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Tommy had known how to sew and knit for as long as he could remember. And unlike Ranboo, he remembered pretty far back.
He could recall a blank face of a mother whose only feature he recalled were dazzlingly bright blue eyes he'd never seen elsewhere besides his own whenever he saw his reflection (though recently they had seemed as dull as they'd ever been) and at the man who raised him for the brief years between his childhood and the revolution. He could remember sitting in the lap of a familiar yet long gone woman, nearly asleep as a little toddler while she hummed with her arms wrapped around him, steadily moving in patterns.
He remembers sitting at a table with her, watching closely as she explained the stitching and looping that would, with patience, fix anything that needed it, or create something entirely new.
He remembers practicing alongside her, copying her movements as well as a 7 year old could.
He remembers presenting a poorly done, much too small sweater to the blue eyed woman, who would scoop him into her arms and giggle with him about how proud she was of his work.
He remembers watching a house fall to flames while the screams of the same voice that comforted him died out as he was rescued instead of her.
It was practically muscle memory at this point. Once he fell into the care of Phil, and in turn Wilbur, he continued to practice his stitching and looping, carefully and steadily getting better and better.
He made sure to always carry supplies for it when Phil left deemed them responsible enough to be without him, and Wilbur took him to go anywhere but the desperately empty house they had tried to keep a home. It hadn't worked.
Once they settled in a van, he always had time to let his creativity run wild. It was before his hands constantly shook so much that he couldn't bear to try and make anything. He had made the uniforms. With fabric he had found and stolen, he proudly made the uniforms that would become the L’manburg groups outfits. He remembers running out of the correct color fabric right before Fundy and Nikis uniforms, the two smallest of the group. He tried to keep to a blue and red color, and did his best to match them.
Not that it truly mattered in the end.
Point being, he's pretty talented at what he does.
Christmas time comes around, and Tommy needs gifts. His only problem being, he doesn't have the currency to buy items for the only family he needs gifts for, and he doesnt think he has the energy to go mining to get some. He has to think about what he is able to do. What is something he can do from the confines of his house that would result in meaningful gifts to the _Beloveds?
His only talent of course. Only problem was his shaky hands. But he only had about a month to get them done, so he may as well start now.
Worst case scenario, he doesn't show up on Christmas day. What can you do?
—-—————————
Turns out, this had been easier than he thought. Turns out when you sit down and try, the muscle memory kicks in pretty quickly. Sure, he kept having to undo a stitch (or five) because he had zoned out and the shakiness came back, but it was working nonetheless.
He had finished Tubbos now, knowing his measurements by heart, a cactus green that matched the shirt he would constantly wear before wartime of the past and not–quite–neon yellow spots to represent his nuclear tendencies of the present. The thought made him smile, but also brought a small pang to his heart.
He sighed, putting aside the sweater. It had only taken a couple days of just sitting in and knitting for a few hours at a time. He really didn't feel like starting on Ranboos massive one, so he began with Michaels. He should only take a day or two if he really sat and worked.
Only problem was that he didn't know what colors to use, and he didn't know the kids' measurements. Tommy sat for a second thinking. Going over to the mansion to find out would likely just ruin the surprise, and messaging Tubbo would do the same, was he supposed to guess?
Then an idea hit him.
He stood on shaky legs, getting used to standing after sitting for so long, and walked over the cave in the back of his house where Shroud resided. He shuffled to the heap of blankets and polked it until it wiggled and a little head accompanied by six eyes popped from between the sheets.
“Hey bud, I know your nappin’ right now but I need your help, wanna come with me?” Shroud blinked slowly before nodding sleepily and crawling up his arm to rest on his back and wrapping 2 pairs of arms around his neck and the remaining arms and their legs around his torso. The weight threw Tommy off for a second, but he balanced himself and walked back to the front room.
Once there, he reaches back to grab Shroud, who was already dozing back off, and gently pulls to release their limbs. Tommy brings them to his front and sits with them on his lap, face to face.
“Alright, big man,” Tommy began, whispering. “I need you to wake up a bit for me. I gotta take some measurements n’ shit for something.” The spider nodded absentmindedly, and even though the teen knew the poor kid probably didn't understand him, he felt the need to explain to them anyway. He figured that since they were both toddlers, the sizes would be relatively similar, discounting the extra limbs. Which only reminded him that he also needed to make Shroud a sweater, too, along with their other gifts.
