Archive of Our Own

It’s cold.

That’s what he first notices when he pulls himself out of his own dreams. Then again— when is it not? When is the sharp chill of fall not drilling into his limbs? It’s a repetitive story, at this point. He wakes up, and he is cold. Moving does not help. Layers do not help. The untameable crackling sparks and embers of a campfire do not help. The words of others do not help. 

He is alone in this dawn of ice. It’s a chore even to open his eyes, he realizes quickly; rolling over in his bed leads him to face the light of day (through a small, circular window in his little mud shack), and it is not a sight one would ever call beautiful. Sunrises, he thinks, are supposed to be special. At hell-knows-what-time in the morning, the sun is just rising over the tips of trees, touching them with its hands of gold and whispering the secrets of living.

Tommy does not want them. Slowly, he lowers his body back into his bed, joints creaking with the effort. He has been in bed for… hm. With a grunt, Tommy angles himself in a way that makes his communicator’s screen visible. Seven forty-three, it reads. Seven forty-three; November sixteenth. 

Tommy feels his blood run like ice in his veins, sinking further into the cot that he’s never had the time nor the energy to replace. To put it quite lightly, he feels… disgusting. Every time he blinks, there is blood on his hands, and with each breath comes a guilt so strong that it inflicts nausea upon him.

Maybe that’s from skipping meals. Tommy closes his eyes again, ignores the blood, and wraps his hands tightly in his thin blankets, half tempted to drift off once again. Half tempted to sleep the whole day away. They can’t force him to do anything, really. They can’t make him get out of bed. They can’t make him take care of himself. It’s cold, holy fuck is it cold, and Tommy’s not willing to take a step any further out of his house than he absolutely has to.

The door. Someone’s knocking on the door. A stillness seizes his heart, and Tommy exhales. When he opens his eyes, the sun’s light seems impossibly bright. It didn’t seem so just a few moments ago. Then again, he wasn’t fully awake. Tommy groans out a response, partly a greeting but mostly unintelligible noise, and somebody’s voice sounds from the other side. 

“Tommy,” they say; he could recognize Tubbo’s familiar cadence anywhere. Shame, though, that Tubbo feels the need to knock now. Shame that Tubbo doesn’t just barge in like he used to. Shame that the stake driven between them is covered in the inscribed names of so many people that Tommy can’t even think to name them all— shame that Tubbo feels it, too— shame that the camaraderie between them is halfway to lost, and has been buried under a loose pile of dirt for months. 

“It’s early, sorry,” says Tubbo, through the door, and Tommy loses his grip on the concept of shame, receding back into the familiarity of tired bones. “You up yet?” This, Tommy struggles to answer.

He is not up. He does not want to be up. He doesn’t want to be up for a long, long while. Maybe ever.

“Yeah,” he calls back instead, throwing into it what little strength he has been able to amass this morning. “Yeah, I’m… up.” He turns over onto his back and stares at the ceiling, and the door clicks, and Tommy is blessed with the relief of company. Finally, Tubbo sets foot into his house, closing the door behind him, and Tommy, still weak with the weight of morning, merely turns his head to look at him. 

When Tubbo approaches, it’s… careful. More careful than it should be, for Tubbo, who’s so… Tommy can’t even find a way to describe it, but it feels wrong. Something about it is wrong. Tubbo is so grossly tentative. He sits on the edge of Tommy’s bed, pulling his legs up, and fixes the collar of his furred Snowchester coat. “Good morning,” he says, and Tommy closes his eyes, letting out a breath.

The blood stares back at him from inside his eyelids. He opens them with a jolt. “Morning,” he finds himself replying without thinking too much about it, eyes transfixed on the ceiling rather than Tubbo’s face. It hurts to look at Tubbo’s face so early in the morning. So rawly close to the sixteenth. No; it is the sixteenth. He should probably face that, really. “You need me?” Tommy says, and it sounds… hm. He hates Tubbo to see him like this, in the mornings, but it’s been a few times now that the boy has stopped by recently. The first time in a while was… tensely awkward. Tubbo’d had no idea what to say, and Tommy hadn’t been about to help him.

It’s easier now, even if only a little bit. “Today,” he says, and a pain instills itself in Tommy’s chest. Tubbo isn’t going to go into detail. Tubbo isn’t going to talk about it. Tubbo isn’t one for that sort of stuff. Tubbo would rather make it a joke. Tommy’s safe— “There’s a memorial.” 

Yeah. Tubbo won’t really talk about it. Only the memory of it. 

“Right,” Tommy says, and sighs, groaning. For a second, he is possessed by a shadow of himself that has since been lost, and he manages to push himself up to sit. “This is… so dramatic.”

With a smile, Tubbo exhales, body sagging against the wall as he finally relaxes, and Tommy knows he’s broken through. Suddenly, things are much more comfortable. Suddenly, the weight of history is not pushing violently down on their shoulders. It’s so much more comfortable, so much more like what they used to be, that Tommy feels the way his chest opens. The way his heart is left bare for Tubbo to do as he pleases this morning.

It always happens. It’s fine. He has plenty of bandages left. 

The chill is back (or, in fact, it never left; Tommy has just re-noticed it again), but Tubbo carries on as if he doesn’t even notice. Maybe he doesn’t. “You’re coming,” he says to Tommy; the latter recoils.

“I don’t—”

“Too bad.” Tubbo’s voice is firm. It carries the heat of persistence; Tommy wishes he could feel it like he used to. 

When he finally pulls his eyes off of the ceiling, Tubbo is sitting directly in his line of sight, regarding him with fierce eyes, and Tommy has nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Tubbo’s right, of course. He should go. It just proves… difficult. 

He decides to dance around the topic, like normal. He decides to throw himself back into his rhythm, like normal. Tubbo’s seen enough of his morning vulnerability. Tubbo’s seen enough of the thin thread that threatens to snap every day. “Where’s boob boy, eh?”

