, rather than stay in the kitchen. 

Tommy half hopes that he’s gone to take a nap. He hasn’t been looking all that good in the past few days. He’s half-convinced that the guy has just been drinking potions to keep himself alert. He probably has enough to spare to do something stupid like that. 

The sky outside goes dark with time, and Tommy sits by the fireplace, on his pile of blankets and pillows, a red cape over his knees as he reads a book in his hands. This one is of some guy stealing fire, and Tommy doesn’t find it all that interesting, but it’s nice to let his mind be distracted with the story. 

Eventually, he puts the book to the side and goes to bed, the fire warm beside him, the blankets soft underneath him. The cabin stays quiet, stays calm, and he can hear Technoblade move around upstairs, his footsteps creaking against the floorboards. 

Tommy wonders quietly over what he’ll do now, how he can work with this, but it becomes a problem for another day, and he closes his eyes and goes to sleep. 

He wakes up screaming. 

“TUBBO!” Tommy yells, stumbling away from the obsidian wall, eyes wide and his chest hurting, as if he’s been stabbed. Dream lands down on the ground with a stomp, Quackity yelling his name. Tommy ignores them both, eyes only on Tubbo-

“Tommy, Tommy-” There’s hands grabbing at him, and Tommy thrashes, another scream coming from his throat. 

He’s only just staring, just watching, he isn’t doing anything. Tommy keeps calling his name, he keeps yelling, even as he runs, even as Dream catches up, and Quackity tries to stop him-

“Tommy, wake up! Open your eyes!” There’s cold hands on his face, but all he sees is Tubbo, watching, watching, doing nothing, then-

He turns his head away. Tommy cries out in fury, in betrayal, then in fear, because Quackity no longer moves on the ground, and Dream-

“Theseus!” Technoblade yells once more, and Tommy’s eyes snap open, a ragged gasp of air coming from his lungs. Techno’s hovering over him, the dim firelight on his face. It’s night, late night, and Tommy’s heart races in his chest, his hands shaking. “Hey, hey-”

Tommy slaps his hands away, sitting up and nearly falling back, his hands slipping underneath him. He kicks his legs anyway, his back up against a chest behind him beside the fireplace 

“Careful- Tommy-” Technoblade holds his hands up.

“Fuck off.” Tommy spits out, voice wavering. “Get- Don’t move, don’t-” He sucks in another breath, and then doesn’t say anything more. 

Technoblade’s face looks pinched, and he leans back on his heels, hands resting on his thighs. Tommy curls in on himself, holding his knees up to his chest, and burying his face away in his arms. He breathes quick, trying to calm himself, trying to pull back the way he wants to sob. 

“Bad dream?” Technoblade asks, and Tommy lifts his eyes up, just enough to peek out. 

He gives a quiet laugh. “Something like that.” 

“Yeah. I get that.” Technoblade shrugs, rubbing at the back of his neck. His hair is pulled back into a small ponytail, some of it having fallen out and hanging loose over his neck. Tommy stares at it for longer than needed, trying to pull his mind away from memories he doesn’t want, because they are far worse than any sort of nightmare. They’re real. 

They’re painful.

“Why did you cut your hair?” Tommy asks, wanting to be rid of his own thoughts. He doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to dwell on that feeling of absolute betrayal, tearing him apart. “It used to be long.” 

Techno tilts his head to the side, holding a hand up to the ponytail at the back of his head. For a second, his gaze seems too far away, somewhere where Tommy can’t follow, but he’s back in an instant, and he sighs. 

“Needed a change.” He says. “For retirement, and everything.” It’s not a lie, but it’s also not the whole truth. Cutting his hair wasn’t a planned out, calm choice. It was a night with scissors and sobbing into his hands, grief feeling too heavy for someone so used to death. 

“That’s what this is?” Tommy asks, lifting his head a little higher. He nods to the cabin around them. “Retirement?” 

“Was supposed to be.” Technoblade hums. “But I’ve got plans, so I guess that era is done with.” 

“Plans.” Tommy repeats, muttering it under his breath. His stomach does a swoop, but he’s not sure if it’s fear or not. “Were you sleeping?”

Technoblade glances up at the stairs, his face twitching into a frown. “No.” He had fallen asleep at his desk, but Tommy didn’t need to know. 

Tommy scrunches his nose a bit in displeasure. “You should. You look like shit.”

Techno snorts. “Thanks.” He deadpans. “Maybe I’ll take a nap after I’m sure you won’t start screaming again.” 

Tommy’s expression goes sour, and he buries his face back into his knees. “Shut up.”

“...was-”

“Shut.” Tommy cuts him off, voice strained. Technoblade looks away. “I didn’t mean to yell.”

“It’s fine. I wasn’t asleep, so you didn’t wake me up or anything.” Technoblade shrugs. Silence drags on for a while. “You don’t have to tell me about it.”

Tommy lifts his head, one eye open. 

“About the exile.” Techno clarifies. “I think I got it. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” The effects are apparent enough. Technoblade knows his targets. 

Tommy narrows his eyes with a thin frown, and he rests his chin onto his knees, staring at the wooden floor, lit up by the dying flames beside him. 

“Would you-” Tommy starts, stopping just as soon as he begins. Technoblade lowers his head. “If I was in danger, would you do something?” He asks, voice unnaturally quiet. “You wouldn’t just…” Watch, he wants to say, but there’s regret flowing through his veins. He wants to bite back the words as soon as he’s asked them, because they’re too vulnerable, too honest. “I just-”

“No one’s going to hurt you while I’m here.” Technoblade says, like a promise. “I wouldn’t let it happen.”

Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, letting out a shaky exhale. He doesn’t look at Techno, he can’t bear to, but the words are solid, true. 

This small little cabin is in the middle of nowhere, in the freezing snow. No one knows where he is, and he’s trapped in this house with the same man who set off withers on a place that was home, was his. 

Somehow, he feels safe here. 

“You should sleep.” Technoblade whispers, voice low. “It’s late.” He reaches for a book sitting on the ground, sitting back as if he means to be here a while. He flips it open, his thumb resting on the pages. 

“I can’t. Too many-” Tommy waves a hand to his head. “Too much thinking.” 

“Then stop thinkin’.” Technoblade says, and Tommy scoffs. “I’ll read.” He offers, hands curling around the book in his hands. 

Tommy gives a careful glance his way. He stares at the book Techno’s holding. He hasn’t read that one yet. “Aren’t you going to sleep?” He asks. 

Techno hums. “Eventually.” He waves a hand for Tommy to come sit by the blankets, rather than curled up against a chest, and Tommy listens after a moment, moving over and laying down beside the fireplace. 

He stares into the flames with his back against Techno, and he listens as Technoblade starts to read, his voice constant and low, the only thing in Tommy’s ears. 

Eventually, he drifts off, and eventually, Technoblade puts aside the book, pulls a blanket over his shoulders, and tells himself that he’ll go sleep upstairs. 

He never does. He falls asleep at Tommy’s side. 

In the morning, during breakfast, Tommy ends up asking for a room upstairs. 

Chapter Text

There is the smell of gunpowder in the air. 

