Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wood clinks together sharply before a wooden sword clatters to the ground.

“Victory!”

Perennial blue stretches far beyond the horizon. Waxmelt-yellow sun bathes the lush pasture below in soft, breathlessly warm light around the wisps of clouds that claw themselves through the sky. Gentle wind nips at the feathery grass as it sweeps by, tendrils of ferns and weeds leaning into the tender caress. Dandelions bob their heads around the chill that cards through the greenery before falling limp. Songbird calls tangle in the wind before being swept far over the clouds, and the meadow breathes. The air washes Tommy’s lungs clean, cleansing and comforting and unabashedly free. It cracks open his ribcage, liberating. It’s catharsis.

Tommy soaks in the golden glow of the sun from where Phil has his arms lazily wrapped around him; all skin and scrapes and bones, all five-and-a-half years of him. His father leans against a proudly stood oak tree. Its branches fan up and out to catch the sweet, honey sunshine.

He cracks an eye open to see Techno pointing his faux sword at Wilbur’s throat, wind whipping his braid and ruffling the frills of his dress shirt. He’s got Wilbur’s chest under his boot, pressing him to the ground where dirt grimes up the threads of his bumblebee turtleneck -- Tubbo, Tommy connects to the color lazily. Techno’s grinning in that nonchalant way he does, and for some reason the curve in it feels like an antiquity. Something he’d stuff away under his pillow or in the dresser by his bed, or maybe keep in his back pocket for luck. He can’t quite make out Wilbur’s face in his half-lidded gaze, but he doesn’t seem pleased.

“Yeah yeah, get off of me. You’re mucking up my sweater,” Wilbur begrudges, but there’s no real bite to it. “This next one’s mine.”

Techno hums in that sturdy, baritone way of his, “Mhm. Sure. Whatever you say.” He doesn’t sound convinced, but removes his foot and offers his brother a hand anyways.

Wilbur takes it, pulls up to his feet. He snatches up his wooden sword from where it was thrown from his grip, round glasses catching the shine of the sun brilliantly. He runs a hand through his hair before turning back to Techno, who adjusts his own glasses and twirls his sword idly. The wind howls above them dangerously. It roars. The two of them charge, and they’re back at it again.

Tommy readjusts himself a bit before pressing his cheek to Phil’s shirt. The sun warms him from inside out, stirs his mind up in molasses, and makes his dad’s warmth all the more sweeter. His eyes catch a pillbug moseying over a rock by a tree root, watches as it crosses the bark and saunters under a nearby rock. His brothers’ banter and the crashing of their swords float by his ears and his eyelids fall closed.

The world feels slow here. Undemanding, loving, easy. Distant. Where everything could fall away except for them, for him, and he could be eternally preserved in this sugary meadow, high on the mountain. He thinks truly, honestly, he could die happy here.

Yearning hits him head on like a freight train, and he doesn’t know why.

A tall obsidian wall.

The tilt of a boat under him, oars in his hands.

His fingers clasped around a shovel.

A large, gaping pit in the ground.

The hiss of dynamite in his ears.

“Put your things in the hole, Tommy.”

It shakes him to his core. Ice drips down his spine.

He doesn’t know why.

Why doesn’t he know why?

It consumes him, and begins to spin.

He shoots upright, eyes wide as saucers, and feels far too small. So fearfully small it wraps around his skull and nearly tears it in two.

Large, sun-kissed hands wrap around his.

“Hey Toms, what’s going on?” Phil asks, concern clear as crystals, and Tommy’s hands burn.

He yanks his hands out of Phil’s with a screech and flails backwards out of his lap. His head cracks against the ground and he screams, the sun scorches him alive and lightning scorches through him again and he’s burning, burning, burning, Dad help me please help me Dad-- his vision is swimming and the sky twists and knows there’s blood everywhere he’s soaked in it and he’s so little and Dad-- Wilbur where did you go, there’s ringing, someone’s screaming in his ear and he’s dying and he tries to scrape it off but it won’t, it won’t he wants it all gone he wants to crack his head open get it out get it out get it out--

He’s cold as porcelain.

He whips his head towards Phil, and Dream stares back at him.

And Tommy falls.

He vaults awake, gasping, and he can’t breathe. He sputters erratically for air and chokes. He reaches out and his hand scrapes against the floor. He can’t see. White-hot claws tear at his insides and blood thunders in his ears. His face is so hot he might burst. Tremors wrack his hands as he claps them over his ears, pulling his legs to his chest, dirt scraping under his jeans and ankles.

Time warps around him, head pressed up to his knees. He hikes in air as the black spots all around him begin to fill, and he weakly cranes his neck. His vision starts to clear to the sight of sunlight peeking through a window with chipped edges. The light’s soft as it traces the compact mud walls and unsteady support beams, and Tommy realizes he’s curled up on the ground, in the middle of the sooty floor, in the middle of his shit joke of a house. The smell of grime is suffocating.

Slowly, he uncurls himself, stretching out his legs. They throb with exhaustion and sting with dirt-clogged cuts. The tremors in his bones are light now, they’re the usual ones. He pushes himself upright, props himself up against the closest wall, and huffs out a long breath, chest heavy. The ink in the corners of his eyes finally fades away, and through the window, smoky huddles of clouds soar high above the sun. It must be morning.

Dew drops from the top of the window and down to where the sill would be. The fuzz from the nightmare starts to wash away, and his brain comes back to him.

So it fucking rained, that makes sense. He’s always against himself when it rains. Him and his head tugging back and forth until they meet an inevitable impasse. The veins of scars that bite at his skin all over, thin and pink and bubbled up caramel every so often, ache. He has no idea how he slept through it. Must have been a light shower. These days, he’ll take anything he can get.

The cruddy excuse of a house looks like it’ll collapse with a spring breeze. Support beams are scarce, some nailed with rusty nails and others propped up with a bit of luck. It doesn’t do much for the sloppy mud walls that seem like they’ll fold in any minute. An oak door is barely holding onto its rusty hinges. A dingy, mud-flecked photo of The Queen is pasted up near the window, where Tommy’s snuck photos from back home under it and into the mud. A cauldron’s tucked under it up against the wall. The floor’s pulled of weeds and grass apart from the bits of mold that managed to cram itself into the dark corners, and he doesn’t dare touch the low hanging ceiling.

It’s shit, it’s garbage and makes him miss L’Manberg all the more feverishly, and he wants to tear it all down with his bare hands, but it keeps a roof over his head. And it’s his. He gets to keep it. He’s good enough to keep it. And that’s what really matters more than anything. He doesn’t have the right to complain.

His eyes prick and he swipes at the tears that blur his surroundings. He huffs, and takes a glance at the door.

There’s a pair of boots on the ground.

He blinks, and then blinks again. They’re still there. He’s probably hallucinating again or some shit. Focusing his vision, they’re attached to a pair of pants.

He tilts his head up. A pearly, porcelain mask leers at him.

“Morning, Tommy,” Dream says, and all Tommy thinks about being eaten alive.

Had he been there the whole time?

Dread washes over him, ice-cold.

His voice is sandpaper in his throat, “Morning, Dream.”

Dream’s dressed head to toe in netherite armor that sheens iridescently in the morning sun. The hood of his sweater is tugged up over his head with the drawstrings pulled out, the rich green fabric against the building’s dank interior embellishing him like the mantle of a monarch. An axe swung over his shoulder, the serrated teeth of a bear trap ready to spring. Long, spindly strands of dirty blond hair frame the cold, opaline mask that covers his face, the curve of its smile placating. It stares right through him.

“Oh come on now, Tommy. Really?” Dream asks, and shame scorches through him. He can’t tell if he’s amused or disappointed. Maybe both.

Pushing back his tears is like swallowing a still-beating heart, but he does anyways. Dream doesn’t like it when he bitches like this. He’s probably tired of him. Tommy would be tired of him too. He’s lucky that Dream’s even here.

He should say sorry. Maybe he’ll get to come back early and take a nap if he’s good today.

“M’sorry,” he croaks, fidgeting with a thread on his jeans.

Dream sighs. “It’s fine, Tommy. Let’s get going,” it’s not fine, Tommy messed up again, he knows he did, “You know what to do.”

Dream pushes the door open, sunlight leaking through. And just like that, he’s out, and the door clicks closed, sucking up the brightness in the room with it.

Tommy finds his feet, exhaustion deep and familiar in his bones. His eyes feel sunk with fatigue and night terrors, and hunger sits heavy in his stomach. But he’s fine, because Dream will always toss him something by the end of the day. He cares about him. They’re friends, Dream said so himself. And he’ll take one friend over none.

He twists the door handle and steps outside. The sunlight assaults him, and he has to blink back the sudden brightness before his eyes adjust. The stout blades of grass that shoot up from the long stretches of dirt are lush with moisture, sparkling in the rays of light that envelop the grassland. Dark oak trees with twisting limbs spread up towards the condensed, murky clouds that roll closer, arching around the backside of Tommy’s makeshift house before opening up to a wide, sandy beach ahead of him. Water laps at the shore and a swallow swoops by.

Tommy takes a glance at the storm clouds. All he sees is lightning, scales and snaggle-teeth and curled talons ready to strike. Gut him alive and rip him to shreds. His hands twitch. He tries not to think about the scars that wrap around them, the calloused hands that desperately pumped to restart his heart, the potions thrown all over him just to keep him breathing. It doesn’t work.

Dream’s waiting for him by the outskirts of the long stretches of trees, foot tapping against the ground. When he catches sight of Tommy, he turns and heads into the forest, where he’s swallowed by shadows. Dream wants him to follow, so he does.

Tommy’s become much more attentive than he used to be. He’s still just as dumb -- Wilbur always told him so, back when they were small, back after the war -- but he likes to give himself credit for catching the little things. How Dream keeps a firmer grip on his axe on one of his days before heading into L’manberg, where his arms move when Tommy’s done something good, where his arms move when Tommy’s done something bad. It’s always been a careful tread with him. The frigid and unblemished mask makes him feel closed in on all sides. It’s a clean slate, and leaves everything up to him. Tommy can’t look at the crease of Dream’s brow, like Techno, or the scrunch of his nose, like Tubbo, or the ways his eyes shift, like Wilbur. He has to guess how Dream’s feeling. And guessing with Dream is deadly.

