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There’s a rock in his shoe.
Just a small one. He can feel it, digging into his heel, trapped between his foot and the padding of his one remaining shoe.
The air is warm, but not hot. It’s humid. He can feel the slight mist of water on his ankle, where the ocean water is-
Is-
Slowly streaming down into the huge crater he stands on the precipice of-
But he doesn’t think about that. Doesn’t think about anything. Doesn’t feel…. Anything.
(That’s a lie. He’s thinking and feeling everything , in the whole world, he thinks. Every atom crammed into his heart, clogging up the ventricles, forcing it to beat faster and faster till it threatens to fucking burst-)
Tommy doesn’t feel anything, except for the rock in his shoe, because he can’t afford to feel anything else.
It’s like the princess and the pea, he thinks. If the pea were the only thing standing between the princess and the endless abyss of isolation and desperation.
On second thought, Tommy can’t really remember a single thing about how the story actually goes, so.
“Tommy… You weren’t- you would never actually…. You know. ”
Tommy grinds his heel into the grass, and the rock sends a shock of dull pain through his ankle.
He tries not to think about how no matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop listening to Dream. The words go in one ear, and they get lost in the maze of his brain for so long that they’ll never even begin to see his other ear.
The words hurt. They do. He doesn’t want to listen to them anymore, because they hurt, and his head is fogged up and his ears ring continuously from being killed by such a loud explosion, which should’ve gone away when he woke back up in his bed so maybe it’s just him, just a trick his mind is trying to play on him, a phantom alarm, ringing and ringing and ringing-
The rock doesn’t hurt enough to distract him anymore, but Tommy keeps pressing it further into his heel.
But maybe he should listen. That’s what friends do, right? They listen, and they support, and they’re there for each other, and they help-
No.
No, that isn’t right.
Friends do what they’re told, and they don’t fight back.
A good friend doesn’t fight back.
And Tommy knows, because in the last few weeks, he’s become a really good friend to Dream.
He owes it to him, with how kind he’s been to him.
Visiting him, helping him build his path, giving him things and keeping him company, and taking things- taking it- taking everything.
He’s the best friend Tommy could ask for. He’s the only one who showed up to his party, after all.
“You’re here for a very long time, Tommy.”
God, he would give anything to stop the clock.
So he listens to Dream, and tries to ignore the static that begins to build in his chest.
He tells him he’s sorry. Really, Dream, he’s really sorry. Because he is; he brought this upon himself. It was selfish of him to think that he could hide things from Dream, who’d been his only friend. His only rock.
(He ignores the voice that tells him that Dream was both the rock and the storm.)
Dream tells him that nobody else can visit him. Nobody. Not his enemies. Not his friends. Not even Tubbo, whichever he counts as.
But then, he tells Tommy that he’ll visit him, and Tommy feels okay, for a millisecond. Because Dream’s his only real friend. The only one he needs.
But not every day, he’d said. And Tommy doesn’t feel okay anymore. The fragile candle flame that had weathered the wind between his ribs is suddenly extinguished, and the smoke wastes no time in filling up his chest cavity, creeping up his throat until he has the urge to cough or choke or vomit or all three just to get it out.
Dream tells him not every day. But once a week. At least, he’d said.
Tommy smiles, decaying, and ignores the sensation of smoke escaping between his teeth.
Dream asks him if the things he hid were to attack him. (Doesn’t Dream know that Tommy would never attack his best friend?)
“I just wanted a place where I could go, these are mine. These are my things.”
Because at this point, he really isn’t sure anything at all belongs to him. There is not a single thing that is really his, besides the things in his ender chest, but he’s certain that if Dream could access his ender chest, they wouldn’t be. They would be Dream’s, too, just like everything else.
Just like him.
He begins to wonder if he’s ever really belonged to himself. If he’s ever been his own.
He tells Dream he’s sorry.
He tells Dream he’s so sorry.
So sorry .
“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Tommy.”
He feels embers begin to spark in his stomach, a sharp heat that reminds him of the flecks of pain on his skin as ashes flutter up to meet him. He longs to go, to stand over the glowing sea, to feel that sense of longing. That instinct that tells him that to tip forward would take him home.
But then Dream tells him he isn’t allowed in the nether, either. He isn’t allowed to go home.
“I have been nothing but gracious to you.”
Somehow, this is what breaks Tommy.