It is suffocating and dirty, mixed up with dust, sticking to the inside of Phil’s throat as he coughs and hacks out in an effort to breathe. His ears ring from the explosions being so close, and his body aches from landing against the floor so harshly. The world seems too bright, with the way the sun is pouring in from the gap left by the tnt. Phil can’t see. 

He coughs again. His wings burn and ache with a worrying pain, but he doesn’t dare move them away from where they are, for they are protecting something precious. Phil reaches down and feels a cold hand held in his, and he squeezes at it desperately for some sort of response. 

His mouth opens to say a name, and nothing comes out except for a dry, pathetic wheeze. His words have all left him, and all that’s left is a panic. A quiet, familiar guilt rising at the back of his mind. 

He tries to speak again. He chokes on the air, chokes on the gunpowder. There is screaming behind him, voices calling out, echoing and loud from across the crater. Fireworks, somewhere. 

The hand in his palm feels too cold. This stone room is so bright. 

Phil touches at his throat, opening his mouth, staying quiet. He shifts his wing over Wilbur, trying to protect him from the sun, from the dust in the air. He tries to call for him. 

Nothing comes. His voice stays silent, and Phil can hear his own heartbeat in his ears, quick and fearful. He hears the screaming, he hears the faint noise of hissing explosions setting off, a deathly screech of something inhuman. It’s all outside the room. 

In here, he only hears himself, his own shaking, quick breaths. 

Why is Wilbur so quiet?

Phil lifts himself up from the ground, trying to speak once more as he lifts his wing, pulling at the limp hand kept in his palm. 

He stares into dead eyes. A cold, blank face, staring into nothing. Turned into nothing. 

Wilbur lays dead still on the stone ground, blood pooling around his body, soaking into his clothes. The stab wound on his chest is so bright red against the light of the sun, and Phil opens his mouth, tries to say his son’s name. 

He tries to speak , tries to call out, sharp grief cutting into him so deeply that he might as well be dying as well, on this rough floor. 

His throat refuses to give him a single noise as he tries to scream. Phil’s mouth opens wide, Wilbur’s name on the tip of his tongue, his lungs and chest pushing with pressure to do something, say something, anything at all.

Faintly, the noise of his own screams begin to fill his ears, drowning everything out until the world goes bright, bright-

Dark. 

Phil opens his eyes to a dark ceiling, blankets thrown off the bed during his sleep. He gasps for air with a racing heart, flashes of Wilbur’s dead eyes still running across his vision. 

“Wil.” Phil croaks out, a burst of relief in his chest at being able to speak the name. That seems to be a running theme, in his nightmares. Being unable to say a thing, not making a noise until he is screaming out with it. “Wilbur.” He repeats, voice soft, glad to now have the ability to bring the name out into the open. “Wilbur.”

He takes deep breaths, eyes falling shut in the comfort of knowing he’s able to be heard.  He opens his eyes back up not a second later, refusing to be left to his own thoughts. There’s no sense in trying to go back to sleep. It will go nowhere.

He sits up instead. The room is dim, empty, with curtains drawn shut over the window, and the slightest hint of a chill settling onto his shoulders. A small shiver runs down his back, his scarred wings shaking their feathers, and he swings his feet onto the ground, staring straight ahead. 

The nightmare feels too loud, lingering still in his skull. There is no ache in his throat, but he almost wishes for it. He wishes to scream until that ache is back, until it’s so sore that he can’t say another word. At least then, he would know he tried. There is some consolation in knowing he tried. 

“Ghostbur!” He calls out simply, ignoring the thoughts in his head. Standing to his feet, Phil raises his arms up with a stretch, sighing out as the last bits of panic start to drain out, leaving only a quiet exhaustion behind. He turns to head towards the door, but it slams open before he can even take a step. 

“Good morning!” Ghostbur sings, and the wide smile on his face is the most bittersweet thing Phil has ever had. Even with the joy in his voice, the bounce in his step, he is sickly pale, nearly transparent, the clear signs of death lingering on him like a stain. 

This isn’t his son. Dressed in kind, soft looking sweaters, pastel colors and frayed edges on the sleeves-- it’d be alright if it were Wilbur now, if he had ended up becoming this sort of person after abandoning all the stubborn fight in his heart, but- it’s not him. It’s not Phil’s son.

Phil knows that. This might as well just be a cheap imitation, a ghost playing a part with only half the script. No matter how the sun hits him, he will always be cold, and he will never hold a candle to the way Wil was so bright, so vivid. So much.

This, while being so fake, is better than the nightmares, though.

“Good morning.” Phil responds, feeling a tug in his chest that he forces away. Ghostbur hovers by the doorway, literally, his feet floating above the ground as he cradles something new in his arms. “Whatcha you got there?” Phil asks curiously, trying to get a peek with his head tilting forward.

“It’s not morning, actually.” Ghostbur confesses, ignoring Phil’s question. “I only said it because you’re awake now.” He shifts around, laying sideways in the air, his feet pushing against the doorframe to come further into the room. Phil cranes his head closer to try and see what the spirit is holding, and with a dull shock, he finds it to be a bird. He can see its little head looking around, eyes scanning the room, the feathers dark against the already dim lighting. 

“Is…that one of my crows?” Phil asks, an amused huff coming from his chest.  

“My crow now.” Ghostbur hums, taking the bird with two hands and raising it up into the air, like he is showing off the little creature to the universe. The crow raises its head with pride, happy to be presented with such adoration. “I think I will name him Benjamin.” 

“You’re not naming it Benjamin.” Phil scoffs, shaking his head with a smile. He walks forward to retrieve the crow from cold hands, but then Ghostbur pushes his feet against Phil’s chest, a soft nudge of his boots, and he floats off into the hallway with a laugh. “Ghostbur!” Phil calls, making a futile attempt to grab at him. 

“Come, Benjamin! We will make some breakfast for dear dad.” Ghostbur declares, twisting around and spinning the bird with him as he somewhat sets his feet back onto the floor. He’s more tiptoeing along the ground more than anything. 

Phil quickly follows after him with a nervous little chuckle, ignoring the hissing pain that comes whenever Ghostbur calls him anything along the lines of father. “No, you do not get to touch the stove after last time.” He argues, stepping past Ghostbur to beat him to their small little set up of a kitchen. “There are still burn marks on the kitchen ceiling.” 

Ghostbur gives a pained, disappointed noise, clutching Benjamin close to his chest as he allows Phil to take on the task of making his own breakfast. “I was only cooking eggs!” 

“It was fire in a pan.” Phil mutters, remembering the incident vividly as he glances up to the singed wood over his head. Ghostbur looks up with him, making a sad noise at the minimal damage still kept there. Phil moves his attention back down. “Relight the lanterns?” He asks to distract him, noting how shadows are still sticking to the corners of the room. Light would do them some good.

“But it’s nearly sunrise!” Ghostbur hops over the table, reaching for the window and leaning against the glass. Frost travels up where his fingertips are, and his breath doesn’t leave a single hint of fog on the glass. “I see it…” 

He makes a curious noise, practically pushing his face up against the window to see better. The crow in his palm pecks at his wrist to get attention, but Ghostbur is focused entirely on the approaching day, and he becomes so focused that he begins to slip right through the wall. Phil watches as the ghost goes to travel outside, the bird forced to hop off, cawing out loudly as the hand holding it disappears. It flies up and flaps around the kitchen for a moment, screeching unhappily, and it then lands onto Phil’s shoulder as he pats onto his collarbone for an invitation. 

