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There is a certain type of peace that comes over a person once they have accepted their inevitable death. A strange sort of feeling that has no definite description. A crazed calm that settles and levels out the mind and leaves it void of all emotion. It is a moment in which they are forced to look either upon their cause of death, or the life they have lived thus far.
Tommy was 17 years old when he died. For him, death had always been something just out of reach. Something he craved to a certain degree, but was never granted. It was never his time to die.
Yet here he was, death brushing the edges of his stuttering heartbeat, forced to face the memories that had brought him to this moment. To understand this moment one must first understand that Tommy had been dancing to the macabre song of death’s game for many years.
His life could hardly be considered happy. That is not to say he didn't find happiness, but to say that his life as a whole was happy would be a lie. Not much of the first several years could be remembered. Merely incoherent scribbles in the pages of his story. His first coherent memory is of betrayal. Which isn't much, given his life was riddled with betrayals and broken promises.
His first experience with betrayal, his first glimpse at the rest of his life, was from a close friend. A near brother, a partner in crime. During the first war of many he would go through. A right hand man and commander of their peoples fed information to the enemy, and when the time was right joined the opposition. All this in the name of riches and power. They lost that war, along with their pride. His lands in shambles and his people in pain, they surrendered. It was poetic in a way. How a single, thoughtless aim for power by someone else would set the tone for the rest of his life.
Tommy was loyal though. Loyal and devoted to a fault. Through thick and thin he fought for what he believed was right. The very trait that formed his personality would be the very thing to bring him his demise. His unwavering devotion to a person or ideals would drag him from war to war. Through tourture and exile. Between betrayals and funerals. His loyalty would be his last hope and his inevitable destruction.
His first experience with extreme loyalty was towards a man whose words were weapons. A man who treated Tommy like family. A brother in everything but blood. Together they started a nation. Built on the ideals of hope, prosperity, and personal freedoms. This time he was not leading, but rather following unconditionally.
As said before, Tommy did not have a happy life over all, but he did find happiness. He found it in the way Wilbur would weave songs from nothing in the dead of night, their men huddled around a sparse fire deep in the trenches. He found it in the way Fundy could make him laugh near uncontrollably with his bad jokes, and even worse accents. He found it in the way Tubbo would create entire fake scenarios for the two to fall mindlessly into, just to keep their minds off the impending battle the next day. He found his happiness in the way Niki would sit him down and teach him how to make bread, or sew, or paint.
He was happy. He had a family this time. A group of people he could lean upon. Peoples who would take on the world. All together. All as one. And when the gauntlet fell and the fighting began they remained. Even after their efforts were rendered futile. Even when one of their closest members betrayed them for money and power, they stood firm in their togetherness. They held on to the last dregs of hope as Tommy took an arrow to the stomach for their independence.
For a while they were content. Yet, as with most things in life, they were challenged. Forced to stand their ground and defend their beliefs till the very end, once again. A cycle began, a repeating war march distant on the horizons of time and unrelenting in it's approach. Who could have thought politics could be so aggressive? What started as diplomatic elections, soon turned sour. Arguments consisting of yelling, father against son, and rifts between friends. It was chaos organized and disguised as diplomacy.
In the end Tommy lost his country to a cheat. A loophole they allowed to happen. They were in the lead with a startling 45% of the vote. Two of the three opposing parties combined into one. With their combined 46% Wilbur was forced to pass the country onto the next. They didn't know it would end like this. They didn't know Schlatt would exile them. They didn't know that their own people would turn on them and force two of the founding fathers, one not yet a man, from the nation they created. They hadn’t known, but they should have.
This time it was Wilbur who took an arrow to the stomach, as they fled. Dragging his pseudo brother into the bunker Tubbo had made, Tommy listened as said friend was called upon by the now president and forced to stand at his side as his right hand, or lose his life. It was revolting how easily children were called to do the task of hardened soldiers. It was unfair to them. It was unfair to him. Once again life had led him down the road of broken promises.
