User:Ranboo

Tommy didn’t care that murder was illegal now, it wasn’t in his first life, so it shouldn’t matter now. If Linda Smith opened her mouth one more time to educate him about the consequences of his actions, she deserved it. So what if threatening one of your foster brothers was ‘immature’ and ‘borderline harassment'? The prick shouldn’t have used Tommy’s notebook to demonstrate one of the many reasons why no one in this world would ever adopt him, which was majorly due to his shit art skills.

The notebook was special to Tommy. It was the only thing that stayed with him each rebirth and the pages could never be filled. No matter the amounts of written rants he had about how weak France was for their government to be overthrown by a guy whose name sounded like the ice cream—the 1780s were rough—the pages kept coming.

Even though the book was primarily used for his analysis of Greek myth tragedies and served as a constant reminder of the shitty lives he experienced, he had a sentimental connection to it.

“Tommy, are you even listening to me?” apparently Linda, his social worker, was still going on about the insignificant and little incident he had with another guy. It was just silly and not worth spending this much time talking about.

“Yes, ma’am, absolutely.” Tommy would salute but he didn’t want to be shouted at again. He didn’t want to add any more grey hairs to Linda’s already balding head. “You were just in the middle of dismissing me of needing to be punished because I am the victim in this situation.”

“How comes in every fight you have, you are both the initiator and victim?”

“Personally, I don’t see it that way and the only way to see it is the way I see it.” He was sure what he said made sense, but the glare Linda gave him proved him wrong.

“You held a pencil to Zack's throat.”

“Well…”

“And then threatened to shank him and his whole family, full-well knowing he’s an orphan.”

Tommy laughed. “But it was funny though.”

The look of discontent on Linda’s poorly-ageing face only caused him to laugh harder.  

“Look, Tom—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Tom, I know you’re acting out because you’re being relocated soon, but it’s finalised. No amount of death threats can stop the Craft’s from fostering you.”

He took this as a challenge.

“Clearly, I haven't tried hard enough.”

“If this is about what happened at the last house, I promise you that won’t happen again.” The humoured smile on his face fell.

Linda just had to ruin everything. First, it was his life (arguably, a green bastard was more to blame for that), then it was his mood. He thought social workers were supposed to prevent childhood trauma rather than consistently bring it up when unprompted.

“Oh my God, lady can you just…” he gestured for Linda to, as you could say, fuck off so he could focus on something else rather than the shaking in his hands and his heartbeat that decided to act up for some totally unprovoked reason.

“Alright, I get it. Punishment for today’s events still stands though. And no, you can’t steal dessert from the younger children again.”

“They need to respect their elders.”

“Then why don’t you respect me?”

Tommy was tempted to explode on her, not in the literal sense—he wasn’t a victim of rigged explosives this time around—but in a metaphorical way. A way that would hopefully result in Linda crying and realising the weight of her words. He usually had little daydreams of arguments with his social worker, of him finally letting go and releasing the burden that was only physical on his back, shoulders, and torso. But that will never happen because that would require acknowledging his past lives in detail and Tommy preferred to stay in the bliss his ignorance created.

Instead, he resorted to his normal tactics: annoying the shit out people and ignoring everything serious.

“I said elders, not ancients.”

Tommy narrowly avoided a smack across the wrist and grinned at the lady. Nothing said disregarding your anxiety by taking the piss out of old people.

“Go to your room and pack your things. Be ready for later.”

❊❊❊

Contrary to belief, Tommy wasn’t popular in the home. Between terrorising his carers, many ex-social workers and being the oldest amongst the parentless lot, it didn’t result in him having many friends. So when it was time to leave, he didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to. He liked it this way though. He doubted that he’d even return to this shit-hole before his time was up and a new myth continued the cycle.

All he brought with him to the car was two bags, one for school and another for the items he had gathered—stolen—throughout the years.

Tommy hated this part of relocation. Being trapped in a car with Linda Smith as she played the shit music of the 21st century wasn’t something he enjoyed. The only music he tolerated were those bardcore Medieval style covers of modern music he found on YouTube. They reminded him of better times when people believed that disease was caused by God and crime was easier. Maybe not better times, but simpler ones. He’d take surviving the plague again over a two-hour-long car journey with Linda any day.  

“You did read the file I gave you about the Craft family, didn’t you?”

Tommy did not.

The last time he read his foster family file, he thought that was going to be his forever home and not a scheme for child labour and exploitation via YouTube vlogging. Don’t ask, it gets more confusing. Just imagine a married couple mixed with a dash of infidelity who foster small, cute children just to vlog their every waking moment without their consent for some ad revenue on a family channel. One hundred percent illegal and one thousand percent fucked up.

Their apology video was pretty funny though.

“—he’s adopted before and has a biological son as well, Wilbur, but unlike the other houses, your foster brothers will be older than you.”

Tommy was used to screaming babies and bratty toddlers, but apparently now he had to get accustomed to depressed college students and unemployed young adults still living with their parents. If there was one thing he appreciated about his curse, it was that he’d never have to get a job or be an adult. Ever. Evading taxes and responsibilities since 1509.

“Phil Craft is an expert with cases like you.” Tommy raised his eyes from his notebook and glared at her. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened and he wondered whether that was because she knew he’d attempt to swerve them off the road. “So hopefully, if you behave, you won’t be my problem anymore.”

As soon as the word 'problem' left her lips, Tommy's interest in keeping a civil and professional conversation with a patronising dickhead faded. In all the shitty people in his life, Linda wasn’t even on the leader board, but her words cut deeper than any blade had. She wasn’t like the others in the past, they didn’t conceal their hatred for him with fake concern or kindness. They were upfront with it, weapon in hand and murder in their eyes.

Tommy preferred that to whatever the fuck this was.

With a glance down to the tattoo—the curse that bound him to nothing but cyclical pain—on his wrist, he sighed. Just like his destiny, the car journey continued with no ounce of free will in sight.

❊❊❊

It surprised him that his normal visitor in his dreams didn’t swing by when he fell asleep in the car.

Normally, before any traumatic event or major change, the fucker would come to gloat. But, ever since what happened in his last life, with Sisyphus, his visitor had left him alone. With this new knowledge, Tommy hoped whoever opened the door to the Craft household wasn’t about to make his life a lot worse.

They had parked in front of a normal middle-class looking house, maybe on the upper-middle-class scale as it screamed ‘Tory’ to him. Baskets of flowers hung next to the door and a bike was parked on the porch, which was just asking to be stolen. As it was the evening, the sun had set, and Tommy had to admit that the little neighbour looked pretty in this light.

“So, where are we exactly?” Tommy asked as he exited the car.

“Snowchester.” Noticing the lack of snow, he frowned at her. “Historic name, it has nothing to do with the weather.”

“Don’t tell me this is another small town with its own lore,” he groaned, not wanting to be recruited into a cult again (his Icarus past life didn’t have fun in Transylvania during the late 1600s).

“I wouldn’t describe a Civil War during the 16th century as ‘lore’ but… yes, this town has an important history.”

“Isn’t that an Avenger’s movie?”

“Tommy stop stalling and come with me to the door.” He muttered very incriminating things under his breath but reluctantly followed Linda to probably his last destination during this lifetime. “Remember, be on your best behaviour.”

She knocked on the brown door and the silence disturbed him. Usually, Linda would carry on with her irritating speech about him not misbehaving, but for once, her mouth remained shut. If only she had been this way from the very beginning.

When the door opened, it took everything in Tommy to not burst out laughing. At first glance, the man behind the door looked like he’d beat the shit out of you if you breathed the wrong way. The dyed pink hair and glasses favoured the ‘I’m an anime antagonist’ vibe Tommy got from him. But the Minecraft pig slippers on the man’s feet destroyed any fear Tommy felt for one second. This wasn’t an anime antagonist, it was just a buff nerd.

“You’re not an Amazon package,” the man said in the most monotone and American voice he had ever heard.

Tommy blinked at him, stumped. “You couldn’t fit me in a box anyway.”

Linda sighed from beside him and he had no idea why. His response was perfectly reasonable. The anime man seemed to agree by how his emotionless and deadpan face changed ever so slightly, maybe in amusement or general annoyance…or both. Tommy had that effect on people.

The man still had his hand on the door, almost unsure if he should let them in or shut it in their faces. Footsteps came from behind the door.

“Is it my package of illegal substances from my favourite shipping company that benefits from low wages in their supply chain and extreme tax avoidance—?” the door widened and an even taller man with curly brown hair entered the frame. “Oh. Hello.”

“Hi, I’m Linda Smith from Kinoko Foster Care.” The taller man had the audacity to look embarrassed now. “I spoke to your father earlier today, is he here?”

Without a second of hesitation, the new guy shouted, “Dad, your child is here!” and walked back into his house.

Tommy failed at concealing the growing smile on his face because he knew Linda was seconds away from bursting a blood vessel at how unprofessional this entire shitfest was.

The other man stood awkwardly and stepped out of the way, opening the door so they could enter.

The inside of the house supported Tommy’s worry that these guys were Tories. No normal house had a kitchen with an island and two separate tables to sit on. Why would you need a dining table and a smaller table? The lack of artificial smell and scented candles from some Dior shop in London confused the Conservative vibe though. No sign saying ‘Live, Love, Laugh’ either. Maybe these guys actually cared about the poor after all. There was a picture frame on the wall of a Minecraft house for some reason. So they’re Minecraft stans as well.

As Tommy slipped his bag off his back and Linda fiddled with her bracelet (something she would only do when contemplating quitting), voices came from around the corner, in the living room.

“Wilbur what did I tell you about saying random shit in front of social workers?” Tommy assumed the voice was Phil, as it was older but also northern. Why did everyone in this household have a different accent? Northern, southern, and fucking American.

“I genuinely thought it was the Amazon guy!”

“Just shut it before she thinks we’re doing illegal shit.”

“But what about the shed-”

“Shut!”

At the sight of Phil, it took everything in Tommy not to rush out of the house. He looked too much like he did. The blonde hair, the familiar blue eyes, straight nose, and light beard. The spitting image of his father. His first father and the only one that meant anything to him. Not that he meant anything good to Tommy.

Instead of snatching the car keys out of Linda’s hand and booking it out of here, he froze. The timid comfortability in this chest died. He couldn’t move.

“Ah, sorry for the confusion Ms Smith. I forgot to tell the boys you were coming today,” Phil glanced at him with a soft smile. “You must be Tommy. I’m Phil, these are my sons Wilbur and Techno.” He was too bothered by Phil to even care about the fact that anime man was named after a music genre.

Tommy nodded. He didn’t risk opening his mouth to answer in case a whimper left it. It had been a while since something like this happened and he never trusted himself when it did. Wilbur and Techno stared at him as if he was one of those little exotic animals in a zoo, with intrigue and disguised judgement. He didn't dare to look Phil in the eyes again.

“Well,” Linda clasped her hands together, making Tommy flinch at the sudden sound, “before I leave Tommy to get himself situated, I need to discuss something with you Phil if that’s alright.”

Linda wasn’t very subtle at hinting to his new foster parent that she needed to bitch about Tommy to him. You’d think she would use a different phrase every time she did this, but nope.

“That’s fine, join me in the kitchen then. Will, Techno can you show Tommy around his new home?”

“I’ll come with you, Techno do the tour,” Wilbur interjected, pushing Techno closer towards Tommy.  

There was something comedic in the death stare Wilbur received from Techno. When the three left the room, Tommy stopped tunnelling his hands into his sleeves and crossed his arms.

“All I need to know is where the bathroom and my bedroom is, big man,” Tommy said, sensing that neither of them wanted to do this.

Techno pointed at a door. “Bathroom,” and then pointed at the stairs, “bedrooms are all upstairs, yours is the first door on the right. Mine is next to yours, Wilbur’s opposite, and Phil’s next to his. There’s another bathroom upstairs.”

“Nice tour. Didn’t even need to move.” Techno gave him a look of exasperation, which Tommy frowned at.

“I thought you’d want to hear your social worker talking about you,” Techno said, surprising him. “You haven’t seen the kitchen yet.”

Tommy grinned. “Show me the way anime man.”

“Don’t call me that.”

They stopped at the door to the kitchen, which was left ajar, and Linda’s scratchy and patronising voice was easy to hear from there.

For a solid minute, she was just chatting about general things that aren’t mentioned on his file (for instance, his amazing personality, or perhaps more about his previous home with the YouTube vloggers). But then she got onto the shittier stuff.

“Now, as we warned you before, he’s a flight risk and a problem at that,” Tommy rolled his eyes and bit on the inside of his cheek to stop himself from cussing her out, “We assume he had a rough past in the last fostering agency with the gang tattoo and scars he has. So if this becomes an issue with you in the future, don’t worry, this won’t be the first time it has—”

Her tone left Tommy uncomfortable. The marks of Theseus prickled against the ripped flesh on his back. The same stains that killed the naïve child soldier who would follow his big brother to the ends of the word. And a cliff so happened to be that end.

With his hands shaking, Tommy stared straight ahead and ignored the heavy gaze of Techno, “That’s enough listening.”

He moved away from the door and went into what he assumed was the living room, trying not to collapse on one of the sofas. He was still exhausted from the lack of sleep from last night, the shit car journey here, Linda in general, and now this. A family with two weird brothers and a father whose appearance hit too close to home.

Tommy jumped at Techno as he sat down next to him. He looked as if he were psyching himself up to start a conversation; Tommy knew the signs since he did the same thing.

“So… are you an orphan?” that was not the conversation starter Tommy was expecting, but it sure did knock the exhaustion out of him momentarily.

“What the fuck kind of question is that?” Tommy asked, gasping for air.

“A non-rhetorical one.”

“You smartass.” Techno’s facial expression didn’t change. “You actually want me to answer that? Don’t you know how triggering and insensitive and triggering it is to ask a child your family is about to foster if their parents are dead?”

He tried to hide his amusement with this entire situation and apparently failed due to how Techno didn’t have a shred of guilt or remorse in him.