Tubbo gives him a sharp look. “Tommy, we don’t go everywhere together—”

“No need to lie, bee boy. You’re a couple of right pricks.” Tommy swallows, hopes it’s taken as a joke. Hopes that the sincerity in it doesn’t show. He’s joking, he’s only joking. They’re his only friends, he can’t be treating them like— “I just didn’t know if, you know, you were going to invite him. I don’t care if he comes. He’s a pussy, but he’s not mean.” 

“Yeah, because that’s your job,” Tubbo jokes, and it cuts deep. It opens a hole in his chest that he can’t fill. This is what he gets. “Tommy… I don’t know. I don’t think it’s right for him to be here, it… didn’t affect him as much as it affected…” He trails off. Tommy suppresses an affronted snort.

“No need to call me out.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tubbo drawls, lifting his hands, but a tilted smile returns to his face. “Really. He’s watching Michael. It’s fine.” And the uncomfortable tension subsides, and Tommy swallows, and guilt invades his headspace, and he feels irreversible shame that he doesn’t want Ranboo present. He feels inconsolable humiliation, embarrassment of himself, that he’d rather do this whole memorial thing without Ranboo. 

He just wants the attention. He’s an awful person. Prime, he couldn’t get any further self-absorbed—

“Whatever,” he says, talking over the screaming in his head. “I don’t care. He can come if he wants.”

“If he comes, Michael comes, and I don’t want him to see that.”

“Right.”

Another exhale, another long moment. Tommy fears the minute where Tubbo will ask him to get out of bed, to get dressed, to brush his hair, to eat. He doesn’t know if he can do it, actually. He doesn’t even know if it’s possible. At this rate, he’s better left in his bed. At this rate, it would be better for him not to show up at all.

And a thought strikes him then. 

“Wilbur’s going to be there,” he says without a sliver of a doubt, without a notion of hesitance in sight, and Tubbo’s expression sours again. Tommy can’t help but hate himself for consistently being the reason his best friend’s (?) face falls.

Tubbo shakes his head. “Wilbur’ll stick his nose in any business. We just have to kind of… deal with it, I guess.”

Tommy is more than familiar with dealing with it. He’s been told to deal with it so many times now that the phrase shows up in his dreams (nightmares). He’s well accustomed to the quiet way in which he must deal with everything. Deal with it, Wilbur said when the food supply was low and Schlatt was hot on their tails. Deal with it, Dream said when Tommy threw his shit into the hole (again). Deal with it, Sam said when Tommy finally saw the light of day after hell stole his breath in Pandora’s Vault.

But he supposes he can’t complain. This is the price he pays for Ghostbur’s death. This is the consequence that comes with his brash actions. He always makes these kinds of mistakes; he would be foolish to think they’re ever going to stop plaguing him. 

“So,” says Tubbo, and Tommy frowns, because he knows what’s coming. He’s familiar with the ache of productivity. When Tubbo sees Tommy’s reluctance, his eyes seem to soften. “I can help you,” he says. 

And the walls are up so fast that it hurts. “I’m not a fucking baby, Tubs,” he spits. “I’m…” His eyes find the thin sheets and don’t lift again. “Just… go employ your organizationly skills. Maybe give me a list of who’s coming so I can decide who’s going to fuckin’ snipe me.” A breath. “It’s fine.” A breath.

Tubbo eases off the cot, and Tommy feels his weight move and does not comment when Tubbo says, “I’ll find something to make for breakfast.”

—

It’s even colder outside. Tommy’s not sure how this development came to be, but it’s here, and it’s painfully familiar, and he wishes for one second that it would warm up outside.

False hope. That wouldn’t help anyway, and there’s no use complaining when it’s nothing new.

There are more people here than he expected to be here. A part of Tommy aches to be front and center of attention, to start fights and arguments and cause trouble like they all expect him to, but the bigger part, the smarter part, begs him to stay at the back of the crowd, where he feels comfortable enough to avoid the eyes that track him. (It doesn’t even work. They all keep casting glances at him— Wilbur most of all.)

Tubbo doesn’t want to do the speech, Tommy comes to realize. He thought maybe he could, but he took two steps up to the podium and then froze. Tommy’s since helped him down and taken the little pile of index cards Tubbo has written a memoir on; Tommy doesn’t want to read off of this. Not in front of all these people. They all hate him. Sam is in the crowd. Niki. 

He’s fairly certain Wilbur is here, though he hasn’t seen him. Tommy wonders how Wilbur will avoid the harsh, biting words of the people whose home he destroyed. 

He’s half a mind to turn around and walk home and leave Tubbo to deal with the mess that he’s created, but he’s no fucking pussy, and he’s tired of being blamed for abandonment (and tired of Tubbo seeking comfort in Ranboo rather than him), so he obliges, painfully slowly.

It’s fine. The speech isn’t for another five minutes. The nerves have long since settled (or so he tells himself). What does he have to fear, anyway? Judgement? He’s long past that phase (he isn’t, but saying it helps it come true faster, or something). It’s fine. Tommy has nothing left to lose. 

And holy shit, that is a shattering thought— but he’s right. Tommy has let go of everything that he would deem his own. He can barely even fucking function properly, let alone have belongings, make connections, keep up with social contracts. Tommy’s lost all there is to lose and more. In fact, he’d do anything to be back in that prison. He’d do anything to face the repercussions of his own stupid mistakes (Dream being those repercussions, each and every single one of them). He’d do anything to feel at least the heat of lava. He should be dead. He should be dead. He should— 

Tubbo’s hand is on his shoulder, and the air turns from stifling to crisp and fresh and cold once again. “Tommy,” he says quietly. “Are you sure? I think I can—”

“It’s fine,” says Tommy, forcefully. “Is it time?” And then, before even giving Tubbo a chance to answer: “Let’s just get this over with.”

Tubbo regards him warily. “Be careful,” he says. “Don’t say anything I wouldn’t.” And oh, how it hurts to know that he is no longer trusted. But, fuck— this entire day so far has been a mesh of self pity. Every day this week has. This whole month. Tommy can’t stand this shit. He can’t deal with it anymore. The bindings of inferiority have him in a choke hold, but he can still breathe, and he can still get messages out, and he can still let everyone know how much the pain of a lost L’Manberg will never cease to hurt.