Memories begin to skip behind his eyes like a film reel. Images of his tent, blown to smithereens; of countless sets of armor, welded into the dirt; of cold eyes, colder than Tubbo’s eyes should ever be, because of the decision Dream forced him to make; of Dream, tearing him away from the edge of his path, with a grip that is far to cruel and nails far too sharp for an action that should be kind.
“It’s not like they want you anyway, Tommy.”
The words ricochet off of the inside of Tommy’s skull like an echo chamber.
And Dream thinks that this makes him gracious.
So ungrateful, his mind whispers to him. It sounds like Schlatt. It sounds like Dream, too. It sounds like Wilbur and Techno and Niki. It sounds like everybody he’s ever known, and in a horrible, twisted way, it’s Tubbo’s voice that rings the loudest.
So ungrateful, to think of him like this. He’s the only one who was there for you. The only one who came to your party. The only one who didn’t pity you. The only one who helped you, and gave you his time, and protected and healed and looked after you. He’s the only one who cares.
The voice is reverent, and kind, and excruciating.
He’s the one who trapped, and scared, and hurt me, he thinks traitorously. He’s the reason I’m alone.
He takes a shuddering breath, and for a moment, he is paralysed with the fear that Dream has somehow heard his inner treason. That he’ll change his mind forever, and the nether portal will remain broken and empty, and he’ll never come back; that he’ll never again hear the voice of another human being in his life.
But nothing happens.
It’s almost more shocking than it would have been otherwise.
It’s rapturous, because it is then that Tommy realizes that, regardless of how it seems… Dream does not control him.
It is terrifying and nauseating and liberating to suddenly discover that his thoughts are his own, and Dream cannot see them. Not unless Tommy wants him to.
He is not Dream’s, and as many chains as Dream locks on his wrists and ankles and throat, he is free.
And Dream knows that. Dream…. Dream comes to watch him, because he’s the only one that doesn’t listen to him.
He isn’t there out of kindness. He’s there out of fear. It’s a precaution, to make sure he’s not strong enough to use his freedom.
The epiphany is so powerful that Tommy stumbles backwards from the force of it, knees wobbling like a newborn fawn.
Dream doesn’t seem to notice, back turned, facing the ocean, and Tommy thinks he must be high off of it, with how cloudy his head is, and how fast his heart beats.
It all but stops when his bare foot collides with something solid and cold and heavy.
The world seems to go silent.
His eyes slowly turn down, almost afraid to look.
He swears he can feel static in the air when he sees the shiny, turquoise sword lying on the ground amidst the rubble.
For a moment, he wonders how it survived Dream’s wrath, until he sees the chest, splintered and broken, spilling Mexican Dream’s items onto the forest floor a few meters away.
The air goes stale in his lungs, and for a moment, he can’t breathe. He can’t fucking breathe, and yet he can; there is no air in his lungs and there is more air than there has ever been. He teeters between hypoxia and anoxia.
He kneels, and ever so slowly, he wraps his fingers around the handle, and heaves it up. The tip of the blade scrapes along the exposed stone, but Dream doesn’t seem to hear- or if he does, he doesn't seem to care.
He feels vindicated and wild and angry and petrified, but a cool sort of relief flows through him at the conclusion that settles within him.
This will end with one of them dead.
He looks down at the scuffed but shining sword, and he grins something unhinged and tired and hungry at the thought of Dream being put down by something so lowly as diamond. Couldn’t even afford him netherite.
The grin is so dry and so wide that the skin of his lower lip cracks and splits, and he can’t bring himself to care.
Tommy feels nothing, and he feels everything.
He feels as if he has nothing left. But he needs this.
No, whispers the voice. He’s your only friend. Without him, you’ll be alone, and nobody will love you like he does.
The taste of destruction fills his mouth. His body feels light; like everything within him has burned up to leave him a husk of who he once was.
That must be why destruction tastes like ashes.
That must be why destruction tastes like emptiness, and desolation, and silence.
Distantly, in the back of his brain, he hears Dream’s voice, echoing.
You’re all bark and no bite, kid.
He was wrong.
Dream took every bit of him. He took Tommy’s air, and his lungs, and his tongue and his teeth, and made sure he didn’t have anything left to craft his words with.
Tommy doesn’t have any bark at all.
Not anymore, at least.
He’ll let Dream decide whether or not he’s got any bite.
