Chapter Text
haven’t seen you around the cafe for a while
I don’t say it enough, but if you need anything, I’m here.
Tommy?
Tommy wishes it wasn’t so easy to ignore him.
Wilbur.
But he’d be lying if he pretended that he feels anything as he switches his phone off and lets blackness consume the screen — taking Wilbur’s pleading words with it. Another message ignored, but what’s another thing to add to Tommy's list of failures? What’s another message ignored after the other seven this week?
Any emotion he might feel slams into the adamant wall in his mind, drowned out by the pervading numbness that snuck into him after that night and hasn’t left.
Sorry, Wilbur, he thinks, swallowing hard, but that’s a lie too. He’s too numb to be truly sorry. Too tired. The hands that silence his phone and slip it into his pocket hardly feel like his own.
“You ready, kid?”
Techno wraps black tape around his knuckles on a chair across the room. He makes a valiant effort at pretending that he’s not watching Tommy, but the studious flicker of his gaze — like he’s constantly reminding himself that Tommy is in front of him — betrays his feigned ignorance.
Tommy swallows. “Yeah. Yeah, coming.”
He pushes all thoughts of Wilbur out of his mind.
I’ll text him later, he convinces himself. I’ll respond to all his memes and even the growing spools of concern. I will.
He won’t. And maybe the reason Techno is watching him like a bug under a scope is because they both know it.
Techno rises to his feet as Tommy approaches. He passes Tommy the tape, but not before combing over him again with that careful scrutiny. Bug meet scope.
“We’re usin’ powers today,” Techno tells him.
His voice grounds Tommy back into the present. Tommy frowns as he starts to unspool some of the tape.
“No powers today.”
Techno arches one challenging brow. “Yes, powers.”
Tommy’s heart hiccups. Just a stumble in a steady rhythm. A million protests rise and die on his tongue. Maybe… maybe training with his powers will be a good thing. Maybe Techno can make his hands less useless.
His thoughts flicker to Wilbur against his will, followed by a quick flash of, Maybe I can protect him. It vanishes as soon as it comes, but not before it’s rendered his veins cold. He doesn’t ever want to be the last line of defense between Wilbur and something bad.
Techno doesn’t seem to mind training this distracted version of Tommy, not outwardly anyway, but Tommy tries his best to stay out of his own head anyway. He wants to improve himself— needs to.
Techno makes it easy. He’s gentle and firm at the same time, coaxing Tommy’s powers out, dodging a whip of Tommy’s ivy and huffing in approval when Tommy blinds him. Tommy is totally lucid after fifteen minutes.
“C’mon,” Techno jeers, slamming a punch toward him. Tommy catches it with a wrap of vines. “You call this fightin’?”
“Fuck you,” Tommy pants, stepping forward—
He sends a beam of light hurtling towards Techno’s face. At the same time, his ivy shoots out, catching Techno’s ankle. What happens next is the most glorious moment of Tommy’s life.
Techno trips. Tommy trips him, slamming him down into the mat hard enough that Tommy’s teeth rattle. The shock on Techno’s face? Tommy wants that tattooed on him. He doesn’t ever want to forget it.
Techno takes a second to catch his breath. Tommy climbs to his feet, breathing just as hard. His firelight fades, and his ivy shrivels. Warmth clings to his face. He waits for Techno’s reaction.
It doesn’t come quickly.
“Did I break your back old man?”
Techno’s eyes flash. “You’re insufferable,” he groans, peeling himself on the mat. It’s as close to a yes, Tommy, you’re the best hero in the entire city, Tommy, that he thinks he’ll get.
Tommy reaches a hand down. Techno accepts it, and he pulls him to his feet.
“Good job, kid,” Techno pats his shoulder, injecting serotonin straight through his skin. Respect — maybe even pride — gleams in his expression. “Now, do that again.”
Tommy finally lets himself grin. It’s nice, sometimes: knowing that Techno wouldn’t lie to him. He doesn’t always offer Tommy such free affirmations, especially when Tommy’s not in mortal danger, but that just means that the ones Techno gives are honest. It lets him believe that maybe he can teach his hands to be capable after all.
“If you say so.”
Fire consumes him: his grin, his eyes, his hands. Techno braces—
And the fight is back on.
⋆⋆⋆
Tommy stumbles back into his apartment, exhausted in a delicious way. Exhausted enough that overthinking takes more effort than he can be bothered to spend.
His body craves the shower almost as much as it craves the same sleep that repulses it. At least the shower is achievable. He hooks toward the bathroom immediately. So immediately, in fact, that he nearly misses Ranboo sitting stoically at the kitchen table.
And the floating apple hovering just in front of him.
Tommy grinds to halt. They jerk to face each other at the same time. The apple falls like it was never suspended at all. Ranboo flinches as it hits the table, rolling right off the side. He makes no move to catch it or— or to levitate it again. Shock has replaced the look of concentration once consuming his pallid features.
Tommy blinks at him, frozen all the way to his tongue. Which means that Ranboo beats him to speaking.
