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“In the hole, Tommy.”
Tommy jerks, eyes widening as he lifts his head to stare at Dream. “You can’t be serious, Dream,” he says, lifting his hands, red and raw, blistered from a pickaxe handle, and waving them in Dream’s direction. “I just spent the last six hours mining, you can tell I did!”
The wind cuts cold and harsh across the plain they stand on, and Tommy wishes a little that they’d stood in the shadow of Logstedshire for just a bit of protection. Instead they stand a good distance away from it with the beach to their left, on either side of a freshly dug pit.
“Tommy, put your–”
“Dream, I haven’t got anything! Just some iron and some wood, and all of it’s perfectly good for tools!”
Crack.
Tommy stumbles back, aching hand rising to touch aching cheek, his mouth falling open at the hand-shaped heat he finds there. His eyes rise to Dream, searching for an explanation. Dream’s mask offers nothing, porcelain and ink as flat and emotionless as it always is, but the tense, hard set of his shoulders, nearly vibrating with rage, causes Tommy to swallow hard, shock warring with both fear and anger.
“You just hit me,” he says hollowly.
“And I wouldn’t have had to do it if you just listened to me,” Dream says tightly, dropping his hand to his side. “Why do you have to fight me on everything? Everything I do is for your benefit, and you spit in my face every step of the way!”
“How is destroying my hard work for me?” Tommy cries. “What the fuck does that mean? Wh–”
Dream unsheathes his axe and Tommy’s mouth shuts with a click.
“Dream, you can’t– you can’t be serious,” Tommy says, nearly pleading. He lowers his hand from his face and reaches for his inventory when Dream begins to lift his weapon, hurriedly saying, “No, no don’t– you can– you can have the iron, Dream, you don’t have to wave a fucking axe at me. Here, I’ll put it in the hole, just–”
Tommy steps forward, hands shaking as he cradles the chunks of raw iron in both palms, shying around Dream and approaching the hole. Dream remains silent, axe still raised just so slightly, head tracking Tommy’s movement.
The wood and iron land in the bottom of the hole, disturbing the churned up dirt even further.
“Good, Tommy,” Dream coos, and Tommy watches him slip his axe back into its holster. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Tommy presses his lips into a thin line, eyes and cheeks burning, wind nipping at his nose. He doesn’t look up as Dream lights a stick of TNT and drops it in, but he covers his ears as the explosion shakes the ground.
He’s still blinking away spots when Dream ruffles his hair, far over the line of too rough, and even if he could see properly, he wouldn’t watch Dream walk away.
He stands before the pit, throat tight, and only shivers when the snow starts to fall.
It was winter when Tommy was exiled.
He doesn’t remember much past the moment Tubbo uttered the words, “The most logical thing to do, is for Tommy to be exiled from L’Manberg.”
Everything after was swallowed up by a ringing that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he shook his head. He’d never felt so removed from his own body as he did at that moment, as if floating. He felt himself do everything, his mouth stuttering over shocked pleas, his legs carrying him slowly away from the wall, but it wasn't truly him doing any of it.
Despite the winter-dead grass and trees, Tommy remembers a lot of green from that day.
He remembers the green of Dream’s sweatshirt as he rowed them to what would soon be Logstedshire, always pristine for a reason Tommy could never guess. He’s never seen his sweatshirt dirty, not during wars, not during confrontations, not even back when they used to rough house together. He remembers the cold acid green of Dream’s eyes, staring him down as he listed off rules, ticking each one off on his fingers. They never used to seem so menacing.
At first, he’d tried to make the best of it, tried to be hopeful.
Tubbo would come to visit and apologise for exiling him. In his head, he pictures Tubbo extending his hand and saying, “We’ll fight Dream together, like we always have. Whatever happens, it’ll always be you and me, right?”
(In the back of his mind he knows that he would get an apology, and then Tubbo would say, “It’s best this way, right now at least. Can you hold on for just a bit?”
And Tommy would agree, because what else could he do but protest and make everything so much more complicated for Tubbo?
He pretends that’s not how it would go, the same way he pretends it doesn’t hurt.)
For the first month, while he waits for that fateful visit, he mines and cuts trees and builds towers as a distraction. When Ghostbur visits, they build Logstedshire together, and even if he’s nothing but an echo of a man once alive, there is still comfort in his company.
Ghostbur is cheerful and some company is better than none at all (and Dream doesn’t count because he never has). Sometimes his visits make a pang go through Tommy’s chest as the realisation sets in that the only person who will visit him is a ghost who would go see anyone if they gave him something fun to do, but he shakes it away. Ghostbur doesn’t know the difference, but sometimes Tommy likes to think that Ghostbur stays with him because he’s still a little piece of Wilbur, and that piece of Wilbur would stay by his side wherever he could go. Maybe he’s the part that still wants to protect him.
