Chapter Text
Tommy's breath comes out in cold gasps on the porch. He scrambles for purchase, fingers digging into cold wood surfaced with ice, but they only end up slipping. He stumbles down the steps, cold air freezing tears stuck to his face. The dogs are still roaming around, scanning the perimeter for threats.
He had to go get Clem, he realised in between stumbling towards the fence through the snow and scrubbing tears from his face. Carl whinnys when he enters, but he ignores Technoblade's horse in favour of the runt sheep sitting in her own pen. He grabs a spare rope, not that he'd need it since she's always walked by his side with ease, and slips it over her head.
"Come on," he mutters gently. It's freezing outside and she'd been stripped of her coat to rid her of fleas, so he bites his lip and glances around. He still had his bundle of old clothes and his blanket in his hands, and he'd have to burden that weight on her. He spots an old coat, reflective and gray, meant for larger sheep but it'll have to do. He clips it on her quickly, then piles his blanket and clothes carefully on top of her, tying them around her midsection with his rope. It wasn't the safest, but she didn't seem too bothered about it. He holds the end of the rope in his hand gently, guiding her out of the barn.
Walter and Betty stand outside when he gets there. He smiles sadly, dropping Clem's rope to kneel down in the snow. He pets them both, landing a kiss on each of their heads.
"I've gotta go," he mutters, scratching behind Walter's ears. "Stay here, okay?"
Betty wags her tail stupidly when he stands up, zigzagging around like she wants to play. Walter trots by his side as he goes further away to the edge of the fence. They bark at him as he crosses over the fence, helping Clem over by half lifting her up with a grunt of exertion. He turns to leave and they start to go wild, barking like crazy and whining. Tommy scrunches his eyebrows together, tears begging to brew. He walks about ten steps when they stop, and he breathes out a sigh of relief, before feeling a wet nose brush against his hand. He jumps, gasping a bit, before looking down and spotting Walter's head under his hand, mouth open and panting. Betty was trotting beside him, tongue lolling out with a happy grin.
Tommy sighed and looked behind him at the fence, at the fifty odd dogs roaming his property, and then down at the two wagging their tails next to him. Fuck it, Techno probably wouldn't even notice.
He turns his back and wanders out into the woods with two more mouths to feed.
The good thing about living on the SMP for a long time and also being well versed in countries and wars was that Tommy had a pretty vast knowledge on the SMP boundaries. They were far and wide, it was hard to leave the area since it was so huge, but he knew the coordinates of where the greater SMP ended and the wilderness began. Where there were no laws or rules or dictators, just undiscovered land. No one had gone there yet, to his knowledge, because despite everyone on the SMP hating everyone else, hating themselves, hating war and countries and alliances- they all chose to live there. Even Techno in his retirement had not left the SMP boundaries, though Tommy wonders if he actually knows where the cut off is.
The threat of Dream is still very real, especially when he was at Techno's cabin only a few days ago. Tommy was still recovering and not used to travelling for so long, despite what he told himself.
He first gets wood, feeling awfully reminiscent of that time in the woods after escaping exile. He builds his tools up, this time taking the extra effort to make a coordinate tracking compass so he'd know where the boundaries were. It's exhausting work, and he sets off walking straight after but only makes it an hour before needing to rest. He sits in a patch of dryness beneath a spruce tree; he still hadn't made it out of the snow. Sitting down reminds him he hasn't eaten or drank anything in a while, and then he suddenly feels too tired to get back up. Resting out in the open is a terrifying concept, even with the dogs to warn him. He forces his eyes open, forces his legs to stand, and begins to look for food. His stomach was already rumbling and the sun was yet to set. If he laid down for bed now, he'd wake up in the night and have to face monsters for food.
He hates killing animals. He refuses to kill sheep, despite his hunger, and mostly forages the berries and apples from the trees. It's a good snack, but he knows it's not enough for him or the other animals. He kills three chickens, arm aching from exhaustion after all his attempts. The dogs are quite good at helping, and he supposed if he didn't help them they'd find their own food source. He hates sorting the food out, hates killing the life of an innocent animal. He reminds himself that once he settles somewhere he can make a farm.
He makes a fire quickly, sitting on the ground with a skinned chicken in his hands, skewered on a stick. He eats the first one himself, balancing the second one on a skewer between his knees whilst he picks off chicken from a bone. He's not ashamed to say he eats like a savage, tearing chunks off and scarfing them down. He doesn't want the dogs to snuffle at the rest and try to eat the bones, so he digs a hole and buries it's carcass.
He divides up the next chicken between the three of them, making small piles in front of each. The dogs are surprisingly well mannered, not trying to grab the food from his hand. He supposes it's not the most healthy diet for them, but there's not much he could do right now. And anything was better than starvation. He cooks the last chicken too and decides he can eat it in the morning.
The sun was starting to go down now, the sky still light but turning darker by the second.
