Work Text:
Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe--
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
"Where are you going, and what do you wish?"
The old moon asked of the three.
"We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!"
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.
Day One
Tommy has a list. He’s not usually a numbers man, but he’s keeping count now.
There are three days worth of food in their bag. One canteen of water, half empty. One best friend, draped across his back, breathing shallow. A million miles of burning wasteland ahead. Still more behind them.
Nothing left.
It’s hot, but there’s no sun. It’s buried under clouds that aren’t really clouds. The air still smells of acrid smoke. And somewhere in the distance Tommy can hear the muted thunder of TNT raining from the sky, out there destroying someone else’s home.
He feels a shiver run through him, and tugs at Tubbo’s arms, trying to shift his friend's weight a little. Gods he’s so hot. The water sloshing around in the canteen sounds like liquid temptation of the most innocent, deadly, kind. They’ll run out of water before they run out of food at this rate. Tommy had probably used too much to help soothe Tubbo’s burns, but there was nothing else available.
Maybe, if they’re lucky he’ll find water tonight before the light is gone. He’ll start a fire, finally, to keep them warm, and maybe someplace to shelter, when the storms finally roll in. And Tubbo will wake up--
Tommy is not a man of math, but he’s been keeping count: It has been one month and four days since their hometown went up in smoke and flames, flying machines of destruction and swaths of burning magic. Seven days since another one of those golden mechanical monsters wiped out the ruins he and Tubbo had been using as shelter, and almost all their supplies. Six, since he and Tubbo stumbled out, half of Tubbo’s body and face almost more burns than skin, in search of help, anything, anyone. Two, since Tubbo lay down and mumbled, “I’m so tired, bossman,” and fell asleep.
He’s alive, but Tommy knows, somewhere deep in him, that he doesn’t have long.
There are breaking points, only so much a person can take before it’s too much, and Tommy passed his one month and four days ago. When Tubbo falls asleep, in the quiet forever way, Tommy is going to stay with him. Tommy doesn’t have long either, and fuck it, he’s going out holding his best friend’s hand.
But for now he walks, stumbling down the gray road, eyeing the weathered burned trees that look like corpses. The ground trembles beneath him as those far away bombs make their impact. He can feel sunburn on the back of his neck, on his shoulders.
“Fuck,” he says, even though his mouth is dry, and speaking makes it worse. He feels too much like a ghost. “And balls. Women. Hot women. There are no hot women here, Tubbo. Only dust.”
Tubbo does not answer back. Tommy imagines him laughing, to fill the silence.
It’s so hot. There’s so much silence.
He keeps walking into his own, personal million-miles-of-wasteland.
The town arrives on the edge of the horizon just as darkness begins to fall.
Even from here Tommy can see that it’s just a ruin, a few walls and smoldering roofs that stand stark against the dull grey of the skyline. But a town might have a water source, and perhaps a little shelter. If he’s very, very lucky, perhaps there will be an apothecary to raid, or even another human being, another face--
He bites back hope before it can make him stupid, but his feet move a little faster. By time darkness is sinking its claws into the last shreds of light, he has arrived.
The village square is little more than a dusty bit of cobblestone surrounded by the burned out husks of buildings. There is certainly no apothecary left. Nor another human being.
Still, it is a place to camp. He pulls out torches to make a ring of protection from the monsters; he’d made them out of whatever he could find, makeshift bits of cloth from his already-tattered shirt and sticks he’d pulled off the trees that had survived. He pulls out their remaining bedroll for Tubbo, and lays him down and tries to pour a little water down his throat.
He needs food. He needs more water. He needs to wake up. Tubbo doesn’t even look like himself anymore, no sign of the smiling kid who likes insects and hates books, and explores the creek with Tommy to catch the water bugs--
There’s no creek left. It practically evaporated when the bombs first fell, and what was left was collected and carted away by the thirsty armies that came marching through. Friend or foe, it didn’t really matter any longer. They both took. There’s no Tubbo anymore either; just a charred husk like a lightning struck tree, all burned up on the inside.
Tommy turns away, and wraps his arms around his knees. He should eat too, but he doesn’t feel hungry anymore.
Somewhere between the rumbles of distant not-thunder he dozes off.
He doesn’t know what wakes him up. A scuff of a foot against dirt, or a light breath, or a glow of eyes in the dark. All he knows is that he starts awake and meets eyes with something just beyond the torchlight.
Eyes.
Glowing eyes, uneven, colored red and green and staring out of an unseeable face. Monstrous.
He yelps and scrambles back, bumping up against Tubbo. The monster shrinks away too. For a long minute they’re left in a standoff. The monster does not blink. All Tommy can see are those eyes, and some long shadowy shape behind.
“Piss off!” he says. He tries to shout. It comes out stiled.
⌇⍜⍀⍀⊬ says the creature. Tommy shudders. That’s a language he knows, but doesn’t understand. That’s one he’s heard in the mouths of enemy soldiers marching through his burning town. Trampling what was left while Tubbo and Tommy cowered in a cellar and tried not to breathe.
Are they in enemy territory? Did they wander over the border by accident? Or are they being stalked by some frightening creature bent on killing them, a soldier or assassin here to clean up their armies' broken pieces?
“Piss off,” he says again, sounding infinitely less convinced. He curls protectively over Tubbo’s still form, trying to make his promise clear. He’s going down fighting. The creature says something else, lilted like a question. Tommy wrinkles his nose, trying so hard to look threatening. He doesn’t think it’s working. “Please,” he adds, a little broken. “We’re dying anyway, bitch, don’t even bother.”
⍜☍⏃⊬ says the monster, in a deep rumble. It sounds sad. Maybe it was looking forward to a tasty meal.
The eyes recede.
Tommy does not go back to sleep.
The next morning he explores the town.
