Chapter Text
Tommy has never been particularly good at appealing to people’s better nature, never been good at prompting people or himself into making the right decision, but what he just did had to take the cake as the worst fucking thing he has done in his entire measly sixteen year existence.
It wasn't truly a decision he had made, not really.
But still—he’s in deep shit.
He doesn’t really know how fair the chain of events goes back to get him to this point—all he knows is that he let his guard down, he got too close, and he messed up again, just like the time before this one and the time before that.
It, in all honesty, probably started when he met Wilbur.
When they first met, he thought the man was so cool. He thought the bantering was nice, thought ‘finally, someone who gets me’, thought the days the brunet played his guitar outside of the bakery were the best.
And after a couple months, he thought: brother.
Wilbur Soot slowly but surely became his brother.
It wasn’t easy on the older’s part. Tommy’s a kid riddled with both trust and abandonment issues, trauma ingrained so deep it seems like healing is a betrayal half of the time. He’s terrified of affection, of the potential of love, yet he’s clingy towards those who give it and desperate for more as soon as he has it clasped between both hands, fingers a cage.
So when one brother became two and Technoblade joined into the dynamic, with all his sarcastic quips and sardonic one liners, the blond had been equal parts cautious and excited.
The more people to care about and to be cared for by the better—it’s worth the fear.
Tommy’s always been alone, before.
His parents weren’t great people—didn’t want kids, didn’t want him.
By five, he was on the streets, becoming just another rat digging through the trash to find something to eat and roaming the alleyways to claim a spot to sleep. By eight he was at the orphanage. The other kids didn’t like him much, he was always somehow just a bit too loud, too excitable, too “soft”.
At ten he was thrown into the foster system and at fourteen, he threw himself out.
He stole enough to survive, made friends in the right places, learned and adapted and collected favors like personal calling cards. He got himself an apartment one year later—small but his, small but safe—and has been working at Ponk’s bakery since.
The bakery was nice despite being in the lower districts, despite being dangerous.
Tommy doesn’t mind it, he’s long since learned how to avoid trouble.
Wilbur and Techno, though, with their rich people's clothes and privileged kids’ concern, started to walk him home. He didn’t really like it at first, didn’t like the pity but… it wasn’t really pity, they just wanted him safe.
A week went by and he learned how much they earned those expensive shoes and with it the backhand knowledge of the streets that only came from once living on them, and he didn’t mind the almost constant paranoia that something bad was going to happen as much.
Not having to travel alone was nice.
Seeing his brothers outside of work was even better.
The nights passed by quicker when he walked home laughing.
February turned into March and pretty soon June was flying by and Tommy met one Philza Minecraft on the sunniest day August could offer them. It had been over half a year since he met the man’s sons, a long overdue wait, but he still felt far from being prepared.
Tommy was wary of him at first—he hasn’t had the best history with fathers.
Warming up to Phil, despite this, was both ridiculously easy and terrifyingly fast. He isn’t scared of the other blond, he doesn’t have to hold his tongue or sit up straight or prove himself.
He can just… be.
The dynamic between three shifts to four and pretty soon Tommy found himself thrown into their little family prank wars, movie nights, and fond fights.
Wil liked to call his dad an old man, all in good humor and jest, while Techno threw in some dark joke here or there to catch him off guard. They liked to make Phil joke back, to roll his eyes, to smile—Tommy’s thing, though, his truly favorite thing to do when hanging out with Phil is to get the man to laugh.
He has such a dad laugh—it doesn’t matter if it’s his surprised giggles or fully-confident chuckles, laughter is laughter.
It makes Tommy feel so strangely proud.
Laughter to him has always been the way an emotion escapes when there’s too much of it and when he can make Phil feel that, when he can be funny and entertaining, it’s like he can prove to himself that this is where he belongs—right by their side.
Besides, Phil’s laughter is contagious, room-filling.
And it’s really nice to be surrounded by the people you care about, warm and happy and watching their cheeks flush, watching them try to stifle their laughter just to be able to breathe.
Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that the Minecrafts aren’t actually family.
Sometimes, it’s really hard to not let ‘dad’ slip out when talking to Phil.
Sometimes—one time, right now—the thought had been spinning around in his head far too quickly, he barely recognized it. Sometimes he doesn’t stop it at all and this is the time that Tommy doesn’t get the chance to choke down the word.
Sometimes, Tommy feels really fucking stupid.