So he straightens his spine and takes the cue cards from his best friend’s hand and sets his jaw and says, “Tubso, you resigned those rights to me as soon as you handed me this shit.” He grins, and as faked as it is, it feels normal. He doesn’t know if Tubbo notices the false niceties, but if he does, he doesn’t say anything. All Tommy receives is a bleak grin.

Whatever, he thinks as he climbs the stairs to the stage that has been built and rebuilt time and time again. Tubbo can fuck right off if he thinks Tommy’s going to say anything that doesn’t sound genuine. Tubbo’s bad at feelings, and Tommy will always have too many of them.

When he finally stands in front of the podium, he is too tall, too lanky, too scrawny and too messy. When he stands in front of the crowd, who are making small talk amongst themselves (they haven’t even noticed him yet; he’s glad), he feels colloquially out of place. He doesn’t belong up here. It was always Wilbur and Tubbo who were the presidents, Wilbur and Tubbo who did the talking.

Tommy was supposed to be the president. He gave it to Tubbo. Then things went wrong, like they often do as results of his decisions. He could have handled the pressure of presidency. He could have filled Wilbur’s shadow. Instead, he left Tubbo to do so—

Tommy clears his throat, tapping on the mic. “Is this thing on?” he cracks, already feeling too big for the stage when his voice echoes and people turn to look. His hands shake as he sets his cue cards on the little ledge on the face of the podium; Tommy stares directly into the crowd of watching faces and purses his lips. 

Quackity and his goopy friend are here; he didn’t expect that. Tubbo probably convinced him. Apparently, they’re business partners now. Tommy goes on, scouring the crowd. Jack and Niki are here; he resolves to try and avoid them as best as possible. Foolish and Ponk; he doesn’t know them well enough to comment. Puffy; his heart aches to talk to her, but he knows it would likely end in dissatisfaction for the both of them. Sapnap; Tommy averts his eyes. 

There are more, but Tommy stops looking and starts listening and realizes they have gone quiet so he can talk. “Right,” he says. “Forgot I was up here for a sec. Funny how L’Manberg does that to you.” There’s no laughter. That’s fine. Tommy shifts on his feet and glances down at the cue cards. Tubbo, don’t fail me now. 

“Good afternoon, everybody,” he says with a fresh tone, sure to make it clear that he is reading off of a pre-written script. “It’s lovely to have you here, even if it may be in the ruins of what many of us once called home.” Tommy pauses, shifts the cards, looks up at the crowd as he does so to fill the silent space with more words. “I’m not gonna lie to you all, Tubbo definitely wrote this. I have no idea what the fuck I’m saying.” 

Smattered laughter gives Tommy the strength to breathe. The atmosphere clears, and the chill makes his hands shake harder, and he goes on. Smile, says the cue card. Tommy does not. “I’m sure you’re all well aware of the date, thanks to the invitations I— Tubbo— sent out over comms. It’s been quite an eventful year.” Tommy takes a breath. Steadies himself. It’s been quite an eventful year, alright. “I’d like to say that you’ve all— you’ve all done so well in coping with everything going on, and moving forward from our lowest point. Puffy, your therapy services were…” the cue card says to pause… “much needed. Niki, your bakery is back and better than ever.” The words feel plastic in his mouth. Cotton scrapes against his tongue on the way out. “Jack, the hotel is looking good, and Sam, you— you’ve—” Tommy pauses. He can’t fucking read this. He can’t. 

He glances to Tubbo. Tubbo stares back, a crease in his brow that Tommy can’t read the tone of. 

A breath, a beat, a shiver. 

“Sam, you’ve done well with the prison, and we thank you for your services,” Tommy says tightly, refusing to look up from his cue card again. “Quackity, Las Nevadas looks better than ever before, and Tommy—” 

He stops. Falters. He can’t read his own out loud. Tommy, we’re so glad to have you back, he reads silently, swallowing the lump in his throat. It’s a lie that Tubbo has written on behalf of the people that don’t care. It’s a reference to a death he wishes was permanent. How laughable, that he hasn’t done anything worth mentioning other than just to live. Natural. Tommy looks up, feeling constricted, and smirks in that same forced way as earlier. “And Tubbo, you’re a right prick, but I guess you’re doing well in Snowchester.”

Chuckles. Maybe only one. Maybe only from Puffy. Did Sapnap laugh? Did Big Q? His eyes scour the crowd, and then he chokes on the remembrance of the job he’s supposed to be doing. “Right. The point is—” shuffling cue cards— “we’ve all been coping. Even those of us who didn’t live here permanently have been affected.” Again, Tommy wonders the real reason Tubbo didn’t let Ranboo tag along, if this is in the speech. “But—” A pause. Why the hell did Tommy agree to this? He’s doing worse even than Tubbo would be, and he can’t even fucking read. “Today I’d like to bring to attention the things we mourn. Maybe it would be better to say we’ll celebrate them— besides, it’s better to be happy that it ever happened than to cry ourselves to sleep over missed opportunities.”

This is the fakest shit he’s ever read. Tommy recoils at the fact that he doesn’t even believe the words coming out of his own mouth. Tubbo wrote this, he reminds himself. These are Tubbo’s thoughts. He shuffles. Breathes. His arms tremble violently, and he’s sure there’s a knot in the back of his hair that he missed, and he’s trying to rearrange the cue cards and— and he’s— 

His hands shake so violently that the cards tip, and he fumbles, and then they all fall to the wood beneath his feet, a few stolen by the chill of November. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

For a moment, he is a deer frozen in headlights. You promised yourself you’d be better than this, he thinks to himself, and it comes with a sour taste. That thought has been nagging at him for years. He looks to Tubbo, who’s mouthing something, coming closer, but Tommy looks back out at the sea of people, and his stomach drops into his shoes.