The second month in, Tommy is starting to wonder about Dream.
Before, their exchanges were coloured by Tommy’s indignation and anger and fear for the way Dream treated him, and Dream’s stern insistence that Tommy listen.
It’s when bruises start to crop up in the shape of hands around his wrists and biceps that it sets in that Dream is hurting him.
“Ghostbur,” he says one day, fingers skimming across blotchy skin. “What do you think of Dream?”
“Dream?” Ghostbur echoes, watching the tide coming in. “I think he’s rather nice! He comes and he takes care of you and he’s always been oh-so kind to me!”
“Yeah,” Tommy says absently, his eyes following the path of broken blood vessels round and round his wrist. Wilbur used to say things just like Dream does. I only want what’s best for you, Tommy, and I know better than you do what you need, Tommy. And Wilbur did care, from the day he found Tommy abandoned in some lonely cottage to the day he died. The ways he showed his care changed over the years, but he never stopped.
Dream cares for him the same, and Tommy has long since learned that love hurts, perhaps worse than anything else in the world.
He smiles.
Three months in, Tommy starts to hide things.
It’s nothing big, not at all! Everything is fundamentally worthless, at least to him, because what good is stockpiling food when all that he needs to eat is given to him by Dream? What can his own iron do for him that Dream’s gifted iron can’t?
No, none of the things he hides are hidden for himself.
He hides them because the need to prove to Dream that he has value and use is a hot coal slowly burning its way out of his gut, eating through the lining of his stomach until he feels nearly sick. Tommy’s hiding them for Dream, practically, because he’s only going to keep them until he has enough to impress, and then all of them will go right to Dream. What Dream does with them doesn’t matter much to him, just that he likes the gift.
He wonders later if deep down he knew that it would make Dream mad. Tommy has always had such a knack for pushing just the right buttons to make someone angry, it would come as no surprise if he subconsciously did it to Dream as well.
Tommy had already been waking up to saltwater drying out his mouth and burning his nose for weeks now, so maybe there was already some unspoken death wish itching to drag him to some painful demise.
Really, he should have seen the building implosion coming.
Dream stares at the storage room. Unlike all the times he’s been angry before, he does not shake with rage, muscles locked and trembling. Instead he is completely stock still, his hands relaxed at his sides, his head cocked curiously. Tommy stares at him, uncertain. Is he mad? He probably should be, but maybe he’s not really. He doesn’t look like it, at least.
And then Dream turns to him.
Dream has been wearing his mask less around Tommy, something that used to make him feel special and important. Dream trusts him enough to show his face. Now he does not see trust in Dream’s eyes. Instead, lodged there, is icy cold fury.
Tommy recoils instantly, horror filling him. Never in his life has he seen someone look at him like that. Not Wilbur, not Techno, not Phil. Not even Sapnap looked at him like that during their war. He stumbles over his feet and falls back onto his ass, eyes locked on Dream, who doesn’t move at all.
When he finds his tongue, he says quickly, “Dream, I’m sorry, I promise I wasn’t trying to disobey, I–”
“You weren’t trying? ” Dream asks, stonily. The set of his jaw is hard, his brow tense. “Tommy, there’s no such thing as accidental disobeying. Are you trying to say you walked in your sleep and mined all these materials and put them in chests and hid them? Tommy, I have never lied to you once, and all I asked was for you to give me all of your items every day. Was a little trust too much to ask?”
“I know you’ve never lied! I’m sorry, I–I just wanted to show you I could be helpful to you, nothing else! I just wanted to be useful, it’s all for you anyway!”
“Then why are you hiding it? Why not give it to me as you got it? Only the people who have something to hide are the ones who hide things, Tommy. So you know what? I don’t believe you.”
Liar.
Selfish.
“Dream,” Tommy chokes out past the lump growing in his throat. He blinks and his vision blurs. Tommy closes his eyes and feels hot tears streak down his face. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have– I shouldn’t have done that.”
“You’re right. You shouldn’t have.”
Dream’s fingers, familiar and calloused on his skin, close around his throat, pressing beneath his jaw as he is hauled up and slammed back against Logstedshire’s wooden walls faster than he can react.
Tommy’s eyes fly open as his windpipe is crushed, and Dream’s eyes meet his immediately. His gaze is flat, uncaring, and as Tommy silently thrashes under him, head growing light, one side of his lips quirks up.
It’s horribly, terribly quiet. Dream says not a word, doesn’t make a sound, and all that Tommy can do is gurgle and kick, fingers clawing at Dream’s hand and tears gathering in his eyes.
The satisfied flash of pearly teeth is the last thing he sees.