It happened like this—him and Wilbur had been bickering, him dragging Techno into it to help ‘beat up” the brunet while Wil had done the same thing to Phil, telling his dad to “control the Gremlin”.
So, of course, when Philza Minecraft tells him to be polite, he’s gonna fucking be polite.
Like, c’mon, it’s Phil.
Only, Wilbur thought that was bullshit and instantly started to complain, like a little bitch. He had shot back some witty reply that had his brother smacking the table as he wheezed and Tommy could only sit back and smile because it’s just so happy here, in this little bubble of theirs.
He didn’t think he could ruin it, didn’t think it would be something he’d do.
So when he does, he knows he does without doubt.
See, Phil was laughing and Techno was rolling his eyes at them all in silent amusement, and Wil (who doesn’t have any problems calling his dad, well, dad even if he doesn’t do it often) goes: “You’re just sucking up to Dad because you want to pick out what we watch later!”
And Tommy replies: “I’m not sucking up! I genuinely think Dad is cool, you prick!”
He very well knows that he fucked up.
The silence tells him that before he even sees their expressions.
Phil's eyes are wide, mouth slightly parted. Wilbur's similarity dropped open, Technoblade's face impassive but there's a rigid sense of shock in the way his shoulders tense and—
And Tommy's surprised too.
The astonishment lasted for one second, two, then the older blond's expression softened.
He tenses, his brain screaming it's pity! before he could even begin to wrangle in his anxiety. The feelings crowd his chest, he knows he looks as scared as he is because the soft look shifts into a frown, a tender kind of concern and he just—
He can't just sit here and wait for them to break his heart—
"I have to—I, I have to get back." Tommy scrambled out of his seat, almost tripping over himself as he left the booth. "I need to—"
Wilbur inhales sharply. "Tommy—"
"I, I can’t.” He forces out past the tightness in his throat, around his heart. "I have to—work, I have to get back to uh, I need to work. I'm on my shift. Break. There's no break, it's over—I need, I-I need to get back."
His legs feel like if he lets them, they'll just sink right into the ground and keep him there forever.
His lungs are too caught up in the panic to do their job.
Tommy makes himself breathe in and almost ends up in a coughing fit.
Something ugly and raw raises its head, sneering and familiar—nails dig into palms, pulse beat beat beating in his ears and he kind of wishes he could hide forever. It’s red and it’s warm, almost too warm.
It’s a familiar pulse, a wedge between what’s happening now and what will.
"Okay, Toms," Phil says, all the same gentleness as before, as if nothing has changed. "We won't keep you from work."
"Thanks." Tommy grits out, spinning away as he practically jogs to the backroom.
He doesn't want to look at their expressions, doesn't want to know the truth, doesn't want to see what they think—
He knows them too well.
He knows what they feel without having to guess for very long, they're open books around him. They're kind people but kindness does not make them want to be family.
Kindness does not ensure that they want someone like him.
Tommy has had his fair share of guardians looking down at him, spitting out: "I'm not your father." Women with a usually graceful smile, glaring: "I'm not your mother." Foster parents cold as they explained: "You aren't my kid, you aren't anyone's kid."
He's had plenty of other children—wanted ones, loved ones, someone's, everything he wasn't—sneer at him.
He's seen them clutch at their parents' arm whenever he slipped up, asking: "Why's he still here?" He's had Christmases and birthdays and a lifetime full of "you're not family, stop acting like it" tossed his way.
He grew up knowing he was no one's.
The worst part is that Tommy knows—he knows—that the three of them care about him.
They're friends. They laugh together, they tease and poke fun and tell each other things you only speak out loud to someone close. He knows, logically, that this one mistake of his won't send them running away like so many people before them.
He knows how people seem to not be able to get away from him fast enough.
He knows that they're not those people but that doesn't mean that he still didn't ruin things. That does mean that they think of Tommy the same; think of him as a little brother, a son.
It doesn't mean anything but further awkwardness, distance.
Of restrained hugs and no more you're like my big brother jokes (that were never really jokes) because they don't want to give him the wrong idea. It doesn't mean that Tommy's dreams of living at the Minecraft house instead of just staying a couple nights when his apartment gets too cold isn't pathetic.
It doesn't mean anything.
And it certainly doesn't make Tommy's heart hurt when he comes out from the back room—having forced himself to calm down—and sees that the booth is empty.
There's no pink hair pulled into a neat braid, no yellow sweater peeking out from a brown jacket or a signature heart-shaped necklace in sight.
