Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy is a bit of a strange case. 

He’s a wanderer, an explorer , if you will. He’s been around several places, many places, all over the world, really. From one country to another, one kingdom to another, towns, villages, homes, he visits wherever he likes. 

He searches. 

It’s been a long while since Tommy’s been given his little watch, so to be honest, he kinda forgets the reason he has it. But what he does know is that he was supposed to be looking for something. 

That was the point, he was the test subject for the watch, for the warping of time, and he was meant to go back in time, and look for-

Something. 

Someone? Multiple someones, or a place, or, or-

(What was it? He can’t recall.)

His mind and memory gets a little wonky with the jumps. 

Part of him knows that’s a bad thing, and that he needs to turn back, but he doesn’t know where to go. He can’t turn around when he’s on a one-way road. He only continues moving forward, moving ahead, jumping from time to time, from this year to another, and another, and another, and another. 

On and on and on it goes. Like a wheel that never stops. Spinning and spinning until it’s broken entirely. 

Sometimes, though, he stops. Rests. He’ll sit down and open up a little journal in his pocket, his watch sitting beside it, and he’ll try to pick apart his own mind. 

He tries to remember. To think. Push past that fuzziness that tends to stick within his head. And he’ll drag out details that are solid and true. 

His name is Tommy. 

That’s his real name, although sometimes he goes by Thomas, Theseus, Tom. Tony, that one rare occasion. You’d think with the perk of jumping from year to year, there would be no need to hide his identity, since he moves so often, but even then, Tommy often gets into deep shit. He’s got horrid luck, and that results with his face on a poster, on the internet, on a random king’s hitlist. Then he has to go through the ordeal of faking his death and swapping years once more in order to get out of all of that. 

He’s sixteen years old.

Or…at least he’s pretty sure that he is. 

He can’t be entirely sure, but that’s what he’s been saying, been telling, whenever someone asks him. He seems to look young, with the way strangers call him boy, son, kiddo. When he peers over a puddle of water, or a broken mirror, or a digital screen, his young face looks back, and Tommy would argue that he does seem sixteen. He looks like a teen, dirty and young and stupid. 

He doesn’t really…remember, who he was. Why exactly he got this watch in the first place.

Tommy flips through his journal, a worn out, dirty thing, and he reads words he doesn’t remember writing. Old, strange words, things that he doesn’t know, doesn’t recognize. It speaks of an experiment, it speaks of trials, errors and fuck-ups and successes, and it speaks of a person named Dream.  

Tommy knows this watch inside and out, from both his old notes and from constantly using it. He knows that it’s pretty durable, given the fact he’s smacked it with a rock, dipped it in water, and even electrocuted it at one point. It still stayed working fine. 

He knows that it’s not something he can give over to the wrong people. It’s literal time travel, who knows what someone else would do with that if they had the chance. He’s had a handful of people chase after him before for it, but those are always the organizations and governments placed in the future, and they can’t follow him into the past. So he stays in the more early years, not wanting to deal with those fuckers. 

He knows that the watch is not an unlimited, no consequence type of thing. That’s the most important fact about it.

Each jump takes something from its user, in order to power the technology needed to break through literal time. 

That something could be anything. Memory, battery, his own fucking lifeforce. (He can’t exactly remember, so he’s going to say it's a memory, most likely. That, or he’s just naturally forgetful and has random bouts of amnesia.)

With that sort of downside, he should put it down. He should put it away, hide it. Settle somewhere good, and figure out where he can place himself, being a boy lost in time. 

But he can’t. That’s not how it works. That’s not how he’s meant to exist. 

He just keeps searching. (And he doesn’t have a fucking clue as to what he’s looking for.)

Dream was a scientist, from what he knows. Tommy had been- working with him? Or working for him. They had been working on this watch that sits on Tommy’s wrist. 

And they were…hoping for something. A cure? No, that was just some book Tommy read. Maybe just a piece of history. No, not quite. They were hoping to catch something, someone. 

(Tommy is looking for someone . There is a name that he was meant to go after. He can’t recall.)

Dream had hoped to find something in the past- (or was it the future?) But the trials were proving to be a little unsuccessful, and then one day, things went sideways.

One day, there was screaming, blaring red lights in the lab. Tommy’s wrist had burned like it was set on fire, the watch on his skin, and Dream had yelled at him to put it down, put it away, turn it off-

Tommy woke up in an open field. Hundreds of years in the past, with a killer headache, and a shirt with burn marks on it.

He’s been traveling ever since. 

It’s not entirely bad as it seems. Tommy sees incredible things in his travels, he’s met so many people with so many stories. He’s gotten a kick out of confusing those people as well, occasionally bringing stuff from the future into the past. Objects tend to set on fire when taken through time, so Tommy doesn’t bother doing it too often. He’s also gotten used to patting himself down to get the fire off. (Annoying thing, that.)

He meets people. He makes friends, in some time periods. Enjoys meeting them over and over again. 

But he never stays for long. He never lingers. 

Because he doesn't belong. 

Not in any time, any year, anywhere, really. He’s not meant to stick with others in the years way back, he’s meant to be somewhere else. He just- doesn’t know where that place is. He doesn’t know what year is his. That’s why he just keeps going. Going and going and going, even when he has the urge to stop, to live, rather than keep running. 

He’s tried before. He tried living in a house with people who had been kind, he tried putting the watch away, he tried living. And it was good. He was good, he was loved, he was alright.

But he knew he wasn’t meant to be there. He knew he was an intruder of some sort, and the world around him, no matter how much he tried, it didn’t fit. He didn’t fit. It was a fact that never left, no matter how much he tried to turn away.

So, one day, he left. 

And he didn’t dare look back. (He can’t look back. There is no returning, no redo. He can only move forward.)

He hops off to another year, not sure of how many times he’s jumped, not sure of how much time it’s been since he’s begun this journey. Time passes and passes and his memory grows to be a little unreliable. Through it all, though, he never forgets his friends. His- his family. 

Even if they’re so far in time, he never forgets their faces. They’re a comfort against the painful loneliness that sticks with him. 

Because it does get awfully lonely when you’re on your own. Tommy is always surrounded by people, always going through towns and cities, but none of them are meant to stay. He can never stay. 

It’s one of the early years, late winter, the chill still running through the air as Tommy walks through the quiet streets of a small town. His clothes are hardly appropriate for the time period, considering the fact he’s just wearing a sweater and jeans from around the 2000s. But the cape over his shoulders keeps it mostly out of sight, and while the fabric is kinda dirty and wet, it does well to let him blend in, keep wandering eyes off him. 

He plans to comb through the town for a bit, maybe even pick up a job if he’s feeling like sticking around this year for a week or two. 

Quiet steps rise up from behind him, quick and approaching fast, like someone is in a rush. Their boots hit the street like a march, and Tommy keeps walking, stepping to the side and aiming to move out of the way. He doesn’t want to get in that person’s path. 

But as he moves to the side of the street, there’s a hand grabbing at him, yanking him back by the wrist, and he screams out of surprise, stumbling backwards with a swear at the tip of his tongue.

“It’s you .” The stranger says, and he says it so strangely, so earnestly that it makes Tommy stop. His mind lags for a second, and he stumbles again as he’s pulled closer, his arm being held up into the air. “It’s really-?” 

“Hey, hey-” Tommy tries to pull his arm away, looking into the stranger’s face, and he looks so baffled that it’s kinda translating onto Tommy too. He opens his mouth to ask who the hell he is, but the person beats him to the punch. 

“It’s me, Wil.” And that name rings a bell, but Tommy doesn’t want to remember it. Because he knows for a fact that getting recognized at all creates a dumpster-load of problems. 

“Oy, fuck off.” Tommy ignores the shitty introduction and yanks at his arm, trying to turn away. “I’ve got somewhere to be, I don’t know anyone by-”

“Tommy.” Wil says, his hand still wrapped around Tommy’s wrist, and Tommy falters, whipping his head around with narrowed eyes. “It’s me .”

There’s something in his voice that is just- familiar. Soothing. So Tommy goes still, putting all his energy into trying to remember. (Something that he does too often.) 

He blinks at the guy. Stares. Squints a little. 

At the back of his mind, it sinks in that this is a familiar face, a friend. (Family.)

Who Tommy met two hundred years ago.

Here’s the thing, with time travel. 

It gets lonely. 

Incredibly lonely.

Like, hugging yourself, opening a window and listening to the people out in the street, kinda lonely. (Tommy’s a little ashamed to admit he’s gone that low to have such habits, but hey, he’s the only time traveler, like, ever. Cut him some slack.)

Even with all the people he comes across, there is the undeniable fact that he can’t really connect with them. He can’t stay with them, live with them, be with them. 

Like he’s said. He’s tried before. 

There was- a family. Just a small little family, some guy and his two sons. Tommy had met Wilbur by chance, running into him on the street, nearly knocking them both over into the mud. They didn’t really have a good first impression. Tommy vaguely remembers swearing him out, actually. 

While the first impression was terrible, it seemed to stick with Wil, because a day later, Tommy got caught in the rain. With no shelter, he had been wandering the streets trying to find a good place, debating on just jumping to next week rather than deal with the weather. He had been walking, and then he had been found, Wil dragging him over to a warm house, where he was given clothes, a seat by the fire. 

A plate of dinner, a cup of water. 

A room, a bed. 

A spot in a home. 

(Family.)

He remembers them. More than anything. More than he remembers himself. 

He remembers Phil brushing his hair back, hugging him close, his cackling laugh and gentle wheeze. The way his hands were always fiddling with something, the man being a craftsman of some sort. He was always making something new, always carving or painting or building. 

He remembers Techno’s low voice, reading him stories, telling him tales of warriors from long ago. His eyes would always gaze at Tommy like he was everything, and his very presence was like a promise telling him he’d forever be safe.

He remembers Wil, his songs, his smile, the nicknames and the kisses upon his forehead. The fond bickering that he always did with Tommy, driving the other two crazy. The pestering questions and conversation that he always carried, that thoughtful mind always making Tommy so curious. 

He remembers. 

More than anything, he had wanted to stay there with them. He wanted so badly to believe that he could have that. 

(Just this one thing, he thought. Just this.)

That had to have been one of the only times where he actually…stopped. He settled. 

He tried to break his watch. 

He took a rock and banged at it, stomped it under his shoe, felt tempted to throw it into a nearby river so he could have this, have it and never let go, never. He wanted to throw away this stupid mission, shrug off all these responsibilities, this search that never went anywhere. 

He wanted to keep it. Keep this life. A life where he belonged.

But it’s not for him. He knows it. 

Tommy knows where he’s got to go. 

He left them out of the blue one day, with a single note left on his bed, giving a measly, pathetic goodbye. He had picked a year at random, hopped into it, and found a new town. 

Then he sobbed for the entirety of the next week. 

(Grief is a strange thing when you’re a time traveler. Usually you have the ability to just go back. To see them again. Tommy had that sort of freedom, with the watch. He never lost people, he just moved on. 

This one felt more like a loss than any of the others, though.)

Sometimes he wishes he could forget them as easily as he forgets himself. That, he thinks, would make things easier. Would make it softer on his heart. He knows he’s got this mission in mind, this- fucking thing that he needs to find, but even so, he can’t help but want to be selfish. 

He wants to stay. 

But as long as the watch is working, he’s got to use it, he’s got to not waste the work that went into it, and he needs to find what he’s looking for. So he goes. He goes, and he travels, and he wanders, on and on. 

Then he finds Wilbur all over again, on the street, in the mud. 

“You’re supposed to be dead-” Tommy breathes out, eyes wide. His heart is sinking right down into his stomach with shock, and god, he can’t react. He can’t- he can’t think. What does he do? What the fuck do you do in this situation? Run? 

His feet are being kinda useless right now, though, and Wilbur is holding him by the face, holding him close, as if Tommy is dying right in his arms. He might as well be. He thinks this might be a hallucination. 

“You’re supposed to be fucking dead -” Tommy repeats, voice shaky. 

“Have you been like us the whole time?” Wilbur asks, seeming unconcerned with the fact he should be in the past, not here, alive and well and still looking just like how when Tommy left them. “You’re just like how I remember, you’re still-” Wilbur’s hand runs over his hairline, brushing his hair back, and Tommy’s breath hitches. 

He smacks his hands into Wilbur’s chest, trying to push him away. Wilbur just pulls him into a hug instead, and he feels solid, real. Tommy tries to think, tries to remember if he had put the wrong year, or he just fudged the numbers-

He had to. He had to have fucked up the jump somehow, because Wilbur isn’t- He was only alive a few centuries ago, not in this year. Regular life expectancy for a human is pretty low in the early years, as well, so Wilbur had to have died back then, or soon, he can’t be-

“The others are going to be so relieved.” Wilbur whispers out, pushing Tommy back so he can hold him by the face again. Tommy opens his mouth to try and explain, try and say anything, but Wilbur’s smiling so wide, and there are tears in his eyes, his voice shaky as he speaks. “We- We thought you’d be dead and gone by now, Phil made you a grave only a century ago- it was-” He falters for a second. “It was hard. But thank the gods that it turned out to be useless.”

“What the fuck are you-” Tommy holds his hands up to push again, but he can’t bring himself to do it. He only grasps onto Wil’s shirt, Wilbur running his hands through his hair again. It feels nice. It feels like home. “What are you saying?! You should be dead! You and- Phil’s dead!” 

He tries to ignore the fact Wilbur said they made a grave . They grieved, they missed him, his heart wants to jump with joy with that realization, and Tommy shoves it all down, trying to get his mind online. He’s a time traveler, an expert, he should have his shit together. 

“Oh, sunshine.” Wilbur laughs, a tear falling down his cheek, and Tommy doesn’t have his shit together at all. Within seconds, he’s about to cry right with Wil, because-

He missed that. He missed the dumb nicknames, said so fondly, said with such love. Names that were his, only his. His to keep and have. 

Wilbur continues. “No, no, we don’t- well, we have to catch up now, don’t we?”

Tommy swallows, clearing his throat to hold back a sob. “What year is it?” He chokes out. 

“Sorry?”

“The- The year. What year is it?”

Wilbur blinks, a slight tilt to his head. “Why, it’s 1539.”

Something like panic is settling right in Tommy’s head. “Fuck.” He mutters, trying to let go of Wil’s shirt. He can’t. His hands- they’re stuck, he can’t pull away. They’re broken, or some shit. He’s broken. He’s panicking. “Fuck, fuck-” 

No, this isn’t right. Wilbur should definitely be dead. It is well past when he had left them, they should all be dead with age at this point. They should be gone. 

Why is Wilbur here ?

Wilbur’s hugging him again. He’s pulling Tommy close, pressing his nose into the top of his head, huffing out in a silent sob, his shoulders shaking with it. Tommy feels tears welling up in his own vision, and he rubs his face against Wil’s shirt, wanting to scream. Wanting to hold on tighter.

This isn’t supposed to happen. 

When he leaves someone in the past, they’re supposed to stay in the past. 

“We should- we gotta go see Techno and dad, they’re- oh, gods, Phil’s going to be ecstatic.” Wilbur mumbles into his hair, rubbing a hand along his back. Tommy grits his teeth, feeling guilt rise up his throat, cold and terrible and no, no, no-

If he goes with them, he will never be able to leave again. Watch or not. Last time he had been so close to throwing this entire mission away, the entire reason he is doing this, if he goes-

“Wil.” Tommy whispers, wanting to give a goodbye. He wants to say something, wants to hear his voice. He wants to agree, nod his head, ask to go home. He wants, he wants more than anything. 

He can’t. 

The watch on his wrist is still here. A steady weight, technology with so much sacrifice behind it. He has to keep going. 

“I’m so sorry.” Tommy sobs out, and Wilbur shushes him, rubbing at his back again. 

“It’s alright, it’s alright, I know.” Wil reassures, and he’s thinking wrong. Tommy isn’t apologizing for before, he’s apologizing for now. For the future. “You must’ve thought you couldn’t stay.” 

“I can’t stay.” 

“Of course you can.” Wilbur insists, and he says it like it’s so easy. Like Tommy can belong, even if he is just a kid who’s stuck within the years of time. “We’re always going to be here, Tommy. We’re-” He hesitates. “Well, let's just go talk somewhere warmer, yeah?”

Tommy squeezes his arms around Wilbur’s middle, shaking his head. Wilbur doesn’t decline the hug, and he squeezes back, giving something that might be a breathless laugh, a sob. 

“I missed you too.” Wilbur says, and Tommy bites his tongue, his arms going even tighter around Wil, eyes burning with tears-

Then he lets go. 

And he runs.  

“Tom-?” Wilbur’s voice stutters, caught off, and Tommy’s running down the road, shoes slamming against the ground, his breath shaking terribly as tears begin to stream down his face. “Tommy ? !”

He follows, of course. 

“Tommy, wait-!”

His steps are right behind, right there, and Tommy turns the corner, reaches for his watch, hearing his name, hearing Wil-

“ Tommy, please -!”

And then a flash of light. 

Tommy stands still, breathing heavy. 

His hands are trembling, and the only sound he hears is his own gasps for air, loud against the cold night around him. The alleyway he’s stepped into is still intact. Still dim, empty. 

He checks his watch. Two hundred years forward. Enough for them to pass off, to stay in the past. 

He checks behind him, a small sliver of hope in his throat. 

There’s no one there. Wilbur’s gone. 

Tommy stares at the stone ground, dirty and worn with time, and he drops onto the floor, hands digging into his own hair, a cheap copy of Wil’s embrace. With a new found grief, Tommy presses himself into the ground, and he cries, wailing out into the quiet town around him. 

He keeps going. 

Eventually, he picks himself up from the ground, wiping at his face, patting at the burn marks on his clothes from the jump. He wraps his arms around himself, pretending like it’s just another hug from Wil. Just one more hug. 

He goes to explore the town like he was meaning to before. 

It’s dark, and the roads look newer, better. A little cleaner. Seems like the town has gotten bigger. 

There’s people still walking around at this time, shops still open, bars still serving. Tommy finds a drunk man on the road, and proceeds to rob him. He uses the money to buy a room for the night. 

He curls up on an old creaky bed with a thin blanket over his body, and closes his eyes, thinking only of the bed back home, in his room, the one in that tiny little house where he had something, someone. 

He falls asleep with his pillow being wet with tears. He tells himself this won’t happen again. It was just a mistake. He won’t repeat it. 

He’s wrong. 

Tommy heads out the next morning to look through the shops, searching for something to eat. He has a bit leftover from what he got from the guy last night, and he knows he’s got to figure out a way to get more. 

He could get a job. Try staying in this town for a bit. 

Not for long. Just for a bit, just to linger. 

For some reason, Tommy wants to linger around. 

(Maybe if he does, he can see Wil again.)

The street is busy with people, horses passing through, and Tommy heads on with a steady walk, careful to not bump into anyone. He explores, staring at the buildings, noting how some of them look so old, so new. Some weren’t here before. Some look like they’ve been around a while. 

He goes to a marketplace. It’s busier than the main road, people yelling out, offering deals, their stalls placed up to the side, people walking past with bags in their hands, food and items and trinkets. 