He digs a quick hole out in the ground, anxiously going farther than he needs to away from his campfire for fear of Dream. It's back to sleeping in cramped spaces on the ground, he supposed as he unloads Clem, untying the rope and removing his blanket and clothes. She curls up in the corner, content and warm in her little coat. She lets out a little bleat and Tommy leans over to pat her on the head. They're not far from each other, if Tommy rolled too far he'd roll right into her, and the dogs both want to cuddle right up to him. He doesn't oppose it since they give off more heat than he does. It's a tight fit, but he finds himself somewhat content with his head on a pair of ratty clothes, and a threadbare blanket hugging his body, the stone cold beneath his body.
He's up early, his body protesting as he sits up with every single joint in his body aching. He sits with his back against the wall, legs crossed beneath him. Walter huffs and rests his chin on his leg, eyes dropping closed again, and Tommy lets out a small laugh. He picks apart the last chicken they have, sharing it between the four of them in a light breakfast. He packs up their stuff, ties it down to Clementine, and then carefully guides them all out of the small gap in the floor.
He mentally maps out what he needs to do. It's not safe out in the woods at any time without armour, and currently all he had was a basic set of stone tools he had made the day before, and his coordinate compass. He glances down to the compass at his chest, held by a chain, pointing behind him to wherever Tubbo was. He needed to keep heading west, according to the compass, to reach the closest border of the SMP. In the meantime, he'd need to make armour and find more food.
It may not seem like it, but at his core, Tommy was a survivor. He knew what to craft and how to do it, how to ration food and how to fight mobs. Knew how to build up supplies, how to farm. He knew how to start from scratch, which is what he was doing now.
The first day is monotonous. He walks until they're no longer in the snow, and then finds a shaded spot in a dark forest and leaves his three animals there next to a tree. Clem immediately collapses down, huffing slightly and closing her eyes, whilst the two dogs sniffed around a bit checking for potential threats.
The next day is monotonous again- he didn't feel happy with just iron armour, so they travel in the morning and in the evening he mines until he gets a few diamonds, enough to make a chestplate and axe. He mentally plans that further along the line he'll get netherite, and an enchantment table. His paranoia of dying quickly is suffocating, but his fear of dying here, in the smp, is even greater. It's when he steps out of his mine, skin dusted with coal dust and ash, that he sees fresh footprints in the snow and the dogs pacing around the hole in the floor from which he pops his head up from. He tenses, glancing around cautiously.
"Ranboo?" He mutters, seeing a purple particle dissipate into the ground before him. He sees a figure in the distance, walking away. "Ranboo!" He yells. The tall kid jumps in the air, turning around with wide eyes.
"Tommy?" He breathes out, teleporting next to him.
"Holy shit," Tommy mutters, pulling him into a hug. "What are you doing around here?" He pulls away, looking down at Ranboo's feet which squeak- his shoes are covered in plastic bags, tied at his calves, to avoid the snow. He looks up just as he clears his throat, scratching the back of his head.
"Well, I was on my way to Technoblade's… but I'm a bit lost." He admits, wearily. Tommy smiles, forgetting himself as he beams at the taller.
"You're close, I came from there a few days ago." Ranboo nods for a second, then jolts and looks back down at the blond boy. There's a second of silence where he looks at his arm, limp and fastened to his chest, and then his eye, hidden beneath a white bandage.
"Why were you at Techno's?" He asks, skirting around the obvious, like 'why did you only hug me with one arm?'. Tommy smiles forlornly.
"Some shit went down with Dream- I'm sure Techno will tell you all about it." He says somewhat bitterly. Ranboo worried his lip between his teeth. He'd seen parts of exile, seen his best friend become a shell of his past. Watched his eyes fade to gray, his clothing get torn.
"So you've left exile?" Tommy nods. A beat passes. "you can't go back to L'manberg." He says quietly, avoiding his eyes and kicking the snow with bag covered shoes. A beat of silence passes again and his eyebrows crease as he's sure he's offended his best friend. When he looks up to check, Tommy's smile is resigned.
"I'm not going back there. Ever." He mutters, eyes a bit glazed. Ranboo furrows his eyebrows. "Listen, Ranboo, I'm going away for a while. I won't see you for a bit. I'm, uh, really gonna miss you."
"W-what?" Tommy sniffs, wipes away a year threatening to fall. Ranboo swallows.
"Thanks for visiting me in exile." And suddenly all he wants to do is ask questions. Who did this to you, where are you going, when are you coming back?
Instead he stays utterly silent, feet rooted to the floor and melting the Earth.
"I can't stay here anymore. You can't tell anyone you saw me, 'kay?" Tommy says, looking up at him with shiny eyes. Ranboo's eyes are still wide, and they go frantic when he sees Tommy move to leave. He panics and latches onto his arm, frown deepening when the boy flinches harshly.
"I'm sorry, I just-"
"Ranboo," Tommy says, shrugging his hand off and then locking their fingers together. "Thank you, really, for everything. Everything here is fucked. It's too fucked. If I stay I don't know how long I'm gonna be alive for." He thinks back to wind in his hair, hundreds of blocks above land, the water somewhere far below, and promptly shakes it out of his head.
"O-okay." Ranboo nods. "Okay, but stay in contact with me." He demands. Tommy smiles softly.
