Work Text:
Tommy tapped his claws on the table, Sam pointedly avoiding his gaze as Fran attempted to coerce bacon off of the hybrid's plate.
"Puffy says we need to talk," Tommy repeats, pushing the food around on his plate.
The syrup soaked pancakes made an odd squishy sound, and Tommy cringed with regret before stabbing the fork gripped in his other hand into the tower. Sam slipped Fran a piece of meat, and the wolf-dog snatched it into her jaws before disappearing under the table.
"About what?" Sam asked apprehensively, already knowing and dreading the answer.
Tommy narrowed his eyes. "I dunno big man, why do you think we need to talk?"
They fell into a tense silence.
This wasn't the first time they had danced to this song. A week since the destruction of the egg(courtesy of Tommy) had passed, a week since Sam had lost his first life and Tommy gifting him a shimmering tattoo that Puffy had told him was called a mark of the Phoenix. A mark that meant for all the cursing and lashing out Tommy did to Sam he still cared, he still loved Sam even after everything the creeper hybrid had did.
Both of them were emotionally constipated, stepping on the broken shards they called their relationship but ignoring the growing wounds on their bare feet.
Puffy, primes bless her, had grown weary of the two males, trying to ease them into a conversation but ultimately failing when excuse after excuse found them brushing off the much needed talk. That morning, Puffy had made them all breakfast before sitting both men down at the table, slamming a plate infront of each of them before leaving the kitchen.
Tommy tried to leave exactly once, and Puffy's barking laughter chased after him as he retreated back into the kitchen. He would die before he made any mention of what happened between him and Puffy.
"I'm sorry," Sam finally said to the boy, and Tommy sunk into his seat.
". . .'m sorry too, big man."
Sam shook his head and took a deep breath, composing himself before he spoke again.
"No, Tommy, Prime knows you have nothing to be sorry for. You've made mistakes, sure, but you're just a kid-"
"I wish people would stop saying that only when it's convenient for them!" Tommy hissed, and Sam tensed.
He continued.
"Fuck, I know I'm a kid, but that didn't matter when I was fighting for Wilbur, it didn't matter when I was exiled twice and told to die and tortured alone on an island and murdered by the same man three prime damned times-"
Sam stood as Tommy dug fingers into the dark oak of the table, nails sharpening into obsidian colored claws as he bowed his head with shaky breaths.
"I just wanted to be happy!" Tommy sobbed. "I wanted everyone I love to be safe and happy! How does that make me a monster?! How does that make me a villain?!"
Sam was at his side in an instant.
"It doesn't," he swore, gathering the teen into his arms. "You aren't."
Tommy shuddered in Sam's hold. "Then why did you leave me?"
Sam stiffened.
"Why did you leave just like everyone else?"
Tommy was a flame, bright, dangerous, burning hot and luring forth people with his warmth yet scaring them away with the burns that followed. His core had been suffocated, deprived of the fuel of companionship and family until he was ashes of himself, a lone candle struggling to keep it's flame in the howling wind.
"Because. . ."
Sam couldn't lie to him. Tommy had been lied to so much, more than someone should have in an entire lifetime. So, he told the truth.
"Because I was afraid I wasn't enough. I'm scared I'll hurt you Tommy, and that I can't protect you when it matters."
Tommy let out a wet laugh. "That's a shit excuse, Sammy."
Sam hugged him tighter.
"I know."
___
Wilbur was pissed.
For the last week, nothing had been going his way. From Quackity ghosting him to Tommy ignoring him, Wilbur was not having the best time, his plans stalled as he fumbled to get his most important chess pieces back under control. So of course, the universe decided to give him a firm kick to the dick and informed him that his best helper had been killed by his brother.
A strange feeling had curled in his gut when he found out about what had happened to Ranboo and Tubbo. He shoved it away. He didn't care, no they were only pawns in his great schemes and he had no more use for them.
Wilbur rubbed his nose, scowling at the dozens of flowers surrounding him. The pollen itched, tickling the back of his nose as he sneezed for the sixth time in the span of the two minutes he had been in front of Tommy's door.
"Tommy! Open your damn door!" Wilbur hissed as he knocked for a third time.
There was no answer, and he finally tried the handle. The door opened easily, and a wall of dust slammed into him, causing Wilbur to sneeze repeatedly as tears blinded him. Fanning the air in an effort to relieve himself, Wilbur grasped for the door and slammed it shut before stumbling away.
So Tommy wasn't home.
This was fine. He could ask around, with how much he annoyed people Tommy would be easy to find. Someone was bound to have seen him. The hotel loomed nearby. Maybe Wilbur could ask that stupid robot Tommy had become fond of. Jack would also be there, Wilbur could ask him as well.