Tommy goes to a fruit stand, with bright red apples there for the taking. He stares at them, digs into his pocket with a quiet hum, listening to the noise of conversations and footsteps and things being moved around. 

Then. 

“Tommy?” A voice calls. 

He freezes. 

There’s a lump in his throat that’s hard to get past, and he turns his head with a jolt, eyes wide, still caught off from Wilbur’s appearance, who was only just yesterday, in his mind. 

He finds a familiar face across the road, but it’s not Wilbur.

It’s Techno .

Fuck. 

Fuck, fuck, fuck-

“Tommy.” Techno repeats, his voice ringing like a bell in Tommy’s ears and he’s confident with the guess this time. 

He looks just the same as Tommy remembers. A familiar tell-tale scar across his nose, brown hair, just like his brother’s. His hair is shorter than how it was before, no longer kept in a braid. It’s cut in a way that looks an awful lot like Wilbur’s, to be honest. 

The similarity makes Tommy want to burst into tears and run right to Techno, but he knows that’s going to be a terrible choice. He literally just got away from Wil, how the hell-?

“Wilbur was right.” Techno says softly, and it’s quiet, but Tommy hears it perfectly, even with the noise of the people around them. Techno sounds so in disbelief, quiet joy behind it all, and-

Tommy’s mouth goes dry. 

Fuck.

He steps back, and Technoblade steps forward, and just like that, it’s a chase, Tommy kicking his feet out from under him so he can get from point A to point B as fast as fucking possible. 

“Tommy!” Techno calls, and Tommy runs, breathing hard, and pretending that it’s because he is sprinting, not because he’s near tears. He doesn’t cry. He won’t cry. He’s dreaming, that is the only explanation. “Come back here!” 

“Fuck off, man! I don’t even know you!” Tommy lies right through his teeth, turning the corner with his shoes skidding across the mud. He barrels right into the road, slamming into a few people, yelling out apologies as he makes a mad dash to be lost somewhere in the town. 

This isn’t real. He’s lost it! That’s the only explanation. He’s in a dream, or he’s snapped, maybe the time travel kinda messed with his head. Did he get that lonely? To the point where he started making up dreams where he could be happy again? Man, he thought he was more durable than that. That’s kinda sad.

“TOMMY!” Techno yells again, and it is close, determined. A small choked cry comes out of Tommy’s throat, and he stumbles on a turn, weaving through the crowd, trying to lose Techno. 

He just has to use his watch. He just has to jump, and then there, gone. This is gone. It’s so easy.

But he doesn’t want to. This chase is terrible, almost terrifying, frankly, but it’s better than having to say goodbye. His lungs burn and there’s tears in his eyes, a weight in his chest, panic sinking in right through his skin, but he doesn’t want to go. 

He turns around another corner. Techno’s steps are getting closer, faster. The only reason he hasn’t caught up yet is because of all the people. But even then, he’s weaving through them, gaining on Tommy second by second. 

Tommy has to go. He can’t linger any longer. 

But fuck, does he want some answers. 

How the hell are they alive? Still? They’re still alive, they still remember him, they still want him. How are they here? Did they wait? Were they still looking, after all this time? 

Tommy’s only been away for a night, in his mind. 

To them, he’s been gone for two hundred years. 

And yet Techno still gave chase the second he knew it was Tommy. 

He can’t lie and say he’s not affected by that thought. From the sheer devotion of it all.

He retreats into an alleyway, just like before, out of the road, into the dimness between two buildings. It leads to a dead end, but Tommy’s never trapped, not with his watch. Not with his ability. 

Lifting his wrist up, he fiddles with the controls, his fingers fumbling and shaking, and he hears footsteps behind him. He turns, eyes wide, a palm hovering over his watch, and-

“Stop, stop!” Techno says, holding his hands out. He’s breathless, but alive. He’s alive, he’s real, he’s looking at Tommy with such hope and sorrow and joy and Tommy can’t fucking do this, he’s just a time traveler, for gods sake. (He’s just a kid.) “Don’t- don’t go. Don’t go, okay? Just stay.”

“Techno.” Tommy chokes out, not meaning to say it. It comes out strangled, broken, but Techno’s face shifts into something so frail upon hearing it, and Tommy doesn’t bother staying quiet anymore. It’s not his thing, anyway. “Technoblade?”

“Hey.” Techno nods. “Hey, it’s me. It’s me, Tommy.”

“No, you’re-” Tommy shakes his head, and he flinches back at Techno taking a step forward. “You’re fucking dead. You’re gone. All of you-!”

“We don’t die, Tommy.” Techno says simply, and Tommy freezes. He stares, and Techno takes another careful step forward, hands still stretched out. “Listen. Listen to me, okay?” 

Tommy, for a split second, wonders how Phil and Wilbur are doing right now. If they are just the same as he remembers them. Their face untouched by time, by death. 

“We can’t die . We’ve been around for a while. A long while. And we will be around for much more.” Techno says, and Tommy shakes his head. That doesn’t sound real. “I need you to listen closely, Tommy.” I need you to stay, he doesn’t say, but it is there. 

“This isn’t- this isn’t fucking real.” Tommy breathes out. “You’re- That’s not possible.” 

“I’d say the same to you being here.” Techno replies, and Tommy flicks his eyes down at his watch. “Look. Do you understand this? We’re here. Phil and Wilbur are at home, I was just coming down to grab something from the market-”

“No.” Tommy moves away, and Techno keeps his hands reached out, almost like he’s asking for a hug. Tommy wants to run into his arms, just to feel safe. Just to feel okay. “No, you- how?”

“It’s a long story.” Techno shrugs a shoulder. “If you want, I can tell it to you.” 

Tommy almost bursts into sobs right there. 

(Techno used to tell him stories, before. His mind being a constant library of knowledge of wonderful tales, things he loved to retell over and over to Tommy whenever he wished. Tommy would fall asleep to the sound of his voice, to the sound of a grand adventure, a fight with the gods, a betrayal of men. 

And sometimes, after he had left, Tommy pretends he still hears him as he falls asleep. Even if Techno is not there, in that year with him, he still pretends. Drifts away with the thought of stories, Wilbur’s arms around him, Techno’s voice in his ears.)

“I can’t.” Tommy whispers, and Techno shakes his head, just barely. “I can’t, Techno.” He can’t do this, can’t be here. He can barely even stand, his entire body shaking like the air is just too cold. The pressure in his chest is so tight that he thinks he might end up screaming and screaming until his throat goes sore. 

“We’re going to keep looking for you.” Technoblade tells Tommy, like it’s a promise. It’s a roadblock to any attempt of Tommy trying to keep them in the past. “We’re always going to keep looking for you- we’ve been here for years, just trying to look for you-”

“I’ve been gone for two hundred years. It’s been two hundred years!” 

“And we’ll wait thousands more if it means we can take you home.” Techno says, and Tommy grits his teeth, feeling a sob shake through him. 

They’re not going to quit. They’re not going to stop. 

“We can go home, okay?” Techno offers, taking another step, and he’s close. He’s closer than Tommy had first thought. 

Tommy reaches for his watch, Techno jumping forward, hand stretched out-

A flash of light. 

He’s jumped into the future. 

“FUCK FUCK FUCK -” Tommy sobs, slamming his fist against the grass, scraping at the dirt and crying out with a gutteral scream that shakes him right down to his core. “FUCKING- No, no, no, nonono-” He gasps for air, and it doesn’t feel like enough. 

He wants to break the watch. 

He wants to, he wants to snap it into pieces, break it apart, let it burn. 

(He wants Techno back. He wants Wilbur back, he wants Phil back, he wants his fucking family again. He is so young and yet so lost and he just wants to go home.)

But they put so much work into this watch, Dream had worked so hard on it, and Tommy doesn’t remember why, he doesn’t remember who he even is, why he’s gotten it, but he knows he should just-

He should use it, right?

He should keep looking. 

But he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. 

“ DAMMIT !” Tommy screams again, voice hoarse and broken. “DAMMIT DAMMIT FUCKING-” He curls in on himself, hands on his head. “ Fuck .”

He imagines Wilbur’s hands in his hair, Techno’s voice in his ears, Phil, Phil-

“Please, please. ” Tommy repeats, wishing someone could just- choose for him. Take this watch and carry on the mission for him. “Please.” He begs. 

He wants to go home. 

Is that even a choice?

He explores. A bit more carefully now. 

A bit more numb. 

He stays away from the early years, instead he hovers right around the 2100s, even with the threat of future governments trying to catch him. He stays careful, stays out of sight, and he wanders. 

More so than usual. 

Tommy paces around through the streets, through the crowds of people, eyes flicking around, searching through the faces, looking for something. He keeps an eye on the news, keeps an eye on names, even though he knows the chances of finding them there would be too low. 

He thinks. Spends his time remembering. 

They’re immortal. That’s what he assumes. They’re- frozen in time, or something. That’s the only explanation, and it’s a fucking crazy explanation, but hey, he’s a time-traveler, and he just found his family on like three separate occasions throughout several hundred years, so. 

Family. His mind falters over the title, and he closes his eyes where he is, sighing with his heart feeling heavy. 

This watch on his wrist is starting to feel like a chain, now. It doesn’t feel like freedom anymore, freedom to hop and explore and see all the people in time. 

It just feels like a wall keeping him away from a life he could have. 

He entertains the idea of throwing the watch away a lot more these days. He dangles it out a window. Dips it in a puddle of water. He holds it tight in his hand and chucks it across the room, watching it fly in a high arc, slamming into the ground with a thunk. 

He knows how durable the thing is. His efforts aren’t going to do anything. 

But he kinda wishes it would. 

---

He’s in a parking lot this time around. It’s a big, empty, open space, just a few cars here and there. No people. Just concrete, and lights over his head. The cold air of the night. It’s peaceful.

He’s throwing the watch around again. 

It’s kinda fun as a pastime, to be honest. When you’ve got an indestructible thing on your hands, it’s kinda nice to just- try and break it with gravity, even if you know you won’t succeed. Even if you know it’s entirely futile. 

Tommy chucks it high into the air, watching it float, float, touch the sky, then come back down, diving and diving and-

Crack.

He picks it up. Dusts dirt off it. 

Still working. 

Another round, then. 

There’s footsteps far off, a car beeping, and Tommy spares a glance through the dark, finding some guy with groceries. He doesn’t pay much attention to him. 

He throws the watch up. 

The trunk opens, bags being placed in. Two other people are coming across the parking lot, pushing at each other playfully, coming from the store with even more bags. It seems like they were just falling behind. 

The watch lands with a loud crack. Tommy picks it up. 

The bickering stops with a light scolding, and there’s laughter through the air, Tommy listening to it and having his heart ache upon wanting to hear Phil’s laughter. 

He throws the watch. Watches it fly high. 

Curious eyes turn towards him, looking at a weird kid chucking around a watch at like 3 am. 

It lands with a crack. Tommy kicks it before picking it up. 

There’s a murmur of voices. Eyes settling onto his figure, his face. Recognition simmering through. 

Footsteps. Quick, quiet, Tommy doesn’t even notice. They’re careful about approaching.

He throws the watch up. Up, up-

The footsteps come closer, faster, a name at the tip of someone’s tongue, a hand reached out-

And down. Huh. Still working. 

Tommy picks it up. 

He rubs a thumb across the glass, annoyed at the fact there’s still not even scratches. He goes to glance over at the guy with groceries, just to see if he’s driven off, and he’s met with the sight of someone’s shirt. Arms being thrown over his shoulders before he can even think, pulling him close. 

“ Tommy .” Phil whispers, right over his head, hands cradling him near, and Tommy-

He can’t breathe. 

His eyes go impossibly wide, and everything seems to drop dead silent. His mind tumbles and falls and goes into a slow process of trying to figure out some sort of way out. A solution to his problems, as always. 

The watch is in his hand. 

It’s right there. 

He could just- tap at it. Leave before Phil says anything more, condemning him to stay forever with their love that he wants so badly to keep. 

But-

“It’s you .”

He sounds so happy. Relieved.

“Dad?” Tommy speaks, the word falling out without himself even meaning to. His voice is small, shaky. He’s on the edge of a sob without even realizing it, and the arms around him go even tighter, pulling him down, making them both sit onto the cold ground. His knees press into the concrete for a second, but then he’s lifted up into Phil’s lap, and he’s just held so closely, so tightly, like Phil can’t bear to ever let go. “Dad-?”

“Oh, Tommy.” Phil speaks softly, reaching a hand down and curling his hand around Tommy’s, his other arm keeping the teen resting against him. “Where have you been, huh?” 

Tommy tries to take in a deep calming breath, then fails miserably, having it turn into a frantic gasp as he immediately begins to sob, tears streaming down his cheeks as he digs his hands into the back of Phil’s shirt. The dam inside him is bursting open, no chance of anything being held back, and he cries out into the night like he’s in pain, like he’s being torn apart.

There’s more footsteps coming close, then suddenly Tommy isn’t just with Phil. There are hands rubbing at his back, running through his hair, and there are voices in his ears, speaking low, gently. 

“Tommy, Tommy-” Wilbur whispers, like it is the only word that has ever mattered to him. “There you are, sunshine, oh-” Wilbur laughs, something breathless and shaky, and Tommy responds with a whine into Phil’s shirt. “Of all places. Of all places for us to find you-” 

“Here you are.” Techno cuts him off, and Wil doesn’t even mind. There are lips being pressed into Tommy’s temple, something loving and relieved, and Tommy cries even harder with the action. 

They’re sitting here, on the ground, in a dark parking lot with the chill settling over the four of them. The car far off stays wide open, the trunk half-full with groceries. There are a few bags scattered across the ground. Dropped gently in a panic.

“I’ve missed you.” Phil confesses over Tommy’s head, resting his chin onto his hair. A hand runs down Tommy’s back as he tries to catch his breath. “We’ve been looking for you, don’t you know? Never does a day go by where we don’t think of you.” 

That’s-

Tommy keeps trying to breathe, take deep, calming breaths, like how he’s read once about meditation. Humming and all that shit. Keeping your zen.

God, it’s impossible. He can’t do it. He can’t do this. He’s going to break apart into a million little pieces, with Phil holding him in a hug, Wilbur pressing another kiss into the side of his face, Techno speaking quietly to his ears. 

“I’ve-” Tommy tries to speak, and it’s just another sob. He tries, and tries, and finally gets it on his third try. “I’ve missed you too.” He speaks, his voice sounding miserable. 

“It’s been quite a while. Too long, in my opinion.” Phil hums, and Tommy looks up, finding tears in his father’s eyes. “You look just the same.” Phil whispers, and he wipes at Tommy’s face, trying to clean it of tears. Tommy’s breath hitches, and he sets his jaw, wishing, wishing, hoping. 

Then he jerks away, his back bumping into Techno’s chest. He pushes at his brother, and stumbles to stand to his feet, Techno just helping him up, rather than pulling him back. None of them reach for him as he takes a step away, pushing Techno’s hands off, and the sight hurts Tommy a bit. Maybe they know they can’t keep him here. Maybe they’ve accepted this, and they’re only saying goodbye. 

The thought hurts so bad, but Tommy’s brain is going into autopilot past the frantic despair, and it tells him to go, to jump, like always. Use the watch.

He reaches a hand to his wrist, and-

Wait. 

He hadn’t had it on his wrist. He was throwing the watch around, so it was in his hand, but his hands are empty. His watch-

-is in Phil’s palms. 

Tommy’s breath leaves him in one fell swoop. He goes still, so very still like a stone statue, and he stares in horror at seeing his dad hold the very thing that’s been letting him get away for so, so long. It’s just sitting there, held carefully with fingers curled around the screen, the result of Phil slipping it out from his grip when he had been wracked with sobs. 

“Wait.” Tommy chokes out, shaking with his arms held tight around him. He wants to explain. But he can’t. He wants to be back in Phil’s arms. But he has to get that watch back. He wants Wilbur to hug him. But he has to go, he needs to go. He wants Techno to tell him their story. He wants, he wants, he- “Wait, I-” Tommy stammers out, the words not feeling right in his mouth. 

“We’ve done plenty of waiting.” Phil says, and he says it with a twinge of amusement. Wilbur smiles, but it’s a small thing. “Now…” He holds up the watch to his face, inspecting it a bit more closely. For a moment, he seems to regard the object with something like distaste, but then it settles into simple boredom. “Time travel?” He guesses, a tilt of wonder on the edge of his voice. 

Tommy freezes, his breath feeling cold and heavy. 

How did-?

“We’ve had a lot of time to make theories, mate.” Phil answers, seeing the shock on his face. Techno huffs with something amused. Wilbur gives a small nod. “This confirms it. Hope you don’t mind if I just keep this for a moment?” He lifts the watch up, then puts it away, tucking it into his pocket. 

Tommy’s chest burns with guilt, for leaving them, and for letting the watch be taken so easily. That’s- that’s his everything. That’s the thing that has been tugging him along for years. 

He has been wandering for years. 

“I-I don’t-” Tommy tries to speak, but it’s all coming out as a sob again, and he squeezes his own arms around himself, curling in towards the ground. He gasps for air, and then hears someone stand to their feet. 

It’s Techno. Wilbur is only just a step behind him, and Tommy watches them come close, reaching out to him, and he then moves his feet, finally being able to crash into Techno’s arms, just like how he’s hoped to do for so long. 

(It just like how he’s dreamed, running and smiling and jumping at him, knowing that he can take it, and if not, he’ll break their fall, keep them from getting too badly hurt-)

“Oh, Tommy.” Wilbur whispers so sadly, like he can’t take the sight before him. He stands up beside Techno, practically boxing Tommy in and resting his hands on his back. “What have you been up to? Where have you gone?”

Not as many places as them. Tommy hasn’t been waiting nearly as long as them. But it still feels the same. It still hurts.

“Boys.” Phil says, and Tommy looks up, seeing Phil standing tall, half turned like he’s ready to begin walking off. Something impatient is woven into him, and his eyes are so bright in the dark of the night, the blue seeming to just burn right through Tommy. Tommy stares back, and then nearly shrieks as he’s lifted off the ground, Techno picking him up off his feet with hardly any effort.

 “Come on, now.” Phil beckons, calling them over. 

The words seem to flick a switch. The mood shifts, and while Tommy is still in tears, Techno and Wilbur practically light up, Wilbur cracking a grin. 

“Alright, alright.” Wilbur breathes out, a laugh in his throat, and he actually sprints to the car. Techno scoffs at his excitement, but he still holds the same emotion. “Oh, and we’ve left the groceries out, great-!” Wil yells, Tommy giving a hesitant laugh. Phil cackles, watching Wilbur throw in the rest of their bags as quickly as he can. 

“Careful with the eggs!” Phil yells, holding a hand out, and Techno smiles, leaning down towards Tommy. 

“To home, then.” He whispers, and Tommy stares, stuck with those words. Techno keeps walking, and Tommy doesn’t have his watch, doesn’t have his responsibility, doesn’t even have the chance to go running on foot. 

He just has his family, right here, right now. 

So he stays. And waits. 