Shroud blinked at him and nodded, and clambered off of Tommys lap and stood in front of him with a tilted head, half from sleep and half from curiosity. Tommy let out a shuddered breath and reached for a spare measuring tape and set to work.
He wrapped the tape around Shroud where he needed the different length, avoiding the areas where arms affected. Once he had all he needed, he set everything down as quietly as he could, and gently swept the toddler into his arms, where they curled up into his chest.
As he started back to the spider's room, he could feel exhaustion from being awake so long begin to settle in his bones, and figured a bit of sleep wouldn't hurt. Putting off starting such a small sweater wouldn't hurt too much.
He skips over Shrouds room and goes straight for his room. It's not big or impressive like his room at the mansion, but it's cozy enough for him to be comfortable letting Shroud stay there. He would hate to feel like he was forcing them to stay with him in a shitty house even though they likely wouldn't care, otherwise he wouldn't give a shit the condition his house was in.
Tommy gently laid Shroud on one side of his bed, who automatically curled into a pillow and was out almost immediately. The teen went around to the other side and plopped down as gently as he could and got comfortable.
“G’night, Shroud,” Tommy whispered. “S’rry for wakin’ you up. If you want, ‘marrow we can go out and do whatever ya want.” He knew the toddler was out like a light, but he decided he would promise himself he would take the kid out for the day since it had been a while anyways, before allowing himself to slowly but surely fade out of consciousness.
—-—————————
Tommy blinked awake, and surveyed his surroundings. It was the first time in a long time he had slept through a night uninterrupted, be it nightmares, paranoia, or just insomnia, judging by the sunlight pouring into the room. He stretched, and got up to begin his day. As he approached the front room, he noticed that Shroud was nowhere to be seen, until he came upon the kitchen area. The little spider was hanging in a hammock-like seat of web connected to the ceiling, scrounging around the cupboards, probably for something to eat.
“Big man, you're going to hurt yourself.” They hissed in response, though didn't make any move to get down, and he went over and gently supported them so they knew to drop, which they did. Tommy allowed the toddler to climb around as he shook off the webs and cling to his back once again while he waltzed the kitchen in a familiar dance as he made breakfast for the two.
There weren't many things in common with humans that spiders could eat, let alone young ones, but Shroud being a hybrid helped with that in that he could digest it just fine, so long as a he drank a special potion, recipe courtesy of Ponk, that supposed to give them the nutrients they need, considering Tommy doesn't really want to have to find the liquified insides of anything to give the kid.
He wasn't feeling like really doing anything except maybe sitting down and starting on sweaters again, when he remembered he told himself he would take Shroud out for a bit. He internally groaned, but metally slapped himself as he reminded himself it was for his kid.
Once they both finished their food, Shroud sat with their legs swinging over the edge of their chair waiting for Tommy to pick them up. Once he got close enough the little spider made grabby hands and Shroud giggled as he swung around for a moment. A small smile made its way onto the blonde's face, which was a decently rare occurrence, especially when he wasn't with one of the four people on the server who tolerated him.
“Alright, big man, let's go out today. What do you wanna do?” Shroud seemed to perk up at that. The toddler began bouncing in his arms, flinging their arms in signs Tommy couldn't keep up with, both from it coming from a toddler and the proximity. “Woah, bud, slow down.” Tommy crouched down and let them stand, and they turned and began bouncing on the balls of their feet.
“Okay, we can do anything, just give the word,” Tommy glanced at the spider's hands, a pang of guilt shooting up his spine for a brief moment at his lack of a better term, but the kid didn't seem bothered. They once again began signing so quickly and messily that Tommy failed to keep up.
He reached out and gently took their hands, before slowly signing as kindly as possible, slow down. Shroud nodded slowly before taking off at a simpler speed this time. It took a minute with Shrouds small hands, but the older was eventually able to dumb it down to “I wanna go out and see stuff and play in snow and have a picnic and have fun.” Wow. That's a lot of words for a toddler.
Either way, Tommy got the point.
Though the snow part was rather odd and random. Where could he go with snow that would be safe enough for the hybrid to play without worry?
Oh.