“Have you been sleeping?” Ranboo blurts, jerking to his feet.
Tommy breaks out of his stupor. It’s a diversion. A well-meaning one, perhaps, but a diversion
nonetheless. Tommy’s brow narrows. The apple thuds as it hits a table leg and stops. Tommy stares at it.
After a few long seconds of letting the silence marinate, he opens his mouth. Accusation unravels on his tongue—
“You first,” Ranboo interjects. “Answer mine first.”
It takes too long, but Tommy manages to break his gaze. In front of him, Ranboo is just as red as the now-bruised apple skin. He looks too close to fear. Tommy lets him win this one.
Have you been sleeping?
Even Techno had taken longer to ask him that. Tommy shrugs with one shoulder. He drops his backpack by the door and moves into the kitchen. The strange violet light still hasn’t faded from Ranboo’s eyes as he tracks Tommy’s movements.
Have you been sleeping?
Earlier, the answer was written in the dark circles under his eyes, and he and Techno both knew it – knew it because their guilt was a mirror shared silently between them. Knew it because Tommy had practically begged Techno to let him sleep over once, twice, three days in a row, anything to keep that night from creeping into his head when he was at his most vulnerable.
The good thing about Techno is that he knows when to back off. He hates talking about emotions — particularly: messy ones — more than Tommy does. He knows when to push, and when to surrender. And when Tommy preferred to hash out his emotions in a more… hand-to-hand format, Techno obliged.
Even he must’ve realized that, poor coping techniques aside, sleeping is significantly easier after you’ve worn yourself out. And Tommy wanted to make himself crash.
Ranboo is different. The question is different coming off his lips.
Not because Ranboo would ever ask him to spill his guts like the skin of a sacrificial lamb, no. But because there’s a Ranboo-shaped hole in his chest that never came back when Ranboo was rescued. One that says, I owe you. One that begs Tommy to surrender every part of himself that Ranboo could ever ask for.
He’d made the mistake of keeping things from them once. Tommy won’t do it again.
Ranboo would probably hate that, if Tommy ever told him.
Have you been sleeping?
Does he even have to ask? The first thing out of Tommy’s mouth is almost sarcasm. Then that void between his ribs aches.
“It’s… hard.”
His hands, ever so slightly, prickle at the fingertips. Tommy curls them into fists at his side where he can’t see them. He’s terrified that he’ll look down and see blood. Blood from the alley, blood glimmering like spilt rubies. So Tommy does that. Avoids even his own skin.
…He’s been avoiding a lot of things lately. Tommy’s fingers ghost the weight in his pocket. He pulls them away just as fast.
Ranboo tracks the motion. Stupid observant tall prick.
“Have you talked to—”
“No.”
Tommy braces himself against the counter, tense as a brick. He stares very deliberately at the countertop in front of him. In his hazy peripheral, Ranboo crosses his arms in a way that feels an awful lot like an accusation. His blood burns. Tommy removes his hands from the counter before he can scorch a handprint into them. He doesn’t know if he could, but he doesn’t want to try. He’s better at hurting things than he thought.
“Tommy.”
“It’s fine, Ranboo. Leave it.”
Ranboo steps closer. Tommy’s mouth wobbles.
“I thought you were going to hang out with Wilbur today,” Ranboo says.
The phone in his pocket burns. “I cancelled.”
haven’t seen you around the cafe for a while
Ranboo frowns. Tommy’s spine locks, fists squeezing. Don’t think about it, he urges himself, but the alleyway comes rushing into his head anyway.
It always does.
This time, it comes with enough fury to break him.
“I can’t look at him.” Tommy hangs his head. His confession rots the air. It leaves him with almost too much guilt to bear. This is why he’s been avoiding him. “I… I feel like I’m putting him in danger just by existing.” Don’t let me die. Please, Glare, I’m scared. “He’s a civilian, you know?”
Tommy looks at him imploringly. His eyes are redder than he wants them to be. Ranboo nods carefully. Tommy releases a rattling breath.
“And civilians are so…”
“...breakable?” Ranboo guesses.
Am I going to die, Glare? (No. No, I’ve got you. Just– hold on.)
“Yeah,” Tommy agrees hoarsely. He swallows. It doesn’t rid the glass from his throat. “Breakable.”
Wilbur’s got to be the most breakable civilian he knows. All scrawny limbs and easy smiles, so passionate that it bleeds out of every part of him, in his music, his laughter, his unfounded affection for Tommy.
Tommy sometimes wonders if he would’ve ended up like that, if he’d never got his powers. If Ranboo never got taken. If heroism was still a dream to him, something far away and wistful and unachieveable.
Everything that makes Wilbur Wilbur could be gone in an instant. If not killed, then scared out of him. Broken. Nausea spins his gut.
“Tommy,” Ranboo says quietly, and a long arm wraps around his shaking shoulder. “Tommy… you’re not much less breakable.”
Tommy sort of laughs. He leans his head on Ranboo’s shoulder. “Aren’t I? Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be?”
The woman had been so relieved to see him. And then she died in his arms.