“Tommy,” says Dream. “Think about what you did-”
But Dream turns around, then, and within half a second, Tommy slides the tip of the sword at an upward angle between where his chest plate and leggings meet.
Netherite or not, every set of armor had the same weak spots.
The sword slides in with a single, smooth shick, and Dream is still.
He can’t see his face behind the mask, but the choked noise that erupts from his throat will remain, seared into Tommy’s brain for the rest of his life.
“Tommy,” he says, breathy and wet and betrayed.
And then, he begins to pitch forward, and since Tommy still stands in the crater and Dream on the edge, Dream stumbles into him on wooden limbs, and Tommy catches him by reflex, barely managing to lower them to the ground without sustaining a head injury.
He is numb.
He sits, Dream’s head lying in his lap, and suddenly, cold, burning regret sears each of his veins.
“....Wait,” he mutters, quiet and panicked. “No, no, wait. Please. Wait, Dream, no.”
His hands flutter uselessly over Dream’s light brown hair, and Dream lets out a wet cough that sends a stream of blood flowing over his lips and onto Tommy’s shirt.
“Fuck. No, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to,” Tommy whispers, and a dry sob rips its way out of his throat, raw and animalistic, despite the lack of tears in his eyes. “ I’m so sorry, Dream, you’re my best friend. It was an accident. You’re my best friend . I’m sorry.”
It’s not like they want you anyway, Tommy, Dream’s voice says in his head, and he’s right. Dream is the only one who wanted him, regardless of his reasoning. He was Tommy’s only anchor.
Dream's breath is stuttering and raspy, now, wet with blood, and he twitches helplessly.
"Please, I didn't mean it. I didn't. I promise, Dream, I'm sorry. "
Dream says nothing.
"Please don't leave me alone ."
Dream's last breath putters out like a candle in the wind.
"You're all I have left."
Then, suddenly, Tommy has nothing.
He doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t breathe, and he thinks, maybe, that’s a good thing, because he is a porcelain figurine, and a breath might shatter him.
He is an explosive with a lit fuse, a time bomb at zero yet to ignite.
He is an arrow fired straight upwards, and in that moment, at the very top of his arch before he begins to descend, he is still.
What nobody realizes is that everything that rises will eventually fall, and every fragile thing is bound to break.
And when Tommy does, he does so with every ounce of himself. He shatters, and plummets, and screams, and his broken shards fall like a hail of bullets.
He curls around Dream’s body, which is rapidly beginning to cool, and he screams so loud and so raw that he thinks, maybe, L’manberg can hear him scream. He hopes they can. He hopes they can hear the terror, and devastation, and wreckage that spews out of his lungs.
It hurts, and he swears he can taste blood mix with the ashes on his tongue, but he screams because he feels as if every cell in his body has simultaneously begun to burn.
He screams, because he’s killed his only friend. He will respawn, probably, in a few hours, but Tommy doesn’t know how many lives he had left. For all he knows, that was last one. He might be like Phil, with only one to begin with.
And even if he does respawn, he certainly won’t help Tommy anymore. He won’t care about him, or protect him, or visit him anymore.
So Tommy screams again, because he is alone.
There is no Dream, and there is no nether portal. There hasn’t been Tubbor or Wilbur, or even Fundy or Quackity or Niki, in weeks and weeks and weeks.
(He tries to ignore the piece of his brain that yearns for Philza and Technoblade, too. The piece that tells him that they are family, just as much as Wilbur was. The piece that forgets that Technoblade destroyed his country and killed his best friend, killed everybody. Forgets that Philza killed his own son and Tommy’s brother. Forgets that Phil left him and Wilbur alone, because clearly he'd valued Techno more than he'd ever valued them. It’s the same piece that tells him to go home.)
The noise that comes out of him now is quieter, but more broken. A shattered keening that comes from a place far deeper than his throat. It comes from his lungs, and his stomach, and every one of his veins. It’s in his blood, and Tommy can feel the way it stings under his skin.
He presses his forehead into the sharp, rough stone beneath them, hands cradling Dream’s head at his stomach, fingers stiff with dried blood and shaking.
Tommy sits there, curled over Dream, for who knows how long. He doesn’t think. Truly, he doesn’t. If asked to recall what, if anything, had been going through his mind in those moments, who wouldn’t be able to. His head is empty with the shock of what he’s done, and his chest hollow with desensitivity and isolation.