The robot was nowhere in sight when Wilbur approached, and that should have been the first sign that something was wrong. Wilbur had barely entered the lobby when Jack Manifold stormed down the ladder behind the front desk.
"What the fuck you want?" Jack demanded, and Wilbur considered pointing out the black eye and slightly bloody nose the man sported.
Jack scowled, scrunching his nose before wincing and cupping it. "Well?"
"Are you okay?" Wilbur asked, spotting an opportunity and taking it as he reached into his inventory for a bottle of water and a healing potion.
He held the items out and Jack glanced at them before taking it, relaxing minutely.
"If you could believe it, Tommy decided he would beat the shit outta me for no reason a few hours ago!" Jack said as he reached into the desk and pulled out a rag.
Wilbur sucked in a breath, feigning surprise. He was not blind to what Jack was doing.
"Really?!" He gasped, chest aching. "Why would he do that?"
"Hell if I know," Jack scoffed in response, turning to gaze out the window to avoid looking at Wilbur. "Tommy's a right prick."
Wilbur hummed. "That he is."
They fell into a silence, Jack awkwardly shuffling a stack of papers on the desk as Wilbur took in the lobby.
"I'm curious," Wilbur began after the silence had stretched, causing Jack to flinch. "Did Tommy actually build all this?"
"Fuck no, it was Sam. From what I know, Tommy scammed him into building it for him."
A pause.
"Who cares anyway? It's my hotel now." Jack narrowed his eyes at Wilbur, seeming to remember who he was exactly talking to. "Speaking of, if you ain't gonna rent a room then get the fuck out. I've got important shit to do."
Wilbur clasped his hands behind his back. "Maybe next time, Jack. I've actually been looking for Tommy. Have you seen him?"
Jack's face darkened into a scowl. "No, but if I do it'll be to shove my sword in his chest."
. . .
Wilbur's own chest twinged in phantom pain.
"Oh, shit," Jack awkwardly fumbled, rubbing the back of his neck as a furious blush covered his face. "That didn't age well."
Wilbur narrowed his eyes, the threat processing.
Tommy was his, no one made threats to his little brother in front of him and got away with it. Wilbur ignored the little voice sobbing about how he had encouraged Techno to beat Tommy bloody so long ago. It didn't know what it was talking about anyway.
"Listen here, Jack," Wilbur was saying as he stalked forward. "We can be friends, but if you even think about touching my little brother, I will kill you, and I will enjoy it."
Tommy was his. Tommy was his, and no one was allowed to touch him. Not again, not anymore. Tommy belonged to Wilbur, his little brother who was endlessly loyal and would follow Wilbur to the ends of the Earth. Wilbur needed Tommy back, he had to get him back before someone stole him from Wilbur.
Wilbur didn't wait to hear Jack's response, storming out of the hotel and down the Prime Path. Before he knew it, his feet were guiding him to the crater that was once L'manburg.
There's someone sitting on the edge of the crater, feet dangling in the open air and swaying mindlessly.
There's another, still as a statue with giant wings curved gently as if cradling the person leaning over the edge. The first leaned further over the edge, sunlight catching on blond curls and making Wilbur's heart leap to his throat.
Wilbur stumbled forward, fear curling around his throat as Tommy leaned closer, closer, a breath away from the edge, from falling, words dying in in throat to the fear of potentially losing his brother. There were no wings on his back to save him, no shimmering feathers that people spoke of. There was just Tommy, small, dumb, naive little Tommy who was loyal to Wilbur until his dying day, and was not allowed to die until Wilbur told him to because Tommy owed his life to Wilbur, Wilbur owned Tommy. Tommy was his.
A hand wrapped around Tommy's wrist, yanking him back and causing the boy to fall to the ground. To safety.
"What the fuck are you doing?" Wilbur hissed, ignoring his fear, sharpening it to anger and burying the little.voice that screamed he was better than this, better than the monster he had turned himself into.
Fingers curled, eyes wide and trenchcoat flapping in the breeze. Wilbur knew what he looked like to Tommy. It fueled him, stroking embers into flames as he loomed over the frozen form of the younger boy. Bright blue eyes stared into brown, dull in a deeper, spiritual meaning yet quite literally glowing physically.
"Answer me, Tommy," Wilbur snapped, and his little flower wilted, flinching in on himself at Wilbur's tone.
He looked away, gaze pointed to the ground as he pushed himself to his feet and brushing his palms clean onto his pants. Like he had learned, Tommy hunched over, making himself smaller in Wilbur's presence and giving him his undivided attention.