So maybe he does pride himself a bit, but just a bit. Because if he gets too ahead of himself and starts spilling bullshit again, like last time, Dream’s not going to be so nice. He doesn’t want to be bad. Even if everything is a shitshow right now, he doesn’t want to be bad. He just wants to go home. It’s selfish, but he wants it more than anything.

He doesn’t know where it is anymore, but he wants to go home.

But he knows it doesn’t really matter.

Dream will always find him anyways.

Of course he fucks up again. He always does. Because nothing is ever easy when he’s around.

Pain flares up and rips across the back of his head like a knife’s been dragged through his skull. Dizziness swims around in his head in a haze, stuck in a honey-glaze slowness before he’s whipped back to his senses. He really thought he was being careful, it was all he ever thought about anymore with Dream just around the corner. It’s burned into his mind like a cattle brand. All he did was misstep. He didn’t see the dip in the ground, he slipped on a few chunks of gravel, and cracked against the stone floor.

His head feels soaked all over, and slowly, he hauls himself into a sitting position. He hiccups and the air is too thick to swallow. He doesn’t know how to stop shaking and he bursts, hiking over a sob as scalding tears run down his face. He claws at them, blinks until he sees spots, and they just won’t stop, and he’s so fucking scared because Dream’s going to find him. Dream always finds him and he’s going to see Tommy, heaving and quivering and choking over air like a child, and he’s-- he’s going to have him throw his things in the hole and throw Tommy in there with them. He’s going to die in a fucking hole and he’s never going to see Tubbo or his brothers or his dad ever again and they’re never going to know he died. All alone, Tommy’s going to die alone--

Tommy’s going to die alone.

Tommy doesn’t want to die alone.

Tommy doesn’t want to die.

He runs a hand through the back of his hair. It’s sticky.

He pulls it back and it’s drenched red in blood.

“F-- fucking fantastic,” he warbles, and it’s not, it’s fucking awful. Tommy’s going to die today.

He looks up at the sky and it’s painted in amber glow and dense clouds tinged peach at the edges. The clusters of ashen clouds gradually expand and swallow up the sky in chunks, squeezing all the life out of it. The chatter of shifting leaves glides over the ditch he’s fallen into, the wind’s howl prowling above him. Just how long had he been wandering for? Was he really just aimlessly roaming around or did he crawl back into his own head again while he mined? Dream should have kept a hand on him at all times like usual. Kept him safe. Tommy would trip on his own two feet without him and land himself in some stupid shit, and Dream would have to come get him, and he’d throw his things in the hole.

He blinks.

Where is Dream?

Come to think of it, he wasn’t as touchy as usual today. No hand on his shoulder, no rough ruffle of his hair, no nothing. He wasn’t as chatty either. No lilt in his voice, no casual bite. He should be fortunate, but it only worries him. Maybe he saw how tired Tommy was.

Or maybe something’s wrong.

His heart drops like a stone.

Something’s definitely wrong.

He scrambles up to his feet and the dread that looms over him is enough to stop the tears. He hardly spares a glance at the spear of rock that protrudes up from the ground, slick red. He clambers up the crumbling edges of the shallow trench, head throbbing and burning under his hair. Tommy pulls himself up, and under the fading glow of the sunset, he runs.

He weaves around thick tree trunks and past juts of rock, leaps over a nearby stream and nearly skitters to the ground. He sprints like the floor will cave in any second, and with the sunlight sinking further behind the trees and dragging out the shadows, he thinks it might. He doesn’t even know where he’s going. He doesn’t even know if this is the right way, but he follows the steady, crashing whisper of waves shuddering against the beach.

Maybe he did something bad without even knowing it. He thought he was good at catching this stuff, he was good. Tommy’s good. He promises he is.

He can’t be alone again.

He breaks through the forest’s edge and nearly tumbles to the ground, catching himself. He quivers with his hands on his knees and tips his head upwards. A bit away, past a few rolls of dirt, stark against the horizon, sits his cruddy excuse of a house. He doesn’t think twice and sprints.

As he nears the house, fatigue crashes into him hard enough to make him slam against the door. Nausea contorts the ground under him and he might faint he’s so sick. He hardly keeps his knees from buckling. He’s been dragged under water, everything’s blurry around the edges and sluggish. He doesn’t know how to break the surface.

Heavy as lead, he reaches for the door handle. The door swings open before he can turn it.

Dream’s on the other side.

Tommy’s going to die today.

He’s already pulling the dirt out of his pockets before Dream can get a word in.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, hiccuping, “M’sorry, I didn’t mean to wander off, it just happened and I promise I never meant to,” the grass distorts under him, “Didn’t mean to, honest, I- I didn’t- never meant to, promise, I won’t do it again, I won’t, I won’t, don’t wanna-- don’t wanna die, I’m--”

“Tommy.”

He stops breathing.

“Tommy, look at me.”

He does.

Dream’s shoulders are dangerously taut, “What’s that?”

“Wh--” Tommy shakes, “What’s what?”

“That,” he points to the back of his own head rigidly.

Tommy smoothes his hand over the back of his head, then his neck. It’s slick. His cut throbs.

There’s blood dripping down to his shirt.

Fuck.

He tears at his chest to throw off his armor and nothing’s there. There’s nothing there and maybe he should just scoop out his own heart and give it instead, or maybe-- maybe his lungs or his ribs or something, he can’t-- Dream can’t kill him like this, Dream can’t--

Claws latch his wrist, and he’s yanked inside.

Tommy plunges to the ground, scraping against the floor. The door rattles shut thunderously and he can’t breathe. Black snakes up his vision and twists all around him and this is it, Tommy’s actually going to die, he’ll get his head split open or get his insides torn out, he’s got to get up-- he claws at the ground and his arms quiver and they’ll snap, but he keeps pushing--

There’s hands all over him, prodding him, nails digging into his wrists, they’re going to tear his arms off--

A hand seizes his hair and rams his forehead into the floor.

Dream smashes a bottle over his head.

Glass shatters everywhere.

It’s deafening.

Tubbo’s sobbing, someone’s frantically trying to resuscitate him, pressing against his chest, he’s twisted from his own body and catches the glimpse of a bumblebee turtleneck on the other side, reaching out for him-- reaching out for him, he can’t reach out for them, he can’t-- he can’t, L’Manberg is burning and he’s dying and his heart’s failing, his heart’s failing and he’s going to die to fucking chance, to a lucky fucking lightning strike and it cracks over him, it shatters all over him and he’s smoking, he’s smoking he’s smoking and there’s glass all over him, potions to get him to just stay alive and-- and--

And he’s back on the floor.

Tommy shrieks. He desperately sucks in air between hyperventilating sobs, his scars are burning him alive, they’re going to peel his skin off-- He claws at his scalp, he’s so sorry, he tugs at his hair and the walls fold in, and he scratches at the jagged cut that runs through his hair.

It’s closing.

He scrapes his nails over it. It tingles as the skin seals together. Bubbles at the back of his head. The razor sharp pain begins to fade as it heals over, fading to a dull thrum. He can finally scarf air into his fiery lungs, filling him up like air to a drowned man. He cranes his head and presses his cheek to the floor, sputtering over a cough, the world tilting into focus.

Broken glass is slewn across the floor, the potion’s tag discarded by the cork. His forehead throbs half-heartedly and he’s far too worn to give a shit about it right now. Cerise pink liquid is splattered in splotches around the fractures of glass, excess healing potion quickly evaporating into the air.

For the second time today, Tommy catches sight of Dream’s boots, fear blanches through him, and he peers up.

“Are you done now?” His voice is so, so cold.

Tommy nods, blinking past tears.

Dream crouches down to him. Fists up his hair and jerks Tommy up to face him.

His grip is so tight it might rip his scalp off, “I’m not in the mood for this today, okay? Don’t try to keep secrets from me, Tommy. Friends don’t keep secrets from each other. We’re friends, right?”

Tommy nods again. He’s going to pass out.

“Say it.”

“We’re,” he hiccups, “We’re friends.”

“Good,” he doesn’t know whether he wants to imagine Dream smiling or not.

Dream lets go and his forehead smacks against the floor. He bites back a sob.

“You work yourself up over nothing,” Dream sighs, and it sounds unusually tired. Like he’s the one who's been starving and sleepless for weeks on end. That’s new.

Maybe something happened.

It was probably his fault.

Tommy teeters on the edge of unconsciousness. The healing potion does little for the leaden ache that runs a month deep in his bones. Tears slip down his cheeks hazardously, but he can’t bring himself to wipe them away. He just wants to sleep forever.

Two glossy, crimson apples are tossed to the ground in front of him.

Dream’s between pitying and annoyed, “You know, I’m really too kind to you. I give you company, I visit you each day, I even give you food when you’re clambering all over the place. No one else wants you, but here I am,” he twirls a strand of his hair, “and this is what you give me?”

“M’sorry,” Tommy slurs.

“People will walk all over you, Tommy. You’re lucky I’m here. Not everyone’s as nice as I am. Not everyone visits,” he muses bitterly.

He almost sounds wistful. Sad, even.

The porcelain mask pivots to him, “Same time tomorrow. Goodnight, Tommy.”

Dream turns and steps up to the door, the early moonlight through the window dipping over him. It catches the wild shadows of hands, charred and seared into the back of Dream’s chestpiece, and before Tommy can blink twice, the door latches shut and he’s alone.

Something definitely happened today.

Dream’s untouchable. Nothing can scathe him. He blearily remembers his first week in exile, when he didn’t know right from wrong, when Dream didn’t help him find his place. He used to consider himself pretty quick on his feet. Back when it was never black and white. When Tommy prodded a little too much, got a hand on Dream’s mask -- he doesn’t know how, maybe he was joking, it’s so blurry -- and before he knew it, he was twisted up on the ground with a broken wrist. He can’t quite connect the dots to how it got him here, here right now, but it was his own fault anyways. He’s sure of it.