There is no sign of their visitor, not even footprints in the dirt, and Tommy can’t help but wonder if the whole thing was a feverish dream. There is not much to scavenge, but there’s a roof not entirely fallen in that will offer some shelter in case of rain. There’s a well, but the bucket is gone and Tommy doesn’t have any rope or tools to construct a replacement. Maybe he’ll try later.
He wants to rest. So bad.
He eats a little, and sits down next to Tubbo in the shade, to wait out the worst of the heat. Maybe he’ll take a nap.
Maybe Tubbo--
He shoves that thought down.
“Hey Tubbster,” he says instead. “Tubbinator 3000. Tubs. Bitch.”
Tubbo breathes quietly. He doesn’t even stir, not when Tommy takes some of their remaining water to apply to his burns. It doesn’t do much, probably, but it feels better than doing nothing.
“What are we doing?” he says, suddenly honest. “We don’t have anywhere to be.”
…
“It’s not like anyone’s expecting us, huh? We left them all behind. They--”
He pushes that thought down.
“Maybe we just stay here. Until it’s done.”
They could keep going, of course, but Tommy isn’t sure there’s much point. Ahead he can only see another stretch of wasteland, and they don’t have the supplies to go much farther. And, if Tommy is honest, he doesn’t know if he’s got the strength. Nor any knowledge of where they are. At this rate they’ll probably just end up going in circles. And somewhere out in the void, there’s a monster stalking them.
For now, at least, they’ll stay.
He falls asleep holding Tubbo’s hand. Just in case.
When Tommy wakes up it is night again. His throat burns, and his stomach gnaws at him. He feels Tubbo’s hand in his own, still-- always so still. For the moment of scrambling panic that has followed every moment of waking seizes him and his hands shake until they find Tubbo’s pulse.
He isn’t alone. Not yet.
No, he isn’t alone, because he can feel, on the back of his neck, the prickling certainty that someone, something is watching him. Tommy jerks around, head spinning with the sudden movement and catches sight of the echoes of luminescent eyes in the shadows, reflecting the torchlight.
“Go away,” Tommy says. “Leave us the fuck alone. Leave him alone.”He doesn't shout, partly because something about the night is too still for it, and partly because his throat can’t do any better than rasp any longer.
⟟ ⍙⍜⋏'⏁ ⊑⎍⍀⏁ ⊬⍜⎍ the creature rasps back. And then it moves forward, towards the torchlight. Tommy feels fear eat away at his stomach, acid eating at his organs. In an awful mirror of the night before he crouches over Tubbo’s still form, a human shield. He’s not fit for much else, and he thinks the monster must know that too. He can’t fight. But he’ll do his best. It’s the last he can do for his best friend.
“Fuck off,” Tommy says. They’re the most fitting final words he could ask for, he thinks. No point in saying goodbye to Tubbo, who can’t hear. At least Tubbo won’t hear.
⍙⏃⏁⟒⍀, the monster says, and then it moves into the torchlight.
The first thing Tommy sees are its hands, and he’ll never forgot them; the memory of them will be seared into his memories the same way his cousin’s wedding and his first meeting with Tubbo and the day he first saw a golden angel appear on the horizon, and thought it was a beautiful piece of death made in metal. One hand is pale and stark against the darkness, but the other is dark, cracked and weathered with some texture that does not belong to hands.
One hand is held out, like a tiny white shield and the other clutches a long silvery canteen.
⟟ ⏚⍀⍜⎍☌⊑⏁ ⍙⏃⏁⟒⍀, the voice, the monster says, and Tommy sees--
The monster has a face, though at first he thinks it’s the void; with a moment of sudden understanding the void resolves itself into a black cloth mask that covers what must be the nose and mouth. Of course there is a nose and mouth, because there are eyes, proper eyes, scrunched up in greeting, and a bush of sandy brown hair that looks in desperate need of a cut, and beneath the bangs, the bright curve of an eyebrow.
It’s the eyebrow that does it, somehow. It makes Tommy look twice and see, instead of a horrible shapeless, faceless creature, the lanky-legged boy holding out the canteen to him and saying, urgently, “⍙⏃⏁⟒⍀.”
“Oh,” Tommy says.
The creature lays the canteen on the ground. “⟟⋔ ⏁⍀⊬⟟⋏☌ ⏁⍜ ⊑⟒⌰⌿ ⟟⎅⟟⏁⍜⏁⌇,” they say, a little scornfully, and then melt back into the shadow.
Tommy stares, feeling his heart kick back to life in his chest in awkward uneven bursts. Beneath him, still as ever, Tubbo breathes. “What the fuck?” he asks the night air, and the monster-- the person?-- somewhere out there.
No one answers. An acidic breeze washes over his face and makes him want to choke. Slowly, like he’s reaching into a spider’s nest, he tugs the canteen closer, and unscrews the lid. It’s a battered pewter thing, and inside, something sloshes. When he cautiously touches a drop to his tongue he almost cries.
Water.
⍙⏃⏁⟒⍀
Water!
The realization comes tumbling onto his head. That’s what the creature, the visitor, had been saying! He’d been trying to help!
Alternatively he could be poisoning them, but Tommy isn’t sure what the point of that would be. They’re already dying. If he wanted, he could just wait a couple days, without bothering to find water, poison it, and risk himself handing it over. It just doesn’t make sense. Not that the help makes much sense either. They’re enemies, technically speaking. It’s hard enough to stay alive in these wastes on your own, much less helping out someone else. Tommy knows that the hard way.
If he was less exhausted, he could stay up all night, keeping vigil and theorizing until his brain spun. But he’s wrecked, so instead he takes a few careful sips from the canteen. It’s too precious to gulp down the way he wants to. Then he gives Tubbo some, and tries to use some to wash the dirt and dust out of his burns. He’s only moderately successful, but it seems better than nothing. There isn’t much left afterwards, and after some deliberation he drinks what’s left and leaves the canteen on the edge of the shadows.
