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It is wintertime when all hell breaks loose. When Pandora is opened and its most dangerous inhabitant is unleashed upon the world outside.
Upon Tommy.
The soil is just beginning to roughen, the frost newly coating the earth. The chase from what remains of Logstedshire is terrifying in its own right. The aftermath—the fear, the anticipation, the looking around every corner unsure of whether Tommy would breathe his last right then and there—that is the worst part.
But if there is one thing that Tommy knows better than anything else, it is that, sometimes, the solution to anything is to wander.
And in the midst of winter, he slips a bag over his shoulder, clambers over the walls he’s built around his house, and does just that.
---
The point of wandering is that you do it aimlessly. It’s maybe not the best idea to entertain when there’s a prisoner on the loose hunting you down, but it’s winter. Tommy can’t stomach spending the season cooped up in those walls of his. This once was one of his favorite times of the year, and he can’t help but feel like a moth drawn to flame with the way the scents and sights and tastes beckon. The world is calling his name.
Besides, he has his comm in his hand at any given time, thumb poised over the “notify entire server” button that Sam had added before he got really deep in his position as the Warden. If the worst comes to the worst, Tommy sends out his location to every soul out there and they track him down and save him. That’s what he’s assuring himself of, anyways. There are always other possible scenarios.
“I’m Tommy Fucking Innit,” he whispers to himself as he crosses an unfamiliar field, staring up at the stars. “Nothing bad will come of me.”
He passes through mainland SMP, crossing bridges and rivers, passing portals and trees. At this time of the night, almost everyone is bound to be asleep. Snug in their beds. Perhaps dreaming about their friends or families. Tommy removes an apple he had packed from his bag and crunches into it. His feet carry him into the night. He could always visit Snowchester, he thinks, then pushes away the idea.
Tubbo is… busy. Tubbo is taking his time recovering from Ranboo’s death, and that’s perfectly okay. As long as he is taking care of himself and Michael, Tommy can give him some space to recuperate. He understands grief and loss and the tangled knot those emotions burrow in one’s chest. That knot can take a while to unravel. He’ll visit Tubbo when he’s ready.
So rather than take a path he knows by heart, he just lets himself get lost. Because surely Dream would be asleep, too, at this hour. Tommy is fine. He mouths the sentence over and over to himself.
At some point, the grass underfoot gives way to snow. Tommy is infinitely thankful for the fact that he wore his good shoes. Wet socks are comparable to hell itself.
Soon enough, the snow begins to fall overhead, not enough to be a blizzard. Rather, it’s a heavy fall of thick, fluffy flakes that (no matter how much he attempts to brush them off of himself) stick to his lashes and hair. He recalls that Techno once told him that every snowflake is different and feels almost guilty to try swiping them off his clothes.
Snow should make it seem more like winter, but in a blurry, hazy way that Tommy cannot quite articulate, it doesn’t seem like the season at all. He enters a pine forest and stops in a clearing. It’s quieter here. A tad bit nicer.
December is the month that Prime is meant to be appeased most. A time for giving and forgiving. For traditions, both the ancient and the new.
Everyone has their own way of celebrating it, too. Techno rings bells. Some of the others visit the church nearly hourly. There are weirder ways, too, one infamous one involving tortoise shells and butter. Tommy’s way of celebrating, though, has always involved light.
So Tommy turns to the brightest lights in the sky, cupping his hands to his mouth, and bellows, “Anyone up there? Hello? Can I please get a wish granted or—or however you do it?” After a brief moment of no response, Tommy continues, “Can I get some holiday spirit? It feels like any other night right now and I’m not the biggest fan of that! Just some… some lights or something. I dunno, man.”
His voice echoes right back off the trees. Tommy cocks his head up at the sound, expecting an answer for just a moment, before the silence is broken with a voice: “Uh, Tommy? What the hell are you doing?”
Tommy’s head snaps back down to see none other than Wilbur Soot staring at him with an axe in his hand.
“Oh, fuck off,” Tommy murmurs to himself, promptly spinning on his heel because nope, he doesn’t feel like dealing with this tonight if he can help it. Then, to Wilbur, he shouts over his shoulder, “Can’t a man shout in the middle of nowhere in peace?”
“You’re… literally less than a hundred feet from Phil’s house,” Wilbur says.
Huh. Tommy didn’t realize he’d made it quite that far away from the central part of the server. Unable to help it, he snaps right back around to point at the other man. “It’s night, though. What in Prime’s name are you out here for? Go sleep in your shitty bed or whatever you do.”
“I was getting firewood? For a fireplace?” Wilbur emphasizes with confusion, motioning toward the axe in his grip.
“Well then don’t bother others, you royal shit,” Tommy says, jutting his chin forward pridefully.