"The entire point is that I'm distancing myself from the server," he says. Ranboo purses his lips.
"But I haven't done anything bad to you. I-i'm not a president, I don't want to destroy L'manberg, I don't run it; I just want to be your friend." Tommy considers it all for a moment, the frantic tone to his voice, the pleading undertones, and the truth of it all. Because truthfully, Ranboo hadn't really done anything wrong to him. Ever. Aside from slightly taking his spot as Tubbo's best friend (but Tubbo and him weren't even speaking anymore, regardless of Ranboo).
"Okay. Fine. I need to repair my communicator, but I'll message you." Ranboo breathes out a sigh of relief, flinching as a tear sizzled down his cheek, burning his skin.
"Oh, Boo," Tommy whispered, leaning up and wiping it away. Ranboo leans into his hand, closing his eyes for a second as they well with tears. Who knew when he would next see him?
"I'll miss you." He mutters to the top of Tommy's head when the younger pulls him into a hug. Tommy hesitates. He vaguely thinks about asking him to come with, begging him to run away with him- but the whole thing would be too reminiscent of him and Tubbo, when he begged the younger to run away with him years ago. Tubbo may have already replaced him with Ranboo, but Tommy could never replace Tubbo with Ranboo.
"I'll miss you too," he admits. "But it's for the best."
"I know, and I hope you get better, away from all this shit. It's nice to see you put yourself first," he grins, pulling away. Tommy smiles, wiping away tears. "See you around?"
"Yeah." Something about Tommy's smile, resigned and forlorn, tells Ranboo he won't be seeing Tommy for a long time. Perhaps ever. "See you around."
Seeing Ranboo is hard, turning away is harder. But if he stays longer and the hybrid starts to beg, he knows he'll cave in and stay for more torment. He turns away and doesn't look back as the taller one pulls his bag from his back and frantically scribbles something important in a book. Tommy's feet tread into the snow with a burning feeling in his chest.
He travels for days, which turn into weeks, and flop into a month when he finally reaches the border. He looks down at his compass, he'd made a chain and attached it to his other compass, which permanently points backwards with a scuffed marking barely legible anymore. His other one points forward, ticking slightly. The coordinates shift in the top left as he gets closer to the mark, and finally he reaches them. The boundaries of the SMP.
It's a jungle biome, untouched as it's so far away. The air is fresh to his stale lungs, and he sits with his back to some bamboo, a few tears sliding down his face in relief. Maybe the animals can sense it too, he thinks as they slump next to him. The travel has been harsh on them, too, he knows it. All of them had gotten leaner, the constant travel not substituted by food. But that would change, he thought to himself, as he set up his house. Made a farm, found more animals. Sustained himself and lived happily.
He starts the next day. He wanders around the biome, scouting out various spots to build a home. High up would be nice, easiest to see if anyone was coming and easiest to hide away. He stays far, far away from cobblestone. Prime knows it only ever got him in trouble.
He can't help but imagine community houses, redstone beneath the grass lain with TNT, big yellow and black borders spanning his hill. A dirt shack covered in alliums.
Instead, he collects oak wood, trying not to disturb the nature of the jungle. He replants his trees, careful to only take what he needed. By the end of the first day, he'd built himself the first part of his treehouse. A small box room, in which he'd set down a furnace and crafting table, and a double chest which was empty. He'd seen a body of water lined with clay earlier. Maybe he'd make a plant pot, he mused as he scaled down the tree using his vines. His next plan of action was to make a proper bed, something he never had in exile, but also a staircase to his room. The vines were certainly fun, but his ragtag group of animals couldn't use them.
Over the next week, his hands become rough, calloused and splintered, but his home becomes built. It's small and chipped and uneven, and the staircase is hacked out of the trunk of the tree, vines covering the opening as a way of disguise which works well. Some of the wood is chipped from his unsteady hands, and some of the vines end up disturbed from his movement. By the end of the week, he's built his bedroom, which is up a ladder and across some branches and leaves. He gets twigs in his hair. He puts clay pots by slabbed window sills. He holds back tears the night he first sleeps in his own bed.
The next week is farms. He builds them on the unsteady tops of trees, water trickles into dirt from an infinite pool. The splinters and calluses in his hands become covered in dirt, his knees become bruised from kneeling so much. He plants wheat and jumps from tree to tree, alternating to potatoes, carrots and beetroots. He lays fences delicately, creates bridges from the tops of trees and spends hours trying to craft intricate lanterns. Building was never his forte, but the simple slab and fence designs, linked by chains holding lanterns, do a darn good job. In the next years to come, his farms expand to the floor, til bunches of the ground are covered in harvested land, and he keeps livestock in big penns. But for now, he watches the crops grow carefully and works on fixing his communicator.
It buzzes to life in the fourth week, when he's finished building his living spaces and has slept off the exhaustion of farming and building. He's sitting on his bed, Betty at his feet and Walter curled up beneath his covers, Clementine somewhere basking in the sun, whilst he fiddles with a screwdriver. He flinches when it buzzes, holding the metal with hands covered in bandaids and dirt beneath the nails. It has been broken since exile. Untouched for so long.