“It is too early to be screaming.” Phil tells the bird as it settles onto him, and he flinches as it goes to peck at the underside of his chin as some sort of grumpy response. He gives it a look. “Stop that. I’ll make you sit on the counter if you don’t behave.” 

The crow gives a loud caw right in Phil’s ear, and Phil jolts with it, making a frown with narrowed eyes. The bird goes silent. It looks vaguely guilty right after, head tilting down, wings closed tight. Phil clicks his tongue in disapproval, but lets the creature stay. He likes the company, anyhow. 

He sets a pan on the stove and cracks a few eggs, letting it sizzle with heat. The fire underneath is a decent enough lighting, and Phil’s never been one to really find issue with his sight within the dark. Just as he goes to grab a wooden spoon to stir, Ghostbur comes barreling back through the wall, practically crashing onto the floor.

“I’ve lost Benjamin!” Ghostbur yells, lifting himself up so suddenly that he practically goes flying into the ceiling with it. Phil looks up at him with a snort.

He points at the bird on his shoulder. “Birds can’t go through walls, mate.” 

“Oh.” Ghostbur floats down in the air, drifting a bit. He gives a meaningless, thoughtful hum. “Well, the sun is coming!” He gets back on track, giving his good news. “It is on its merry way.”

“That’s good to know.” Phil hums, turning back to his cooking eggs. “Maybe we can head out once it’s light enough.” The words are said casually, but Phil’s chest squeezes with fear all the same. He pushes it down as soon as it comes up.

“We’re heading out?” Ghostbur repeats, suddenly oh so curious. 

“Yes.” Phil nods, but he doesn’t even sound all that convinced about it. He knows he should. He knows they can’t keep doing this. Living here, getting nowhere. 

He had thought at first that maybe isolation and time would let him gain something. Let him make progress, let them be safe once he got Wilbur back. All its done is give him time to grieve, really. To grieve and to love. 

He spares a glance at Ghostbur, who’s sitting ontop the counter, leaning forward with attention. 

“Dad?” He asks. The crow on Phil’s shoulder pecks at his hair.

Phil raises his head up. “Huh?”

“I said where are we going?” Ghostbur scoots forward a bit, nodding a little in excitement. “You said we’re heading out.” 

“Maybe.” Phil responds slowly. “I was thinking of…visiting l’manburg, today.” The country’s name feels heavy in his mouth. 

“To go see Tommy?” Ghostbur presses, leaning forward even more. He might just fall off the counter, with how far he’s leaning. “We should go visit Tommy!”

Phil laughs softly, reaching for a bowl and turning off the stove. “Yeah?”

“Yes! I wonder how he’s doing. I could give him a sweater! Or, or we could make him a basket, a gift basket-”

“What would we even put in there?” Phil questions, moving his eggs from the pan to the bowl. “Other than sweaters.” Ghostbur’s taken up knitting, these days. Phil stays warm. 

“A scarf. A hat.” Ghostbur holds a hand to his chin, seeming thoughtful. “Mittens.” 

“I don’t think he’d use them all that much with the current season…” Phil points out. L’manburg should be warm right around this time of the year. Tommy isn’t going to have a need to be all bundled up. 

“But I already made them.” Ghostbur pouts. 

Phil pauses from where he’s gone to get a fork. “When?” He asks incredulously, turning to Ghostbur. He’s fairly sure he would've noticed a pile of knitted items at this point. Then again, Ghostbur’s made a mess of yarn by where he usually works. It could be hidden somewhere there. 

“A few days ago. I was thinking about him.” Ghostbur answers, voice fond and true. Phil makes a smile at the words, the expression a touch strained. 

“That’s nice.” He says, for lack of anything else to say. 

“I think… I think… I miss him.” Ghostbur slowly sounds out, as if he’s figuring out the feeling as he’s saying it. His pale hands clutch themselves together over his unbeating heart, and he looks to Phil with an odd, blank smile, eyes wide and so painfully colorless. “How long has it been since we’ve visited l’manburg?”

“We’ve-” Phil hesitates, standing still with his bowl of eggs and fork in hand. Truthfully, he’s been scarce around the area for some time now. He can’t be sure how long. Time escapes from him so much easier than usual these days. “A while.” He simply tells Ghostbur, not wanting to go guessing the layout of the timeline. 

“It’s gonna have to be a big gift basket…” Wilbur trails off, leaving the counter and heading down the hall, the crow on Phil’s shoulder climbing off and flying after him. Benjamin, was it? Wil is delighted to have Benjamin rest on his head, on his mess of brown curls. 

“We’re gonna pass by Techno’s after, as well.” Phil calls out after them, the idea not having been all that set in his mind before he said it. Now that Ghostbur is aware of it, though, there’s no taking it back. Wonderful how that goes. “So keep that in mind.” 

“Baskets, baskets, gifting the baskets.” Wilbur sings back in return, likely looking through his pile of yarn, picking out the best gifts to pass to both Tommy and Techno. Phil sets his jaw and bites his tongue upon hearing Wil’s soft tones down the hall, and he turns his back to sit at the kitchen table, pulling out one of the two chairs set out beside it. 

There is an annoying bitterness that curls up and around this dead heart that which sits within his chest, and it wars with a sense of desperate grief, desperate love. 

Some days- 

Phil stops, aching wings shifting over his back. He breathes. 

Some days, Phil wishes he had the nerve to keep Ghostbur away. 

He wishes he had the courage to keep the spirit from showing his face at all, from speaking a single word in the same chipper voice his son used to have when in his younger years. Maybe then, Phil wouldn’t find himself faltering so much, wouldn’t feel so unusually fragile as he sits now. He wouldn’t be so sufferingly weakened, as he sits now. 

He takes another deep breath, hearing Benjamin make a calling caw, Ghostbur crying out as if with surprise, maybe having forgotten the bird was there at all. He’s so absentminded like that sometimes. Constantly drifting, like smoke in your hands. It is as infuriating as it is endearing. 

Ghostbur’s giggles echo out next, Benjamin crying out again in a way that seems like a list of complaints. Phil wonders if he’s forcing the bird into a tiny sweater of some sort. It would be in-character for him. The laughter of the spirit, mixed with the calling sounds of his crow, makes Phil feel as if he’s sitting in a moment from years prior, with his still-young, still-breathing son in the next room, messing with the blessed birds that have always lingered at Phil’s heels. 

There’s no such possibility, Phil thinks, poking at the food in his bowl, the whole of it seeming ever unappetizing. There isn’t a chance he could bear doing such a thing, making this dear soul leave and hide away. 

He knows this is not his son, but he is a remnant. A frail hint left behind. A cold memory. What sort of idiot would he be, to discard something so valuable? 

What sort of father would he be, to not hold any part of his son with sincere care?

He eats his eggs at the table and begins mentally mapping out a plan for the day, wanting to commit to the words he’s spoken, and fully intending to commit to a promise he once made months prior. Years prior. He listens to the sound of his dead son’s laughter, and to the screeching cries of his crow.