Well he still needed to introduce Shroud to them, the last few times he had gone over he had entrusted Shroud to Puffy for a few hours. He also had been meaning to visit Tubbo and his family for a while. It did sadden him that the boy he had called his best friend and had spent so many days with in his youth – ignoring that he's technically still supposed to be in his youth – had moved on and settled so far from him.
Sure, he was always told that he was always welcome in their house. But it wasn't the same. No matter his conflicting feelings though, he still wanted to be a part of his apparent nephew's life, though a husband and a child had been what he would least have expected from Tubbo of all people.
He once again hauled the spider into his arms and started towards the front of the house to retrieve their coats, mumbling to Shroud in the meanwhile. They wouldn't need the layers quite yet, but as soon as they hit Snowchester territory the temperature would freeze up significantly.
It took a bit to get ready, especially since Shroud had taken to climbing around while Tommy prepared their things, leaving the blonde to both his task and keeping an eye on the toddler. He really should not have had such a tall ceiling.
No matter, he eventually managed to get everything around, everything he would need (not much, as the _Beloveds had most of what would be necessary) was shoved into his inventory, and he hauled up Shroud on his way out, swinging him around to sit on his shoulders. As they got comfortable they wrapped their arms loosely around his head, buried their face in the blonde poof of hair, and relaxed when they felt balanced enough.
“Comfortable, big man?” The spider nodded, seemingly tired despite the fact that they hadn't even been up for 2 hours. Tommy let a small smile show on his face, and set off for Snowchester. If he started now he should be to the water travel part before midday.
—-—————————
Tommy really should have called ahead to make sure the weather was suitable to walk through. To be fair, there wasn't a very high chance that any crazy storms would set in, so the teen had assumed they would be safe. That proved to be so incredibly wrong.
The second he stepped foot onto the commune's grounds from the tunnel, he was hit full force by harsh winds and blistering cold. The shock of it scared the shit out of Shroud, who jumped over the blonde's head into his arms. The older shoved himself backwards and stumbled into the safety of the small walls not filled with water from the tunnel.
It didn't do much, but it was enough for him to yank his and Shrouds jackets from his inventory and wrap both around the small child in his arms. The latter made small hisses of complaint, but Tommy couldn't be bothered, knowing the poor kid wouldn't understand, especially thought the howls surrounding them.
“I know bud, it's alright,” Tommy comforted. “This shit’s gonna suck,” he said to no one before he set off, relying on muscle memory to hopefully guide him through the snow. If this didn't work, he was going to be in deep shit – and snow.
—-—————————
The _Beloveds were a relatively peaceful family. They had their loud and crazy moment with each other, where giggles and laughs and crashes could be heard echoing throughout the massive mansion. But for the most part, they were subtle moments by a fire and bonding moments over lunches prepared together. Tommy would visit sometimes, and they were happy with how they were, protected by Tubbos work and comfortable with Ranboos money.
Speaking of sweet moments, they were all quietly sitting by the fire, Michael playing with non flammable toys a little too close to the flames for comfort, but the parents knew that his Piglin heritage would keep him safe so long as he had no direct contact with the flame.
Tubbo was curled up into Ranboos' side on the couch, lightly sleeping as his husband read through a book, tail flicking every so often. Whenever the little piglin would grunt in his direction, he would let out a low quiet enderman–like noise in acknowledgment without looking up.
Their little bubble of peace was interrupted by a banging on their front door that reverberated throughout the house, startling all its occupants.
“What was th’t,” Tubbo slurred his words after being suddenly jolted awake.
“It's probably nothing, go back to sleep.” Tubbo nodded and relaxed his muscles once more.
Ranboo set his book down, and carefully moved Tubbo, who was already dozing off again, to rest on the arm of the couch rather than the taller, and walked down the hall towards the door, glancing at Michael on his way out to make sure he was fine.
While cautious of strangers, he figured that no one dangerous would show up in the middle of a nasty storm just to do harm, as there were no current conflicts arising that he knew about (beside the whole Las Nevadas ordeal, but that was mostly verbal fights and empty threats as of now). So he swung the door wide open, and had to do a double take on what he saw.
Tommy was hunched over and shivering as the wind whipped around him, giving a large smile that Ranboo could see though as a facade to cover the fact that the boy was literally freezing. Ranboo noted that he was holding his coat rather than wearing it, oddly enough.
