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Tommy looked in the mirror one day and didn’t recognize the face.
That night he went out and got blindingly drunk, alone in a flower field he had found at the beginning of it all. He had borrowed a bottle from the bar at Las Nevadas and lay down and watched the sun set, watched the stars bloom across the sky like stab wounds in the body of the night, drank.
It was nice.
He woke up the next day unsure of how he was still alive and with a monster of a headache- one that reminded him of how it felt when Dream smashed his head on the floor until gray matter leaked from the back of his skull.
It wasn’t the most pleasant thing he had ever felt, but it was familiar.
It made him feel like himself because really what was Tommyinnit except for the blood and bruises and the beatings, what was he except for the never ending fight he always lost.
He threw up three times on the way back to his home.
The next day he looked in the mirror and saw a man with dark eyebags and white in his hair and one working eye. It didn’t make any sense. He poked his cheek and watched the reflection do the same, he slapped himself and felt the burn and saw the red on the reflection’s cheekbone.
It didn’t make any sense.
That wasn’t him.
If you asked him to describe what he looked like he would say he was extremely handsome and amazing. If you asked him again he would shrug and look away. If you asked him again he would start screaming.
Tommyinnit didn’t know himself anymore. It wasn’t much of a tragedy in the grand scheme of things.
That night he drank in the forest, right on the border of the tundra he propped himself up against a tree and choked down the burn until he couldn’t see straight and then he called Tubbo.
Tubbo didn’t pick up.
Tommy woke up in the morning to a zombie biting into his shoulder and a headache somehow worse than the day before. It’s not the worst way he’s woken up.
For a moment he considers laying there, letting the zombie eat him alive, letting his existence fade to dust quietly, alone.
He was brought out of it by the feeling of teeth on his neck.
Rolling away almost lazily he reached up and dug his fingers into the monster's eye sockets, wiggling around until he had a good hook on the skull before ripping . The creature gave its best imitation of a scream through rotted vocal cords as Tommy continued, tearing away at its face until its features were bloody pulp.
He recognized it, saw himself in the torn flesh and exposed teeth, saw himself in the rotted, thick blood that sluggishly leaked down as the corpse disintegrated under his fingernails, leaving only a single orb of experience points that floated slowly towards him.
Tommy understood what it felt like, to be walking flesh, rotting away- to be weak and destroyed by someone's bare hands, to be reduced down into experience and absorbed.
The chunks of flesh on his hands, the old, almost black blood that mingled with his own, the broken nails and ruined flesh of his fingertips. This, this is what he was.
Tommy was dead.
It sounded more simple than it was.
Tommy didn’t throw up on the way home this time, but he did pass out next to prime path- tripped and when he opened his eyes a chicken was sitting on his chest.
Tommy looked into the mirror and saw the blood caking his cheek, his stained and torn shirt. It’s the closest to himself he has felt in a while.
.
It’s dark, inside the wolf. Quiet too.
What he means by that is it’s more interesting to start in the middle of a story.
Also, the tundra at night is unsettling in its silence.
The middle of the story is where the tension is, the creeping build up to a climax- there is no introduction, no slow and happy start.
Tommy’s middle was probably exile. The end of the story was prison. Now is the soft epilogue, if dying slowly could be called soft. If Wilbur and his games could be called soft. If drinking in the dark and snow could be called soft.
Tommy thinks it could be, if you squint.
The snow is melting down his back and he is woefully underdressed but it’s nice.
He considers building an igloo, carving out a place for himself among the cold and empty. He too is cold and empty, an extension of this frozen wasteland.
He almost froze to death once. It wasn’t an unpleasant way to go, it’s the surviving that sucks- the frostbite and nerve damage and missing toes, the prickling sensation as flesh unfreezes and blood begins to circulate.
It was almost unbearable.
If he could he would fill the quiet with noise, but talking feels beyond him right now. His tongue lay heavy and useless in his mouth and when he tried to form a word it felt as if it was coming through molasses, like the human language was strange and unfamiliar.
He gave up pretty quick.
And besides, the silence was nice. It was non threatening, it didn’t have expectations, he wasn’t floundering, wasn’t scrambling for the right thing to say that wouldn’t set anyone off.
He took a drink.
If his middle was exile his prologue was his childhood home. The memories are syrupy, tinged in golden light and the smell of grass and flowers.
There was more to it, there was the arguing filtering through the walls and the creeping loneliness, the learning that you didn’t matter enough to stay for, but he preferred not to remember that.
He was content to leave the past idyllic- to leave it soaked in sunlight. A happy beginning.
A brutal middle.
A violent end.
He wanted a nice epilogue too, a peaceful sort of reckoning, the closing of a story that leaves the reader satisfied and himself content.