“In the hole, Tommy.”
Tommy’s eyes snap up from the soil in front of him, a moment of panic making his gut coil uncomfortably. Technoblade’s eyes are on him, waiting. After a moment, his brother reaches out and nudges his hand.
“You have to put the seeds in the hole, runt,” he grunts, a smile spreading around his tusks and crinkling the corners of his eyes. “How else are they gonna grow?”
Tommy looks down at the tiny carrot seeds in his palm, and then he follows Techno’s direction and pours them into the hole that Techno had poked into the earth.
“Good,” Techno praises, and Tommy looks up at him with uncertainty. “You’re doing good, Tommy.”
It’s been three months. Three months since Tommy woke up alone, his throat raw and his voice gone. He still doesn’t know why he got up and started walking, stumbling in any direction to just get away. It’s by pure luck that he’d managed to arrive at Techno’s cabin. Or, you know, the snowy field outside the cabin. He’d passed out from exhaustion before he could even come within twenty feet of the front steps, and it just so happened that Techno was home and saw him collapse.
Tommy gently sweeps dirt over the seeds, patting it down and then carefully pushing himself to his feet. He wobbles, accidentally putting his hand on Techno’s shoulder to steady himself.
“Sorry,” he signs quickly, drawing his hand back and shuffling his feet.
“It’s okay, Theseus,” Techno murmurs, getting to his feet as well. He towers over Tommy, but it doesn’t feel the same as the way Dream does. His hand softly lands on Tommy’s head, and after a moment he ruffles his hair and starts to walk toward the greenhouse door.
“Where are you going?” Tommy asks, throat rasping, looking from Techno to the half planted garden bed.
“I think it’s about time for some lunch, don’t you?” Techno asks, looking over his shoulder at Tommy. “We’ve got stew waiting, come on.”
Tommy hesitates, but when Techno stops for him, clearly waiting patiently, Tommy offers a tentative smile and trots after him, stepping carefully in the path Techno had carved in the snow for him earlier this morning when they first made their way to the greenhouse.
It’s spring when Tommy finds a home.
It’s not where he thought he would end up, far away from L’Manberg and planted right in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow and ice.
It’s his birthday when he first realises it, a tentatively warm day in April, when Techno points out the tiny green (acid eyes, clean hoodies, hurting hurting hurting) shoots poking out from the snow. “Phil calls it New Life,” he says.
Tommy is surprised to realise that the mention of their father doesn’t make his chest hurt, and while it doesn’t feel good to hear about him, it also doesn’t feel like anything at all.
“It’s new beginnings,” Techno says, chuffing softly. He seems content, and Tommy draws in a long, slow breath. The air smells like the spiced cake baking in the oven.
“I like new beginnings,” Tommy whispers. His voice is still healing, and he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to speak the same as he used to. Techno, although it seems to make him sad sometimes, never pushes him to speak when he doesn’t want to. And even if Tommy still catches Techno looking at his neck with anger, he’s learning that it’s not directed at him, but at the man who inflicted the injury.
He blinks at the vibrant green. Innocent. Harmless. A new beginning.
“Me too, runt,” Techno rumbles, and when he reaches out and draws Tommy to his side, he doesn’t flinch. Tommy burrows into the warmth of Techno’s cloak.
It was hard when he first came to in Techno’s living room. He was afraid, so much so that in the midst of a panic attack he couldn’t tell that it was Techno speaking to him.
“I’m sorry, Dream, I’m sorry, I’ll be better, I promise,” he’d babbled hoarsely, protecting his head with his arms. “I know I deserve it, I’m sorry, I am–”
“Shh, shh Theseus. It’s okay, just breathe with me, follow me–”
And when Tommy was able to look up, he’d felt only horror and shame for the way that Techno stared at him like he was a stranger.
It took days full of tears and more panic attacks for Tommy to be able to get the whole story out to Techno, and when he finally said, “He slapped me,” Techno stormed out of the house. At first, he’d been terrified that Techno was abandoning him for being weak, but then his older brother came back and tried to offer piles of rings and gold and he knew that he was still going to stay.
So Tommy has a home again, and it’s neither a country nor a beach riddled with TNT holes, but a cabin made of spruce and oak, shared with a retired warrior and his many hounds and his babied horse. He has his own room and warm clothes and a box full of gold jewellery on his dresser just to soothe Techno’s instincts. He helps bake bread every other day, and he can spend hours sitting in the cowbarn without being scolded for being lazy or unhelpful.
When he can’t sleep or a nightmare pulls him to waking, Techno’s door is open and his bed is big. Nothing can reach him there, not when Techno would guard him with his life.
Spring is a time for new life and new beginnings, and after a frigid winter, it seems also to hold new hope.