It was a kind gesture (Tommy prays it was, hopes it was) and Tommy has nothing to repay their visitor with. But he whispers thanks into the darkness, and curls up at Tubbo’s side, and falls asleep in minutes.
When he wakes up in the morning, the canteen is gone again,
What was the thing Tommy’s mother used to say? Once is a chance, twice is a coincidence, and three times is a pattern?
She’s gone now (with the rest of the world) but the words stick. Without really thinking about it, he stays up that night and waits.
And there are footsteps, and red and green eyes. The visitor emerges from the shadows, cautious, clutching the canteen again.
Tommy sits up, wary but, against his better judgment, hopeful.
“...Hey big man,” he says cautiously.
“⊑⟒⌰⌰⍜,” the visitor croaks. It sounds like a greeting. Now that he’s listening for words, he can’t stop hearing them. “⏃⍀⟒ ⊬⍜⎍ ☌⍜⟟⋏☌ ⏁⍜ ⊬⟒⌰⌰ ⏃⏁ ⋔⟒ ⏃☌⏃⟟⋏ ⊑⎍⊑?” His voice lilts up at the end like a question.
“I’m, uh. Good. How are you?”
“⏁⊑⟟⌇ ⟟⌇ ⍙⟟⟒⍀⎅.”
“Yeah that was a lie. Everything fucking sucks balls right now. Literally the worst time ever.”
The creature reaches out and places the canteen down, and then after a moment’s hesitation slides it across the dusty ground. He follows it, after another moment, with a leaf.
A wide green leaf. On it sit a half-dozen blackberries. Tommy stares.
Tommy is not a numbers man, but that’s a half-dozen blackberries, and it’s been one month and eight days in the middle of a million miles burning wasteland without a single green thing. Which means that somewhere, somewhere not too far away, there is something growing.
The wasteland ends.
He wishes he had words to ask, to beg, to explain what is going on inside his head. But they don’t share a language. They can’t exchange a word.
Hesitantly he places a single blackberry on his tongue. It’s a little sour, a little underripe, but it’s the best thing he’s eaten in his life. Somewhere, distantly, he tastes salt, and feels something slip uninvited across his face.
“Thanks,” he says, a little crackly around the edges.
“⊬⍜⎍'⍀⟒ ⍙⟒⌰☊⍜⋔⟒,” The visitor says, and then points at his chest. “⍀⏃⋏⏚⍜⍜”
It takes him a moment to grasp what he’s been offered. A name. “Rahnbo,” Tommy repeats.
. “⍀⏃⋏⏚⍜⍜”
“Ranboo?”
He nods apparently satisfied. It’s hard to read an expression beneath that mask, but the eyebrows have an amused twitch to them. Tommy touches his chest, “Tommy,” he says. He brushes a hand over Tubbo’s forehead and points. “Tubbo.”
“⏁⍜⋔⋔⊬,” the creature breathes. “Tommy,” he makes the vowels stretch too long, but it’s a name! His name! “Tubbo.”
Do they shake hands on the other side of the border? Tommy doesn’t know, but he holds his out anyway, hesitant. Ranboo rocks back on his heels for a moment, but after a second he seems to understand.
They shake. It’s a brief awkward motion, their skin torn up from travel and bombs and ruin. They still don’t speak a word of one another’s language. They are still, technically, enemies.
But, Tommy thinks, they are also three kids at the end of the world. The technicalities don’t apply anymore.
Like it’s a charm, like Ranboo’s fleeting presence was the gift of a fairy godmother, Tubbo wakes up the next morning.
“Fuck,” he says, before anything else. Tommy thinks he’s earned it. “Hah.” He breathes the word out in a groaning gasp that says more than anything. “Fuck, big man, that hurts.”
Tommy is too busy trying to unscrew the canteen with shaking fingers to know what to say. He helps Tubbo sit up a little and pours as much as he dares down his throat. Tubbo sputters a little. “I just woke up and…you’re trying to drown me?” It’s a decent joke, but his voice is too tight with pain for it to be funny. Tommy doesn’t miss the distance in his eyes, the way his teeth are grinding together between each breath. Their voices don’t go above a whisper. “How long have I been out?”
“Few days,” Tommy says. “Good to see you back in the land of the living, Tubso.”
“Arg,” Tubbo says in response.
Tommy feeds him what’s left of the jerky, and the blackberries. They don’t have any food left, but that’s ok. If Tommy’s plan works out, they won’t have to worry about it. Tubbo doesn’t exactly chew-- his burned face and ruined eye can’t move without pain lacing through him, but he does his best.
He explains things as best he can to Tubbo: Ranboo, the water, the blackberries. He shows him the leaf, pressing it into his palm, and does his best to share the fragile hope slowly building up in him.
It’s difficult. Partly because his trust in Ranboo is currently defying all logic-- a war’s worth of bad blood thrust to the side on the basis of a few acts of kindness and the shape of an eyebrow. Partly because Tubbo is trying his best, but he’s only just this side of consciousness. It’s clear the pain is weighing on him, dragging his eyelids shut. He makes a valiant effort, but when the sun begins to sink behind the horizon, Tommy says, “It’s ok Tubs. You should sleep.” and Tubbo doesn’t even hesitate before he nods off.
Tommy does his best to shake off the terrible fear that he will never see his best friend awake again-- water and a green leaf, not too far off-- and waits.
Ranboo returns only a little after sunset. He hasn’t got more water-- Tommy still has the canteen, he’d forgotten-- but he has a few more berries. “Tommy,” he says. It sounds funny, all stretched out, like Tooomyyy.
“Ranboo,” Tommy says. “Hi. Hey man.” He’s been puzzling over how to ask his question all day. Now he does his best, shaking the canteen, pointing at it, and then out into the darkness. “The water,” he asks, praying that intention and desperation will convey his meaning where language fails. “Where does the water come from?”