“See, what you’ve essentially done is answer my non-rhetorical question with another question that I’m going to treat as rhetorical ‘cause I’m not answering it.”

“Yes! I am an orphan, you fucking weirdo.”

“That’s pretty cringe.” Tommy didn’t know how to respond to that.

Despite how Tommy was confused and felt like he should be offended, the conversation fuelled his interest in the pink anime man. He admired anyone who made fun of orphans and used it as their small talk prompt.

He was too focused on his stare-off with Techno to notice the others coming back from the kitchen. Wilbur seemed confused at seeing Tommy and Techno on a sofa together, and he had no idea why. Phil looked delighted. This family was fucking weird.

Linda clasped her hands together again, “Well, I best be off then as everything’s in order. I’ll visit again in a couple of weeks to check up on everything.”

His new foster family said their goodbyes to Linda whilst Tommy stayed silent. He didn’t want to waste any more energy on that prick. When the door slammed shut, the entire situation finally hit him. This was his new house, and if he was still here for at least half a year, then it would be his last. Stuck with anime man, a tall weird guy, and the doppelganger of his father. Fun.

Now, he had no idea what to do. His only other experience with a foster house had screaming toddlers, cameras in every ceiling corner of the room, and creepy adults. He wouldn’t admit that he was nervous, anxious even, at this change, but deep down he was scared. Scared of Phil, what this house meant and his upcoming sixteenth birthday.

“Tommy, have you eaten today?” Phil asked from where he was stood. Phil and Wilbur hadn’t moved since Linda left. Maybe they didn’t know what to do either.

Instead of facing his fears and embracing change, Tommy pussied out.

“Yes, I have.” He had not. “Is it ok if I go to bed early? I know where my room is already.”

“Sure mate, you’ve probably had a busy day. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

He scurried out of the living room at a nonsuspicious pace, picking up his bags with him, and ran up the stairs. He didn’t like how all confidence left his body when Linda went. It should have been the opposite.

The upstairs looked similar to the living room, with light decoration and sparing photographs of the family members on the walls. Still no ‘Live, Love, Laugh’ posters thankfully.

Tommy opened the first door to his right, kept the light switched off and stepped inside. The walls were white and empty, besides the painting of an island nailed above the double bed. The room had some furniture: a desk and a closet with some draws.

He walked towards the window and sighed at the lock. He recognised the brand on the glass anyway. Suicide prevention windows. Nice.

All he needed to do to die was call upon  him  and say an incorrect name. No window needed. Curtesy of his curse.

Regardless, he threw his bags at the end of the bed and grabbed his notebook and cow plushie, Henry, out of it. The darkness in the room added to his fatigue to the point where he didn’t care about sleeping in his only good t-shirt and uncomfortable jeans. He slipped under the covers and unbolted his notebook, searching for the page he always went to before going to sleep. The only page to have his brother’s—albeit messy—handwriting in it. To his day, Tommy was glad he pestered his older brother enough for him to write a note in it, even before he knew that the notebook would always be reborn with him.

His fingers outlined the message:

Tommy Soot is forcing me to write this. Help me. I will never write that he is the biggest man, he is rather quite small and dainty. A child. Also, his diary book is shite. No idea where he got it, but it’s ugly. Much like him.   – W. Soot.

It was a stupid message, but it brought him comfort. He closed the book and placed it under his pillow. He clutched his cow plushie to his chest and tried to ignore the sounds from downstairs. The Crafts were watching the TV.

Burning came from Tommy’s left wrist, his tattoo, and he flinched. For fuck’s sake. He buried himself under his covers and screwed his eyes shut. There was no point in delaying the inevitable.

As soon as his consciousness withdrew, he was there again. In the void. It was normally just black, filled with nothing. But this time, tall brick walls, adorned with vines of all lengths and green shades, stood around him. Tommy was in some sort of puzzle or maze. He shoved at the walls, hoping they were illusions or hallucinations of his, to no avail. He was trapped. That was until a green pathway materialised beneath his feet, ruining the opaque darkness and claustrophobia.

With his head and heart pounding, he followed it. Regret flooded through him as he reached a dead-end. Not because he was trapped again, but because of who was there waiting for him.

A masked man appeared in front of him. An amulet of the same symbol that burdened his wrist hung around the deity’s neck.

“What the fuck do you want this time, Dream?”

The masked man smiled.

With hindsight, Tommy regretted falling asleep in jeans. It was bad enough that he woke up in a cold sweat, thanks to Dream and his nightmare fuelling mask, but waking up and not being able to feel his legs was where he drew the line.

Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Tommy sat up and grabbed his notebook. Every time Dream visited, he updated his file on him. From the numerous visits, the prominent notes he always wrote down each time were:

Dream’s still an asshole who exploits his Godhood to annoy me. He won't take off that stupid mask.

He didn’t get why Dream wore it. He had seen his real face, and boy was he glad Dream covered it up. He wasn’t ugly or anything (he kinda was) but it was more what his face represented, what that humanised person did to him in his first life, when Tommy was at his absolute lowest, hoping for someone to just care for him and- nope. No, it was because Dream was ugly underneath it. That was why he was glad. No other reason.

Anyway, despite how Tommy would usually write that, he didn’t this time. For once in the void, Dream wasn’t an asshole. But he wasn’t nice either. It was creepy, how Dream seemed excited, almost happy at Tommy’s recent predicament.

Dream said this life would be more fun. He didn’t specify who it would be fun for, me or him.

But he kept laughing. It scared me. He must like the myth he picked for me.

Tommy stopped writing and glanced at the clock on the bedside table. It was late morning. He’d rather not start the day with writing any more bullshit about the green bastard.

Ignoring the aches in his legs, Tommy headed towards the bathroom, the sign saying ‘shitters be shitting’ on the door made it clear. The door opened and a tall body bumped into him.

“Oh, uh good morning,” Wilbur said.

“Morning,” he replied. He waited for Wilbur to move away from the bathroom, but he didn’t.

“I don’t exactly know how to deal with children.” If Tommy wasn’t so tired, he would’ve beaten the shit out of him—and won, obviously—but that was just another thing to blame Dream for.

“I’m not a fucking child.”

“Exhibit A.”

“Shut up.” Wilbur appeared amused at this entire thing. “Can you get out of the way so I can take a shit, or would you prefer watching me do it? Because if you take the second option, that’s a bit weird of you—”

“Exhibit B.”

It was too early for this shit. His stomach quenched in hunger. Maybe Wilbur could be useful.

“Is your family the type to force everyone to sit down and have breakfast or can I just take food and eat it upstairs?” he asked, not caring at Wilbur’s surprise at the conversation change.

“We used to have family meals,” Wilbur thread his hands through his hair, “But yeah, I guess it would be convenient to have them again. Come downstairs in a bit, we can have breakfast.”

“Cool.” Wilbur took that as his leave and finally moved away from the bathroom.

After Tommy finished his time in the bathroom, he walked down the stairs. They noticed his arrival in the kitchen. Phil greeted him as he made toast, wearing the greenest dressing gown Tommy had ever seen before, and Wilbur, unbothered, continued to grab jams from the top cupboard. He supposed the table with a cereal bowl in front of one of the chairs was the chosen table today. Fucking Tories and their two different types of dining tables.

He didn’t know if this family had a hierarchy of who sat in each chair, but he didn’t care. He was sitting at the head of the table and no one could do anything about it. His tiredness sabotaged his normal self-preservation.

Wilbur sat to his right and Phil to his left. Phil placed toast in the middle of the table. If awkward could be described as a moment, it would be this. Tommy acted on impulse half the time—correction, all of the time—and did things without thinking, but in this house, he felt constant judgement. He didn’t care about other people’s opinions of him (that was a lie), yet here, he weirdly did. Perhaps it was because this house was older, no younger siblings to take the attention off him, no crying babies to fill up the silence.

He was the youngest and hated it.

“How’d you sleep? You looked tired last night,” Phil asked as Tommy put slices of toast onto his plate.

“I slept alright. A bit hot though, suicide prevention windows will do that to you.” Okay, maybe he needed to tone it down. The eyes practically bugging out of Phil’s head were enough evidence for this.

Wilbur choked on his cereal, “I need a drink.”

“No alcohol.”

“I don’t think I can get through this conversation without it.” To Tommy’s dismay, Wilbur didn’t grab alcohol from the fridge, which would have made this family breakfast even more entertaining. Instead, he grabbed a White Monster… at ten o’clock in the morning?

Techno chose this moment to come downstairs. Fortunately, he was no longer wearing the Minecraft pig slippers.

“Oh, you’re up early,” Phil said to him.

“I’m getting coffee at the café, Niki has an early shift.”

White Monster still in hand, Wilbur shoved Techno by the shoulders into the seat next to him, “Nope. Sit your arse down and drink Dad’s Poundland coffee. This is a family breakfast.”

“Poundland? Seriously?” Hearing an American say that was the worst thing to ever happen in Tommy’s life. Well, if you disregard the cycle of dying on his loved ones, which is pretty hard to disregard from his experience, then it was the worst.

“I’m sorry that Walmart is on the opposite side of the world—” Techno interrupted Phil with what Tommy assumed was an attempt at a ‘bruh’ but the lack of energy made it a pathetic groan. “Just because we have money doesn’t mean Waitrose is the place to get coffee.”

Wilbur nodded, way too vigorously in Tommy’s opinion, “Yes, we need to humble ourselves. Living in a privileged neighbourhood with no financial insecurity will go to our heads.”

“I could humble you right now by kicking you out of the house,” Phil said.

“You would never.” Phil’s lack of response caused Wilbur to take another painful sip of his drink.

Tommy picked at his breakfast, not really knowing what to do. This didn’t have an atmosphere of a family meal or even a family at all. More like a group of friends with a family dynamic, but Tommy was the outsider here, watching in on their inside jokes. He could either join their banter and thrive off their awkwardness towards him or eat the burnt toast. His stomach answered the dilemma for him.

As Techno sluggishly got up to make coffee, Phil turned all his attention onto Tommy.

“Since we’re all here, it’s a good time to go through the rules in this house.” Tommy's legs bounced under the table. “It’s nothing bad, just basic things. There are chores you’ll need to do but not for now, since you’re still getting settled in. Curfew is nine o’clock and tells me where you go beforehand, and no illegal shit.”

Wilbur’s scoff wiped out Phil’s serious demeanour in seconds.

“Shut.” Wilbur grinned at him, “Oh yeah and don’t go in Wilbur’s shed.”

“What’s in his shed?” Tommy asked, “What, you like a murderer or some shit?”

Techno sat back down. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

“Do I need to explain morality to you again?” This sounded like this was a common occurrence. Techno shrugged and stirred his coffee.  

Phil continued, “Anyway, Tommy, is there anything we can do to make you feel more welcome and comfortable? Ignoring anything Will and Techno say might help with that.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at the man. He’d never been asked this before. He debated taking this seriously or not.

“Child abuse and neglect makes me pretty uncomfortable. So maybe don’t do that.”

The abruptness must have caught Techno off guard, seeing how he spat his coffee back into the cup. Phil sighed into his hands.

“So you admit you’re a child now,” Wilbur said.

“Only when it’s convenient for me.”

“Mate, you don’t have to worry about any of that in this house.” Tommy looked over at Wilbur and Techno, who both gave him a thumbs up. That was not a response he expected.

“Oh, also, we need to go shopping. I don’t think one t-shirt and jeans are enough for you, plus you need other essentials.”

The memory of unwillingly vlogging a clothing maul came to his mind and he’d rather die than go clothes shopping again. All thanks to the Morrison family.

“Can I do clothes shopping online?”

It was a weird request, but Phil for some reason didn’t deny it, “Yeah that’s fine. We’ll go out for essential stuff later today.”

The rest of the family breakfast carried on in peace. Kinda, apart from when Wilbur spilt his drink over the table and Techno somehow dropped his toast on the floor.

❊❊❊

Car rides with Phil were more enjoyable than with Linda, which was ironic as Tommy hated being in close quarters with the man who looked exactly like his father. Linda was that much of a dickhead.

Tommy spent most of the journey staring out the window. Snowchester, despite having no snow, was pretty.

“Sorry if it’s been awkward for you so far, we haven’t fostered or adopted anyone since Techno,” Phil said, disturbing Tommy’s count of how many fucking trees this town had.

He wanted to ask why Phil suddenly decided to foster again. There had to be a reason why. Maybe Techno wasn’t the child he really wanted but adopted anyway, hoping that he’d change, and because he never did, he’d try again with another child. Yet, Techno seemed cool enough. Maybe someone died and the house needed a replacement, or the Craft’s had a saviour complex and desired to fix the most problematic children. Or they needed the money; Tommy quickly ruled this idea out since Phil was about to spend money on him today.

Instead, Tommy asked, “Is Techno his actual name?”

“No, it’s Technoblade the Third.” Fucking what?

“You’re taking the piss,” Tommy looked at him, trying to find anything in Phil’s face to up his ‘bullshit-metre’.

“I wish I was.”

“Not only is there one of them, but three?” Tommy couldn’t grasp the idea of naming your child after a music genre and synonym for a knife, “Take them all out, Jesus.”

“Why’d you think he was up for adoption?”

“Oh.” He shouldn’t find this funny. Tommy, trying to find a sympathetic bone in his body, tried to bite back a laugh. Keyword: tried. He burst out laughing and Phil surprisingly joined in. Okay, this family was alright.

When they reached the shopping centre, Phil appeared more affected by the crowd than he did. But the poorly hidden glances Phil aimed in his direction made it obvious he was more worried about the effect it had on Tommy. To be honest, Phil didn’t need to be concerned.

Rather than having anxiety harrow in his chest, Tommy had the opposite. Tranquillity composed his mind; he felt at home. The reason he was so calm was worrying though. The environment of sheers amounts of people pushing and shoving reminded him of the battlefield. Surrounded by soldiers, shouts of patriarchy and revolution, a drawn weapon in his hand, fighting for freedom with his friends. If he closed his eyes and lost himself to the masses, he could almost picture his big brother leading them to victory, or rather, to their eventual deaths.