There are two contacts that had messaged him. He swallows fearfully at the sight.
Ranboo: are you okay?
4 weeks ago, 2:14PM.
Ranboo: tommy reply srsly
2 weeks ago, 7:29AM
Ranboo: you told me you'd message me !!
1 week ago, 9:12AM
Ranboo: i am this close to telling someone. If I have to find your dead body I won't forgive you you idiot tezt me back!
4 days ago, 7:06PM
Despite the light tone of the messages, Tommy can sense the panic in the other boy's messages. Naturally nervous, he can imagine that Ranboo was only getting more hunched over, chewing his nails more often and getting distant with his friends whilst worry overtook his head.
Tommy: i'm fine bitchboy j had to settle and fix shit calm down
Today, 10:53AM
He exits their messages with a sigh, going back to his recents. He ignores the top one, looking through his old messages. Tubbo hadn't ever messaged him back. Techno had never stopped to question where he'd ended up.
Dream had sent him over 20 messages, starting from when he left exile. He doesn't dare open them out of fear. He can see the beginning of the next text, demanding where he is and probably littered with threats that Tommy won't see because he turns the communicator off by its red button and slides it onto his window sill.
He walks, he surveys the area. He mines and mines until he goes to the nether and blows it up, mines more ores until he's as stacked as he's ever been. Yet over the next few years, he finds he rarely needs the protection, and most of the time his armour is sat on his armour stand in his bedroom. Except for the boots, which he'd charmed with a high level of feather falling due to his stupid habit of jumping out of trees rather than taking the vines. Too many rolled ankles meant he gave in and started wearing the boots, resigning himself to fixing them more often. He builds an enchantment room up in the trees and fills it with superficial, empty books. He neatens up the builds he first made. He farms, harvesting wheat and making bread. Carefully testing when his potatoes were done and being impressed by their yield. He finally gets sick of his arm, which had lost all movement below the elbow, and was motionless and got in the way, so he builds a brace for it. Wooden, with iron slats, to keep it still and out of his way.
He travels far and wide to find a village and make trades, and finds some authentic books that weren't just artificial paper made to enchant in languages he couldn't read. The kind villager offers him a calendar when he asks for the date, and he comes across a hen from the village collection, where they get eggs, whose feathers are plucked out and who is scraggly and thin, steps uneven and chittering nervously. He leans on the wooden fencing keeping her in, chewing on an apple he had bought.
"Hey!" He beckons a villager over, whose eyes light up at the sign of another traveller to wrack goods from. "How much for her?" He points out the injured hen and the villager scoffs.
"We have real animals up for sale over there," he points out by some stalls, "but the chickens over here are what keep the community going." Tommy scoffs.
"If you keep her in there she'll die, and I doubt she's laying eggs anyways." The villager remains impassive. "Look, big man, I'm a bit of an entrepreneur myself…" a grin crosses his face. "Let me take her off your hands for 15 emeralds." The villagers' eyes go wild. Chicken are easy livestock to capture, they're common in most biomes. The healthy chickens sell for 10 at the stalls, and even then bartering usually takes them down even further. No one in their right mind would pay that much for an ill chicken. The villager hides a smirk and a laugh. Entrepreneur? This guy must be crazy.
"Could we make that 20?" The villager grins, eyes shining. Tommy's hardened, eyes narrowing, and mouth upturning.
"Don't push your luck," he mutters. The villager shrugs.
"15 it is." Travellers could be dangerous, and as much as this guy came off as an idiot, the villager would be even more of one if he ignored netherite armour, the axe strapped to his back, two large dogs flanking each side and an eyepatch covering one eye. He opens the pen, ducking under and approaching her. She's a common type, ginger coloured and small. She flinches when he gets near, clucking and walking back until she's in a corner, scrambling and squawking. Tommy grimaces, eyebrows quirking together as he watches her struggle. He chucks his core into the pen once the villagers out, and he fishes 15 emeralds from a pouch out.
He reaches his good hand down and grabs his wooden brace, pulling his dead arm across his torso and hooking it to a clip on his waistband with a sigh to make it bend.
"Come here, darling," he coos softly, grabbing her with the good arm and gently resting her on his wooden brace. Her feet get good purchase on it, probably viewing it as a perch.
So he returns home with a new animal to nurture, and a sack full of books to read.
The years pass quickly. Him and Ranboo communicate every now and then. They don't talk about much, just quick updates to let the other know everything was fine. Tommy had already said he didn't want to know about conflicts and such. It had been three years since he'd moved on from the SMP, and life was rich and good again. He couldn't help it, but that first year when he'd moved and he bought a calendar- he'd put down everyone's birthdays in it. And it remained a habit the next year, when he buys a calendar from the same villager, and the next again. He bakes a cake each time it's someone's birthday and lights a candle for them. He sees off his 18th entirely alone, laid on his back on a treetop with a slice of vanilla cake. His hair grows long and wispy, his arm remains motionless. His collection of injured or unloved animals grows and grows by the day, until he has to build shelters on the forest floors for those who won't come upstairs with him. It's been three years of not really worrying about what wars he could've been in, when he gets a text from Ranboo. It wasn't unexpected- it had been around 6 weeks, maybe 7, since they last updated each other. Each time it was simple, one of them asking the other if they were okay. Simply translated, it was usually Ranboo making sure Tommy was still alive, and then Tommy returning the favour. He didn't tell Ranboo about his trip to the village, his animals, his farms, his peace, and he didn't hear about the wars, the countries, the fighting and the screaming. Simple questions. Are you okay?