Chapter Text

The night is so very quiet as Tommy is taken over to the car. 

Phil walks quickly with a rush in his steps, but he doesn’t quite go running like how Wilbur had, Wil being frantic in trying to get all their groceries in order so they can be on their way. He’s practically flinging in all the bags without any proper caution, and Tommy’s pretty sure he sees spilled milk on the inside of the trunk. 

Wil doesn’t seem to care, nor does Phil. Clearly, Tommy’s arrival means much more to them than the loss of some milk. (Which, is a silly thing to be moved by. But Tommy’s heart is frailer than usual, and he thinks he deserves to have quiet emotions over silly things.)

Phil opens one of the back doors for Techno to climb in easily with Tommy still in his arms, and Tommy flails for a second. His heart becomes caught in a panic, the idea of being carried inside a confined space throwing him off. 

There had been a time, long ago, where someone else had tried this. But it had been much less gentle, and for a much worse reason. Some bitches with suits working with some high top end government agency, wanting that same watch that currently sits in Phil’s pocket. 

(Somehow, there’s a slight bit of humor to be found in the fact Phil had gotten that watch so easily, while others had been chasing Tommy for years.)

That hasn’t been one of Tommy’s best days, to be honest, but he had gotten away. With a flash of light and a touch of heat on his wrist, he screamed, fought, and then managed to jump about a decade into the past, where he was free. Free to waltz away without people on his tail, free to head off to continue his mission, free to continue his wandering.

There’s no getting away in this one, though. 

But this one is different from all the other attempts of people trying to hold him down. 

Techno holds him tightly, as if he dares give any slack, Tommy might just manage to slip away again, like how he did all those years ago, in that little alleyway. 

Even when the car door clicks shut beside them, cutting off the sight of the night sky outside, Techno does not let go. In fact, he only seems to hold Tommy closer. Tommy lays sideways with his head tucked against Techno’s chest, his brother’s arm wrapped around his torso like a funny imitation of a seatbelt, and a hand resting lightly over his knee. 

The light inside the car shines a dim, soft yellow with the doors being opened, and Tommy stares up at it with a dry throat. He feels a chin rest on top of his curls, a quiet sigh passing over his head. The light turns off with the door being closed, and Tommy closes his eyes. 

This embrace is comforting. It’s a bit overbearing, to be honest, but Tommy does get it. He understands. He’s been running for so long, it’s all he knows how to do. If Techno ever let go, he’s not sure he could trust himself to stay. Trust himself to settle. Everything in him screams to retrieve the watch, to resume his searching, but Tommy is so sick of it all. 

He’s so tired. 

And Techno is a familiar weight. His very presence, his heartbeat against Tommy’s ear, it’s so familiar. How long has it been since he could remember something so clearly? How long has it been since Tommy’s felt so safe? Now that’s not something he can recall, funnily enough. 

Tommy wants to dig his hands into Techno’s shirt and refuse to let go for years and years to come. He wants to sink into this moment for eternity, keep this small feeling of safety, this feeling of being held and being kept close. He finds solace in knowing that he won’t be let go. He will not be forgotten. 

(They never forgot him.)

The trunk door closes with a slam, and Tommy flinches with the noise, feeling the slight shake of the car. He hears Wilbur and Phil talk outside, their voices floating over the roof of the car, slightly muffled. Almost like a dream. 

(Tommy’s had so many dreams where their voices sound like that.)

Footsteps circle around to the doors of the car, and Tommy opens his eyes, watching Phil come in, settling behind the wheel, but not yet starting the car. He only sits still, staring ahead at the rest of the empty parking lot for a moment before turning his head to look behind him. 

There’s a hint of hesitation in his expression. Like he’s not sure Tommy will still be there when he goes to look. But as he sees Tommy staring back, Techno still holding him close, the strain on his face melts away, and it’s only replaced with a soft smile. 

Tommy can’t bear to return it. He only looks at his dad with wide eyes, and thinks he’s there. He’s real he’s there they’re actually here-

Wilbur joins Tommy and Techno in the backseat with a happy hum in his throat. The car doors lock as soon as Wilbur closes it, and the click practically echoes in Tommy’s ears. Tommy looks away from Phil to stare at Wilbur instead, and he’s met instantly with hands on his face, holding him gently as if he will shatter apart with the slightest amount of too much force. 

“Hello.” Wilbur greets, a low tone that’s appropriate for this time of the night. It’s almost like a whisper, a quiet murmur for someone half asleep. He sounds so impossibly content that it makes Tommy’s vision swim with tears all over again. 

“Hi.” Tommy responds, trying to speak just as softly. His voice shakes with the single word, and Tommy blinks desperately so that he will not burst into pathetic sobs. It’s a near thing, though.  

Wil gives a sympathetic noise at the sight. He lifts his head to Techno with a slight furrow in his eyebrows and a frown on his lips. “Give him to me, you’re hogging him.” He says.  

Techno just narrows his eyes and squeezes Tommy even closer. “Am not.” 

Wilbur gives an unconvinced look. But he relents. He’ll have his turn, and when he does, he’s never handing Tommy back. They’ll have to pry the child out from his cold, dead hands. 

He gives his attention back to Tommy, huddling close and swiping at the start of his tears with his thumbs.

 “I pity you.” He gives a small grin. “Techno is going to be insufferable now that you’re back. He’s gotten clingier over the past few centuries.” Tommy’s heart gives a jump with that sentence. The easy casual talk of so much time passing, it’s- it’s something, alright. 

Phil snorts at Wilbur’s words. “You’re saying that as if you aren’t the same.” Wilbur gives a scoff. “Or maybe even worse.”

“My hugs are wonderful. Techno can confirm.” Wilbur huffs, lifting his chin with something high and mighty.

“He’s not denying it.” Techno points out, and Tommy gives a small laugh at the way Wilbur wilts.

Wil looks back down at him with a simple warm smile, like Tommy’s laughter is the most precious sound he can have, and the laugh in his throat quickly turns into a broken sob. Tommy’s shoulders shake as he tries to choke back the overwhelming urge to cry, and his efforts are futile. A tear runs down his face, and he digs his fingers into Techno’s shirt, shrinking away like he’s trying to hide. Hide from the world, hide from everything he’s lost. 

Wilbur leans close, Techno squeezing his arm from where it stays wrapped around him. “Tommy.” Wilbur breathes out, a reassurance and an apology and a promise. “Tommy, hey.” 

A panicked whine is pulled out from Tommy’s chest, and he pushes his feet against Wil, trying to sink into Techno’s arms, trying to tear away the feeling of wanting to wail and scream until there is nothing left. His chest feels so tight that it might just burst, and his throat burns with the effort of trying to stay blessedly silent. 

“Sunshine, please, look at me.” 

Tommy can’t. He’ll shatter. He’ll fall apart right here, right in his brother’s arms, and he won’t know how to put himself together. 

“Please?” Wilbur asks, fingertips trailing underneath Tommy’s chin, hopeful and kind. 

Tommy can only remember that same word, hundreds of years ago.

( “Tommy, please-!” And a flash of light. A flash of light, Tommy leaving him behind, oh gods, he left Wil behind, he’s left them all behind-)

Tommy looks up, tears falling down his cheeks, his shoulders shaking with a choked sob. There is guilt pouring down, trailing down his spine, and it’s washed away so quickly with a kiss being placed right onto his forehead, Wil being the culprit. 

“It’s alright.” Wilbur reassures, his voice so low that Tommy can barely catch it past his own gasps for air. “It’s alright, Tommy.” 

He sounds so sure. So steady, solid. 

Maybe he’s right. 

Tommy closes his eyes and reaches a hand out, and there is Wil. There is Wilbur, holding onto his hand so tightly, feeling so real against his palm. Fingers squeeze around his, and Tommy cries once again, a near wail escaping from his throat, echoing against the walls of the car. Techno wraps his arms around Tommy and keeps the world away, and Wilbur holds his hand, keeping him company. 

Tommy cries for the second time that night. 

And Phil listens. He watches Wil and Techno stay huddled near their youngest, and feels his heart squeeze with relief, with hope. He’s in tears himself, but it is a silent thing. He lets his sons have their moment. 

With shaking hands, he tears his eyes away from the backseat, and instead focuses his attention onto his phone, trying to speak with someone on the other side. He struggles to type properly, and hits send with a deep breath being forced through his lungs. 

We found Tommy. We’ll be home soon.

And that is all. 

He can’t bear to say anything more. He puts his phone to the side and leans back in his seat, his palm tracing over the watch still sitting in his pocket. He wants to tear the thing apart, but something tells him that wouldn’t exactly work. Tommy had been hurdling it around earlier, after all. Perhaps it’s made to be durable. 

Phil stares into the parking lot before him, the night still quiet, the place mostly empty. The stars above are bright, and the moon is even brighter. Tommy’s cries sound too loud in his ears, and Phil closes his eyes, and hangs his head forward, trying to scrape together a sense of joy, rather than crushing sadness. 

He doesn’t need to dig a grave. He won’t have to dig an empty grave for his little boy. 

They will be taking him back, instead. Taking him home, keeping him safe and loved here. That is enough. That is reason to be joyful. 

Even so, Phil can’t help but grimace as Tommy gives another terrible, pained sob. It hurts to hear, but it is not as if he is without comfort. His brothers stay beside him, and Phil will only listen. There will be another time, where he can offer his shoulder to cry on, but for now, he lets Wilbur and Techno handle this instead. 

(If Phil were to try and help, he doesn’t think he’d be able to hold himself together.)

The minutes pass slowly. 

Second by second, moment by moment. 

Phil is nothing if not patient. After all, he’s waited all these years. He can wait a few minutes more to let everything settle. Eventually, Tommy’s crying simmers down, leaving only Wilbur’s murmuring voice speaking to him, a constant flow of reassurance. Phil's heartbeat eventually slows into something calm, but his hands do not stop shaking, no matter how many slow breaths he forces through his lungs. 

The car grows silent. Tommy sniffles and gives a few shaky breaths, but nothing more. He’s exhausted himself out. Phil spares a glance to them, and finds Tommy slumped against Techno, his hand in Wilbur’s, holding on so tightly that it is as if he’s afraid to lose grip. 

“Tired?” Wilbur asks, his other hand brushing at Tommy’s face to wipe off tears. Tommy gives a barely-there nod, his eyes closing shut, feeling too heavy. It feels as if everything has been sapped out of him, and he is only a limp body left behind. The lack of energy would be scary if it weren’t for the fact he knows that nothing will harm him here.

 “Yeah.” Wilbur hums. “You can sleep? When you wake up, we’ll be home.” 

“Home?” Tommy mutters, Techno rubbing against his shoulders in a soothing manner. 

“We’ve got an apartment just a few minutes away.” Techno explains. “We came for groceries, but.” He doesn’t finish the sentence, a slight shrug on his shoulders. 

“Oh.” Tommy blinks his eyes open, and then shuts them again. Of course they’ve got an apartment. They’ve got to live somewhere. 

Tommy wonders how it’ll be for him to live there. To be there with them. It sounds impossible, but Tommy’s always been one to be enveloped in the impossible. He’s a time-traveler, after all. 

Or, at least, he was. 

“Are we all good to go?” Phil asks, turning in his seat and looking at Tommy with a hint of worry. “Should I even bother asking you two to put on seat belts?”

“I’m not moving.” Techno says simply, resting his cheek into Tommy’s hair, and Phil rolls his eyes. 

“I’ll drive slow, then.” The car starts in the next moment, coming to life with a quiet rumble of an engine. Tommy tenses at the noise, but there’s still a hand rubbing at his shoulders, and he drifts back into peaceful exhaustion. Wilbur squeezes his hand, and Tommy blinks his eyes open, staring up at his brother. 

Everything feels so calm. Quiet. There are lips being pressed against his brow and a slight hum hovering in the air, and this is nothing like Tommy’s dreams at all. It’s too sweet. Too whole. 

It’s perfect. 

But. 

Tommy swallows down a lump in his throat, and he flicks his gaze over to Phil, who steers the car past the parking lot, down the roads with ease. 

“Dad.” Tommy calls, and he can see Phil glance at him through the rearview mirror, a loving look being given his way. 

It’s a nice look. But even so, Tommy can’t help the next words from leaving his mouth. His mind screams and begs for an attempt at gaining back that watch, the very thing that has been his purpose for so long. 

(And Tommy hates it, he hates the way he feels like he needs it, he hates the way he feels to connected to it, he wants the damn thing to break already-)

“When-” He starts, but he stops, and then tries again. “Will I get it back? My watch?”  

The arms around him seem to grow a bit tighter. Tommy holds his breath, and feels as if he might’ve said something wrong. He waits for some sort of response anyhow. 

Phil continues driving, a blank look pulled over his expression. He glances at Tommy again, and shakes his head. “No. At least not for the time being.” 

Tommy shouldn’t feel so relieved with that. He oughta be devastated. It’s his life’s work. It was Dream’s work. He’s used it for so long, depended on it for so long. 

But now it’s not in his hands. It’s not around his wrist. It’s tucked away in Phil’s pocket, out of reach, out of sight. And Tommy can’t do a thing about it. All he can do is be taken home. Be loved. 

It’s an alright outcome. 

With that, Tommy finally closes his eyes, and lets his exhaustion fully pull him under. He falls into sleep, curled up against Techno, Wilbur’s hand wrapped around his. 

And he dreams. 

(“Trial 4276. Failure.” A sigh. “Tommy, did you take the notes?”

“What notes? It blew up.”

“That still gives something to take notes on.” 

A scoff. “Hey, it’s on fire.” 

Another sigh. “Where’s the fire extinguisher?”)

(“Trial 4857. Failure. Went better than I thought, though. Tommy?”

“Hold on, hold on. Finishing notes. Did…not…set on fire. Uh huh.”

“Tommy.” 

“I really do think we should make a stamp for the fire thing. Easier than writing ‘it combusted into fucking flames.’ over and over.” A thoughtful hum. “Maybe that can be our next best thing.”

“We’re going to get this.”)

(“Trial 5683. Success! We- okay, well-”

“WHERE IS THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER!?” 

“Things do need to be worked out. But we got results. We got results! It- It did something!” A shuffle of papers. “It took something with it. If calculations are right, then my mug is hopefully going to return in about ten minutes. Hopefully. I kinda liked that mug.” 

“I didn’t!” Something is knocked over. “And also are we sure it didn’t just-” A flash of light. A crash. “SHIT! Uh, it got here early! Also, I need a broom.” 

A soft sigh. “Things need to be worked out. But, progress.”)

(“Trial 6000.”

“Lucky number!” 

“Success. We were able to bring something from the past, and send it into the future without the timing being off. This- this is incredible.”

“It’s still on fire.”

“Go get the fire extinguisher. It should still be fine. Just- burn marks. I’ve been reinforcing it.”

“Making it less easy to burn, you mean?”

“Yeah, basically. This thing needs to be indestructible. Time travel is destructive, apparently.”

“I feel like that’s some sort of universal warning.” The sound of a fire being put out. “But then, again, fuck that, we’re making time travel!” 

A laugh. “We are.”)

(“Trial- well. I don’t think this actually counts as a trial.”

“Trial number-how-the-fuck-do-we-test-this.” 

A hum. “A volunteer?” 

“Bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Well, if it goes wrong, then the person is probably going to be set on fire. That’s not pog. And if it works, then we got a random volunteer with literal fucking time travel. That’s also not pog.”

“I guess not, no. Then what?”

An unsure noise. “One of us test it?”

“I’m not letting you test it.” 

“I’ll live.”

“It regularly sets things on fire.” 

“I said what I said. I can handle fire.”

“No, Tommy.” 

A huff. “Then what? We got results. We got a working device. We have to test it. With someone trusted, as well.” 

“We- we’ll get someone. I’m sure the higher-ups might wanna do the searching themselves, anyway.”

“...what is this supposed to help look for, anyway?” 

“You know I’m not answering that.” 

A sigh.)

(“...It’s a person. They’re looking for someone in the past.” 

“Who the hell fucked up that bad for people to go looking for them in the past?” 

“I don’t know what she did, exactly, but she’s good at hiding. There’s only been one confirmed sighting of her, from what I’ve been told. And that was a long time ago. This was- just one of the ways they wanted to try finding her.”

“...who is she?”

“I don’t really know. She’s- not human, that’s for sure. She’s still around.”

“And…when did she go off the grid?”

“Centuries ago.” 

A pause. “What.”

“I said she’s not human, Tommy.” 

“Shouldn’t she be dead?”

“Apparently that’s just something she doesn’t do.” 

“Doesn’t do- WHAT.” 

“I feel the need to remind you this is classified information.” 

“I’m sorry, we’ve got some- vampire-”

“Immortal.”

“Vampire!”

“She’s not a vampire.” A laugh. “....I think.”

“How do you know. Fucking people don’t tell us anything. We made time travel to catch a vampire. What the fuck.”)

(A shuffle of papers. Drawers being opened. Closed. Opened again. 

“If I was Dream, where would I put top secret documents and shit?” Another drawer opening. “Maybe in- oh. Huh. Okay, that was easier than I thought.”

A squeak of a chair. Something being set down on a desk. Papers being flipped. 

“Hm, hm, hm. Lady Death. That’s a fucking cool name. But what did you do?”

Pages turning.)

(“You went through my things?!”

“-and I really don’t get it, because what the fuck did she do?! Why are they going after her again? Did she start a cult? They can say cult on the papers, you know. No need to be writing it all-”

“Tommy!” 

“I had to know!”

“For what reason?! Do you have any idea- okay. You know what, okay. Fine. This is fine.”

“...you don’t sound fine-”

“I’M! Going to go drink some tea. And-” A clink of something being set down. “Leave my keys…that open my locker…right here.” 

A pause. “You’re fucking awesome.” 

“I’m getting tea.”)

(“I read the things.” 

“...you took my keys.” 

A woosh. Keys are caught midair. “I read it, Dream.” 

“You’re not happy about it, huh.”

“I knew our bosses were kinda shitheads, but not to THAT extent. She’s not even dangerous. Hell, she’s-”

“Godlike?”

“I was going to say cool. But sure, worship the immortal woman, I’m on board with that.”

“We wouldn’t be the first ones.” 

A laugh. “Yeah, we wouldn’t, huh.” A pause. “She doesn’t deserve what they have for her.”

“We can’t exactly stop it.” 

“We could- set the thing on fire, or-”

“You know how reinforced it is, Tommy. That won’t do anything.” 

“So we just let her- we just let them do this?”

“...”

“Why did you let me read it, then!?”

“I don’t know.” A sigh. “I don’t know.”)

(“Tommy? I brought coffee.” 

Silence. Footsteps. 

“Tommy?”

A freeze. 

“Oh no. No, no, no-”)

(Blaring alarms. Red lights stream down the hallways, and Tommy is running. He’s running, and running, and he will never stop.

She doesn’t deserve that. Tommy thought this was supposed to be used for good, she doesn’t deserve to be locked away. If this is true, then Tommy can’t let it happen. 

So he runs.

He will find her first, before all of them.)

