Archive of Our Own

Wilbur used to say that they were what the world made of them and nothing else. All their actions were just fragile, human reflections of their circumstances.

   Tommy, young and naïve and clean, insisted with gusto that he had more control than that, surely. With a neat uniform and a crooked cap, he thought he knew everything. Braces and plain, unmarked skin, he thought he was right.

   He’s not so sure he believes it anymore. He doesn’t know what he believes.

   Tommy figures you can look at it like this: he’s like a bomb underwater. Futile. Even if he blows, nothing will happen. And the world has made a mess of him. Maybe that’s something. Maybe that’s the answer.

   Wilbur said that home was never guaranteed, always something you had to make, to forge with dirt-covered hands, blood and sweat and tears.

   But home is a tired and hopeless thing. Fickle, impermanent. So, who cares what Wil said? Wil did too much damn talking.

   Home is… what? Where the heart is? Where your family is?

   Because his heart is stitched together with puppet strings he’d snip in half if he could. And his family is gone.

   Well, no.

     Not gone just. Messy. Complicated.

   (He’s just science to them on his bad days. Atoms and molecules and fucking cells).

   He tries to quantify it, to define the undefinable. What’s a home really, what makes it?

   Tommy has enough words to fill a novel. Tommy doesn’t have any words at all.

   Because first, it was L’manburg, in its shattered perfection, all boyhood and war games and red and white and blue and gold.

   And he remembers Pogtopia like something that wasn’t real. A dream. A nightmare. A burning fuse in a cave, between him and the exit.

   Then exile, of course. Logsteadshire was hell on earth. That wasn’t ever really home, even if he called it that. (Words have never really meant a lot to Tommy. He can use them, sure, well as Wilbur, but he doesn’t pay them the same attention his brother did, he just doesn’t care.)

   Techno’s cabin was after that, cold in a lot of ways. Ice. Distance. An arms-length sort of relationship. An “At first I thought you were useless.”

   He’s not sure if prison counts, or if limbo does, but those sort of speak for themselves.

   He’s got his little dirt shack too, and he always has. The last bit of surviving L’manburg soil (sometimes he forgets his home was made the embassy. Sometimes he can’t stop remembering). But that’s always served as more of a base than anything else. And none of those places felt as good as L’manburg either, just hollow replacements, shaky replicas.

   There was a time when Wilbur would take his hand, thread their fingers together beneath sprawling skies of stars that shone like the lights still glowing in their foolish little eyes.

   It’s sappy. It’s shitty. It’s too much. But it’s true. That was home. Was.

   There was a time when home was just a van in a valley. A cot he shared with Tubbo. A field of flowers beside the bluest lake around.

   There was a time Wilbur would sing songs beside a crackling fire, place Tommy’s fingers on guitar chords and teach him how to play.

   There was a time of anthems and swords and falling asleep at desks and rebellions and notebooks and ‘it was never meant to be’s’ and buttons and traitors and flowers and bakeries and hostages and sticks and carrots and syllables.

   But it’s different. Duh. Now it makes his head hurt.

   Things change because they do. That’s just how shit is supposed to work. Tommy’s not stupid. He knows that he’s no exception to the whims of the universe, he’s but a player in a game. (The not dying thing is a bit quirky, he admits, but it’s not like he has much say in what happens to his life).

   Now home is nowhere. And it’s a mansion in the snow. And it’s everywhere. And it’s a dirt hut. And it’s complicated. And it’s L’manburg. And it isn’t.

   So that’s what it is, he guesses. Just another thing to think about but never conclude shit. Home is a word. Four letters. Security. Family. Wilbur. Tubbo. A noun. Whatever. 

   The hands that he holds are old and new, the past meeting eyes with the present. They press flowers to his fingers and are scarred enough so that he doesn’t quite feel alone. He loves his friends. And he wouldn’t trade it, of course, but there was still a time before, there’s still something to be missed. And he certainly missed. He certainly misses.

   He thinks of the final fight for the discs, occasionally, when he’s able.

   “Have you missed me?” Wilbur had asked, coy, hesitant, peeking through the veil like a reaper.

   And Tommy had wanted to scream yes yes, of course yes. Because he had missed Wilbur like nothing else. And he spared his own future for the life of his brother. But as he opened his mouth to speak, the words became caught in his throat, and he choked.