There’s a moment of silence; Ranboo cocks his head to the side, hesitating over the question, deciphering. Tommy waits.
“Water,” Ranboo mutters, the word awkward and disjoined, muffled behind the mask. He kneels down in the dust, shadow stretching out around them, and draws in the dust with his finger. At first Tommy is confused, but then the image resolves into a shape. A map-- here is the town, with the well and burned corpses of buildings and trees. Ranboo adds awkward little stick figures here, pointing. “Tommy, Ranboo.” he says. “⊬⍜⎍ ⏃⍀⟒ ⊑⟒⍀⟒. Tubbo.” He draws a little more, sweeping his hand across the ground in imitation of the wasteland. And then, with two wiggling lines he draws out the shape of a river, and traces little puffballs on the opposite side. It takes a minute for Tommy to realize what they are. Not sheep, or cotton balls. Trees.
Somewhere, on the other side of the river, close enough that Ranboo can walk there and back in a day is life. Water, food, something, even, to save Tubbo. Perhaps not enough. But something.
Tommy kneels over Ranboo’s little drawing and draws a little tree of his own, with his finger in the dust, and points.
“We’re coming with you,” he says, unsure of how much he’s actually communicating. “We’re coming to the forest.”
One Week
The forest is over the border.
Tommy hadn’t realized it until they’d crossed the river, fording at a shallow. They’d been sorting through river-rocks for smooth skipping-stones when his internal map, bent out of shape from shattered landmarks, righted itself.
The river is the border. He is on unholy ground. Dangerous lands for a kid with the wrong language, half-starved, bent out of shape. It’s even more dangerous for Tubbo, who slips in and out of consciousness, wracked by fever and pain. He’s awake more now, sometimes. They have water, from the river, and Ranboo and Tommy take turns venturing into the forest (never too far) and foraging. Tommy tries to set traps and fish, because they need meat badly, and there is only so much in the way of nuts and berries. But he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and even if they did catch a stray squirrel or partridge, he doesn’t know if he could actually bring himself to kill it. Death hangs over them, razorlike.
He sits now, in their makeshift camp on the riverside. They’ve made an awkward shelter, bracing a long branch up against a forked tree and building walls with sticks, shoving leaves between the cracks to offer shade. It keeps Tubbo hidden from sight, and if it rains it will be at least marginally more dry.
Tubbo is asleep. He doesn’t look peaceful. His face is warped and inflamed, patchy and twisted. Blisters bubble on his hands. Ranboo and Tommy take turns bathing the burned skin, but it’s not doing much and they both know it.
There’s a splash and Tommy jumps, only to see Ranboo walking up the stream. He’s not wearing shoes, and the tattered cuffs of his pants are rolled up so as to not get them wet. He’s fastidious about the little things, Ranboo. It makes him strikingly human. Tommy is grateful for it.
“Ranboob,” he calls, and Ranboo splashes a little faster. He sits cross-legged beside them, and offers up a handful of raspberries and blackberries. The berry patch in the woods has been their main source of food for the past week, and they’ve begun to wear a path there with their footsteps. It would be easier to move there perhaps, but they’d have to carry Tubbo all that way. And then they wouldn’t be so near water anymore.
“Thanks big man,” Tommy says, and scarfs his portion. Ranboo carefully removes his mask, and begins to eat his in small handfuls. Tommy tries hard not to stare, but he knows Ranboo is conscious of his eyes on him. It’s hard not to look. Half of Ranboo’s face is…strange. Scaly and dark, like there’s some horrifying mold growing overtop him. The green eye in his face rolls and bucks like a wild thing planted in his face, sometimes. Like there is something else caught beneath his skin and trying desperately to break free.
It’s magic surely. Tommy has seen little magics, kind ones, when he was small. Little light displays and healing magics and potions. But mostly he knows the kind of magic that tears the world right off its axis. He wonders what kind of magic Ranboo must have encountered to make him this new thing.
He doesn’t know how to ask, though. They’ve cobbled together a semblance of a language, between what they can gather from one another and translate, and all the other little signals, drawings, gestures and faces they make. It’s not good enough for a full and proper conversation, but it’s enough to communicate. To say please and thank you and you are the best thing to happen to me in a very very long time.
The berries are gone too soon. Tommy tries not to think of the shape of his bones. They save the larger portion for Tubbo, even though he can’t keep much down these days. Ranboo seems to be in silent consensus on this point and Tommy is more grateful for it than he has words to express. Ranboo seems to have taken for granted that he is a part of Tommy’s mission to keep his best friend alive no matter what it does to him. To keep the one remnant of the other world going until they are both gone. It’s a grace Tommy can’t even fathom.
He is lost in his thoughts, Tommy almost misses it when Ranboo startles and points. He turns to look and there, standing in the river, is a deer. It is a buck, unmistakably. The creature's antlers are such a tangle of bone, moss and vine clinging to the edges here and there, that it strikes awe into him. A magnificent, living thing.
The deer takes a step closer, staring at them, wide-eyed, and then backs away again, turning and bounding down the river like lightning.
“⍙⍜⍙” Ranboo says, awe clinging to the moment making all their language hushed.
“No shit, big man.” Tommy tries to peer through the trees, but the buck is long-gone. “That’s the first deer I’ve seen since--” he hesitates, and bends back towards Tubbo. Tubbo, still asleep. “Wow.”
He did not know, then, that the deer was the end of everything. Or the beginning. It depends on where you start counting.
They come at sunset. Ranboo is dozing. It is too hot for comfort during the days, but during the nights it grows cold, and their dreams get darker. So they sleep close together. There is comfort in one another’s companionship. In having a warm hand to hold when darkness comes.
Tommy is awake, though, just barely, so he hears it when the footsteps start crossing the river. His first sleepy thought is that there is that the buck is back, and he sits up, too look.