He found that contentment where he could now- at the bottom of the bottle and at the bottom of a rocky pit. At the snowy land where he had been something approaching happy.
Happiness has never lasted, at least not for him.
It is dark, inside the wolf, and it is dark, inside the night. The moon only does so much.
He can only do so much.
And so he finishes the bottle and stares at the stars and tries to remember the constellations, fails, makes up his own.
That string of light right there is an arrow, the wonky rectangle is a door, the black expanse is, of course, the void.
It always comes back to death for him, doesn’t it? It always comes back to the inky absence, the never ending nothingness, the thwip of a deck of cards.
Ghostbur is alone there now, only a sleeping ex-president for company. He hopes his limbo is a nice one. He deserves better than Tommy, better than Wilbur.
He hopes it has flowers.
That cluster of stars is an allium, that shape that looks like a vague outline of a person is Clara, those red dots are- wait.
Those red dots are eyes, and those eyes are attached to a figure he’d rather not see.
He sits up and the world spins around him, the ground feels like it’s breathing, like he’s at sea.
He flops back down, closes his eyes. The night was nice while it lasted, his life was… okay while it lasted. Pity the man standing above him wanted him dead.
All epilogues end, one way or another.
Figures his would end at the hands of someone he loved, figures it would end in blood.
Blood has been Tommy’s defining characteristic for a long time, much longer than sunlight had been, much longer than warmth.
But still, you can take the fight from the boy but you can’t take the boy from the fight, and so he opens his mouth.
“Hey Blade.” It’s croaked out and slurred, words almost too garbled to be recognizable.
There is no answer. It occurs to Tommy that he might be alone as the silence stretches. He isn’t exactly new to hallucinations.
Somehow that knowledge lightens the lump in his throat. He is just as alone as always, just his brain giving him images of people he loves to keep him company.
It makes it easier for the words to spill out.
“I miss you,” he says, an exhalation, an admission, a secret shared to no one but the wind and himself. “I’m sorry. I love L’Manberg and I love you, but I had to choose my home.”
Suddenly he’s angry. “I loved you, I fucking love you but you- you never loved me back. Fuck. You were going to give me to Dream and fuck I- You… I can't go back. I would rather die, I would rather fucking die.”
Just as soon as it had started the fire in his chest flickered, went out.
“I just couldn’t choose you, no matter if I wanted to or not.”
He drifts, the black of behind his eyelids reminding him of peace, of the void, of death.
His fingers are numb. He’s stopped shivering, has started to feel something dangerously close to warm.
A hand closes around his wrist.
.
Tommy is not unused to fear. In fact, it’s more like an old friend or a ghost. It haunts him, it drapes over his shoulders, it nestles within his ribcage and makes its home within his bone marrow.
It’s not quite fear that grips him now, rather it’s a hand. A hand attached to a body, a body attached to an ax, an ax soon to be attached to his neck, his neck soon to no longer be attached to his head.
And Tommy, Tommy finds himself unafraid.
Maybe it’s the alcohol in his bloodstream, liquid courage living up to its name. Maybe it’s the way that it doesn’t really matter what happens to his body anymore- his body barely even being his.
It’s an unrecognizable thing, a sort of shell that's grown around him.
Tommy doesn’t recognize himself in mirrors and there are no mirrors in the void.
It’s a peaceful sort of existence, being dead. Being alone. Being unloved.
He wonders if anyone will miss him this time, if there will be any statues and flowers in his honor, if anyone will notice.
The hand has lifted him to his feet and he sways listlessly. He doesn’t want to think about this anymore and soon he won't have to.
That’s the mercy that comes with dying.
The hand tugs at him and he tries to follow, he really does, but his legs give out under him. His head collides with a firm warmth and he lets himself slide down, lets himself fall and crumble- a puppet with cut strings.
There’s a surprised noise, the hand letting go.
He almost misses it, but doesn’t get the chance as it comes back as an arm, wrapping around his waist and hoisting him up, another coming around to wrap around his legs. He- he doesn’t understand. He’s being carried , being cradled, being decidedly not killed.
He doesn’t know what to make of it.
This is not how it’s supposed to go.
And yet the rocking of the person walking, the warmth of a body against his own after so long of just his arms wrapped around himself, the fuzziness of the alcohol, the stars above him- it lulls him.
He rests.
.
He wakes to warmth and it is unusual enough that he jolts upright, a mistake as the room swirls around him.
His head throbs .
He is not in the snow, he is not in the void, he is not in his ugly dirt shack curled up in his lumpy bed and threadbare blankets.
As the world stills around him he takes in the details of the room- the books lining the walls, the thick comforters on the bed he rests on, the weapons neatly organized and displayed.
He catches his reflection in the mirror showing the winter wonderland outside and tries not to meet its eyes.
It’s too bright, though the lights are dim.