It’s fine. Wilbur’s… not here, hopefully. He can just… fuck, fuck…

“Right,” he says, grabbing onto the mic and pulling it closer to himself. “Right.” He stares into the first eyes he can find, and Puffy smiles back at him: soft, encouraging, welcoming. He misses her therapy, the more he thinks about it. Maybe he should go back. Maybe it would be good for him.

Wrong topic. “So,” he begins, with struggle. “Seems I’ve dropped the fucking speech. Not to worry; I do happen to be a little epic myself, and— well. I almost got the presidency, so it’s fine. It counts.” A chuckle. He’s living, breathing, existing. “Listen, guys— I can’t do any of that fake shit anymore.” Tommy grabs both sides of the podium, takes a breath, and pushes forward under the burning stares of the old people of L’Manberg.

“It’s shit. Alright? Today’s awful.” Tommy runs his tongue over his chapped lips and hardens his gaze. “The sixteenth was the end of life as we knew it— and Prime, that sounds fucking dramatic, but it’s true. We didn’t have a choice in it. We were forced to watch as the shit we loved got blown up— sorry, Tubbo, I don’t think you wrote any swears into your speech, but I’m going to sprinkle them in.”

A glance at Tubbo proves that he seems to understand that the joke, the shallow apology, is for more than just the swearing. A nod from his best friend prompts Tommy to go on.

“It was bad. Of course it was bad, and for the people of Pogtopia, it was the worst.” His knuckles are white gripping the edges of the podium. “We were told there could be a traitor, a rat in the party, but the trust among us was too strong for our own good. There was suspicion, sure, but we carried on like normal, and— fuck, I— just— we all know that nobody expected it to be, uh, be Wilbur.” The name is searing hot on his tongue. He finds it hard to breathe. Tommy lowers his eyes, swallows, and goes on despite the tremor in his voice.

“Wilbur was… my brother. Wilbur had a certain spark to him, a smile that convinced everyone to follow him. But,” he says, “you all aren’t here to hear about that. We’ve had Wilbur’s memorial, and Prime almighty, the fucker came back to life. Wouldn’t you know it,” he mutters, gesturing to himself. “Guess we’re matching a little too much for our own good. I think I’m—” getting a little off topic — “nevermind. The point is, as I’ve said before, coping is… fucking difficult.” Tommy exhales, pauses. Where is he going with this? What the fuck— 

“Coping is when you wake up in the morning,” he starts, ignoring the obvious shake in his tone, “and you can’t make anything for breakfast. Hell, you can’t even get out of bed. Coping is gaining friends and then losing them all in the same day— coping is trying new things that you figure out you hate less than a week later. It’s fuckin’ hard. It’s hard to cope. And I— I would— know that more than anybody, I guess.

“I’m not here to dismiss your traumas. Each and every one of you is as valid as the next.” He learned that line from Puffy. “What I’m here for is to sympathize. Empathize, even. A lot of us have been through a lot. Whether you’re just some scrappy kid from a global server, or you’re a full grown adult who’s got the wisdom for this shit— we’ve all suffered, and we’ve all hurt, but this is what brings us together. This, L’Manberg—” Tommy extends both his hands, and the shock that runs through him is so fucking cold that he nearly falls over— “this is what brings us together. We— we’re fuckin’, like— at this point, we’re all mad at each other over something or another. And I know a lot of you are—” mad at me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. 

Tommy resets. He breathes. He drops his arms, almost forgetting they were even there in the first place. He’s numb. “This is our shared experience,” Tommy says. “Tubbo’s right. Even if you didn’t live here, even if you weren’t directly involved— it hurt everyone in some way. This is what brings us together, and this is what makes even the most different of us similar. L’Manberg is— was— the turning point in our personal histories, and it’s never going away.”

Tommy presses his lips together. Maybe he’s needed to say this for a long time. Maybe it’s been aching to get out, begging to eat away at the iron walls that make up his figure. 

“L’Manberg fucked us all over, but that’s why we are who we are. So yeah— maybe it feels wrong. Maybe it feels like a fuckin’ funeral, with all we’ve lost, but we— we can celebrate. We should celebrate.” He’s gripping the wood so hard that it leaves dark marks in his skin, bruises across his palms. “We don’t have games, and we’ll never have L’Manberg back, but let’s have our do-over. This isn’t a memoir, alright?” A beat for emphasis, and he delivers his final blow: “It’s a festival.”

Silence. Tommy tries to step back from the podum, but his head’s reeling, and he’s shaking so hard that he thinks he’s going to pass out. He reaches for the edge of the wood, gripping it to keep himself on his own two feet and turning his face from the mic, and his legs threaten to buckle under him. They’re staring at him. They hate him. The speech was shit. Tommy made a fool of himself trying to improvise. It wasn’t funny enough. It was bad— 

They’re staring, but then they’re clapping. Puffy is the first to clap for him, and Tommy can’t tell for sure, but she looks a little teary-eyed. He knows that he impressed her, if nobody else. Then Quackity joins; Tommy wonders if he’s biased, even if his slime friend tries to imitate. But then it’s Foolish. Then it’s Ponk. Sapnap. The people that don’t even know him that well. Then it’s Niki. Sam. Jack. The people that know him too well to even like him. And then— 

A beanie that covers dark, curly hair rises over the crowd, furious clapping coming from its direction. The applause from the rest of the audience dies down, but the new man comes forward, clapping aggressively until he’s the only one left, which garners stares from the crowd. Tommy would be thankful that the attention has turned from himself, if it weren’t for the nausea that returns tenfold in the pit of his stomach. 

The man opens his arms wide, finally ceasing the clapping and staring up at Tommy, whose stomach drops into the bottom of his shoes— fuck, fuck, tell me he didn’t just hear all of that. He swallows hard, and his hands are bound to the podium, and he can’t. He can’t let go. He can’t turn his face away.

“Oh, Tommy,” says Wilbur happily, loudly, and Tommy has never been so upset to see his brother. 