But even in the last war, back then and back before, Dream was always high above it all. He perched, he soared. Hell, he has all three lives when Wilbur has none.

He immediately cuts off that train of thought before the tears fall faster.

Something happened today that was enough to set Dream on edge. And that’s unsettling.

He reaches out, clamps a trembling hand around one of the apples, and pulls it to his chest. It’s clear-cut and crisp against the grime on the floor. He squeezes it weakly, it’s firm and ripe in his hands. It’s clean, rich, and it makes him sick to his stomach. He never gets something so filling, never. And there’s two of them. Maybe Dream really does just feel bad for him.

Or maybe he’s compensating now for punishment tomorrow.

He can’t bring himself to take more than one bite. It’s so sweet it’ll give him a toothache.

The stars watch him curiously from outside, lining the darkening sky with pinholes of shimmering light. Moonlight beams down on him before being devoured up by the stormy billows that consume the night above.

He should really set up a few torches before the mobs start spawning in, but pulling himself up off the floor is a herculean task. Maybe it’s because he’s cried out everything he’s had, or maybe it’s the starving chasm that keeps growing in his stomach, or the phantom jolts of his scars, but the floor’s far too comfortable to get up from.

Tommy curls into himself, and prays for a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Tommy thinks about stabbing Dream with a knife. He doesn’t know where it comes from, but it keeps on spiraling and he keeps on following it.

He’s truly ungrateful, he knows he is and he’s every word for selfish in the book, and he should feel blessed for all that he’s been given, but he can’t stop the small, giddy thing in his chest from the idea of making Dream bleed. Of driving his head to the floor. Smashing a bottle over his skull. Cracking his ribcage open.

It’s an illusion of control, something he can keep in his head and never lose. Maybe it’s a little fucked, but he can’t stop indulging himself in his thoughts. It’s private. It’s addicting. It’s his. His hands twitch.

Secrets are bad, he should feel guilty. But he doesn’t. He knows what happened yesterday when he planned on hiding the gash in his head. It doesn’t twist his heart, but sits in the back of his mind sluggishly. Numbly. He can’t place why.

Maybe yesterday washed everything out of him.

Maybe he’s finally reached the breaking point, just like Wilbur.

He thought it would hurt more.

He takes another bite out of his apple. He should eat it all now before Dream takes it away. Before punishment.

A songbird sings on distantly. Sunlight flashes on the still water of the cauldron. Remarkably, it didn’t rain last night. He doesn’t dare question it. The door rattles and Dream’s slipped into his house once more, a leather bag slung over his shoulder. Hood pulled down, his hair tied back into a bun with a few stray wisps around his face. His netherite axe is nowhere to be seen. Tommy waits for Dream to speak first.

“You’re staying here today.”

What?

There’s no “Morning, Tommy,” no teasing. It’s straight to the point.

Which wouldn’t be too weird if Dream didn’t sound so... antsy.

He wants to ask why, but can’t wrap his tongue around the words. Instead, he tilts his head curiously.

“Speak up, Tommy,” there’s an agitated edge to his tone.

Oh. So he was supposed to speak up. What a great start to the morning.

He scrapes over the word, “Why?”

“There’s something important I have to attend to today. I need you to stay here. You can do that for me, right?”

Tommy nods.

“Great,” he says flatly. Dream doesn’t even spare Tommy another glance, and he’s mildly confused. What’s going on?

He’s suddenly much more awake than he was a minute ago, sitting up against the wall. It occurs to him that this may be something beyond his fuck-up last night, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. Maybe he got in a scuff with someone or some shit. Or maybe…

Yearning sparks in his chest like wildfire.

Maybe his exile’s finally over.

Maybe they want him back.

Maybe Dream doesn’t want to tell him.

He wonders how easily he could snap his neck.

Dream tugs at his jacket’s drawstrings, the air around him hums with foreignly restless energy. Tommy waits for it to sharpen, crumple the walls and bury him alive, anything, but Dream vanishes out the door without another word.

He draws himself up onto his feet. His body thrums bruised-blue in every dip of his joints and curve of his bones, curiosity far more carnivorous than his incessantly growling stomach. The spiraling, tempting whisper at the back of his head lures him to the door. It’s primal and keeps him in a sickly sweet vice. It’s almost enough to shove him forward after Dream.

Almost.

The need for self-governed peace ravages his head. A path forged for himself in the forest, laying down in the morning sun on the beach, it’s a fingertip away. He wouldn’t be trugging forward with his head picking him to pieces, with Dream on his back-- it would just be him. He has a choice. It’s so dizzying it nearly makes him weightless. He needs space, Tommy won’t be gone for long anyways. The only thing Dream’s got left to steal from him is his life.

He has practically nothing left to lose.

L’manburg sprouts up in freckles and splatters between the clots of trees far below him, so incredibly small that Tommy could scoop it up and shove it in his pockets. The pinpricks of light from the buildings mirror the gentle stars that slowly begin to glitter into view with the fading sunshine, lanterns flickering to life as the sky soaks in a thick, lucid blue. The sun traces the ocean’s horizon as it sinks with practiced ease. Clouds swirl beneath the cobblestone tower he’s sat on, pooling and churning in milky froths that run their fingertips over the stone curiously. The air’s so thin and so bitterly cold, nose red and snot dripping down his face, but the frigid solitude drapes over his shoulders like an old friend.

His whole body shakes like a leaf in a storm, teeth chattering so hard his jaw might fall off. The tower he’s stacked below him is nearly high enough to pierce through the sky like a blade through paper, but he can’t muster up any fear in him over the cotton in his head. He could stay here forever, he thinks, legs dangling off the edge with every sharp gust of wind. He’s far too tired to pull himself up and far too awake to drag himself back to his shit-hole house.

Tommy’s not too sure how he got himself here. All he remembers through the heaviness in his head is L’Manberg, L’Manberg, L’Manberg, the exhaustion in his bones sung for L’manberg, away, away, away from Dream. He slips a hand into his inventory and ah, he feels the abrasive handle of a pickaxe. Must have been mining again. He does that a lot aimlessly these days.

He wipes the snot from his nose and sniffs, tipping his head down to flick over the growing torchlight pulsing in the corners of L’Manberg’s walls. It shimmers so tenderly, so whole and warm. He could barrel down to meet it, to bask in it and all of its memory-lined roads. The fingerprints of simpler times in every sign nailed onto the walls, in every gust of springtime pollen and ash that used to ghost his clothes.

All it would take would be one lean forward. Just one.

He presses his eyes closed, slouches towards the edge.

It’s nowhere near raining, but his scars ache.

Tommy doesn’t want to die.

He doesn’t think so, at least. He could easily slip into the welcoming embrace of gravity that pulls at his ankles. He could die on his own terms. He could not drag himself through the rest of God knows how long with Dream’s hands around his neck and scraping against his back, clawing over his shoulder, choking up his lungs. He could die free of him forever. He could be in control.

Tommy thought Dream was going to murder him yesterday. Take his last life and throw his body downstream or some shit, bury him face-down. He runs a hand over where the gash healed up at the back of his head. He didn’t want to die back when Dream shoved him around yesterday, he shouldn’t want to fucking die now when he’s finally found safety away from him.

He looks up at the blanket of stars hanging above him. They blink and twinkle back at him.

Tommy doesn’t want to die, and it’s not a dreary and haggard thought. It’s primal.

Tommy doesn’t want to die because he’d never see Tubbo again. He’d never see Techno, or Dad-- Phil. He’d never get to see Phil again. He’d never get to think of Wilbur. Here, one slip away from a dive down to the ground, all of their stupid shit is only a passing thought. He just misses them. He misses his family, he misses his best friend. He misses being curled up in Phil’s lap back in his childhood home, under the trellises of vines and flowers and trees. He misses going out for hunts on dark, early mornings, sitting up on Techno’s shoulders and grabbing at leaves on the passing trees. He misses-- God, he aches so badly for Wilbur to strum him a lullaby on his guitar in the late hours of the night until he drifts off to sleep.

His heart cries to huddle up next to Tubbo on the bench, shoulder-to-shoulder, soaking in the endless watercolor wash of colors that melted across the sky with every L’Manberg sunset. The lull of the discs swimming around them. It was so light.

“It’s me and you against Dream,” Tommy had held out his pinkie finger.

“Forever and always,” Tubbo’s smile was full of sunshine, latching his finger with his, and they swore on it.

He thinks of the pictures of Tubbo he’s got hidden in his house’s walls, right behind the poster of the Queen, and washes with shame.

Tommy hiccups. Under the stars, he lets himself cry.

Sobs drag out of him in long, guttural whines, and all he fucking wants is home. He tucks his legs to his chest and presses his eyes against his knees, pressure pushing colors across his eyelids. He just wants to curl up and disappear forever. Let the wind sweep him up and carry him away. Hot tears drip down to his chin and bite at his freezing face. Snot clogs up his nose and he shudders in breath through his teeth to keep his lungs from burning.

“No one else wants you, but here I am.”

“No one else wants you...”

No one else wants you.

No one wants you.

No one wants him.

Tubbo doesn’t want him, he turned on a dime and drove a knife through his back. He threw him away.

Not even his family wants him. Not enough to stay by his side, not enough to stay alive.

But Dream wants him. Right? Is that enough for Dream to hurt him? To keep him shoved up in some cruddy, piece of shit house, wrap himself around his skull and carve himself into his thoughts, infest his fucking brain like some sort of shit parasite? Is that enough of a reason, just because he wants to?

Dream’s sharper than a hawk’s eye and sunlight through a pinhole, he always has a little bit of everything in the palm of his hand. He knows the right buttons to push, how to make people melt, how to rip them apart and pick them off from their bones-- and for Tommy, at least, it was for good reason. Tommy’s been the epicenter of all of the bullshit everyone’s had to go through, it’s all him, it’s always him. He’s why Tubbo’s got scars raking his face, why Techno summoned the withers to tear down everything he’s poured himself into, why Dream has to take time out of his day to visit him and feed him and shit like some stray dog. It’s always been his fault. That’s what Dream told him, and Dream is-- he was, he’s-- he’s always right.