Enough fucking around, he thinks, watching the sunlight approach, a new day before his feet. 

It’s time to begin something. 

Morning sits quiet in the arctic part of the world. 

Tommy sleeps in a borrowed bed that feels a touch too cold, in a room filled with left-behind items that sit a bit dusty. He sleeps as peacefully as he ever does, with kicking feet making his blanket find a spot on the floor and grasping hands moving his pillow everywhere except for underneath his head. 

Muttering, mumbling words come through his mouth as the sun rises higher, and eventually, Tommy blearily opens his eyes up to the feeling of said sun in his eyes, the light shining through the window and directly onto his face, like a personal wake-up call from the very sky itself. 

He blinks and squints at the sunlight, hand moving up to shield his vision. It takes a good few seconds for him to remember why there’s even a window allowing sun in to begin with. He turns his head, looking up to the grey color of a ceiling, and then lifts his head, and finds the old, waiting furniture of a room that’s so clearly not his.

An impending sense of regret lands on him like a ton of bricks. He drops his head back down, puffing out a large breath of air. It was easier to pass out in here in the dark last night than it is to wake up now, seeing all the shit that Phil’s left behind before he went off to wherever the fuck he is currently. Techno was in here for most of yesterday, saying he was clearing out the space, and Tommy heard him moving shit around, but even with whatever efforts he made, it’s still obvious that this was someone’s room. Phil’s room. 

Techno barely even cleaned the place, honestly. Tommy supposes he just didn’t want to move too much for when Phil would come back. When Tommy would leave.

Tommy’s hand reaches out and grabs around for his pillow, yanking it up from where it sits beside his hip so that he can slam it down on his face and turn over on his side. He curls up on the bed, knees coming to his chest, and he groans loudly in a sort of annoyed, desperate act of showing how he doesn’t want to deal with the day ahead of him. 

He then tosses the pillow to join its brethren blanket on the ground and swings himself into a sitting position, legs hanging over the edge of the mattress as a yawn breaks out from his throat, his arms stretching up, shoulders pushed high. So it begins. 

Another day, another opportunity. Tommy feels sure he’s making some kind of progress with his plan, whatever that is. It’s in the works. It’s- it’s an on the go type of thing. It’s specific, it’s designed to be unknowable, because he’s stuck in a house with Technoblade, and Techno seems to be constantly knowing shit before Tommy can even try it, so the only solution there is to be unknowable. 

Or something. Tommy doesn’t know, really, but that just means it's working. He’s succeeding. Sticking it to the man.

He stands to his feet with a flourish of morning energy, and looks around the room in a sense of curiosity for what Techno didn’t care to put away. There’s a bookshelf and a desk by the window, and a few chests to the wall. An armor stand sits by the door, but it stands empty, and for that, Tommy wonders if Phil took the armor with him, or if Techno put the armor elsewhere. There’s a bow hanging on the wall that Tommy knows he saw before, but the quiver for it sits tucked in a space between the chests and the bookshelf, strangely now emptied of arrows. 

“Huh.” Tommy gives as a reaction to the whole of it, to the lasting impression still left here. He then immediately goes through the chests, for that is his right, and he is immediately disappointed for the mundane shit he finds, the same as the house Phil kept in l’manburg. Building supplies, clothes, the occasional tool. There is nothing good . Tommy still takes a pickaxe anyway, tucking it into his inventory for safekeeping. He’ll probably need it eventually, when he does eventually head on his way. 

With his looting complete, and his interest in the new environment now faded, he makes a step forward with all intention of heading into the hallway, and stops and realizes that there’s something missing by the foot of his bed. 

He looks down. Kicks aside his blanket and his pillow, crouching low and checking under the bed itself. There’s nothing except dust and a spiderweb in the corner. 

He stands back up, lips pulling into a frown, eyebrows furrowing together. 

His shoes are gone. 

Which is strange, because he is so very sure he brought them up last night, when he decided to commit to his verbal decision of no longer sleeping by Techno’s fireplace. He brought them up with the express intention of keeping them out of Techno’s clutches, so that he could have them whenever he felt the need to taste freedom again, and yet. They are not here. They are gone. 

Somebody has taken his fucking shoes. And since Tommy is currently forced into proximity with literally one other person, this means Technoblade has stolen his fucking shoes. 

Fuck’s sake.

Tommy leaves his room with a new determination in hand, yanking the door open with all intention of storming downstairs and having his rage be known. He stops mid-step in the hallway with the realization that Techno might not even be down there. He could be in his room, instead, still sleeping. 

Well, it’s probably real fucking unlikely he is, considering how little the man has been sleeping at all these past few days, in some sort of plan to not let Tommy go out of his sight, but still. There’s a chance. There’s a possibility. 

There’s a door, down the hall, over Tommy’s shoulder. Techno’s door, left just a little open. Practically calling his name to go and investigate and find out. 

Tommy’s feet are turning him around and making him tiptoe right on over before he can even consider any poor consequences of this. He makes his way over with quick, careful steps, and his hand drags lightly along the wall for balance as he leans around the edge of Techno’s doorway, trying to peek through the opening with as much stealth as a ninja-

At the moment, there comes a clatter of noise from downstairs, and Tommy nearly jumps out of his skin, hands slapping to the wall so he doesn’t stumble right over his feet and fall to the ground in his surprise. He freezes still in an odd, half-crouched type of pose, and hears a low sigh that’s definitely Techno from downstairs. Whatever was dropped gets picked up, and Tommy is left with the solid realization that Techno’s room is in fact empty, since he’s downstairs. 

Tommy blinks in processing this new info, then reaches out and pushes the door open, watching it swing out lamely, hitting the back of the wall with a light thump. He moves away from the wall, now in the doorway, in Techno’s room. 

Huzzah. He’s in.

Maybe his shoes are in here. 

Energy now revived, an evil smile blooming on his face, Tommy goes about snooping in everything he can, searching through any spot that might have his shoes, or anything else that he would like to have. Techno’s room isn’t all that different from Phil’s room, really, it’s just got more stuff in it, namely, more books, overall. Man’s got two more bookshelves than Phil does, and then even more books in the chests sitting by the wall. Tommy skims over the titles of some of them, but there’s honestly just so many that he can’t muster up the will to actually look all that closely at them. All he can do is mentally bemoan the fact that Techno is such a fucking nerd. There’s no good reason to have so many fucking books in place of cooler stuff, like tnt or golden apples, or something. 

There are very few things of interest amongst all this shit. Tommy steals a pen or two, and makes an honest consideration to steal one of the many books so he can read it in his freetime later, but other than that, he has no boots. 

He finds Techno’s boots in one of the chests, along with the rest of his clothes and shit, but Tommy’s own shoes are nowhere to be found. There’s only capes and shirts and pants folded up all neatly in this chest, and after Tommy’s done with searching through it, it’s kinda folded back to the way it was, only with a clear damage to whatever organizational system there was beforehand, the items half-folded and piled together in the corner of the chest. 