When he comes back to himself, the sun is beginning to pitch downward toward the horizon, and Dream’s head is still in his hands. Dream has long gone cold. The blood that plasters Tommy’s jeans to his leg is cool, too, and soon to begin drying. Tommy should feel disgust, or sadness, or guilt, but truly, he just feels cold. He feels drained, and tired, and wrung out to the point of hollowness.
It is good that Dream is there, though, because it means he hasn’t respawned yet. It means Tommy has time.
But not much.
He takes a breath, feels nothing, and stands.
(Unrelated and unimportant, a rock sits in his shoe. He does not notice it.)
He begins to move on autopilot. He distantly notices a diamond shovel sitting innocently beside Mexican Dream’s broken chest, but he doesn’t take it. Instead, he collapses to his knees on the grass, and begins to claw at the soil with his hands.
It’s time consuming, and tiring, and his hands are numb and aching from scraping at the ground for so long, but he hardly pays it any attention. He just continues to dig, and dig, and dig, dirt packed under his fingernails and fingers irritated and throbbing.
By the time the hole is deep enough to cover and long enough to fit Dream, the sun has met the horizon, and the sunset has taken on a strange palette of navy cyan and pale yellow.
He kneels by the hole for a moment, watching the sun go down, and he does not feel. He does not feel, which is why he is surprised to find his face wet with hollow tears, which he didn’t even notice making their way down his dirt stained cheeks.
He tries to lift Dream up, but finds that he isn’t strong enough. It’s not surprising, considering Dream is both taller and broader than he is, not to mention the weight of the full netherite, and all of Dream’s items.
He removes the heavy pack of Dream’s items from his back, but he’s still considerably too heavy for Tommy to carry. He resigns himself to dragging him across the sand and grass, and hates the way it makes him feel as if he’s lowered Dream to a cow he’s slaughtered for its hide.
Finally, he rests Dream beside the hole he dug, and he sits beside him, looking.
His signature apathetic smile is still strapped to his face. He doesn’t intend to take it off. If Dream respawns, he would hate to know Tommy had seen it, and if he doesn’t, well. Tommy would rather not blatantly spit on the wishes of the dead.
He considers once or twice throughout the process that all of this will be for nothing if Dream respawns. His body will disappear from the shoddy grave, and he’ll wake back up wherever Dream’s spawn point is set, body having had enough time to repair itself in order to continue its life.
But Tommy just can’t shake the sharp guilt that eats at him, telling him that if he doesn’t wake back up, then to leave his body to the wolves would be cruel. It would be barbaric. It certainly wouldn’t be what Dream deserved.
The guilt eats at him regardless.
How could it not, with what he’s done?
He’s killed the only person who’s shown him kindness rather than pity. The only person who genuinely wanted to see him, as opposed to those who gave him things as a way to clear their guilty conscience.
He’d blamed his isolation on Dream, but really, who does he have to blame but himself? This might be the most prevalent example of Tommy pushing those who care away from him, but he’s been accused of it countless times before. This is the only time where he’s even considered that they might be right.
He pushed everybody away, and Dream is the only one who cared enough to come back.
Everybody else just pushed him further away.
And he killed him.
He shoves down the tears that well in his eyes, a high pitched noise scraping its way out of his mouth. He doesn’t let himself cry, because he doesn’t deserve to. He did this to himself. This is his own fault.
He chokes back tears the entire time as he lowers Dream roughly into the hole and covers him with the soil.
But he doesn’t let a single one fall.
He finds a lily of the valley growing nearby, and plants it at the top of Dream’s makeshift grave.
He lies next to it and looks at the stars, for a little while. He only stops when he remembers that Dream could respawn any moment, and he knows that Dream wouldn’t let him do what he planned on doing.
He looks, longingly, at the broken nether portal. A pickaxe was the only thing that wasn’t in Mexican Dream’s chest, so he doesn’t know where he’ll get any more obsidian. Flint and steel won’t take long, but anxiety begins to creep through him, because what if Dream finds him before he can get more obsidian-
And then he remembers Dream’s pack.
He sifts through it quickly, with filthy hands that shake with fear, and breathes a short sigh of relief when his hands close around a cool, textured block. Pulling it out, he completes the portal, and returns to the bag for flint and steel.