But Dream didn’t have to build those obsidian walls, box L’manberg in and all of his friends with it. He didn’t have to throw it all on Tommy. He didn’t have to be exiled.

He blinks.

He didn’t have to be exiled.

Something clicks into place.

He thinks of Dream’s tense shoulders and voice strung bow-tight. Thinks of the crack-of-a-window opportunity, the small sliver of hope that something got in Dream’s way, someone stood up to him and shook him down. That Dream’s slipping up, that he’s always been and he never noticed. That someone came to get him, that someone wants him.

Maybe it’s not his fault.

His breath stutters on the newfound life that floods his whole body, coughing over the phlegm in his throat. He stretches out his legs and peers down below at the blanket of silky clouds that drift by. He tugs out his pickaxe from where it’s tucked into his inventory, stone curve dull under the moonlight.

How easily could he drive it through Dream’s head?

Curiosity flutters in his chest like a sparrow caught on fire.

He’d deserve it anyways. A million times over; brain splattered against the floor and skull cracked around it like eggshells. Sanguine liquid and organs squelching across the floor and running through his ribs. Mask shattering to pieces and grinding to dust, porcelain smile snapped in two.

It’s intoxicating.

He laughs over a cough. He’s probably real fucking ugly under that stupid mask of his, too. All deformed and shit. He bets he’s real ashamed of himself, Tommy would be ashamed of himself too if he did all of the awful shit Dream’s done. Fucking pathetic.

Yeah, that’s what Dream is. Pathetic.

L’Manberg hums with light. Moonlight drifts over the rolling plains and forests, gleams over the rippling water of the ocean and steady flow of the rivers and soaks the billows of clouds in a pale glow.

He finds his feet and rubs at his eyes, sparks of electricity surging under his skin. His whole body thrums with escape an arms length away. It’s so alarmingly foreign and raw that it nearly makes him light-headed, so toxically invigorating he could ride on the feeling for the rest of his life.

He shies into the possibility that maybe no one really does want him back, maybe no one does-- but he’s sure as hell not staying here.

He can sleep somewhere sturdy, somewhere warm and lived-in and not one wrong gust of air away from crumbling to the ground. Say goodbye to the creaky, rusty cauldron in the corner, rip his portrait of the Queen from the wall and carve out a space just for him far, far away. Scrape out the photos of Tubbo buried in the mud and keep them to his chest until the day he dies because even though Tubbo fucking hates him, exiled him out of his own country, he can’t find it in him to leave the photos behind. Even if his Tubbo’s gone, lost to a presidency far beyond his years, he’s forever preserved in the glossy panels of a polaroid.

Tommy’s going to leave Dream, and he’s going to leave for good.

But first, he needs his photos.

The forest is dim and dead quiet. He stalks around fallen tree trunks and sinkholes, trails his way under the omnipotent eye of the moon, but the only sound that echoes through the vegetation is the crunch of twigs under his feet and the low gurgling of a stream. There is no distant howl of wolves, no scurrying through the leaves, no lingering bird song. The silence is thicker than the ink that permeates the starry sky, as if all life’s been buried alive in the ground under his feet.

Tommy follows a jagged creek that leads opposite of his tower, skipping over algae-covered rocks and reeds. As it begins to widen and open up, the gentle lull of waves crashing against the shore rolls into the silence, and he bounds after it.

The trees fall away and he breaks through the forest’s edge, and just like yesterday, against the skyline, his house slouches. There is no flicker of light anywhere through the windows, door shut and shadows still. Dream’s not back yet then. It should alarm him, and it does a bit at the back of his head, but he has bigger priorities. He’s got a fucking axe, he can take on Dream anyways… probably. It shouldn’t matter, he’ll be in and out before anyone knows it.

Still, he listens for a moment, and when no footsteps or scraping against the trees fills the silence, he makes a break for it.

He slips into the house, creaky door shuttering behind him. The house is empty apart from the usual and scarce objects tucked into the corners or walls, moonlight dripping through the window and chasing at the shadows that seep into the cracks.

And there, illuminated by the silvery light, is the poster of the Queen.

Relief floods his chest. He reaches up to the corner of it, scraping his nails under it to peel back the paper.

The bushes rattle outside.

He stops.

It’s quiet. It’s so, so quiet, but the silence outside drills it into his skull. He holds his breath, heart rabbiting in his chest like a caged animal. He quivers.

Gently, he pinches the edge of the paper.

It rattles again.

Someone’s outside.

Tommy needs to fucking go. Now.

Slowly, like one wrong breath would snap him in two, he pulls it. It starts to unstick from the mud with a long, shucking noise.

The grass outside thrashes. It suddenly zips, barreling closer.

It’s charging right towards the house.

What the fuck what the fuck--

Tommy clamps his hands around the paper and rips it straight off the wall. He splits the Queen’s face right in half and he doesn’t fucking care, he claws at the wall and digs at the mud and it’s getting closer, the crunching gets louder and heavier and it’s going straight for Tommy--

He rams his pickaxe into the wall with every bit of strength he has. He doesn’t care if it brings the whole house down. He throws chunks of mud to the ground and from the compact earth, a folded strip of cloth peeks out and he shoves his hand in, grasping at it desperately and catching it between his fingers, yanking at it and stumbling backwards--

It’s right outside the door, clawing at the door handle--

Tommy can’t catch his breath, he’s fucking terrified, he scrambles to the window and God, fuck, yeah of course, of course it’s too fucking small, he can’t fit through, he’s not going to get out--

The door’s knocked off its hinges and he whips towards it, pickaxe in an iron grip.

A blur of green tumbles to the floor, hood pulled up over its-- it’s Dream.

The man tugs himself up to his feet, panting haggardly with his head drooping to the floor. He’s absolutely drenched, dripping wet and puddling water around his feet. He’s only got his netherite boots on, sweater and cargo pants splattered in sloppy, desperate blotches of mud and dirt. His arms and knees are-- they’re, they’re shaking, Tommy can’t believe Dream’s actually shaking. Coughing on a watery breath, he cranes his head up to meet his eyes.

Dread pulls Tommy back down to earth.

Dream’s mask is cracked, shattered and broken by the corner of his mouth, and Tommy can see the real, human skin there, dappled in freckles with a thin, pale scar clawing over his chapped lips. Crimson’s clotting on the edges of the fractures, trickling down Dream’s chin to the floor in a careful drip, drip, drip that fills the house up to the brim.

Tommy didn’t know he could bleed.

“Tommy,” Dream wheezes vexedly.

“Dream,” he levels back.

The two of them remain glued in place, Dream scarfing in air and Tommy flaunting his axe in front of himself shakily. He doesn’t remember the last time he wasn’t on the receiving end of a weapon with Dream. Dream turns his head to the side, lifts up his mask to his nose and hawks up a wad of bloody spit before securing it back over his face. Neither of them make a move. They’re stuck in a deadlock.

“What’s in--” he clears his throat, “What’s in your hand?”

Tommy tightens his grip on the cloth-wrapped photos.

“None of your fuckin’ business,” he snaps back. Dream’s shoulders hunch and something giddy swells in his chest.

The bloodied mask lulls over to the torn poster on the wall, scanning over the distressed scratch marks and the hole clawed frantically into the compact mud.

He chuckles scratchily, without humor, “So, you’ve been keeping secrets after all?”

“Not like you’re not keeping them either,” Tommy tightens his hold on the axe handle, “You’re-- you’re not saying shit, bitch. Bet you’re not fucking telling people what you’re doing to me over here.”

The corner of his mouth curves up bitterly, “They wouldn’t care anyways, Tommy. You and I know that more than anyone.”

No. No, they do care. Someone does. Dream just doesn’t trip and fall fucking flat on his face, someone got in his way one way or another, whether it was for Tommy or not.

Don’t let him manipulate you, he’s not in fucking control. Not anymore.

“Don’t you fucking compare us and shit,” he seethes, “I’m nothing like you. You’re just trying to, trying to do that controlling fucking thing you always do, and it’s not going to fucking work.”

“Oh, Tommy,” Dream grins foully and rasps, blood lining the crevices of his pearly teeth, “You’re just like me.”

Tommy falters, dread slamming into his skull like an anvil.

Dream breaks their standstill and steps forward.

“You don’t want to be alone,” another step, “You don’t want people to change, you don’t want people to move on. You don’t want people to leave you,” another, “Me and you, we’re the same. People don’t understand us. They could have it all, we could give it to them if they only gave back a little faith, but no,” he sneers, “They don’t understand, but we do. We’re destined for greatness; the two of us. That’s why we’re here together! Us two, friends, we understand.”

What the fuck is he talking about?

“What’d you,” he swallows, “What’d you mean?”

Dream muses, “People take the two of us for granted, you know? We could hand them everything on a silver platter and they still push us away. They’re ungrateful. Disgusting and ungrateful, but us, together, we can do so much! We can show them the world and take it away. You should cherish me, Tommy. We could make them understand, just the two of us! And then he’ll--” he stops, “They’ll come crawling back. We were never welcome, but can you imagine?  Wouldn’t that be nice, Tommy? To get back at everyone who ever hurt you? How exciting is that?”

“You’re fucking crazy,” his voice wavers, bewilderment arctic cold, “I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about, but you’re actually fucked in the head. You’re a fucking loony.”

Dream laughs, raw and sore, “They don’t want people like us, Tommy. We were never welcome there. We were never wanted from the start.”

Vexation flares and howls in his chest, alight with unbridled resentment.

“You’re wrong!” Tommy screams at him, clenching his teeth, “It’s-- it’s you who they don’t want. Fucking look at yourself, man,” He gestures at Dream’s bloody nose with his axe, “They’re all seeing just how screwed up you really are. They’re done with you, you-- you know they’re done with you.”

Dream’s fingers twitch inward as if something slipped right through his hands. He swipes at the blood trickling down his chin, smearing it to his jaw. He takes a long, dragging step further, boot scraping against the dirt like an executioner's axe clawing a courtyard floor.