(Gunshots ring through the room. 

“PUT THAT DOWN! Put it down, I can- let me talk! Don’t shoot! Let me talk to him!” 

“Dream!”)

(“Just give it to me. Just hand it over, Tommy, okay?”)

(“TAKE IT OFF, TOMMY, TAKE IT OFF-”)

(“TOMMY-!”)

“Shh.” Tommy is being moved, and there is a cold night chill running across his skin. He huddles into Technoblade, huffing. “You’re going to wake him up.” 

“I miss him.” 

“He needs his rest, mate.” 

Tommy does feel as if he needs rest. Everything is heavy. A little sore. He makes an unhappy noise in the back of his throat as light shines onto him, and he tries to hide away from it all by shoving his face into Techno’s shirt. Time passes too quickly, and then too slowly. He hears talking, and frowns.  

“Is he up?”

“He will be if you keep talking, Wil.” 

“Hmm.” A nudge at his arm. 

“Wilbur.” Phil scolds. Tommy catches onto the tone, the familiarity of it, and he latches on with everything he’s got. He pulls his eyes open out of sheer will, and then realizes who he’s hearing. 

“He’s up.” 

“Ah, shit.” 

“Tommy!” Wilbur seems to be the only happy one about this. Tommy turns his head with squinted eyes, and then breaks out into a yawn, his hands grabbing at Techno’s shirt. 

“Wha-?” He blinks, then looks around. They’re in an elevator. When did they get here? He looks at Techno, who’s still carrying him. “Huh?” 

“Maybe he’s not entirely up, actually.” Techno says, something amused in his voice. Tommy lifts his head to look up at him, and then freezes. In his half asleep state, he sees something that he had failed to notice past the rush of reunion beforehand. 

“You-” Tommy sputters a bit. “Your hair is fucking pink?!” 

Wilbur bursts out in laughter at that. There’s a soft ding of them reaching their floor, the doors sliding open, but Techno makes no move to head out. He just squints at Tommy like he’s trying to hold back a small smile. 

“Yes.” He says slowly. Tommy stares at the color, not having noticed it past the tears and the darkness of the parking lot in the middle of the night. Here, it’s much more obvious, though. 

Along with the specific-looking markings around Techno’s eyes. 

Tommy lifts a hand and grabs at his brother’s face. “There’s- is that eyeliner ?” He says it in such a baffled manner that even Phil snorts, and Wilbur is still laughing, bent over at the hip with it. 

“Don’t-” Wilbur sniffs, trying to catch his breath. “Don’t you know, Tommy? The blade is going through a punk phase.” 

“Oh, don’t start this.” Techno shakes his head, walking out the elevator with Tommy. “We just got our brother back and you’re already trying to have him make fun of me.” 

“It’s in a braid!” Tommy exclaims, having reached behind Techno to poke at his hair. “Wilbur, holy shit-” He looks up with awe, and then pauses. 

It is not only Techno who has changed with the years. 

Wilbur and Phil might’ve not gone through an entire drastic change, but the differences are still notable. There’s small studs in Wilbur’s ears. A new little scar at the bottom of his chin. 

Phil’s hair is shorter than it was before. It’s pulled back into a small ponytail, part of it falling out over his face. There is a scar on his neck, on his hand, and a necklace around his collar. A necklace holding a small ring. 

Tommy falters at the sight of it. At the sight of them.

(They’ve grown so much. It’s a bittersweet thought, yet. It’s also so comforting, somehow. They’ve lived. They have lived and grown and now Tommy can grow with them.) 

Then he freezes at hearing a voice down the hall. 

“Boys?” 

Phil’s expression goes warm. He walks ahead of Techno, and Wilbur moves beside him. Tommy turns in where he’s being held, and looks down the hall, seeing someone lean out of a door, seeming to be relieved. 

“Kristin, Kristin-” Phil is speaking, and he moves forward, taking her by the hands and pulling her into the hall. “Come here-”

Tommy stares with wide eyes, and watches as she walks out into the hall, meeting Techno halfway. She stays holding hands with Phil, and Phil looks at her with something excited, something overjoyed. 

And Tommy- 

Knows this person. 

(This is what he was looking for.)

Chapter Text

“Is that him?” She-- (A face with a kind smile, eyes with a sharp chaos- she’s ethereal, it is said. She’s divine, it is said. She is feared.) --Kristin asks, her voice soft as she leans her shoulder into Phil’s. “Is that-?”

“Tommy.” Phil responds, his voice just as gentle. It’s fitting for the late of the night. But it’s also fitting for how suddenly fragile the air feels. Everything feels thin, paper thin. Tommy doesn’t move an inch in Techno’s hold. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears, echoing like a constant drum. 

“Tommy.” She-- 

(“She’s not human, Tommy.”)

 --repeats, like she cannot believe the name. She takes a careful step forward, looking just a little nervous, her grin being just a little frail. It looks so sweet. So careful. Phil smiles at her like she is the starry night itself, and if Tommy did not know better, that would be enough for him to trust her easily. 

But he does know. He knows her. 

Knows what she is. 

(“Immortal.” Dreams’ voice rings absolute in his head. It is a voice long forgotten, and his name even more so, but in this single second, Tommy remembers.)

“Hello. I’ve heard so much about you.” She tells him, her eyes glinting in the light of the hallway. It could just be brimming tears, but it could also be something more. Tommy can’t tell. He can’t even breathe. 

She’s there. 

She’s right there. 

(Lady Death, the text reads. Tommy’s fingers skim over the paper, and his blood simmers with awe as he reads of a woman untouched by time. Untouched by death. Her name is something ironic, in a way. She herself is something entirely unknown.)

Techno takes a few steps forward down the hall, taking Tommy closer to her, closer to home. Wilbur hovers right at Techno’s side, and Phil keeps at Kristin’s side, his eyes watery as Tommy keeps his gaze onto her. 

“I’ve been waiting to meet you.” She continues, sounding so hopeful. Tommy wants to repeat that same sentence back to her, but his throat feels closed up. No words are daring to squeeze through. “My- My name is Kristin.”

(The folders call her an anomaly. 

They write ‘it’ instead of ‘her’, as if she is not a person, a soul. They say ‘the anomaly’ rather than her name, as if repeating her identity will be too much. They call an immortal with the title of Lady Death an “unknown variable, a possible threat”, like she is something they can take down. A problem that could be fixed. Tommy’s skin crawls with the realization that their creation, their work-- will be used to ‘fix’ this underneath the organization’s eyes.

That watch will be used to trap her. To find her, to contain her.)

“Kristin?” Tommy chokes out, like the word is cutting through his throat. Faintly, he can feel his eyes welling up with tears. It is nothing of importance against the sight of the face before him. Her face, her expression, which shifts into something so pitiful, so dearly concerned. 

It’s so horrifyingly familiar. Like a dream Tommy needs to remember. Something clicks in his head and settles upon his memory, and he can feel his vision grow blurry, his face feeling wet. His hands are trembling, digging into Techno’s shirt. 

(Tommy has to find her first. He has to take the watch. If he does, then they’ll fail to ever find her, they’ll lose this way of trying to track her down. 

Dream will refuse to rebuild it, he knows this. Tommy will never come back with this tech. 

It is a noble sacrifice, in a way. Tommy’s wrist burns as he screams in his thoughts to remember what he is looking for.)

“She’s, ah-” Phil starts, Kristin holding a hand out to Tommy, as if wanting to wipe off his tears. 

“They’re lovers.” Wilbur supplies, sounding so sickeningly sweet when he says it. “Dad’s got married. They’re disgusting together.” His voice is fond, even with the insult.

“Wil.” Phil lightly scolds, a small smile on his face. Kristin doesn’t look away from Tommy, and Tommy doesn’t look away from her. The words process slowly in his head. He glances down at Phil’s arm being intertwined with hers. 

(Remember, he tells himself, in the first few weeks. Remember her name. Remember what you’re doing. The mission. With all the time in the world, surely he can do this. All he has to do is stay focused.

He stays focused, alright. But what use is focus if you forget where to even place it?)

“What?” Wilbur laughs, breathless. “I mean it. You both give me cavities.” 

Phil shakes his head at Wilbur’s response, not noticing the near terror in Tommy’s eyes. The slight panic over Kristin’s shoulders. Techno notices Kristin’s reaction, and he holds Tommy a bit tighter, looking down to try and see him better. To see what’s wrong. 

(Remember, Tommy tells himself. Keep looking. Keep going.

But- what was her name, again? He knows it. He knows he knows it. It’s, it’s just on the tip of his tongue.) 

“Phil.” Kristin says, shaky with worry. Her hand reaches out closer, so hesitant, but stubborn. “Phil, something’s wrong.” 

Phil looks at Tommy’s face, and his eyes go wide with the sheer devastation written all across it. Wilbur steps forward, looking as well, going tense with the sight. Something of panic slips into the air. 

(Remember, something in Tommy’s head screams. He runs. Runs and runs and runs and he will never, ever stop. He has to find-

Fuck. Who is he looking for?)

“Tommy?” Wilbur asks, and Tommy can feel tears running down to his chin. 

(What was it-?)

Kristin’s hand hovers, reaching up and nearly grazing his face, almost about to wipe at his cheek-

(Why is he searching? There was something, someone- He has to remember.

Remember. Please, she’s right there right here right-)

“It’s you.” Tommy says, and it is a final realization made with a broken sob. “I was-” He gasps in, and the air is not nearly enough. “I was looking for you.” 

She freezes. 

The world almost stops, in that second. Everything has fallen into place, the fog lifted away, and Tommy-

Knows her. 

“What?” She asks, and she pulls her hand back, her expression faltering. “What are you-?”

“All this time.” Tommy cuts her off, everything tasting bittersweet. “All this fucking time. I forgot. I was running around, not even having a single clue- I had forgotten-?” 

How could he have forgotten that? Forgotten her? That was the whole point of him doing this, of running and searching, using that watch, traveling through all these years-- and he lost it. 

He lost his way. Without a set goal in mind, he had been wandering for who knows how long. Hell, with a side effect of apparent memory loss , it’s no wonder he got stuck in a cycle. He was throwing himself in circles, no way out with no one able to catch him, until-

Tommy closes his eyes, thinking of his watch still put away in Phil’s pocket. 

Something in his stomach churns with guilt at feeling so, so relieved that Phil stole it. 

“Tommy, what are you talking about?” Phil asks, leaning forward. His question is nothing but gentle, careful. Like the air around them is glass and one move is going to make it all shatter. “You- you know her? Have you met?”

“Kinda. I mean- I haven’t met you. I think.” Tommy confesses, shaking his head. He breathes in deep through his nose, then sobs again, shoulders shaking with it. “But I…know you?” He croaks out. “They- They called you Lady Death.” 

Everyone in the hallway seems to go rigid the second Tommy says that name. 

“There was- a file, your file-” Tommy tries to rub at his face to dry it off. It barely makes a difference. Now his palm is wet. “My partner, my- friend, he had let me read it-”

“Tommy.” 

Tommy’s words falter with the tone in Phil’s voice. 

Suddenly, he feels as if he’s said something horribly wrong. He turns his head to Phil, and faintly, very faintly, he remembers some vague lecture about confidentiality. 

Fuck, was not not meant to say that out loud? He supposes immortals would like for their grand secret identities to stay secret. Tommy presses his lips shut. 

Phil doesn’t look angry, thankfully enough. But he looks stern. No, solemn, more like. There’s something sharp in the edges of his gaze, very nearly dangerous. It’s not something Tommy’s seen before, or if he has, it’s been a long while. 

Just as soon as he begins to feel wary, it leaves, and all that is left behind is his dad holding a finger over his mouth with an insistent look. Almost like a scolding. 

Tommy leans back against Techno, breathing out slowly. Technoblade rests his chin onto the top of his head.

“Maybe we should stop standin’ around in the hallway?” Techno suggests, his voice low. “This isn’t the best spot to talk.” 

“Yeah.” Kristin nods, seeming a little dazed. She nods to herself. “Yes, I-” She steps to the side, pulling her arm away from Phil’s. “I made some hot chocolate for Tommy? I thought it’d help with- everything.” 

Tommy blinks. More tears run down his face. He looks at Wil, like a silent question. 

Wil looks back with a smile. “I’m sure he’d like that.” He agrees, following Kristin inside. Techno follows soon after, Phil being last with one last glance around the hallway before closing the door behind them all. 

The apartment is a nice sort of place. Tommy’s not sure what he expected, but it seems fitting. It’s got a kitchen. Got a living room. There’s a couple plants sitting around, coats hung up on the hooks beside the door. Shoes are scattered on the ground to the side, like they were kicked off without much care, and there are-

Tommy holds his breath, eyes stuck on the walls. 

There’s picture frames. Photos of his family, looking happy and looking the same, and there, with them-- there’s a picture of him. 

Or, it’s not a picture, exactly. Tommy thinks it’s a painting. It’s rather accurate, painstakingly made with effort, every detail looking vivid enough that Tommy can almost imagine he was there when it was made. 

Something in his chest twists at the thought of them putting that up. Of them making that. (He wonders if it was Phil who made it. He’s always been the more crafty one out of all of them.)

They did not forget him. Even in all those years of him turning his back, they did not dare forget him. They made a little spot for him in this home, hung his face up on the wall, like he belongs. 

It hurts to know that he left this. Ran from this. 

The air smells of hot chocolate. Kristin circles around the kitchen counter with a slow walk, a frown wanting to tug at her lips. There’s a small mug sitting at the edge of the counter, with a few cookies beside it. Tommy thinks that’s for him. 

Wilbur sits down on one of the chairs, leaning against the edge. His hand fiddles with one of the cookies, not quite picking it up. He looks at Tommy expectantly, like he’s meant to sit down right next to Wil, to have his hot chocolate, but Techno suddenly comes to a halt in the middle of the kitchen.  

Tommy makes a small noise as he’s held closer, shoved against Techno’s chest. Wilbur narrows his eyes with a barely there scoff, something slightly teasing. 

“Techno.” Phil says, nudging Techno in the back. He walks past him to go grab something from the living room, still calling out as he does. “You’ve got to put him down, mate.” 

Technoblade hums. He doesn’t really budge. He kinda leans forward a bit, like he’s meaning to go let Tommy sit, but he doesn’t quite manage a step forward. Wilbur huffs. 

“Clingy motherfucker.” Wil swears. “You got to carry him all the way from the car. Give.” He holds his hands out, opening and closing his fingers. 

“Nah.” Techno declines, turning away a bit. “I think we’re good.” 

Kristin, even with the uneasiness that’s resting on her shoulders, gives a good natured sigh. She shakes her head at Techno. “He’s not going to be able to drink his hot chocolate if you’re holding him like that.” 

“Hm.” Is all Techno gives in response, like that’s not really a concern. To be honest, Tommy feels the same. What’s of greater importance? A cup of hot chocolate, or being carried by his long-lost brother who’s gone literal centuries without seeing him?

Yeah, one seems a bit more weightful than the other. 

“Technoblade.” Phil says, coming back with what Tommy recognizes to be a box of tissues in his hands. “He’s not going anywhere. You can let him down.” 

Techno only makes a displeased face at that, resting his head back down onto Tommy’s and closing his eyes. Phil doesn’t seem too surprised at that response. 

“Tommy,” Wilbur calls, trying a different approach, holding up a cookie. “Here, come try these. Something sweet would do you good.” 

Tommy shifts his gaze over, sniffing a bit with all the recent crying. He looks at the cookie in Wilbur’s hand. It does look kinda tasty. When was the last time he had modern cookies? Damn it, he can’t remember. 

He kicks his legs a little, something of a request to be put down. Techno grunts. 

“Techno.” Phil pokes his shoulder, insistent again. “It’s alright.” 

Tommy squirms some more, trying to leave, then he’s squeezed hard enough that he thinks he’s going to lose his breath. He makes a strangled noise. The grip loosens up. 

“You’re going to fucking squish me to death.” Tommy mutters out. The sentence hardly lands with how shaky his voice still is. 

“That’d be less than ideal.” Techno admits. Tommy huffs, kicking a leg out, and to his surprise, he’s slowly let down to freedom. 

He almost immediately stumbles on his first step. Techno holds onto the back of his shirt, pulling him up and guiding him over to the counter, where Wil pulls him onto his seat. Tommy lifts his arms onto the counter, resting his elbows against the surface and cradling the mug of hot chocolate in his palms. It’s warm. 

Techno sits on his other side, taking the last chair available by the counter. Tommy goes to turn towards him, but then there’s a hand trying to get him to turn the other way, and he’s getting attacked by a tissue. 

“Ugh.” Tommy sniffs, not stopping Phil in his efforts. The coddling kinda makes him feel like a child, but a little part of him, after everything, wants to feel like a child. Like their kid specifically. At least if he were their kid, he wouldn’t have to be a time traveler. He’d just be Tommy.  

Phil seems satisfied with his work after a long minute, and he pulls away, putting the tissues onto the middle of the counter and going to throw away the one he’s used. “There.” He says, Tommy rubbing at his eyes. “Bit better.” 

“Less snotty.” Techno says, and Tommy grumbles at him. He should’ve just used Techno’s shoulder as a tissue when he had the chance. 

“Here.” Wilbur holds up the cookie from before, and Tommy blinks at it, before gingerly taking it from his fingers. He sniffs it before biting into it. It’s sweet. 

He chews slowly, before setting his sights on the cup in front of him and taking a sip of that too. It tastes just as he would expect. Chocolatey goodness. He finishes his cookie, shoving the rest of it into his mouth like he’s starving. 

Tommy’s never been one to go without food, really. There’s always someplace to buy it, and if he’s lacking money, he usually will just steal some and then travel a week back. Handy thing, that. 

But this-- this is different. 

He spares a look up at Phil, taking a bite of another cookie even though he hasn’t even finished the first one. Phil stands next to Kristin, leaning back against the kitchen counters. He looks fond. Unbearably fond. 

For a second, Tommy recalls that this is their kitchen. Their food. He glances around. There’s dishes in the sink, pots and plates, the remains of a dinner from earlier today. He can spot food stains on the metal of the pot. 

 A stray thought passes his mind. Maybe, now that he’s here, Phil can cook dinner for him again. Just like before. 

He blinks, once, twice. His eyes burn, then his vision blurs. 

Maybe, he can have that back. 

The next bout of tears hit him like a truck. He lowers his head and sobs a bit over his cup, tears suddenly falling into his drink. 

“Tommy.” Wilbur whispers, and Tommy shakes his head. 

He tries to take another sip from his mug, his arms shaking a little with the effort. Wil grabs onto his arm and pushes the cup back down. Tommy lets him, trying to finish chewing the cookies in his mouth. They really are sweet. It’s been too long since Tommy’s had modern cookies. 

“Tommy, you don’t have to finish it.” Wilbur says, Tommy making a half-humming noise.

“You’re going to choke.” Phil warns gently, Techno reaching forward and pushing the mug away from Tommy’s hands. Tommy kinda wants to snatch it back. “The cookies will stay there, mate. You can have them in the morning if you want.” 