   Because the funny thing about family is that it isn’t ever easy, and none of it is as guaranteed as it promises to be.

   “Have you missed me?” he said, hand just barely touching Tommy’s shoulder, cold and solid and static.

   And Wilbur is the smartest fool Tommy’s ever known.

   He never really got to grieve his brother. Tommy had a day. A week. Doesn’t matter. It wasn’t enough. And it was detrimental.

   His brother was dead. His brother was a ghost. His brother had no grave, no funeral.

   Then Techno betrayed them. Or they betrayed him. Whatever. The line blurs.

   And Phil came, wings and swords and ‘help.’ And Phil left.

   Tommy didn’t even have time to cry after it was done. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild, they said. No mind paid to what was lost.

   His home was a crater. And he’d just won it back. And it was all for nothing.

   But Schlatt was gone.

   But Wilbur was gone.

   So what was the point, really? A nation without its creator. A brother without his brother. A symphony unfinished.

   Wilbur promised he would be better. He lied. Tommy should’ve been used to it. He was not.

   Whiplash. His neck was sore. His fingers were itching for buttons and he didn’t know why. Techno was gone and Schlatt was gone and Phil was gone and Wilbur was gone.

   Tubbo was gonna be a great president.

Tommy was gonna tear himself apart.

   But no.

      No.

   Tommy doesn’t like to dwell.

   He’s always felt things very deeply, so just brushing past them is easier. Everyone else’s skin is thick as wool. Tommy is made of paper.

   A wind away from falling apart, Tommy grabbed a match and the hand of a new friend. And he played a game. He pulled a prank. He tried not to think of wars and vans and stealing blaze rods. He tried to pretend things were as they were. He picked the lock of George’s house. And he fucked up.

   He was grieving. He was grieving.

   (They want him to be some paragon of morality. He’s a boy.

   They want a hero. He’s a boy).

   (“I let you die, Wil.” He paces erratically, runs a frantic hand through his hair, tugs at the ends. “I let you die twice.”

   Wilbur follows him loosely as he goes, distant but not too far for intervention.

   “You didn’t,” he denies, but none of it's true. Wilbur is a liar and he’s lying again. “That wasn’t your fault, Tommy.” He’s lying.

   Tommy stops, his hands fall heavy to his sides. There’s something inside him that’s too big to fit. He feels like he could burst. “Then whose?” He demands. Wilbur stutters.

   “Not yours,” he says, but it’s weak.

   Tommy laughs, choked and swallowed. “It was. Of course it was!” He slaps a palm against his own chest. “If I was better, you would’ve stayed.” He says, fingers trembling. “I’m not stupid, you know. It’s the same shit every time.” He laughs again, digs his fingers into his hair. “If I was better, I never would’ve given up the disks. I was better, I wouldn’t have lost to Dream in the duel for L’manburg. If I was braver, I would’ve taken my place as President like you said, and Tubbo would be safe. If I was stronger, I could’ve beat Techno in the pit. If I behaved, I wouldn’t have been exiled.”

   Wilbur reaches towards him, a hurricane on his face, but Tommy flinches quickly away. “You were grieving, Tommy,” he says, like it hurts.

   Tommy curls around himself. “Everybody else was fine.”

   Wilbur shakes his head. “Everybody else was better at hiding it.” He smiles, wistful and something else, something pained. His eyes shine. “You’ve always been emotional.” 

   Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, tight enough to see spots. “I don’t want to be.”)

   Tommy is weak and he is not allowed to be. So Tubbo sent him off to the slaughter and left him to rot, paving a path of good intentions straight to hell.

   And then it was exile and beaches and masked monsters and ribs poking through skin.

   Tommy feels things deeply, he always has. Sometimes he can’t brush past things. Sometimes it’s too hard to forget.

   Everyone else has thick skin. Tommy’s made of paper.

   He wants to be like fire, hot and burning and something. Eventually snuffed.

   He’s a mess of feelings and memories and scars and nightmares.

   He likes plants, he likes to whisper secrets to the flowers.

   He likes the soft wind against his hair while his legs hang off a roof.

   Ledges are beautiful.

   He likes the idea of being able to jump. Maybe he’s fucked up beyond repair.