“Huh, you think?” He asks and Tommy can’t tell whether it’s loaded or not, but he’s willing to test it.

He fights against the tremors in his arms, “Yeah, yeah I fucking do.”

Dream pauses, and the whole world skids to a stop with him. He heaves in a breath, strained, a bend against the final straw.

“Give me the photos, Tommy.”

How does he know they’re photos?

The pictures bend and crease within the scrap of shirt in his grip.

He’ll have to pry them from his cold, dead hands.

You don’t control me anymore.

I won’t let you.

“No.”

“Tommy,” Dream grits, “Give it to me.”

“Not on your fucking life,” he sneers.

Dream outstretches his hand, tense as a bow. “Tommy, now.”

Tommy glares at him like the vermin Dream is.

“Tommy, listen to me: you’re going to give it to me, you’re going to dig yourself a hole, and throw all of your things in. I’ll detonate you with it if I have to,” Dream snarls and his hand trembles like he’s one step away from snapping Tommy’s spine in two.

He stands his ground.

“I’m-- Dream, I’m gonna fucking leave, and you’re not gonna stop me.” It's not a request.

“You’re--” Dream chuckles acidicly, “Tommy, Tommy. You need me. You’d die without me and you know it.” The curve of his lips is uneasy, faltering; like realization has slid into place.

Tommy’s heart pounces on it, “Good. I don’t fuckin’ need you.”

Dream’s lip curls in disdain, shoulders jumping like he rammed a dagger straight through his gut.

Tommy’s chest flutters sweetly. His body pulses.

“You’re the one who needs me, huh?” A smile snakes its way onto his face, “Yeah, that’s it. You need me. And you’re fucking scared of me leaving.”

Dream’s breath stutters.

His blood sings.

He huffs half a laugh, electrified, “You’re right pathetic, you know?”

“You won’t leave me. I’ve got you wrapped around my finger and you know I do. I’ve got everyone wrapped around my finger,” he says incredulously, “You won’t, Tommy, you need me-- I kept you safe, I’m protecting you. We’re safe here, you’ll be all alone, Tommy. Tommy, you’ll be all alone.”

Tommy watches in awe, rising intoxication red-hot and voracious eating up his veins in fiery licks as Dream splutters desperately. Like he’s scrambling for table scraps, clawing at the bottom of the bowl. Water puddles under his feet worthlessly; dingy, ugly, infected spots eating at the dirt under his boots, rotting the soil. He grits his teeth like he’s ready to tear Tommy’s throat out but can’t work his feet forward. Tremors wrack his bones, inflamed, like the walls are folding in all around him. It’s the most miserable thing Tommy’s ever seen.

No wonder Dream likes hurting him.

It’s exhilarating.

“Maybe-- maybe you’re the lonely one, Dream. And you’re keeping me here because you know no one can fucking stand you. No one wants you near them.”

Dream doesn’t dignify it with a response.

“Dream,” Tommy’s voice drips narcotically, “I’m gonna leave, and you’ll never see me again.”

Silence stretches out between the two of them, brewing.

He forces back the small, incistent niggling at the base of his skull that he truly, royally, indefinitely fucked up.

The seconds tick on.

Dream withdraws his hand, curling in his fingers. The patch of skin that peeks out from behind the mask is wiped blank.

“How many photos do you have in there, Tommy?”

What?

“How many photos, Tommy?” Dream repeats frigidly.

Frost climbs down his back, “Doesn’t fucking matter.”

“Oh,” the emptiness of it sets him back on edge. “Then, you won’t miss just one, will you?”

Dream slides a hand into his back pocket and slips out a crisp, waxy piece of paper.

And in between his fingers, slitted right between his index and middle, sits a photo of Tubbo.

One of his photos of Tubbo.

Terror strikes him between the ribs.

“You, you--” Tommy stutters, “Fucking prick, how’d you--”

Dream twirls it idly, “I’m not stupid, Tommy. You were doing so, so good, I almost thought I wouldn’t even have to check around at all. I never thought it’d be you of all people to hide things from me. It’s a shame, really, it is.”

Moonlight catches the gloss of the paper, curving and flashing dully. He watches it spin, around and around in Dream’s fingers, Tubbo’s carefree face flickering back and away.

He’s paralyzed, transfixed on the single, fine sheet of paper that encapsulates Tommy’s world pivoting without care. He doesn’t know how many photos he really has, the weight of them had always sat just right in his hands, but now, with one right there, one long, gaping arms-reach away, the awareness of the space missing in the pocket of cloth is infinite.

His heart beats in his ears without thrill, only in piercing horror.

“I don’t like hurting you, Tommy,” he clips, flavorless, “But it’s time for me to put you back in your place.”

Dream pinches his fingers around each side of Tubbo and shreds his face in half.

Tommy lunges.

He screams, charging at Dream and swinging his axe like a madman. Dream rushes at him, grappling at the hook of it. He rips it right out of his hands, throwing Tommy to the floor with it. Dream’s knee drives into his spine and vices his lungs. Tommy wheezes and scrambles at the hand fisting his scalp, yanking him up harshly.

His forehead’s beaten against the floor before he can claw them off. Dream cracks his head against the dirt, seizing him up and diving it back down. Tommy hacks, vision swimming with black and blood, his ears ring and swallow up his senses in piercing shrills. His teeth grind against the ground, chipping. His throat shrieks for air, in the throw of it he twists and snaps himself back, kicking Dream square in the chin.

Dream stumbles off of him, Tommy launches himself up and tackles him against the wall’s cauldron with a resounding bang. They fold over each other, his ribs to Dream’s back. Dream’s scrambling to swivel and throw him back down but he just crumples over him further. His vision spots and blurs and he doesn’t give in. Tommy constricts his arm around Dream’s stomach, locks his other around his neck. He plunges his head into the water.

Dream’s floundering, water sloshing and swallowing up his face. He frantically struggles against Tommy’s weight on his back and neck, jolting.

Tommy grunts, latches onto him, leans all his weight into him. Dream’s thrashing, screaming muffled by the cauldron.

His feet clamber for purchase. In the watery outline of his eyes, his axe lays right by his feet.

He rips his arm from Dream’s chest, reaching, loses his grip and Dream whips his head up from the water. He chokes and sputters, hacking in air.

Tommy hurls himself towards the axe handle. He dives for it. Dream’s fist clocks him in the back of the head like a bullet train.

He cries, contorting himself back around, reaching out for him. Dream falls after him and Tommy fists a hand in the collar of his sweater.

“You--” Dream’s teeth are bared, stained with blood. “Tommy, Tommy--”

Blotches dance around his vision, eyes stinging, he grasps onto the handle with his other hand. Swings and welts Dream right in his temple.

Dream howls, mask corner shattering in a pearly spray. Tommy sways and shoves Dream back up against the cauldron’s rim. He fists up the tangled stands of Dream’s hair and rams his head back in.

He claws at the sides, but Tommy doesn’t slip up again. He bends Dream neck-deep into it, hooks the pickaxe head around his Adam's apple. He pushes Dream’s head forward, yanks the axe’s edge against his throat and squeezes.

Dream convulses, trying to dislodge himself from under Tommy’s weight in a frenzy, water spilling over the cauldron’s edges down to the floor. He’s screeching under the thrashes of water, jerking and snapping his whole body frantically. Bubbles foam up and his whole body jerks. Tommy pulls the axe hook back further.

And then, it stops.

Slowly, he wilts, body falling limp. His hands unlatch from the sides and drop into the small pool with an echoing splash. The water stills. The silence is ghostly. Blood fans out, veins and rivulets snaking across its dead surface. He falls loose in Tommy’s arms.

A tiny, sharp ping fills his ears.

Tommy blinks, tremoring.

His communicator.

Carefully, he smooths his finger behind his ear. Runs it over the small, circular button linked to the device in his ear. He clicks it and opens the message.

The words nail into his skull.

“𝗗𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 𝗱𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗹𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗿𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼 𝗲𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗲 𝗧𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘆𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗶𝘁”

… what?

His eyes lull over to the motionless, quiet body draped under him.

He didn’t actually…

The axe slides from his grip, clattering to the floor. He cautiously slips a hand to Dream’s hood, setting his other on his back and with fearful focus, pries him off of where he’s bent slack. He drags against the floor in a loud, crackling scrape, overwhelming the silence. His head snaps to the side with gravity and Tommy jumps. Panic arrows through him, he stumbles back and rips his hands away as if they’ll burst into flames.

Dream drops against the ground with a cavernous thud. His arms stretch out lazily, lifelessly, a puppet’s strings cut loose. His soot-scraped, sanguinary mask bores hauntingly up at him.

Tommy raises a hand back to his ear and looks over the death message again, scrolling over his eyelids.

There’s no fucking way.

He treads closer. One foot in front of the other, sneakers heavy as anchors. His heart pumps in his ears, throbs, eats at his skull and twists up in his chest like a serrated knife. It beats and bites, scraping, trying to gut him alive, and he hitches over his breath.

He crouches down, pops open the latches on the mask’s sides, and flicks it off. It tumbles onto the dirt with a hollow wobble.

Wide, glassy eyes gape back at him. As if someone thrust their hand into his chest and carved up all of his insides, leaving nothing but a vacant, empty husk. Shot with fraying threads of red and sunken with deep bruises. Blood clots around his nose and dribbles down to his lips, meeting with the trail down his temple. Scars and scrapes are clawed across his skin, over the bridge of his nose and down to his dimples, raw and real. They scuff over the swashes of freckles that poke at every crevice and wrinkle. Dream’s mouth is agape, lips slitted open slackly, face blanched in a sickly, ghostly ashen, paler than the ivory moonlight.

There is no bobbing of his throat. His hand does not reach up to dig Tommy back into the floor. There is no jeer, no fingers in his hair. His lips do not work around words.

Shakily, Tommy puts two fingers to his neck, searching for a pulse.

He’s met with nothing but cold skin.

He waits a few long, crawling seconds.

There is no movement.

Only silence.

Dream’s dead.

Dream’s really dead.

Tommy killed him.

Tommy killed Dream.

It finally reaches him.