Ranboo: i know you dont wanna hear it but things are v v bad at the minute. Might not text for a while
Today, 1:19PM
Tommy: its okay man just text when you can let me know yor okay.
today, 1:20PM
Ranboo: i dont know if ill make it out of here alive
today, 1:20PM
Tommy's heart jumps. How many times had he thought that when he was still fighting for countries and battling enemies? How many times had he thought that when he wasn't fighting anymore, when he was in exile, or at Techno's. The word choice sends a pang of familiarity up his body, and he feels 16 again. Ready to ask where the fight is, what they're fighting for and tell Ranboo to back down. To run, to let Tommy take the last hit. He takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he is not that Tommy anymore. He lets his next text sit for a while, debating it with the send button just beneath his thumb.
Tommy: what's going on?
Today, 1:23PM
Ranboo's heart jumps. Not once in three years had Tommy asked what was going on, not when Ranboo had told him that things weren't fine, or when wars waged on around him and he continued to make sure Tommy was alive. And Ranboo held no resentment for it- the boy was finally doing what was best for him. Through stilted messages, Ranboo imagined how far he'd come from the boy he'd seen in exile, the boy he'd seen walking the opposite direction of Techno's cabin.
He liked that Tommy was recovering, that he no longer watched him scream and shout in people's faces, and shake and tremble with PTSD. And he hates that he can't imagine the independent, lone survivor that Tommy had become in the message he sends, and he can only picture the 17 year old, with dirty hair and a soulless look in a warriors eyes.
The stone walls above him shake and dust falls onto his head. Loud bangs and booms sound off above him and he shakes, a whimper leaving his mouth as more dust falls and explosions ring out. The 2x2 hole he crammed himself into underground presses against his shoulders, shaking with every blow. He closes his eyes and lets out a sob.
Ranboo: things r fucked, im trapped and everything blown up I don't know where anyone is
Today, 1:26PM
Tommy crosses his legs on his bed, chewing his lip, eyebrows creased. He had no idea what conflicts were going on now, whose side he was on, who was fighting him. He could offer no help.
Tommy: its okay im with you.
Today, 1:26PM
Ranboo chokes on a sob, blood trickling from his lip and staining his stupid suit, which felt like it was choking him. He wanted to scream, he wanted to curl into a ball, he wanted someone to hug him. The words on his screen make his face crumple, and for the first time in years he selfishly wishes Tommy was still stuck in this wasteland like the rest of them. He closes his eyes and leans against the wall, listening to the misery and chaos drone on outside as it always did. When would the villains finally be done with blowing up any civilisation that was built?
Tommy: are you still there
Today, 1:32PM
Tommy: ranboo please
Today, 1:40PM
Tommy: you cant say this shit then not reply stop fucking around
Today, 1:52PM
Ranboo doesn't open his eyes again. Not when the hole he barricaded himself in is blown open and his body takes the blow, not when his communicator beeps rapidly in his hands til it falls to the floor, not when Tubbo is screaming hysterically and shaking his blood stained suit. Not when Tommy sits awake at night in his jungle top.
Tommy: ranboo are you okay
Today, 2:18PM
He gets no reply, and unfortunately, life moves on.
He wakes up stiffly the next morning, having fallen asleep sitting up, communicator in hands still waiting for a response. He grits his teeth when he sees there is none.
It is 6 months after no reply from Ranboo when he hears movement in the jungle. His hands stiffen on the book he's reading, eyes going wide at the sound of hushed whispers and heavy footsteps on the jungle floor.
Tommy places his book down silently, placing a reassuring hand on Walter's back before carefully stepping out onto the roof, across a branch, and down into his kitchen area. He leans out of the window, looking down and seeing no one. His heart hammered in his chest, fearing the worst, and he carefully tiptoed down the junglewood staircase.
"He's moving! Look!" A voice exclaimed a bit louder. A voice he recognised and thought he would have forgotten by now.
He peels back the vines at the bottom of his stairs and steps out. Tubbo whirls around, Karl quick to follow. They both startle at the sight of him standing there, and Tubbo has a compass in his hand, with the red arrow pointing directly at him. A small grin overtakes his face.
"Tommy," he nearly whispers, tears welling in his eyes.