Phil tugging on his arm broke him from this illusion. A piece of him wanted to stay there for a little while more. But he knew that if he did, he’d remember a lot more than just the proud smile his brother gave him.

“You alright?” Phil’s voice drowned in the noise of the busy shopping centre, but Tommy nodded at him anyway and blindly followed the man.

The first shop was W.H Smiths. There was not much interesting about buying pens that were priced more than they should be. Besides the part where Phil laughed at his pain. He asked Tommy if he wanted a hot pink notepad. Nothing was wrong with pink, but hot pink was a vile fucking colour. It was the colour of a migraine and absolutely didn’t deserve the right to be a shade.

Tesco’s wasn’t any better. Apparently, Lynx Africa wasn’t a good deodorant to get, but Phil's disappointing stare didn’t stop Tommy from buying it. So far, Phil hadn’t spent that much money on him. He kept count of the amount, which was a habit he was never able to drop, blame two past lives of poverty (cheers Dream for that, you dick). But then Phil directed him over to the technology part of Tesco’s and the money amount skyrocketed.  

Phil wanted to buy Tommy a phone. A phone. Holy shit. Sure, he knew how phones worked but he’d never had one to himself, his own privacy.

“You’re a teenager, it’s essential,” Phil said, noticing the blatant shock on Tommy’s face.

As Phil sorted out his phone, Tommy made it his mission to touch every single piece of technology around him. Even the grandma phones. Anything with a screen or keyboard was at the mercy of Tommy Soot, well, Tommy Idelle in this life.

“I’ve put everyone’s numbers already in the contacts, in case you need any of us.”

Tommy immediately went to the messaging apps, “Please don’t tell me there’s a family group chat.”

“There is one but it’s just Wilbur sending Reddit links at three in the morning and that time we needed to find Techno when we lost him in the toy store.”

“How old was he when that happened?”

“That was last week.”

❊❊❊

Despite being in the same position he was in on the car ride there, staring through the window, Tommy was less tense on the way back to the house. The close quarters bothered him, but not as much as it did before. It was more obvious to him now that Phil was not the same person as his father; the only similarity was his appearance and nothing else. Still though, the man made him nervous, the whole foster family did. There were no red flags (besides the mystery around Wilbur’s shed) and no absurd rules. It confused him. He should feel safe, but he didn’t. Not completely.

Phil offered to take Tommy’s new things to his room when they got back and told him to make himself some lunch. Now, Tommy was no chef, but he was an expert at making sandwiches.

While eating the best fucking sandwich Tommy had ever made, he noticed Techno sitting on the sofa furthest away from any social interaction with a book in his hands and noise-cancelling headphones on. Why did the fact that he, as a young adult, got lost in a toy store and was called Technoblade the Third, add to his mysterious aura rather than take away from it?

Regardless, next on the agenda was online shopping. Tommy stood outside Wilbur’s room and dreaded knocking on it. So he just burst into the room unannounced.

“Phil said I can—” a very manly scream cut him off.

Look, he didn’t mean to scare the shit out of Wilbur—maybe he did just a little bit—but Tommy took the American phrase ‘rip off the band-aid’ literally and that so happened to include jump scaring tall men in their own bedrooms.

“What the fuck,” Wilbur exclaimed, still recovering from the scare that knocked twenty years off his lifespan.

“Phil said I can use your PC to shop for clothes.”

“Yeah, I know that but why the fuck didn’t you knock?” Wilbur seemed to be milking this; the hand clasping over his heart was a bit too much.

“I’ll keep that in mind next time, anyway, PC time.”

As Wilbur turned on his computer, Tommy observed his room. Wilbur’s room, to put it simply, was a fucking mess. Explosions could have gone off in here for all Tommy knew, and he had a lot of experience with that. There were water bottles scattered along the windowsill, all at different drinking levels, and a pile of clothes at the side of his bed. An acoustic guitar leaned against the wall, which was plastered with different indie and alternative band posters; a Hamilton poster was at the centre. A picture frame laid facing down on his bedside table, right next to another bottle of water.

Tommy sat at Wilbur’s desk and waited for Wilbur to do something like sit on his bed or go downstairs, but nope. The fucker pulled out another chair and sat down next to him.

“You have no style. I’m helping. Think of this as charity work.”

“I have style,” Tommy said, offended.

“You need more than one shirt to prove you have style.”

Ignoring the outright lies, Tommy clicked on a new tab on Google. But he couldn’t help but notice the other tabs that Wilbur had open, specifically the different tabs about accounts called ‘Sally Salmon’ on Instagram, Facebook and even Pinterest.

“Uh, Wilbur, why are you stalking someone called Sally—” Wilbur rushed to close them all down and opened up a new window.

“You saw nothing.”

“You simp.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

As Wilbur’s face became redder, Tommy found a clothes site that looked promising. Wilbur kept pestering him at every piece of clothing he clicked on. Thankfully, the red and white Raglan t-shirt, which just resonated with him, survived Wilbur’s attempts of deleting it from his basket.

“You know, there’s more to life than blue jeans,” Wilbur said, probably because of how Tommy was browsing nothing but the jeans part of the ‘bottoms’ section.

“You’re right,” Tommy replied, giving Wilbur just a piece of hope before destroying it all, “I want black jeans too.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Tommy smiled to himself.

After he finished shopping and everything was bought, Wilbur was seconds away from dying of disappointment and shame. “What about merch? You like any musicians?”

Tommy shook his head, “I don’t really listen to music.”

That was the wrong answer.

“Nope! No, get out of my fucking room. That was the last straw, we’re done here. Just get out,” Wilbur shoved him out, pushing harder when Tommy laughed.

The door slammed shut on his face and in his opinion, online shopping went well.

He headed back into his room to see the shopping bags from earlier on the desk. But his heart stopped at the sight of the items that laid on the end of his bed.

A school uniform.

He had school tomorrow.

Tommy’s morning began with a rough start.

He woke up and Henry, his cow plushie, had fallen on the floor and he always felt guilty when that happened, and then he didn’t end up slipping and cracking his head open in the shower, which would have saved him from having to go to school.

Even though he was practically immortal (he used that term in full confidence, especially as that car that hit him last year should have murdered him) since only the myths could kill him, it was the thought that counted. Speaking of myths, he hadn’t made any progress of what myth he currently had either. His headspace was too focused on the past, which was probably due to how this foster family had too many resemblances to his other myths.

He could never fight off the thoughts of his past lives or their myths when in the shower. The water tormented him, acting as if it didn’t remind him of his disfigured and marked skin with every wet drop. There was no moment where the scars, the memories, of Theseus, Icarus and Orpheus could be forgotten. Although he didn’t experience the pain of the wounds, or even the healing process, as he was reborn with them attached to his body, he couldn’t ignore the discomfort the scars brought.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and hoped the rest of the day would go okay. And because the Gods were never on his side, the second he opened the bathroom door, it all went to shit.

As soon as Tommy walked into the corridor, Techno just had to exit his room.

The once timid air around him sharpened and prickled against his skin; vulnerability encased his exposed body. The scrutinising stare from Techno didn’t help the weighted fear held against his chest. He felt as if were on display, an exhibit in a museum, see the cursed child! Don’t poke the glass.

At that moment, nothing stopped Techno from knowing every flaw his skin flaunted.

Instead of resorting to swears or phrases to gain control of the situation so the awaiting panic attack wouldn’t hit him in front of a man he had met two days prior, Tommy ran into his room, closing the door behind him.

It took everything in him not to crumble into his bedsheets and stay there until the end of time (which so happened to be in a couple of months for him). The desire to bury and delude himself, to neglect the truth of reality, overwhelmed him. Just like he did in his last life. When his own head deceived him to the point where he remained oblivious to the weight of the dead body lying in his arms and forgot about her.

His face reddened and his eyes burned. He shouldn’t do that again. The smell of a rotting corpse and the cracking of dried blood on his arms forcing him back into reality did more damage than the original loss. He couldn’t do that again.

With the harrowing sound of knocking coming from his door, Tommy accepted defeat.

Bracing himself, Tommy wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and opened the door. A disgruntled Techno stood in front of him.

“How’do?” Tommy said, his voice cracked but he’d rather pretend that did not happen.

“This wasn’t on your file.”

Knowing what Techno was referring to, Tommy bit on the inside of his cheek. He remembered Linda telling them about his scars, but when you hear that, you don’t think of ‘oh a third-degree burn on your shoulder, slashes across your stomach that look like a wild pack of dogs ripped you to pieces and a massive skid mark down your back’. Truth be told, Linda didn’t know the extent of his scars. He kept them hidden, but obviously, not hidden enough.

“Don’t tell Phil.”

“Why not?” Techno asked.

Tommy glared at him. “He’ll ask questions that I don’t want to answer.”

“What if I have questions?”

Tommy stayed silent and let the sickness pool in his stomach. He didn’t want to do this.

“Alright, dickhead. You can ask one question but then you can’t tell anyone about this.”

There was no logic in even offering Techno a question, but the gleam in Techno’s eyes told him that he wouldn’t drop this.

“What happened to your torso?”

Orpheus. Why the fuck did he have to ask about Orpheus? Why not the burns on his shoulders, why not Icarus? Why did it have to be that?

Tommy didn’t know what to say. If he explained how Deo died, how he actually died, then Techno would know this didn’t happen during this century. After all, how do you say that your friend died of a disease that had been declared eradicated since the 1980s?

Just thinking about it made the claw marks on his torso sting.

“My friend was dying. I tried everything to save him, everything,” bloodletting, quackery, even fucking variolation, “but my lack of faith and impatience killed him instead.”

It was impossible to forget the disappointed pity he received from the Wise Woman in his village when he told her he didn’t take her advice, that he didn’t just wait and treat the symptoms of smallpox rather than doing what the doctors told the rich. They couldn’t even give Deo a funeral.

“That doesn’t explain why you look like you survived a lycanthropes attack.” It wasn’t his fault that his myth decided to get torn to shit by Dionysus followers years after Eurydice died. That ‘L’ wasn’t taken by him.

“Then your question should’ve been more specific. Now, can you fuck off and let me get changed in peace?”

Techno looked more disgruntled than before, dissatisfied with an answer that was as honest as Tommy could give. His stare dipped down to Tommy’s exposed wrist, his tattoo.

“Why do you have a tattoo of Zagreus?”

Tommy flinched. Dream’s real name always did this to him. The reminder that Dream was a God and chose to torture him, making him a special case, a pastime to laugh at. As if a Greek God, son of Zeus and Persephone, who was millenniums years old, couldn’t find a source of entertainment elsewhere.

Dream’s cackles that engulfed the empty void plagued Tommy’s ears, the

same cackles the God released as a Tommy who had just experienced death for the first time begged for an explanation, pleaded for his big brother to come and save him from this vile man. Tears fell down his face and all Dream said in response was that this was a punishment, the consequence of what he did to his patron.

“I said fuck off.”

He slammed the door shut and let his agony pour through him.

❊❊❊

Thankfully, breakfast didn’t involve having any more of Tommy’s past being brought up. He sat at the head of the table, stabbing his fried egg with his fork as the others talked amongst themselves. He appreciated Techno pretending as if nothing had happened, even though his method was just ignoring Tommy’s general existence at the table.

“Techno, stop glaring at Wilbur,” Phil spoke louder than he did before, alerting Tommy of their conversation.

“It’s Monday,” Techno said, “and I’m waiting.”

Realisation sprung onto Phil’s face, followed by annoyance, “Of course. Get on with it, Will.”

“You don’t sound excited about my weekly update,” Wilbur stated. He scowled at his family, but the amused glint in his eyes sabotaged his expression. “Now, Tommy, as you are new here, this will be your first update. Treasure it. And it is something you need to look forward to each week.”

“Get on with it,” Phil repeated.

“So, my Spotify clout is growing.” That is not what Tommy expected to hear. “Most of my playlists have gotten more likes, with the highest being twenty-seven on my ‘songs you play when The Boys™ get in the car’ playlist.”

Wilbur went on more about the Spotify algorithm and his weirdly named playlists than Tommy would’ve liked (what the fuck was an incel anyway?). He didn’t even know Spotify had an algorithm and he wasn’t so sure it could be exploited for playlist exposure.

“That’s nice to hear, Will,” Phil said with his voice conveying the exact opposite. “Onto more important stuff though, Tommy I printed out your school timetable.”

He’d prefer Spotify talk to school bullshit.

Phil handed him a sheet of paper across the table and Tommy squinted at what he read, “Why have I got physical education lessons? I thought they stopped in year eleven.”

“I thought that was one of your chosen subjects, like music.” Tommy shook his head.

“Oh my God, you have to do P.E.” Wilbur tried to smother his delight at Tommy’s suffering with his hand.

“Die.”

“Aw, I didn’t release we were at the death threats point in our bond.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Tommy quipped back, stabbing his egg again.

“It’s just runnin’ around a field for an hour, why is it even a qualification?” Techno asked.

Wilbur continued grinning at Tommy. “You need to know about lactic acid and shit.”

“When I die from exercise and take lactic acid—” Tommy ignored Wilbur’s interjection that lactic acid wasn’t a drug, “—I am going to place all the blame on Phil Craft. I will get Linda to sue you.”

“Dad, no fix it. I don’t want to see Linda Smith ever again.”

“I’d rather do P.E than Spanish, to be honest,” Tommy said, noticing the absence of the lesson in his timetable.

“Then you can’t blame me when you die from exercise,” Phil replied, looking smug as Tommy gripped harder on his fork. The audacity of this old man.

“No me gusta.”

“Stop speaking broken Spanish and hurry up with your food, we’re leaving soon,” Wilbur said as he stood up to put his plate in the sink.

“We?”

“Yes, we. I have school too.”

Tommy was confused. No offence to Wilbur—full offence, actually—but he looked like he was in his middle twenties, similar to Techno’s age, if not younger.

“You’re still in secondary school?”