And yet, he still didn't answer.
Wilbur scowled, squaring his shoulder as he pushed ahead. "Nevermind that. We'll talk about it later. I've been looking everywhere for you, Toms, were you hiding from me?"
"...don't call me that." Tommy mumbled, and WIlbur's eye twitched as a dark smile crossed his face.
"What was that, Toms?" He questioned lightly, demanding, ordering even as the smile remained on his face.
"I said," Tommy started, growing louder as a frown crossed his face. "Don't call me that!"
Wilbur loomed over Tommy but the boy stood taller, standing his ground as he turned angry eyes to bore into Wilbur's own brown.
"Why is that, Sunshine?" Wilbur challenged, moving to grab Tommy's hand.
Tommy was faster, gripping WIlbur's wrist in a white kuckled grip, sharpened nails digging warningly into pale skin. His wrist felt as if it would snap in two, and Wilbur held back a gasp of pain.
"Tommy, let go. You're hurting me." Wilbur stated, and Tommy let him go as if he had been burned.
"I'm..." Tommy hesitated, eyebrows furrowing as he began to chew his bottom lip.
Wilbur waited for him to finish, an eyebrow raised in question. Tommy shook his head, huffing before glarring at WIlbur.
"You know what? Fuck you," the boy snapped before beginning to push his way past Wilbur.
"I'm disappointed in you, Tommy." Wilbur chided. "All of this, the temper tantrum you're throwing, for attention? You got your feeling hurt, and you've decided to make it everyone's problem?"
"You don't know anything!" Tommy retorted sharply.
"I know enough!" Wilbur snapped, and Tommy shrunk back. "You're hurting people, Tommy! And for what?!"
"I don't care what you think, Wilbur."
Wilbur grinned. It was sharp, dangerous. "You should. After all, I'm your brother, and you belong to me."
Tommy's eyes narrowed to slits, the shaking in his hands becoming full body shudders even as his breath quickened.
"I don't belong to you," Tommy choked out.
"Don't you see, Tommy?! you're mine, no one will love you like I love you, Toms," WIlbur crooned. "After all, Tubbo abandoned you. Ranboo as well! They got hitched to stay away from you!"
"That's not true," Tommy denied, stumbling away from Wilbur when he advanced.
"Then where are they?!" WIlbur demanded, throwing his arms out. "Why aren't they here? Why aren't they defending themselves, defending you?"
"Because their dead!" Tommy shrieked. "Technoblade and Philza killed them just like they killed me, like they killed you, because I cared and now their gone and I hate you Wilbur Soot! I hate you for taking me in and i hate you for giving me everything i could have wished for and ripping it away! I fucking despise you for making me feel loved and wanted, for making me want to give you the world and to die for you!"
Wilbur took a step back in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, to regain control of the situation, but Tommy didn't give him the chance, advancing forward and shoving Wilbur in his anger even as tears cut tracks down his cheeks, even as ash and smoke curled around him.
"I hate that you used me for your own selfish gain, that you used everyone and then ran away like a coward!" Tommy's voice lowered from when he had been screaming, voice ceasing its echo in the crater as the blond's words cut into WIlbur like knives. "I can forgive you for what you did to me, I think. I deserved it, after all. But, the one thing I'll never forgive you for is making Fundy grow up without a dad."
Ash coated Wilbur's tounge.
"Just like I did. Just like you did." Tommy whispered.
"Tommy," WIlbur began, but he shook his head.
"No, Wil, its over. You swore, you promised, and that was the biggestt failure you could achieve." Tommy turned away, back to the crater, back to the lone statue on the edge. "We were brothers, once. Not anymore, not after all this."
Wilbur chuckled, throat tight, water dripping onto his trenchcoat before he realized distantly that oh, he was crying. "So, this is it, then? you're gonna leave me to?"
"How can I leave you when you left me first?"
"Sunshine, you can't!" Wilbur cried, desperately.
"I'm not falling for your bullshit!" Tommy replied, equally desperate.
"What am I without you? What are you without me?"
Tommy scrubbed at his own face, cheeks blotchy. "Our own people, Wilbur. I can't...I won't do this again. Not with you. Not with anyone."
"I'm not asking you!" Wilbur shrieked. "You will never leave me, Tommy! I'm never letting you go!"
"Yes, you are, Wilbur Soot."
Wilbur froze, blood running cold at the hostile power washing over him. Cracks lined the figure of the statue, stone chipping away to reveal a blond hair girl. Snow white wings puffed in barely concealed rage, wrapping around Tommy as a sword materialized in her hands.