They're just… gone, didn't even say goodbye.
Tommy clenches his fist, ignores the jeers in his head as that ugly little thing in his heart laughs, mocking him for the attachments he's so desperate to cling onto. Teasing and clawing at the connection, his love, telling him all the ways it's not enough.
It sounds a lot like his past, voices layered over each other, all the times he's been told he's just some stupid little boy, not worth a dime, a spare moment.
Never enough.
It doesn't hurt, it doesn't.
Worthless little street rat.
It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt—it's not allowed to hurt.
It doesn't make Tommy swallow down his distress, to hastily wipe away the tears stinging his eyes—it doesn't hurt.
He serves a customer that walks through the door, the bell jingling.
It doesn't hurt.
Tommy tells himself this to get through his shift, repeats himself until it becomes a mantra; until it twists into a plea. He tells himself this as Sam—a co-owner of Ponk's bakery, one of his bosses—comes in to help clean up for the last shift.
When he's asked if he's alright, he tries not to wince.
He says yes, that it's nothing big, lies and says he has a headache even if his heart is the thing that hurts—
But it doesn't hurt.
It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt.
He says it once, out loud, when he begins to clean up, Sam closing it up.
The man hears, unfortunately, and with a gentle hand on his shoulder, he says: “Go take a nap, Tommy. You’re swaying on your feet. I don’t want you walking home like this.”
“I… I can’t,” Tommy frowns, looking around at the bakery. “We’re still on the last shift, boss man.”
“That’s okay,” Sam nudged his shoulder. “I’ll wake you up ten minutes before you usually leave, okay?”
“But, the pay—”
“You ended your break early, don’t think I didn’t see that.” He’s given a pointed, sharp look. “Go lay down, that’s a direct order.”
Tommy can’t help but to smile, even with how heavy his heart feels. “Alright, and um… thanks, I guess. Thank you.”
“No problem, kiddo.” Sam’s eyes softened at the edges and he returned the smile. “Now go.”
The blond salutes, “aye, aye!”
When he makes it to the backroom and sluggishly takes off his shoes, he’s laying down and falling asleep before he even realizes that he’s curled up onto the old couch.
The walk home seemed… weird.
He doesn’t quite remember leaving the café but maybe feeling like shit earlier messed with his memory. The night already overtook the city sky by the time his feet hit the pavement, eyes going to the curb out of habit.
It’s a bit off—a bit blurry but still, he knows the routine. Knows what everything is supposed to look like. He’s spent years on these streets.
An empty curb isn’t uncommon but—
There's no one waiting there for him like there usually is.
It doesn't hurt. Tommy gasps as quiet as he can, hunching over. It feels like he just got the air knocked out of him but also… like his lungs can’t expand all the way. Like every breath he takes he isn’t actually taking it. It doesn't hurt.
It can't hurt.
Pain is weakness and he has to stay strong.
Because even if it does ache, even if it doesn't feel fair, Tommy can't risk losing them.
He can't risk them finding out how much he wants—that he's greedy and selfish and rotten. That he wants dinners together and family game night, wants a room with his name on the door instead of one labeled guest, a spot at the table and one in the car for any road trips or even a ride to get groceries.
He wants the domestic life, the cliché, the two-story home.
The father and older brothers and a dog.
He wants wants wants.
It doesn't matter how stupid the desire is, how much he's already taken from them, Tommy wants a family—wants them and only them as family.
But they don't want him and that's okay; they have no obligation to.
Tommy takes a deep breath. In and out, in and out. His lungs expand. It doesn't hurt. He exhales. It doesn't hurt. He tries not to think about it. He doesn't want to waste anymore time over his far from little "oh no, I just fucking said that”.
Tommy takes another breath in. Holds it for a couple seconds. Releases it. Repeats the action once, twice.
There's not enough air.
He ignores the burn in his lungs, how it’s duller than usual.
He continues on his way home, convincing himself that it does not hurt.
That there is no ache trapped between his ribs, no sting against the back of his throat, no blurry vision and sweaty palms.
He avoids thinking about the lingering memory of Phil's frown, of his brothers—friends, his friends, voices.
He avoids thinking too hard, the dark coming with paranoia, with spite. He avoids that one alley he got mugged in, sighs as he avoids tripping over a drunkard's feet when the man stumbles out of a closing bar and into his way. He avoids the darkest corners, sticking to the patchy sidewalks and barely working lights.