There are two figures trying to cross the stream. One is tall, with mossy hair and a bow slung over his shoulder, and the other is shorter, with a mask over their face, from which a frew tightly coiled pale curls escape. They don’t look like soldiers, dressed in browns and green which blend into the trees, but that’s small comfort-- Tommy can see the knives on their belts.
He can see their eyes lock onto him. They stop, standing in the middle of the water. The dark haze of the smoky evening illuminates their outlines.
“Ranboo--” Tommy says, “Ranboo, wake up!”
Ranboo jerks awake. “⍙⊑⏃⏁ ⟟ -- ⍜⊑ ⋏⍜.” The dread Tommy feels growing in the pit of his stomach is reflected in his voice.
They stare at one another. Cautiously, one of the figures, the man with the mossy hair, takes a step forward. “⊑⟒⌰⌰⍜?” he calls, a word Tommy knows must be a greeting. “⍙⟒'⎅ ⌰⟟☍⟒ ⏁⍜ ⊑⟒⌰⌿ ⊬⍜⎍. ⟟'⋔ ⌇⏃⋔, ⏃⋏⎅ ⏁⊑⟟⌇ ⟟⌇ ⌿⍜⋏☍. ☊⏃⋏ ⍙⟒ ☊⍜⋔⟒ ⍜⎐⟒⍀ ⏁⊑⟒⍀⟒?”
Tommy grips Ranboo’s arm and feels the dread draw closer. These are Ranboo’s people. They will help him, surely. But Tommy and Tubbo? The enemy?
The armies and metal angels were merciless. Tommy is sure that when he opens his mouth, when they see him, he and Tubbo are both damned. And Ranboo won’t be able to protect them.
Fuck. Fuck!
“⊑⟟, ⎍⊑ ⊑⟟. ⊑⟒⌰⌰⍜.” Ranboo says anxiously. “⍙⟒ ⏃⍀⟒ ⎎⟟⋏⟒. ⏁⊑⏃⋏☍⌇ ⎎⍜⍀ ⏃⌇☍⟟⋏☌. ⎐⟒⍀⊬ ⎎⟟⋏⟒. ⌿⌰⟒⏃⌇⟒ ⌰⟒⏃⎐⟒ ⎍⌇ ⏃⌰⍜⋏⟒.”
The man in the river frowns and his partner pipes up and begins a long tirade that Tommy can’t begin to get a grasp of at all. He and Ranboo argue back and forth. Tommy wants to join in, protest, but he knows the minute he speaks he’ll give himself away.
The mossy-haired man takes a step forward and Ranboo stands up. He’s almost shouting now. The figure with the mask throws up an arm in despair-- his other arm, now that Tommy’s looking, appears to be an empty sleeve pinned to the side of their shirt.
“⍙⟒'⌰⌰ ⏚⟒ ⏚⏃☊☍,” the first man says finally, and he pulls the bag off his shoulder and places in the shallow water.
Ranboo barks something in reply, and the two go wading off. Tommy takes a shuddering breath.
They’ve been found. They’re going to have to move. They’re not safe here, never safe.
Ranboo buries his head in his hands. He looks as anxious as Tommy feels. “Ok?” he asks. It’s one of the handful of words they share now.
“Ok,” Tommy echos. He pokes at Ranboo’s arm. “Ok?”
Ranboo nods and points across the river to the abandoned leather bag the man left behind, raising an eyebrow in a clear question. Tommy nods, and together they cross the stream and bring their prize back. Rifling through it, they find a strange collection: a flask of water, handful of leaves and herbs, and then the treasures-- fishing line, and some hooks, a package of beef jerky and dried fruit. A little bottle of something sweet smelling that Ranboo tastes and wrinkles his nose at. A flint and steel.
They eat the jerky. They save a little for Tubbo, and the dried fruit too. Ranboo experiments with the hook and fishing line, and then has to spend the next half hour untangling it.
It’s a generous gift, almost generous enough to make Tommy believe their rescuers might be genuine. For Ranboo at least. He should go with them, Tommy resolves, if they get another chance. They won’t keep Tubbo and Tommy around, but they’d take care of Ranboo.
Neither Ranboo or Tommy sleep for a long time. Sometime after the moon has risen they shake Tubbo awake and feed him as much as they can before he sleeps. And by silent consensus they stay at the camp, and wait to see what morning brings. Sometime late, after the moon has set, they both drift off.
The splashing of the river wakes them up again, sometime late in the morning. Splashing, and the smell of something mouthwateringly wonderful. Tommy pulls himself up and finds Tubbo looking up at him.
“What’s up?” Tommy whispers.
Tubbo blinks, a little blankly. “Toms?”
“Yeah, big man, that’s me.”
“I don’t remember--” Tubbo’s face clouds over with confusion and contorts slightly, under the weight of whatever haze he’s in. He mumbles something Tommy can’t quite make out, and adds, “wake me up f’breakfast ‘kay.” before drifting off again.
“⍙⊑⏃⏁'⌇ ⏁⊑⏃⏁ ⌇⋔⟒⌰⌰?” Ranboo mutters. He’s waking up now, stretching impossibly long. His eyes stray to the other riverbank. There, on the far side, under the shadow of an oak tree, sit the two figures from the evening before, this time with a third friend.
Tommy wants to cry. They have a fire going, a thin line of smoke curling up. Whatever the fantastic smell is, it’s clearly coming from them. These foresters have staked them out, and now are making breakfast. “Oh great,” he says, bitter to the cold core. “There are three of them now.”
“Not good,” Ranboo agrees. The words fit awkwardly in his mouth, but his tone touches humor. Tommy finds it surprisingly comforting.
The foresters must have been watching them, because now the mossy-haired one, apparently the elected spokesperson, starts to cross the river again. Ranboo hisses, a sharp warning between his teeth.