“I wasn’t,” Ranboo murmurs. “You don’t have to be.”
Tommy swallows, blinking as his chest contracts. He doesn’t know when he’d adopted Ranboo’s disappearance as his own personal failure, but the weight lies heavy with the rest of the failures burdening his shoulders. At least this one, he thinks, Tubbo would fight him for custody of.
But Tubbo never got superpowers. He never had to be faster.
Tommy fiddles with the pulse point on Ranboo’s wrist. Ranboo lets him, not even flinching when Tommy scrapes a fingernail over the scars embedded there. Cuff marks that Tommy could probably stencil out in his sleep. Tiny white circles, the imprint of where prongs had been, stifling Ranboo’s powers.
Ranboo’s heart beating steadily under his skin makes the scars seem smaller.
“Your turn.”
“Hm?”
Tommy raises his chin, easing himself away. He’s too tired to let himself spiral as far as he wants to fall. Or rather, he’s too tired to climb back up if he really lets himself go.
Tommy nudges the apple on the floor. “Explain.”
Ranboo blinks, then offers him the sliver of a bashful smile. It’s a long way from the shock, or from fear. His gaze flickers uneasily around the apartment, but Tommy knows that Tubbo is somewhere else, working on electrical stuff.
Child exploitation, Techno’s voice says in his ear.
More money, Tubbo answers. Tommy can practically see his maintenance uniform in the frame of his mind. It almost makes him smile.
“Well…” Ranboo starts, scratching his neck. “I figured, with Glare, and all that… well, maybe it’s not the worst thing ever to start practicing again.”
Tommy’s lips curve sadly. “Does that mean they’re back? Your powers?”
Ranboo sighs. “Honestly, Tommy, I think they’ve been back for a while.” Tommy stills. “I think… I think I was the one who wasn’t ready.” His eyes crinkle. “But you made me brave again. You made me want to try.”
There’s a good five seconds where Ranboo’s words knock the wind out of him. He’s silent.
Then, Tommy punches him. Ranboo squawks out a laugh as he doubles over.
“Fuck you, man,” Tommy hisses. “You can’t just– say sappy shit without warning.”
“It’s– fun,” Ranboo chokes. “I don’t say it enough.”
“Stop. Stop. I’m leaving. I’m showering.”
“No, no, come back.” Ranboo’s hand tugs his arm, and well. Tommy was never really going to protest. “I’m sorry. I won’t say sappy things anymore.” Tommy raises an eyebrow. Ranboo squints. “You’re… not my best friend in the whole world and I am not severely thankful that you came back to us, and I hate you. How’s that?”
Thin ice. Ranboo is on thin fucking ice.
The ice warms him up, though.
Tommy grins. “Much better.”
He feels more awake than he has in days. There’s a pleasant flush dusting his cheeks — life. He has the sudden urge to summon vines to his palms and go swinging through the city.
Tommy sighs, moving a hand through his hair. He needs to shower, his body feels like a bruise, but—
“I’m happy for you, man,” Tommy says. “Genuinely.” It’s Ranboo’s turn to writhe awkwardly under the soft words. Good. Maybe it’s time they all get a little better at saying them. “And, you know, if you need any help mastering them and shit– if I can help you…”
It fills him with a distant sense of melancholy that Tommy is the one who’s had the most time to bask in his powers, to love them. And sure, a lot of that love had by himself until he met Techno but…
It should’ve been Ranboo. He should’ve been the one giving Tommy pointers.
Ranboo dips his head. “Sure,” Ranboo says quietly. “I think I’d like that.”
Like that, Tommy’s meter for sappiness expires. It’s a good way. It leaves him startlingly content. There’s no need to rush; for once, they have all the time in the world.
“Cool.” He scoops his backpack up from by the door. “I do actually have to shower now.”
Ranboo nods noncommittally, gaze unfocused on the table. His fingers trace anxiously over one of his scarred wrists. Tommy reminds himself, for the millionth time, that the Hero’s League is dead and gone, just to sate the urge to go destroy it all over again.
He heads for the shower, energy dying.
“Tommy.”
“Hm?”
“Get some sleep,” Ranboo says. He’s looking at him now, bicolored eyes unreadable. Though Tommy can practically feel the concern bleeding into his skin, and it makes his limbs feel lighter. “You look like a wreck.”
Tommy snorts. He fiddles with the string of his bag, eyeing the couch. His room would be too claustrophobic, he thinks. Too dark.
“Will you chill in here?” Tommy asks without thinking. Embarrassment instantly sears his throat. “Just— how you were doing, y’know, studying or practicing, or whatever—”
He cuts himself off. The neediness practically tears out of him. He just really, really doesn’t want to be alone with himself.
Ranboo’s throat bobs. “Yeah,” he finally says. “Yeah I’ll stay.”
Tommy’s shoulders slump. A silent thank you that he knows Ranboo hears.
When he pulls himself out of the shower, after twenty minutes of forcing his mind to be as blank as possible, he’s crashing hard before he even drags a blanket over himself. Ranboo is studying at the kitchen table, and all the apples are intact in the fruit bowl.
