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Tommy didn’t have an exact time of when it started.
It was some time in exile, of that he is sure, somewhere in between a lonely beach party and a tower to the skies. In one hand he clutched the remnants of a brother, the blue ink dripping down his palm into the sand, and in the other he held a misshapen book with a half-broken quill. The penmanship was not perfect, as nothing ever is, but the words transcribed were forged from emotions always left unsaid and experiences his mind constantly made him relive.
I'm falling apart without you here to keep me steady
Wondering when you will come
To take me home.
But I know waiting is futile
Because no one is here-
No one ever is-
And I am left alone to drown
Without you keeping me afloat.
The words tumbled from the quill at an almost frantic degree, as if they were the last words Tommy would ever get to write. Rushed scrawls and flicks of the wrist in the beaten-down book indicated a sense of urgency, and he couldn’t help but wonder what Dream’s reaction to it would be.
The thought was discarded though as the last dot was marked with a flourish, and something within his chest bloomed .
He started writing a lot more after that. Short, concise poems that were a gust of chilling sea wind. Long, extravagant poems filled to the brim with flowery words, only to get scratched out to the point of illegibility and doomed to never see the light of day. Poems of anger, of bitterness, of resignation; he wrote them all with the harrowed eyes of a soldier and the naivety of a child. They were written by a person that was bound to the curse of being wiser than his years, yet a person that still woke up from phantom pains in the chest while screaming in the middle of the night. A person who’s entire being seemed to be oxymoronic, always contradicting and counteracting himself in sometimes the most unfavorable of ways possible.
Tommy wondered which side was supposed to be the worst.
I thought I saw you today.
Wishful thinking
As always
Because I know you'd rather not see me.
I don't blame you.
I think my mind tries to compensate
For the lack of anything and everything
With delusions only I am privy to.
I saw you stare
Despondent
Before disappearing in a swirl of purple.
I don't blame you.
It was raining.
Normally, Tommy loved the rain. He loved how it was as if the world was cleansing itself, offering the earth beneath him a second chance at living. Rain meant coaxing blossoms to bloom after a harsh Winter. Rain meant mud to fling at unsuspecting friends to break the stifling air of an impending battlefield. Rain meant basking for a moment in the world when no one else wanted to go outside, and fully embracing every aspect of what Mother Nature had to offer.
Now, though?
Now, it felt as if the world was crying. It felt as if Mother Nature was screaming , begging for it all to stop, to end, to finally be put out of her misery.
It reminded him far too much of a button in a small room and a city in ruins.
I never want to see another ocean again.
Because if I do
I'll surely remember the mornings
I wake up drowning
Gasping for breath as salt fills my lungs.
The breeze here is not one of warmth
But the heat of explosives
Battles the wind itself
And comes out victorious in the form of
Gaping holes in the ground
And the veil of smoke
Across the plains.
Despite everything
I am cold.
Tommy grew to despise the ocean. One would think that being near an ocean would make the air as one would imagine: warm, salty sea breeze ruffling through the windswept hair, and an inviting presence as a whole. This ocean seemed to have it out for him as well, because he’d never felt this cold.
But he continued writing anyways, and the pages of the tattered book continued to fill.
My sins are defined by explosion craters
And mornings adrift in the sea.
By a cottage in flames and a
Tucked away allium in a chest.
If I had a chance to let you see
All of these scars
That you are not aware of
Would you still be willing to
Hold your hand out to me?
If there is any part of you that will pay attention
To the hushed ramblings of
A person you used to know
Could you find it within yourself
To listen?
An old journal laced with forgotten writings rested in a quaint house of packed dirt and flowers. A worn down and scarred hand rested on top of it, remembering the isolated containment of the plains, the tower built in desperation, the journey away. It remembered a cottage in the tundra, a hidden cave, a disagreement in ideals. The battle torn hands of Tommyinnit danced over a leather book that held memories of a decimated city, a relentless prison, a shaky revival.
And he figured it was about time he shared it.
Tubbo wasn’t sure what he expected when he opened his door on a windy Thursday morning.
It certainly wasn’t what looked to be a well-worn book with the leather cover barely hanging on, exposing the beginnings of writing beneath. Delicately, he picked up the crumbling book and took it inside. He supposed he could wait to do errands for a bit.
The penmanship of the writing inside was horrendous, practically chicken scratch in all honesty, but it was still legible and still unmistakably Tommy’s handwriting. Intrigued and undeniably curious, Tubbo began to read.
Little summer boys
Of days long past
How I miss you so.
Where you only worried of
Taking care of bees
And perfect flowers for crowns
And could peacefully live
In harmony.
But then your hands
Were tainted red
Holding a sword too big for you to carry.
Notching arrows in wooden bows
And told to do what your heart says.
You grew up too soon on that day.
No more playing in streams and
Basking in the sun and
Having the freedom to do as pleased.
Instead, you donned the coat of a canary
Unknowingly waiting for the cat to strike.
Every night that I remember
I look up to the sky
Trace the thousands of stars
And think about you.
During these moments
I hold proof of the fact that you’re still there
In the form of glimmering silver
And a thin red needle that moves.
Remember when we'd map the stars
To our own designs
And claim the wide expanse would be ours?
Just think about how smug
History must be
Because look where we are now-
The President and the Traitor-
Both of us buried by the cosmos.
But I refuse to let us fall like the ones before
Refuse to let us sink into the claws of
Insanity and Paranoia
While I try to fight for what we used to be.
Maybe if I keep holding on it will be enough.
So with shaking hands yet a clear mind
I grasp this compass
As it points me towards home.
On the very last page was a poem not like the others.
This page was a pristine white, recently made, with handwriting unlike any of the previous mess of frenzied letters. This one was written meticulously, as if the writer had planned each and every syllable that went onto the page.
Maybe Tommy had.
Our tether together
Strengthened and unraveled with time
Binding our souls into something whole
In the hopes to make them complete.
Our tether together
Reinforced with a soldier’s camaraderie
Holding on to newfound freedom
And dreams unmatched in the world.
Our tether together
Forced apart by circumstance
Learning to crawl its way to the other again
Still naive enough to keep trying.
Our tether together
Nearly severed
Snipped at the middle
Where once one became the other.
Our tether together
Ripping at the seams
Practically falling apart
Waiting to be mended.
Our tether together
Still slightly severed
But maybe we can learn again
And fix it as One.
By the time he reached the end of the well-loved pages, Tubbo was in shambles. Tear tracks were left streaming down his cheeks, and the crystalline droplets faded into the yellowed paper that had now fallen to the ground without the hands that held it up. Those instead were used to wipe away more tears while ugly sobs were ripped from his throat, bubbling to the surface like molten lava over the span of centuries.
He left the book in reckless abandon, shooting up from where he had curled within himself, and bolted out of the door. The ram, pushing through on pure adrenaline, ran and ran, towards a place he knew quite well. Towards his Sun, his Fire, his other half. Towards home.
An old, hole-ridden journal rested undisturbed in the halls of a mansion. It’s contents were mostly written in rich blue ink given by a spacey ghost and with a half-broken quill, but, maybe the words within had what it took to reconnect two bound souls once again.