The mossy haired man seems to be offering something. Ranboo hesitates and then shouts back a retort. He turns to Tommy and tries to explain-- apparently they have food across the river and are suggesting they share.
Tommy frowns. He’s brutally hungry, but the risk--
“ ⟟ ⍙⟟⌰⌰ ☊⍜⋔⟒ ⏃⋏⎅ ☌⟒⏁ ⟟⏁,” Ranboo says. Hesitantly he takes a step forward, and mimes to Tommy his journey to the food and return. He’s going to get something to eat and then come back.
Reluctantly Tommy nods. After a tense few moments, Ranboo returns, wading across the cool morning shallows with what appears to be a tin plate of fried fish and rice.
It’s the first hot food Tommy has eaten in what seems like years. The fish melts across his tongue in bursts of goodness. There is almost too much to eat-- the last few bites go down to a churning stomach.
“Thank you,” he tells Ranboo. He picks a grain of rice off the plate. They’ve bundled aside extra for Tubbo, who despite his request for breakfast, they can’t wake. His skin burns frighteningly hot.
He can feel the eyes of the group on the other bank, watching them. He’s suddenly grateful that Tubbo is hidden by their make-shift shelter. But they don’t try to approach again. They pack their bags, pour dirt over the fire, and disappear into the forest. Nothing is left behind except the smell of smoke and the ripples in the river.
The foresters return every day for the next week. It’s always the same. They set up a little camp on the far bank and make breakfast. Sometimes it’s fish, but once there are potatoes and little tomatoes and eggs all in some great fry. Once there’s bread, with a little jam. Ranboo crosses the shallow part of the river to go and collect some food and carries it back to Tommy and Tubbo. It’s not three meals a day, but it’s more than they’ve had in a long time, and Tommy can feel it-- he’s more awake than he was before. He can walk farther than before, and stay awake later. He and Ranboo take turns exploring farther afield to find food. They’re more cautious now, though. They know that people live here. They don’t want to be caught unawares. Occasionally Tommy will catch sight of movement somewhere deep in the forest and be startled, but it’s usually just a squirrel. Once or twice it’s even that stag, the same one they’d seen in the river that evening.
But even as they grow strong, Tubbo gets weaker and weaker. His breathing is so shallow: Tommy finds himself waking in the night, just to make sure it’s still there. They can’t get him to eat.
They are running out of time.
It’s a crisp, bright morning, when they make their gamble.
The foresters have yet to arrive. The air smells faintly of smoke. The mornings have been so warm, until this one. It’s like the whole forest has taken a breath.
Tommy wakes up, rolls over and goes to shake Tubbo awake. They’ve given up on feeding him, at this point they’re just doing their best to get him to drink water.
And Tubbo won’t wake up.
Tommy, with his heart in his mouth, fumbles for a pulse beneath the burns on his best friend’s right wrist. It’s there, but it’s-- it’s very faint.
And with a tumbling, horrible certainty Tommy knows that he’s losing Tubbo, even in this green place. His best, everything he has tried to do to keep his best friend breathing, will never be enough.
Tubbo is still the last thing he has left. If Tubbo is gone, self-preservation is inconsequential. It has been one month and two weeks and three days of hell, and a little bit of hope, and Tommy has no options left.
When the foresters arrive, they are waiting, sitting around the circle of stones where the three of them have been making breakfast. Ranboo sits on a log, looking incredibly anxious (fairly normal for Ranboo, really) and Tommy sits, halfway holding Tubbo, legs splayed out on the dirt.
When the foresters approach, it’s Ranboo who hops up to meet them, talking so fast that Tommy can’t even pick up the few words he knows. “⌿⌰⟒⏃⌇⟒,” he’s saying, “⍜⎍⍀ ⎎⍀⟟⟒⋏⎅ ⟟⌇ ⊑⎍⍀⏁, ⊬⍜⎍ ⊑⏃⎐⟒ ⏁⍜-- ☊⏃⋏ ⊬⍜⎍--”
One of the foresters, the one-armed one with the mask, moves closer. Their eyes are wide, as they reach forward, feeling for Tubbo’s pulse, taking in the burns, the dying breath, the quiet. Tommy fights the urge to flinch, to scream, to run. “Please,” he says instead, his voice breaking over the words. “Please--”
He can see the moment they realize. The moment they know exactly who they’re talking to-- a couple of battle-scarred kids from the wrong side of the river.
The green-haired one releases a hiss of breath like a curse. Tommy shrinks back, but he doesn’t run. He can’t.
It’s a gamble they have to take.
Ranboo’s talking again, faster and faster, and there’s panic there. The green-haired man is saying something back, and the third forester turns and runs.
Where is he going? To find soldiers?
The forester examining Tubbo rifles through his bag, frantically pulls out a tiny vial of something pink and glittering and tries to pour it into Tubbo’s mouth. Tommy can’t help himself-- he intercepts the bottle and snatches it. The forester tries to protest, but Tommy is already testing the taste of the liquid on his tongue.
It’s so sweet it’s nearly disgusting, summer melon, and something slightly rotten. It brings to mind memories of scraped knees and a broken arm (jumping off a roof) and the fermented smell of the village cleric’s home.
It’s a healing potion, a healing potion! He stares at the forester wide-eyed; they merely roll their eyes and help Tommy prop Tubbo up until it flows smoothly down his throat. His breathing deepens. The boiling blisters improve.
A healing potion, during wartime? It's an extravagance.
Something deep eases in Tommy’s chest. Some biting, cruel fear loosens its grip.
It’s only a few minutes later then the third forester comes crashing back through the underbrush leading another figure with them and Tommy’s blood goes cold again.
It’s--
It’s a witch.