“Hello,” he says uneasily, shifting from foot to foot and realizing that the mic is still on. Before he can signal to Tubbo to cut it, Wil’s talking again, and Tommy is frozen to his spot. 

“It was a great speech. Lovely, even when you fucked up. You really paid homage to my country, I’d say,” Wilbur murmurs, and Tommy swallows, a frown etching itself into his face. He can’t bicker. He’s in front of an entire crowd. He’s on a mic. They’re all watching. 

“Tubbo’s country,” he says, and the crowd murmurs. 

Wilbur’s eyes flicker, and Tommy knows he only let it happen because Tommy’s the only one who can see him. It’s not a sign of weakness— it’s a warning. “I just think calling it a festival is a little… ill-timed. I don’t know. Could just be me.” 

Tommy regards him with a tight, uncertain gaze. Wilbur has always been better than him at this. He does not have the upper hand, nor will he ever (he has tried and failed numerous times). Without anything to counter, he swallows. “It’s…” he tries, and...

And Wilbur’s eyes crinkle at the corners, because he knows he’s won. “Don’t worry about it, Toms,” he says. “I can take it from here. There are some things I’d like to say, personally, that I never got to.”

The crowd rustles, and then— then there is Tommy’s savior. “Wilbur,” says Quackity lowly, stepping forward, “no one wants you here. You’re the reason—”

“I’m the reason?” Wilbur laughs in disbelief. “I’m the reason— hah! Quackity, I think you’d like to hear a recount of the story that isn’t biased, that isn’t from Tommy—”

“Fuck you,” Tommy spits, and the mic picks it up, and then Wilbur and Quackity are both silent. 

“What?” his old brother finally says. “Sorry?"

“I said—” Tommy embraces it, feels the freezing fury course through his veins, shivers with the chill of anger and finally moves a hand to grip the mic— “fuck you, Wilbur. Fuck you. You’re a fucking cunt— you should be ashamed of yourself.” Wilbur opens his mouth, but Tommy practically hisses, “No. Shut the— shut the fuck up. You’ve talked enough.” A terribly shaky breath as the frustration, the anger, grows. “Guys— Wilbur Soot, everyone,” he says, seething with rage, “the man who took it all from us to fucking begin with. Thanks, Wilbur, for showing up today, so we can fucking shit on you. Stupid fucking idiot— I hope you’re fucking proud of yourself,” he snaps, trying to hold himself from screaming. It’s hard, but he’s— he’s on a mic. Even so, the next part comes out louder than he means it to: “Next time you die, stay a little longer, why don’t you,” he spits. “Burn in hell. And never call yourself my fucking brother again.”

He can’t find anyone’s eyes. They start to speak as he backs away, voices overlapping one another in a cacophony of dissonance in Tommy’s head until it swims around in vicious, whirling circles. He’s cold, so cold, and now he embraces it with open arms, wheeling away from the podium. Before Tubbo can approach him, Tommy avoids the stairs altogether, jumping off the podium from the back and hitting the ground with a roll. Dusted in leaves, rage, and the threat of tears, Tommy swallows his hurt and ignores the shouts and calls of those who beg for him back (or those who think he should be punished for what he said).

Maybe Wilbur didn’t deserve that. Maybe Wilbur didn’t deserve to be called names, to be sworn at, to be yelled at in front of the whole crowd— but maybe the rest of them didn’t fucking deserve it. Maybe the rest of them deserved their home. Maybe the rest of them should have been the ones to win. Maybe the rest of them didn’t deserve to watch Wilbur destroy what they’d all worked so hard for.

“Fuck,” says Tommy, kicking a rock with all the energy he has left in him and gritting his teeth. They chatter violently, and he is alone. He breathes. He lives. 

He wishes he didn’t.

—

Tommy is not sure how he got here.

It’s late. He’s done a lot of walking. It would have been faster to go through the Nether, but he needed some time to stew in his own anger before he let anything else happen, so he walked. And he walked. And it got darker, and it got colder, and it got tiring— and Tommy’s hands are still numb, but when aren’t they?

It’s fine. There’s a fireplace in Ranboo’s house.

In his defense— he didn’t mean to come here, of all places. But he was thinking, or trying to, of places that they wouldn’t come looking for him. His house wouldn’t have been safe. Snowchester— nah. Ranboo’s actually there, and Tubbo would have looked there eventually. Nobody else really puts up with him enough to let him camp out in their houses, especially not after his outburst on stage, so he figured he’d go somewhere where no one else would be, and he already knew how to get there, and he remembered seeing it when he came here with Wilbur—

Ranboo has a house in the Arctic, alongside Phil’s and Techno’s houses. Tommy hasn’t gone near them, and he doesn’t plan to. Phil doesn’t care about him, invalidated every feeling he ever had about Wilbur when the discussion arose, and Tommy will not be on good terms with Technoblade for what may well be the rest of his life (Techno will always live longer).

So Tommy is curled up by the fireplace in Ranboo’s house. It’s actually not that bad here, for a little bitch like Ranboo. The fire brings feeling back to his skin, even if it doesnt bring warmth, and it smells of a smoke he wishes he could capture and take home with him. 

There are little candies in one of the drawers, too (he didn’t mean to snoop, but okay, he did, and Ranboo wouldn’t even mind, so it’s fine), so he’s had some of those. On top of it all, Ranboo has a little bookshelf. While Tommy doesn’t necessarily love recreational reading, it’s better, by far, than doing nothing. Doing nothing makes the ringing in his ears and the static in his head come back permanently, until he can’t focus on anything else, even the people around him (who he’ll deal with later). 

It’s Wilbur’s fault, he thinks around the history book he’s trying to digest, torn between the curious intricacies of Arctic History and the events from earlier. It’s been over two hours, and they haven’t found him. In fact, he’s been in Ranboo’s house for at least a solid thirty minutes, and nobody’s even thought to come check here.