He looks around, once more, and he hates this place. God, he hates this place, but he thanks Ghostbur for the house, and for Logstedshire. He thanks Bad for the disc, and- and- and even Captain Puffy for the Tubbo statue. He thanks Dream for everything.
He thanks the island for letting him destroy himself on it before he was gone.
He sparks the flint and steel, and steps into the nether.
Heat washes over him like a wave, and he can’t help but sigh. His shoulders drop, and for some reason, despite the fact that he is inherently uncomfortable with the sweltering heat, it relaxes him. It makes him feel safe. It reassures him that there is nothing Dream or anybody else can do to stop him.
Soon, he’ll be gone. He’ll be down, down, down below, and he’ll be just like Ghostbur; elated, and content, with not a thought in his mind about this, or the war, or Wilbur’s death. No voice in his head telling him, you wanna be a hero, Tommy? Then die like one. No memories of the look in Tubbo’s eyes when he’d said goodbye, Tommy.
He won’t remember any of it.
It’s all he’s ever wanted.
He might even be able to go back home- well. Back to L’manberg. They wouldn’t guard L’manberg against a ghost, right? They wouldn’t be that cruel. He decides it doesn’t matter, since you can’t kill a ghost.
He won’t be alone anymore. He’ll be with Ghostbur, wherever he is, or he’ll help Niki out in her bakery, or Quackity with Mexican L’manberg, or- or-...Maybe even Tubbo, with his bees, even though he’s never needed any help with them.
Maybe he can finally be happy.
He smiles, sad and sore, and walks, ambling and careless, to the edge of his screaming ledge.
He stands, and he looks down into the rich color.
It’s beautiful, he thinks. The color is deep, and endless, and enrapturing; he stares, wide eyed, and for the first time in weeks, he thinks he truly breathes.
Soon, he’ll be happy.
Soon, L’manberg won’t have to worry about him ever again, and Dream won’t have to waste his time. Ghostbur will have someone who can really touch him, who doesn’t feel him as a cold breeze. He won’t be alone anymore, and neither will Tommy.
He looks into the lava, and he thinks he can hear it say welcome home.
I will be, he thinks. I’ll be there in just a moment.
Sparks come up to land on his skin. The pain feels like love.
He takes a deep breath, and thinks, it’s finally my time.
He takes a single step forward, and he goes home.
★★★★★
Tubbo walks with confidence, but anxiety ripples through him with each breath he takes.
A hand drifts up to his neck, where he tugs on the collar of his suit in a weak attempt to make enough room for his heart, which has crawled its way up into his throat.
He’s terrified, but excited. He’s angry, but guilt ridden. He acts confident, but each decision he makes leaves a gaping wound on the inside of his skull that whispers, are you sure? in each second of silence.
Which is why he feels as if he’s going to vomit as he approaches the nether portal.
Tubbo, Fundy, Quackity, and Ranboo had decided that they were going to execute Technoblade very, very soon. It’d been a goal for quite a while, but they’d only recently set it into motion.
The only problem was that, while they outnumbered Technoblade, they all knew that a hundred soldiers couldn’t outmatch Techno. It was common sense; he was widely regarded as one of if not the best dueler, certainly in the Dream SMP, if not in the entire world.
They needed emotional leverage, alongside more men.
And thus, Ranboo had suggested they get Tommy in on it.
They knew Tommy despised Techno- it was a very well known fact that Tommy would join them if they were to ask. (Well. Tubbo had his doubts- he’d seen how close Tommy and Techno were, before they parted ways. Before the festival. Before the withers. He remembers the look of adoration and awe that filled Tommy’s eyes, back when they were young and life wasn’t so twisted and painful. He had his doubts that Tommy would ever want Techno dead, but. Techno had all three of his lives left, so it was worth a shot, right?)
The idea was that Tommy would use his knowledge of Techno and their former bond to get him to come with them peacefully. (Tubbo had his doubts that that was possible.)
And if that didn’t work, Fundy and Quackity had proposed that they hold Tommy as a hostage.
Tubbo had been made slightly sick by the idea, as Tommy was on his last life, just like Tubbo was, but they promised that they wouldn’t really hurt him. They’d only threaten to, and pray that Techno cared enough about his brother to give in under the threat of Tommy’s last death.
(Tubbo has his doubts about that , too, because Tommy was also on his last life when Techno had told him to die like a hero.
Tubbo has doubts about a lot of things regarding this plan, apparently.)