“No.” Tommy gets out, shaking his head furiously. He swallows. “No, I-” His voice wavers terribly, so he stops and then makes a frantic grab for the tissues. 

No crying. He’s got to stop crying. How is going to see anything if he keeps filling his eyes with tears? Plus, he’s going to dehydrate at this rate. That’s probably bad. 

He wipes at his face, feeling a hand rest on the back of his shoulder, like a reassurance. Upon further glance, it’s Wilbur’s hand. Tommy bites his cheek to try and stop tearing up. He leans into Wilbur as an attempt to escape another sob. He’s failing miserably. 

“Okay, okay.” Wilbur breathes out over Tommy’s head, like he’s trying to calm himself. Or maybe he’s trying to calm Tommy. Tommy doesn’t know at this point. “It’s alright. You’re alright, Toms.” 

Tommy makes a pathetic gasp into Wil’s shirt at that. The tissue in his hand falls to the floor, Tommy no longer caring about it. It’s clearly not stopping his tears. 

“Maybe we should wait until morning to ask any questions.” Kristin suggests gently, staring at Tommy with a sad look. “I don’t think now’s a good time.” She turns her head to Phil.

“No-” Tommy tries to say, but it comes out broken. “No, no, I want to-” He cries again. 

“Tommy.” Wilbur whispers, sounding very close to a plea. 

Phil huffs out, looking towards the ground. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Yeah, you’re right.” He says to Kristin. He seems to think for a moment. “Wil, do you think you could have any pajamas that might fit him?” 

“I can talk.” Tommy insists, trying to pull away from Wil. Wilbur resists at first, but with the way Tommy jabs him in the stomach, he relents. “I want to talk. I want to-” He sits upright, hiccuping. 

“Toms.” Phil says. 

“I need to explain.” Tommy insists. “Please let me explain.” 

Phil opens his mouth like he means to protest further, but he falters, and just can’t quite get the words out. Tommy holds his gaze for what feels like eternity, and he can see the way Phil’s eyes grow glassy-looking for just a moment. 

“Please?” Tommy adds, and he feels as if in that second, they’d do anything for him. 

“Okay.” Phil nods, and Tommy nods with him. “Okay, Tommy. But clean off your face.” 

Tommy means to do that with only his sleeves, but Wilbur’s reaching forward for the tissues, so he ends up using those instead. Techno hesitantly slides back the hot chocolate. When Tommy takes a sip, it is still warm. 

“You said you were looking for me…” Kristin starts off, her words trailing off like she’s not sure if she should be beginning. Phil gives her an affirmative look. “You said there were files that called me Lady Death, but- no one’s known that name in millennia.” 

Tommy’s heart plummets, just out of shock. “Millennia?” He repeats, slowly. “Thousands of years? Thousands?”

Kristin nods. 

“Oh.” Tommy blinks. “That’s- a long time.” 

“I’ve lived a long time.” Kristin says, a touch amused. “So how did you know it? Are you…?”

“I’m not immortal.” Tommy shakes his head. “I’m sixteen, just sixteen. But I was, uhm.” He glances up at Phil. “Actually, Phil, do you have my watch?”

Phil tilts his head. With Tommy’s look, he reaches into his pocket and takes it out, holding in midair. 

“Okay.” Tommy's heart picks up just with the sight of it, something in the back of his mind screaming to get it back, to climb over this counter and tear it from his hands. “Okay, okay.” He looks away, digging into his pockets to bring out a tiny worn journal. “You can- put it on the counter.” 

“This is staying with me.” Phil refuses, and Tommy snaps his head up, his fingers digging into the journal in his hands. Phil’s stare is ruthlessly unwavering. 

(Give it back, he wants to yell. Give it back, give it back, I have to keep going. I have to-)

“Right.” Tommy chokes out, remembering that from their perspective, he’s been running away for centuries. That would make them hesitant. That makes sense. “Right, then.” He slams the journal on the counter, like a grand statement. Techno and Wilbur lean forward in interest, but Tommy keeps his hands tightly holding onto it, not yet paying attention to it. 

“I’m a time traveler.” He says, fighting to keep the waver off his voice. “I wasn’t technically supposed to be, but I’ve ended up being one anyway. I stole that watch to try and warn you.” He looks directly at Kristin, who stares back with wide eyes. 

“Warn me?” She repeats softly, like there's the start of a slow horrible realization falling over her. Phil looks at her with that same solemn look Tommy had seen in the hallway. 

“There are people looking for you.” Tommy tells her, finally. “They were going to use that watch to track you down, but I took it before they did. I wanted to get to you first. Although, that kinda- took a while. I didn’t mean to take this long.” 

“You found us , though.” Wilbur points out. He shares a look with Techno. “Were we-?” He begins to ask, but Tommy shakes his head. 

“No. No, no, you weren’t a part of that. They weren’t looking for you, at least, not that I know of. Just her.” Tommy denies. “I found you guys by chance. I swear. I wasn’t even supposed to settle with people! I told myself to keep going and going until I found her, no pauses.” Tommy lifts a hand to Kristin. “I didn’t want to get distracted, but I, uh-” He falters. 

“But you did.” Technoblade says, a small smile on his face. Tommy can’t figure it out. “Did we set you back?” He asks. 

“Sorta. Well, no. Not really.” Tommy admits. “The thing is, I-” He stammers for a second, waving a hand through the air. “I got lost.” 

“You forgot where I was?” Kristin asks, trying to phrase it lightly, like a joke of some sort. It falls a little flat, considering how she still seems shaken by the fact there are people after her. 

Tommy shakes his head. “There was only one confirmed sighting of you in your file, from way back then. I was supposed to know exactly where you were. But when we made the watch, we hadn’t exactly tested it on a person yet. We didn’t know there were side effects, and it ended up with me-” Tommy looks down at his journal, and stops. 

He pulls his hands away from the book, placing them on the counter. He can see them trembling, just barely, and with a slow dawning sense of horror, he realizes-

It’s so worn down. 

The journal looks decades old, the papers barely holding on, the edges all warped, torn, and faded. The name on the front isn’t legible anymore, and as he slowly lifts up the first page, he sees that most of the writing is messed up, dirtied. 

“What?” Tommy breathes out, ignoring the concerned looks he’s getting from his family. He takes the book in hand. Flips through the pages with a growing sense of confusion and stifling dread. The pages on the inside look better, but-

This wasn’t so old before. Surely not. When he took the watch, it was a little roughed up, sure-- he wasn’t exactly neat-- but it wasn’t like this. 

This looks like a damn antique. Something you’d find on the shelf of some historical museum. 

Why does it look like that? The only reason it’d be so beat up is if-

“Tommy?” Kristin asks, Tommy going dead still. 

“Oh fuck.” Tommy whispers, Techno carefully grabbing onto his arm. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck-” 

No. No, no, it’s not what he’s thinking. 

“Tommy.” Phil says, a little louder. Tommy jerks his head up, his breath quick. There are tears brimming in his eyes, but they’re not of joy or relief. 

“It-” He tries to speak. “It ended up with me getting stuck in a cycle.” He chokes out, finishing his last thought. “One of the side effects is memory loss, which is why I forgot I was looking for you, so I got stuck in a cycle, but I-” He gasps in, feeling on the edge of panic. His words come out quickly. “I don’t remember how long I was in it.” 

Phil and Kristin share a look, communicating far too much for Tommy to ever catch. Phil’s hands shake. 

“Breathe.” Wil reminds gently. “Tommy, breathe. Look at me.” 

“No, I-” Tommy turns through the pages again, skimming over it, trying to read through the words. Why does it look so ragged? With how often he was jumping around, it makes sense for it to be a little tattered, but this isn’t that. This looks well-used. 

How did he not notice? Why didn’t he notice? If he did, he could’ve realized-

“Tommy, how long do you think you were traveling for?” Kristin asks, circling around the counter. She moves behind him, encouraging him to turn around towards her. 

“I don’t know. I don’t- It can’t have been that long.” He looks at the journal again. His throat feels tight. Surely it was only a few months. A year, at most? He can’t have been traveling for much longer. He would’ve noticed. 

Would he have noticed?

“Can you make an estimate?” She asks, leaning down. He notices Tommy’s gaze. “Where did this book come from, specifically?” 

Tommy looks up. “It was my notes.” He says. It almost sounds hollow. Scared. “From when we made the watch. I took it with me when I first jumped.” 

“It looks like it’s seen better days.” She says. Tommy laughs. It kinda feels hysterical. 

“Yeah, yeah, it’s-” He shakes his head. “It’s not supposed to look like this. If it looks like this, then I’ve had it for a while. But- this is my only way of knowing how long the cycle was. And surely, it wasn’t-” He looks at Wilbur. “It wasn’t that long, right?”

Kristin kneels down, looking up at Tommy. Phil stares at the watch in his hands. 

“It wasn’t that long!” Tommy insists, looking back at Kristin. “I wasn’t lost for that long, I-”

“Tommy.” Kristin says, her voice very careful. “How old are you?”

Phil looks up. 

“Sixteen.” Tommy answers. “I’m sixteen.” 

She looks down at the worn journal in his hands. “How old do you think that journal is?” 

Tommy looks back down at the book. He digs his fingers into the cover of it. 

He knows how much care he’s put into keeping this thing preserved. It was his only piece from his actual past, there was no chance in hell he’d ever lose it, or let it get damaged. He’s kept it safe, kept it maintained as best he can. With enough care like that, he knows, it could last years. 

“Do you think…that one of the side effects of using the watch could’ve been a halt in your aging process?” She words it in a way that’s so familiar, almost like those days in which Tommy did not get caught up with accidental immortality and time travel. 

“Oh, shit.” Wilbur breathes out, and Techno gets up from his seat, stumbling off towards Phil. Tommy can faintly hear his harsh whispers, almost frantic. Maybe joyful. Tommy can’t catch it. “Oh shit, oh gods-” 

“Wil.” Kristin says. Wilbur covers his mouth with his hand, staring wide eyed at the ground. 

Tommy ignores him. He ignores them all. He looks only at Kristin, only at Lady Death, the immortal who he’s been trying to find for so long. He breathes in deep. 

“I’m sixteen.” He repeats. It’s a truth he knows. He knows it. He looks sixteen, he is sixteen. 

“You are.” Kristin agrees. “But I think you’ve been alive for much, much longer than that.” 

Chapter Text

There was this one time-- when Tommy was exploring around the more modern-times city-- where he had ended up finding a path up to the roof. Someone left a ladder lowered down on the fire escape, and Tommy didn’t like the swarms of people within the streets, so he thought maybe a bird’s eye view would be a better place to wander. 

He had climbed the whole way up to the very top of the building, then he climbed off of that, and found an even taller one. It was a stupid sort of choice, but it was fun at the time, and he was getting a better look out onto the street up there than how he would’ve gotten while walking around down there. 

He remembers the wind, most of all. The way it fussed with his hair and made him squint into the sky-- he had lifted his hands out to feel it, and it was cold and fresh. He’s not sure what compelled him to do it-- maybe he wanted to see the city even better, maybe he wanted to keep feeling the wind-- but he got the dumb idea to try climbing onto the very edge of the roof, to stand on top of the barrier meant to keep people from falling to their deaths. 

It was so windy up there. It was a windy day. Tommy stood at what felt like the top of the world, searching over the countless busy streets, and the wind didn’t like him. It whistled so harshly that Tommy shut his eyes, and with closed eyes, he lost his balance. 

He didn’t fall off the roof. No, he was lucky with that. But he still stumbled and fell backwards, and he remembers the sheer panic of feeling gravity yanking him down, the world tilting sideways as his heart jumped into his throat. He remembers the choking, paralyzing feeling in his lungs when he landed squarely on his back, the air knocked out of him, making him gasp and shake. 

That day, Tommy got up and caught his breath, before then pressing at his watch and jumping into another century, done with too-tall buildings. 

Right now, Tommy doesn’t think he’s ever going to be able to properly breathe again. It’s like he’s now landed too harshly on his back, and he’s fucked up his lungs permanently with it. 

He tries to inhale. It’s too short and small. He tries to exhale. It’s like his body won’t even listen. 

Warm hands grab around his wrists, squeezing tight like they’re trying to steady him. Tommy thinks it’s helping. Somewhat. 

Not really, but he can lie to himself.

He mouths the word no before he actually manages to say it. Kristin leans her head forward, looking up at him with soft eyes, listening closely.

“No.” Tommy is able to choke out, after what feels like too long in struggling to speak. “No, no .” He shakes his head just a fraction, and with it, he thinks he’s trembling.

“It’s alright.” Kristin whispers, and Tommy shakes his head further, needing to put it all straight. Needing to put this right, because that’s not right. That’s not- “I know it’s a lot, but it’s alright-”

“I’m just sixteen!” Tommy insists, and he tries to take another breath. It’s still too short, too small. “I’m just- I would’ve known. I-I would’ve noticed, I would have seen it, if I-” didn’t age, he wants to finish saying, but he can’t. 

He can’t say that honestly. 

He knows how deadset he would get on his goal, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what if was. All he ever really knew was to keep going. All he cared about was where to look next. That took up his mind, took up all the space in his skull, and in the spare moments where he was able to pull himself away, he wasn’t thinking about side-effects. 

He knows that if he really noticed, then he would’ve seen the state of his journal and realized it then. He would’ve known then, he would’ve taken a step back and put the watch down and he would’ve stopped. 

But he never looked. He never looked. He never fucking saw it, and so he never found a way out. It was like he was blind with a cloth pulled right over his eyes. He didn’t even know the cloth was there. 

Fuck. 

Tommy lifts his head to look towards Wilbur, needing some sort of reprieve from the stress on his mind. Wilbur’s not facing him, though. He’s staring down towards the floor, eyes wide, hands still kept over his mouth. Tommy sees a shake in his shoulders, and he’s worried if his brother is crying. Maybe he’s just in shock. Just like Tommy.  

“You said there were side-effects, right? You were caught in a loop, so it’s only natural to think you missed it.” Kristin speaks softly, her voice comforting and quiet like she’s speaking to someone with grief. “You were lost.” 

“I missed it.” Tommy repeats, a mumbling of words. “I missed it.” He’s still looking at Wil, and when Kristin squeezes his wrists again, he tilts his head back down. “But if I- If I was lost for that long, then that means…”

Kristin presses his lips tightly together, like she’s trying to keep her expression neutral. It’s not really working. Tommy can see the emotion behind her eyes, vivid and obvious, and his heart falls.

“So I’m not-?” Tommy’s lungs stutter again, cutting him off. 

He leans forward in his seat, his grip going loose on his journal. The book slides from his lap and falls towards the floor, making his heart jump, but Kristin lets go of one of his wrists and snaps a hand out to catch it. 

She holds it gingerly, then places it down beside her on the tile. Tommy stares at the worn cover of it before then lifting his gaze back up to her sad eyes. 

“I’m not sixteen.” Tommy says quietly. It feels like a guilty confession. 

Wilbur suddenly stands up from his seat, the stool screeching back loudly as he quickly moves around the counter. He doesn’t go far, he really only gets to the sink before leaning against it like his legs are about to give out. He’s still facing away from Tommy. He’s still shaking. Tommy wants to hug him from the back and reassure him it’s fine, but he isn’t sure he’d be able to get the words out. He’s also not sure he’d be able to stand off the chair for more than a few seconds. His legs feel unsteady. 

Tommy twists his head around to look for Techno and Phil, and he sees them both standing to the side, Phil holding Technoblade underneath his arm in a tight hug. Techno has to lean at an awkward angle to let Phil hold him, but he doesn’t really seem to care. He’s just hiding his face away into the crook of Phil’s neck, hands holding onto the fabric of his shirt. 

Phil’s looking at him. There’s an- indescribable sort of hope in his eyes. Tommy sees the wetness of tears on his face, and he forces his gaze away so that he won’t go sobbing with his father. He looks back at Kristin, who appears impossibly calm. 

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” She promises, and she lifts her hands up from Tommy’s wrists, hesitating for a moment before cradling his face in her palms. Tommy leans into her hands, blinking tears from his eyes, trying to clear them away. A single one still manages to slip out. “It’s scary, isn’t it?”

Tommy inhales sharply. His heart pounds in his chest. He gives a tiny nod. 

“I know.” She brushes a thumb across his cheek, wiping away that single tear. “I know, even with you being a time traveler, ” She says those two words with so much wonder that Tommy can’t help but have a bit of pride. “-I would imagine something like this still being a lot to take in. You thought you were still…”

“Maybe you’re wrong, though.” Tommy can’t help but blurt out, his words wobbly and quick. “Maybe it’s temporary, maybe with the watch off now, I’m fine and I’m- I’m going to just- be fine.” 

“Well, maybe.” Kristin agrees. “But we don’t really know. All we can do is wait.” 

Wait. They just have to wait. But even that seems too fucking daunting for Tommy to swallow. What if the months pass, the years come and go, and he stays the same? What if he doesn’t grow a single inch, what if his face stays stubbornly young, what if his voice is forever stuck at being a little high-pitched and squeaky? 

What if the world goes on, but he stays right here, with the consequence of his own stupid actions? 

What does he do? 

He won’t age. He won’t ever be an adult, at least not physically. People will always see him as a kid, they’ll always treat him like a kid, and he can’t build a life like that, if he’s trapped in the same minute where he ruined it all. 

He’ll have to learn how to live all over again. He’ll have to figure out how to hide, how to shift identities every couple of years, how to make excuses and stay out of sight so people around him won’t grow suspicious. He’ll have to adapt to it all with the constant danger of being found out, and that’s terrifying to him, because he doesn’t have his watch anymore to escape. 

But he does have his family again. 

The sound of Phil murmuring to Techno yanks Tommy out of his mental worries. He hears the shuffle of footsteps, and with a quick glance behind him, he sees Techno moving to stand with Wil, pulling him away from the counter and into his arms. They talk low, Wilbur’s voice shaking badly, and Tommy can’t pick out their words. He’s just glad they’re there for each other. 

A new hand rests carefully onto the back of his shoulder. Tommy lifts his head up and looks up at his dad. 

Phil’s tears are wiped away, but they’re not entirely gone. His eyes are still glassy, and he looks down at Tommy with a look full of love. Tommy feels so small underneath it. He feels like the kid who used to wake up in the cold mornings and join his father underneath the blankets so he could stick his frigid hands against his neck. He feels like the kid who used to bicker with his brothers daily, driving their dad insane with their nonstop shrieks. He feels the kid who used to complain about his older brother’s cooking, his meals never straying from having potatoes as the main dish. He feels like the kid who got wrangled into staying the night, because he “looks like a sad wet animal in the rain.” He feels like the kid who was lucky enough to find a spot in a family who didn’t seem to care as to where he came from. 

He feels like their kid, loved and seen and missed. 

“So am I- I’m gonna stay?” Tommy chokes out, unable to speak any higher than a whisper. The idea of staying is both so scary and so comforting. Tommy’s mind insists that staying still is how he gets caught. His heart insists that staying here is how he stays safe.

Phil laughs gently. Another tear runs down his face. “Yes.” 