   He likes the smell of snow and ice and water.

   Sand makes him nauseous.

   Lava makes him itch.

   He should get some sleep.

   Nice things taunt him.

   (Las Nevadas was too good to be true).

   He loved L’manburg. He loves L’manburg.

   L’manburg was everything. L’manburg was nothing. His family was. It was. And now it isn’t.

   It’s dangerous, the radio cries. But they all knew that already, didn’t they?

   Tommy always wants things he can never ever have. Because the universe is sick and twisted.

   And the universe said I love you. And the universe lied. Because he is a just player in a game and that doesn’t make him the daylight or the night. It makes him nothing. It makes him lines of code and words on screens and nothing nothing fucking nothing. And he isn’t love, he never could be. Tommy is war and death and hate and paranoia and every ugly thing he’s been made. And Wilbur was right, again.

   Tommy is broken promises and lonely kids and suicidal dreams that can’t ever come true because there’s a rope around his neck that keeps him tied away. He always wants things he can never have. He’s not stupid, he knows he’ll never win.

   Because the universe lied.

   Because Tommy knows love and Tommy knows what it isn’t.

   And what kind of thing leaves children to this?

   Sometimes Tommy is, to be reductive, over it. He’s done with the questions and the answers and the thinking about homes and brothers and guilt. Sometimes he just wants everything to shut the fuck up.

   It never does. But that’s just the universe again, fucking him over.

   (He wishes he knew what he did).

   “What happened to you?” Wilbur leans against the wall of his house, paying no mind to the dirt on his jacket.

   Tommy shrugs noncommittally. “You died.”

   Wilbur’s face scrunches up at that. He points a finger straight at Tommy. “So it is my fault.”

   Tommy shrugs again, buries his face in his arms where they rest crossed on his kitchen table. “No. Yes. Who cares? It’s no ones. It’s everyone’s. It’s yours. It’s Dream’s. It doesn’t matter. It happened either way.” The sound is muffled by his sleeves. 

   Wilbur frowns. Tommy can’t see it, but he can hear it in the bends of his brother’s voice. “I’m sorry.”

   He sighs. Because this is tired. This is exhausted. “You probably should be,” he admits. “And I probably shouldn’t forgive you.” Tommy sits up then, catches his eye. Wilbur is curious. Tommy is stone. “But who gives a fuck about the truth, right? We’ve all been lying through our teeth for too long to stop now.”

   Wilbur leans forward. He’s forgotten that time creates space, creates distance. He’s forgotten they can’t slide back into who they used to be. “Tommy. Are you okay?”

   He nods, knowing that no one buys it for a second. “Always.” He grits. 

   “I love you, you know.”

   And God does he ache. “Sure.”

   “I want to help.”

   It’s too late for that, he says. And he says, then help me, somebody fucking help me. And he says nothing at all.

   Sometimes he can feel nothing.

   Sometimes it’s like there’s TV static in his head, pouring from his eyes and mouth like water. Sometimes it blurs his eyes. Sometimes he chokes on it.

   Those are bad days, vaguely, distantly.

   They’re days when he’s desperate, bloodied nails clawing at tight corners and let me out let me out. Except there is no out. Because there is no in. it’s just his brain, everything it’s full of. A prison of his own haphazard and accidental design. It reeks of rotting home. He wants to feel. He is desolate.

   Tubbo swipes a thumb lightly across the back of his palm.

   “You’re okay, Tommy.” He whispers, so quiet the only thing that can hear is the sheets of the bed (too soft, too gentle, it burns his skin, it makes him itch. He misses cots with no bedding, bodies for warmth).

   “I don’t need pity,” he manages, through a tight throat. Tubbo’s face crumples, and he pulls Tommy into a tight hug.

   “I love you,” he says fiercely. Tommy’s chest squeezes.

   “Everyone keeps saying that,” he slurs. “I’m nothing, Tubso. I’m science. You all deserve more.”

   Tubbo shakes his head. “We don’t want more. We want you.”

   Sometimes he feels okay, in a sort of stitched together way. Like he could fall apart but he’s holding it together. Like if he pretends hard enough things will turn real.

   He’s always been a very good actor. (Well, maybe not always. But he learned).

   Ranboo hands him a flower, a daisy, dainty little petals white against the skin of his hands.