Tommy falls asleep to the sound of pages turning and a pencil skritching.
And just like when he steals Techno’s couch, the alleyway doesn’t find him in his dreams.
⋆⋆⋆
Wilbur Soot is infuriatingly good.
The evidence is scattered over Techno’s lap in a swarm of documents: everything from talent show awards to high school transcripts to volunteer hours. Every ripple, every imprint that Wilbur Soot has ever made is in front of him.
And if there’s any misgivings, anything resembling suspicious… it’ll be here too. Buried, maybe, under medical records and music reviews. But it’ll be here. It has to be. There’s no going back.
Techno broke open the dragon’s hoard. And now he’s praying the gold isn’t fake.
His fingers drum restlessly against his side. His reading glasses perch on his nose, begging the truth to reveal itself to him. The voices stir passively at the cape of his neck, like devils hunched over his shoulder, looking in.
Techno hadn’t wanted to open the folder. For almost a week, he let himself believe it didn’t matter anymore. Tommy asked for his trust, and Techno gave it to him. If his paranoia took a bruising, he would let it.
But then Tommy deteriorated.
Nightmares that never give the kid a break. Dark circles that never leave his undereyes. A clinginess that surpasses even his normal hero worship of Techno. Before, Techno was able to sleep easy when he kicked Tommy out to his actual house. Now, Techno can’t utter the words without fearing that Tommy’ll crack down the middle if he so much as tries.
But the final nail, the one that had Techno finally dipping his fingers into the hoard, came the day after they trained:
Tommy was stealing his sofa again. It wasn’t usually an abnormal habit, but the recency and the frequency with which Tommy appeared at Techno’s window — injury-less, scarred only inside — made it one.
“It’s nice here,” Tommy said as argument, shifting in place in front of his window, like Techno would kick him out. “You have a… nice couch.”
Techno’s couch is decidedly mediocre. That was nail one.
Techno never called him out on the frailty of the argument. He just tossed the kid a blanket and found an excuse to lounge in the armchair until Tommy drifted off. Whatever it was about his presence that somehow comforted the kid into falling asleep… well, Techno wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. No matter how much Tommy worshipped his legacy, the novelty of Bloodlust managing domesticity would never wear off. Not to Techno.
And then, that same night, when the apartment was cloaked in peaceful darkness—
Techno woke up to sobbing. Guttural, heartbreaking sobbing, filling every inch of his head that the voices didn’t occupy, stabbing right down into his heart. He whipped out of bed, making it to the living room in a second—
It was barely a relief that nobody had broken into his apartment. It was barely a relief that the only threat causing the sobbing was Tommy’s own mind. It was barely a relief that something had gotten to Tommy so thoroughly, something Techno couldn’t stop, because how could any amount of suffering be a relief?
But at least he was alive. At least Techno was able to nudge him awake and calm the kid while he panickedly blinked Techno’s apartment back into existence.
“You’re okay,” Techno rumbled, voice still hoarse from waking up. “You’re in my apartment. You’re safe. Nobody’s hurt. Count with me.”
Tommy shakily obeyed, but his hand slipped out to squeeze the life out of Techno’s. Techno eased closer, helping him through each breath.
“One… two… just like that, kid, keep going, three…”
Delirium turned Tommy’s skin clammy and shiny. The muss of his blonde curls pronounced the feral edge to his panic, even in the half-dark. While Tommy fought to rid the death rattle out of his heaving breaths, Techno reached over and turned on the table lamp. He knew the shadows made it too hard for Tommy to tell where he was.
All there was left to do was sit and wait and hope that his presence was enough to bring Tommy down. Techno isn’t a religious man, but in these moments, for Tommy— he reaches the closest he’s ever been to prayer.
“I’m sorry,” Tommy croaked, when the worst of his panic faded.
He sagged, exhausted against Techno’s sofa. Face tipped up at the ceiling, moonlight pooling in his glazed eyes. Hand fidgeting where Techno held it, pulse thumping so violently that Techno might’ve been able to hear if he had normal hearing too.
Techno handed him a bottle of water. “Don’t be.”
Tommy took it, gulping the water down rapidly. His lashes drooped when he got his fill. He shifted on his side, blankets drawn over him, gaze somewhere Techno would never be able to reach.
“It was a good dream,” Tommy murmured quietly.
Sleep was already crawling after its escaped quarry. His face was smoothing, muscles growing slack. Tension riddled Techno so thoroughly it was an effort not to snap in half.
“...Was it?” he asked uneasily. “You were—”
Falling apart. Again. A freefall I can’t stop. A spiral I can only place bets on.
“It was a good dream,” Tommy repeated, blinks slowing and slowing. “I got shot this time.”
Time stilled.
“...What?”
Tommy’s lashes touched, eyes slipping closed. Techno’s spine flattened straighter. His head screamed. He was sitting down, yet he was dizzy.
“Tommy,” Techno bit out, ears thundering. “Hey, elaborate on that.”