“I’m a year thirteen resit. Let me live.” So he was eighteen or nineteen, either way, old as fuck.

It was Tommy’s turn to laugh at Wilbur’s suffering. Avoiding a hit to the head, Tommy ducked and quickly ate the rest of his breakfast.

❊❊❊

After that horrific car ride, Tommy now understood how Wilbur failed his driving test five times. Still feeling the effects of being in a car with a man who shouted out a range of numbered points every time he could have hit someone, Tommy followed Wilbur through the school gates.

“That building is the entrance to the main school and reception looks like the drive-through window for McDonald’s, easy to find.” Wilbur grabbed his lanyard from his bag and hung it around his neck. “Now, you go on and have an embarrassing and socially awkward first day at school and I’ll see you back here at three o’clock.”

Wilbur walked off and greeted another sixth form student, an average height (but tiny when stood next to Wilbur) girl with dyed pink hair. What the fuck was up with this town and pink hair?

Tommy had gone to two schools in this life, and they were far better than the ones in the 1970s and the attempt of an education he had in France (secondary schools were established in larger cities, but fuck learning about modern sciences in a time when they believed bad air caused disease rather than bacteria). Despite that, Tommy didn’t like these schools; he didn’t appreciate being barged into in corridors and called ‘pussio’.

Regardless, Tommy proceeded to the reception that was apparently a knockoff McDonald’s window. He humbly disagreed with Wilbur on this comparison since reception instead looked like those rundown Subway shops placed at petrol stations.

The only difference to an actual petrol station Subway was that there usually wasn’t a boy who looked like a year seven—if it wasn’t for the red badge on his blazer indicating he was in year eleven, Tommy never would’ve known—in there. McDonald’s, sure, but not Subway. Tommy wondered during the car ride here why this school had coloured badges for different years, but it wouldn’t surprise him if this kid was the sole reason why. He looked twelve and not fifteen or sixteen. It didn’t help that the guy wore his school uniform like a pre-schooler either, the fucking buttons weren’t even buttoned up properly, his tie was inside out and there was more mud on his trousers than fabric.

Tommy closed the reception door behind him, alerting the guy that he was there. A look of pain came across the boy’s face, almost wishing that social interaction didn’t exist and maybe that Tommy didn’t exist either.

“You must be Tommy, I’m Tubbo,” the boy said, and the name weirdly fit him, “I was, uh, assigned to show you around the school on your first day.”

“How many good behaviour points are you getting for this shit?” Tommy asked. The reluctance of this entire ordeal was obvious from the other boy.

“A lot,” Tubbo said, “I’m saving up for an Amazon gift card.”

“Why?”

“If it’s the school’s money, my parents will let me buy this stainless steel knife set.” What the fuck? Now Tommy didn’t judge on appearances, but this guy looked like he’d prefer to buy stuffed animals online and not fucking weapons.

“You could buy anything, and you want that?”

“They have rainbow titanium coating. It’s worth it.”

Perplexed by this conversation, Tommy just nodded at him. Maybe if they were red coating, he’d understand the commitment.

There was an old woman behind the reception counter, but she ignored him—that or her old age affected her ears and she genuinely didn’t know he was there. Either way, Tommy’s first introduction to this school was a short kid covered in mud with a liking for rainbow knives. With this town, he didn’t expect anything less.

“Can I have a look at your timetable before I take you to form?” Tommy gave it to him and Tubbo looked up at him with disgust, “You willingly chose P.E?”

Not wanting to relive the teasing he received earlier from Wilbur, Tommy took it with stride, “I have a God complex.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Me neither.” Tommy beamed at the boy’s bewilderment. “Anyway, where’s form?”

Tubbo’s commentary on all the things they walk past whilst on the way to form was… educational to say the least. He learnt to avoid drinking from the water fountains unless you wanted cholera and to not sit on the school heaters unless you want ‘beef’ with the year nines, who have nowhere else to go at break or lunch. Also, Tubbo shared music with him, so he wouldn’t be alone for that class.

Most interestingly though, was when the two walked into their form room and a random girl said to Tubbo, “Good morning, bee boy.”

Apparently if you mention that you like bees once in year eight, that shit happens. Tubbo didn’t even know the girl.

His first lesson was history and fortunately, Tubbo had that class as well. No need for awkward introductions to other students then, he’d just latch onto this one guy for the entire day.

However, the liveliness he had from his conversations with Tubbo in form died the minute he entered his history classroom. Flags that meant death, false freedom, and blood to him were paraded on the display boards upon the walls, with shitty lesson work plastered below it. The same colours that once brought a newfound nation together and fuelled misplaced patriotism were reduced to a classroom accessory.

He sat down next to Tubbo, trying to calm the shaking in his legs. His right hand gripped onto his tattooed wrist, wishing that this wasn’t what Dream meant by making this life exciting. The tightness in his throat and heat against his neck worsened as Tubbo pushed his textbook between them. The title mocked him, everything became muffled as the words sunk in.

The L’Manberg Revolution and Greater Essempi Wars: 1521-1537.

He faintly registered Tubbo talking to him, and that five, maybe even ten minutes had passed, but nothing mattered. Nothing mattered but the glaring textbook placed in front of him. The book had been opened to a page, exposing his watering eyes to more text about his first life, about Theseus.

As he recognised the content on the page, his world collapsed. A scanned picture of his notebook, of the same message he read before going to sleep, laid on the page. It was almost untranslatable, sabotaged by time, yet he could recognise his own brother’s handwriting anywhere. He read the caption at the top and the bile rising up his throat tasted bitter. ‘W. Soot’s only recorded message.’

If they had printed a stupid note his brother had written, which had no historical meaning, then what else did they print?

There were diary entries he made whilst he was there. There was personal shit, meant for no one else’s eyes, when he was desperate for someone to just listen to him, to care about how he felt, and his conflict when someone finally did care, only for that to end badly as well.

He should have known from the beginning that his notebook wasn’t normal. He didn’t know where it came from, but it didn’t leave his side. Even the days where he woke up drowning with his notebook in his bag, the pages never ruined. Well, it must have lost its magical properties after he died.

He turned to a random page and his own written words were enough.

It’s never my time to die.

Tommy raised his hand. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

The teacher nodded at him, said something about allowing it since he was new, but he didn’t care. He moved out of his chair, trying to compose the trembling in his legs and the pounding in his head. He just needed to get out of that room, away from those words.

His deathly grip on the bathroom sink tightened as tears pricked in his eyes. A part of him wished for the sink to break into pieces, to cut at his skin and shatter in his hands. Anything to distract him from the memories of where he’d climb his stone towers and stand over the edge, letting the harsh gusts of wind decide his fate.

His tattoo stung and he clawed at it, hoping that Dream felt his pain by extension. As his back slid down the wall, Tommy held his head in his hands and a sob echoed the room. He could never escape it, escape him, escape his past.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but it was enough that the teacher would notice his absence.

He sat back down, avoiding eye contact with anyone who noticed his puffy face and red nose. Tubbo tapped on his shoulder.

“You okay, man?”

He wanted to scoff at that question. He wanted to say the truth, the words at the tip of his tongue.

“No. You have to revise and write essays about the same events that ripped apart my family, murdered my brother, destroyed any friendships and ounces of trust I had left, and killed me. I am not fucking okay.”

But he didn’t say that. He couldn’t.

He sucked up all the self-pity he had and attempted to smile at the boy next to him, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a bit nervous, first day and all.”

“Understandable. If you’re worried about not making friends or stuff like that, I think you’re pretty chill.”

Tommy nodded and the forced smile on his face felt a bit more real.

❊❊❊

Tommy could finally swallow without tasting bitterness in his throat when break time came around. The previous sobs that wrecked his throat elapsed as he enjoyed Tubbo’s company in the school canteen.

“So do you hang out with anyone else?” Tommy asked as he picked at the sandwich Phil made for him.

“Yeah, this guy called Ranboo, but he’s not in today,” Tubbo said, “He was playing an emotional game until five in the morning. I woke up to him calling me whilst he cried over some characters called Chloe and Max. I don’t know.”

Tommy snorted, recognising the game, “Damn, what a pussy crying over Life is Strange.”

“He wants me to play it with him, but I think that’s just his excuse to see me cry.”

A person in the line for food caught his eye, stopping him from commenting on Tubbo’s strange friend. Wilbur, noticing him, flipped Tommy off. So Tommy did the most polite and mature thing he could have done and did the same back.

“You know Wilbur?” he looked at Tubbo and paused. Tubbo didn’t seem like the assholes who would take the piss out of foster kids.

“I’m staying with him for a while.”

“You’re related to Philza Minecraft? Holy shit.” Tommy didn’t know where this sudden excitement came from.

“What? No, I’m being fostered by Phil Craft. Is that your nickname for him or something?”

“Dude,” Tubbo put down his sandwich for dramatic value, “he created Minecraft.”

“No fucking way.”

“You didn’t know this?”

Tommy shook his head, “You are telling me everything you know about the Craft family.”

His shitty morning and introduction to history had soon been forgotten as Tubbo gave him the brightest grin he could muster and began his rant.

❊❊❊

His phone buzzed in his pocket as he said goodbye to Tubbo at the end of the school day.

4/3: Family Chat

Wilbur: [image attached] stop speaking to Tubzo and hurry up

Technoblade: Stop taking pictures of children at school.

Wilbur: stfu

Rolling his eyes at the messages, Tommy reached Wilbur at the gate and followed him to his car. Wilbur put on his music with the aux and surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. Nothing beat bardcore Medieval covers though.

As subtly as possible, Tommy wrote down some of the lyrics in his notebook so he could find the song later. The thought crossed his mind that this would be a permanent mark in his notebook, something that no matter the amount of crossing out would still be there. He didn’t mind that.

“You’re fitting in better than I thought you would on the first day,” Wilbur said as he narrowly avoided running over one of the year sevens who crossed the road without looking, “Techno didn’t speak a word to anyone for a week just to establish a mysterious persona.”

“Did it work?”

“Yeah, they were shit scared of him.” Tommy shared the feeling. “He beat up some kids which solidified the entire thing.”

“Well, I found a Tubbo,” he said with a proud smile.

“You sure did. Nice choice, he’s like his sister. He won’t let you go now.”

“Who’s his sister?”

“Niki. Pink hair, German accent, very throwable.” Wilbur didn’t expand on that.

When they got home, the biggest mystery of the Craft house was solved. With Phil, paperwork and laptop in his hands, on the second dining table that Tommy hadn’t eaten on yet, it all made sense. That dining table was for work-related business. It did confirm though, to Tommy’s dislike, that the Craft’s had some Tory in them though.

Phil looked up from his laptop and greeted them, “How was school?”

Tommy ignored his question and channelled all the built-up emotions he’d had all day, “You created Minecraft? You named a game after yourself? How egotistical and selfish are you? And you didn’t even tell me—”

“Would you have preferred Cave Game?” Phil asked, not bothered by the loudness Tommy created.

“I take it back. Be as selfish as your heart desires Mr Minecraft.”

Wilbur threw his bag on the sofa and Tommy noticed his calm attitude had changed since he exited the car.

“Where’s Technoblade? I need to show him something.” Even his voice had changed.

“He’s picked up another shift at the library. What do you need to show him anyway?” Phil asked.

“Nothing. I’ll be in the shed.”

Without another word, Wilbur stalked out the room and left a bewildered Phil behind. Not liking the silence, Tommy sat down opposite him.

“I made a friend today.” He had no idea why he said that. Except he did, but that didn’t mean he approved of it. He didn’t like the inkling of hurt and muffled confusion on Phil’s face. Fuck, what was this house doing to him? He’d been there for not even three whole days and he was already succumbing to the pressure of human emotion.

“That’s good,” the hurt on Phil’s face dissipated, “Did you end up dying in P.E?”

“Nope, didn’t have it today. We should both be thankful for that.”

“That better not be a threat—”

“Anyway, I have an idea for funny Minecraft mods.”

“No.” Phil disagreed a bit too soon for Tommy’s likings.

“What if,” Tommy started, not deterred, “every time you killed a mob, you morphed into them?”

“We are not doing this.”

“You’re right about that. Because you’re the one doing it.”

He couldn’t ignore the lightness in his chest as Phil laughed at his suggestions.

After at least an hour of bothering Phil, Tommy was about to leave to get changed out of his shit school uniform but Phil stopped him.

“Before you go, Techno asked me to give you this.”

Tommy frowned as Phil grabbed something from underneath the table. He shoved a book with those of those bows you stick on the top of wrapped presents into Tommy’s hands. It was a child’s introduction to Greek mythology book, with a note attached to it saying:

Figured you liked Greek mythology because of the tattoo.

– Techno

His frown deepened at the book. The gift.

“Don’t ask, I don’t get the context either,” Phil said.

Why did Techno give this to him? Maybe it was a peace offering because of this morning. But he preferred a TwitLonger and an apology video for that since those were funnier.

He appreciated the thought, even though he hated Greek mythology. This was a whole new level of irony.

Now, Tommy didn’t mean to upset Tubbo. It was the school’s fault.

For his timetable to go from maths class to history, the school was just asking for him to press the fire alarm. Sure, it meant all the year groups had to stand on the AstroTurf field in the cold November weather, but it was worth it. Well, ignoring how the headteacher told everyone she’d check the cameras to see who pulled the alarm, Tubbo kept glaring at him, and how he did end up having to spend at least half an hour in his history class after all, then it was worth it.

Tubbo didn’t agree.

“Why did you choose the one day I didn’t bring in a coat to pull that shit?” his new friend had been complaining for the past five minutes about how cold he was, so much that Tommy had to give him his coat. He didn’t willingly do this, Tubbo snatched it out of his hands—but he did loosen his grip at the last second.

“If you had to go from learning about quadratic equations to L’Manberg, you’d do the same,” Tommy replied as his history teacher, Miss Allingham, wrote the learning objective of the lesson on the whiteboard.

“I was in your maths class, Tommy! I would’ve had to as well!”

“Well, case closed.”

“That doesn’t even make sense—”

“Case closed.”