   “Why?” he twirls it between his fingers, squints, half-angry.

   “You like flowers,” Ranboo shrugs like it’s nothing.

   He stares at the thing, petals fluttering in the wind, a little dance, too delicate for his grip. It sorta makes him sick. “I didn’t do anything.”

   Ranboo stares just below his eyes. “What?"

   “I didn’t earn it,” he insists, shoving it back towards Ranboo who lets his hands drop.

   “Oh. No, Tommy, it’s not like that. It’s a gift.”

   Tommy blinks. Ranboo purses his lips, puts a hand on his hip. He looks stupid, and Tommy feels awfully fond.

   “It’s like when someone gives you something,” he starts, hands gesticulating, “that they think you’ll like or makes them think of you—”

   Tommy cuts him off with a huff, feeling funny. “Yeah, I know what I gift is, prick.”

   Ranboo chuckles, throws his hands up in defense. “You asked!”

   Tommy finds himself smiling. He tucks the flower behind his ear.

   “Fine.” He admits. “Fine.”

   Sometimes it’s regret, acid in the pit of his stomach. He feels too much and it’s awful. He’s raw like an open wound, a bleeding heart.

   “I’m sorry.”

   Niki is walking by him on the prime path, rushing towards something. She turns. “What?”

   He kicks at the ground, face going red. He remembers a nuke that missed. He’s not stupid.

   “I don’t know why you hate me. And that’s probably part of the problem actually. But I’m sorry for whatever it was. I’m sorry that we’re not friends anymore.”

   He’s taking a stab at the honesty thing. Making amends.

   Her mouth bends strangely. “Oh.”

   Tommy can’t meet her eyes, he’s too much of a coward. “Yep,” he says to his shoes.

   “I—” she stutters. “Thank you, Tommy,” she settles.

   He just nods, eyes to the wood of the path. Her footsteps creak and he reaches out a hand after her, catches her wrist. She twists to face him.

   “Wait,” he says. “Before you go.”

   She meets his eyes, and he thinks that everything is so, so painfully different. That maybe he isn’t the only one who misses things. “Tommy?” She tilts her head.

   “Your bakery was my favorite place in L’manburg.” He manages, scratchy voice.

   She stares at him a moment. He lets her go, tugs at the gray streak in his hair.

   Then she flees. And he is alone again.

   Sometimes he feels like he might be swallowed whole. He feels like he’s waking up underwater, and his lungs are drowned, and his hair is plastered to his eyes.

   Sometimes he’s afraid.

   But he still wants to know. There’s a curious little fire in him, doused by time and plain old water, but not totally gone.

   “Are you ever sorry?” The walls of this stupid truck are suffocating. He just doesn’t want to be lied to anymore.

   Wilbur is passive as ever. “All the time,” it’s an admission of nothing.

   Tommy exhales, slow. He keeps his eyes forwards and cracks his knuckles. “Why don’t you apologize to me?” He asks. “You apologize to everyone, but not to me.”

   Because Jack Manifold is owed a sorry, and Dream is, and so are Phil and Tubbo and Ranboo. But not Tommy. He’s owed nothing at all. His suffering is an afterthought. His suffering is rewritten as the days go on, it’s warped into something it wasn’t.

   “You never liked to talk about things,” Wilbur raises his shoulders. Excuses.

   Tommy sits up straighter. “Maybe I do now,” he glares. “You don’t know.”

   “I suppose I don’t.” He sighs, glances at Tommy dimly. “I’ll tell you the truth, Tommy, because that’s what I’ve been trying recently.” He steels himself briefly, tugging his jacket straight and softening the edges of his face. He looks tense, beneath it. He looks like a panic hiding behind false bravery. “I think you’re scared of me,” he swallows, “and getting confirmation of the validity of that makes me more afraid than anything ever has.” It’s very clipped, the way he says it, very carefully worded. He’s thought about this, probably more than he cares to admit.

   Tommy just scowls, because that’s the dumbest shit he’s ever heard. Of course he’s not afraid of Wilbur. He loves Wilbur like a disease, he can’t get rid of it. It’s written in him to not give up.

   “I’m not scared of you,” he says, brief and honest. “I’m scared of what you could do sometimes. But I’m not scared of you.” He shakes his head.