"You will leave here, right now, and never fuck with Tommy again, or I will strike you down where you stand." Drista told him sharply, and the world seemed to hold its breath with her threat. "Do you understand?"
Once, long ago when both Phil and his mom were still around and they were a happy family, his mother had told him who she really was. He has barely been eight, wrapped in mounds of blankets with a fever as him mother curled in the nest with him, weaving him tales of gods and goddesses. She had told him of the favors granted for mortals, the protection, the champions and patrons. Wilbur didn't understand it then when she had warned him against angering any type of god. The words had washed over him, nothing but whispered warnings and quiet promises.
Staring into the masked face of the young god everyone knew as Drista, Wilbur was finally beginning to realize what his mother had been warning him against. He was nothing, compared to her. She was a predator, his instints screamed, a monster at the top of the food chain while he was a meer speck. He was easily comparable to grime beneath her boots, and that if she wanted to, he would be dead before he could blink.
His tounge felt like lead, acid coating his lungs and throat as he nodded in fear. Drista tilted her head, a giant examining a bug under a microscope, before her gaze shifted to Tommy, and Wilbur unfroze.
"Let's go see Papa," she told the boy, and he nodded before sunset wings unfurled from his back(when did that happen, how did he not know that Tommy had wings-) and the two took off.
Not once was Wilbur spared a glance, no goodbye given to him as he was left alone, feathers drifting in the wind as they fluttered to the ground. And oh, if that wasn't damning. Alone, Wilbur began to make his way back to his base, a hole in his heart even as all of his plans began to crumble.
It wasn't a manipulation tactic when Wilbur had asked Tommy that question. It was genuine, something that WIlbur had asked himself over and over again when he was in limbo, when he was alone with nothing but his thoughts and the whistles of distant trains that never grew closer. They were the dirty crime boys, brother in all but blood and they had shed countless tears and spent many sleepless nights together. Tommy was his, and he was Tommy's, and even in Pogtopia he deluded himself into thinking that everything he did and said was not out of selfishness, but for Tommy.
Wilbur had never hated himself more.
___
The letter weighed a ton.
Mockingly, it had sat in a single, unmarred chest in the ashes of his home, an invitation, a plea, a favor cashed to repay a life debt.
Dear Technoblade . . .
Technoblade gripped the letherbound journal the letter was contained it, omnious blood stains dotting the ink smudged pages.
. . .coords to find blueprints. . .
Techno wiped the sweat from his brow, gritting his teeth as he heaved himself onto the ledge of the mountain he had been climbing. A mix of diamond and iron armor chafed against scarred skin and Techno huffed to himself as he measured the remaining distance.
. . .out of the prison in two weeks' time.
If Techno squinted, he could see the mountain he had heard Dream's secrete base resided in, a meer speck in the distance from where he stood.
Counting on you. . .
It was a trap. Techno could smell it a mile away. The letter had arrived not long after Techno had lost everything he had ever owned. In coded ender, it took Techno ages to decipher, and a bit of luck when folded in the pages of a book Dream had given him long ago he found a key to uncode the message. Techno had no idea how the item hand ended in his ender chest in a forgotten corner, but Techno was not one to question it.
Consider your debt repaid.
Techno pulled an iron shovel from his inventory. The tree was easy to spot, the only one on that specific ledge. The roots created a small hollow, and Techno chuffed as he moved five steps to the left where grass had been ripped up and replaced in a poor attempt to hide what was underneath the earth.
I look forward to your arival, Technoblade.
The chest was heavy when Techno pulled it from the ground. He dropped it to the ground and it landed with a thud. There was no lock on it, instead a simple lether clasp that released with a slight tug.
Massive maps, blueprints, and various detailed and annotated journals filled the chest. Techno shuffled through the contents, skimming over notes and drawn out paths before sighing.
From,
Dream WesTeken .
Techno dug his comm out of his pocket. Dialing the most recent contact, he began shoving books and maps into his inventory.
"Did you find it, mate?" Phil asked from the other end, and Techno groaned in response.
"Bruh," he drawled, borderline whining as his inventory quickly began to fill. "There's so much stuff here, Phil. I'm going to have to make another trip. I had to climb a mountain, Phil!"
Phil's chuckles filled the call. "If you want, I could come and help you out."
"Naw, keep gathering materials and rebuilding with Niki. Besides, your old man knees would give out during the first part of the trip, and it would be lame to get slowed down because of it."
Phil's reply was fond, even if he squawked in anger.
"You little shit!"
Techno laughed. "I'll see you when I return, Phil."
"You as well, mate."