Everything’s off, in a way he can’t quite conceptualize, but he knows it all by heart.
The fact that everything’s just a little… weird, means nothing.
The lower districts are full of half-fallen buildings, crowded factories, empty streets, and side by side apartment buildings because no one can really afford a home, even if the quality of life is a lot better now compared to a couple years ago.
There's rats in the back of most businesses and the owners have learned how to keep them out while the street trash kids and homeless wanderers learn to catch them.
Everyone's desperate down here, away from the center of Essempie, away from where the so-called heroes patrol, away from the good hospitals and the healthy food markets and the well-made walls.
Everyone here has too little to live off of and too much to worry about.
Tommy's one of them but he isn't bothered much by it. He grew up in L'Manburg (the poor side, down East where the river doesn't reach) and knew these streets well. He knew how to get where he's going, how to not get caught up in any trouble.
He knows how to take care of himself, how to stay out of the limelight that's the eyes of the superhero and villain world.
He avoids them, he avoids the vigilantes that he doesn't know and sometimes the ones that he does. He might be grateful for the work they do but he knows better than to stick around and get stuck with the conflict they bring.
Heroes might be nice to look at in the media and in the public's eyes but that's the only place they're nice.
They don't play well with vigilantes.
Tommy personally thinks it's because they're doing the heroes’ job better than them—that they just get sour because the people like them more, especially in the lower districts.
Anyone from Snowchester (the districts slightly better than his neighborhood but still bad) to L'Manburg has a favorite vigilante, a villain.
Favorite heroes are rare.
People down here know not to wait to be saved by them. Know that unless you have money and a house full of shiny things to protect, you won't be seeing one of them around, stalking the night to prevent crime.
See, heroes like to play at being good but they're oftentimes the only ones who aren't.
Villains—although terrifying—handle what's theirs pretty well. They don't have casualties without purpose or whole neighborhoods falling to ruin, they don't take down a building or dislodge a bridge in hopes to take down their opponent, to win.
Most aren't fighting for the battle, they're fighting a war.
Tommy thinks that, eventually, they'll win.
It's not that he approves of their methods but he does approve of what they accomplish.
Growing up, Tommy has seen a lot of shit. There was always some powered eyesore taking to the streets, hungry for power and carving up the city like puzzle pieces. They'd claim chunks for themselves, creating rules no one followed and took what they wanted even if it drew attention.
Then they'd get into a pissing match they can't win and then the next guys came along.
Then the next one and the one after that, too.
L'Manburg’s neighborhoods got torn up into crudely drawn lines and switched hands more times than he could count.
Fighting always around the corner, smoke in the air, the smell of ash and rot sticking with you wherever you go. He could buy something from a store one day and the next it could be burnt down.
Tommy grew up avoiding turf wars and gangs shooting it out on his walk to school every Monday morning.
It was like living in a warzone.
It was bullet holes on the side of the bus, bruises on every other kid's face, dirt on their hands and stained clothes and filthy mouths mimicking the sound of a gun going off because it was the only thing besides screams that was familiar enough for them to memorize.
It was being forgotten in a space of people trying to forget, trying to move on. Hungry kids and empty hands and rot.
It was chaos and then—then the Syndicate came. They started slowly, subtly, trickling in from Snowchester and the Arctic one after the other.
They knew not to bring attention to themselves.
They know how to keep quiet until they're ready, until it's too late, until the worst is already over. They're as lethal as they want to be and just as patient.
Nemesis came first.
In the hierarchy of the Syndicate, she's the lead besides the big three.
With her water powers and mercy, the people could pretend she was just another kind-hearted vigilante.
With her came a new flood of resources and then Hermes—her second hand, her partner—entered the picture. He brought cleaner streets and took away the guns. Gang leaders and drug dealers started to disappear, cruel men leaving their whole lives behind.
They just… vanished.
No one says it, but everyone knows they’re never coming back.
After them came Daedalus, a vigilante turned hero turned villain and he built shelters. They were safe, clean, and most importantly warm. Tommy knows a lot of kids who only survived winter because they had, with no small amount of hesitance, gone there.
The people of L'Manburg might need good things but they are so used to the bad that anything else is foreign.
It took a while for people to take advantage, to use the resources, to have confidence in the system that the Syndicate was building up—villains were better than heroes but that doesn't mean they can be trusted.
Trust comes with respect.