With Tubbo huffing more objections to Tommy’s astound logic, they both placed their textbooks on the desk. He may have stolen his textbook from the library, but it was justified. He’d never spend money on having to learn about his own fucking history.

So far with these lessons, Tommy managed to get away with blanking out his teacher’s words. Instead, he focused on writing messages on the corner of Tubbo’s notebook pages—it ranged from insults, swears and the phrase ‘bee boy’ written in the various languages Tommy knew. Every time Tubbo asked what it meant, Tommy always answered with a different incorrect translation. This didn’t bother Tubbo though since he was concentrated on highlighting every vowel in a random passage of text.

The classroom door opening interrupted Tommy’s current Romanian translation. A boy with two-toned hair, dyed black and white, walked into the classroom. Tommy guessed that the boy looked unphased about being late; he had to guess since the guy’s face was hidden. He wore a face mask and sunglasses. Though, Tommy was more concerned about how the guy had to duck to get through the door in the first place.

Miss Allingham sighed as if this was a common occurrence.

“I got lost on the way back from the AstroTurf,” the boy with a deep American voice said. Great, another fucking American.

“Ranboo you’ve been in this school for four years, how did you get lost?”

“I have memory problems.”

“Yes, and that’s obvious in your classwork.” Tommy grimaced, as much as he hated Americans, that was uncalled for. “Sit down.”

Ranboo sat down at the same table as Tommy and Tubbo, greeting Tubbo with a nod. So this was the guy Tubbo told him about yesterday, the pussy who cried over video games.

“So did you sacrifice Chloe or the town?” Tommy asked, beaming as Ranboo gaped at him—again, Tommy assumed this (the mask covered his mouth).

“I don’t even know your name, but I will punt you.”

“Hi, I’m Tommy and I don’t cry over video games.”

“I’m Ranboo and you’ve made me emotionally unstable at ten o’clock in the morning.”

Tubbo stifled a laugh at their interaction then promptly went back to his highlighting.

Tommy, wanting to understand the enigma of this guy, asked, “Why do you wear the mask and glasses?”

Both Tubbo and Ranboo replied simultaneously:

“He’s quirky like that.”

“I don’t have a mouth.”

He blinked at the pair, questioning all the life choices that led him up to this moment.

“I don’t know what answer is worse.”

Neither of the two explained their responses, which Tommy was grateful for. He returned to doing nothing and ignoring his teacher. She hadn’t called on him yet to answer a question since he was new, and he hoped she never would. Although, he couldn’t help but notice how the teacher would glare at Ranboo whenever her gaze landed on their table at the back. It was weird, especially since Ranboo was the one doing work; it was more Tommy and Tubbo who weren’t doing what they were supposed to (seriously, Tubbo was making a tower with his highlighters and Tommy was on his phone, which he poorly hid behind his pencil case).

“Why does Miss Allingham keep looking at Ranboo as if he murdered her entire family and caused her divorce?” Tommy asked. He didn’t know if she was divorced, but she just gave off that energy.  

“Oh, Miss hates him,” Tubbo said.

“Hate is a strong word to use Tubbo,” Ranboo interjected. “It’s more that she despises my existence.”

Tommy stared closely at her and he couldn’t agree more.

“She doesn’t appreciate people challenging her own opinions over the L’Manberg Revolution,” Ranboo explained. “She gave me a fail once because I answered her essay about who was most responsible for the L’Manberg Wars ‘incorrectly’.”

Tommy frowned. How could you answer it incorrectly? It was obviously George’s fault because he was a prick.

“I placed the blame on King George and W. Soot but didn’t bother arguing about the extent to which a child soldier caused the wars.” Oh. Wait, why did he blame his brother?

“He’s a Timmy apologist and Miss is an anti,” Tubbo added.

“You spend too much time on Twitter.”

Tommy was more confused than ever. “Who the fuck is Timmy?”

“He’s W. Soot’s younger brother.”

What in the actual fuck? It was bad enough he had to learn about his first life but the historian fuckers didn’t even get his name right. Timmy, fucking Timmy, what kind of beta male name was that?

With his newfound anger at this town, at the fuckers who got his name wrong, Tommy opened his textbook, red pen in hand, and began to correct every single historical inaccuracy he could find.

His phone vibrating on the table stopped his mental debate over whether or not the book was wrong in not calling Quackity ‘Big Q’. Techno had texted him.

Anime Man:

Technoblade: Did you eat the last waffles this morning?

Tommy: no but Wilbur did.

Technoblade: Slash his car tyres for me when you get back from school.

Tommy: ok, delete your messages so there’s no proof.

Technoblade: The perfect crime.

                       Blood for the Blood God.

Tommy, knowing full well that he did eat the waffles, grinned to himself. But the grin fell from his face as he recognised the serenity that settled in his chest.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like how comfortable he was with these people, these strangers. There was a flaw that stuck with him, no matter where or when he was reborn; he got attached to people easily. But, he never got to the level where he wanted to open up with them, expand his attachment, share his interests and hobbies. Normally, he forced himself to become a wall and entertain the person, keeping the conversations one-sided and living vicariously through them. But it hadn’t even been a week and Tommy didn’t want to leave this house, these people, and run away like he usually tried to do.

It frightened him.

Oblivious to Tommy’s current mental breakdown, Tubbo asked, “Yo, Tommy. Can I have your phone real quick?”

Still preoccupated, he gave it to him. It wasn’t until lunch where he noticed two new phone contacts named ‘Tubster’ and ‘Ranboo My Beloved’. He changed Ranboo’s but left Tubbo’s alone.

❊❊❊

His hatred for the stubborn comfortability he had towards the Craft family stuck with him throughout the day. It stayed buried in his stomach on the car ride home. He still stole another one of Wilbur’s songs but didn’t engage in any conversation Wilbur attempted to make. And by attempted conversations, it was just Wilbur asking Tommy moral questions about if he would purposely crash the car he was driving to avoid killing a bunch of school children. Not a nice topic to have whilst in a car—Tommy said no anyway.

The emotions crippling his stomach somehow worsened when they got home. Although, the chaos in the house did dim it a bit.

“Technoblade, you pig, get the fuck away from my pizza pockets right now!” Wilbur shouted as soon as he entered the house.

Techno, as nonchalant as ever, continued to eat it.  

Tommy suddenly left the room when they started arguing, and it was one hundred percent not related to Techno mentioning how Wilbur ate the last waffle this morning. The two chasing each other, followed by someone tripping down the staircase, was not Tommy’s problem.

He returned to the kitchen to see Phil by the fridge, mumbling something under his breath about ‘chaotic little shits’. Not in the mood for his small talk that normally fletched out into an hour conversation (it wasn’t Tommy’s fault that Phil was so easy to talk to), Tommy spoke before Phil could say anything.

“Is it okay if I go out?”

Phil closed the fridge door, surprised at the question. “Yeah, if you want. Are you coming back for dinner?”

“No, I’ll eat when I come back.”

“Alright, have fun. Remember curfew.”

Well, that was easy. In his old house with the vlogging family, he was never allowed to leave unless their older biological son and a camera would come with him.

After he got changed out of his school uniform, Tommy left the house. To be honest, he had no idea where he was going, but Google Maps existed for a reason. It didn’t help though that ten minutes into his walk around the neighbourhood, it started raining. Not the nice rain either, but the rain that genuinely hurt your back from how heavy the raindrops were.

Thankfully though, he spotted an open café. He went in, despite him not having any money on him (well, he had money but it wasn’t his, stealing from Wilbur was fun). The inside of the café looked like something in Animal Crossing. He sat down in the corner booth and took off his wet jacket. It was busy but not too busy, the rain hitting the windows muffled the tables of conversation.

The girl he kept seeing with Wilbur at school walked towards him, a notepad and pen in her hands.

“Hi, what can I get you?”

He deduced that this was Niki because of her pink hair and German accent. As he picked up the menu, he noticed her staring at his wrist, specifically at his tattoo, with a stumped expression. He rolled down his sleeve, trying to ignore the shiver that crept up his neck, and asked for a hot chocolate.

“You’re Will and Techno’s new foster brother, aren’t you?” Niki asked.

He nodded at her. “You’re Niki.”

“What gave it away?”

“You look throwable,” Tommy said, repeating the words Wilbur used to describe her. She laughed—maybe this was something Wilbur regularly said.

“Well, Tommy, I’ll be right back with your order.”

She came back with a hot chocolate and a chocolate chip muffin.

“I didn’t ask for a muffin—”

“It’s for free. A reward for having to put up with the two of them so far,” she said, smiling at him. But there was more to her smile, an intent he couldn’t place.

“You are the only one to understand my troubles and suffering.”

She left Tommy to his own devices, which so happened to be the homework he had to complete for tomorrow. He pulled out his sheets of homework and immediately placed his maths one back into his bag but kept the English out.

He hated English but less so than maths. Yet, that didn’t mean he was terrible at the subject. There was an advantage of being alive in the century that Shakespearian plays were performed. He preferred learning about the plays in this century though since it acknowledged the patriarchal influence and blatant misogyny. Lady Macbeth was always his favourite character and now he wasn’t alone in this viewing. The girl who sat next to him in English called her a ‘girl boss’, whatever that meant.

He glanced up from his work and the café had fewer people in it and it was dark outside, due to the winter season. Sighing, he packed up his stuff, paid for his hot chocolate and waved goodbye to Niki as he walked out. At least it wasn’t pouring it down raining anymore, just a light drizzle.

He didn’t feel like going home yet, so he explored the park. The reviews on the Google site convinced him to. Apparently the pigeons attack anyone who sat on a specific bench and wanted to put them to the test. When he reached the park, the sky was darker than before.

The statue in the middle of a man-made grass field caught his eye. It was a tall, bronze statue of a man in a medieval-looking suit, similar to the style Tommy wore ages ago. The sculptured man was old and had an eye missing, there was an attempt of indicating scars on his skin.

There was a metal plaque beside the statue. His body froze when he read the name:

Tobias Underscore: 1505-1546.

In front of him stood the adult version of his childhood friend, the same Tobias who was the first person outside Tommy’s family that he loved and trusted, who gave him his green scarf as a token of their friendship, who stuck by his side, held him as he broke down over his brother’s death and reassured him that he wasn’t alone.

It was the same Tobias Underscore who betrayed him. The same traitor who exiled him, after all Tommy had done to try to secure peace in the L’Manberg Wars. His first and only best friend who left him to die.

He peered up at the statue once more and he no longer stood in a dark and empty park.

The black walls King George’s men built stung tears in his eyes, the asperity of Tobias’ Presidential suit, which complemented the glower of resentment on his face, faced towards him. He remembered this event, the conference that finalised the split in the years of friendship between the duo who shouldn’t be separated. The doe-eyes which months before had gazed at Tommy with pure adoration and respect, now glared at him, with such hostility that Tommy couldn’t stop the shaking in his hands.

“You’ve messed this up for no one but yourself… you’re selfish—”

His first landed against the metal of the statue, followed by another, and another, and another as his knuckles screamed and chest throbbed. He kicked and shoved at Tobias, relishing in the dented metal he caused. The pulsing in his head drowned out his sickening voice, his sickening words that confirmed that Tommy meant nothing to him anymore. His tattoo burned, warning him to stop. He threw himself at the statue with a force that would paint his body in bruises. But the statue didn’t break, it didn’t fall over.

It stood still, unbothered by the relentless abuse Tommy gave it.

He scoffed at the statue, it may not look anything like the Tobias he remembered, but it acted like him. Standing still, unbothered by the relentless abuse Tommy received.

The adrenaline left his body and Tommy sagged to the floor, surrendering to the rough pavement on his wounded skin. The blood from his knuckles smudged on his clothes.

“Fuck.”

❊❊❊

Limping down a dark street did wonders on your ego. Shame riddled in his heart. The shaking in his hands didn’t cease on his way home. He had stopped crying at least, but it wasn’t even crying—his eyes burned and no tears dampened his face.

He struggled to open the door, his fingers aching with every moment. When he did, he rushed into the bathroom, leaving the light off. He knew the sight he would see, how much of a mess he was. He didn’t need a mirror to remind him of that.

After he washed the blood off his top and hands, he exited the bathroom. His body quivered as he moved towards the stairs.

“Tommy, you’re home!” Phil’s voice came from the kitchen.

For fuck’s sake.

“Yeah,” his voice cracked, hurting his strained throat. He didn’t remember yelling earlier, but he must have.

“Can you help me for a second?”

He bit on his cheek and his nails pinched at his skin. He just wanted to sink into his bed and forget today ever happened.

“Tommy?” Phil called out.

Reluctantly, Tommy staggered into the kitchen, hiding his hands in his pockets.

“What do you need?” Tommy asked, his throat croaking again.

Phil was in front of the kitchen sink with a dirty plate and cleaning brush in his hands. He motioned towards the rack of cleaned plates.

“Could you dry them for me?”

Tommy nodded, facing away from Phil as he grabbed for the dish towel and began what he was told to do. It was silent between them, probably calming for Phil, but it did the opposite for Tommy. Well, that was until Phil leant forward.

“Mate, what happened to your hands?”

This day just got worse and worse.

“Uh,” Tommy stuttered on his own words, “I was mugged.” He couldn’t lie for shit and this was proof of that.

“Mugged by a brick wall?” Phil furrowed his eyebrows in disbelief.

“Yes,” Tommy said. “Wait no.”

Phil placed down what he was holding and turned his full attention to Tommy. “What happened?”

“The brick wall part is kinda true—”

Phil sighed and Tommy clenched his teeth, preparing himself to be shouted at.

“Stay here.”

He quickly returned with a basket of medical supplies and pointed at the table. Tommy sat down, a whimper escaping his lips as his legs ached. Phil reached for his hands and treated the cuts on his knuckles.

“What made you do this?” his voice had softened and Phil stared at him with kindness that Tommy hadn’t experienced in a while.

“The wall insulted me.”

“Did the wall deserve it?”

“Yeah.”