They probably don’t even know that Tommy knows about this house. In fact, Tommy wonders, maybe Tubbo doesn’t even know about it. Maybe it’s a secret between himself and Ranboo. Usually, those tend to turn out badly (cough exile cough), but this is fine. This is peaceful. If Ranboo were to come in right now, he’d be completely fine. The atmosphere is warm even if he isn’t, and the snow falls to the ground pleasantly outside the dark window, and the book is cool against his palms, making crisp, satisfying sounds with each turn page. And there aren’t tears on his face, and the fire isn’t scalding him, and he’s not thinking about the speech, no, he’s not even thinking about the walk back home yet—

And the door. It swings open.

Contradictory to the prior statement, Tommy does not feel fine. He jumps practically out of his skin, slams the book closed, and finds his eyes instantly drawn to the doorway, meeting Ranboo’s eyes despite the way it tends to make him uncomfortable sometimes (Tommy forgets). “Boob boy,” he says very rapidly, wobbly in a way that he heavily dislikes because of the tears littering his cheeks. “My bad. I’ll go. Don’t tell Tubbo that I’m—”

Those are not the eyes of an Enderman hybrid. Ranboo’s eyes are red and green, and a little glowy, and these— these— oh—

Technoblade chuffs in what Tommy can only assume is either heavy displeasure or downright anger.

“Oh,” says Tommy faintly, chest tight with an anxiety he has known for hours (no; years). He fumbles with the book, taking it up with him when he stands and yanking up a blanket from Ranboo’s couch. It’s cold outside. He’ll need it even if it won’t help. “Yeah. Hi. I’m leaving.”

Well. If he can get through the door, which Techno… isn’t moving away from. 

“What are you doin’ here, Tommy?” Techno asks tiredly, and it’s a waltz they’ve run through a thousand times before. Tommy has been Theseus and failed to be Theseus one too many times, and he knows, knows that Techno will never be willing to give him another chance. Not after all the glass he’s already broken. 

“Leaving,” he says again. “I’m leaving. Get—“ he falters, and stares up at Technoblade. Get out of my way. But he falls short of confidence, and his cheeks are still wet, and he can’t. He can’t. Techno stares, and it’s painful, and suddenly he’s behind a microphone again— only this time, Tommy doesn’t know what the fuck to say. “I… has Wilbur… been here?”

Techno crosses his arms. Chuffs. His mask is nowhere to be found, which means Tommy can’t possibly have that hard a time reading him, but oh— oh, he can’t. He can’t get through to his brother, not now and not ever, especially considering the fact that it feels like an insurmountable task to even look him in his eyes. “Wilbur’s been here,” Techno affirms without much fanfare, and grunts. “Wilbur’s always stickin’ his nose in places it doesn’t belong.”

Oh. So maybe Techno isn’t going to be on Wil’s side. Maybe Techno won’t tell Tommy that the sixteenth was his fault. Even so; hatred still bubbles beneath his surface, and Tommy can’t risk cursing out Technoblade. Not now, not after all he’s done. Not after the betrayal that Techno will never forgive.

Fuck, this is hard. He realizes that Wilbur will have painted him in the darkest light possible, if he said anything about him at all, and Techno wouldn’t have any reason not to believe him. 

So: “What did he say to you?” Tommy asks bleakly, eyes dropping to the floor. What better way to clear his name? He tugs the blankets tighter around his shoulder and hopes that Techno will give him a straight answer, but it looks like he’ll be out of luck, because the latter chuffs again and speaks.

“What are you doin’ here?” Techno counters, repetitively, and Tommy grows bitter. Tommy grows resentful. Tommy learns to hate just as he always has before. 

“None of your fuckin’ business,” he mutters gruffly, boldly, “get out of my way.”

“You’re crying,” Technoblade says, and the bitter taste shifts to humiliation. The doorway is cold. Tommy tugs the blanket tighter around his shoulders, and his face burns red with shame, and it does not help. Still, he shivers internally, his body undergoing tremors that still lurk around corners and surprise him every few minutes. 

“I’m not,” he says, and then: “I don’t want to be here.”

“Doesn’t look like you have much of a choice.” 

Tommy glances up. Techno’s eyes are sharp with a wisdom Tommy will never be able to remove from his own head. Swordfighting methods, swimming tactics, parrying habits are all engraved into his brain, from Techno and Techno alone. It makes him angry enough to want to get back at Techno, but he’ll never know how to outsmart him. Tommy tries his best, pulling up a question that might get him stuck. “Weren’t you in the prison?” he accuses. “So you know how bad it is, then. And—” Tommy is so bitter— “he didn’t even— he didn’t even try to kill you.”

Techno exhales. “Do you really wanna do this,” he says, and it doesn’t sound like a question. It’s one of those rhetoricals. One of those statements Tommy knows he can’t avoid. 

He wishes so desperately to feel the heat of Techno’s rumbling voice in his chest, but Tommy is certain he will never have that chance again. 

“If you would just let me out, there wouldn’t be a problem,” Tommy spits, still furious with the world around him for fucking him over in all ways possible. “What do you want from me? I’m not confiding in you.”

Techno raises an eyebrow, followed by a slight shake of his head. “Good. I don’t want your pity party.”

“Then let me go,” says Tommy, taking a step towards Techno and staring him in his face again, no matter how much it hurts. Techno does not move. The silence is nothing short of terse. The man that was once a brother to him is staring at him like he’s an overdue science project, and Tommy is nothing but a dirt cup on the table. 

Techno closes the door. 

Tommy is alone with one of his greatest enemies, and this is it: Dream has tasked Techno with killing Tommy, hasn’t he? Dream’s told him he needs to do it again. Dream told Techno—

“Oh,” says Tommy, backing up as fear finds its place in his veins right next to adrenaline. Techno is going to fucking kill him. “Oh. We don’t have to do this here, you know, in boob boy’s house, I don’t want to get—” blood in the carpet— “it’s fine. Let’s— can—”

“What’re you talkin’ about?” Techno sighs, exasperatedly, and maybe it’ll be fine. Maybe. “Thes— Tommy— talk.”