Tommy groaned, face tipping down. Techno shook him. He didn’t care if that was the best thing to do. He wasn’t letting Tommy say that and then fall asleep.
“Wake up, kid. Don’t think we’re not talkin’ about that.”
The kid’s face twisted up, as if Techno was a mere annoyance. As if Techno wasn’t unraveling at his wretched seams.
“Tommy—” he strained, jostling his shoulder—
“I could’ve taken it,” Tommy mumbled irritably. “If it were me. I could’ve…”
He trailed off in a wistful sigh, heavy in a way that was far beyond his years. Techno’s head pounded.
“Kid,” he wavered. “You don’t know that. Kid. Tommy.” He shook him. “Listen to me, damn it.”
Tommy was already too far gone. Techno rattled. It wasn’t like he was shaking. He wasn’t shaking. He was just… rattling. Like an engine about to come apart.
He swept to his feet before he could, sending the room pitching to the side. Tommy’s words blistered through him, searing the inside of his mind, a brand. He hadn’t even been fully conscious.
Techno paced through his apartment. It took several minutes of trying to escape the rush of noise pounding in his eardrums for him to realize the noise was in his head. He couldn’t outrun it.
Techno stopped pacing once he’d whirlwinded into his bedroom again. His desk lamp was on, casting a skeptical puddle of gold over his nightstand.
His nightstand.
The noise pulled back. The mess in his parted, creating a perfect channel that narrowed a spotlight down on the innocent drawer just in front of him. The sonnant chaos in his head fought for the best seats as Techno’s face went very, very blank.
It was a good dream.
His fingers edged toward the drawer. His enhanced hearing searched for any sound of movement from the other room. There wasn’t any: just the typical restless shifting of blankets and shallow breaths, even and sleepy. Tommy was still out.
I got shot this time.
There was nobody to stop him.
I could’ve taken it.
His skin brushed the cold metal of the nimble handle. One pull, and Techno would be edging into gray territory. One pull, and he would straddle the line between breaking Tommy’s trust and soothing the paranoid monster consuming him.
It was a precautionary measure, Techno assured himself. Tommy would understand. He waited for the voices to pile in, echo his thoughts. Not the hint of a whisper nor the imprint of shout sounded. Techno understood then, as the shadows tracked his movements with bated breath, that this decision was only his.
It was a good dream.
It was a good dream.
And that’s when Techno remembered there are some decisions that kids — especially stupidly noble, optimistic, naive ones — don’t need to make.
Techno has borne many burdens in his life. He has borne hatred shaped a hundred different ways. And for it all, he’d been right.
This was nothing different.
The decision was made to be acted on the next day: once he was alone, once he’d shuffled Tommy out of his apartment, sending him along with one of Techno’s hoodies and a sense of urgency he hoped wasn’t visible.
Because Techno doesn’t think Tommy remembers any of that:
The nightmares. The confession. The graceless collapse of Techno’s unbending will. The fall of a dam long decayed.
Techno is never going to be able to forget it.
And now he’s here, mind spinning like a cotton candy machine as he dissects every sliver of information there is to read on Wilbur Soot. And now he’s here, panic beginning to trickle down his spine, when each sheet of paper reveals something even more mundane — or worse, positive — than the last.
Techno converts the trembles of panic swiftly to irritation, or ignores it altogether. Until he can’t. Until each small time award or community accolade has his spine hunching and his breaths growing heavier with frustration and his self-assurances dimming.
Until eventually, there is no excuse for him to stand behind.
Techno works his way through the folder, and the only thing he has to show for it is a singular high school demerit that Soot earned for badmouthing a teacher. Techno had done that to an entire president.
But maybe it’s enough, he tries half-heartedly. Maybe it’s enough that Soot is safe. Maybe his paranoia can rest.
It’s not convincing, even to himself.
“Stupid,” Techno murmurs to himself, will growing weary. He’s tired, he realizes. Retirement has made him so… tired. “Ridiculous… paranoia…”
He sighs, closing the Soot folder. Techno rubs one hand across his face, willing sensation into his skin. The voices clamor in a muted show of pity, but Techno can hear an echo of his own self-derision bleeding through, the backing track to a depressing melody.
All for nothing. All for nothing. All for nothing.
Noise. There’s been so much noise in his head lately. Too much for even Tommy to sate. He’s never been more aware of his voices, and he’s never hated them more. Techno doesn’t know how to soothe them with this domestic version of himself.
“Quiet,” he finally snaps, when the clamor becomes too much. “Quiet, all of you.”
Unexpectedly, the voices listen. Techno’s frown deepens. He wonders if he’s even allowed to miss the reminder that he’s not alone.
Techno tosses the folder onto his nightstand. It’s either that, or chuck it across the room, and even Techno doesn’t see a point in succumbing to such childish—
A paper flutters to the floor.
Stuck to the back of the folder, it comes free as Techno throws it. Techno’s irritation dies. A flicker of color is attached to it—a sticky note. Techno’s hands don’t quite feel connected to his body when he reaches down, a suppressed sort of anticipation buzzing through them, disconnecting the muscles from his mind.