L'Manburgians literally spat on the last President, burned the League of Heroes Organization flag from every rooftop when one of their favorite vigilantes got killed or dragged into a courtroom by a hero, they sneered at police officers and most were quick to anger and harder to earn forgiveness from.
They aren't big on respect.
Nemesis, Hermes, and Daedalus had plenty of it, the rest of the Syndicates leaders? Not so much.
They weren't known past the videos on the news, the casualty lists and death totals. They were strangers, not welcomed but not denied when they came to claim L'Manburg as theirs.
Orpheus was the first of the leaders to arrive, the self-dubbed Siren dipping his fingers into the local business and making a local boom. He was the jury, handling deals and making sure that things went the right way.
He brought steadiness, the start of a wound finally healing after years of mistreatment.
Next came Protesilaus—the one the media called The Blood God—and with him, both fear and safety. If Orpheus was the jury, then he was both judge and executioner. The other villains had some mercy, even those who liked to play with minds and emotions and play on the public's limitations, even Nemesis who filled the lake with bodies until the Essempie counsel was forced to finally clean it up and get rid of the pollution.
But Protesilaus? He's deadly, he has no mercy when mercy is not earned. He is precise, he knows what he wants and he gets it—he's called a God for a reason.
With control over a lethal hound army, creatures made of snarls and shadows and magic, he patrolled the streets, dragging out the ones who dared to disrupt the fragile peace the rest of his people were trying to create even if it meant he did so with them bloodied or screaming.
He is, by all childhood standards, the boogie man.
But he's a boogie man who protects the bed he stays under, keeps the closet safe from any sharp claws or wandering eyes.
See, the media likes to claim he's heartless, the heroes like to call him a monster.
But they don't understand that he's a monster who kills other monsters, that he's a monster who doesn't need to play up his scariness for others to know he shouldn’t be messed with, he's a monster who keeps his people and his things safe.
And L'Manburg, well, it’s his.
Officially, that is, when Zephyrus (the Angel of Death, the man with withering hands and a deadly touch, their leader) came and claimed this territory as theirs.
The Syndicate is possessive.
Going against them, trying to take back the streets they never cared about anyways, would be suicide—the heroes only watched, waiting, on the sidelines.
They had their own boundaries, their own prissy little neighborhoods, they didn't need L'Manburg.
Not when Kinoko and Pogtopia were theirs.
Not when the Badlands stayed neutral, in check and under watch, because of them—not when Las Nevadas stayed away from the spotlight.
Not when the heroes had their own territory and kept it close under watch with iron boots, a firm hand and a firmer sense of control—while they did that the Syndicate ruled what's theirs with a gentle grasp and a deadly whisper; they did not need to be loud to make a point.
Ugliness has always been loud.
Truth doesn't need to speak up to be heard.
For the past couple of years, life hasn't been too bad.
Crime has gone down, there's an actual opportunity to get somewhere in life, there's no more disgusting alleyways meant to be hidden in or loose lips that cause some reckless fights and too many deaths.
There's no one spreading rot through his home anymore. No powered person playing pretend at being King.
It's nice to be under the Syndicate's control, it's safe even if Tommy knows that it's very much not—that they're villains, that they aren't good people, that he shouldn't look up to them.
But it's hard not to when they've done so much.
Because they might not be good people but they're kind; they rescued the lower districts from being a story about a city to a tale of ruins to nothing at all.
They keep a nice watch over their territory, fear is enough to keep people at bay in most cases, but it's still dangerous. People are still desperate, people still don't trust the system, people are still scared.
Bad things happen all the time.
There's a reason L'Manburg is a popular destination for vigilantes, why heroes circle outside of the territory waiting to pick them off. The Syndicate is good at keeping the cold away but they can't stop people from burning others.
Muggings, petty theft, domestic violence—it's been their way of life for a while.
Tommy thinks that people forget what the word compassion meant, forgets that it exists at all.
The streets are better than they ever were in his youth but it's still the streets of a rundown city only in the beginning stages of healing. They're a garden growing from a graveyard. The beauty doesn't take away from the deaths, the grief, the trauma that all the years before brought.
It gets dark at night, really dark.
Not a lot of people keep their electricity on for anything but heating, most buildings look abandoned. Faint music can be heard from every other block, sometimes yelling, sometimes the quiet likes to sneak in.
The street lights don't provide much in the way of comfort. They're old, dull, and flicker at the worst moments.
Usually, Tommy doesn't mind it much.
It's nice sometimes to stare up at the sky and see the stars stare back, unrelenting in their existence even when he feels like he doesn't deserve to look at them sometimes.