They didn't stay down for long. Building their defenses back up and starting again. They found a new place, gave it a new name, and just when things seemed as bleak and cold as the cavern they resided in, hope found them. It came in the form of a god bound warrior. Blades strapped to his belt and centuries of experience behind him, they quickly gained confidence. If only to gain too much.
Insanity is not limited to asylums and cults. They watched as Wilbur deteriorated. As his mind ate at him from the inside out. Trust frayed and mind warped by the influence of a power hungry despot. The ex-general and president withered and decayed internally, until his once friends saw him in the same light as the ones who hunted them for sport. He became mean and cruel, using the words that once wrote stories to the stars to now cut scars deeper than even time could heal.
His words of endearment turned to words of warped encouragement as Wilbur egged on the betrayal of their saving grace. Tommy was forced to stand by and watch as Tubbo was brutally ‘punished’ for his ‘betrayal’ against the reigning president. The heat from the fireworks could be felt even at their distance. When it was all over and the smoke cleared, they cleared the bodies, both dead and alive. That night was spent bandaging half melted flesh and voicing concerns a moment too late.
In the end, Wilbur could not be saved. He did not want to be saved. In the end he destroyed the nation they built. He left their unfinished symphony to wither and decay in the remains of a crater. Left in the hands of a child after both presidents, past and present, forfeited their lives due to their own selfish desires. Schlatt died because the drink finally caught up with his heart. Wilbur died, after causing mass destruction, at the end of his father’s own sword, pleading for his own demise until the very end. Once more another conflict which ended in unnecessary bloodshed, betrayal, and broken promises.
They held a funeral for Schlatt . Wilbur haunted them in the form of a happy go-lucky, amnesiatic ghost. The warrior retreated to his home in the snow, Wilbur’s father hot on his heels. This was peace. At last they thought they had finally found peace. Tommy hoped he had finally found peace. He helped them rebuild, Tubbo leading the repaired nation with a weary heart. The boy, not much older than Tommy, had massive shoes to fill.
Despite it all, the happiness, the rebuilding, the strengthening, something always goes wrong. This time there was no one to blame, and Tommy refused to let Ranboo take the fall. So when it all went to hell, he stood at the forefront, ready for whatever pain would befall him next.
Though as with all things involving the young boy, nothing was simple. He was exiled. Driven out of his own nation by his own friend. This time he was alone, cast not only out of his own land but all neighboring ones as well. The same Monster who once drove his brother to insanity, was now the same man to drag him away from the only place he could call home.
Before too long he was left stranded on an island, left with barely the clothes on his back. Every day the Monster would return, a living Nightmare, to rob him of the things he had earned the day before. Finally he just stopped gathering things. He settled. At night he would rest his head on his arms, a threadbare blanket thrown over his shoulders. He would wake up drowning come morning.
Each day it became harder to drag himself from the water his sleepwalking self had deposited him in. Each morning he would stay just a bit longer, letting salt and water press at him from all sides until his lungs burned. He contemplated opening his mouth more and more each day. Letting the water rush into his throat. Letting it fill his lungs until there was no space left for air.
Each day he would wake, either to the water or the yelling of his name. Each day it got harder, until finally he pushed too far. His personality had always been too much. Loud and aggressive, throwing swears around with no care. When he was younger people thought it was funny. Now they saw him as no more than a pest. The Nightmare saw him as no different. Annoying. Loud. Aggravating.
In the end it would be himself that was his downfall. His defiance would get him killed. His need to fight, to horde what had been given to him by his ‘captor’. When the stash of things was discovered, he was punished. The Monster took it all. Left him once more with just the tatters of his clothes.
This time he did not have his defiance to help him last months. That very same day, after he had been left to die at the hands of the night beasts, he accepted his end. He would not wake the next morning. He would not make it to the next morning.
This was it for him. This was his story brought to a close. He was both his own destruction and his saving grace. Tommy Watson died at 17, cold and alone. His body was found the next morning, not by his captor but instead by his once best friend. The same best friend who waited just a day too long to visit.