Thought you might be interested in this, reads Phil’s handwriting.
Techno flips the paper over. And every sensation his nerves are experiencing quadruples in intensity at once.
It’s a familiar paper. One he’s fought to burn. A paper he’s seen a thousand times, but one he’s still not sure he’s seeing until his eyes skim to the top of the paper, where Soot’s name is neatly scrawled.
And above his name, igniting a long-culled anger in Techno, primal and visceral and all-consuming—
The Hero’s League insignia stares back at him.
⋆⋆⋆
Tommy’s not on the clock when he slumps down at the counter, rickety leather stool shaking beneath him.
“Hey,” he says, and Wilbur startles.
So intensely, in fact, that he nearly displaces the guitar case resting by his stool, head swivelling around. Wilbur’s surprise fades quickly into golden delight, a sunrise glowing through his skin.
“Tommy!” he beams, slinging an arm over Tommy’s shoulder. “Long time no see, man.”
Tommy manages the flicker of a smile for himself. Even with the added wait over his shoulder, he feels lighter.
“Yeah,” he croaks. “Took a vacation. It was epic. I had so much fun.”
Tommy flexes his hands, balling and unballing them. No blood. There’s no blood, no weight. Just hands. And fire, if he wanted.
“Mhm.” Wilbur raises an eyebrow. His mouth twitches down, concern bleeding through. So human, Wilbur is. So normal. “You okay?”
Tommy leans against him and doesn’t worry about falling. “Yeah.” He tries to imagine it’s Techno saying this, because if it’s Techno, it’s true. “I’m doing better.”
Wilbur nods. He accepts that, fiddling idly with his guitar pick. He doesn’t push. And Tommy—for all that the jokes about being brothers are just jokes— finds, quite suddenly, that he loves Wilbur so much for it renders him restless.
Wilbur sees him.
He sees Tommy without seeing him. He sees the best parts, not the guilty canyons carving through him, not the burdens. He’s never Glare with Wilbur unless he wants to be. Tommy feels guilty for enjoying that so much.
He loves Glare. Glare is what saved him from breaking like Tubbo did after Ranboo. Glare is what led him to Techno. (And danger. So much danger, but Techno.) Sometimes, Glare is Tommy’s favorite part of himself.
But Wilbur doesn’t know Glare. Not for anything other than the mute vigilante who sometimes bothers him from rooftops, identity concealed behind an eternal flame and walls that Tommy doesn’t know how to take down.
When he sees Tommy’s hands, Wilbur knows them as the hands that make his free coffees and sock his shoulder when he’s being particularly annoying. Not covered in blood and failure.
That—for all it mystifies Techno—is why he doesn’t think he can stay away, risks be damned.
“Good,” Wilbur says, ruffling his hair. “Don’t tell anyone, but I missed you.”
And that’s as difficult as it ever has to be.
⋆⋆⋆
“Techno?” Tommy’s voice filters in, muted, from the window. “Techno, I’m home.”
Techno opens the window and walks away.
“I have so much to tell you,” Tommy rambles, clambering in. Even the soft sound of Tommy’s sneakers hitting the hardwood makes him flinch, the sound amplified in his eardrums. “Have you seen the news? I think I’m—” He cuts off, voice quieting. “Techno?”
Techno doesn’t turn around. He squeezes his eyes shut, hanging his head. His fingers curl into the kitchen table he’s braced against. It’s too much. Everything is too much. The light. The light from Tommy’s window. Bleeding in. Even the barest bits of it—too much.
“Why are all the blinds drawn?”
The whisper of a hiss escapes Techno. His shoulders curl, the table straining under his grip. Ringing. His ears are ringing, and why won’t they stop? Why won’t everything?
“Woah,” Tommy’s voice grows a million times softer. “That kind of day, huh?” He creeps closer. His words drop to a whisper. “Is it… them?”
Harsh breath. Release. He’d laugh at the breathless way Tommy addresses the voices, like they’re some horrible legend. Maybe they are. It fits Techno. Too well.
Techno nods, short and clipped. An ache sears the back of his neck: whiplash, though he’d barely moved.
Phil. The unshakeable urge to call him reverberates through him like another physical ache. But he’d have to find his phone, dial the number, listen to the screech of the dial tone—
“Tubbo gets migraines, too. I know he doesn’t like to be bothered.” The creak of the floorboards as Tommy shifts his weight is unbearable. Even that. “Do you want me to—”
“No,” Techno hisses quickly, head spinning. God, if the idea of Tommy leaving doesn’t send them into a flurry. “Stay kid,” he grits. “They’re… quieter. With you.”
He almost groans at the effort that takes. His hands curl around his head, his silhouette the perfect replication of a sinner praying. In a way, maybe he is. Everything from earlier only confirmed that. It only confirmed what Techno should’ve already known about himself.
“Oh,” Tommy says. “What, uh, what can I do?”