   Wilbur looks just slightly desperate. “What could I do, Tommy? I’m not dangerous anymore.”

   And Tommy isn’t so sure that’s true.

   “Free Dream? I don’t know.”

   Wilbur rolls his eyes and Tommy flinches. “There it is again,” he says loudly. “Dream, the grand villain. What did he do to you, Tommy?” He leans too close. Tommy pulls back.

   “You know what he did,” he says, trying to breathe even. “You forgave him. It’s all collateral to you.”

   Wilbur scowls, sharp. “You don’t know how I feel.”

   “I know what you said,” he spits back.

   “I don’t know what he’s done wrong!” He throws up his hands in surrender. “Just that he saved your life and he saved mine and now he’s locked away.”

   Tommy laughs and it tastes bitter on his tongue. He hates arguing, but anger makes him feel safe, somehow, hidden behind a wall of flame. “Saved isn’t the word I would use.”

   “You’re alive, aren’t you?” Wilbur pushes, he always pushes.

   “Yeah,” he says, level. “I am. Hooray.”

   “Don’t joke about things like that, Tommy,” he chides. Tommy bristles. He remembers lava pools. He remembers towers. He remembers ‘it’s never my time to die.’

   “Who says I’m joking?” He jeers. He feels too loose, like he’s falling apart but he couldn’t care less.

   “Tommy, please.” Wilbur begs, and that at least is honest.

   “Fine,” he concedes. “Fine.” He makes a list of grievances in his head. It’s a familiar tune. “Dream killed me all three times. All three of my lives belong to him.”

   “People change,” Wilbur tries.

   “He didn’t,” Tommy says. “He’s worse.”

   “But why?”

   “Because he tortured me, Wilbur,” Tommy coughs, hot words on his tongue. “Because he exiled me and kept me there like a dog.” His heart races.

   “You were alone,” Wilbur tries to wave it off with a hand. “That was all. Ghostbur saw—“

   And Wilbur doesn’t get to say that name. Wilbur isn’t allowed that.

   “Ghostbur saw what he wanted to see,” Tommy says, a step away from a shout. “Ghostbur forgot everything else.”

   “Then tell me what you remember!” Wilbur throws his hands forward and Tommy stiffens, rigid and hot in his place. Something boils over. Something gives.

   “TNT. Dream slamming my face into the ground. ‘Put your stuff in the hole, Tommy’ ‘I’m your only friend, Tommy!’ ‘They hate you.’ I remember him killing all the animals near me so I’d have no source of food. I remember him grabbing me and shoving me and hurting me. I feel it still, it’s on my skin, I’m marked, I can't get it off,” he gestures frantically to his scars. His chest heaves. “I remember Logstead getting blown up. Just like my house, just like L’manburg all three fucking times. I remember waking up with water in my lungs. I remember wanting to hurl myself off a tower. Is that enough for you, Wil?” He barks,  “is that enough to smash that stupid fucking blank look on your face? He ruined me. He tried to kill my best friend, he gave you the tools to destroy my home, he stole my lives and he took my future, he ruined me. Is that enough for you?”

   He gasps, rubbing his hands all across his face and collapsing into a chair. He scrubs his eyes. He’s not gonna cry, he’s not.

   Wilbur, for the first time in his fucking life, is silent. The echo of his words stick to the walls. “Tommy, I—“ he starts but Tommy just can’t.

   “I know.” He says.

   “You wanted to hurl yours—“

   “I know.”

   He shivers, wraps his trembling arms around himself, and curls inward.

   Wilbur blinks slowly. “I didn’t know.” His voice is hoarse.

   Tommy tugs at his hair. “There’s a lot of stuff you don’t know.”

   He breathes out. “Thank you for telling me.”

   He shrugs, studies Wilbur for a moment. The man is rigid where he sits and his face holds a very fake sort of serenity. Too calm.

   “You look angry.” He says, because he knows. Wilbur shakes his head, reaches out and brushes hair from Tommy’s face.

   “Not at you.”

   Tommy’s eyes flutter at the contact. “Oh.”

   “I’m sorry,” Wilbur says, and Tommy feels it dimly.

   “Really?” Mostly he just feels sore.

   “Really. If I had known before, I would’ve—well, I’m not sure what I would’ve done. But I would’ve stopped. I would’ve listened to you.”