Tommy blinks, pulled out of his frantic nature. “Aye?” But Techno only gestures, and Tommy starts to realize: maybe, just maybe, he wants to know what happened. He wants to know why Tommy’s so upset. This makes it worse. This makes it feel like Techno has a reason to care, and Tommy knows he doesn’t. “What’s it to you?” Tommy snaps, wiping at his face, and Techno chuffs.

“We’re gonna be here a while if you can’t get your priorities sorted, kid.”

Silence. Tommy sways on his feet. Carefully, he approaches Ranboo’s couch and sinks into it, eyes wide with an emotion he does not know how to process. “It’s the sixteenth,” he says without thinking, kicking himself for admitting it so fast but unsure of how else to properly progress. He doesn’t have the energy to throw himself, kicking and screaming, at Technoblade. He’s already used it all up on Wilbur. 

A shame that he’s wasting all his fury on the men who used to be his brothers.

“What,” Techno says, and then, before Tommy can even explain: “Oh.” Hesitance. “Wilbur’s thing.”

“Wilbur’s thing,” Tommy echoes, and it’s impossibly awkward, and Techno’s weight drops into the couch beside him, and fuck, fuck, they aren’t supposed to be brothers anymore. There is so much in this room sitting and waiting and looming over them, begging them to talk about it. Begging for a resolution that Tommy isn’t sure will ever come. “There was a memorial,” he mutters despite himself, “and I… did a speech. And.” And. And he can’t go on.

Techno doesn’t know how hard it is to force himself up in the morning. Techno doesn’t know how freezing cold his bones have become. Techno doesn’t know Tommy’s lost all his friends, and if he did, he’d probably laugh and tell him he’s at fault, anyway. Techno doesn’t know much about Tommy’s most recent death and revival, and Tommy doesn’t know much about Techno’s prison visit, and Techno doesn’t know how thin the thread is— Tommy doesn’t even know how thin the thread is—

“I need to go,” he says, and Techno grunts. Adjusts his position on the couch, just one cushion away from Tommy. The couch is a two-seater. He’s in danger. Prime, Tommy’s—

“Suit yourself,” Techno says, and then his eyes darken. “But you’re shippin’ yourself right back to the people you’re hiding from. Kinda stupid, if you ask me.”

Tommy swallows back too many words to count. He can’t do this. He can’t. Techno has no idea what he’s doing— Tommy can’t afford to let Techno become a confidant. Tommy can’t afford the price that comes with “repaired” brotherhood. It’ll never truly be fixed. He lifts his gaze, stares hard at Technoblade, grits his teeth. “Why do you care?” 

Unspoken promises hang in the air between them, shattered beyond belief. 

“I don’t.”

It hurts ten thousand times more than it should, and Tommy’s eyes sting with the agony of false hope. Fuck, he can’t believe he’s gone and fucked himself over like this. He shouldn’t have even asked. “Figures,” he chokes out around a mouthful of tears that he refuses to admit to. “You get put into my shoes for a couple weeks and suddenly you feel bad for me? Fat fuckin’ chance. I was wrong. Never should’ve assumed.” Tommy pulls the book close to his chest (painfully aware that that’s not even his, either) and makes to leave. “Fuck you,” he says quietly, tersely, wetly. “Fuck you and all you stand for. You’re dead to me.”

“Theseus.”

He can’t stand. The wind is sharp outside. 

“You don’t have a coat. You’re not goin’ anywhere.”

Tommy snaps. “You fucking bitch,” he says, followed by a sob that could be heard for miles. Embarrassing. He hates himself more than ever before, but he can’t stop now. The irony is not lost on him. Everybody who has hated his guts in the past recoils when he goes on. “How dare you. How dare you, Technoblade— you’re a fucking gaslighting bitch. I guess you picked up new habits from spending time with Dream, eh?” he snaps, shaking. Rise to the bait. Rise to the bait, Technoblade. Fight with me. You know you want to curse me out.

He has been avoiding Technoblade’s eyes this entire time. In fact, Tommy’s pretty sure he’s barely even seen Techno’s face all night, aside from a quick glance or two. He doesn’t want to look. It would be a death sentence. Tommy can’t stand the way that the world spins in circles around him, or the way that he spins in endless circles in the void that comes with it. He’s dizzy, disoriented, pained. Agonized, even. 

Things will never get better if he doesn’t let them, but Tommy is terrified of the notion of rejected forgiveness.

When Tommy meets Techno’s eyes, Techno’s jaw is clenched tightly shut. Tommy gets absolutely nothing out of him.

“Come on,” he begs, voice breaking, and wipes at his face. “Come on, Techno, fucking’— say something. You emotionless bitch,” he cries, and it’s worse, it’s worse now. His chest strains, and the tears come and go and come and go and his face is hot, his face— his face is hot. Tommy chokes on tears and leaves the book in his lap and presses his hands to his cheeks and they’re warm, they’re warm—

“I’m not gonna fight you, Theseus,” Techno says, and it’s so fucking painful that he can’t breathe.

Tommy has never liked to cry in front of people. He used to hate the way it made him hot, hated the way it turned the tips of his ears pink. He hated the way people saw him when he cried— nothing more than a useless child, really, as cliche and self-pitying as it sounds. He hated the noise it made, and the headaches it gave him, and most of all, the vulnerability it brought.

Tommy is not vulnerable, except to Dream. Tommy is not emotional, except to Dream. Tommy is not remorseful, except now, he regrets every action he’s ever made in his life—

“Please,” Tommy says, struggling through a breath, and then he sinks into the couch and sobs harder than he has in a long while, interrupting himself and losing any focus on Techno that was left. 

The piglin hybrid stands when Tommy comes unraveled. Tommy thinks he’s going to walk out the door— in fact, he’s certain of it— until the freezing reach of November doesn’t seep through the entrance, and instead, something clangs from the tiny kitchen. Tommy can’t be arsed to check, so he hugs his knees and leans into the couch and closes his eyes and feels the pain he has felt a thousand times before until he’s floating endlessly. 