Usually, he doesn't mind the walk home.
It's peaceful, nice to take a breather and stretch his legs.
Not tonight, though, and Tommy's positive it has to do with two things. The first being that he's alone—after months of having either Will or Techno by his side or even Phil driving him home, it's strange to walk the same path without someone else's footsteps echoing against the concrete next to him—and the second being that he feels like someone's watching him.
It's not dangerous, he doesn't think.
He knows where to run if trouble finds him alone and weaponless, he knows the turns and the twists and when to avoid certain potholes. He knows how to defend himself well enough to get out of a petty mugging unscathed.
But paranoia is still creeping up his spine, making his hair at the back of his neck stand on end, goosebumps spreading down his arms.
There's eyes on him, staring.
Tommy clenches his fists against his backpack's straps, ready to bolt if he needs to. He's ran with a bag plenty of times before, practicing as a kid to be able to show off his skills at recess before it turned into something he needed to be able to do to survive.
Taking a turn wrong with a backpack full of things can topple someone over in seconds.
Seconds in a chase like the ones he's been in are vital.
He feels like he's in one now—sweat building on his brow and running down his back. Adrenaline makes him both shaky and sturdy, the fine line between helpful and nauseating. Heart pounding, ears buzzing but honed in on what's around him.
Tommy's always been a scrawny kid.
Always been picked on, bullied, beaten up and thrown away and tossed around.
But at this moment, he's not sure if he's ever felt more like prey getting stalked before.
A blind rabbit fully aware there's a wolf just a couple steps behind.
He takes a breath in, let's one out.
He's just being paranoid.
Tommy continues on, growing jittery as he goes, glancing behind himself, up to the roofs. He knows the feeling of being watched—it doesn't stop. He catches a glimpse of white, stark against a worn down chimney but it's gone as soon as he's whirling around to get a better look.
His heart rate spikes, breath catching in his throat.
Someone's… watching him.
Why would someone watch him? No one would waste their time like that.
He's—alright. It's fine. He'll just call someone, surely Techno would still be awake.
Grimacing, Tommy shakes his head, raising a trembling hand to cup the side of his neck. He can't do that, he can't bother them.
Besides, it's nothing. No one's gaze is pinned to his back, no one's watching him. He's just going a bit crazy, mind too active after the stressful day. Ignoring it is probably the best bet. Honestly, he's just overreacting.
Probably.
Hopefully.
It's nothing, Tommy thinks to himself. It's just—
Just eyes, red and inhuman, staring at him from the darkness. Eyes hidden in the mouth of an alleyway, almost out of sight.
He freezes, his breathing stuttering in his chest.
Tommy's seen enough video clips, watched enough on the news, seen the photos, to know one of Protesilaus' hounds when he sees one. The creature is steadily blinking at him, still and unmoving, head tilted.
The eyes don’t sting though, they don’t stick.
The knowledge of how easily this shadow could tear him up makes him feel ill.
The fear doesn't come until he thinks I should be really scared right about now and it almost battles with the shock rigged into his system before they both settle, heavy in his gut and leaving him unsteady.
The fear isn't too bad, not nearly as panicked as he thought he'd be coming face to face with one of the Blood God's hounds. No, the panic comes when a blinding light bursts into existence, surrounding him and all too consuming.
Tommy yelps, almost falling over himself as he jerks his hands up to cover his eyes.
He sees the creature being forced back until he can't spot it, hissing and spitting red sparks, loud and unhappy and—
It's too bright—
Tommy doesn't know where it's coming from.
Danger, his instincts snarl. Go, go, go!
He's always been a runner.
The blond whirls, tries to get to the side of the building he was next to, if he can climb he can get away but—arms appear around him—they’re tight tight tight—
They’re not letting go—
"Fuck!" Tommy shrieks, letting his weight drop, swinging his head back.
It connects with something solid and he gets a pained grunt that disappears into the howling swears he’s releasing but then his head is being forced to the side, away, neck exposed—
He bites whatever brushes against his cheek, skin under his teeth and he clamps down hard enough that the iron taste of blood slips over his tongue—
The arms loosen—a hand forces whatever he bit free, harsh as fingers grip his jaw.
He spits, throwing his elbow back as he jerks his arm free.
It hits, there's a curse thrown over his head.
He yells, crying out, not able to form words over the fear coursing through him as something hits him back.