   “I tried to tell you,” he confesses softly. It’s too quiet to get loud now. “The words get stuck.”

   “That’s okay. That’s normal. You’re okay now.” He sounds half like he’s trying to reassure himself.

   “Okay.” He says.

   And Wilbur says “okay.”

   Maybe his skin is less like paper and more like shattered glass. Maybe that’s a better way to say what he means. He’s always afraid people are gonna break him or he’s gonna cut them with his edges. And there is no in between.

   He holds hands gently, for whose sake he’s not quite sure. His brother kisses his forehead, and he stays perfectly still. He doesn’t want his lips to be bloody.

   Everything he says is as true as it isn’t. And war is a game and war is a nightmare. And he’s seventeen-years-old and he wishes he was dead. Sometimes he still wakes up drowning.

   Things like that don’t leave you. They cling to your bones like hungry little leaches, latched on and sticky and draining. His blood is sour by now. But they don’t seem to mind.

   Life sucks, death sucks. So there’s nowhere to go at all. He’s cornered with rising lungs and a beating heart, because the great beyond isn’t really great at all.

But he’s trying. It’s hard, but he’s trying. Some days he feels fine.

   “Grab him!” Tubbo wheezes, and Tommy ducks under a counter, pulls Michael right up into his arms.

   As he looks at the boy’s wide eyes and toothy smile, he thinks of Fundy and L’manburg and before, guitar chords around fire pits, ghost stories that are realer than any of them could know.

   Michael pokes his nose. “Ba!” He says, and snorts. Tommy feels warm inside.

   “Ba,” he parrots, and Michael dissolves into giggles.

Some days he doesn’t.

   He wants to be a boy again. He wants his brother to scoop him up.

   (He still is a boy. His brother does).

   “I love you, Tommy. And I’m sorry that sorry isn’t enough.”

   “Me too,” he says through tears. “I am too.”

   And that’s how it’s supposed to be, he figures, roughly. Can’t have the good without the bad. Something something balance, right?

   So he’s making it. And it’s been better, but it’s also been worse, so he’ll take what he can get.

   “I’m not stupid, you know.” He rests his chin on his hand, watches the sun sink outside the foggy window of a new van. He feels strangely old.

   Wilbur gives him a sideways glance, somewhat of a once-over. He’s clingy again, recently. Knocking knuckles and lacing fingers, and the past sort of meshes with the present. Tommy likes the feeling of it about as much as he complains about it. But it’s bluster. It’s always been bluster.

   “I know, Toms,” Wilbur assures, like it’s easy as being alive, which is the sort of joke only the two of them can really get.

   He squeezes his loose fist into a ball. He’s not sure why his brain is stuck on this. Perhaps he’s just unused to being believed. “I’m not.”

   Wilbur reaches out and ruffles his hair, very gently, leaves his hand there. The sunset bathes the room in an orangey glow, sweet and soft, honey in the air.

   “I know. I’m the last person you need to tell.” His eyes catch the light and when he blinks they’re in soldier uniforms, and there’s a duel tonight, and L’manburg’s independence is on the line again, and Wilbur is saying ‘do whatever your heart says you should do.’

   His throat is dry. He swallows. “Okay.” It’s heavy, somehow. It feels heavy.

   Wilbur looks young and old all in one. They are rough and ugly and stitched together. They have white streaks in their hair. Tommy likes the way they match. “Things are gonna be better. Promise.”

   “You’ve broken promises before.” He says. He sounds slightly pathetic, like a child. But he is one, so perhaps he’s owed this.

   Wilbur looks impossibly sad. “I know.” He says, just above a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

   Tommy leans heavier on his hand. “I believe you.”

   “But not this one. Okay?” Wilbur grabs his shoulder, crosses their gazes. Blue eyes to brown, faint hues of orange, a van. It’s familiar and different. They are complicated but they are whole. “Not this one.”

   Tommy resigns. He hangs his sorrow on a coat rack for the night. He settles. “Alright, Wil.”

   Wilbur isn’t finished, though. He tugs Tommy forward into an embrace and kisses the top of his head.

   “I love you.” He says, and the words hit the air like the truth.

   “You too,” he says back. And it’s not quite right.

   But it’s better.