He’s walking on eggshells, Techno can tell, and it’s killing him that he can’t be Bloodlust right now. He can’t be what Tommy wants. He’s not good at being soft and he’s not good at being passive, and damn it, he’s not good at being a mentor. He never should’ve played at it.
Techno’s hair hangs messy and unbraided around his shoulders. It tumbles down his back in blush waves, and just the sensation of it brushing against his neck nearly pushes him over the edge. His shoulders jerk.
Tommy inhales sharply, as if somehow sensing that Techno is one more bad sensation from being set off.
“Your hair,” the kid says. “Can I braid it for you?”
The voices still. Techno lifts his head.
Five minutes later, he’s sitting on the floor of his bedroom, back pressed against his bed frame. Tommy sits on his bed above him, jittering restlessly. The voices, somehow, only register that as white noise.
Whereas the sound of a car alarm eight stories below is bordering on grating to Techno, but the walking melody of noise that is Tommy only seems to soothe the worst of sensations.
Techno exhales.
“Tell me about your day, kid,” he says roughly.
Everything is too loud when it’s so quiet.
Tommy’s hands, deftly skimming over Techno’s scalp, pause for only a second. Techno braces, but the uncertain movements start just as quick as they’d finished. And Tommy obliges.
It’s bound to be the messiest braid Techno has ever had the displeasure of wearing, but he’s too far away from his body to care about that. Tommy’s chatter washes over him, and the pressure furling through Techno’s spine gradually releases.
It’s only as Tommy finishes tying off his braid that the noise assaults him once more.
“I went and saw Wilbur, too,” says Tommy, and Techno’s gone.
It’s either more shapeless noise or the results of earlier coming back to haunt him. It’s either overstimulation or pure conflict. Whatever it is has Techno ripping away from Tommy’s innocent hands and curling over his knees, muscles locking.
“Techno,” Tommy breathes, hand patting over his shoulder and hastily retracting when Techno stiffens. “Fuck, shit, sorry, I didn’t—”
“Ibuprofen,” Techno snaps—at himself, only himself. “Give— I need—”
“Where?”
The question only distantly registers. The voices screech like war drums. His skull shakes, brain fusing down into sound, sound, so much sound, he wants— he wants his mask, he wants to leave he wants Phil he wants to leave he wants his mask he wants to leave, leave the apartment, take to the streets, fill the urge shaking down his hands, so thirsty, so—
“Drawer.”
Tommy wastes no time. Techno can feel him practically scrambling to get to the other side of the bed, nearly knocking into Techno. He wastes no time, but the pain doubles anyway, stretching to fill each unimportant millisecond.
Techno is both uber-aware of it and not aware of anything at all.
“I don’t see it,” Tommy is a train tunnel away, he must be. The sound of him rifling through the drawer nearly breaks Techno. “Where, Techno? I don’t—”
Tommy’s breath hitches. And he goes silent.
The silence rings the loudest in the cacophony, sticks out like an air raid siren over the bustle of a city.
Like a canary’s song going horribly quiet.
Techno raises his head. Cotton swells over the noise. An anchor weighs down his stomach. The sinking sensation draws him out of the pits of the hell that is his own head, but the reality it brings him too instead… head slowly turning…
The thing about Tommy is that the kid doesn’t know a single thing about being emotionless.
He’s always feeling something, one way or another, and Techno has been able to read it even since the first day they met. Whether it was rage, or happiness, or sadness, or even the most particular emotional cocktails like, My roommates think I’m doing drugs, he’d always showed it on his face.
But now…
Tommy’s face is blank.
And Tommy is holding the folder.
It’s not a relief when the noise subsides. It only makes room for more horror to continue swelling like a shell of ice over Techno’s skin. His mouth goes dry, tongue prickling. He can’t even speak.
Tommy’s knuckles are white around the folder.
“So much for letting it go, huh?”
He doesn’t look at Techno when he speaks. His voice is the dull scrape of an unfeeling steel blade. Not loud, not a shout. It undoes Techno completely, all the same.
“Tommy…”
Tommy squeezes his eyes shut, a tremor running over this. “Don’t tell me it’s not what it looks like, Techno.”
Techno swallows hard. Dizzy. The folder is a blob in his vision. “I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to.”
I can’t.
If Techno thought the numbness was bad, then the sight of Tommy turning to him with tears in his eyes is nightmarish. He’s crying. The kid shakes in place, mouth wobbling, a fault line about to give in. And he’s crying.
“You promised,” Tommy whispers hoarsely. “You promised you would let it go.”
Techno rises to his feet. Tommy’s breath catches, and he shoots up, scrambling back. Techno freezes.
He’s not… Tommy’s not afraid of him, is he?
Techno’s worst fear slams down around him, the pressure merciless.
Techno balls his fists. “Kid,” he pleads quietly, “Kid, please.”
Tommy steps back toward the opposite wall. He holds the folder in front of his chest like a shield. Nausea sends oil up Techno’s throat.
He doesn’t dare take another step forward. Not when it would probably send the room swirling. Not when it opens up the possibility for Tommy to flinch away from him.
“What even—” Tommy gasps, turning the folder over in his hands. “What even is all this?”