The arms are around him, tighter than before, and he wheezes.
The person holding him struggles and Tommy doesn't let up in his fight to get them the fuck off of him, he claws at the arms, throwing his legs out from under him, trying to unbalance them—
The weight shifts, the person falls back—the blond yelps again, disorientated, he's pretty sure they slam into a building—
A heavy noise, thick and loud, pain against his head—
Tommy panics, he's used to pain but he panics—he can't see who's behind him, their chest to his back, hands and arms and—it's so bright—new hands grabbing his arms, trying to pin them to his chest—
He brings his knee up, it hits something, does it hit something? He has to fight, has to get them to let go.
He has to run.
He continues kicking, a buzz in his ears that makes everything else wrong, dull—
Someone's grabbing him again, too warm—no, no—he's going to get—his nails dig into something tough—
Leather and cloth and he digs in further—
The arms around him are stronger, stronger than he is—Tommy can't breathe—the hands force him still and he cries out—
Body trying to twist, kicking—
Arms lock around his legs, he's being held up, pinned—
Heavy hands, they're too hot—the fire is large, it's too big, he can't see—bright bright bright—but he's trapped trapped trapped—
His hands are ice—
Why are his hands ice? Tommy needs them to work, he needs to fight! He can't be ice, he can't freeze up—
The weight against him is heavy, he's floating—falling, in the air—solid, on the ground—
The fire, why is no one putting the fire out?
Body being ripped away from the building, down down down—no, gods, it's a—feet tripped, skidding, he's being dragged backwards—
Light, the fire, it's too warm—
He's going to get burned—
Gloved hands, leather—they're gloved—they're going to—it hurts—
No, no, no, not again.
Not ever again—
People are swearing, the fire is against Tommy's wrists—no, those are hands, hands are on him, they're tight and gods, no no no—pinning them together—
The fire, he's going to catch on fire, he's too cold, cold things burn up quick—
Ice water boils the fastest—
Is he drowning? He must be drowning. He can't breathe, he can't breathe.
He doesn't want to drown—
He doesn't want to die—
The fire, those hands—the gloves hurt—arms around his chest, too tight—he swears he hears something crack. A shout, something wet running down his arm, fingers grasping and harsh and hurting—
It hurts it hurts it hurts—
"Let go," he gasps, forces it out, lungs aching and sharp and intense as he's thrown to the side—blind rabbit, hungry wolves—everything's too much—
"Let me go—"
A swear, a kick, a new pain.
Tommy's mouth is forced shut, teeth clacking together and painful—hurt, they're going to hurt him—he needs to go—
He needs to run.
No, no, he needs—he can't—
Hands over his arms, his cheeks—hurts hurts hurts—he doesn't want to die—brown eyes meeting his and Tommy screams. Someone forces his head up—
He doesn't want to drown.
The fire, the gloves—he's going to die, he's going to—
Something over his mouth, heavy hand forcing it to cover his nose—no, no, no, he can't—the fire washes over him, it doesn’t help the panic, the ice in his hands—
Tommy holds his breath—
He doesn't want to die.
—whimpering, thrashing, it's too strong to fight.
They're too strong.
They're going to hurt him—
Arms coiling tighter, bruising, crushing his ribs as if they were trying to break him—he can't breathe. They're going to hurt him—it hurts it hurts it hurts—
Tommy finally gasps, body winning out in the fight for survival—inhaling, there's something bitter—it hurts—
The fire hurts. Why hasn't anyone put it out?
He thinks he says something but it doesn't last half a second—he's scared—no, no, they're hurting him—
It's not allowed to hurt.
Red eyes glaring through the fog, the fire—why isn't it catching on fire, the fire, the smoke—he's going to suffocate—drowning, heavy and icy and dull.
A glimmer, dark and angry, those eyes glaring—
A warning snarl, something vicious, a cry.
Tommy doesn't want to die.
Someone's yelling again—is it him?
There's something against his mouth, does it hurt?
It hurts, it all hurts. No. It doesn't hurt. It's not allowed to hurt.
But the voices get louder, desperate—they're in trouble, they're getting hurt—no, no, he's getting hurt— he’s dying.
A hand against his throat, nails sinking into sensitive skin.
A command.
Then—nothing at all.
Tommy's body hurts when he wakes up and it's startling to be so familiar with the aches that it takes a moment to realize something is wrong.
For a minute, he thinks that he's thirteen again and trapped in the basement of a foster father's house.