"Hey, Tubbo," Tommy says, face crumpling a little bit, with a hesitant smile on his face. Tubbo takes the next few steps forward until they collide in a hug. Tommy had only gotten taller in the years they'd been apart, and more strong with all the physical exercise he did. Tubbo felt thinner, his face had darker shadows than they ever had before. He pulls back and holds the younger at arm's length, eyeing up the wild beast who had embraced the jungle. His blond hair was long, unruly behind his head and trailing down his back. One of his eyes was cloudy, the pupil not visible beneath clouds of white, and a large scar mutilated his eyelid, dragging over his whole face. It must've been there a while, for it was white and flat. A brace of some sort held his arm up and flat against his torso. Tommy notices his staring at smiles sheepishly. He has many questions and he's sure they do, too.
"We should talk." Karl embraces him after Tubbo, and he nods at the older with a million questions piling up in his head as he leads them upstairs. It's warm enough in the jungle, and his kitchen is crammed with just him, so he leads them to his treetop where he built an open floor and brings cups of tea to them. As he's standing in the kitchen after leading them up, he takes a deep breath, steadying himself and digging his nails into his arms. Seeing them was nice, but it was already dragging him back to the depths of 17 again.
He sits down heavily in the circle they've formed up top and a silence encapsulates all of them.
"You first." Tubbo mutters, "what happened?" Somehow, Tommy can still read him well enough that he wants to know what happened when he still knew him.
"Where to begin?" Tommy smiles sadly at the floor, a sigh leaving his mouth. "God, it feels like it was only yesterday but also a million years ago." He scratches his leg self consciously. It had been years and years yet it still hurt to even think about. "Exile is where it started. Things got really bad, I'll spare you the details. Towards the end of it, he held my arm down to our open fire and burnt it." His arm covered in a metal frame and swinging limply moves slightly from his shoulder in a jerking motion. "And then he slashed my eye open," he traces his fingers over the scar, swallowing and fighting back tears.
"Dream?" Karl asks quietly. Tommy tenses.
"Don't." He whispers, not making eye contact. After all these years his name still scares him. "He nearly killed me." He half laughs, "fuck, I was practically dead when I made it to Techno's." He sees a minute twitch of Tubbo's eye at the mention of his name and he stores it away to ask about later. "Couple months bedbound there, caught sepsis in my arm. Gruesome shit, could see all my bones through my fingers n' shit." His arm is bandaged still, because it's still a disfigured form with big, thick white scars discolouring his whole arm, and chunks of flesh missing. "I was blind in my eye the second he cut it. Techno kicked me to the curb when I was still recovering cause I refused to fight against L'manberg with him."
"How long ago was that?" Tubbo asks. Tommy shrugs.
"I didn't keep track, maybe about three years?" Tubbo nods, a pensive look on his face.
"And…" his face crumples slightly, eyebrows pushing together, "how come you were in contact with Ranboo and not anyone else?" What he means is, why not me?
"I had to leave, Tubbo." His face twists something dark, something that festered for years and was left unresolved. "Everyone was connected somehow to something, and I couldn't do it anymore. Not after nearly dying. I met Ranboo after Techno kicked me out on the borders of his house, and he made me promise to stay in touch." He takes a deep breath. "And you… exiled me." He clenches his jaw. "I wasn't allowed back home, I couldn't go back home." His hand shakes in a way it hasn't done for years.
Tubbo suddenly feels hit in the face by his own stupid, selfish actions years ago. He can't tear his eyes away from the thick scar across Tommy's face that blinds his eye, and the metal keeping his arm straight, and knowing that in some deeply twisted way, he was responsible.
"Your turn." Tommy says quietly. Tubbo looks up in confusion. "I talked first, it's your turn."
"Right. Uh, I guess this was right after you left then, but we didn't know that then. Dream kept coming round asking about you, wouldn't leave us alone 'cause he thought you were with us. A couple weeks later, 'doomsday'." Tubbo swallows. "They bombarded us with TnT, caught us off guard. We didn't stand a chance. It took nearly a year to rebuild, and then another attack took out our newly built defensive systems." Tommy bites his tongue- defense systems seemed anti- L'manberg. "After that, we lost a lot of citizens. Our numbers were low and so repairs took even longer. Out of anger, we had launched an attack on Technoblade earlier that year. It failed and he beat us, and then attacked again about half a year ago with the aid of Dream and a few others who'd turned against us. Ranboo was viewed as a peaceful party but Dream killed him to anger Technoblade and add 'fuel to the fire' as he put it."
Tommy went silent. His hand shook, his chest felt right, his eyes were wide. He'd known something was wrong. Ranboo hadn't checked in for way too long- his last messages pleading and desperate.
"You were the last message on his communicator." Tubbo's eyes welled up with tears. "We should've ran away all those years ago like you suggested." A faint smile played on Tommy's lips as a tear silently slid down Tubbo's face.
"Nah, you wouldn't've met Ranboo if we'd done that." And I wouldn't've lost an arm and an eye, and lost the last of my teenage years, and you wouldn't have to live a life of war throughout it all.
"He'd still be alive, he wouldn't have been dragged into all this." Tubbo utters.
"You're the one who said no." Tommy mutters, digging his fingers into his leg. Tubbo looks up indignantly.
"You're blaming me?" He asks, not angrily, but a fragile whisper of frustration. Tommy shrugs.