Tubbo doesn’t know why in the hell they thought it was a good idea for him to go and ask Tommy. He was the one who exiled him, for fuck’s sake! He’s sure Tommy doesn’t want to see him, and he’s sure Dream won’t be happy that he’s gone to visit him.
He’d protested, at first, and then he remembered the look on Techno’s face as he aimed a loaded rocket launcher directly towards his face. He remembers the taste of gunpowder and smoke, the way he kept thinking it was stuck in his teeth even after he’d died and reawoken. He remembers the heartstopping laughter that crackled in his ears, as Techno brought life to withers and set fire to yet more TNT.
He decided it was worth it.
So there he was about to enter the nether portal, and he was terrified of what Tommy would think.
Not about the plan. The execution will go on with or without him.
Tubbo is scared of what Tommy will think of him.
He hasn’t visited once in the several weeks that Tommy’s been exiled. Not while he was there, anyways, and it wasn’t because he didn’t want to see him- he missed him so much. He hadn’t realized how much he needed Tommy there to be his normal, enthusiastic self until Tommy was gone. It hurts how much he misses Tommy, and he-....
He’s only stayed away this long for three reasons.
One; Dream told him that he didn’t like Tommy having too many visitors, and he’d just managed to establish peace with the man. But it was fragile, and Tubbo would hate for every sacrifice he made- including Tommy- to wash down the drain because of a stupid mistake.
Two; he figured Tommy wouldn’t want to see him anyways. The image of Tommy’s blue eyes, saturated in confusion and hurt and betrayal, looking up at Tubbo, would never leave his mind. The scratchy breaks in his voice when he’d said but you’re my friend would never stop echoing in his ears. He’d hurt him, and whether or not it was in L’manberg’s best interest, he had hurt Tommy. That was undeniable, and he couldn’t be certain whether Tommy would greet him with an excited hug or stoic silence.
Three; he doesn’t think he could keep it together. He’d held on this long by barely a thread; he woke up every morning with the nagging feeling that he’d made the wrong decision, that something was wrong, that he’d made a mistake, and he’s so unsteady in his own mind that he doesn’t trust himself not to drag Tommy back to L’manberg the minute he talks to him again.
And now, the one time that he does visit Tommy, it’s to ask him if he’ll help the same people who exiled him execute his older brother.
He feels wrong.
He feels like he’s using Tommy. He knows better, because he knows why he does the things he does, but Tommy doesn’t. From Tommy’s perspective it’ll look like he doesn’t care to visit him unless he wants something, and Tommy is his best friend. He doesn’t- he never wants to make him feel like he only matters when he’s useful.
And yet, he knows he’ll feel like that.
He knows Tommy well, and even if he won’t say it, he’ll think it. He’ll take it to heart and it’ll stay there till it festers and boils and bursts out of him, a hundred times more painful than it was before.
Tubbo resolves to visit him more. He will, because fuck Dream, you know?
He just doesn’t want to lose his best friend forever because he was afraid of conflict.
And as nervous as he is, he can’t suppress the little nugget of excitement that sparks in his throat at seeing Tommy.
He just hopes it goes well.
Tubbo steels himself, takes a deep breath, and steps through the portal.
The first thing he notices is that the heat of the nether is nearly unbearable in a full suit.
The second thing he notices are the signs that say “You are now entering Logstedshire. Population: 1”.
The third thing he notices is Tommy, standing on a terrifyingly thin wooden plank that extends out over the sea of lava, staring down.
His breath catches horrifyingly in his throat.
Tommy begins to lean forward, and Tubbo runs, faster than he’s ever run in his life, but-
He isn’t-
He isn’t fast enough.
“Tommy!” he screams, and the word rips out of him like he’s been exorcised of it.
But Tommy is gone.
He tears through the nether like a wild animal, scrambling onto the wooden path with abandon, in an act of carelessness that he could not have pulled off in any other situation.
He slides to his knees at the edge, momentum nearly carrying him forward, and he peers down into the void, hoping to see Tommy bobbing along with a fire res potion, or the lingering purple particles of an ender pearl in his wake, or- or- anything but the sheer emptiness that he sees.
He stares down with eyes that are blank and unseeing, searching for something that simply isn’t there.
The third president of L’manberg curls in on himself, and he cries. No, no, no, he says, over and over again, and tears drip down his cheeks in thick rivulets.