And he thinks, for just a second, about how it hurts and figures that someone must've gotten mad at him again. That he earned being cold and bruised, punishments etched into his skin for not listening.
For that minute, just the singular one, he doesn't mind all that much.
He's used to it, after all, used to getting rot brown bruises before the yellow ones heal—it's more tiring than it is upsetting.
He's learned to accept it by now, the way violence likes to curl up tight around the corners of his life and make an appearance only when to sooth others, never when to protect himself.
But then the minute passes, shifts to the next, and Tommy realizes that he hasn't been thirteen for a couple years now. That his skin has color to it but not from bruises, that he's grown and healed and escaped.
That he shouldn't be hurting like this.
It's shameful, somehow.
Even after all these years, the sting of an injury feels like a second layer of skin. It feels like he's come home after months of being missing and finding everything just like he left it. The realization doesn't come with much awareness, there's this fog over his brain that makes everything seem slow.
It's frustrating, it feels like he should be doing more.
Tommy wants to panic, to figure out what's going on but—everything is so heavy.
It feels like he's sunk to the bottom of a ten foot ball pit and trying to climb out, only he's blind and everything aches.
Squinting his eyes open makes tears prick his eyes faster than he wants to admit.
The room is bright, blinding, lit up in a way no one (and certainly not he) can enjoy. It's nothing pretty—everything is concrete and dull, the blue leftover on the walls probably lost its shine to time.
There's not a door he can see and no windows.
The chair in front of him is a foldable one, cushioned.
The chair he's tied to is metal.
It's a slow, unsettling truth. He's tied to a chair. He cannot move. His body hurts and his kidnappers have the lighting taste of one of those old spy movies. He cannot move. He can barely breathe.
He’s tied to a chair and he cannot move.
Leather straps keep his arms tied in place.
Rope is twisting around his ankles, another one around his waist.
Slowly Tommy tries to lift an arm, a hand, anything but—he can’t. It's like his body won't listen to him. It takes a couple minutes, panic silent and loud all at once, unable to do anything but rest ugly and angry in his chest.
His mind is—floaty.
Nothing feels very real.
It's scary, terrifying even, but he can't… Tommy can't think of what to do. Thinking is a struggle, his head keeps filling with white noises, eating away from his thoughts.
His body hurts. It's really bright in this room. He wishes it wasn't so bright.
He breathes in as deeply as he can.
It's not much but it still makes his ribs sting.
He’s confused. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t want to be hurt.
But he is hurting—he’s hurting and he's exhausted.
Briefly, he realizes that he's probably drugged.
Briefly, he wonders why everything feels so sharp, but Tommy can't really follow the thought because the fog over his mind grows heavier, settling in more.
His eyes slipped closed.
They don't open for a while.
Tommy’s hyper aware of the fact that he’s dreaming.
The world around him is… saturated in a way that the real one isn’t. Thick colors, swaying walls, the ground under his feet solid but shifting all in one go. It’s the type of dream that usually has him wake up gasping.
But not now. Something’s—different.
A light behind him, a gasp. Tommy whirls, hands raising in front of him, it’s too bright. It’s too bright, he can’t see but he can see and there, in the light—
Tall, lanky, frantic. A figure, dark, running, grasping at the edges of his dream as if they’re trying to drag themselves into it. A shout behind him. Needles in his head. He’s trying to scream.
He doesn’t think he’s screaming. He doesn’t think much of anything.
His hands are blurry, fingers glitches out—
Movement, behind them. Everything shifts, the figure seems to be talking to him but he can’t hear them. Tommy tilts his head, blinking. This dream is weird.
He… doesn’t like it.
He wishes he could wake up.
Tommy’s dreaming again.
He doesn’t think he likes dreams too much.
A man in front of him, tall and hard to look at—there’s light surrounding him, surrounding them. It’s inescapable.
There’s a gun in his hand. It’s pointed at Tommy’s head.
He can’t move. He can’t do anything but stare as the safety gets clicked off. He thinks someone, multiple someones, are screaming. Fighting. He can’t see them. He can only see the man in front of him. Can only see the gun.
The other’s head tilts. He remains frozen.
There is an ugly white mask covering his face.
“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” he says. “I wish it didn’t.”
Then he pulls the trigger.
There’s darkness, cold hands brushing over his arms, a deep veil covering warm eyes staring down at him.
He knows he dead but there's no body here to cry with. To mourn for himself with.
Then there’s nothing—nothing at all.