A stone tossed to a pond, it’s swallowed up and ripples to the edges.

A string licked up by candle flame, scorching it down to the bone.

The thread frays.

It sparks in two.

And he snaps.

Tommy collapses to the floor, swaying. He flings a hand out to catch himself, the world around him spinning back into focus tenfold in whirring, roaring hums and heartbeats. Shock’s beaten from his skull and everything’s pounding, his heart beats deafeningly in his ears, it drums and shakes and jostles him down to his bones and slips the ground out from under him because oh my fucking god, what the fuck, what the fuck what the fuck he did it, he actually did it--

He keens over and coughs, spitting up blood, the base of his head hammering with bruising pain, he pulls at his hair, screwing his eyes closed and letting the pain batter him up on all sides. There’s blood everywhere, it’s sprayed on his shirt and leaking under Dream’s limp corpse, pooling there, stretching, he’s rotting there, right next to him and Tommy’s so cold, he’s so cold-- he’s so fucking cold but wildfire ravages his head, his eyes scorch and melt and he doesn’t know what to do, what does he do--

He didn’t-- he didn’t know he really could, he didn’t know Dream could die, he didn’t know he could kill him, he just wanted to leave-- Dream deserved it for not letting him leave, he had it coming, he had it all coming--

He had it coming--

Someone had to do it, someone had to do it before-- before he got out of fucking control, no one listened, he had to, he had to--

It had to be him.

Someone had to take a life from him eventually--

Dream had to be put back in his place.

He pauses.

Yeah, yeah.

He did good.

Dream had to be put back in his place.

It was about time anyways.

Tommy drops his hands from his hair and tilts his head dazedly towards Dream’s corpse. His whole face is lack, perpetually petrified, gawking vacantly past the ceiling with his fingers folded in rigidly. He’s open and organic on the floor. Grotesquely still, limp and heavy, scars etched into his snow-white face in undeniably human skin, he’s anything but the monster that stalked around Tommy’s head. He’s not some untouchable being that tugged him by the strings, not a faceless menace, he’s flesh and blood. He’s human.

He’s just some blond prick whose ego got too big for his head. He’s got handfuls of freckles thrown over his bleaching cheeks and a bit of acne by his chin. There are laugh lines creased into his face, front teeth skewed just a bit and skin peeling from his chapping lips.

He’s really just some fucking guy.

That’s all he is.

A giggle bubbles up in his chest, rolling over his shoulders and seizing up his throat. It’s funny, God, it’s fucking hilarious because he let some bastard with a power trip jerk him around like a dog on a leash. It’s pathetic, it’s so fucking pitiful and he can’t stop, cackling over dry air incredulously. The singed edges of mania stretch a smile across his lips so wide his cheeks might tear.

He tugs Dream towards him by the front of his hood and his stone-still face rolls towards him. Dream doesn’t blink back.

Tommy hiccups over a crackle of laughter, aching and lungs scorching up every breath in molten wax. Fire cackles at his ribs and blackens them to ash, he can’t stop quivering and disbelief, vigor, unbridled ecstasy twists his heart out and throws his organs to the floor, eats up and cards through his veins narcotically. He soaks it up like rags to blood, he can’t get enough.

He sweeps his hand behind him against the dirt, skimming against his discarded axe. He picks it up and tentatively butts it up against Dream’s throat. It shoves against the long, irritated dip indented into his skin, a thin cut running across it. It rivers down sanguine and curves to the floor in a thin, wiry stream.

He leans the axe into it. Red beads up and globs down thicker.

It’s mesmerizing.

Tommy must look insane, crouched over the dead body of his tormentor, but he doesn’t care.

He wants to know how much he can make Dream bleed.

He untucks the axe from under Dream’s chin. Experimentally, Tommy drags the pick down his freckled cheek. The skin splits open, blood puddling up and oozing to the surface. Bubbles over the edges of the torn fibers of flesh, seeping down like an egg yolk popped under the prong of a fork. It paints his cheek red, biting against his paling complexion and flushing up his face with his last stale ends of life.

“You’ve got,” Tommy strains over a hitched breath, “You’ve got a real ugly mugg, you know?”

Dream doesn’t answer.

“You fucking like how it feels, big man? All-- all bloody and shit, all alone, no one to help you or anything. Fucking like it?” He asks, a gaping pit of something gnawing at his chest.

The corpse stays quiet.

“Nothing to fucking say. You’re real pathetic, you know that?”

Silence.

“You had this coming you stupid prick,” his hands tremor and he stomps back the voice at the back of his head screaming what am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing?

He drowns it out with scraping the axe blade across Dream’s other cheek, right down to the corner of his lips. The pick grains over his teeth like nails to a chalkboard. It catches the plush skin, bursting with gorey globs.

His dead eyes burn into Tommy’s skull.

Tommy stutters, “Stop fucking-- stop fucking looking at me like that. You don’t get to do shit, bitch. You deserve this.”

Dream doesn’t dignify him with a response.

“I did good, Dream,” he laughs uneasily, “I did fucking good. You deserve-- I just-- you don’t,” you don’t get to lay here like you’ve done nothing wrong. “You deserve this."

He doesn’t stop staring.

Resentment rips through Tommy’s chest right down to his core. He swells with rage.

He heaves up the axe and rams it through Dream’s eye.

It pops and squirts up in arterial spray, frothing over the socket and flooding down his face. It squelches and foams and he swings it up, rams it back down and cleaves his face open. The cartilage of his nose mangles like he’s been thrown through a wood chipper and Tommy doesn’t stop. There’s a primal animal in him that hacks off Dream’s face, scrapes off the muscle to the floor in salmon chunks. He tears and tears and tears into the creases in his face down to his pearly skull, butchers him down to his sockets and teeth and God, he really can’t stop-- velvet ruptures up and eats him up to nothing but an indistinguishable ooze of gore and meat and bone.

The corpse’s shoulders jump with every hack, spasming under him but he doesn’t care; his head whirls dizzyingly and his lungs are light but he doesn’t care. Snot and tears claw down Tommy’s face and dig ravines into his flesh.

The world spindles together and bolts down through his ribs, drags his breath down and spins his head. He hyperventilates over burn-cold air and his vision teeters blurrily.

It pillages his head feverishly, scrapes him up and howls gutturally and Tommy keeps cleaving.

Dream deserves this.

He deserves this.

He deserves this.

He deserves this.

You deserve this.

Something below him cracks like thunder.

Tommy stops.

The darkness that bites at his vision begins to swim away. Something sits heavy in his hand. Under him, too. He shifts the weight between his hands. Right, the axe. He’s holding an axe. It’s no longer a stone hook on a handle. It sheens with blood.

Slowly, he peers down.

He doesn’t know what’s looking back at him. It’s head-- it’s skull is caved in, folded in and leaking with pus. Its whole face is disfigured and skinned like it’s been dragged face-down through a forest fire. Its teeth and bones are drenched in blood, dribbling down into its shaggy hair sprawled out under the mangled mass. Muscle leeches off of it at its jaw and clots on the floor. The only sliver of life he can see is the plush flesh of its lips, gummy and split into pieces.

The gushing blood flickers in and out of focus as he follows it to the puddle under him.

Where it meets a green sweater.

Where the expanding edges of the blood meet the torn half of a photo.

Where it meets the blood-soaked face of Tubbo.

He looms over Dream’s disfigured, battered corpse, gradually catching up to himself.

Tommy snaps back together, and his mind falls back into place.

And he screams.

He vaults off of Dream, tumbling to the ground and cramping into the dirt. His chest is damp with blood soaking through his shirt. His cheeks are wet with salt and sticky with blood and he crumples. His heart jackhammers through his skull like it’s trying to crack him open and eat him whole.

Why is he--

What--

What did--

He doesn’t hyperventilate but fuck he’s going to pass out. Shock and disbelief pins his lungs down before they can scramble over each other and it hurts, it hurts so fucking bad and he doesn’t-- he doesn’t understand, the thrill is gone and he’s alone, he’s scared, he’s terrified, he’s--

Ash floats up and fades into the air. It eats at the edges of Dream’s blood, licking it black and lapping it up in embers. His body begins to steadily flake away under the moonlight.

Dream’s respawning.

Tommy almost faints.

He can’t stay here. He needs to leave as fast as he can.

Tommy lurches up to his feet, knees nearly buckling him back to the floor. Something syrupy dries in the creases of his palms and it’s blood, he knows it’s blood but he doesn’t dare look.

Through his haze, a niggling itch tugs at him, and he shakily turns back towards the ashing corpse.

Tubbo’s tarnished, smiling face beams back at him in blood. It’s only a scrap of him, one half of a pair, but it rears up yearning’s ugly head anyways.

He stumbles over to the torn photo and stuffs it in his pocket with the rest. The pickaxe lays discarded in the blood-stained dirt, fanged and satisfied. It’s the final push.

In the dead of night, Tommy bolts.

Tommy doesn’t know where he’s going, but the air’s getting more frigid by the minute and he doesn’t know much longer he’ll last until he collapses. He barreled out of his cruddy house through the forest trees and kept pushing through the vegetation until he landed himself on the outskirts of a snowy tundra. His face is caked with sanguine fluids and aches heavy under the rims of his eyes. He’s given nothing but the howl of the wasteland wind to follow.

The moon’s curved far past him now, closer to the horizon and leaking silvery light through the wafts of snowfall that blanket the ground in powdery white sheets. It shimmers against the pearly ground softly and luminously like sunshine flaring against the ocean’s surface. The flecks of stars have been long swallowed up by the stirring beginnings of a blizzard that sheer down harder with every trudge of his feet through the piled snow. Spruce trees remain rigidly rooted into the ground, clotting up over the steep mountains and cliffs, scooping up the powdery ice in their thick branches. Frost has weeded into his hair down to his scalp, chewing up his skin and thrumming against his scars. The glacial air bites into his nose pricking it a rosy, irritated red. The only sliver of warmth he can grasp onto is his unkempt hair that covers his neck.