He can tell. It’s like little alarm bells ringing in the back of his head. The witch is tall, with curly dark hair falling around his shoulders, wearing a blouse and simple skirt and apron, like a farmer. Their eyes are pale, milky and blind, and glowing faintly. If not a witch, someone with a magical touch. Tommy curls closer around Tubbo. Ranboo takes a step back, mismatched eyes wide, and Tommy remembers that his scars, whatever poisons him, came from some magical curse.
“⍙⊑⊬,” Ranboo chokes and then stops. One of the foresters is talking to the witch, high-pitched and a little frantic.
The Witch is staring at them. Staring at Tommy. At Tubbo. Those milky eyes watching, watching.
“Please--” Tommy says, again. He’s so tired of pleading. “He’s hurt-- we don’t-- we don’t want to fight-- if you call soldiers--”
The witch takes a step forward. Another step. They hold out a hand, and their brow is pinched. “It’s ok,” he says, and the voice is deep and quiet. And the voice speaks a language Tommy knows. “It’s ok,” he says. “We want to help. We’re not going to hurt you. We won’t call soldiers.”
The witch pauses and takes a deep breath, white eyes staring down at them. “Didn’t you know? The war is over.”
One Month
The garden is warm, but getting cooler. Fall is finally coming.
Tommy stretches out in a patch of sunshine in the overgrown garden like a cat, until Ranboo finds him.
“It’s dinner,” he says. His mask is hanging off one ear. He’s gotten more comfortable taking it off, but only when it’s Tommy of Tubbo or Eret, sometimes. “Come inside.”
Tommy makes a face. “I’m warm,” he says. “I’m taking a nap, bitchboy.” The words still feel strange in his mouth, and he can’t swear in any language but his own. Eret won’t teach him swears. But he and Ranboo can talk now, really talk.
“Are you sleeptalking?” Ranboo says, and kicks him a little with his foot. “The soup will get cold.”
They wander inside together. Tubbo is setting the table, carefully laying out plates. Tommy, even after these weeks, still feels his hands run a little cold whenever he looks his best friend in the eye. The Tubbo he carries in his head, the childhood best friend who ate bugs, wears a different face.
He can talk now, walk. He’s breathing, he’s alive and Tommy thanks the stars for that every night. But healing came too late to keep his face from scarring. And according to Ponk, he’ll never get vision back in his eye.
“Tommy,” Eret says, from where he’s bent over a pot of soup. “Help Tubbo set the table, please.”
“No,” says Tommy, grabbing a handful of silverware and laying out spoons beside the bowls.
“Thank you.”
Ranboo leaves the door hanging open, even though it’s an invitation to bugs. The warm sunlight fills the tiny cabin, laying down stripes on the old wood floor. This cabin has been here for ages, and when Eret arrived in this forest, he’d moved in. He’s done enough cleaning and decorating that it feels cozy, but it definitely needs more attention with hammer and nails.
Next week, according to Sam, they’ll raise the frame for Eret’s new house. If they work fast, it will be ready by winter. A new cozy house and barn, fresh pine planks.
Tommy hungers for that. Something new. A long afternoon, raising beams. Cool milk, water from the wells. Jack and Niki will bring something baked, Sam, Ponk and Callahan will cook something over the fire. There’s a whisper of wellness to it that chips away at the gnawing sense of fear he feels creeping over him late at night when Ranboo talks in his sleep, and Tubbo wakes up screaming, and Eret’s eyes glaze over and flash with a remnant of fire.
They eat their soup, and watch the sunset through the open door and listen to the crows flying over the forest, screeching their heads off.
When night comes, Eret retires to the bedroom in the back of the cottage, and, instead of heading up to their bedroom in the loft, Ranboo, Tubbo and Tommy climb the ladder in the back of the house and crawl up on the roof, tip-toeing so Eret won’t wake up.
They’ve been doing this since Eret and the rangers brought them here, welcoming them in, laying Tubbo down on the bed, while Callahan went sprinting off in search of more potions, medical supplies, bandages, anything. Tubbo is finally strong enough to climb the ladder, though Tommy hears him grunt in pain as it pulls at the knotted skin on his arms.
They lay out across the rooftop and stare up at the stars that peek through the canopy of old oaks and sycamores.
The stars are back, as if they had never been gone, blindingly beautiful in their heavenly spirals. The air doesn't smell like smoke and explosives. The forest is quiet. No Angels roam the earth spreading fire and death. The roof is overgrown with moss, and the wood is soft where it has sat gently rotting for years in this quiet place.
“I still don’t feel safe,” Tommy says, into the silence.
“No,” Ranboo agrees. He reaches out and wraps his hand around Tommy’s. Tommy reaches for Tubbo, who makes a face, but holds his hand anyway. “I don’t think we will.”
Tubbo makes a humming noise in the back of his throat. “We are though, aren’t we?”
“We are,” Tommy affirms, because he knows it’s true, even if it will never feel true until the day he dies. “We are.”
Ranboo signs, a long slow breath released. The air is just cold enough that a faint cloud follows it out into the night, towards the stars. His eyes glow ever-so-faintly in the starlight. Red-brown and green. Ranboo and whatever poison lives inside him. “...Now what?”
“I-” Tommy says. And pauses. It’s been two months and one week and six days since his whole world ended. Since his hometown disappeared from the map of the world Eret keeps in a desk drawer. And not once has he really thought about the idea of ‘after.’
He’s going to keep living. Somehow that’s almost more terrifying than anything else.
At least he’s not going to be doing it alone.
“I’m staying with you,” he says, and he grips his best friends’ hands tightly. Tubbo smacks him in the stomach to tell him he’s clutching too hard. “And I want to grow things.”
“Can I have bees?” Tubbo asks. “Yeah. I’m having bees.”
“If you get bees, I get a pet moth,” Tommy says immediately. “I’ll name her Clementine, and we’ll be best friends and go have a house together, and every morning I will say, ‘Clementine my beloved, pass the salt’ and Clementine will--’”
Ranboo and Tubbo shush him at the same time.