"No," he says quietly, "but things would've been easier if we'd left." A silence settles over them.
"You seem to be living a life of luxury here." Tubbo snaps, eyes reflecting lush green grass and his best friend, healthier than ever whilst his own bones have begun to break.
"Are you kidding me?" Tommy says, a flash of anger that hadn't appeared in years starting up. He throws his hands out. "This is luxury?" He points at his eye, clouded over.
"I didn't me-" He starts up, voice tinged with annoyance.
"Did you just come here to piss me off? If you wanted to run away you could've. Don't hate me because I got better and you got worse." He hisses. Tubbo flinches back. "Now our cards are reversed and you're acting like a bitch! Can't you just be fucking 'appy that I'm better!?"
And here they were again, arguing, as they always had. Back and forth, annoyance and frustration, jealousy and hurt. It's funny how easy they slip back into the same positions from years ago.
"I'm upset that we've still been fighting and you don't have to deal with it! You abandoned us, L'manberg, when we needed you!" Tubbo exclaims. Tommy's eyes darken, his tone lowering.
"We both know that's not true." He says darkly. "You were not the one who was abandoned." A beat of silence drops over them. "You've changed." He mutters, standing up with his face tilted down.
"You haven't. You're still that selfish little bitch who only thinks about himself." Tubbo practically snarled. The tea was long forgotten.
The only readable expression on Tommy's face was hurt. Plain and clear. It twisted his facial features, his eyebrows tilting towards themself and his mouth firmly downturned. He doesn't say a word as he turns away, crawls into the kitchen silently.
"Tubbo…" Karl mutters, staring at the younger, who is staring down at his mug of tea, untouched, eyes unfocused. He gets up after a second and wanders up some steps in the opposite direction of where Tommy went. Karl sighed, putting his head in his hands; it would be much harder to fix things when the two of them couldn't stop butting heads. Apparently, three years apart didn't stop the unresolved feelings of hatred that politics had caused between them. He leans back, resting his head on a plank of wood and stares at the clouds above.
It's only been a few minutes when his ears pick up the barest of movement; he nearly leaps up when he spots shoes next to head, having barely heard a whisper of noise.
"Sorry," Tommy mutters, sitting down beside him. Karl doesn't know if he's apologising for scaring him or arguing with Tubbo; either way, it's weird to hear him apologise, long hair and blind or not, he was still Tommy.
"It's fine," Karl mutters, sitting up. He supposed in thinking about the nature of change, that he had too. Stress from future and past events ran through his mind, memories blocked in his head and the lack of a partner at his side had made him lack the cheerfulness people seemed to associate with him.
"What's your story then?" Tommy asks, lolling his head with a tired look at the older.
"Oh," he supposed he did have a story, just like Tommy's abuse and escapism, just like Tubbo's attachment to war. Or totally opposite and not just like. "I made my own kingdom." He starts, staring wistfully into the open air. They're pretty high on the treetops, the breeze is calm and he sees the appeal. The lush forest almost reminds him of the kingdom. "With George and Sapnap- you remember them, right?" Tommy nods with only a slightly offended look- how could he have forgotten the reason he was sent away? "Well, we made a kingdom together. It was beautiful, you would've loved it. But wars kept happening, and Sapnap got restless with his previous attachments to Dream… we weren't really involved, but after they launched an attack on L'manberg, we decided to send aid." Karl takes a deep breath, knotting his hands in handfuls of leaves. He leaves out the part where the main reason they provided aid was Quackity, who had put down blueprints of cards and his biggest dreams and instead pulled on armour and fought for his nation yet again. "Dream wiped out our kingdom and we were forced to all move to L'manberg." Tears pooled in his eyes, a harsh frown tugging his face in half. "We lost a lot of people in that final battle, y'know?" His voice cracks. "Sapnap and Q, well… he tried to take him on 1 to 1, said he had to be the one to get rid of him, what with them being best friends and all. George wanted nothing to do with it, and I could only watch as Dream killed him, like he was nothing! Like Sapnap meant nothing to no one and wasn't the light in my life." He takes a deep breath. "Q died from explosions a few days later, same time as Ranboo." Tommy swallowed, his mouth going dry. Silent tears rolled down Karl's face, slipping past his chin and rolling down the collar of his shirt.
Tommy feels the wetness behind his eyes, too, and the way his heart tugs. He pulls Karl into a hug, and the older let's out a pitiful sob, clinging onto the other's shirt.
"It's all gone, everything's ruined." He muttered between gasps of breath. The future, the past, the present. Nothing was right.
After a while, Karl finally pulls back and removes his head from Tommy's shoulder. He wipes his eyes and nose on his sleeve, muttering an apology before looking up to meet the boy's eyes, which are surprisingly wet with tears. He doesn't question it, didn't think he really talked to Sapnap or Quackity, but there were times he didn't know of. Memories from before he arrived. He would never know that Tommy was Quackity's close friend even when they ran against each other, that despite a war which raged on L'manberg with Sapnap as his right hand man, the two had been firm friends before and had pushed it behind them.