His teeth chatter incessantly like a windup toy sprung loose and he clamps his arms around himself. Tommy can’t feel his hands. They’re blistered so cold and purple he thinks that if he opens them, his fingers might snap off.

This is shit, he thinks, and prays that he won’t keel over and die here. Isolated, alone in the snow, frozen stuck to the ground with everything else. Fall flat into the blankets of powdery white on the ground and sink away forever. What a fucking way to go.

The sleet beats down harder now, leaning into an icy snowstorm and he curses internally. He’s too fucking freezing to work his lips around any real words anyways.

The blizzard swarms around him and fogs up the outlines of the ridges and trees blearily, as if it’s encapsulating him in an icy blanket and twisting him up dry. His feet grow heavier with every heave through the snow, blanching up his legs and he must be washed with frostbite by now. He trudges himself to the closest tree that spots up in his line of sight and leans his shoulder against it. The abrasive bark digs into his shirt bitterly.

Tommy glances down at the back his hands. They’re paling and waxy, tingling with frost and he keeps them firmly planted on his arms. He really, really wishes he wasn’t stuck in a fucking baseball shirt of all things, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. The piercing air nips at his cheeks like a bitch and his head is leaden with dreary heaviness. His eyes fall shut achingly and he leans forward into the darkness of his eyelids. Maybe if he slips away, even just for a moment, he’ll be able to muster up enough strength to lumber himself further and out of the storm.

Yeah, yeah that’s it. He can rest for a bit. He’s far away from the prairie behind him, he’ll be fine.

He begins to slide down the tree, bark digging into his back and frostbite dragging him away. Just one minute. Just one minute and he’ll be on his way.

Dull ache slides all around him.

He’ll be fine.

“Hello?”

Surprise shakes him awake and Tommy’s eyes snap open. He shoots up straight, back shucking against the tree and he hisses through his teeth. His head whips frantically, combing the sleets of spearing snow for a silhouette. The flickering gray continues to fall and roar against the ground.

“Tommy!” It’s light and carefree, joyful, and right next to his ear.

Tommy swivels his head to the side.

There, under the dull spruce leaves, hands looped around the tree trunk, stands his dead brother.

He gapes.

Wilbur curves back a grin.

He’s hallucinating. The blizzard is making him hallucinate, making him see weird shit with all of the frostbite. That’s what this is. Fucking great.

Wilbur shimmers translucent, willowy and illuminated by the creamy moonlight that barely pokes through the billows of clouds. A crisp, anchor gray beanie is pulled snug over his head, delicately contrasting the fleecy swirls of hair that curl out from under it. He’s snuggled up in a dandelion turtleneck, thrashed right through the middle and nostalgia bursts painfully in his chest; all he can think of is sweet mountain air and rolling, flower-filled meadows. His head is tilted to the side curiously, a bashful smile settled onto his ghostly face so intimately Wilbur it nearly makes him cry. His brother blinks at him owlishly.

“Oh my goodness, Tommy!” Wilbur beams, “I can’t believe how big you’ve gotten!”

He resists the urge to reach out to the hallucination. “What’re you,” he coughs over the cold, “What’re you doin’ here, Wilbur?”

Wilbur’s lips turn down. Not quite a frown, not quite a pout.

“My name’s not Wilbur, it’s Ghostbur! We’ve already met, but here,” he says easily, holding out a pasty hand.

Tommy couldn’t even shake it if he wanted to, his growing frostbite gnaws him still. “Wil, what’re you doin’ here?”

This time, Wilbur actually does pout.

“Ghostbur, Tommy. My name’s Ghostbur!” He scolds, but it’s light, “I’ve been-- well, if I’m honest, I went out for a stroll but couldn’t get back home in time. I get all melty in the snow, you see.”

To punctuate his point, Wil-- Ghostbur holds up his hand. It drips, colorless skin running into a soft blue, falling onto the snow below.

“Oh,” Tommy says like it makes sense. It doesn’t. He wonders if the blizzard will make his hallucination any more bizarre.

“Anyways, I stopped at this little house -- it’s lovely, really -- and the snow finally started letting up so I thought I’d go for a walk, but now it’s storming and--”

“Wait,” Tommy interrupts, “little house?”

“Oh yes! It’s really quite nice. Candles on the walls, pictures hung around. It’s very homey,” Ghostbur explains easily.

Maybe Tommy wouldn’t freeze to death after all. He can’t count on it too soon though.

His brow furrows, “Wil-- Ghostbur. Ghostbur, where’s this house?”

“Oh!” Ghostbur exclaims, moving to the far edge of the tree’s cover, “Right about over… there!”

His flickering form points over to the deepest part of the storm. Tommy leans over towards Ghostbur and narrows his eyes, lashes flecked with powdery snow. Through churning ice that spirals and yowls tumultuously, faint, waxy light pulsates far in the distance. That definitely wasn’t there last he checked. Maybe the blizzard’s fucking with his eyes too. Blinking hard, he refocuses, and the pale light still throbs, almost brighter. As if it bloomed to life with Ghostbur’s presence alone.

It’s a godsend Tommy’s too worn to question.

“Take me to it,” he strains.

“Oh, sure! But uhm, I’m in a bit of a predicament. I think I might melt away for good if I step out there too long,” Ghostbur laughs airily.

The cold wraps around his throat and claws itself to his chest. His eyes are sunk heavy, deep and drumming, beckoning him to sink to the snow-coated floor. Tommy’s barely moving but he feels so, so slow. He doesn’t know how much longer he’ll last.

“J-- just take me to it. Or, or guide me or some shit,” he slurs, head dropping, “Help me.”

Ghostbur considers. Not maliciously, not out of anything rotten or ill, he just blinks. Flicks over Tommy’s words like he’s flipping through an old scrapbook. Something familiar flutters over his face before settling into an open warmth.

“Of course, Toms,” He softens, dimples and all, and fuck Tommy’s brain for making him feel so real.

“We’ll have to be fast though. You think you can jog a bit?” Ghostbur asks, floating back over to him.

“F-- fuck no,” Tommy’s teeth chatter, “But I’ll, I’ll fuckin’ try.”

“Alright then,” he wraps a hand around Tommy’s wrist and it pricks slightly, oddly comforting. It’s not violently bitter or predatory like the snowstorm, but gentle and refreshing. Like the cool side of Tommy’s worn, faded pillow in Phil’s old place or the open air of a high mountain sunrise.

“Ready?” Ghostbur asks curiously. Tommy nods.

“Then we’re off!”

Ghostbur glides right out from under the tree and Tommy throws himself up to follow.

His brother’s hand phases right through his wrist, wafting through him, and he sluggishly chases it. The whiteout flashes and screeches in his ears, rips its teeth through his spine right to the marrow. Tommy’s nearly knocked to the ground right there but he drags himself forward, stumbling one sneaker in front of the other in the assault of ice and wind.

Ghostbur’s winking in and out in front of him. He can’t tell if he’s melting like he said he would, he’s fatally lethargic and the edges of his vision are losing color. He’s beckoning him, turtleneck stark against the snowstorm and Tommy latches onto it like a lifeline.

One step forward, another. He’s frighteningly numb. He hooks onto the rhythm of his shifting feet. His lucidity is slipping right through his fingers, but he doesn’t stop.

He doesn’t know how long he’s walking for, but before he can fall flat into the snow, Ghostbur’s right in his face.

“Here, Tommy! Right here, let’s get you inside,” he gestures to the sudden dark structure in front of Tommy, phasing through what he thinks is a double door.

The cottage’s outline is fuzzy, fading in and out of his grasp with ease, but he can make out the bright panels of windows that line the front wall. They flood with light and chase away the snow. A railing fences up on each side of the spruce stairs in front of him, and with shaking legs, he leans up against them and climbs his way up. He trips forward, barreling head first into the door with a thwack. It swings open and Tommy stumbles directly inside the house.

He trips over the velvet blur of a rug and dives his forehead into the floor. Pain gongs into his head and he groans, falling limp with ease. Heat surges all around him and fills him up, gradually thawing him of the ice that stalls his veins. He soaks it in and spreads his arms wide open onto the warm floor like a flower’s petals opening for sunshine. He exhales contentedly.

“Oh, Tommy,” Ghostbur says from overhead, “How is the floor?”

It’s not even snarky, just a genuine question. Tommy grunts dismissively. Sluggishly, he turns himself on his back, trying to blink back the ache hammering into him. It doesn’t work.

Ghostbur’s hovering above him, arms hanging down and watching Tommy with wide, pupiless eyes.

He suddenly looks taken aback, face twisting up with worry.

“Tommy, you look awful!” He cries, nose scrunched.

Tommy nearly laughs, but it tumbles into a cough instead.

“Yeah, no shit.”

“No, but-- but you’re so,” Ghostbur stumbles for the word, “Red!”

Confusion spikes into the coherent part of his head alongside nervousness. Ghostbur’s distress sets him on edge.

“The fuck you mean?” Tommy squints up at him.

Ghostbur desperately searches his pockets, “Red's awful, Tommy! You’re drenched in it! Look at you! Oh my goodness, you need some blue--”

With growing anxiety, Tommy sits up. Vertigo slams into him and he shoots his hand to his temple. With dizziness swimming around his head, he glances down at his shirt.

He blanches.

He forgot he’s soaked in Dream’s blood.

There’s barely any trace of his shirt’s creamy color left, dyed stark in sickly, wine red. It puddles over his red cotton sleeves, splatters and freckles over his torn jeans. Claws up to the top of his shoes and spots over his laces like it was trying to drag him six feet under. He shakily scans over his palms and there’s no trace of skin left. It’s stained in gore. Like he mauled himself out of the gut of some ravenous beast and ate up the rest of it down to its bones.

The pungent smell of copper overwhelms him and he retches. Turns and presses his forehead to the ground, bile rising up his throat. Tommy clamps a hand over his mouth to stop himself from throwing up and his stomach flips. He’s going to hurl up everything he has, he’s going to be sick all over the carpet. Or pass out. Maybe both.

He grasps the tasseled ends of the luxurious carpet so much it might rip. The same hand that slotted around the pickaxe like a glove, like it was waiting for him. Like it was meant to be.