It was obvious now that neither of them was talking about a wall anymore, but a statue wasn’t far off.

“I won’t give you shit for this, but if this continues,” Tommy waited for the ‘I’m sending you back’ speech but it never came, “you’re gonna have to talk to someone about it, like the school counsellor.”

“Will do, Mr Minecraft.” Phil looked at him again, worry evident in his eyes. He let go of Tommy’s bandaged hands—Tommy would never admit that he missed the comfort—and stood up. He walked to the fridge and pulled out a bowl of spaghetti.

“Now, you stay sitting, eat your dinner and tell me about your day whilst I finish the dishes. Did it go badly?”

Something about Phil made Tommy want to tell him everything, yet he couldn’t.  

“Yeah, something like that,” he paused. “I met Ranboo.”

“He’s a sweet kid, why do you—”

“Why did God make him so tall?” Tommy knew the mood change in him wasn’t genuine; he tried to bury that awareness. “No, I’m being serious. It’s bad enough he’s American, but he’s a fucking skyscraper.”

Phil huffed out a laugh, “Easier to tackle, then I guess.”

“Philza Minecraft, I like how you think.”

As Phil’s voice helped him forget the bruises forming on his body, it slipped his mind that he had rules about getting attached.

Tommy had officially been living with the Craft family for a week and it honestly felt longer than that. He had the same feeling with his last foster home as well, but this house was for a different reason. Here, it didn’t drone on. Instead, Tommy found himself savouring every moment he had with them, lingering on his enjoyment.

The house was quiet for once and he was on his phone, holding it at an awkward angle since his knuckles still hurt from beating the shit out of a statue (something he very much regretted now). His room didn’t share the ease he experienced in this house though, it was still empty and didn’t look lived in. No amount of posters or decorations could make it feel like home, not with the suicide prevention windows mocking him every night. All he wanted was for fresh air, he had no intention of using the window as a diving board from the second floor.

“Tommy!” Wilbur burst into his room, causing him to drop the phone in his hands.

“You bitch.”

“I require your assistance,” Wilbur said, grinning as Tommy tried to regain his breath. He did this occasionally, running into his room without knocking, scaring the shit out of him, ever since Tommy did the same to Wilbur.

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard what I need you for.” Wilbur stood straight and gave Tommy a look that would have frightened him if he didn’t know how much of a pussy Wilbur was (they both agreed to never speak about the spider incident).

He sighed but let himself be pulled up from his bed and pushed into Wilbur’s room.

“Now, I know you like my kind of music, so I need to show you something because Technoblade is being a little bitch at the moment.”

“How do you know I like your music?”

“You’re not very subtle at stealing my music taste in the car. Next time, use Shazam or something.” Wilbur laughed as Tommy’s ears reddened. “Awe, you’re embarrassed.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Tommy hit his shoulder and watched Wilbur display his SoundCloud and Spotify accounts on both of his computer monitors.

The various Spotify playlists Wilbur created were on the side of the screen. Tommy stopped reading their titles when he got to the ‘POV: water is wet’ playlist. Who the fuck names a playlist that?

“Give me your opinion on this song,” Wilbur said, clicking on one of his drafted audio files. “A warning though, it’s got shitty audio, courtesy of our school’s recording equipment.”

This didn’t surprise him since he’d seen the shitty music equipment the school had, the drum kits were incomplete and the sound of the snare made him want to commit arson, specifically in the music room (every music lesson was hell on his ears).

The song started playing and the trumpet caught him off guard; the song was named ‘One Day’ and he liked it, despite Wilbur’s awful singing—that was a lie but Tommy didn’t want to fuel Wilbur’s ego.

When Wilbur paused it, Tommy frowned at him. “Is this why you guys don’t have a pet?”

“What?”

Tommy leaned over him and replayed the first of couple seconds of the song. “Who killed your cat?”

“I’ve never had a cat.”

Tommy stared at him blankly. “Don’t tell me this is some precise metaphor about pussy.”

“I never want to hear that word come out of your mouth.” The disgust Wilbur expressed didn’t answer Tommy’s statement though.

He opened his mouth to repeat himself but Wilbur grabbed an empty can of Pringles and waved it around as menacingly as possible. “Don’t think I won’t hit you.”

Rolling his eyes at him, Tommy took hold of the computer mouse and hovered the cursor over a drafted album file. It was titled ‘Your City Gave Me Asthma’.

“What’s that?” Tommy asked, wondering what the title meant, maybe it shared the same shitty metaphors about pussy.

Wilbur looked back at his computer screen. He ripped the computer mouse out of Tommy’s hand and exited out of his SoundCloud account. The previous amusement he had practically drained from his face with unease replacing it.

“Don’t ask about that,” Wilbur snapped. There was a certain edge to his voice that left Tommy uncomfortable; he didn’t expect such hostility over an album. “I’m being serious, don’t.”

“Okay, okay, Jesus I won’t.” Tommy raised his hands in surrender, still confused about the entire switch in Wilbur’s mood.

A tense silence followed as Wilbur exhaled and rubbed harshly at his face. Tommy fiddled with his hands, not sure what to do.

“Uh, anyway yeah,” he began, voice uncertain, “I liked the song you showed me, especially since it started with cat slander.” He hoped for the strained atmosphere between them to quickly leave and maybe for the unease in Wilbur to leave as well.

Wilbur, still quiet, rubbed his face again and sighed.

“I take it you’re more of a dog person,” Wilbur said and Tommy nodded. “Good, I don’t think you’d survive in this household if you preferred cats to dogs.”

“Now that you know I steal your music, can I have a look through your playlists?” At the mention of his Spotify playlists, Wilbur sat up straighter, almost as if the life returned to him.

“You’ve come to the right place for song recommendations.”

Tommy smiled to himself, satisfied as a face of joy greeted him.

❊❊❊

Tommy had spent the rest of the day listening to the music Wilbur had given him—and fucking hell was there a lot. No wonder he had a band in sixth form, he was obsessed with music. After finally going through all the songs, Tommy was hungry. There was nothing against a snack before going to bed.

He went downstairs and walked into the kitchen. Phil and Techno were currently in the living room, lounging on the sofas whilst watching something on the TV. Tommy stared at the screen and held back a gag as he realised what the two were watching. It was some anime, fucking weebs. Because of this, he made sure to be as loud as possible when searching through the cabinets for a perfect snack.

Techno, bothered by the noise, paused the TV. “Is it possible to orphan an already orphaned child?”

Tommy stopped rustling a random crisp packet and flipped him off. He leaned against the kitchen island counter. “You’d technically need to kill Phil.”

“Nevermind,” Techno huffed, “it’s not worth it.”

Phil narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t know if I should be offended at that or not.”

Techno shrugged. “That’s up to interpretation.”

Tommy frowned at the pair; the dynamic between them was different to Phil and Wilbur. With Techno and Phil, they acted more like old friends rather than father and son. It was weird.

Rustling the crisp packet again, Tommy took it and some biscuits with him. He circled the kitchen island and was about to stomp his way up the stairs, but Phil saying his name interrupted his plans.

“Do you want to join us?” Phil asked, waving his hand towards an empty sofa.

Before Tommy could answer, Techno said, “Nah, he won’t like this, which is more of a reason for us to make you watch this, but no.”

“Are you gatekeeping weeb shit?” He didn’t know if he was using the word that the girl in English taught him correctly, but he didn’t care.

“I’m not gatekeeping anime,” Techno answered, confused.

“So you’re gaslighting me now.”

“Stop saying words you don’t know the definition to,” Phil said.

“I think what you just said counts as an example of gaslighting,” Techno stated, his mouth upturned at the irritation present on Phil’s face.

“Shut.” This entire situation took years off Phil’s life expectancy. “We’ll put on a simpler anime for you Tommy if you want to join us.”

“If it’s Death Note, I’m leavin’,” Techno said.

“Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

“That isn’t even an anime.”

Phil looked over at Tommy. “If a word starting with the letter ‘g’ leaves your mouth again, I swear to God.”

Tommy scowls, bitter that Phil knew what he was going to say.

“No more buzz words, no more arguing, Tommy sit down.”

He rustled his snacks annoyingly one more time and jumped onto the empty sofa, making his dislike of watching an anime (that wasn’t an anime apparently?) obvious to the two.

If Tommy so happened to text Tubbo in the middle of season one asking if it was bad to side with a character whose mission was to kill a twelve-year-old child, it wasn’t anyone else’s business. It wasn’t his fault he liked the emo fire guy and Uncle Iroh.

❊❊❊

He woke up cold and blinded. His face ached as he lifted himself from the floor. He was in the void again.

His neck twisted as he tried to find the light in the dark. The grey walls in the distance glared down at him, the once green vines bled red. At least he wasn’t in the middle of the maze this time.

Wrapping his arms around himself, Tommy roamed aimlessly, hoping for something to appear. A two-seated table emerged from the darkness and as he got closer, a figure materialised in one of the chairs. The white gleam from a mask gave away who it was. Dream.

There was some type of board game placed on the table and Dream seemed to be playing it by himself. Three coloured dice and ten playing pieces were untouched.

“Why the fuck are you playing some Greek version of Monopoly in my dream visit?” Tommy asked, his teeth chattering as he spoke. He stopped by the side of the table.

“Do not refer to the Knossos Game as Greek Monopoly. If anything, it’s Greek chess.” There was no edge to Dream’s voice, no malice present in the exposed part of his face, which confused Tommy. He was weirdly being civil, something that was rare.

“Again, why are you playing it?”

“I think it would be beneficial for you if you play with me,” Dream said, ignoring his question.

“No thanks, I’m gonna go back into the maze and figure a way out of this place.” Tommy turned to walk back to where he woke up, but a hand grasped onto his left arm, brushing over his tattoo.

“You don’t want to go in without my presence there. You won’t find a way out,” Dream said and loosened his grip when Tommy faced him again.

Huffing, Tommy jerked his arm away. “Alright you egotistical dickhead, I’ll play your Greek Monopoly.”

“It’s not—”

“I don’t care.” Clenching his jaw, Tommy sat down and observed the board game in front of him. The rectangle board was painted gold with blue circles at the bottom side and black circles at the top.

“The aim of the Knossos Game is to get your pieces from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead, then back to the Living,” Dream stated, pointing at the different areas on the board as he explained.

“What’s this area?” Tommy asked, referencing the brown area in the middle.

“The River Styx. It’s best if you don’t get caught in there.”

“Sounds boring.”

“I could instead force the void to replay all your past lives’ deaths,” Dream’s voice sharpened, “starting with Sisyphus.”

Tommy’s body shuddered, the chair bit at his exposed arms. “Jesus Christ, fine, no insulting your shit board game then I guess.”

As Dream continued to explain the rules, Tommy tried to recover from the mere thought of possibly having to see his Sisyphus death again. He couldn’t bear to think about it but seeing it… He’d rather play a shit board game than have to watch the last person to ever love him, who tried to change and recover from their destructive behaviour for him, die again. And for him to follow shortly after.

The game began and the way Dream played convinced him that this was more than just a board game to Dream. He played as if his life was on the line, with his masked eyes analysing the board at every step his piece moved. He even threw the dice with precision, whereas Tommy just chucked them (which resulted in one of the dice falling onto the floor at some point). Dream didn’t respond to any of Tommy’s teasing or insults either.

Dream’s tactic seemed to be working though, seeing as the masked man was utterly destroying Tommy so far. Dream had secured most of his pieces back from the Land of the Dead whilst Tommy couldn’t even get past the River Styx, having to restart every single time.

“This is rigged,” Tommy spat, annoyed as another piece died to the river.

“I don’t cheat,” Dream replied.

“I somehow don’t believe you.”

Strangely, Tommy found himself enjoying the game for a moment, especially when one of Dream’s playing pieces also died to the River Styx. But then within minutes, Dream successfully passed through the river and secured his last piece.

“That was a fun round,” Dream said, a smug smile mocking him.

“Fun? You battered me. I didn’t even get one piece back to the Living!”

“It’s not my fault you always rolled into the River Styx.” Dream reached over and reclaimed his playing pieces. “You really are a sore loser.”

“Not to be ageist or anything, but you’re old as fuck and have played this game for millennia, Dream. You have an advantage,” Tommy said, bitter.

“I wasn’t even born when this game was made.”

“Motherfucker you’re a God, you still have an advantage.”

Tommy, with his arms folded, watched Dream reset the board.

“I’m glad you aren’t resulting to suicide in this life.”

Tommy jerked back into his seat, the words slapping him across the face. He didn’t expect that. His mood soured. Did Dream not learn how to control his bluntness after being alive for so long?

“You’re glad?” Dream nodded at him. “I would’ve thought, you being the sick fuck you are, you’d enjoy this shit.”

The smug smile on Dream’s lips moulded into a frown. “I don’t enjoy watching my creation die and come back angrier, and angrier, wishing for a premature death against destiny’s wishes.”

“Then why make me this way?” Tommy asked, his voice rising. He picked up a playing piece from Dream’s side. “Why am I like this?”  

Dream stayed silent, his mask focused on the playing piece in Tommy’s hand.

“Oh so you’re quiet now,” Tommy taunted, clenching the piece in his palm. “Come on Dream, you normally like it when I fight back, don’t pussy out now. Answer the question.”

His silence endured.

Tommy slammed his fists onto the table, cracking the board. “I’ve asked for centuries and each time, I get a cop-out answer. First, it was a punishment, you wanting me to suffer, then it was for me to learn a lesson. Which one is it, Dream? What is it now?”

“Contrary to belief, Tommy, I do want you to figure out your myth in this life,” Dream muttered.

Tommy gripped harder on the playing piece.

“Sure, sure you fucking do,” he scoffed. “But if I guessed it correctly, where would your main source of entertainment go? Who else would you torment for eternity? Maybe another child, maybe—”

“You’re arrogant to assume you are the only cursed one.”

Time stopped. The cold air burned his lungs.

“What?” Tommy whispered. All this time he thought he was alone in his struggles, burdened with the fact that no one in the world would ever understand what he experienced and still continued to experience.