He immediately knew he would be useless in the situation, as both Tommy and the coat were covered in snow and ice, and he was not looking forward to gaining new painful scars today.
“Hey– hey, big man,” Tommy shuddered through the small sentence.
“Uh, Tubbo?” he raised his voice.
“Who is it, boss man?” Ranboo could hear the exhaustion in Tubbos voice as he slowly began walking from the room he resided in, likely making sure Michael would be settled fine before he left him. His footsteps quickened suddenly, signaling he had left the room, and he appeared around the corner.
Confused at the sight in front of him, Tubbo quickly shook it off before rushing to Tommy's side to help him, knowing his husband couldn't. Ushering him inside, Tubbo took whatever was in Tommy's grasp, noticing the reluctance in letting go. Tubbo set it on the floor, clearly more concerned for whatever was happening with Tommy than the bundle.
“What the hell?” The brunette exclaimed accusingly. Tommy at least had the decency to look ashamed of his lack of self preservation. “What happened to you?”
Ranboo looked for an opportunity to help and carefully unwrapped whatever was in there from the confines of the coat. Before he could fully unwrap it, a small creature poked its head out, startling the tall man, and stared at Ranboo with 2, 3, 4… 6 eyes? Two larger ones and 4 surrounding those, they practically glowed at him. The little creature stood up, shaking a bit and staring warily while fiddling with their (6 arms worth of) hands.
Bending his long legs to try and match the height of what was apparently a kid (how the hell they came into the care of Tommy, Ranboo couldn't imagine), he examined them for injury, assuming that since Tommy of all people had been trying to keep them safe that they were somewhat important.
The little hybrid(?) looked to be a bit shorter than Michael, though looked to be slightly skinnier too. They had decently long dark hair, twisted into a messy braid weirdly resemblant of the one Technoblade often wore in the confines of his home. Their hair was only a few shade lighter than their nearly dark gray skin, light gray little freckles scattered across their face. The hybrid was wearing a sweater that looked to be a size or two too big, judging by the bunch of it around their head and the sweater paws. Speaking of their arms, it looked like a normal sweater except for the two sleeves messily sewn on below the regular ones.
Safe to say, the kid was definitely a spider hybrid. He also appeared to be one who didn't become particularly violent at night, judging by how there was a significant lack of light where they were. The little spider began squirming under Ranboos vision, making the older realize he should probably do something.
“Hey, uh, can you– can you understand me? At all? Um,” Ranboo wasn't really sure where to go with this. He glazed over to Tubbo, who was thoroughly preoccupied with checking Tommy over and scolding him for not wearing the coat they had specifically gotten for him to protect himself from the cold. Sighing, he realized he was on his own until Tubbo realized that Tommy was perfectly fine, just a bit cold and wet.
Ranboo sat down in front of the kid who was beginning to gather tears in their eyes, likely at the strange environment, which mixed with his aversion to eye contact made for a slightly uncomfortable atmosphere. He had missed if the kid answered, so he asked again.
The kid nodded and sniffed, glancing at Tommy every so often. That told Ranboo that at least the hybrid knew his friend, though it didn't explain much.
“Alright, um, so do you have a name?” It was a stupid question, he knew, but he wasnt really sure how else to ask. The kid nodded once again, and held up their top pair of shaky hands, the other pairs folding behind his front and back. Ranboo was confused, before the realization hit him and his eyes widened.
The kid could probably only speak to him in sign language.
Or at least that was what he was choosing to do. And who was Ranboo to tell him not to. His sign language was shaky, but being on a server where half the occupants had some degree of hearing loss taught him enough.
The kid held up a simple fist. S. Okay, that was a start. Ranboo slowly nodded, so the kid continued. Next, the kid twisted and turned their fist on its side and stuck out their middle and index finger. H.
So S–H. The process continued just as slowly. Eventually Ranboo manages to piece everything together.
S–H–R–O–U–D. Huh. Shroud. Interesting.
“So your name is… Shroud?” The kid– Shroud nodded. It was at this moment that little footsteps caught Ranboo’s attention. Turning to look behind them, Ranboo caught the side of Michael sticking his head around the corner. Looking at Shroud and back, Ranboo gestures for Michael to come closer.
