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"So, Eryn, buddy, what have you been up to lately?" Tommy tilted his head to the side slightly, watching his old friend twirl his axe like a baton, spinning it around and around his body with seemingly practiced ease. He couldn't help but feel somewhat impressed, and a little envious; his hands shook far too much these days for him to be able to pull off something like that, but he used to be able to. Eryn, meanwhile, as Tommy recalled, could barely hold a dagger without trembling. Anything sharp used to freak the poor guy out - Tommy had practically beaten (or stabbed) that out of them way back when, but he still never thought he'd see Eryn as at ease with a weapon as they seemed to be now. It was impressive, and he found himself wondering exactly how much he'd missed, how far Eryn had grown without him. It had been a long time…
"Oh, nothing much." Eryn shrugged, twirling the axe and sticking it into the ground beside him. He blew his bangs out of his face as he continued, mismatched eyes roaming around lazily, "honestly, coming here was pretty much the most interesting thing I've done recently, and it's not even that interesting." Tommy let out a low, offended scoff, but before he could defend his home, Eryn shot him a faint smile and a wink, and Tommy may or may not have forgotten how to think. While his brain short-circuited and heat spread up to the tips of his ears and down to his neck, Eryn picked the axe back up and continued to twirl it around them once more. "Anyway, I took up adventuring for a while after everything, just kinda started roaming around, all that fun stuff."
"Sounds boring," Tommy replied bluntly. "I fought in three wars."
Eryn managed to look startled, regarding him with something akin to disbelief for a moment. It didn't take long for curiosity to brighten those mismatched eyes, however, and Tommy smirked. "Bullshit," Eryn finally challenged, tilting his head. "You're chaos incarnate, but you're not that insane, come on." They were just goading him, Tommy knew that very well, but he still couldn't help but laugh. Insane he was not, or maybe he was, he wasn't sure anymore. But he did know that Eryn was about to get a kick out of the stories he was about to hear, and he couldn't wait.
"Alright, pal," he agreed for the moment, crossing his arms over his chest and offering his childhood friend a crooked grin. "Come help me gather more wood, and I'll tell you all about it."
"All of that for some music discs," Eryn was laughing by the time Tommy finished his first story, concluding the first disc war. "I didn't even know you liked music that much- ugh, actually, no, nevermind, you always sang the loudest in church." His friend fell into step with him with a grin, and Tommy huffed out a startled laugh at the memory, eyes widening slightly. Fuck, he had almost forgotten about that. The blond dissolved into laughter almost at once, and it didn't take long for Eryn to follow suit; they sounded bewildered but genuine, almost wheezing by the time they managed to spit out, "what's so funny?" and shove their shoulder against Tommy's to shut him up - not that that was very effective. If anything, it just sent him into another bout of laughter.
"I forgot about that," he sighed fondly once he managed to calm down, snickering. "You were actually part of the choir, weren't you? I sang louder than you. Better, too. Your dad should've had me up there, I'll tell you that," he crowed, and Eryn laughed again. "Fuck, I miss going to church. We've got one, I mean- nobody actually goes, I don't think. Pretty sure we don't even have a pastor or anything, it's just there." He breathed out a sigh and shook his head, amused.
"You should've led with that! What are we building a house for?! I wanna live in the church!"
"You can't live in the church," Tommy protested, laughing slightly.
Eryn grinned, reaching over to shove his shoulder lightly. "Yeah, and some would say you can't live in a little dirt cave underneath my house like a raccoon but you still did that when you were-"
"Shut up, shut up!"
They both burst into laughter again, loud and breathless and free and Tommy felt so light.
He didn't want this day to end.
"And then L'Manberg blew up," Tommy concluded, making a face. "... for the first time."
"That's the flag I t-bagged, isn't it?" Eryn placed a few torches by the door. They had finished most of the house, just the roof to be added - but Eryn said he would handle that tomorrow, and Tommy was more than willing to sit back and relax with his friend for the rest of the night. The question nearly sent him into another bout of hysterical laughter, and he couldn't choke back a few giggles despite himself, covering his mouth. No, he didn't miss the way Eryn's expression seemed to soften at the sound, the way the corners of their lips curled upwards and a blush dusted across their darkened features, but he said nothing. Neither of them said anything, and Tommy wasn't sure either of them ever would. "Well, I guess I was right to do that, it fucking su-"
Tommy drew his axe and swung at them, and Eryn skipped back several steps with a cackle while the blade slammed into one of the wooden planks. "NOO MY WALL TOMMY WHAT THE-"
"Take it back," Tommy warned, ripping the axe out and pointing the blade at them. "Or else."