Dream held his chained amulet around his neck, an action he did before he would disappear.

“No, no, repeat that you coward. There are people like me out there?”

Dream’s silence returned, mocking the panic in Tommy’s body.

“Who else? Who else did you curse?”

“I’ve said too much.” Doubt settles on Tommy’s shoulders. What if this was another trick? “You may not believe me, but I’m telling the truth.”

“I don’t believe a single thing you say. Last time I trusted you, I fucking died.” He could still remember the touch of Dream’s arms wrapped around him, his whispers of support against his ears, his comfort that became deadly in a matter of seconds. “And now I continue to die, over and over again, all because of you.”  

Tommy hurled the playing piece at him, only for it to fly through Dream’s body. He glanced down at the broken board game and picked up the remains, but the pieces evaporated behind his hands.

Dream stared at him, his face paler than before. “Tommy—”

“Fuck off and let me out, Dream. I’ve had enough of this shit.”

Gasping, Tommy woke up with his hands stinging. He cursed under his breath and unclenched his fist, revealing bleeding fingernail indents on his palms. At least it was just his hands this time.

He tried to sit up but something weighted held his body down. He blinked the blurriness out of his vision and recognised that he was still in the living room. Phil and Techno were on their sofa, watching the TV. He must’ve fallen asleep down here. A weighted blanket covered his body.

“You alright?” Phil’s voice was softer than usual. He sat up, his body tingling. “It looked like you were having a nightmare.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Tommy mumbled, tired. “What are you watching now?”

“We stopped watching Avatar when you fell asleep. Now, it’s Bleach.” A blonde man with a green and white striped bucket hat was on the TV screen. Great, another anime.

“And that’s my cue to go to bed. Goodnight.” Tommy shrugged off the weighted blanket, despite the relief it brought him and made his way upstairs.

He swore to God if he saw Dream again in his sleep, he was going to shove those Knossos playing pieces up his fucking arse.

“For the last time Ranboo, I don’t know the melting point of a child. Stop asking me!” Tommy exclaimed as the two walked from the science block to the bench they usually sat at for lunch. Tubbo was at the bench already, waiting for them.

“It’s a simple question,” Ranboo said, digging himself further into a hole that started the second Ranboo asked if spilling hydrochloric acid on people was as serious as people made it out to seem. Though, Ranboo did turn down Tommy’s offer for him to test it out on him.

“Let’s ask Tubbo.”

Tommy repeated the question and Tubbo put down his sandwich.

“I don’t know about a child but the melting point of human skin is a hundred and sixty-two degrees.”

Both Tommy and Ranboo shared a look before staring back at Tubbo.

“How do you know that?”

Tubbo took a bite of his sandwich, a small grin on his face.

“I’ve never been scared of anyone shorter than me before,” Tommy whispered to Ranboo.

“Everyone is shorter than me.”

“Shut the fuck up. You have stilts in your shoes.”

“That doesn’t make sense—”

“Our science class alliance is over, I hate you again.” Tommy picked up the crushed ball of tinfoil in front of Tubbo and threw it at Ranboo.

“Thank God, it’s back to normal,” Ranboo said, laughing as Tommy flipped him off.

Before Tommy could continue to display his hatred for the tall American, someone texted him.

Anime Man:

Technoblade: Wilbur’s having a bad day; he won’t be able to drop you home after school.

Tommy: [message deleted] is Wilbur ok?

Technoblade: I can pick you up if you want.

Tommy: no, it’s fine. I’ll walk home.

Technoblade: Alright. Be careful around Wilbur when you get home.

Tommy frowned at the last message. He remembered Tubbo telling him that Wilbur resat year thirteen because of home issues during his GCSEs and first year of sixth form. He thought this house didn’t have any prominent red flags but maybe they did. He put his phone back into his blazer pocket.

“What are you two doing after school?” Tommy asked, interrupting their debate over the rankings of the flavours of Starbursts.

“Illegal substances,” Tubbo said, unwrapping one of the Starbursts.

“Ignore what he just said,” Ranboo added.

“How the fuck could I ignore that?”

Ranboo shrugged. “I’m going to Tubbo’s house, with or without his consent, if you want to come as well.”

“When are you not in my house?” Tubbo said, rolling his eyes at Ranboo’s silence. “But yeah, you can come round. We just play video games and random shit.”

“We occasionally watch the Office.”

“UK or American version?” Tommy asked.

“American.”

“You disgust me.”

“I’m sorry that I have taste.” Ranboo ducked to avoid another ball of tinfoil Tommy threw.

“Take that back.”

“Nope.”

“Tubbo, help me,” Tommy begged. He did not like this pro-American environment he was in.

“No.”

“I need new friends.” He gawked at how both Ranboo and Tubbo nodded at him. “You’re not supposed to agree with me!”

“Start eating your lunch, boss man,” Tubbo said. “You guys already came out of class late.”

“That wasn’t even my fucking fault—”

“You’ve got him started again,” Ranboo interrupted.

“—Daniel was the one who sprayed acid on my blazer first! I was defending myself and the solution was dilated to shit anyway.”

“Tommy, he had to go to medical.”

“And?”

“I mean, there is the reason why my class aren’t allowed to do practical’s in chemistry,” Tubbo said. “It was bound to happen to your class eventually.”

“Thank you, Tubbo!”

“And Daniel is a dickhead.”

Ranboo sighed at the two. “I can’t believe you’re defending this.”

“Shut up, boob boy.”

“That is not my name!”

❊❊❊

Ignoring how Tommy tried to push Ranboo into the road several times, the walk to Tubbo’s house went fine. Though, Tubbo’s house was not what Tommy expected. Maybe that was due to the duck that tried to bite him as soon as he stepped into the living room.

“Why the fuck do you have a duck in your house?” Tommy asked, pointing at the duck who was currently attempting to jump up the kitchen counter. Seeing an alive duck in a kitchen was just something that shouldn’t exist. That was a level of morbidity he didn’t want to associate with.  

“Benson,” Tubbo said, not giving him any more information.

“Benson?”

“Yep, Benson,” Ranboo nodded. “Keep your ankles away from him.”

Perhaps he made a mistake going round Tubbo’s house. He took off his shoes and left them beside Ranboo’s and followed the two.

Besides the duck, the house looked normal. Well, the ‘Live, Love, Laugh’ sign was a big no, especially as it was next to one of those quirky mother images that boasted about their dependence on wine to deal with their children. Tommy was thankful that a Minecraft house was the only framed image in the Craft house.

Whilst Tubbo retrieved drinks from the fridge, Niki came running down the stairs, dressed in the same outfit he saw her wearing in the café.

“Oh, hi Tommy,” she said as she grabbed her keys out of Benson’s mouth. That was something he just chose to gloss over.

Tommy smiled and waved at her, before following Tubbo out of the room and up the stairs.

“How do you know my sister?” Tubbo asked with narrowed eyes.

“I know every single woman.” Tommy grinned at the exasperation he heard from Ranboo.

“Oh wait is it a,” Tubbo pointed to the inside of his arm, “thing?”

Tommy looked down at his arm, confused. “What?”

“Did you not like Germany either?”

“Tubbo, I can still hear you!” Niki shouted from the kitchen.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Tubbo whispered this time and ran up the rest of the stairs, which only added to Tommy’s confusion.

“What the fuck is he going on about?” Tommy asked Ranboo, who shrugged at him.

“You’re asking the guy with memory problems.”

“I could push you down these stairs and make it worse. Or even fix it for you.”

“Please don’t.” Tommy laughed and headed into the room Tubbo rushed into.

Tubbo’s room looked exactly like Tommy predicted. It was painted differently from the rest of the house, with mint green walls that blended into the pale blue ceiling, which was decorated with star constellations and planets. Knowing Tubbo, it was probably accurate (seeing as though the painting resembling Pluto had a sad face on it because it wasn’t an actual planet). There were shelves of collectables, ranging from snow globes, bee items from year eight to printed pictures of CS:GO gun skins.

As Tubbo turned on his PC, Ranboo waltzed into the room and jumped onto the double bed. And then took his face mask off.  

Tommy covered his eyes. “Woah, woah, let’s not undress ourselves here.”

“Tommy, I’m just taking my mask off.” He dropped his hands that covered his eyes and scowled at Ranboo. The mask-less man just looked like a standard, white Sims 4 character with sunglasses on.

“Exactly! Have some decency, Jesus Christ.”

“You’re gonna lose your shit when you see his eyes,” Tubbo stated, not bothered by a mask-less Ranboo.

“I’ll leave that for another day, we don’t want Tommy to explode on us,” Ranboo said.

“Or do we?”

“Don’t talk about wanting to watch me explode when I’m right fucking here!” Tommy exclaimed, disturbed by this entire conversation.

“Would you rather me do it behind your back?” Tubbo asked.

“No! Don’t do it at all, what the fuck man!”

Tubbo smothered his laugh.

“What happened to my wholesome bee boy?”

“I will skin you alive,” Tubbo said, still laughing but with murder in his eyes.

“Just be glad no one in this household trusts him enough to let him have knives,” Ranboo inputted.

Tommy stood up from the edge of the bed. “I want to go home.”

“Too late! It’s Mario Kart time.”

And with that, the threats were forgotten, replaced with a new fight over the settings of the game. Tommy refused to play with a person that chose ‘Toad’ as their character. The three cycled their way through every single multi-player game Tubbo had (which included Just Dance, something Tommy hated since Ranboo destroyed them at it) and then proceeded to raid Tubbo’s fridge when it got late.

Tommy didn’t know how much time had passed since he got there but that didn’t matter to him. He found himself having fun with his friend (plus Ranboo) and that was what mattered.

❊❊❊

Tommy entered his house and frowned. Normally, Techno and Phil were downstairs or Phil’s office door was open. He unlocked his phone and looked at the time, ignoring the notifications that flashed up since he finally had an internet connection.

The glaring digits of ‘23:01’ haunted him. Oh fuck. He broke one of the few, reasonable rules of this household, which was to not be out after the nine o’clock curfew. Well, that explained the amount of text and call notifications.

Shouting came from the garden, the glass doors wide open. The draft from the living room added to the anxiety riddling in his skin. He walked towards the noise, bracing himself as the conversation became clearer. Phil was in the garden, but the person he was talking to blended into the darkness of the garden.

“I don’t know what to fucking do, Dad! Is that what you wanted to hear?” Tommy recognised the tone of the voice before the person.

It was the tone of Sisyphus, something Tommy familiarised himself with. Someone who repeatedly tried to keep going, to heave against the endless pressure, the denial of fulfilment and smile in the face of death. But, as always, the temptation of giving up won, evident in the strains of Wilbur’s voice and harsh words.

“Look, Will, I don’t understand why you’re acting like this but—”

“Yes, you do! You may be ignoring what happened but I can’t forget it!” Tommy flinched, not used to such anger coming from Wilbur.

“I’m not ignoring that, and don’t you ever suggest that I am.” Phil stepped closer to Wilbur, his shoulders hunched. “Did you take your meds today?”

“Yes I fucking took them, but…” a loud bang against wood accompanied by Wilbur’s crying out, made Tommy wince. The light of the shed turned on. Wilbur was a mess, clutching his hands, red in the face. “They’re not working and I’ve been telling you this for months.”

“Have you booked an appointment—”

“No, no I can’t. They’ll put me on it again and I’d rather feel this than nothing at all.”

“What if you try therapy again?”

“No, just- I can’t do this. Dad, I can’t do this,” whimpers left Wilbur’s mouth, mixed with wet sobs.

“Wilbur, if this is about her, then you have to.”

A tense silence followed. Tommy gulped, stepping back into the living room, his eyes not leaving Phil’s back.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” Wilbur cried out, hitting his fists onto the shed again, harder each step Phil tried to make towards him. “Please… please leave me alone.”

As the shed slammed shut, the commotion hoarding in Tommy pulled at his chest. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move.

Loud noises didn’t usually bother him, yet many centuries ago it did. If anyone raised their voice no matter their intention, Tommy would retort into a quivering mess, hearing nothing but the sounds of rigged explosions and bloodcurdling screams of those his big brother falsely swore to protect and fight for.

He thought he got over that, left that in the past. Yet here he was. Frozen in time. Conscious of the blood travelling down into his muscles under his skin and his hoodie gripping onto the sweat of his back.

As a figure walked towards him, the pounding in his heart soured. He could barely hear himself think.

Words left Phil’s mouth but Tommy couldn’t keep up. More shouting rang past his ears.

“Phil I—”

“No, Tommy, you need to listen,” his voice rose and so did the aching in Tommy’s head, “do you even know what time it is?”

“P-Phil I’m sor—”

“My rules in his house are for your safety. I’ve had enough shit from Wilbur today,” Phil moves closer. “I didn’t know where you were, who you were with, if you were safe or in danger. It’s pitch black outside Tommy and you’re fifteen years old!”

His eyes focused on the hands clenched tightly by Phil’s side. He could almost imagine a sword clasped between them, bathed in his brother’s blood.

“I’m really—” his voice broke off. His vision blurred. Bomb residue and gunpowder stung at his nose, the ground beneath him trembled with his legs.

In his chaos, someone touched his shoulders, the hands too warm to be Phil’s. The world moved around him, his breath shortening with every step he didn’t remember taking.

The next thing he knew he was sitting down with something draped around his waist. A deep voice counting down his breaths grounded him. A pink-haired man handed him a mug, the cold substance inside pinched at his hands.

He blinked harshly, wetting his face, and squeezed at the cup to test his strength. Techno knelt down in front of him but the scent of gunpowder still hadn’t left his nose.

He was somewhere he hadn’t been before, probably Techno’s room. Mounted onto the walls were bookcases with the contents ordered by the author’s surname. There were three fencing weapons attached to the wall as well, with Tommy only recognising the sabre; medals hung next to each different weapon. An Art of War poster was placed above the double bed.

Techno cleared his throat, Tommy’s eyes snapped back to him.

“I’m not so good at this whole emotional support thing,” Techno said, keeping his voice quiet, “so uh, you good or…?”