“I like the house idea,” Ranboo says slowly. “I don’t…Eret is very nice but I don’t want to stay with them forever.”
“Agreed, bossman,” Tubbo says. He tips his head back and stares up at the night sky.
From where Tommy is lying, he can only see one side of Tubbo’s face, the ruined one-- a scar in every color stretched out against his friend’s cheek. But the milky, unseeing eye is full of stars.
One Year
The house is going up. The lumber smells fresh and sweet, and Tommy runs his hands over it again and again to remind himself this is real.
The whole forest and half the town is here, it seems. Sam is barking instructions at Jack and Sneeg, while Callahan and Ponk sign back and forth, leaning up against the old trees, smirking. The rangers have taught Tommy enough sign that he catches a scrap of their conversation-- “and I said, George, you are--”
At the far end of the clearing, Eret stands, laying out a picnic blanket across the ground, smoothing it out. Quackity is laying out a stack of plates. Once their work is finished, there will be food, and plenty of it-- everyone has brought something to share. Tommy slips his way through the crowd, hopping over half-built walls laying on the ground, waiting to be erected, and snags a cookie from under Eret’s nose, making him sigh. “You’ll ruin your appetite, Tommy.”
“Nu-argiwon’t,” Tommy says, mouth full of cookie. It’s rich and buttery, stuffed with dried fruit and chopped nuts.
Ranboo is with Sapnap, sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Sapnap has four or five nails between his lips for safekeeping and is explaining around them, in a muffled voice, how to nail the joint correctly. Ranboo watches, wide-eyed. On the other side, Tubbo and Slime are sorting through lumber. The air is loud with conversation. For a moment he just rocks back on his heels and watches.
“Hey Tommy!” someone shouts, and ah, it’s Niki, waving her arm over her head like a beacon. “Come over here!”
Tommy shoulders his way across the lawn. Here indeed, is Niki. She’s carrying something wrapped in a dish towel that he hopes is a pie. Beside her stand two people he doesn’t know. One is a man with a white shirt stained with mud, and dark hair falling around his ears, and the beginnings of two fuzzy mutton chops. He stands a little slouched, with his hands in his pockets. His companion is not taller, necessarily, but he stands straighter. His hair, Tommy notices, is nearly the same shade of pink as Niki’s and tied into a neat bun in the back of his head.
“Ayup, Niki,” he says, and because he’s not afraid of anything when Niki’s around he adds, “who are these dudes? They look like wrong’uns.”
He can feel their eyes on him, as he speaks. He can speak the language here with little difficulty now-- time, Ranboo and Eret are good teachers-- but there’s an accent clinging to him he knows they hear. He can’t ignore the fact that, for every person here, his voice calls up memories of fire.
Niki only laughs. “Tommy,” she says, “I’d like you to meet my friend, Techno. Techno, this is Tommy. It’ll be his house, the one we’re making today.”
Techno offers a hand, and hesitantly Tommy shakes it. It’s rough, and his grip is sturdy. He doesn’t quite meet Tommy’s eyes, but he offers a smile.
“Nice to meet you, big man,” Tommy says. “You coming to stay here?”
“Yes,” Techno says. His voice is quiet, but there’s a current of humor beneath Tommy can’t quite pinpoint. He likes it immediately. “I’ve got a cabin out here, I’ll be fixin’ it up.”
“Oh shit! Not the one we--” he looks at Niki delighted. “Eret’s old place?”
Niki nods. “Yes! Techno bought it earlier this week.”
“You really picked a fixer-upper huh?”
“That bad?” Techno says, raising an eyebrow.
Tommy laughs, and shrugs his shoulders. “Listen, I won’t tell you it was Tubbo who put his foot through the roof last year, but yeah. Uh. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” Techno says, voice full of a wry humor. “I’m pretty handy. I need somethin’ to keep me busy anyway. Speakin’ of which, anythin’ I can do to help out here?”
“You’ll want to talk to Sam,” Niki interjects. “I’ll introduce you in a moment. Anyway-- oh, he’s gone.”
Tommy turns and sure enough, the third member of the group, the slouching man, has disappeared. A scan of the party reveals him at the edge of the clearing, standing beneath a nearby oak, chatting quietly with Quackity. He must be shy, Tommy supposes. Ah well. He can corner the new stanger later and demand an introduction. In the meantime, there is work to do. Sam is calling them to order. Ropes are being tied-- nails put in-- the house-raising party is starting to finally swing into action.
By the end of the day today, there will be a house here, made of sturdy wood. The cellar has already been dug, and the foundations laid. Sam has overseen the whole affair, like he had with Eret’s house.
And it will be theirs.
They will have windows, wide open for sunlight and the smell of rain. A garden, cuttings and seeds gathered from their friends and neighbors, for them to tend. Tommy will plant apple cores in the front of the house until they get a tree. Tubbo already has a spot chosen for his hives, and he will, with gentle hands, sort through his tiny insect friends and bring the queen to her new home when it is ready. Bedrooms, for beds and for bookshelves. A loft, with a little window (promised by Sam) for seeing the stars.
It will be a home. For him, and for his best friends. A place with a heavy lock on the door. A safe haven against every storm. A first attempt at being human again. Even though it isn’t yet standing, Tommy can see it, built up in his mind, what it will be today, and the day after, for years and years until all the beams sag and splinter, and bugs take up residence in the woodwork.
Across the clearing, as everyone takes their places for the first walls to go up, Tommy catches Tubbo’s eye.
It’s been one year, two months and handfuls of days, days Tommy is starting to lose track of, since the end of the world. And here is one house, and two best friends, and more allies than Tommy can even begin to count.
Slowly, the earth is swinging back into orbit. Slowly, the sand in the hourglass pauses, and stays, as the walls of the house in the forest rise into place.