“Here?” Tommy’s heart swells with desperate hope. The dread and fear, while certainly vivid, gets washed out. He can’t help but latch onto this right here, pushing aside every single worry in favor of seeing if this is something he’s allowed to have. “With you?” He asks, like he doesn’t already know what the answer will be. Like he’s scared he’s going to be wrong, and he’ll have to leave it all again. 

“Yes, of course.” Phil laughs again, but Tommy now thinks it’s more of a sob. He’s leaning down and pressing his forehead against Tommy’s, his hand cupping at Tommy’s cheek. “With us, with us, Tommy. You’re staying here with us.” 

Tommy sucks in a breath and feels his lip quiver. He tries to grit his teeth and give a simple nod, but the nod turns desperate, as if he’s trying to plead. “Okay.” He breathes out. “Okay, okay, okay-” He repeats, needing to accept it and put it in stone, before anything else interferes. The word falls apart at his lips. 

A sob breaks through him, and he jerks forward with it, pulled right into his father’s arms. He grabs at the back of Phil’s shirt, digging his fingers in, wanting so hard to believe that this is true, this is real, this is his. Phil kisses him at the side of his head, too familiar to a lost memory, and Tommy cries harder, like it hurts. 

“You’re not going anywhere.” Phil promises, and he presses a kiss to Tommy’s hair again, like he has to make up for all the time he missed. “You’re just gonna stay right here.” 

Maybe he can truly stay. Maybe he’s been fucked up by the watch, the side-effects too harsh, and now he has to stay. Now he’s got no other option. Time-travel and time itself can’t do anything to him, it can’t force him to leave. 

He doesn’t have to leave. 

Phil holds him for a long moment, hunched over Tommy’s seat with his arms wrapped tight around him. Kristin stays kneeling at the ground, and she puts a reassuring hand on Tommy’s knee when he sobs again, his whole chest heaving with it. He’s not sure how much time passes while he tries to hide away into his dad’s shoulder. He doesn’t think he cares. 

Phil runs his fingers through the back of Tommy’s head, sifting through the curls, and he leans up, just a little, holding Tommy’s chin so he can look him in the face. Tommy tries very valiantly to look at his dad with a calmed down expression. He fails very miserably, and his shoulders shake again. 

Phil kisses him upon the forehead, smiling as he does it. “You’re going to be okay.” He says, and Tommy has to believe it, because his dad said it. 

He sniffles with a scrunch of his nose, and something nudges at his arm. He looks to see it’s the box of tissues that’s hit him, and Techno’s the one holding it out. Wilbur’s across the counter with his own little pile of used tissues, his eyes looking puffy as he leans his elbows onto the counter. 

“Thanks, mate.” Phil takes the box for Tommy, and again, he pulls a tissue and cleans Tommy’s face himself, rather than having Tommy do it. Tommy squeezes his eyes shut as his dad wipes his face clean, and when he opens his eyes, he feels like the world has gotten a little softer. 

Or maybe that’s just the look Phil is giving him. 

“We’re going to need more tissues for the next couple of weeks…” Technoblade mutters quietly, his words seeming loud against the silence of the kitchen. Tommy takes in the words, and then gives a snort, tilting his head down. Phil chuckles with him, and Wilbur laughs too, but it really just sounds like another pathetic sob. 

“I’ll pick up some in the morning.” Kristin says, standing up from the floor at last with Tommy’s journal held carefully in her hands. “For now, try to make it last.”

“We’re going to run out before we even leave this kitchen.” Wilbur sniffs, blowing his nose and folding the tissue shut. 

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re using them all.” Tommy looks pointedly at the pile of tissues in front of Wil, and Wilbur balls up the tissue in his hand and chucks it at Tommy. It doesn’t even make it halfways across the counter, but Tommy still screams, not wanting to touch his brother’s gross snot. “Dad!” He calls, and Phil just laughs. 

“It didn’t even hit you.” Technoblade says, and Phil tugs at Tommy to get off the stool. Tommy goes along, pushing himself off his seat. 

“It’s not about it hitting me, it’s about the fucking threat, he’s gonna-” And Tommy cuts off into a strangled noise, his legs giving out as soon as he tries to stand. Everyone in the kitchen makes a little jump towards him, as if to catch him before he hits the floor, but Phil’s already holding him up. 

“You okay?” Phil asks, and Tommy nods, trying to push his feet against the floor. It’s not really doing much. His legs feel weak, like jelly, and he grabs at Phil’s arms in an effort to force himself to stand right. “I think you need to sit back down.” 

“No, nope, I’m-” Tommy stands, and his legs are shaking. He feels absolutely exhausted, all of a sudden, a heavy weariness weighing down on him. “Mhm.” Maybe sitting is a good idea. 

“Or maybe you should turn in for bed already. I think some sleep would do you good.” Phil suggests, and Tommy agrees so wholeheartedly with that. Sleep sounds fucking amazing. Like the best thing ever. If he had a pillow and a blanket right now, he could just curl up at Phil’s feet and conk out for the next eight hours, no problem. 

“Am I sleeping on the couch?” Tommy asks, lifting his head towards the living room. It’s a valid question. He doesn’t expect them to have an empty room just for him. 

Phil scoffs fondly like Tommy’s given a silly joke. “I think your brothers can share one of their beds for tonight.” 

“Dibs.” Technoblade calls out, and he swoops in right there to pick Tommy up again, wrapping an arm underneath his legs and around his torso. “Hold on to me.” He tells Tommy, and Tommy listens, grabbing onto Techno’s shoulders and only flailing a little when he’s lifted into the air. “Alright. Great talk, everyone. See you in the morning.” Techno says, and then he walks off and out of the kitchen. 

“Hey.” Wilbur watches them go, then he quickly makes his way around the counter, rushing after Techno as he starts to move faster. Tommy vaguely feels like this is a kidnapping. “HEY!”

“Goodnight!” Techno calls out, running down the hall, away from Wilbur, as Tommy holds on with a burst of laughter. Wilbur chases after them both, and Phil and Kristin wear matching faces of amusement as they go. 

Kristin places the journal down on the counter as carefully as she can. Phil’s attention gets drawn right to it, and his smile falters. 

His mood drifts into something more solemn, and he slides the book a little closer, leaning in to see it. The cover is rough against his fingertips. He wonders what this is made of. 

“Do you really think he’s-” Phil goes to ask, his words very soft, but he can’t manage to finish the sentence. 

Kristin hums as if in thought. Faintly, they hear Wilbur and Techno bickering loudly at each other from their rooms, Tommy wheezing with laughter throughout it. It soothes the anxious feeling over both their hearts. “It’s not out of the question. It’s not impossible.” 

“But it should be.” Phil swallows, and he pulls his hand away from Tommy’s journal, eyes lingering before turning to Kristin. “I mean, not that I don’t want this, but out of all the chances, after all of this-”

“Phil.” Kristin whispers. 

“We waited for years .” Phil whispers back, not daring to be heard by his sons, who still laugh with joy down the hall, glad to have each other again. “I thought for all those years, all that time, that even when we would manage to find him again-- it wouldn’t be forever.” 

For all the years they waited hoping for Tommy to come back into reach, Phil knew deep in his heart that they wouldn’t be able to hold on. Not for any problem with the watch, or with Tommy trying to get away, but because of the inevitability of time. 

Tommy danced around time like it was the wind, he floated past centuries as if it was nothing, but Phil was sure, so damn sure, that the moment they made Tommy stand still, time would work against them. They would have him back, they would keep him again, but it wouldn’t be for long. Only for as long as a lifespan would allow. 

But then.

“Phil.” Kristin repeats, and she steps closer to hold a hand out, to grab onto his arm and try and steady him. 

“And now-?” Phil breathes out, looking at the journal again. “It doesn’t seem possible. It’s like it’s too good to be true.” 

“I could be wrong. It could be an effect with the watch, we don’t know.” Kristin says, but she doesn’t quite believe it. Her heart sings with hope, and her soul watches upon destiny. She’s seen a great amount of things in her life. The universe, she’s found, can be rather kind. Maybe this is another kindness it's giving. 

“You do know.” Phil says, and Kristin pauses. They share a look together, Phil lifting his chin back to her, and Phil’s eyes have never been so bright. “You always know, Kristin.” 

“I’ll have to check further. To make sure of it.” Kristin protests, not wanting to be the reason for crushed hopes, if there is even a sliver of a chance that the worst is true. 

“You’re already sure.” 

Kristin doesn’t say anything for a moment. But she nods. 

Phil breathes in deep and sighs out, as if satisfied at last. He pulls Tommy’s watch out from his pocket and holds it in his palm for a second. Then he places it down beside the journal. 

Together, the items look like they’ve gone through hell. They’re all beat up and dirty, and while the watch isn’t broken in any way, it’s still covered with dust and debris. 

“...There’s still the issue of why he did this. Why he was traveling.” Kristin says quietly, almost sounding nervous to bring it up again. “To…warn me?”

Phil’s worry settles into something more sharp, more calm. A harsh sort of protectiveness drapes over him, making his hands fidgety. “I’ll ask him about it later.”

“Give him a week, at least.” Kristin insists. “He needs rest, and whatever this is, I’m sure a couple more days won’t doom us.” 

Phil shifts his jaw, tapping his fingers against the countertop. “We don’t know that.” He hates that he doesn’t know. He hates that there’s a threat that he can’t yet see. He’s gotten his family back, perfect and whole again, and there’s something on the horizon that’s coming to try and rip it apart. “But I’ll call Eret to keep an eye around in the meantime. Get a few people as a lookout.”

Kristin doesn’t protest, only slowly nodding along with her arms crossed in front of her chest. 

“And we should probably order some more groceries.” Phil frowns, laying his hand flat on the counter as he thinks of the spilled milk in the trunk. “I’ve… got to clean out the car.” He mutters, a little unhappy about it. 

Kristin snickers.

---

Tommy sits criss-cross on top of Techno’s bed, leaning back against Wilbur as they both watch their brother rummage through his closet. Wilbur rests his chin on top of Tommy’s head, his arms wrapped around his middle, and every now and then, Tommy can feel his curls shift with the movement of his breath. 

“Do we really need this many blankets?” Tommy questions, as Techno brings down another folded comforter, throwing it to the ground. 

“Yes. Wilbur steals them when he’s sleeping-”

“I do not -”

“-and we are not going cold tonight, of all nights.” Technoblade searches through his closet a bit more, picking through his grand collection of blankets, apparently, and then he glances over his shoulder with a short huff. “Wil, stop clinging to him and let him go change.” 

“Oh, I’m clingy.” Wilbur responds, and Tommy raises his eyebrows at the chance of this argument starting up again. They only just got a truce at Tommy’s insistence, he can’t listen to their arguing all through the night. 

Or. Well, he could, actually. He would enjoy listening to their voices, even with that context. How many times has he fallen asleep dreaming of hearing them talk just one time more?

Too many times to count. 

Techno chucks the next blanket at their general direction, and Tommy screams, pushing against Wil in a vague effort to dodge. Wilbur flips Techno off, and in a rare moment of spite, Technoblade flips him off in return. Tommy sputters out a laugh at them both, and they’re all too smiley to really be in an arguing mood. 

“Tommy, go change. Wilbur, come pick up the blankets.” 

“It’s your bed, man-”

“Yeah, and I can kick you out if I feel like it, so grab a blanket-”

Tommy snickers, slipping out from Wilbur’s arms and grabbing the clothes that were already put to the side before Techno started a hunt for all the blankets in the entire house. Wilbur was kind enough to lend him a pair of sweatpants and a sweater, although, when he does change into it,  it fits a bit big. He has to roll up the sweatpants to keep from tripping over them, and the sweater hangs loose, his sleeves stubbornly staying past his palms no matter how much he folds them up. He resigns himself to the fate of sweater paws. 

When he returns to the room, most of the blankets have been piled onto the bed, and underneath them all, Tommy thinks he sees the body of one Wilbur laying there. Technoblade stands beside the bed with a satisfied smile, arms crossed over his chest as if this was exactly what he wanted. 

Tommy goes to call out to Wil to check if he’s been murdered or something, since he’s laying awfully still. Technoblade catches Tommy’s gaze and holds a finger over his mouth. Tommy stays quiet, and stands still, and very quietly, he hears the sound of Wil gently snoring. 

“I think he was just working on autopilot for the last ten minutes.” Technoblade murmurs, and Tommy remembers again Wilbur stumbling off his seat, leaning against the sink with shaking shoulders. “I’m surprised he didn’t fall asleep on you.” 

Tommy’s a little surprised he didn’t fall asleep on Wil. Maybe it’s not much of a surprise, though. He couldn’t help but keep his eyes on Techno, wanting to make sure both his brothers were in reach. He wanted to keep them there a little longer, before drifting off to sleep. 

Techno waves him over to climb into bed, and Tommy carefully finds a spot underneath the covers, right at his brother’s side. He wraps an arm over Wil’s back, resting his forehead against his arm, and as Techno turns the light off, he thinks he hears Wilbur hum in his sleep. 

Technoblade lays down behind Tommy, wrapping an arm over both him and Wil. He holds onto them both like they’re going to find a way to roll off the bed, and with both his brothers near, kept close and safe, Tommy passes out the moment he closes his eyes. 

Chapter Text

The sun is barely rising when Tommy opens his eyes. 

It’s nothing calm, the way he wakes up. Leaving his dreams behind isn’t something he ever does peacefully. Already, he feels the ache in his chest as he sucks in air through his teeth, grief tearing through him in a familiar routine that he knows all too well. It’ll pass, he thinks. It’ll be a minute of pain, an annoying moment of hurting, then he’ll face the day and continue on, like he always must do.

He blinks at the sight of a ceiling, colored deep blue in the early morning. He breathes, then freezes up at the realization that there’s an arm laying across his chest.

His first instinct is to roll and swing. The sheer adrenaline of being ready to fight off a stranger comes up in waves, and it crashes down into nothing just as quickly the second he turns his head, finding Wil’s sleeping face half-hidden into a pillow. The contrast between thinking there was a threat and finding a family that should not be here is so jarring-- he’s actually left frozen, air held in his lungs for what seems like an eternity. 

Wilbur’s here. Tommy’s eyes trace the shape of his face, his heart gripped in disbelief, the fact feeling fake even with the evidence. Wil’s here, and he’s sleeping with a hint of a snore, his hair sticking up oddly in a way that makes Tommy too fond. His hand is pressed to Tommy’s side, knuckles pushed up at his ribs, like he’s grasping at a tiny reminder of his presence. It’s not his arm that’s holding him close, and so Tommy turns the other way to find Technoblade at his other side, the guilty party of an unconscious embrace. 

The memories from the night before slowly come bleeding back in. Relief sinks into his very bones, his breathing coming out uneven. Carefully, he shifts a hand up, fingers shaking in where they reach to touch Techno's cheek. Tommy doesn’t know what he means to do. Maybe he just wants to make sure he’s real. That this isn’t a dream, that he’s truly and honestly woken up. 

Tommy’s hand goes still mid-air before he reaches his mark, a sudden panic shoving its way into his head at the realization that something is missing. He stares at his wrist, at the skin laying bare, his arm now feeling somehow unbalanced with the lack of the device that’s meant to be firmly secured in that same spot.

His watch. 

Tommy’s inhale stutters in his throat, a raw fear twisting his stomach up. His watch, his watch, where is it-? 

Instantly, his mind offers up the answer, his father’s face looking stern, his watch sitting upon the kitchen counter. 

Fuck. Fuck! 

Tommy’s hand returns at his side, his eyes looking up at the blue toned ceiling again in overlapped thought. He has to get the watch back. He shouldn’t. He has to find it, keep it safe- His brothers are here. His family is here, does the watch still matter? Can’t he just not let it matter in his mind anymore? Can’t he forget about it entirely, let Phil do whatever he likes with the cursed damned thing? 

No. No, he can’t. 

Heavy guilt drowns Tommy alongside a stinging anger. He knows that watch better than he knows himself. It’s been attached to him for so long, it may as well be another limb. He doesn’t think he can bear to sever it, or allow it to be stolen away, even if it’s by the same hands he would trust with his entire life. He has to get it back. He has to try, or else he won’t ever forgive himself. 

In an action that leaves his heart racing, Tommy takes hold of Techno’s arm, sliding it off from his chest in a movement that makes his head scream wrong in every direction. He’s so terrified of letting his nerves get the best of him, letting his hand jerk too harshly and wake Techno up, but he’s equally terrified at the idea of succeeding. Part of him wants to make a noise, wants Techno to be a light sleeper, wants his brothers to wrap him up in their arms before he can even inch away. Such things end up just being thoughts. 

Technoblade doesn’t stir as Tommy places his arm down at his side, and Wilbur doesn’t move as Tommy nudges his hand a few inches away. His fingers linger on Wil’s for a few seconds longer than needed. He pulls away with a deep breath and quick-blinking eyes, pressure pushing in the back of his throat like the build to a sob. Why is this even so difficult? He’s not leaving them forever. He’s not. 

He just- needs the watch. 

With a bracing gasp, Tommy sits up in a smooth movement, and finds himself almost immediately crashing back down. It takes a long minute to steady himself, and another to shimmy out from under the blankets. He scoots forward to leave the bed, his brothers escaping his line of vision, and a different type of panic digs its claws into his spine. 

No, no, don’t leave me, he almost wants to say, lips forming around the words, but he’s the one who’s going. He feels so stupid for wanting to beg, and all too desperate. He glances back at their sleeping faces. They rest undisturbed, the empty spot in between them almost beckoning him back. He will be back. He needs just a minute, maybe two. That’s all. 

He scoots the rest of the way off the bed, cringing hard as the mattress creaks with the shifting of his weight. His socks land on the carpet, thankfully silent, and he stands hesitantly with his attention drifting toward the shuttered window. 

There’s a small urge to creep up to the glass, to peek past the blinds and watch the sunrise outside. Maybe he would spot a few people on the ground, traveling off to work, getting an early start to the day. He knows the presence of them would end up reminding him of the loved faces he’s worked hard to not forget. 

Tommy keeps himself from turning to look behind him. He has them in reach. He will keep them as soon as things are right, as soon as he’s gotten his watch back.

He sneaks out into the hallway with slow, shuffling steps, the walls painted in the dim morning light. It’s almost eerie, walking through the apartment on his own. This is not a home he knows. It’s home , with the people living within it, but he doesn’t know it. It’s all unfamiliar, but a part of him yearns to know it.

The kitchen is brighter than the hall and Techno’s room, the window blinds having been left open, letting the start of the day peek inside. Tommy stares at the rays of sunlight filtering onto the tile at his feet, and he lifts his head up to scan over the counter. His journal is gone. As is the tissue box. 

And his watch. 

Tommy swallows, hands fidgeting at wonder of where it could be, if not here. Phil had it. He could’ve taken it with him last night, and it might be somewhere in his room-

Tommy closes his eyes. No. He’s not- he can’t go sneaking in there. He can’t face the sight of his dad’s face whilst trying to steal that stupid fucking watch back. It has to be here, in the kitchen. It has to be here. 