“It’s time for me to put you back in your place,” Dream whispers in his ears.

Tommy wants to go home.

Liquid flecks across his face and a bleary lump lands in front of him with a splat.

He draws himself back out of his half consciousness, focusing his eyes around the clumpy, mushy schlop of something in front of it. Not quite the color of lapis, it’s indigo in its creases and deep, ocean blue at its edges. It puddles around itself on the corner of the carpet.

He glances up wearily at Ghostbur, who’s watching him expectantly.

“It’s blue!” He declares, “It will help you feel better.”

Tommy blinks heavily. Yeah, definitely the weirdest thing his brain’s cooked up yet.

“Th-- thanks,” he rasps, curving his hand in around it.

He nearly jumps. It’s wet. It’s wet and organic and he can feel it, clotted and damp in his hand.

He’s way too fucking tired for this.

But he scoops up what bits of it he can get his hand around anyways, stuffing it in his pocket. Ghostbur beams at him contentedly.

Tommy coughs, “Hey, Ghostbur. Where are we?”

“Oh! Well, to be honest, I’m not too sure. I sort of stumbled on it, but it’s quite charming, don’t you think?”

With the house’s warmth filling him up to the brim, he shakily hauls himself up into a sitting position. The walls are white as the snow that scrapes by the windows, glossy-smooth and connected to spruce support beams that run by the corners of the room. Wooden chests are tucked against the wall by the sheltered fireplace by the far side, cackling alive and smoking up the chimney shaft that extends far up through what looks like another floor. Quaint tables and coves of knickknack-filled shelves line the walls by the brewing stand in the corner. A ladder leads up to the next floor by the crafting table. The easy-access, trapdoor window covers set him a bit on edge, but it oddly reminds him of his childhood home. It brings him a bit of familiarity alongside the honey glow of the candlelight casted on the walls.

Ghostbur’s right: the house is charming and endearing as can be.

A gust of frosty air whooshes over him and he shivers. He trains his eyes on the double doors, one cracked open just a hair. He pulls himself up to his feet and slams it closed. It rattles the door frame in a chattering echo.

His eyebrows furrow. Why was the door cracked in the first place? Someone lives here, right? Why would they leave the door open in the middle of a storm?

He turns back to the comforting glow of the house. Ghostbur hovers about, tilting his head inquisitively at the clutters of parchment and quills on one of the small tables. Ink’s splattered all over and drips to the floor steadily.

Now that Tommy looks around, things are clattered all around the house. Small things, nothing too glaringly out of place. The carpet by the downstairs ladder is folded over itself like someone slipped over it in a rush. The trapdoor there is latched open. The scrape of a sword etches into the floorboards. He tries to ignore the curved smile of a mask he sees in its arch.

The house has definitely been lived in. Someone definitely took their time caring for it, too.

Whose place is this?

And what happened?

As comforting as the cottage is, he’s not sure he wants to find out.

“Oh my, there’s sure a lot of stuff down here,” Ghostbur’s head phases up from the trapdoor entrance.

He shuffles over to Ghostbur, who floats back down the ladder once Tommy peers his head down. It leads down to what he thinks is a basement. All he can see is the stone slabs of the floor and the sharp corner of a chest.

Carefully, he climbs down the ladder, feeling starting to come back to his fingers and feet. He lands down and turns around.

The basement is small, much more compact and closed-in than the first floor, but it’s completely packed with rows of chests. They’re all squished back towards the corner of the room where Ghostbur’s phased halfway through them, gawking at what he assumes are the chests’ contents.

Ghostbur looks back at him with a trouble-free smile, “Really, it’s quite impressive.”

He shuffles over to one of the chests with rising curiosity. Clasping his fingers around the latch, Tommy pries it open.

“Holy shit!” He screeches.

He’s absolutely floored. It’s a tresuretrove. Golden apples, enchantment books, enchanted armor and weapons, home-grown vegetables, it’s packed with riches.

He throws open another chest. It’s stocked with potions, shimmering iridescently in the pale torchlight, glittering in sunset pinks and sapphire blues. Name tags are ribboned around the bottlenecks in smooth, winding cursive. It catches on him and makes him stall, like a word on the tip of his tongue. It’s almost familiar. He can’t place why.

He doesn’t hook on it for long. He yanks one up so hard it nearly shatters against the rest of the bottles. Tommy pops off the cork and downs the strength potion like a deserted man to water. He frantically shoves more into his inventory. Fire resistance, strength, healing, anything he can get. He digs back into the other chest and yanks out the enchanting shine of a diamond sword, stuffing it back into his inventory with handfuls of golden apples. Takes one of the gleaming fruits and scarfs it down in three bites flat.

Ghostbur hovers by his side, watching him with big, glassy eyes.

“Slow down Tommy, you’ll choke,” he laughs. “Feeling any better?”

Tommy nods, chomping another apple right down to the core. “Very.”

“I’m glad,” Ghostbur smiles, and it’s brighter than the sun.

Tommy’s glad too. The bruised weight under his eyes is already beginning to lift along with the bone-deep ache in his muscles. The tiredness is starting to fall away, sinking down and away through the floor like it was never there at all. Frostbite long gone, Tommy feels more alive than he has in a very, very long time.

Still, he could really use a fucking nap.

He still doesn’t know whose house this is, but surely they won’t miss a few items, right? The clink of the bottles in his inventory gives him a sense of security to lean into. Yeah, this is fine.

He can just hollow out his own little room and hide in there for a few days. Just until he can find his feet and get far, far away from here. No one will mind. He’ll just get his bearings and get out of here for good.

His eyes fall back to Ghostbur, who’s tracing the dents and carvings in the walls with childlike wonder. Who’s dressed in Wilbur’s old turtleneck he never used to go out without, back when he was thirteen and young and happy. Who’s here, with him.

Tommy’s not sure why his brother’s not fading away with his delirium, but maybe he shouldn’t question it.

He’s probably lost it. He should be worried.

But for once, Tommy’s not alone. He won’t take that for granted.

So he digs his hands in the stacks of chests, crams his inventory full of tools and treasures, and gets to work on his new room.

Ghostbur’s by his side the whole time.

Tommy doesn’t know when he drifts off. After carving out his own little cove of golden clay and lanterns, he found himself curled up against the wall with another strength potion in his hands. Guess strength potions don’t chase off the need for sleep for long.

The piercing slam of a door jolts him out of sleep, spasming awake. He blinks frantically against the sleepy gunk in the corners of his eyes, whipping his head around. The lanterns hooked up to the walls flutter just the same as they did before. The wool sheets are slewn across the bed in the corner, hugging up against the crafting table and furnace. It’s just the same as when he fell asleep.

Ghostbur’s nowhere to be seen.

His heart lurches. He tries not to let the inkling of panic swarm him, sinking into bitter disappointment instead. Of course he dreamt him up. Tommy’s not right in his fucking head, he has to have a few screws loose by now. Still, the encompassing awareness of how empty the room seems without him is nearly enough to boil him alive.

Tommy slides his hand into his pockets idly. His fingers roll over something flaky and confused, he pulls it out. Where he stuffed the blue that Ghostbur had thrown in front of him, he now holds a pile of something crunchy. Brittle and shriveled up miserably, they curl and waver like dried flowers, grinded down and stuck to his skin like chipped paint.

Maybe…

His mouth upturns half-heartedly.

Maybe Tommy isn’t delusional after all.

The ground above Tommy shakes.

He freezes.

Long, heavy footsteps drag over the floorboards.

It’s distant, but in his little room it’s deafening.

Shadows pass through the gaps between the spruce planks. Something large and burly and monstrous is right above him.

He holds his breath.

Someone’s here.

The wood squeaks. It’s going to cave in on him any minute. He knows it will, it’s going to snap in half and he’ll be tossed into the open like a sacrificial lamb. A scrap of meat thrown out for the dogs.

He can’t breathe.

If he breathes too loud, they’ll hear him.

Their weight drawls over him. It’s not liquid smooth like Dream, not calculated or poised. It’s a shred from barbaric and teeters the line on animalistic exhaustion. Like they’ve torn down cities and aren’t afraid to do it again. There is no hesitance. Only a short, tired temper in every step.

A blade shinks into the floorboard. He clamps a hand over his mouth to hide a gasp. It trails into the floor languidly with every footstep. They must be dragging a sword, maybe an axe.

Tommy’s trembling. He’s quivering like a child surrounded by their bedroom’s shadows and he doesn’t know how to stop.

Please, he begs, pushing himself into the closest corner. He cowers around their shifting shadow casted by the light above. Please don’t find me.

He has a diamond sword in his inventory. Diamond armor, too, enchanted in high levels and radiating security, but he can’t bring himself to put it on. Blood is roaring in his ears so thunderously his eardrums might pop. There’s only one way in and one way out and that’s up. He’s trapped.

Tommy can’t escape.

Chests creak open and slam. Wood knocks against something smooth and he thinks that’s the weapon being laid against the wall. The footsteps seep to the far side, away from Tommy.

What does he do?

This was the stupidest fucking idea he ever had. Why the fuck didn’t he just take a whole bunch of shit and leave when the storm cleared? Of course someone was going to come back.

He just didn’t think they’d come back so soon.

He’s an idiot.

Something scrapes against the wall and clatters to the floor. It shakes against the floor, pierces the air in a rattle. Tommy chokes over a yelp.

It’s loud.

The footsteps stop.

His heart shatters to the ground.

The creature haults for a moment. They’re listening.

He tries not to cry.

And then, cavernous over the silence, they grunt.

It’s guttural, hoarse. Like it's dug itself into their throat and lodged itself there. Worn, frayed, and hog-like.

Hog-like.

His heart stops for a moment.

It clicks into place.

The knick-knacks shoved up on the shelves.

The golden apples lining nearly each and every chest.

The smooth, unshakable cursive on the potion tags.

Techno.

His brother.

This is Techno’s house.

Tommy is in Technoblade’s house, and he’s darting straight to the trapdoor down to the basement.

Right where the tunnel to Tommy’s room is.

He's fucked.