The small piglin comes closer, wary of the stranger his dad is talking to. As he gets closer, Shroud begins to shrink away from the approaching stranger. Ranboo isn't really sure how he's going to introduce two near toddlers – neither of which speak – to each other. He just prays that Tubbo is done with Tommy now.
He looks over at the two other teens and sighs as Tubbo is still lecturing Tommy, who is shrunk in his posture like a child being scolded. Ranboo clears his throat as loudly as he can, and Tubbos eyes dart over to him for a second and back to Tommy before looking back bewildered. He looks between his husband and son, Tommy, and Shroud for a few moments before just pointing at the poor kid, mouth agape but no word coming out.
Tommy, seeming to have noticed that Tubbo stopped talking, looked up and followed his gaze. When he realized what was happening, he suddenly stood straight up and scrambled to get to Shroud. When the spider saw Tommy coming towards him, he reached up like a child for their parents and toddled towards him. (That comparison is seeming like it's becoming accurate.)
Tommy scooped the hybrid up, sending Ranboo to his feet. Tommy cleared his throat. He hugged Shroud closer, who buried himself deeper into Tommys chest. “Uh, hey– so–” He cleared his throat again. “Sorry? To, uh, to barge in like this.” His eyes darted between the couple.
“Barge in? Tommy, why the hell are you here in the middle of a storm?”
Tommy laughed awkwardly, his voice trailing off into silence. He cleared his throat. “Well I mean it's not like I could have predicted it would be so nasty out.” Silence again.
No one dared make a move until Michael slowly toddled towards Tommy, his parents making no move to stop him. Once he reached him, he reached up and tugged his blue sweater, signaling that he wanted to be lifted up.
Tommy looked up at Tubbo with a gaze asking for permission, to which a go–ahead was given. Crouched down, Tommy scooped Michael up into his arm.
Michael looked at Shroud, who stared back, neither making a move to do anything but look. It was silent as the teenagers held their breath, waiting for whichever child to make some sort of move first. In the end, after what could have only been 15 seconds but felt like minutes, Michael makes a small grunt.
Shroud makes a face, before waving. With a tilt of his head, Michael copies the movement. Taking it as a sign to continue Shroud, pointed at Michael before sticking out his index and middle finger of both hands, causing Tommy to need to tighten his grip on the spider, and formed a cross by moving the fingers of both his hands together. Both Tommy and Ranboo recognized it as Shroud trying to ask for Michaels name as well as he could.
Tommy and Ranboo glanced at each other before Tommy bounced Shroud once to get his attention and whispered, “He can't understand you, bud.” Shroud looked up at him with clear confusion written on his face, before turning to face Michael again, eyebrows furrowed. He glanced at Tommy once more, before wiggling to be let down.
Tommy placed both toddlers on the floor, and Tubbo finally interrupted.
“Uh, boss man, wanna explain the, yknow, child?” Tubbo asked, not sure if he really wanted to know the details.
“Oh, yeah, uh, it's my, it's my kid?” he laughed awkwardly. He had totally forgotten/avoided the fact that he had yet to introduce Shroud to his… family? Friends? Besties? Hell, he didn't know. “I just kinda found ‘em one day and they stuck around.”
“Oh.” More silence.”What's his name?”
Tommy stiffened his posture. “Their name –”
Ranboo interrupted this time. “They said their name is Shroud. At least, at least I think that's how it's said.” Tubbo ignored his husband in favor of looking concernedly at Tommy's near outburst.
“Yeah, Shrouds their name. I was workin’ on my house and they came up to me. Had ‘em ever since.”
“Oh okay.” Tubbo crouched down to the toddlers. “Hello Shroud, it's nice to meet you,” Tubbo stuck his hand out to the spider, who shyly took it. Tubbo smiled.
They both look up at Tommy, who said: “Let's take this to the living room.” Tubbo nodded and reached his arms out and around Shroud, not quite touching them, asking silent permission. The toddler not-quite-hesitantly put their arms around the teen, who slowly hauled him up.
Michael turned to the closest adult–Tommy–arms outstretched, who swept him up in a flurry of giggles and took off after his best friend while stage whispering conspiratorially.
Ranboo shook his head. When he awoke today he definitely wasn't expecting this, but it was a pleasant surprise.
On the bright side, he had one more set of presents he would be happy to get now.