Somewhere, at the bottom of the nether’s ocean of lava, there is a small scattering of black obsidian droplets.
“But you’re my best friend ,” he whispers, shattered and broken.
Tommy never says goodbye.
★★★★★
Tommy takes a single step forward, and he falls.
His heart leaps into his throat and his terror response kicks in, eyes slamming shut, his arms and legs flailing and his body twisting in the air, but he waits with bated breath for the bonecrush; for the unbearable, welcoming heat of the lava.
He waits to be home.
But suddenly, he isn’t falling anymore.
He’s landed roughly in something soft and warm and his chest hurts from the abrupt halt, and he wonders, is this it? Have I hit the surface?
It mustn’t be, he thinks. There’s not enough heat. Not enough pain, to be home.
He blinks his eyes open.
“What the fuck!?”
He arches in the arms that hold him, desperate for them to release him, so he can slip away into the lava.
“Fucking drop me!” He hisses, kicking and writhing, but the person is only slightly thrown off balance, tightening their old on him.
“No!” Phil insists. “Stop moving!”
“No!” Tommy continues to try to escape, becoming increasingly frantic. “Fuck off, Phil! Let me down! Let me down!”
“You’ll die, Tommy!”
“I know!”
One of Tommy’s wildly thrashing arms catches Phil across the face, and he feels a brief flicker of guilt, before they’re sent into a tailspin as Phil loses control of both of their weight under his wings.
Tommy tries his hardest to get out of Phil’s hold, not only because it’ll send him into the lava, but because it will get Phil away from the lava. But Phil just clamps his arms tighter yet, tucking Tommy’s head under his chin, his wings closing around the two of them like a shell, and curling around him in a position that Tommy’s been familiar with since he was seven, when Phil first took him in.
Phil’s bracing them for a landing, and he’s trying to keep Tommy safe. Tommy wishes he wouldn’t.
They hit the ground hard, but all Tommy can process about that is that they hit the ground.
Not lava, but solid netherrack.
They go rolling, rough and brutal, and as soon as Tommy can get his limbs to obey the action, he begins to struggle once more.
“Stop! Stop it! You’re hurting yourself more than you are me!”
Phil doesn’t realize that he’s not trying to hurt him.
“Phil, let me go! Please! Just let me go!” Tommy begs, and he’s a little bit shocked and a lot embarrassed at the way his voice breaks into a sob on the last word.
“Tommy,” Phil says, and the word is a plea. “Tommy, stop fighting me! Stop fighting me!”
And somehow, the fear in Phil’s voice finally gets through to Tommy, and he collapses against Phil’s chest. Sobs wrack his body, shoulders violently twitching with each cry, almost convulsing. He cries so hard he almost wretches, and Tommy thinks he’s cried more today than he has in his life.
(That’s a lie. Tommy does not cry often, per se, but far more than he would ever admit, and Phil knows that.)
Phil makes him sit up for a moment, to take his chest plate off, which confuses Tommy until he pulls him into a more secure hug, and with his ear pressed to Phil’s chest, he can hear his heartbeat, steady and solid and alive.
It’s been so long since he’s hugged anybody, and it feels so good that it hurts.
Counterintuitively, it makes him cry harder, if that’s even possible.
Phil gently rubs his back, his dark wings positioned in such a way that the primary feathers brush soothingly against his forearms, which are wrapped tightly around Phil’s midsection. He shushes him and mutters platitudes into the air, things like you’re alright, Tommy, it’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay. Shhh. I’m here. We’re alright.
Tommy might be mad about being treated like a baby, if it didn’t comfort him so much.
Phil continues his coddling until Tommy’s cries have stopped completely, and his breathing has slowed down, in which he sits up, slightly shifting, but clutching Tommy to his chest like a priceless package. Tommy hopes he doesn’t think Tommy doesn’t notice the way his arms tremble.
“God, kid,” Phil sighs, and his voice shakes, too. “You scared the shit out of me.”
Tommy's silent, for a moment, and when he speaks, his voice is cracked and rough and quiet.
“You should’ve let me fall.”
“What?” Phil says, aghast, like Tommy has spit blasphemy and broken glass at his feet. He leans away for a moment to look at Tommy's face, and he feels a sharp shot of guilt roll through him at the turmoil that displays itself in Phil's eyebrows and the corners of his mouth. It's funny, because ever since he was a kid, he'd always thought his dad had bigger and sadder puppy dog eyes than him or either of his brothers, and they're in full use now, glimmering in the warm fire light of the nether.