He’s not sure how long he remains sitting there until the floor creaks, and something scalding is pushed into his hands. 

“Drink,” says Techno gruffly, easing back down into the couch. When Tommy finds the strength to look, he is greeted with peppermint tea. He blows on its surface, a childhood habit he fears he will never drop, and embraces the heat, hoping that it will help. It doesn’t, though, and the tears are drying, and dissatisfaction will always lie just below his heart. 

Tommy slurps half the tea down in one gulp (must have been dehydrated) and regards Techno warily. “I want to leave,” he mutters.

“No one’s stopping you.”

“You just did,” Tommy mutters, “earlier,” but it still feels awful. There’s no request to stay, nothing that says Techno wants him here other than the cup of tea in his hands. Techno does not have his own cup of tea. When Tommy glances up, the piglin hybrid is watching him intently, and Tommy can’t help it— he speaks on instinct. “And then you said you didn’t care,” he points out, accusatory, and Techno shrugs. 

“You asked why I cared about what happens between you and your little government friends. And I don’t.” Techno is quiet and careful when he speaks, and Tommy notices that he avoids eye contact. Tommy notices quickly. Techno is not one to beat around the bush, and he’s not one to sugarcoat things. Tommy knows he’s being honest, but— but that wasn’t the right kind of care. Techno is admitting to the wrong crime.

Tommy shouldn’t say it. He can’t. He has no right. He betrayed Techno, his mind hisses at him a thousand times over, and still, Tommy begs the question quietly, after another sip of tea: “I didn’t ask why you cared about my friends. I asked why you cared— why you cared what happens to me.” 

Silence. Tommy sips on tea, unable to make eye contact himself this time, and Techno chuffs rapidly after a moment. It’s not mad. It’s…

He shouldn’t say protective, it isn’t within his right, but then Techno says, “You didn’t say that. You didn’t specify.”

“I didn’t think I had to,” Tommy mutters, working around his rapidly beating heart. He can’t even finish the tea, his hands are shaking; he has to know, now. Has to. He has to figure out if… “Do you?”

Techno bristles. “Do I what.” It isn’t phrased like a question, it’s incredibly closed-off, and Tommy, in all his years of wisdom, asks it anyway.

“Do you still care about what happens to me?”

He can’t breathe. Techno looks at him with such intensity that Tommy can’t breathe. The teacup and saucer scald his palms, and he doesn’t let go, vying for a warmth he won’t achieve. Do you still care, his own voice echoes in his ears. Do you. Do you. Do you. Techno isn’t answering, but his eyes change, and Tommy begs himself not to cave and cling to him. It takes everything in him not to wrap an arm in Techno’s and fall asleep on him.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. The tears have long since stopped, but this silence hurts so bad that Tommy is suffocating on dry land. It hurts so bad that Tommy can’t breathe. It hurts so bad that he wishes Techno was still his brother, and it’s an unreachable yet inconsolable wish.

He is a stupid, foolish child— never more, never less. Dream was right. He always needs validation and approval and acceptance and recognition and acknowledgement and everything that he will never have. And he will never change. He will never get better. He will always follow a leader.

“Please,” says Tommy in desperation.

“Are you still cold?” 

“Yes,” Tommy all but whispers, unsure of why it even matters. “Please.” 

Techno sighs. Drops his head into his hand, looks away, avoids, but oh, he can’t avoid this. He can’t. Tommy’s eyes pin him down, forcing the words out of him, and they come, they come, they come: “Depends.”

Do you still care about what happens to me? Depends. 

It’s better than a no. Tommy could die happy now. Actually, he’s wanted to die happy since this morning, but now, the guilt hits him. Now, he fears the repercussions of his applied pressure. Now, Tommy gathers the book in his hand and the blanket on his shoulder. This will be the umpteenth time he has tried to leave. But every time, he returns. Every time, he sits, and every time, he waits for Techno to say something—

“You were my brother,” Techno says, slowly, unsurely, in a way Tommy has never ever heard before, and holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck, Tommy is practically slammed back into the couch in disbelief and anticipation. Techno didn’t just say that. He didn’t. Tommy didn’t hear that come from his mouth. Techno would never admit that— fuck, fuck, fuck, Tommy can’t do this, but Techno’s going on, and he can’t stop him: “And that’s hard to erase.”

The trademark Shaky TommyInnit Exhale rolls off of his lips, and Tommy sets the book to the side and swallows iron. 

“Techno,” Tommy forces out. “I’m sorry.” His dull blue eyes pierce into Techno’s and beg for something to hold on to, and the piglin hybrid frowns.

“I know,” he says.

“I won’t do it again.” 

“You will.”

“I’m sorry.”

Techno purses his lips, chuffing— “We’re going in circles—” and then Tommy can’t help it. He leans, slightly, until his (less) matted curls graze Techno’s shoulder, and then, suddenly, he is tucked a little closer into Techno’s side than he ever meant to be. Techno chuffs, and he looks annoyed, but the chuffing comes natural, comes easy, comes patient and kind and welcoming. That’s why Techno is annoyed. Not because of Tommy. Not tonight. Please, not tonight; Tommy cannot bear the weight of his own failures.

He parts his lips, desperate to ease the striking silence, but he finds there’s nothing to say, curling into Techno’s side and soaking up any and all attention he can get. He’s a fucking prick, he realizes. Tommy is a dickhead. A fucking bitch. It’s all he’s ever wanted, but it’s wrong, and he shouldn’t be doing this, and he needs to get out of here. For fuck’s sake, it’s not even Techno’s house.

And yet, he cannot find it in himself to move.

“Still cold?” Techno asks quietly, his voice rumbling against Tommy’s ear.

“Always,” Tommy replies in a near-contented murmur, staring straight ahead at the wall as Techno’s arm descends around his shoulders. Fuck— it feels so similar to brotherhood that he’s not sure how he’ll ever live without it again.

A warmth he has not felt in far too long seeps slowly into his bones.