“Wha—” Wilbur lets out a noise of offense. “Don’t come after me for being awake! You’re the one literally wishing upon a star at three in the bleeding morning!”
Tommy’s mind blanks, and all he can think to say is, “You heard that?”
“Anyone within a five mile radius heard it, Tommy.”
“Oh,” Tommy says quietly, then hums. He shivers and draws his cardigan closer to himself. “Interesting. Well. I’ll be off, then.”
“Aren’t you cold?” Wilbur whispers just loud enough for Tommy to catch it.
Somewhere not so far away, a horse—probably Technoblade’s—brays. The wind howls. The stars watch.
“A little,” Tommy admits, and who is he kidding? He’s freezing his ass off, despite the cardigan, the sweater, and the shirt layered atop him. His teeth are chattering audibly. Wilbur seems to notice, too, given the knowing look he sends Tommy’s way.
“Why’d you come here?” he sighs exhaustedly.
Tommy’s fingers tighten on his elbows. He looks anywhere away from Wilbur’s gaze. “It’s supposed to be the holiday season, innit? I was—I couldn’t stand hiding anymore.”
Wilbur doesn’t know about that, though, about any of it. How would he? Tommy has been too cooped up in his walls to come and tell him. Of course, Wil has probably realized that his burger man is dead by now, but… who knows? Maybe Phil explained it to him. Or Techno. What does it matter anyways?
“You stayin’ with Phil these days?” Tommy asks slowly, deliberately, and watches as Wilbur nods slowly. “Back to dear old dad,” Tommy continues after a low hmph.
“Don’t go all the way back right now,” Wilbur says, somewhat resigned, somewhat tired. Now that Tommy is really looking, Wilbur is shivering, too. He goes on, though, “Just… just come in for a bit and warm up or something.”
Tommy ignores that. He came all this way for holiday spirit so holiday spirit is what he shall receive. “Remember when we would celebrate Prime with a tree? The big one, right in the center of the town square?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Tommy scans the clearing. “I miss that.”
Wilbur takes a minute to compose a response, but when he answers, it is hesitant: “Do you wanna do something like it again?”
“Yeah.” Tommy grins.
“Will you come inside and warm up if we do this?” Wilbur asks pointedly. Tommy nods. Wilbur’s shoulders slump in relief. “Okay. Let’s… find a tree, I guess.”
Tommy bounces up and down on his heels, unable to contain his excitement. There hasn’t been a tree for the holidays in… oh Prime, it’s been years.
He begins to scour the clearing for the tree of all trees. They are in a forest, so thankfully there are a shit ton. All tall, beautiful, proud evergreens, tops pointed to the sky like soldiers in rows. Tommy despises each and every one of them.
Until he finds the one, tucked away, sticking haphazardly between two much, much taller pines.
It’s practically on the brink of death, needles scattered about on the snow beneath its measly trunk. But tiny, slumped over, and barely up to his waist, it’s the most perfect little thing Tommy has ever had the pleasure to witness.
“This one,” Tommy says determinedly, hands curled into fists on his hips. When Wilbur gives him a dumbfounded stare, eyebrows raised, Tommy only folds his arms together.
“You’re sure?” is all Wilbur says.
“Yep.”
“Alright then. Help me light these netherite chips.” Wilbur fishes through his pocket for a spare lighter and tosses it over. Tommy catches it with ease, sticking out his tongue. Wilbur rolls his eyes and reaches into his other pocket for the chips. They’re just crumb-sized fragments of netherrack, enchanted to not catch nearby objects aflame, mostly used to light small spaces. In this instance, though, they’ll be preventing forest fires.
Wilbur always watches Tommy to make sure he isn’t about to burn himself on accident with the lighter. Luckily he doesn’t, and the work goes twice as fast.
The repetition is almost trance-inducing, as they light the pieces and select the perfect spot on the tree’s boughs to place them. It gives Tommy a sense of focus, of purpose, and this holiday begins to feel more and more festive by the minute.
Of course, he can’t just let this be all work, no play. And what’s better than a classic Tommy Innit prank?
He forms a snowball behind his back slowly enough that Wilbur doesn’t notice, then throws it as hard as he can, effectively dousing the candle chip Wilbur had just lit. It explodes with grandeur, startling the man much more than Tommy had ever hoped, sending the blond into a cackling fit.
“Bastard!” Wilbur gasps, shaking the snow from his face like a wet dog.
“Prrrrrick!” Tommy laughs. It is loud and boisterous and so, so Tommy.
Wilbur—after a moment—throws his own head back in laughter, something warm and light grasping at his heart. They continue decorating the tree, but not before Wilbur manages to get revenge by hurling a snowball when Tommy least expects it.
They keep decorating with smiles on their faces, and despite the silence, their actions feel loud.