He flips through it, and Techno can’t stop him. His eyes sort of… glaze as he takes in the trainwreck in motion. Tommy pulls out a sheaf of paper. It’s all a haze.
“Report cards? Job applications? Wha– music school essays?” Tommy stares at him helplessly, begging an answer. “Techno.”
“It was just a precaution, Tommy. I wanted to make sure—”
“You had no right!” Even his anger is fragile. It bowls Techno over nonetheless. “You said you trusted me! I asked– I begged you to trust me. Trust me that Wilbur is good, and you–” His face heats, tongue tripping over his own disbelief. “You lied.”
It would mean something more dangerous if his breaths weren’t coming so quick, so shallow, lungs seizing up, and it’s not Techno’s place to reach out, Breathe, kid, because he’d done what he’d done to every good thing he’s ever had:
Ruined it.
Techno tastes blood bursting across his tongue. “You weren’t bein’ smart, Tommy. Goin’ out in uniform, riskin’ your identity—”
Techno tries to rationalize it. He tries, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t rational. It was him avoiding emotions for so long that when they finally caught up to him, he didn’t know what to do with it. It was paranoia and concern and helplessness building up since the day he held a bleeding kid in his hands and almost couldn’t put him back together.
It was fear. Techno was afraid.
And now he’s paying for it.
“That wasn’t your call to make,” Tommy seethes. “You invaded his privacy, Techno. That’s– that’s– that’s Hero’s League shit.”
Techno flinches back. Hero’s League. The words knock the wind out of him. Even the voices are laid flat, dissolving back to the deepest, darkest recesses of his brain.
Techno tastes ash on his tongue. Tastes smoke and rubble. Tastes blood. Tastes a building falling and vindication swirling and a thousand voices turning on him in an instant, the world sending knives shooting through his back, from hero to villain in an instant.
“That’s not fair.”
Tommy shakes his head, eyes cloudy. He wrings his hands, tripping backward in his panic. “You– that’s exactly what they did to him. They– they took his records and they locked him up– locked him away and they–”
They? Him? It doesn’t make sense to Techno. Not now, not in this all-consuming haze.
“You were deteriorating,” Techno doesn’t yell, but he nearly shouts back now. Breaks, really. “You were fallin’ apart in front of me, and I didn’t know what to do.” The voices try to meld through his skull. Claw up his throat. “I couldn’t— I couldn’t risk something else happening, I couldn’t.”
It’s painted in front of him in high definition. The dark circles, the mussed hair, the paleness. Techno doesn’t understand how Tommy can look at himself and not see it.
The tears finally make it past Tommy’s waterline. Just a single strand of pearl, slipping past. That’s when Techno notices his eyes are glowing. Otherworldly white light pulses behind his eyes, making his tears—as rare as they are—glow.
“Well,” Tommy drops his anger. Drops everything, back to a hollow shell. He swipes angrily at his cheekbone. He seems to snap into himself, pulling away from whatever memory he’d slipped into. “What’s your verdict, Techno?” When Techno is silent, Tommy’s eyes glare—the barest flash of an emotion. “Is he evil, Techno? Is Wilbur the bad guy you wanted?”
Techno sets his jaw. Shame weighs his brow.
“No.”
Tommy’s eyebrows shoot up—mock surprise that doesn’t work on his features. “Oh, really?”
“He’s clean,” Techno admits, the confession blistering against his tongue. “The only thing I found was—” A jagged, humorless laugh tears out of him. “—a failed power registration test from before the repeals.”
Techno shoves a hand in his pocket, where the paper he thought was his smoking gun lay cold and crumpled. Instead, all he got was more concrete proof that Wilbur Soot is not anything more than remarkably average.
Wilbur Soot doesn’t even have powers. Tommy could probably lay him out on the street without thinking about it.
Tommy closes his eyes, twisting his head. “I don’t– I don’t want to read that.”
Techno numbly crumples it in his hands. Defeat weighs so heavily on his shoulders that he can hardly think. His body is sculpted out of shame, held in place by derision. The voices are a laughing choir, and he lets them.
Tommy backs towards the door, scooping his backpack off the floor as he goes. He remembers the folder and scowls as he throws it on the ground. His movements are far too stilted and wild to shield the panic consuming him.
Panic that Techno put there. Memories that Techno dragged to the surface.
This is Hero’s League shit.
Tommy, the world builds on his tongue, but there’s no strength to say it. Please.
Tommy jerkily slings his bag over his shoulder, stumbling for the door. Techno’s pinkie twitches, an aborted movement to reach for him. But what could he even say?
“You lied, Techno,” comes Tommy’s final whisper. Shadows drown his face in darkness. “...You lied.”
He disappears through the door. Techno winces at the sound of the window being jerked open across the apartment, and the dull thud that sounds when it slams closed.
Then Tommy’s gone, taking every ounce of light and warmth with him.
And in the dark of Techno’s apartment, with that window sealing the chasm between them, and leaving a splintered echo of Techno left behind—
The silence had never screamed so loud.