He looks like he's about to cry, and Tommy just wishes that he could've been gone before Phil ever got there. Before Phil had to see it. Before Phil could stop him.
Phil pulls him back in, then, tucking Tommy's head under his chin despite the fact that Tommy is taller than he is, a hand coming up to run gently through his hair. Tommy shoves his face into Phil's shoulder. “Why would I do that?… No. No, Tommy. No.”
“Please, dad, just let me go,” Tommy whispers, desperate, weakly and halfheartedly pushing at Phil’s chest.
Phil looks doubtfully at him, eyes sad and concerned, hands coming to rest on his shoulders. They aren't confining, yet, but Tommy knows they could be in a millisecond, if he decided to try and hurt himself in any way.
“If I did, could you truthfully tell me that you wouldn’t go running back into that lava?”
It’s a tactic Phil’s used since he was little. He’d ask him questions, voice spilling over with trust and care and understanding, and Tommy would feel too guilty to keep up whatever ruse he had going.
Tommy avoids his eyes, not wanting to answer the question.
He's pretty sure that Phil already knows the answer anyways. He always did.
“.....I can’t let you go.” Phil sighs, and rubs his hands up and down Tommy’s arms. He looks at Tommy as if to say, you understand, don’t you? You know why I have to do this, right?
And Tommy does understand. He knows Phil thinks he needs saving, and he knows Phil thinks he’s keeping Tommy safe. What Phil doesn’t understand is that he’d be safer down there than he ever would be up here. He knows he’s more desperate to leave than Phil is to keep him.
“You- you need to. I have to, before he comes back.”
Phil’s hands freeze. “Before who comes back?”
Tommy refuses to look in his eyes once more, and Phil’s hands squeeze his shoulders comfortingly. Phil’s got a look in his eye that’s sharp and threatening, and Tommy remembers that as soft as Phil is, he’s still one of the most dangerous people he knows. He’s seen Phil level entire nether fortresses in minutes when Techno was clipped by a blaze. He once watched from his window as Phil killed a hoglin with nothing but his fists and the clothes on his back when Wilbur was cornered in the stables.
He sees that same rage-fire spark in Phil’s blue eyes, and he gets the sudden sense that Phil would burn this world to the ground if he asked.
(He wonders where this version of his dad was, when Wilbur asked him to kill him. He wonders what happened to that rage-fire.)
“Dream?” Phil asks, and all thought empties from Tommy’s head as his heart leaps in panic at the name.
“Please, don't give me back to him,” Tommy begs, and fear makes his voice shake and his eyes wide.
“Give you back?” Phil repeats, appalled. “Tommy- first of all. First of all, you don't belong to anybody, and… and besides…” He swallows thickly, eyes downcast. “I could never, in good conscience, send my son back to a place that made you… that made you want to do… this.”
Something warm floods his chest at that. The words hurt, but for a split second, Tommy feels like, maybe, he might have somebody left after all.
But then he remembers the weeks he spent alone. Alone. He remembers every second in which nobody, not even his father, came to visit him.
The warmth turns cold.
“Well if you’re not sending me back, you have to let me go,” Tommy says, and the words are sharp. Phil twitches at his tone.
“I can’t do that, either.”
Tommy snaps at that, anger and sadness and fear and desperation boiling out of him.
“Well then what the fuck else is there to do, Philza!?” He spits, and he’s horrified to discover that tears have welled up in his eyes once more. They’re tears of frustration and sorrow both, and he wishes he wasn’t such a crybaby all the time.
Phil smiles at him, soft and gentle, and cradles his face in his hands. Tommy’s hands shoot up to cover his, and Phil’s hand’s are warm where Tommy’s are cold. “Tommy, I’m so proud of you,” Phil says, and the words are a shock to his system. “You’ve done so well, but you aren’t alone anymore. I won’t let you be alone.”
Tommy doesn’t believe him.
God, Tommy wants it to be true. He does. He wants to trust Phil, but he can’t.
But he thinks he might be able to, one day.
Phil wipes the tears away from his cheeks, and Tommy leans into his palms.
“I’m taking you home .”
Tommy thinks, for the first time in years, that it’s okay. He doesn’t need to be strong.
He lets himself be saved.