Tommy sighs heavy as he leaves Techno’s room, the door left wide open behind him. He traverses onward to the stairs, going down with a watchful eye kept over the railings. He sees no movement in the main room, only the flicker of the fireplace burning bright. The kitchen looks occupied, and there’s a scent of food that has Tommy’s stomach despairing for a taste. He resolutely ignores it and goes to rummage through the storage in the main room instead, in the chests beside the fireplace. 

It’s a little more fruitful here. There’s far more interesting building blocks, a couple potion bottles. No weapons, strangely enough. Tommy finds more tools, polished and sharpened and enchanted to the nether and back, but no swords, no bows. No shields, nothing. Hm. 

It’s probably elsewhere, if not in Techno’s room and not here. Technoblade would never lack weapons. 

With all the routes completed, and Tommy’s hunger becoming far too insistent to ignore, he turns to face the man in the kitchen at last, shoving a potion into his inventory and pulling up his sock on his foot from where it started to slip down his ankle in all this wandering. 

“Where the fuck are my shoes?” He declares, as his hello.

Technoblade lifts his head from whatever breakfast he’s making for them this morning by the stove and looks over to where Tommy stands by the doorway of the kitchen, his expression scrunched up in petty teenage fury, his hair sticking up in every direction as a clear indicator that he barely even rolled out of bed before committing to whatever chaos he’s become set on now.

“Good morning to you too, Tommy.” Techno dryly says in response, making a mental note to really commit to getting Tommy some of his own clothes at some point, considering the fact the kid is still wearing the same outfit from the day before; Techno’s own shirt hanging a little too big on his frame. He turns his attention back to the pan in front of him. “I slept well, thanks for askin’, Tommy.”

“Where the fuck are my shoes?” Tommy asks louder, striding up to Techno with his arms thrown into the air. “I put them by the bed last night, and they aren’t there now, and they’re not down here, and they’re not in your room-”

“I feel like I should be concerned that you went through my room.” Techno says, poking at the cooking food with a spoon. 

“I didn’t steal anything.” Tommy huffs, looking more disappointed than offended, as if bummed by the fact that Techno didn’t have anything fun to really grab. That reaction alone tells Techno that the kid didn’t manage to find the trapdoor storage under his rug. Or the compartment behind his bookshelf. “You have way too many books, by the way.” 

“Definitely concerned that you went through my room. Goin’ to take note of any missing stuff in my room later.” Techno mutters, already dreading whatever damage Tommy’s done to his organization system. His chests have no doubt been torn asunder, but such is the effect of living with a Tommy. “Do you want ham on your eggs?” He asks, keeping casual. 

“Isn’t that like- cannibalism or some shit?” Tommy questions, refusing to keep anything as calm and casual. 

Techno pauses. He looks down at Tommy. “What.” 

“You’re piglin. You’re like- part piglin.” Tommy points out, hands gesturing out to Techno’s pointed ears, the ever so slight tell of the fact that he’s not all human blood. His voice goes all high-pitched and dragged out in the next word. “Technically-”

“I feel like we’ve had this conversation before.” Technoblade acknowledges, more quietly amused than anything. This is an odd change of subject, but he supposes he’ll take it over the whining over shoes.  “Feels vaguely familiar.”

“And I was right. I am right. It’s cannibalism, innit?” Tommy nods with a sense of victory, and Techno remembers now, they have had this conversation before, down in the ravine of Pogtopia, over something containing bacon. Techno can’t quite recall the details of the meal. He just remembers how Tommy felt ever so compelled to point out the fact Techno was technically eating his own kind, and how it was sick, or something, in both the fucked up way and the cool way. 

“Hm. Sure. Good for you, being right. Do you want some cannibalism on your eggs or not?” Techno answers simply, not wanting for this conversation to drag on long enough for the food to burn. 

“Yes.” Tommy nods, crossing his arms over his chest with a great big sniff of air. “I also want to know where you put my shoes.”

“I think a question we should ask ourselves is why do you need shoes indoors?” Techno asks, moving the eggs and ham off the stove, turning off the flame, so he can head over to the dinner table, where there’s already two plates set out, forks and cups beside them. “No, actually, better question, what hell have you put your shoes through? Because those things have seen better days. They’re at the end of their days, really-” He asks, walking past Tommy with care to keep the hot pan out of the kid’s reach. 

“So you do have my shoes-!” Tommy screams after him, sticking close in revived outrage. Techno disregards his waving finger trying to jab him in the eye. 

“But who needs to inflict more sufferin’ on those things? Who would even have a motive? Surely not someone who isn’t even going outside anytime soon.” Techno sets out an even portion for the two of them, making a meaningful wave of his hand for Tommy to sit down while he puts the pan back and grabs a pitcher of water. 

“Have you ever considered I have plans and shit, Technoblade?” Tommy asks, sitting himself in his seat, although it’s more of a falling, collapsing action into the seat than anything. “A life, outside of this awful, confined space?”

Techno hums, sliding into his chair with the pitcher put between them. “Yeah, you told me about that. Sounded pretty bad. There was like, an exile and everything-”

“Ok, shut up, shut up! I’m eating breakfast, shut up.” Tommy ends the conversation there, open palm raised out to stop Techno from speaking any more. He grabs his fork like someone’s going to steal it, and stabs his food as a clear outlet of frustration. 

“Mhm-hm.” Is all Techno gives in response, eating his own food in a gentler sort of manner, taking the time to blow air over it so it can cool, unlike Tommy, who keeps doing the weird chewing open mouthed thing where he’s clearly getting his tongue burned but is refusing to spit the food out. Techno takes his cup and pours him some water as a sort of consolation. He pours his own after, and finds a sudden contentment in this moment, in the two of them sharing breakfast within the quiet morning, Tommy safety kept, their future battles being such a foggy thing in the distance. For a second, Techno kinda likes the peace and quiet. Wonders if it could stay. 

Then he remembers why he has this new company at all, and then there’s some passing urge to stab someone like how Tommy is stabbing his bits of ham. Technoblade has to tune out the familiar buzzing noise of Chat becoming interested in the idea of spilled blood, and he focuses harder on the clink of his fork upon his plate. 

Tommy drops his own fork across his plate a few minutes later, most of his food having been scarfed down in a way that’s mildly concerning. If Techno didn’t know any better, he would suspect the kid is starved. He could do with a bit more muscle on his bones, but Techno feels that’s more just because Tommy’s naturally scrawny rather than a lack of food. Or at least, he hopes that’s what it is. 

“Are you seriously going to keep making me stay here longer than needed?” Tommy breaks their silence, Techno lifting his eyebrows to the question. “Honestly, tell me.”

“I thought you were eating breakfast.” Techno says back, referencing Tommy's earlier words. Tommy scrunches his nose, but speaks with a low, serious tone that has Techno slowing to a stop. 

“How much longer are you going to keep doing this?” He asks. The this implies more than just the breakfast before them on the table. There is a waiting, calculating wariness in the blue of his eyes, unsure of all the passive interactions made over these past few days. Technoblade resists the way his lips want to curl into a grin, oddly prideful of such a distrusting look made. It’s unneeded, but it’s admirable. It means Tommy has learned to be cautious.

“For as long as it takes for Phil to get here.” 

“And then I can go?”

Technoblade doesn't respond for a second. His ear twitches for a second. “...sure.” 