He begins looking around the counter, fingertips tracing at the edges of it. He goes for the drawers, first, carefully pulling them open, leaving them open once he finds nothing. He then goes for the cabinets, the squeak of their hinges making Tommy’s ears twitch. All that he finds are plates and utensils, normal pots and pans. The sight of them is so insufferably normal that he has to turn away and look out the window again. It’s all just little bits of his family’s life, here. It’s so unimportant and yet it’s everything, to Tommy, who hasn’t had anything of his family for so long. 

How many meals did they cook on that pan? How many meals did they share with that plate? There’s a chip in one of them, a scratch on the other. What’s the story behind that? Did Wilbur drop it, did Techno hit it against the counter too hard? Did Phil click his tongue at it and insist it was still good to use? 

God, they’ve been alive. They’ve been living within these walls for who knows how many years, and throughout it all, Tommy was still always in their thoughts. Still home, in some sort of way. 

He wonders if they ever set out a plate for him. 

Tommy twists his head away as if to turn his back on the thought. He goes for another lower cabinet, kneeling down on the ground and pulling it open, and just as he sees the mundane objects sitting inside, there comes a crash from down the hall. 

“Tommy!” Wilbur’s voice cries, and Tommy’s stuck, a gasp tearing from his throat, the panic overtaking him in an instant and making every little action become too frantic. The watch, he was looking for the watch, if he can just find it- His hands scrabble against the tile to do something, to push himself up, to grab at the edge of another cabinet door-

“Tommy, where are you-?!” Wil’s words come around the doorway, Technoblade at his heels, and Tommy looks up and into his brother’s wide eyes, matching the scared fear on their faces. He should get up, close the cabinets, hide what he was doing, but he can’t move. Can’t even flinch. He’s stuck in a nightmare and in a dream, and he’s not so sure he wants to wake up. 

“Tommy-” Techno chokes out, a trace of relief, and he pauses with his twin at seeing the image before them; Tommy sat down on the floor, every single drawer and every single cabinet opened up around him. A clear, obvious scene of someone trying to look for something. 

“I-” Tommy lifts his hands up in surrender, licking his lips as he struggles to think of an excuse. There’s nothing to say. His mind is blank, and his vision is blurry. “Technoblade.” He croaks out, his voice wobbly. Technoblade comes near in an instant, moving past Wilbur to pick Tommy up off the floor, to lift him to his feet and draw him into a bone-crushing sort of hug. He squeezes Tommy so tightly that it’s almost desperate, and Tommy’s caught in the realization of what they must’ve felt; waking up and seeing him gone, a repeat of the before. Oh, how it must’ve scared them. 

He melts into Techno’s arms in an effort for an apology, turning his ear to his brother’s chest with a tiny hope that he might be able to hear his heartbeat, feel the sure-sound proof that he is here with him, alive and true. 

“What were you doing?” Technoblade whispers out over him, and in an instant, all the relief is gone. Tommy feels cold, and the guilt claws at his skin without mercy. It is a guilt with two faces. 

He pushes away from Techno, doing it so suddenly that Techno doesn’t stop Tommy in it, not expecting the action. Tommy stumbles further back into the kitchen, one of the open drawers brushing against his back, and he wraps his arms around himself, gritting his teeth to his brothers. 

“Where- where is it?” He asks. Wilbur’s brows furrow with a frown from where he stands behind Techno, still lingering by the doorway into the hall. 

“Where’s what?” Wilbur asks back, words soft. Tommy’s vision runs with tears. 

“Where is it!?” Tommy snaps, arms raising up at the cabinets around them, at the drawers left open. Techno draws back from the raise in volume, and Wilbur leans forward in a clear, worried concern. “Where’s my watch?!”

Both Techno and Wilbur’s face drop into a horrified type of realization. Wilbur holds his hand up to his mouth, his expression looking pinched, whilst Techno’s look goes stony. Tommy’s heart shakes in his chest at both of the reactions, knowing that neither of them is going to offer an answer. He begins to breathe too quickly, a denial running through him. 

“Tommy-” Technoblade begins, and before the argument can even start, they all stop at the sound of Phil’s voice. 

“Boys?”

All three heads turn to the hall, Wilbur stepping to the side as Phil falters at coming into the kitchen. Tommy’s breath shudders in his throat, tears dropping over his cheeks. He’s filled with a want so desperate that he doesn’t even know what it's for. 

He wants this. He wants them, more than anything in his life. 

He just needs the damn watch back. 

“What’s going on?” Phil asks, but it feels like he already has an idea with the way he approaches Tommy, a look so loving in his eyes that it can’t just be named pity. Tommy takes a step away, nudging against the drawer again. He glances behind him, and then when he looks back, Phil’s lowered himself on one knee, his expression open and waiting. 

Tommy tries to back away from it. He moves maybe a single inch. “Please, I just-” He cries, on the verge of simply begging and hoping that’ll sway his father to give in. “I was just looking for it, I just need to know where it is-” 

“Tommy.” Phil says, and a sob bubbles out from Tommy’s lips, his brothers shrinking in on themselves at the sound of it. Wilbur looks two seconds away from running forward to sweep him up into his arms. 

“Can you give it to me? The watch.” Tommy asks, so innocent in it, you can hardly tell how he wants to scream. “I-I won’t use it, I swear I won’t. I won’t run away. I just need it.” Phil tilts his head with a sorrowful look. Tommy wants to hold onto him until there’s bruises left behind, a certainty that he will be with them, even if his mind insists on continuing to wander away. “Please, I just want-” 

Phil holds his arms up, and Tommy falls into them, an instant reaction. Maybe he was waiting for it. He collapses to the ground, Phil catching him so that he won’t hurt his knees, and their heads knock together, Tommy trying to look up at him, Phil trying to just hold him close. 

His dad’s thumbs press against his face, wiping at the spots underneath his eyes. His fingers curl around the side of Tommy’s jaw, holding him like he’s something precious, and it makes Tommy cry a little more. He wishes he could sink into this, leave the worrying problem be, but his guilt refuses to be forgotten, and his traitorous mouth blurts out the question. 

“Where did you put it?” He whispers to Phil, and Phil smiles so kindly. There isn’t a damn chance in hell Tommy is getting his watch back from him. 

“I’m not telling you that.” He says to Tommy, and over the dizzying buzz of the feeling that he’s failed at something, Tommy hears him whisper against the curls of his hair. “And know that the reason I won’t is because I love you.” 

“Dad, please.” Tommy wants to yell, but there’s nothing left to give, his energy washed out in the comfort of Phil’s embrace. He wishes he could somehow make them understand, he wishes he could shake them, scream at them, let them feel what he feels upon having the knowledge that he’s lost that watch. It’s important, it’s everything, it’s the reason he’s here. He can’t go without it, he can’t lose it, he can’t give it up. How will he keep searching if he doesn’t have it? How will he find-?

Kristin. 

And the last of Tommy’s fight bleeds away at the exhausting memory. Her face flickers in his mind, her voice in his ears, the daunting fact that he is sixteen only at heart, not quite in mind, not quite in soul. He remembers the night before, his hands in hers, her knowing look, and he breathes out in a silent, tired relief. 

He did find her. He did. He told her of what was to come, he warned her like he was always meant to. 

Why had he acted like he didn’t? Like the mission was still on? From the second he woke up, he supposes it didn’t really feel over. He felt the same, a boy caught in motion. He wonders if he even knows how to stop doing this, stop continuing the cycle of trying to desperately search. He’s a little fearful of the very real possibility that he might not. He’ll have to learn. That’ll take a while. 

He breathes steadily within Phil’s hug, eyes blinking slowly at the overflow of fatigue. The sun spreads out across the kitchen and across his back, like a warm, lingering support. It’s now shifted into a warm orange, Tommy staring at the color of it as it floats into the air. 

“You okay?” Phil asks, and Tommy slips his eyes shut, humming long and low. It’s not really an answer, and Phil just squeezes him a little tighter for it. “You’re okay.” He promises, and yeah, Tommy is. As long as he has his dad, he’ll be okay. He’s finished his goal, he did his part. All that’s left to do is- be loved. Rest. 

He can do that, surely. 

“Is Kristin not up?” Technoblade asks after a minute, Tommy mostly checked out, only listening to the sound of their voices. 

“She went out.” Phil responds, shifting Tommy so he’s tucked underneath his chin. It makes him feel impossibly safe.  

“At this time?” Wilbur asks. The question of why is left unsaid, but clearly implied. 

“She wanted to catch up with some old friends.” Phil responds, and they take that answer without further complaint. Phil turns his attention back onto his boy. “Did you want to go back to bed, Tommy?”

Tommy tries to shake his head, making a disagreeing noise. “Want to stay.” He murmurs, Phil’s hand rubbing softly at his back. “Stay with me?”

“We’re not going anywhere.” Phil swears, and Tommy shouldn’t cry again, but it’s a very near thing. Phil looks up at Techno, nodding his head. “Could you take him to the couch? I’m going to get a glass of water for him, and maybe a snack.”

Techno presumably nods, judging by the silence, and Tommy’s eyelids flutter open as he’s hauled up on his feet, legs feeling shaky under him. He’s saved from the ordeal of walking with Technoblade shifting his arms under him and lifting him up entirely, stepping out from the kitchen with Wilbur hovering at his side, his hand curled around Tommy’s ankle. 

“Should we put on something to watch on the tv? Any requests, Tommy?” Wil asks as Techno settles into the couch, keeping Tommy with him. Wilbur sits with him, stretching Tommy’s legs out so that they can rest over his knees. 

“No.” Tommy declines the offer, and when he looks to his brother, Wilbur is nothing but the image of patience and worry. It makes his heart hurt. “No, can we- Can we just talk?”

“Of course.” Wilbur smiles, Techno’s chin resting on the top of Tommy’s head, their presence too much. Tommy regrets asking to talk. He wishes to sleep. At least in his dreams, they’re not so- real. So vivid. How does he take in the sight of them? He asks himself that as if there’s a chance he could let them go. 

There’s a lull of silence as Wilbur tries to think of what to talk about, or maybe he’s giving Tommy an opportunity to start the conversation. Tommy takes the chance, but it’s probably not what Wilbur was expecting. 

“I’m sorry I scared you.” Tommy says, his focus falling to Wilbur’s hands, looking at the way they fiddle with the fabric on his pants. 

“Hm?” Wilbur tilts his head, confused. 

“When you woke up. I wasn’t there. You sounded scared.” He sounded like he did on that day so long ago, now centuries in the past, yet it feels like yesterday with how it rings in Tommy’s mind. 

Techno huffs over his head, giving him a gentle squeeze. “It’s okay.” He assures, a small relief floating through Tommy. “No harm done.” 

“Well, a little harm done. Techno knocked over his alarm clock.” Wilbur adds on, his tone light. “The thing might be broken now-- but who wakes up on time these days anyway?”

Tommy softly snorts. His brothers smile in return. 

Phil comes back from the kitchen with a glass of water and a handful of the same cookies Tommy had been eating last night. Tommy takes the glass with grateful hands, the water cooling against his throat. He eats the cookies like a child starved, uncaring of the crumbs left on the couch and on his shirt, Wilbur sending him a judging look that’s more fond than anything. Tommy chews pointedly in his direction. 

“When will Kristin come back?” Wilbur asks, moving his attention away from Tommy’s efforts at trying to chew as loudly as possible. Tommy knows the bastard can hear him. Everyone can hear him. His attempts at being annoying are failing anyway. “Will she be gone for a while?”

“No, she said she’d be back around the afternoon.” Phil responds, leaning back in where he’s taken his own seat beside Techno. “She didn’t give specifics, but I’m fairly sure she was hoping to reach out to Niki and the others.”

“Why?” Wil hums, looking confused. Tommy is confused with him, but that’s for the reason that he doesn’t know who Niki and others are. “Are they coming this way?”

“Mmn.” Phil doesn’t respond for a second, Tommy turning to him and finding his expression to be carefully in thought. “Other way around. We’re going to be packing up by the end of the week.”

“What?” Tommy asks. Technoblade makes an annoyed noise. 

“I thought we weren’t due for a move for at least another decade.” He says over Tommy’s head, Phil’s lips shifting into a little smile at his disgruntled tone. 

“Well, it’s a bit different now, isn’t it?” Phil glances at Tommy, and Tommy’s confused expression must remind him how they aren’t really explaining much here. “Sorry, Tommy.” He apologizes, before following with an explanation. “We don’t usually stay in place for very long. We’ve got a routine about it, getting new names, finding a new area. It’s all part of the life.” He waves a hand up, as if their very environment is somehow telling of their immortality. 

“You’re leaving this?” Tommy asks, and suddenly he’s already missing this apartment, the hall and the kitchen and the rooms he never got to know. “What- where are you even going?”

“Where are we going.” Techno corrects. Tommy’s heart makes a funny twist. 

“Out of the city, at least. Somewhere more rural.” Phil answers, and Tommy blinks in disbelief. Out of the city? They’re going that far? “Kristin suggested starting up a farm in the countryside, although she could’ve been joking about that.” 

Wilbur leans in, suddenly so ready to make a tease. “Hey, Techno, you know what that means. You can start again at that potato field-”

“Oh, don’t even joke about that, you know I’ll do it.” Techno threatens, and Wilbur snickers. “And I’ll get you in on it too. Get ready to be sowing dirt for the next few years.”

“You started a potato field?” Tommy asks, in a vague attempt to throw off Wilbur’s whining response. “When?”

“Fields. Plural. It’s a hobby I like to bring back from time to time.” 

“Farming is always a decent route to fall back on.” Phil agrees, and Wil rolls his eyes. “Although, he does get carried away.”

Techno makes an offended noise. 

“You do.” Wilbur deadpans. Tommy huffs, trying to imagine it, Techno covered in dirt, refusing to quit at a field that’s probably clearly too much for a single person, but somehow easily possible for an immortal who doesn’t really know when to quit. 

“Why potatoes?” Tommy asks, Techno breaking out into a grin. 

“So there was this guy who also had a potato farm..." 

Chapter Text

To be immortal means to forget. 

Memories do not last forever. Sentimental objects, names, and faces, it’s all doomed to fade. When faced with eternity, there has to be an acceptance that some things are just bound to be eventually left behind. It is the way of the mind, and the way of life. 

Kristin has known this from the first century she lived.

She is still somewhat human, despite the way time refuses to touch her, refuses to age her heart. She has loved and then she has lost, and she knows now that in every new face she comes to meet, there will be a day where she won’t be able to recall them any longer. 

To be immortal is to forget. She knows so much, and yet it will never be everything. She has met so many, and yet they will all blur into nothing. It’s an inevitable thing. A part of their existence.

Phil, and his sons-- refuse to forget. 

When she meets them, she doesn’t find out about Tommy for a long while. She meets Phil first, makes a kind friendship with him that turns into a fondness. Makes an amicable impression onto his sons, gathers their trust with the warmth of her smile and the knowing safety in her eyes. 

She lingers around the three of them for a touch too long, years passing so quickly, her heart not wanting to let go. She tells herself that once Phil shows the first signs of aging, then she will leave, for that is always her reminder that she cannot stay with them, cannot keep them.

But the signs do not come. The years continue on, unbroken. She notices the oddity of them, and they notice her in return. From there, it’s like a wall broken down, the fondness turned into love, the trust formed into a wholehearted faith. She is like them. They are like her. 

Again, she finds that she isn’t truly alone. 

She’s been alive for far longer than the three of them, and for that, she promises to keep them safe to the best of her ability. Immortals like herself come so far and few-- there’s never been one who's been around as long as her, and as such, she feels a sense of a responsibility to care for any single one that may cross her path. 

These three are no different in invoking a sense of needing to protect. But they do have a space closer to her heart. They twist their fates into her life, they teach her their habits, share with her their experiences. 

After many years of letting her find a place within their family, Phil sits her down one fateful night and tells her about Tommy. Their lost boy, wandering somewhere far from home. 

He’s not gone, Phil would tell her, with a determined, desperate hope that never wavered, even over the centuries that would slip by. Just lost. He’s just gotten lost.

He tells her that he disappeared from home ages prior. For a while, all that could be done was assume that death had taken him, after a few decades, but then Wilbur, through sheer chance, ran into him again. Found him to be unchanged, still the same as the night he vanished into thin air. Then he ran again, disappearing just as mysteriously as before. 

The sight of him there and the way he left before Wil’s eyes revived all the grief within the three of them, and turned it into a firm, unwavering resolution. 

Tommy was out there. He could still come home. 

Techno came across him a second time, over a century later. Their meeting was more of a frantic chase than a conversation, Phil says, emphasizing how Tommy’s panic and confusion was so vividly apparent, raising more questions than answers. He disappeared before Techno’s eyes for a second time, just like before, in an odd little flash of light. And that was that. Another reminder that he was still out there. Another bit of proof that they couldn’t get to him, not quite yet. 

They have had nothing since, Phil confesses to her, on that quiet night. No glimpse of him, no accidental passes. They make their efforts for him regardless, even if he may be avoiding them with purpose. Kristin finds herself witnessing the little signs of it, the glimpses of love lingering still, their stubborn care preserving even as another century goes on, and another, and then another. 

They do not forget Tommy. 

She sees it in the way Wilbur seems to look for a certain someone, his gaze lighting up with hope, whenever a golden-haired, sky-eyed boy walks near. She sees Techno listening close to the occasional cackling little laugh of strangers, as if they’re a similar echo to one that he hears in his dreams. She sees Phil’s art, his drawings, his sketchbooks, his paintings. One face kept, one smile remade, over and over and over with all the devotion of a father refusing to give up on his child.

She sees how they refuse to forget, refuse to leave this loved child behind. She watches as they share their findings with her, their efforts made over the years, their search never faltering. Here is our child, lost from home, they say. He will come back in time. He will. 

We will wait as long as is needed until he does. We will search for eternity until that day.

She waits with them, searches with them, gives her hand of help to where it is needed. She promises to protect him as she has for every immortal being she’s taken under her hand. 

He is theirs, and so he is hers. He is family. Their lost boy.

The too-early morning slowly but surely drifts into the afternoon around them, Tommy staying curled up on the couch with his brothers. 

They tell him of all the stories he’s missed, all the things they’ve gotten up to in the years and years that they’ve been apart. It’s a constant story without end, with how many years they have in their pockets, but Tommy doesn’t mind the rambling. He eats breakfast made by Phil’s hand, pancakes drizzled in honey, fresh, cold fruit piled to the side, the taste of it all being sickeningly sweet, but ever so indulgent for the moment.

He gives vague hums of response to his brothers, expressive reactions and cut-off laughs as they make their way through all that he’s missed, every great event and hectic problem. He hears of Techno’s potato war, although it was more a battle of petty, persistent competition, over anything. He hears of Wilbur accidentally running for an election, getting into trouble with the other candidate, forcing them to move lives early due to the sheer attention of it all. He hears of Techno’s winnings in a championship of sorts, of some sore loser trying to murder him after his streak of victory stretched out for too long. He hears of the several unlucky fates of Wil’s guitar, the poor instrument seeming to be doomed during one particular decade, always ending up smashed, either through getting dropped out a window or being bashed against someone’s head. 

