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Tommy wasn’t going without a fuss. He screamed, insulted, shouted, fought and even cried all the way down to the docks. Maybe someone would take pity on him and actually help him out for once. How could the entire server just leave him with Dream? Especially when most of them agreed with him to take down Dream just minutes ago! Why was he always left behind?
Tommy started to doubt if anyone ever actually cared about him. He was always the second choice - even with Tubbo.
Oh, Tubbo.
Why? How? When? Questions rushed so fast around his head, it was impossible to catch onto a single one. They were supposed to be friends! Tubbo was going to stand up to Dream and they were going to keep fighting for L’manberg and all that mattered was each other. But Tubbo, his best friend , just left him.
Tommy wasn’t strong enough to take down Dream on his own. And he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to do it alone. He was meant to do it first with his brother and every time after that with friends by his side. Did he even have friends anymore? Surely they all had to hate him. They wouldn’t let this happen otherwise, would they?
“The discs don’t matter, Tommy!”
There was an echo bouncing around his mind, sounding just like Tubbo. That. Wouldn’t. Shut. Up.
Those bastards stared at him during the whole walk down. Tommy scoffed. He guessed everyone on the server found real enjoyment in his pain. Couldn’t they see he wasn’t a star on a reality TV show? He was just Tommy! That’s all he would ever be. Just a dumb kid who fucks everything up. Maybe he didn’t deserve to be defended afterall.
No. He’s just being stupid. Of course not everybody hated him. He had Ghostbur after all. In that moment it didn’t matter that his dead brother was dense, naive, stupid, all that mattered was that he had someone on his side. He still didn't understand why he didn’t have more people there. He helped form an entire nation built on freedom and liberty so people would be safe and happy! Yet they wouldn’t fight for his freedom…
Fuck them. Tommy didn’t need them anyway, he had Ghostbur and that would be enough for him. Ghostbur wouldn’t leave him, would he? Tommy wasn’t sure he could keep surviving on his own. He didn’t like being alone.
He wasn’t scared though. TommyInnit wasn’t scared of anything. He could and would survive any situation thrown at him and he would do it with pride! Nobody was going to bring TommyInnit down anytime soon.
***
“- then I’ll just kill you. What happens if I kill you?”
“I die...”
He didn’t realise that this would not be the only threat thrown at him in the coming weeks.
***
Wide, open ocean stretched out in front of them, water surrounding them in every direction with no land in sight. They had been rowing for hours to reach this point and it seemed as if the journey would never end. Tommy doubted Dream had any idea where he was going to dump him. Prick.
Said man had made them pause their rowing so he could consult his map while Tommy sat in the boat behind him, arms crossed and glaring a hole into the back of Dream’s head. It wasn’t long into their journey when Dream had begun pointedly ignoring any insult hurled at him by Tommy. Making fun of people wasn’t as fun if the person you were mocking didn’t respond, Tommy quickly found out. He would talk to Ghostbur instead, who joined their “vacation”, but he was off in his own little world, gazing at the fishes below them in wonder. He was an odd man. That was the nicest description Tommy could think of at that moment.
They were soon setting off again, in a completely different direction than before. Tommy was pretty sure that at this point Dream was trying to see how long it would take for them to sail around the entire server, just to make Tommy suffer even more by letting him see his friends one more time from afar. He crossed his fingers, which made rowing quite uncomfortable, and hoped that Dream wouldn’t be so cruel.
He would be forever thankful if Dream could just hurry up and find a suitable island to dump him on. The sooner that Dream left him in his new “home”, the sooner he could sleep and pretend that this was the worst nightmare he had ever had and when he woke up he would be back in the Camarvan with Wilbur starting their drug empire - not stuck in a tiny boat with his dead brother behind him after being brutally punished for something that in the grand scheme of things wasn’t that big of a deal really...
“I only just got there when you were being thrown out. What did you do, Tommy?”
It isn’t possible to strangle a ghost, Tommy.
***
How were they still in the middle of the fucking ocean? The sun had started to set now and while the water looked very pretty when bathed in a soft orange glow, Tommy was in fact being blinded.
Ghostbur had started to sing whatever song popped into his head at any given moment (even if he didn’t know all the words) just to pass the time. He had sung the L’manberg anthem at least four times now, every sea shanty known to man and even some originals. Tommy didn’t want to find a wall and smash his head into it at all. It wasn’t that Ghostbur was bad at singing, it was just that karaoke in the evening wasn’t one of Tommy’s hobbies, if he was being completely honest.
He had moved to nursery rhymes now after exhausting every other song he knew. A happy gasp erupted from his mouth as he remembered the perfect song for their situation.
“Row, row, row your boat…”
Tommy did his best not to fucking scream. (There weren’t even any crocodiles around.)
***
Ghostbur wasn’t actually that bad. In the first few days of exile he helped Tommy setup Tnret and together they formed another nation, Logstedshire. He was a comfort in the cold nights and Tommy could almost picture them back in L’manberg with everyone else.
Unfortunately, Ghostbur’s presence didn’t make exile any easier. That was an experience Tommy wasn’t sure he could ever recover from.
***
“You can come hide with me, if you need a place to stay.”
*
“Look at this loser!”
*
“We live in Logsted.”
*
“I know there’s something else you want to drop down here. How about your armour?”
*
“Why would you put me in a place that’s near Technolade?”
*
“You’re the only person who doesn’t ever listen to me.”
*
“It’s never my time to die…”
*
“Well, it’s not like they want you anyway, Tommy.”
*
“What were you planning to do with that stuff, attack me?”
*
“Welcome home, Theseus!”
*
“But what am I without you?”
*
“Put your armour in the hole. Everything. Everything on you, there.”
***
But life would get easier, one day.