A long pause followed as Eryn regarded him for a moment, seemingly trying to figure out if he was serious or not. He didn't seem to be certain, though, because he didn't tease him any further; but his face did split into a brief grin as he took a few more steps back, hands raising in surrender. "Okay, alright, I give, I give. I take it back. Sorry about your L'Manberg or whatever."
"Thank you." Tommy beamed, letting the axe disappear. Eryn smirked, and ventured a few more steps forward, crossing their arms over their chest with an amused sparkle in their eyes.
"You're welcome," his friend replied graciously. "However, as your best friend, I do believe I have a right to mock your beloved dead country, because without me, your beloved dead country may never have existed in the first place, as I am one of the more important influential figures in your life and therefore shaped you and so therefore shaped this country, indirectly, so I can mock it." To top the speech off, Eryn stuck their tongue out at him, and Tommy just blinked. "So, there."
Tommy stayed silent for a moment, then drew his axe again.
"NO WAIT-"
Doomsday and the final disc war were much harder to talk about, because it meant explaining a lot of things that Tommy didn't want to get into - he loosely ventured into 'exile' territory, hesitantly recalling the events that led up to it, and though he skipped some vital parts of what happened afterwards, Eryn listened with a sense of silent understanding as they settled down on the floor for the night, wrapped in blankets and drinking coffee. Getting to the actual Doomsday part was a bit of a relief, because it meant venturing out of the exile topic, but once he started talking about the final disc war, Tommy couldn't suppress the shiver that crawled up his spine. Thinking about it was hard enough, knowing he'd almost lost his best friend that day. Talking about it wasn't any easier, but he did his best to get through the important details.
"So that's why that Dream guy's in prison," was all Eryn said when he finished, an odd look written across his face. Tommy grunted slightly in response and leaned back on his hands, shrugging, and Eryn wrinkled his nose slightly. "Oh. I heard rumors that he'd killed you, but I g-"
Tommy flinched.
"Oh." Eryn's lips thinned. Their gaze wandered for a moment, glancing him over silently for a few seconds while Tommy struggled to regain his bearings again, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. The impulse to snap was strong, but he bit his tongue and choked back everything he wanted to say, focusing on his mug instead with a scowl as he tugged his blanket tighter around his shoulders. "Is that why… I mean, I wasn't going to say anything, but I noticed you don't have your clips. Are you hiding the last one or something? 'Cuz you shouldn't do that."
Tommy made a soft, quiet groan in the back of his throat. Every member of the Dream SMP had those heart clips, three little ones they spawned with naturally and the only things they kept after a canon death. Tommy had removed his first two dutifully after his first two lives were taken, and then when Dream had… when he… in the prison, after that had happened, Tommy had removed the last one. He wasn't sure what else to do, what was he supposed to do? He didn't know how many lives he had left, and that uncertainty just left him paranoid every time he saw the clip pinned to the front of his shirt. Wilbur had pinned all three of his on immediately after his revival - a cocky move, if you asked Tommy - but still. Tommy didn't want to talk about that, he didn't want to think about that. He already felt envious as it was, staring at Eryn's heart clips. One was clipped to his hair, one was on his sleeve, and the other one resided over his chest.
"I'm not hiding it," Tommy found himself saying. "I don't have it anymore."
Eryn's eyebrows raised slightly, a skeptical look crossing their face. "... and why's that?"
"I don't want to talk about this anymore." Tommy took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Don't snap, he didn't want to snap at Eryn. They'd just reunited, and Tommy didn't want to do anything to ruin their relationship right off the bat, for fuck's sake. His lips pursed, twisting his face into a scowl at the responding silence, and he almost expected Eryn to keep pressing, keep pushing.
Instead, they shrugged, and sighed. "Okay." Silence followed for a while after that, and Tommy let himself hunch forward, wrapping the blanket tighter around himself and taking a sip of coffee.
"So tell me more about this Tubbo guy," Eryn finally spoke.
Tommy smirked into his mug. "You want to meet him?" He finished off the rest of his coffee and set the cup down on the floor, hunching forward with a sigh and rolling his shoulders back slightly. "I think the two of you would get along, maybe. We don't really talk much these days," he mused, biting back the instinctive pang of sorrow. He was used to it. He was used to the grief and the frustration and the inadequacy. Tubbo and Ranboo had better things to do, with each other - neither of them needed Tommy anymore, if they ever had. And Tommy was… on his own. At least, he was, but maybe with Eryn here, he wouldn't have to be again. "I guess you're allowed to interact. You already know who's off limits, not that that stopped you earlier…" He grumbled, and Eryn huffed out a laugh, leaning back on their hands with a cheeky little smirk.
"And I fully intend on meeting 'Techno' and 'Wilbur', too."
"You have a death wish."