“Well, then how long is it going to take for Phil to get here?” Tommy whines, head tilting back as he slides down his seat, half-way disappearing under the edge of the table. 

Techno shrugs, taking a bite of his food and ignoring how Tommy’s feet reach out to whack him in the ankles. He can withstand the stubborn kicks of a teenager. “A day. A week. Two weeks.”

“You don’t actually fucking know.” Tommy accuses, his furious face looking a little ridiculous from the angle of how slouched down he’s sitting. 

“He’s kinda doing his own thing right now.” Techno defends. Granted, he isn’t really sure what the thing is, but Phil will probably be done with it in time. The last thing he had told Techno before heading off was that he needed some quiet to clear his head. That had been over a month ago. Techno is a patient man, for Phil. 

“I have things to do too! Can he hurry it up?!” Tommy yells, hands slapping down at the table as he tries to claw back up into a proper sitting position. He kicks Techno’s ankle again on the way up. Techno, again, gives no reward of reaction.

“I also have things to do.” Techno reasons, sympathizing with Tommy’s mood. “Unfortunately, patience tends to bring the greatest reward.”

“Can it bring me my shoes?” Tommy deadpans, uncaring of whatever wisdom Techno wants to bestow upon him.

“Maybe.” Techno answers. “If you wait long enough.”

Tommy groans in a way that’s more of a yell, and slams his head on the table. Techno only huffs. He eats the rest of his food.

It is a good breakfast. 

Getting to l’manburg is by no means a quick and simple route. 

Phil is hesitant to admit it, but he might’ve let his wandering go a touch too far, in his simple-minded grief. By the time he’s drawn out their path for their journey, looking over the maps and estimating what isn’t written down, it’s well into the afternoon. He reckons it’ll take a few days to get to l’manburg, and then it’ll be a little while longer to get to Techno. 

In general, he’s rather separated from civilization at the moment. He suspected so, for that’s what he wanted, nothing but the forest trees and the company of his son’s ghost, but still. It’ll be somewhat tedious to make his way back, especially on foot. He could do it all in flight, and it’d be simpler then, but-

His wings have healed decently. And his feathers are recovering, for the most part, however, the idea of taking to the skies again is... It’s just logical to stay on the ground, honestly. He’d have to leave Ghostbur to the dirt if he were to turn to flying. So it’s just not an option. 

He will wait. 

He packs only the essentials for the trip, some food, some water, and a few tools. It’s not much, but he’s never been a man who needs much to survive anywhere. He is used to exploring. He takes a satchel over his shoulder and leaves behind the small temporary home he’s built with not much more than a glance. 

Ghostbur follows along with a bag of his own, stuffed to the brim with all his creations of yarn, colored in brilliant shades of blue. He provides charming commentary on their way, such as ‘The clouds look like a heart’ and ‘I’ve found a bug on the floor!’ and ‘Dad, are we there yet?’

The last question specifically drives Phil a little crazy on the twentieth time it’s said, but he would have it no other way. He lets the spirit’s voice wash over him as they continue heading on, and the crows linger nearby in every mile they take, dark feathered blurs of movement jumping from branch to branch over their heads, at one point, catching Ghostbur’s attention and causing him to almost get stuck in a tree. 

Phil makes an effort to hold onto his boy’s hand from that moment on. They walk together, father and son, hand in hand, both hearts cold.

They make a few stops here and there, Phil setting his sights on a few abandoned old mansions, setting his sword on the creatures living inside. Midway through it all, at some point of the night, with Phil having set up camp, there comes a crow carrying a letter. Ghostbur finds great joy in watching the passing sparks of their fire flow through his hands while Phil stares wide-eyed at seeing Techno’s handwriting scribbled across the front of the paper. 

He can’t help but think the worst. Think that the message will be a call for help, a plea for rescue, another chance of him being far too late. 

To his relief, it’s nothing of the sort. Well. It is a call for something. A call to arms, if anything. Phil reads Techno’s written word about five times over, then sets the paper to the side, looking at the ghost of his son and considering something within his own mind. 

Wilbur looks at him with a beaming grin, the light of the fire not quite touching his face. His fingers linger too close to the flames. Any normal fool would flinch away at having their skin burned. But a ghost has no fear for the warmth of fire. They run too cold for it to do any damage. 

Phil folds Techno’s letter and keeps it tucked into his satchel. They go on towards l’manburg. 

In total, it takes about a week for them to arrive there at last. Phil had thought it would take longer, or maybe he hoped it’d be longer. Either way, they stand upon the border of the land with no warm greetings, no familiar faces waiting for their presence. 

It is eerily silent here. 

The day is bright. It’s well into the afternoon, the weather is quite fair. The town itself looks beautifully rebuilt, with colorful touches across the buildings, not a hint of the old rot that once festered. It is such a lovely place, and yet there seems to be nothing to it. No one within it. 

There is no heart. 

Phil finds an odd type of humor in that, with himself standing here. He walks on through the town with all intention of passing by his house made here, to gather more supplies before going on to Techno, but he’s then stopped by Ghostbur’s missing presence. The ghost has likely wandered off again. 

Phil sighs, turning away from the stairs he was beginning to climb. He takes a breath to call Ghostbur’s name, and stops in realizing that the spirit is within sight, but not within reach. 

He floats above in the sky, looking at everything around them, taking in the whole town with an oddly solemn face. The sun shines through his figure, his sweater turned transparent with his touch, his colors turned pale. 

“Ghostbur?” Phil calls, and in the corner of his vision, he can see a few of his birds scattering out to the rooftops, perching where they see fit. Their presence is comfortingly familiar, but Phil pays it very little mind. 

“Ghostbur.” He speaks again, coming closer, head tilted back. The spirit doesn’t answer, only continuing to gaze off to the town before them. Phil opens his wings with an urge to fly up to him, to carry him back down to earth, but he doesn’t quite manage it. He just stays standing here, looking up at his son. “Ghostbur, what are you doing?” He questions, hoping that it’ll snap him out of whatever trance he’s become locked in. 

Ghostbur turns his head back down towards Phil. Without the usual smile at his lips, he has a haunting appearance to his face, eyes filled with a dark sorrow that has Phil frowning in worry. 

“Something has died here.” Ghostbur tells him, speaking it knowingly, speaking it like an omen. 

It is so out of nowhere that Phil can’t do anything but stare for a good moment. Ghostbur turns his head, looking past Phil, brows furrowing together, and Phil turns his head to find a new smiling face suddenly at his side. 

He takes a few quick steps back, wings snapping shut behind him. A crow cries out, its caw echoing out. 

Dream makes an interested little hum from where he stands, head tilting up for a second as if making just a passing glance at Ghostbur. He stands straight, hands clasped behind him, focusing back on Phil. “Haven’t seen you in a while, Phil.”

“Dream.” Phil gives as his greeting, slightly annoyed by the unnecessary scare. Such annoying attempts of intimidation, appearing so close like that. He oughta smack him upside the head. “I don't know what you mean, I’ve been around.”

“Ehh, not quite.” Dream shrugs, sounding skeptical. “Not around here, at least.”