There’s the sound of footsteps outside the door and he doesn’t bother moving to hide. He thinks he knows where he is and it would be a useless endeavor to fight back.
Maybe a month ago he would’ve tried- stolen a weapon and hissed and spit and swore his way out.
Present day Tommy felt like his tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. Present day Tommy didn’t want to bother. Present day Tommy just wanted to rest .
The door opened and there was Technoblade. He looked peaceful. Soft. Pristine and collected, sure, but there was no frown or furrowed eyebrows. No blood splatters.
There was a glass of water in one hand.
Tommy wasn’t sure what was happening.
“Wha- what's going on?”
Technoblade considered him, eyes trailing over his form. Tommy didn’t know what he was seeing.
“I found you in the snow, completely wasted and dying of hypothermia. Do you remember what you said?”
Tommy shrugged, waved his hand in a so-so gesture. “I know the gist. Apology, right? Long overdue, innit? Doesn’t explain why I’m here.”
Techno paused where he was setting the water down on a bedside table.
“... You were dying.”
“Yeah, I know. You said that already. Kinda thought you would be glad I was gone.”
See, the thing is Tommy is not scared of death. He is already dead- he was revived, sure, but that was only a technicality. His heart beats and his lungs fill with air and he is a dead thing pretending to be alive and not doing a very good job.
Metaphorically, he has already decomposed. Literally, his heart is loud in his ears and it grates .
Technoblade is staring at him.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay.”
Another pause.
“Do you want to be dead?” The question is posed carefully, a heaviness disguised as casualness.
It’s funny. Casual and casualty, both are peaceful but one is permanent.
Tommy is a casualty.
“I already am.” He doesn’t know why he admits it. Maybe it’s the dreaminess of this moment, the way the sunlight seems so unreal- like the code that creates it is glitching. Or maybe it’s his code that’s glitching, that's worn away, smooth like a river rock or sea glass. A broken thing that's better broken, that’s prettier broken.
He is not a pretty broken thing- he’s just shattered and his edges are sharp.
Techno looks at him and his eyes are sad. Tommy thinks he should be careful with the beginnings of care that he can just barely see in the corners of his creased eyelids, careful with his hands.
If he tries to touch him he’ll cut himself.
Tommy is used to the pieces of himself, used to the shards embedded in his hands as he tries to keep himself together. He doesn’t want to submit someone else to the glass splinters and bloody palms.
“You’re just as alive as me.”
“Then you must be dead too.”
It’s true. Maybe they’re both dead, maybe Technoblade died at his execution and Tommy never left the prison and limbo is simply being kind.
He dismisses the thought. Purgatory would never approach kindness, too far from heaven to try.
Techno sighs and it is a sad thing.
“C’mon, drink the water and take these pain meds. I’m making food.”
Tommy does what he’s told.
He used to never follow orders. He had gotten used to it.
.
They make soup, or rather Techno makes soup and Tommy tries not to hover, clinging to the corners in a way he never used to before, melding into the shadows and curled in one himself like if he could just fold into himself, fold himself up, he could disappear.
He’s still not quite sure what’s happening here, still not quite sure he’s not dreaming, but if he is it’s a nice dream. He doesn’t have a whole lot of those anymore, so he’s willing to let it be.
The soup is mushroom soup. It brings back memories.
Tommy doesn’t like remembering things, and he’s lucky that most of the time he doesn’t have to. The past is a blur that he has no desire to indulge in.
When the bowls are served Tommy simply stares down into his. It’s creamy, it looks good. He has done nothing to earn this.
Techno has given him food and he knows that nothing is given without something being owed, without it being a transaction, without something being expected in return.
“What do I owe you?”
“...What do you mean?”
“For the soup. For saving my life. Nothing is free, what do I owe you?”
There it is again, the sadness, the beginning of a frown and a crease between eyebrows. Tommy is disturbing Techno’s happiness.
It’s all he ever does- ruin things.
He even ruined himself.
“Tommy.”
Tommy’s eyes snap up. It’s been a while since Techno called him by anything other than that stupid name.
“Tommy, you don’t owe me for this. You… just eat. You look like you need it.”
Tommy hesitates, examines Techno for any trace of deceit, finds nothing but a sad sort of honesty. And ache. A quiet grief.
He takes a bite.
It’s delicious.
.
Later they will talk. Later Techno will wrangle the truth from Tommy’s throat. Later tears will be shed and later Tommy will understand that this is real. That Techno loves him back. That this isn’t a sick joke.
Later Dream will die.
And one day the grief and sharp pains will fade into an ache, into growing pains, into healed skin.
It won’t be perfect or easy, there will be screaming and panic and doubt, but one day the shattered, sharp edges will smooth and the nightmares will get less frequent.
But for now they sit together and eat soup.
It is a start.