They go on and on, building off each other in every retelling. Each memory brings up something even farther back, the two of them caught in a loop of ‘remember when? Remember how- I remember this one time…’

The sweet taste of breakfast lingering in Tommy’s mouth goes a bit bitter as they go on, the stories to his ear only standing as piling proof that he was gone for all of it. He left this, he left them behind. There is something so wistful at hearing them be so alive all this time without him. Seeing their faces light up in trying to reach back into the lives they’ve lived out. 

It hurts, to hear all of it, to know there was a chance that he could’ve been there, he could’ve been with them through it all. But overall, it’s more soothing than painful to be hearing their voices again like this. To have such constant back and forth noise of them speaking to him, seeing him. He wants to hear their stories forever. He thinks he loves them as much, if not more, as the night he foolishly left them behind. 

Eventually, there is an instance brought up where Wil mentions an odd little detail, so casually said and hardly explained. 

“-and Phil, he was off asking questions for any sightings, as per usual, so we had the house alone-”

“Sightings of what?” Tommy speaks up, the first words he’s spoken since they first sat down. Wilbur slows to a halt, hand freezing in midair from where he was gesturing. Techno lifts his head from where it rested in his palm, his elbow leaned against the back of the couch. 

“The- uh.” Wilbur falters, blinking slowly, as if taking in a sudden realization. “Oh my gods.” 

“What?” Tommy says, creeping worry going up his spine. 

“Oh my gods!” Wilbur repeats, and it’s nothing but shock, absolutely unhelpful in letting Tommy know whether he’s just realized a bad thing or a good thing. “I forgot that since he’s- we can actually show you all the shit that we- I’m getting the laptop!” He yells, climbing off the couch and nearly stumbling to the floor in his rush. Techno snorts at the action, watching him run down the hallway with little concern. 

“Show me what?!” Tommy asks, twisting around in his seat and sitting up on his knees as he looks at Techno, eyes wide in confusion. “What- is it like- is it bad?” He sputters lightly, Techno shaking his head with hands coming down on his arms. 

“No, it’s nothin’ like that.” Techno reassures, pulling Tommy to sit back down, Tommy more just flopping sideways with his weight hitting Techno in the chest. “It’s just- oof-” Techno gives in response, arms wrapping around Tommy rather than pushing him off. They lean awkwardly for a second in the oddly-placed hug, and then Techno shifts around in where he sits, letting Tommy stay leaning on him, his legs lifted up on the cushions around him. 

Wilbur returns quickly with the laptop in hand, a gray-colored thing with a few brightly red-colored stickers placed on the back. 

“Ever heard of the wonders of the internet, child?” Wilbur asks as gives the laptop to Techno, who puts it down on the thigh of his leg and starts it up, typing in a long-winded password with all the speed of someone who has it ingrained into their heart. Tommy levels Wil with an unimpressed glare as he sits back down beside them. 

“I was born in the modern era, idiot. I know what the internet is.” Tommy says, pressing the back of his head to the front of Techno’s shoulder as Techno pokes through the computer in front of them, his arms kept wrapped around Tommy. It seems kinda inconvenient to do it like this, but Tommy is not moving, and he doubts Techno is going to, either. 

“Were you, now? Well, I feel that explains a bit.” Wilbur hums in reply, eyes glancing up to the ceiling in thought, fingers tapping over the fabric of the couch. “You always did speak a bit odd, back then, but it’s normal now, in these years, so…”

Tommy ignores the comment, attention more focused in the way Techno scrolls fast through a long, long list of files, like it’s second nature to him. He clicks on a specific one without hesitation, as if the motion is something he’s done a hundred times. 

A few photos pop up on the screen, backed with text. Tommy’s eyes skim over the words, focus zeroing in on the title within quotations.

“The blue-eyed boy.”

Next to it, there’s an old looking image, the page of a newspaper, showing a bustling street of an older age. Tommy’s figure is put in a circle in the corner, bright red. 

There’s a collection of links further down, a list of saved videos, old dates put beside them, keeping track of when they were posted, how long they were up, and when they were apparently taken down. 

There’s a screenshot of an article about a faded painting, being set up in a museum for being such a well-preserved piece of history. 

It shows Tommy within a frame, his eyes brilliantly blue, looking out with a thoughtful expression, hints of a smile pulling at painted lips. 

Tommy jerks back from the computer like it’s snapped at him, panic instantly searing at his skin in the knee-jerk response of not letting himself be known, be seen. Technoblade steadies him with an arm on his shoulder, pulling him close, pushing the laptop off his lap for Wilbur to take away. 

“What the fuck?” Tommy presses into Techno, as if trying to hide from the information he’s been given, the images he just saw. “What the fuck? That’s- where did you get that?!” 

“The internet.” Wilbur responds bluntly, and at Tommy’s wide-eyed look, his expression softens. “You aren’t entirely subtle as a time-traveler, Tommy. There are remnants of you. How did you think we figured it out?”

“I don’t know, I-” Tommy shakes his head, Techno’s arm pulling tighter around him. He tucks his head under his brother’s chin, wanting to melt into this spot, wanting to disappear into his very arms. Wanting to hide away from being known. If he is known, then he can be found, and when he’s found, he’s learnt that people always try to catch him, to take him-

His hands dig tight into Techno’s shirt, eyes closing at the fuzzy memories of strangers trying to take him into a car, trying to grab for his watch. Yelling, pulling, pushing him down. 

He wants to reach his fingers to his wrist. He thinks of where would be the safest place to land, where would be good enough to catch his breath, no chance of being disturbed, being caught for this impossible technology on his skin. The 1500s, maybe? That would be fine enough, as long as it’s not now, not here, not-

“It’s not that obvious, though.” Techno reassures, snapping Tommy out from his racing thoughts. “I mean, this is from us searching specifically for you, for years, knowing that you were out there. It’d be hard for anyone else to confirm your existence with such small hints scattered around.” He shrugs, fingers tracing over the back of Tommy’s spine. “They’re kinda a leap.”

“The painting is the most obvious. That was our fault, though.” Wilbur goes on, his voice calming Tommy in how kindly casual it is. “That one was Phil’s. He had to leave it behind during this one fire, it was this whole thing-” He shakes his head, waving his hands out, a passing annoyance crossing his face. He huffs, then goes on. “It ended up surviving. Got taken by some bastard who always had eyes on it. And then I guess it just- got passed along into some archives or some shit, and thus, ended up on some museum's wall.” He scrolls through the laptop in front of him, head turning down to focus on the screen. “God, Phil was so pissed when he found out it got put up on display. Me and Techno went to visit it, though. Took photos and everything. I think the selfies are on here, let me see.” 

“There’s evidence of me.” Tommy focuses on the important issue on hand. He sees Wilbur pull up a photo, and it’s Techno looking up at the painting, eyes full of only a longing grief. His hair isn’t pink here. It’s brown, pulled back into a bun. He wears no makeup, wears plain, simple clothes. It’s still him. It’s vividly him, and he looks at a memory of Tommy with such love. “There’s- there’s a painting of me-” Tommy repeats, chest aching at the image before him. 

“Again, Phil’s fault. Phil’s work.” Wilbur reminds, and then he holds up a finger. “Although, I do blame the thief for the fact it’s just in public now-”

“I think it’s a nice spot for it.” Techno says, his chin resting down on Tommy’s shoulder as he stares at the screen, reminiscing over the day the photo was taken. “I always found it poetic. A mysterious muse amongst all the historic artworks.”

“You’re such a fucking sap.” Wilbur insults, Techno’s face splitting into a grin.

“It’s my face.” Tommy can’t help but say, fear sinking through his skin. “My face is out there.”

“It's just one thing. We’ve done what we can to hide you, if that makes you feel any better.” Wilbur insists, turning the laptop back towards him. “All those signs, those hints, the things you might’ve left behind? We’ve hidden it. You’re hidden. Well, we’ve mostly been collecting it, actually, rather than hiding it, but still- it’s not exactly out in the open.”

“Collecting?” Tommy echoes. He looks towards Wil, mouth ajar. “You- you had all this-?”

“Well, these are the digital files. It’s not terribly much.” Wilbur speaks lightly, as if he hasn’t just told Tommy that they haven’t just kept his memory, they’ve been searching for it. “We can only look into online records so far back, and not everything gets posted up for us to find.”

“What else do you have?” Tommy asks, feeling a little suffocated. It’s somewhat pleasant, somehow. His hand reaches up to squeeze at Techno’s fingers. 

“Uhh, leftover objects you didn’t take along-- those are in guarded storage-- old records from where you used a false identity-” Wilbur counts off on his fingers, leaning back with the laptop balancing precariously on his knees. “Oh, Dad’s got journals. Descriptions of witnesses, and their first-hand accounts.” 

“Of me?” Tommy questions.

“Of you.” Techno confirms, squeezing Tommy’s hand back. “All for you.” 

“Yeah, they go back ages. There’s a written timeline we have, on paper, and on here, it’s been redone so many times- Let me see if I-” He clicks through a few things for a minute, before seeming to think otherwise. “No, no, actually- Dad! Give me one of your journals, I wanna show Tommy!” He calls, leaving the couch again, the laptop put to the side. 

“A timeline?” Tommy says, Techno sitting up from behind him, his hands slipping away from Techno’s. “You have-” He twists his head to look his brother in the eye. “How long have you guys been- doing this?”

“It was after I saw you.” Techno explains simply, resting back with his hands put behind him. At Tommy's still perplexed look, he elaborates. “You were wearing the exact same clothes, Tommy. You looked exactly the same as when Wilbur had seen you, all those years ago.” He shrugs up a shoulder. “Granted, we didn’t really understand the concept of time travel then, but we thought you were maybe accidentally slipping through the ages. A curse, or something.”

“Fucking witchcraft?” Tommy says dryly.

“Hey, don’t speak ill of magic. We’ve seen things.” Techno warns, Tommy blinking in surprise. “It’s just less prominent these years. Now it’s a whole technological age, but I guess you’re used to it. This is your original era.” He reaches past Tommy for the laptop, looking through it for something specific. 

“Kinda.” Tommy murmurs, trying to think of his own life, of the before. It feels like a forgotten dream, with how long ago it’s been. “I think I was born a few decades in the future.” He says, Techno looking at him with curiosity. “When…” 

He suddenly jerks away in a sudden flash of pain, grunting against the push of too many memories crammed into one head. He feels a buzzing panic, some faint echo of a scream in his ears. He grabs at his wrist, heart jolting with further shock when he feels nothing but his bare skin. Nothing’s there. 

…nothing will be there. Phil took his watch. 

Took him home. 

“Don’t push yourself.” Techno warns, Tommy falling back into his arms, feeling like he never left, all that time ago. “You’ve had a long journey home.” He speaks softly, Tommy’s eyes burning with the urge to weep for no reason.

“I don’t wanna leave.” Tommy pleads, as if there’s anything threatening any sort of separation from here. There is no threat. No duty. But the habit of his mind calls to keep moving, and he desperately fights against the instinct to keep in motion. He wishes for his brothers to keep him still, hold him down for as long as needed, until he can figure it out on his own. 

“You don’t have to.” Technoblade tells him, squeezing close once again, too many times over for just one morning. Tommy can’t complain. “You’re staying here right here. Right here, Tommy. With us.” 

Tommy breathes out, taking that truth and trying to replace the doubts running through his head. 

Phil comes back with Wilbur a minute later, the two of them having been searching in his room. He has five books in his arms, Wilbur looking delighted that they’ve found them, delighted that Tommy is lifting his head in curious attention. Phil sets them down on the couch, leaning over the back of it, and Wil sits on the carpet beside Tommy’s legs, pulling the computer to him as Phil takes over.

“You’re lucky I’ve taken some of these out of storage recently.” Phil says, laying out the books and picking one up out of the pile, flipping through the pages for a passing moment. 

“Some?” Tommy repeats, looking over the covers. They’re blank-looking things, brown and faded, a few of them stitched together to fight off the wear and tear of time. 

“I’ve got about…sixty?” Phil hums, flipping through another one, the pages filled with writing, pencil and pen in a style that’s always sat a bit too cursive for Tommy’s tastes. “Give or take. A few are just precise bits, summary type notes.” He looks through a third book, then gives it to Tommy’s hands, smiling down at him with a gentle warmth. “This one is locations.” 

Tommy pulls the pages open and skims over what he can read, squinting through a collection of log dates, times and places neatly lined up. “Locations of what?” Tommy murmurs, seeing the small notes in the margins. Maybe further by the edges of the town? Most prominent, night. Avoids the main roads.

“Of where you might’ve been. Of where you were once seen.” 

“You stalked me?” Tommy blurts out, and Phil breaks out in a snort, Wilbur lifting his head and sputtering in an instant defense. 

“It’s not-” Wil goes to say, but then he stops, pausing with a hand held in the air. His head tilts to the side. “Well.”

“I mean…” Techno shrugs.

“It was all in good intention.” Phil waves it off, gently taking the book from Tommy’s hands, putting out another for him to look at. “This one with people who came across you at some point. It was never anything too descriptive, but most were helpful with the idea of a missing child.” 

Tommy ignores the funny squeeze of his heart at thinking of how Phil went about this, going from person to person, asking if they’ve ever seen his son, even in passing. Please, tell me where he went. What was he doing? He hasn’t been home in a while, and we worry. 

“How the fuck did you find people who came across me?” He asks, not daring to read too hard into the words on his lap. He doesn’t think he would get much out of it. 

“You tended to hover in the same area.” Phil explains, hesitating for a second, before saying- “Home. You tended to travel around home a lot. Granted, the areas changed, and it was a rather large radius, but you stayed here.” 

“I-I mean, I think that’s because of the watch.” Tommy points out, looking up at Phil. “It’s not exactly teleportation across the world, it's- shifting in time. But it was made to move the wearer if the environment wasn’t suitable. It’s…” He remembers faintly, writing past equations over and over, staying up late to the smell of coffee drifting through the air. 

The journal falls out of his hand as another headache hits him hard, his spine hunching over as he presses his palms onto the front of his skull. Phil’s hand touches gingerly at his hair, fingers pressing down in concerned comfort. 

“Tommy?”

“S’fine.” He mutters, groaning lightly. “Too many- thinking.”

“Too many thinking.” Techno repeats, a little bit teasing. 

“Shuuut the fuck up.” Tommy insults, Wilbur snickering.

“Don’t press your memory too hard. Considering what you’ve been through, and the stress of it- take it easy.” Phil’s hand lowers down to the back of his neck, a kind, familiar presence, warding off the lasting bits of pain. Tommy breathes hard, then looks back up at his father, the sight of his face more healing than any drug in the world. 

He knows why he hardly strayed. Knows what he was hoping for, in staying near home.  

Phil hums, thumb rubbing over Tommy’s shoulder before pulling away. “Whatever the reason it was for you staying close, it let us gather what we could. You seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere at all. None of it made too much sense.” 

“Ah, here’s the timeline. Found it.” Wilbur speaks up, pushing the laptop up on the couch, sitting up on his knees to show Tommy the screen. Tommy sees a long line scattered with dots, tiny text of specific years put beside little marks. 

“See?” Wilbur says, Tommy not really seeing. He points a finger to the little diagram, explaining it out. “Each dot is a Tommy sighting. Red ones are pretty much confirmed. The others are suspected, needing more evidence. And you are allll throughout it.” He gestures to the whole of it, Tommy leaning closer and noticing that this is only a section of a certain century. He wonders how long the entire thing would be. 

Wilbur leans back with his elbows sitting on the edge of the couch cushions. “Oddly enough, your descriptions never seemed to line up, though, except with certain descriptions from years and years prior, so from there, we thought maybe this was a matter of you never being seen because you were somehow slipping through the ages…”

“Slipping through the ages.” Tommy repeats, noting the wording again. He looks at Wilbur with furrowed brows. “Why do you say it like that?”

“Because it seemed like a curse.” Phil says, both Wil and Tommy turning their eyes up towards him. “We thought you were doing it by mistake, maybe you were being pulled away by some other force.” 

“Other force.” Tommy repeats.

“Like, y'know. Demons and such.” Wil speaks matter-of-fact, Tommy frowning hard. 

“Demons?” He says, skepticism heavily soaking into his words. “Again, with the-?” He thinks of Techno mentioning magic earlier. “But it’s not. It wasn’t that.” 

“Well, we know that now.” Wil replies, gesturing at the whole of Tommy. 

“Obviously. Because demons aren’t real.” 

Wil’s face contorts into something judgemental, eyes squinting hard. Phil huffs from where he stands over Tommy. “You’ve traveled through time, but the concept of demon-made curses crosses the line for you?”

“Yeah, because time-travel isn’t magic, or whatever. It’s man made effort.” Tommy defends, unmoving on this fact. “I made that shit.” He points strongly at the screen, at the evidence of all his travels. 

“I’d argue it’s technically magic.” Techno says from behind him, leaning into the back of the couch with his hand pressing to his cheek. “It’s magical enough. It sent you through time.” 

“We are in modern ages! Magic is not a thing!” Tommy argues, Wilbur’s face going even more judgey.

“Don’t speak ill of magic.” Phil scolds, hand hitting very lightly at the side of Tommy’s shoulder. He says it with weight, as if telling off his son for being disrespectful to someone important, except it isn’t like that, because Tommy is sure that magic isn’t a thing.

“Oh my god, you’re all so old.” Tommy insults out of the blue, and Wilbur breaks out laughing, falling to the ground in his sudden amusement. 

“And with our years, we know more.” Phil insists, leaning down to Tommy’s level so as to look him in the eye. “No speaking ill of magic.” He says, with a serious type of tone that has Tommy shrinking down in slight shame for the first time in- however long it’s been since he’d got told off.  

“Okay.” He answers in a mumble, turning away to see Wilbur trying to catch his breath from where he’s hunched over on the carpet. 

Phil huffs fondly while also witnessing Wil, and he leans forward to place a kiss on the side of Tommy’s head, before standing straight once more, stepping away from the couch. “Are you boys going to keep going through this, or shall I go pack it up?”

“You’re packing already?” Techno asks, a clear bothered emotion in the question. 

“I’m getting things sorted.” Phil nods, placing his hands on his hips. “You should write up a list.” 

“I don’t want to go through my stuff...” Wilbur whines, draping himself over the couch cushion in front of Tommy’s lap.

“We had so much time until the next move…” Techno bemoans, head falling backwards in despair. 

“Make your lists.” Phil repeats, a hint of something stern in it. “And make a list for Tommy, as well. He’ll need things for our next spot.” He reminds, as he goes to head back to his room. 

“Oh, that’s right!” Wilbur realizes, pulling the laptop to him so as to write up a list there. “You’re going to have a room, Tommy, you’re gonna have- Oh, okay, so he needs clothes, he needs bedding-”

“Paper list!” Phil calls, in something stubborn that feels like they’ve had this argument a thousand times over. Wilbur groans, faceplanting into the keyboard.

“Get with the times!” Techno yells. Tommy laughs at the both of them, a journal in his lap, feeling loved.