“Well, I’ve been exploring the land.” Phil explains half-heartedly. “Settling in, getting my bearings.” He adjusts his satchel on his shoulder, letting his attention wander off to the scenery around them. Dream gives a small, quiet laugh. 

“Yeah, you had an interesting welcome to the party. I barely even got to give you the run-down, tell you the rules, and all that-”

“I know the basic rules of a community, mate.” Phil interrupts, not quite in the mood for this. He’s been in thousands of worlds before, and across them all, they tend to be mostly the same. He will admit, in this one, there is something wrong about it all. Maybe that is just his grief talking, though. 

“I’m not talking about the basic rules. I’m talking about my rules.” Dream says, raising his hands out to gesture at the place around them. “This is my land.”

“I thought this was l’manburg?” Phil questions. “Isn’t Tubbo currently president over all this?”

“Well- yeah, but he’s doing that with my permission. Everyone is here under my watch.” 

“Ah.” Phil raises his head, where Ghostbur is still floating over their heads. “Well, I don’t plan on causing any trouble.” Not yet, anyway. There’s no trouble as long as the man doesn’t get in his way. 

“You’re already in a bit of trouble. But that’s why I’m glad to see you.” Dream claps his hands together, the smile on his mask matching the chipper tone of his voice. “There’s a certain restriction I put on the hybrids of this world…” 

Phil’s eyes fall right back down onto Dream, his posture straightening. What?

“It’s a matter of fairness, y’know? To keep everyone on the same level. Granted, most of everyone doesn’t have any obvious issues, but for you, with your wings-”

“What about my wings?” Phil demands. Dream goes still for a second, his head tilted to the side. 

“Flight isn’t allowed.” Dream says, something sickly sympathetic woven within the words. It’s hardly comforting, and barely convincing. “For you, I’m sorry to say, you need to have your flight feathers cut. It’s just the rules.”

“They’re your rules.” Phil points out. 

“Made for good reason.” Dream says back, waving a hand like this is all no big deal. “It keeps us all closer. It’s gotta be fair, or else-” He pauses for a second, seeing Ghostbur come down to Phil’s side, feet still not quite on the ground, hands touching at Phil’s shoulder to keep close. “Wilbur.” 

“Ghostbur, actually!” Ghostbur corrects, now suddenly back into his bright mood. He holds a hand out for a handshake, smiling ever wide. “I’m a ghost!”

“Huh.” Dream says, sounding genuinely thrown off. Phil sighs fondly. “That’s- Uh. Okay?”

“No issue with him, I hope? He doesn’t quite control his flight.” Phil asks lightly, eyes narrowed with a surety that if there was a problem, it’d be dealt with very quickly under his hand. 

“I can walk like a living person!” Ghostbur insists, and he goes on the ground to do just that, making a large circle around them, arms high and feet landing firmly on the floor. “Walking, walking, walking-”

“Yeah, I have no idea how to deal with that. He’s your problem now.” Dream says in watching him go around them both, a deep confusion within his voice. 

“He’s not ever a problem, really.” Phil insists, shaking his head, paying no mind to Ghostbur making several circles around. “He’s only a ghost.”

“Uh-huh.” Dream nods, distracted for a second. He clears his throat, focusing back onto the matter at hand. “Going back on topic. Your wings.”

“You want me to cut them.” It’s not so much as a question but a cold statement from Phil’s throat. It’s such a contrast to the way Ghostbur is still marching happily around them. Phil holds an arm out, catching the spirit from making another circle. “Ghostbur, you can stop, we see you. You can indeed walk.” 

“Like a living person.” Ghostbur informs seriously. 

“Yes, just like a living person.” Phil nods, and Ghostbur seems satisfied at that, floating off the ground again, hovering close by Phil’s shoulders. “I don’t suppose that an honest promise that I won’t ever fly on your land would be good enough for you?” He asks Dream, who crosses his arms with a slow shake of his head. “No, I didn't think so.” Phil mutters. 

“We can cut them now, if you’re willing.” Dream offers. “It’s also a good time to catch you up on what you’ve missed. Your house got broken into while you were gone.”

“Really?” Phil asks, frowning at that, wondering quietly what can be done for the matter of his wings. He has no intention of being tied down to the dirt, even if his own hesitation seems to weigh so heavy these days. 

“It was a whole mess-” Dream begins to ramble, turning his back with the clear expectation for Phil to follow. For a second, a split second, Phil’s eyes focus on the open opportunity at the back of Dream’s neck, and he passingly considers the sword that sits in his inventory. He breathes. 

He goes to walk behind the man, hearing him recount how Tommy had begun to cause problems , how he kept being a danger to the citizens of this town, and how there ended up being no other choice but to exile him for the behavior he had shown throughout his time here. During that sentencing, Tommy had run off in an attempt to escape justice, broken into Phil’s house to no doubt steal things that were not his, and he ended up escaping out from the walls, despite the best efforts of Dream.

“Walls?” Phil questions as they approach near his house, a quaint little place that he hasn’t given much time towards. 

“Obsidian.” Dream elaborates. “I put them up a few weeks back, for…safety’s sake. Tubbo didn’t care for them, so after Tommy’s exile, I took them down.” 

Phil makes an acknowledging noise at that, focusing more on the way his door is broken, pushed past the hinges with wood scattered on the floor. Dream stops and looks back at him with his hands resting on his hips, something smug and knowing. 

“Tommy really can’t help but break whatever he touches, huh?”

“He’s always been a wild one.” Phil gives as his response, walking past Dream to head inside. Dream follows along. Ghostbur lingers over the broken door, looking over it with a wide, blank expression. 

The inside of the house is a mess. Items strewn over the ground, his chests left open, one of the windows shattered to bits. Phil looks over it all with not much disappointment. It’s not like he was really planning to stay here. Dream takes his silent reaction as shock. 

“We left it as is because we weren’t sure how you wanted to go about cleaning it.” Dream says, kicking a stray empty glass bottle to the side, watching it roll in a circle. “I don’t really know what he took.”

“Whatever it was, I probably won’t miss it.” Phil responds lightly, stepping past the mess and looking into his chests to see what’s left. He knows he had a few things that he was hoping to grab. Techno’s compass, mainly. It’s not here, but if Tommy took it…

That would give some more context to Techno’s letter.  

Reaching further into the chest, pushing other items to the side, Phil takes a pair of shears into his hand and turns to face Dream with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. Dream’s mask smiles back, no grand reaction given. 

“If we could, I’d like to get this over with.” He says, and then he reaches back to his own wing and cuts at his feathers, Dream jolting at the lack of hesitation to it, Ghostbur suddenly screaming out at seeing Phil snip off part of his wings. 

“Dad, no! What are you doing!? Your wings, your wings!” Ghostbur cries, coming into the house with his hands stretched out, reaching for the shears in Phil’s hand as feathers fall to the floor. Phil steps to the side, stopping Ghostbur with a raised finger. 

“It’s alright, Ghostbur.”

“No!” Ghostbur shakes his head, feet drifting over the mess of items underneath them. “You won’t be able to fly if you cut them! You haven’t tried to fly!”