"I'm gonna go talk to Tubbo," Karl nods at him as he stands up, wiping his hand over his face and stepping up the stairs Tubbo had gone up a few moments ago.
He's sat on the edge of a bridge connecting his farms, with his legs dangling off the edge. Tommy swings down next to him with ease, longer legs poking further down. There is silence for a second, and Tommy doesn't know where to start. How to tell him that he resents the title 'selfish'? How if he had stayed he doesn't know if he'd be alive? If he'd be fighting against L'manberg instead of for it?
"I think I'm the selfish one," he says slowly, "for not wanting you to have all this." He looks ahead at the hundreds of trees, the sturdy wooden builds beneath him, and finally at the boy next to him, who had outgrown soldiers' clothes and weaponry and had wrapped vines around his arms, allowed his hair to grow wild, let his skin absorb the sun. "I wish L'manberg was like this. Peaceful, and pretty."
"It could never be like this, not with people like Dream around." Tommy admits. "If he ever found this place he'd burn it to the ground." Tubbo hums.
"I'm sorry for what I said.* He practically whispers. Tommy ducks his head.
"Me too." Another wave of silence. "I just… hate the idea that you all think I'm some selfish monster who left you to fight alone. I really didn't think I'd make it out alive if I stayed." Tubbo looks at him in slight disbelief. "Truly. I would've died one way or another, I could feel it… And I'm sorry things have gotten worse, though I don't think they would've been much better with me around." Tubbo turns his face to hide the scrunching up, his eyes pooling with tears. How little Tommy knew he mattered. "Tubs?" He lets out a quiet sob and turns back to him. This life he had built…
"You've done so well on your own," he says instead, and grasps Tommy's slender fingers in his own. Tommy squeezes his fingers tightly. They sit for a while, the lantern's chain creaking above them.
"I really miss Ranboo." Tubbo admits with a wistful sigh.
"Me too," Tommy says, swallowing the lump in his throat.
"We need to go speak to Karl." Tubbo says gruffly, eyes wet with tears for reasons Tommy couldn't yet understand.
"Okay?" He asked, watching as Tubbo slid his legs back through the gap in the bridge and stood up, shoulders scrunched. Tommy could've sworn he heard a mumble, whispered "I'm sorry" as he stood up, but he dismissed it as the wind.
Tubbo nods to Karl as he stumbles down the steps, holding his arms close to his body. This was the first time he'd ever see this beautiful, wonderful place Tommy had built and it would likely be the last. If this was still the Tommy he knew, if he was right in his accusations that he was still the same; Tommy wouldn't hesitate to agree.
Tommy sits down in his spot earlier, eyebrows creasing as he watches the two have a silent conversation with their eyes before Karl turns to him with a sigh.
"So, I'm uh… this is a bit odd and random, but I've always been able to time travel." Karl says. Tommy barks out a laugh, about to ask a startled 'what?!' but Karl holds up a hand. "It's what's been messing with my memory. For years I've gone back in time, seen reams years before us… but that's not important." He shakes his head slightly. "You… weren't supposed to do this." He says, the words sounding forced. "You were supposed to stay with Techno, I think, or if you had, this wouldn't have happened."
"I don't understand…" Tommy shakes his head.
"He's trying to say that he went back in time and if you had stayed with Techno…" Tubbo takes a deep breath, "Ranboo would still be alive."
"Sapnap and Quackity, too." Karl chips in.
"Are you trying to tell me this is my fault?" Tommy asks, face contorting into slight anger.
"No! Of course not…"
"But?" Tommy asks impatiently.
"But if you hadn't run away, things would be different. They'd still be alive."
"Oh." Tommy mutters, mind racing. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Cause you're our last hope. Ranboo only had one life," I'm on my last, Tommy thought, "and Sapnap and Quackity were on their finals, too. Everyone's gonna die if we don't put a stop to it."
"I don't get it!" Tommy snaps. "I can't revive your husband's or our best friend!"
"No, but I can send us back in time. You make a different choice and everything changes." Karl asks. Both look at him with hope in their eyes, asking him to put his life on the line.
And maybe he hadn't changed enough. Maybe three years wasn't enough to change a person's instinct to save everyone. Maybe war was persistent.
"Okay. I'll do it." He says, eyes determined.
"Oh thank god." Karl breathes out, hunching over. Tommy gives him a weak smile, tears pooling in his eyes as he looks out at everything he had built for himself.
"When do we go back to?" Tommy asks, voice cracking. Tubbo reaches over and grabs his hand. It makes the first tear fall.
"I think it's when you decline Techno's offer to go with him and destroy L'manberg." Tommy blanches at his words.
"At that point I've already lost my arm and eye…" he says quietly.
"I'm sorry." Karl mutters.
"Anything for them, right?" He shakes his head.
"Anything for them," Tubbo mutters. Tommy sniffs, wipes tears from his face.
Karl grabs his other hand, and in a second later, greenery disappears from his eyes, Karl and Tubbo's hands disappear from his own, and there's a roaring fire in front of him, a soft bed beneath him and an ache in his arm and eye. He sighs.