It is only once they run out of netherrack chips that they stop and take a step back. The once-dark clearing has suddenly become a golden center of silence. This is what should come after life, Tommy thinks, and not that hellhole void. No. This is warm and beautiful and it’s making Tommy’s heart tug in his chest. He stares at the tree and thinks, we did that. Him and Wilbur.
“I… I bet Prime sure likes their offering,” Wilbur says. It sounds strained. Too forced. He was always a man of the people, not of the religious.
“It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to,” Tommy says. He shrugs, hands in pockets. “It can just be a tree.”
Wilbur sucks air in between his teeth. “It deserves at least some recognition, though. It’s—it’s been through a lot. You can tell by how it’s leaning.” He swallows, considering the pine. “And it didn’t deserve any of that. It’s small and scrawny and still too young. It shouldn’t have to bend like that.”
And Tommy suddenly doesn’t think they’re talking about just the tree anymore.
He glances over at Wilbur; the man is staring at the glowing beauty of the lights, brows furrowed, something like guilt caught up in his expression. Tommy looks away for just a moment, then comes to a decision, and reaches out for Wilbur’s hand.
“Neither should you have to,” he says, and Wilbur’s breath hiccups as he realizes Tommy’s open palm is outstretched. “You blew up our home. You went down a dark path. But no one deserves to die, Wilbur.” The last part comes out too choked. He coughs, once, to clear it. “No one deserves that afterlife.”
Wilbur hesitantly takes Tommy’s hand. Tommy squeezes. Wilbur squeezes back.
There is a long bout of silence in which the two of them just stand there, snow catching in their hair, taking in their work.
Wilbur breaks the quiet after a while. “I’ve been growing a garden here, you know.”
Tommy hums. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Lots of—lots of carrots and beets and things. Remember when you used to sing to make the plants grow faster?”
“Yeah.” Tommy’s lips curl into a fond smile at the memory.
“I’ve been doing that. I’ve been sitting in the garden and playing for them. Phil got me a new guitar for the season after my last one—” The words trail off. Tommy squeezes Wilbur’s hand again. His faraway gaze clears, eyes regaining focus. “After it broke in Pogtopia.”
“‘After it broke,’” Tommy snickers. “Wil, you chucked it at the fucking wall.”
Caught off guard, Wilbur lets out a sudden bark of laughter. “I did, I did.”
“Boom bam bosh.” Tommy lets go of Wil’s hand for just a moment to mimic the thing’s splintering and destruction. “And then it was firewood. Techno didn’t mind though. A fire is a fire, especially in a stone ravine.”
“That it is,” Wilbur agrees. He’s grinning widely. “But it’s okay because this new guitar is even better. It’s spruce, Toms. Literally spruce.” He gesticulates wildly. “And the sound. Oh, you have to come over one day so I can play you something. It’s so clear. ‘S magnificent.”
“I’d like that.” Tommy laughs. His eyebrows shoot up. “Oh! That reminds me…”
He backs up and removes the messenger bag from where it’s slung across his shoulder, unfastening the clips, digging past oranges and yarn and cards Michael made him in order to find—
“Aha!” He pulls out a massive sprawl of yellow wool and shoves it in Wilbur’s face. “Look!”
“Wow! That’s nice,” Wilbur says. His nose scrunches up. “What is it?”
Tommy flips him off easily. “It’s a sweater. I made it for you, prick, while I had nothing else to do. Well, kinda. I salvaged one of your old ones and fixed it up a bit. The one you have on right now has blood and shit on it.”
Wilbur’s puzzled expression falters, then melts away completely. He takes the cloth gently from Tommy, then turns it over in his hands, using the candlelight to inspect it. There’s a soft look to the corners of his eyes, the creases smoothed over, with a gentle humbleness taking their place.
“It’s got pockets now,” he murmurs. “And the burns are gone.”
His fingers brush lightly over the wool, then puts a hand in a pocket. He makes a puzzled face, and removes whatever is inside, opening his fist to reveal…
“Stones?”
“They were from the river that ran through L’Manberg,” Tommy explains softly. “From the very first summer.”
“Oh,” Wilbur says as an exhale. His knees begin to feel wobbly. He sits down smack onto the snow, crossing his legs to examine the pebbles. His fingers curl protectively around them. “Oh, Tommy.”
His shoulders begin to shake and he burrows his head in his hands. Tommy kneels beside him and doesn’t say a word, just pats his knee reassuringly.
“I didn’t get you anything,” Wilbur says after a sniffle.
“You did.” Tommy looks up at the stars and smiles. “You just don’t know it yet.”
So there they sit, two friends near both the prettiest and ugliest little tree anyone has ever known, and talk for a while. They’ll go inside once Tommy sneezes. And the next morning there will be warm drinks and confusion from Phil and a mountain of other problems to face.
But tonight, for the first time, Tommy begins to truly believe that they’re going to be alright.