“That’s the intention.” Dream insists, crossing his arms and giving no kindness to the dismay on Ghostbur’s face. “It’s only fair, for the rest of us-”

“This isn’t fair!” Ghostbur argues, and Phil goes about cutting the rest of his feathers while he’s distracted, hacking off most of it with no care to how jagged it’ll be at the end of it. “He has wings, he’s supposed to fly! He soars!”

“It’s the rules.” Dream says unwaveringly, and Ghostbur’s face scrunches up tight, sudden tears welling up and falling past his cheeks. He goes out the door in a burst of sobs, and Phil calls his name to no avail. He goes to follow, and Dream catches him by the arm, stopping him in his tracks. 

“You’ve still got a few-” Dream goes to point out, and Phil yanks his arm back, keeping the shears on the other side of him.

“I think I’ve got the most of it.” Phil insists. “I won’t fly like this.” 

“It should at least be even, don’t you think?” Dream reasons, and Phil grabs at his wings again, reaching for his back feathers, cutting with such vivid intensity that the action alone is answer enough for what he thinks about keeping an even line across his wings. Feathers scatter to the ground, pooling at their feet, torn bits of the night sky left amongst the discarded items like they’re nothing of importance. Dream looks over it with a silent judgement, and once Phil feels he’s gone far enough, he tosses the shears to the side and shakes his wings out to be rid of the still clinging pieces. 

“There.” He says, walking on and leaving Dream behind with the remains of his feathers. “No need to worry about me breaking your damn precious rule.” 

Dream says nothing as Phil goes. 

Ghostbur is nowhere nearby when Phil walks outside, and for that, Phil worries if the ghost has tucked himself elsewhere to cry in peace, out of the way for the rest of them. He calls for the spirit while heading further into the town, and in walking away from the ruins of his house, there comes the helpful hint of his birds, their flapping wings catching his attention, the few of them scattering off in a clear direction. 

Phil follows, climbing up some stone steps, hearing faint voices at the top. 

“There, there?” He hears someone say, some effort of comfort, more confused than sympathetic, really. Phil thinks it’s Tubbo. “Feathers can grow back, you know. Birds do that.” 

“But he’s not a bird!” Ghostbur cries back, sounding ever inconsolable. He sobs, his next words slightly muffled as if put against the palms of his hands. “He’s a MAN!” 

“Uhh. Good for him?” Tubbo stands over Ghostbur’s curled up figure on the floor, wearing an ill-fitting suit with his tie hanging loose. He looks slightly panicked upon having Ghostbur’s despair be so apparent at his feet, and upon seeing Phil walk up, there comes a small sense of relief. “Oh, Phil- Ohhhh. I get it now.”

Ghostbur stops, then lets out a pitiful wail upon seeing Phil again, rolling over on the ground. 

“Wow.” Tubbo says, wincing a little as he looks behind Phil’s back, seeing the flight feathers chopped off. “What happened there?”

“Dream’s apparently got some rule about flying- I cut them quickly because I didn’t want to deal with him any longer.” Phil explains half-heartedly, leaning down to give his attention to Ghostbur. “Mate, I’m alright. Tubbo’s right, the feathers can grow back in later.” 

“Not anytime soon, if Dream’s wanting them short…” Tubbo points out, which makes Ghostbur cry harder into the ground. 

“Ghostbur, please.” Phil begs, wondering if he should try dragging the ghost up off the ground. He might just fall right through his hands. “We have to get going now, remember? We were only passing by l’manburg.” 

“Oh, where are you heading off to?” Tubbo questions, turning a curious face to him. “I’ve barely seen you around here at all, did you just get here?”

“Yeah, we’re just passing through.” Phil nods, standing straight and letting Ghostbur try and compose himself from where he is splayed out on the ground. He looks to Tubbo, and has a moment of remembering the letter he was sent, the words sitting in his satchel. “We’re…going to go look for someplace else to live.” 

Ghostbur gives a sniffle from below, suddenly not quite falling apart in tears. “We are?”

“Really?” Tubbo asks on top, frowning a bit. “We’ve got space for you here.” 

“Yes, yes, but- There’s plenty of other places to go.” Phil excuses quickly, waving his hand at Ghostbur to stand up. “The town is lovely and all, but I’m not one for sticking around a lot of people.”

“Oh.” Tubbo blinks, Ghostbur sitting up with a confused little furrow in his brow. 

“I thought we were gonna go visit-” He begins to say, and Phil quickly cuts him off. 

“Wilbur, what’s your favorite biome? Maybe we can make a house there? Wouldn’t that be nice?” Phil curses internally for the slip up of the name, but Ghostbur hardly notices. 

“I like trees.” Ghostbur says, which is not the best answer, but it’s better than revealing their honest plans. Tubbo makes a considerate nod, like that’s a good response. Phil makes an effort of a supportive smile. 

“Say, Phil, before you go, I wanted to ask,” Tubbo says, stepping closer with a hand raised up. “Have you seen Technoblade recently?” The question is posed innocently, rather causal in the tone. 

There is something burning in the look in Tubbo’s eyes. 

“No.” Phil says truthfully, wary now of the boy before him. “It’s been a while since we’ve talked.” Unless you count a single letter as conversation. 

“You don’t know where he is?” Tubbo asks further, nearly accusing. 

“He’s at his house.” Ghostbur says, ever helpfully. Phil internally panics a bit, and Tubbo turns with an interested look, like a fisherman who’s caught something on his line.

“He’s got a house?” He turns his attention to Ghostbur, leaning down with a kind grin. “Hey, maybe I could give a visit sometime. Could you tell me where it is?”

Phil shakes his head from where he stands behind Tubbo, and Ghostbur looks up at him with a blank, trusting expression. Phil pauses, going still, then he holds a singular finger over his mouth, a clear signal to not say anything. 

“Shhh.” Ghostbur says to Tubbo, mimicking the action. Tubbo frowns slightly with a confused sort of look, and Phil quickly takes the chance to move on. 

“Sorry, mate.” He tells Tubbo, taking Ghostbur by the arm, relieved by the fact he’s actually tangible right now, glad to let Phil drag him up and away. “We should be going. I’d rather not linger.” 

“You’re hardly imposing.” Tubbo says as they begin to go, and he follows a little at their heels. “You could stay for a bit, if you’d like?”

“Oh, could we?” Ghostbur asks. “That’d be fun!”

“No, no.” Phil refuses, tugging Ghostbur along so that they can head out of the town. “We’ve got to go.” 

“Phil.” Tubbo calls. “Phil, hold on.” He reaches out, hand going to grab at Phil’s sleeve. 

Phil stops and turns to face him, to look him in the eye. “Tubbo, we really should head on our way. Unless you have a good reason to keep us here, I don’t want to stay a minute more.” He turns his head, eyes narrowing slightly. “Do you have a good reason?”

Tubbo’s mouth opens, then closes. He blinks, then takes a tiny step back, shaking his head. “Safe travels.” He gives as a goodbye, then he turns and leaves, rushing down the steps like he’s got somewhere to be. Phil feels vaguely bad about being so stern now. 

“That’s Tommy’s friend.” Ghostbur whispers in Phil’s ear as they watch Tubbo go, leaning over his shoulder. 

“Yes.” Phil murmurs. “Let’s go, Ghostbur.”