Tommy glanced down at the mug in his hands and gripped at the weighted blanket around his waist. He felt safe.

“I’m good.” Techno gave him a look. “I’m fine, it just scared me.”

“Wilbur gets like this sometimes and it affects Phil as well.” Techno got up from where he knelt. “I told Phil that you texted me where you were going before and that you were going to be late, so it was my fault for not relaying the information to him.”

Tommy gaped at him. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I think having to deal with the consequences of breaking house rules would be a bit unfair after whatever Phil just put you through now,” Techno said. “He’ll probably speak to you later or in the morning about what just happened.”

Tommy didn’t do well with apologies, especially worded ones. He didn’t have a good relationship with them in any life, especially in the lives where it was deserved the most. He’d rather not sit through a half-arsed apology.

“That good with you?” it was the same monotone voice Tommy was used to but this time laced in concern.

Tommy nodded at him. He didn’t know why Techno was even doing any of this, he rarely spoke to him unless Tommy started the conversation. He didn’t know whether Techno was still awkward around him because of the situation that happened ages ago with Tommy’s scars or if this was normally how Techno acted.

Tommy sipped at his drink, recoiling at the cold on his dry lips.

“You wanna watch me play Bedwars?” Techno asked out of nowhere.

“Sure.”

❊❊❊

Techno let Tommy keep the weighted blanket, which was currently wrapped around him and his cow plushie. His notebook stayed underneath his pillow; he didn’t want to see his brother’s handwriting after that. It would be breaking his years-long streak but it was too much.

He stared at his ceiling, hoping that sleep would catch up to him, that the fatigue his body felt would be reciprocated to his head.

The knocking on his door disturbed his thoughts. He called for them to come in; there was no point delaying this shit.

Light from the corridor brightened his room and Phil stepped inside.

“I wanted to check if you were alright, after earlier,” his voice was soft and drenched in guilt, but Tommy didn’t care.

“Well, you’ve checked. You can go now.” He was tired and also tired of this shit. He just wanted to go to sleep and forget this ever happened, regardless of the speech Phil was about to give him.

“Look, Tommy—”

“Yeah I get it, you’re sorry or whatever, and you promise to do better, but you’ll probably do it again in a week. It’s fine. I’m over it.” He was in fact, not over it, but the words just kept pouring out.

“Tommy.” He sighed and sat up, his hand under the cover gripping at Henry. “I fucked up, okay? I should’ve let you explain yourself instead of me just yelling at you. Look, mate, you were frozen by the time Techno came downstairs. I did that to you, me shouting did that, and it obviously affected you.”

He stayed silent. Phil walked closer, leaning down on the floor beside him.

“I want to make this home safe and comfortable for you and the way I reacted violated all of that and believe me when I mean that I won’t do that again.” Tommy tried to ignore the part of him that melted under the caring expression on Phil’s face.

“I’ve heard that line before,” Tommy muttered. “And it didn’t end well for me.”

“Then let me prove it to you, okay? Let me show you that I want what’s best for you in this house.”

Tommy bit on his cheek, not used to such sincerity.

“Fine. But if you do this shit again I have permission to beat the shit out of you before Linda Smith picks me up. No charges pressed.”

Phil rested his hand on the edge of Tommy’s bed. “Agreed. No charges pressed.”

Tommy grabbed Phil’s hand, not letting go of it. Phil squeezed it lightly.

“Is there anything you want to tell me before I let you sleep?”

“Is Wilbur okay?” Tommy asked.

Phil sighed. “He’s asleep now, he’ll probably be alright in the morning.”

Tommy nodded. Phil let go of his hand and said goodbye, leaving him in the darkness.

His hand tingled, reminding him of the soothing touch of his first father’s hands. The same comforting hands that tucked Tommy into bed at night and drove a sword through his brother’s chest right in front him, in front of everyone, only a couple of years later.

His father never apologised, but Phil just did for something so minor compared to that.

This confirmed it for Tommy; Phil wasn’t his first father. He knew this prior but it meant something now and the smile that Tommy poorly concealed as he brought Henry closer to his chest was evidence of that.

For the number of times random people had slammed into the back of his shoes with their trolleys in Tesco’s, Tommy may leave this shopping centre with no shoes at all. He had to quickly leave the dairy aisle after he shoved his trolley into the back of someone who ran over his ankle. Sure, the man had back problems but the fucker deserved it. Tommy had a problem with him and dealt with it accordingly.

Phil observed the entire thing with a look that Tommy could only describe as ‘please for the love of God stop terrorising people’ mixed with a hint of ‘you should have hit them back harder’.

Disregarding all of that, he liked their shopping trip. Every time he passed something he wanted and Phil said he couldn’t buy it, Tommy brought up how upset Phil made him last week by shouting at him. It was guilt-tripping and borderline manipulative, but he had good intentions. The bottles of Coke and many types of biscuits were worth it.

“Can you get the last items for me?” Phil asked, passing him the shopping list. “I need to get something from the pharmacy section.”

“Sure.” Tommy read the list—well, he tried to, Phil’s handwriting was atrocious—and decided to do his own shopping instead. He didn’t feel like visiting the toiletry aisle.

Year 13 Resit:

Tommy: I’m at Tesco’s, do you want anything?

Wilbur: if you get me a white monster and a chocolate freddo I will cherish you forever

Tommy: ew

Wilbur: silence, gremlin

Tommy: ok, no gifts then.

Wilbur: no no no please. I apologise, gimme stuff

           dont leave me on read u bitch

He grinned at his phone. Wilbur had been ignoring everyone for the past couple of days, though he still sent random Reddit links to the family group chat at various hours late in the night or early morning. Tommy hoped a White Monster and some chocolate would prompt a conversation with the man—and that was not because he cared about Wilbur. No, he was just curious about why he was acting this way. Okay, maybe he cared a little bit but only that much.

His phone vibrated in his hand.

Anime Man:

Technoblade: Get me strawberry laces.

Tommy didn’t even want to know how Techno knew he was getting people snacks. But he kind of owed him, so a pack of strawberry laces on top of what Wilbur wanted wouldn’t hurt Phil’s budget. After he got what the two requested and the rest of the shopping, Phil joined him again (he ignored how the man groaned at the amount of new items that was not in the trolley when Phil left).

In the car ride back to the house, Tommy noticed the date on his phone. “Is the reason we did food shopping because Linda is coming round and you don’t want it to look like you’re starving me?”

Phil glanced at him during the red light. “Tommy, what the fuck?”

“That isn’t a no.”

“But it isn’t a yes!”

“You just said yes.”

“I can’t deal with you.” Tommy laughed at Phil’s pain. “Put on music or something.”

Dedicated to annoy Phil further, he plugged in the aux and proceeded to play his favourite bardcore Medieval cover.

“I expected modern music from a teenager, not the Black Death.”

Tommy turned it up louder.

Phil knocked his hand away from the dial. “If you turn it up any more, you’re going flying through this window.”

“Do it. No more government money and no more perfect condition car for you.”

“You little shit.”

Even though Tommy enjoyed himself, he didn’t enjoy having to unpack the shopping when they got back to the house. Phil said it was his punishment for abusing the guilt he still felt over making Tommy cry the other day, which was fair.

He put the snacks Techno and Wilbur wanted aside as he unpacked it all, but the small box at the bottom of the last shopping bag confused him. It was a medication box addressed for Wilbur Craft. Amitriptyline, a tricyclic antidepressant. Ignoring the part of him that was too curious for his own good, he put it in the basket of medical supplies. He owed Wilbur his privacy.

Speaking of Wilbur, Tommy grabbed his snacks and the biscuits he acquired from Phil and ran upstairs. He entered Wilbur’s bedroom, which was already ajar.

“I have come here to drink and eat these in front of you because you were rude to me over texts,” Tommy said, holding up the bundle of snacks in his arms.

Wilbur, who was laid down in his bed with the covers wrapped around him, sat up with haste. He looked worse than Tommy imagined, with bruises under his eyes from lack of sleep and his face was paler than normal.

“You little bitch.”

“The more insults you give me, the more I bother you.” Tommy dropped the snacks on the bed and snatched the chocolate Freddo before Wilbur could get it off him.

He unwrapped it and aimed the chocolate towards his mouth.

“Fine! Fine, I’m sorry for calling you a gremlin.” Satisfied, Tommy threw the Freddo at him and placed the White Monster drink on the bedside table. “Thank you, child.”

“I hate you,” Tommy grumbled as he wheeled the desk chair closer and ate the biscuits.  

“How did you get Dad to buy all of them?” Wilbur asked, sipping on his drink.

“Blackmail and guilt-tripping.”

“Nice work.” Wilbur high-fived him. “What did you guilt-trip?”

Tommy paused, not knowing how to word it. How would you tell someone that they had indirectly caused whatever the fuck Tommy experienced?

“Y’know the other day, when you and Phil were arguing late at night?” Wilbur frowned but nodded at him. “Phil kinda yelled at me after because I was home late and uh, I freaked out.”

“Oh.” Wilbur put his drink down. “I didn’t know you were downstairs. Sorry you had to hear that.”

“Are you okay now?” Tommy asked, wanting an actual answer this time.

“I’m getting better.”

“Is that why you didn’t go to school today?”

“Kinda. School is part of the reason why I’m feeling like this. Music class, to be specific.”

His explanation only made Tommy more curious.

“Anyway, enough about me. How did your day go then?” Wilbur sat up further and leant on his arms, staring up at Tommy as if it was story-time in fucking preschool.

“It was good. I didn’t have history or P.E so I remain at peace with life.”

“Why don’t you like history?”

Tommy bit on his cheek. He wanted to give him an actual reason, something as truthful as it could get.

“The whole L’Manberg thing and how it’s covered rubs me the wrong way. It’s just so… stupid. The essay titles we’re given are so dumb. Like, since when were the over-taxation policies of King George not an important reason for the cause of the L’Manberg Revolution? It was the main reason why people were sick of monarchy and wanted independence. The argument that greed and power were motivating factors is bullshit.”

There were many more examples of why he hated history, like how it was inaccurate and biased as fuck, and got his name and age wrong. In some passages, it referred to Tommy as young and his actual age, which was around twelve when the wars started, but then in others, it says he was an adult during the wars. Maybe historians didn’t like the fact that they placed blame on a child and tried to justify themselves with twisting information.

“I enjoyed that class, but yeah it was weird. W. Soot especially,” Wilbur said, causing Tommy to freeze at the mention of his brother. “It’s sad honestly how he manipulated his people into following him—”

“He was doing what he had to do,” Tommy said, defensive.

“So indoctrinating his younger brother, trying to create a dictatorship, and blowing up the nation when he’s rightfully kicked out for violating democracy, killing himself and injuring the people he swore to protect are things he had to do?”

He flinched back into his seat, his head bleary from the reminders.

“What do you mean he indoctrinated his brother?”

“Oh come on, don’t tell me you defend the guy. He was a dickhead,” Wilbur rebuked. “Tommy, he literally pushed his brother into becoming a child soldier and conditioned him into thinking violence and war were the only ways forward. Not only that but when he was banished, holy shit the stuff he wrote. The guy was fucking insane—”

“I don’t want to know anymore,” Tommy snapped, his hands digging into his chair. He wasn’t aware his brother wrote during their time banished; he hardly saw him at all, and the times he was around him were times he’d rather forget. Even war could break the kindest men.

“You alright?”

“It’s just, W. Soot reminds me of a foster brother I used to have,” he lied, not knowing how else to express his discomfort over the conversation.

“Fair enough, sorry you had to be around someone like that.” The sincerity in Wilbur’s voice irked him.

He didn’t want to unpack that yet, or even think of the wrongdoings of his brother. He’d rather stay in denial for a bit longer, with the only surfacing memories being the times his brother taught him how to shoot a bow and ruffled his hair at his first bullseye, showering him in praise and affection. Tommy preferred simpler times before the burden of war changed everything.

“Uh anyway. Keep the pack of Oreos. I’m gonna get changed out of my school uniform.”

Tommy left the room, still bothered by what just happened.

“Thank you, by the way,” Wilbur called out. He stopped for a moment and sighed, stretching his shoulders to try to get rid of his unease. “You’re still a gremlin though!”

He stifled a snort and entered his room.  

❊❊❊

When Tommy walked downstairs, he didn’t expect to see everyone there. Techno, who was eating his strawberry laces, nodded at him and Wilbur was sat next to him on the sofa. He heard Phil in the kitchen.

Tommy collapsed onto the same sofa as the others.

“Can we pretend we neglect Tommy and show we’re not a fit household for fostering?” Wilbur said casually.

Tommy pushed at Wilbur’s shoulders. “What the fuck, why?”

“I don’t want to see Linda Smith.”

“So you’d sacrifice our friendship over not seeing that prick?” Tommy exclaimed, exaggerating the pout on his lips.

“I would sacrifice anything.”

“Even your Spotify clout?” Techno asked, his mouth full of strawberry laces.

“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here.”

“Dickhead,” Tommy scoffed. Of course Spotify playlists would rank higher than people on Wilbur’s fucked hierarchy. “I hope Linda takes her time observing the fuck out of you guys and her notetaking makes you nervous.”

Techno turned to look at him. “What kind of threat is that?”

“Trust me, she’s so fucking obvious when she’s talking shit about you in her notepad.” It didn’t help that the notepad was hot pink and the pen she used to write made a scratching sound he hated.

Phil came back from the kitchen. “Ms Smith is going to be here in a minute and I swear to God if any of you make any jokes about belts—”

“Beltza,” Wilbur said, ducking to avoid a slap round the head from Phil.

“Y’know, the more you joke about it, the higher the chance it may become a thing,” Techno added.

“Craft a belt then.”

“One day I will,” Phil said, glaring at his son whilst Tommy just sat there confused as ever. To be honest, he didn’t want to know the context of ‘Beltza’ either.

Someone knocked on the door and Phil moved to open it. As Linda Smith—in all her shit glory—entered, the joking spirit emptied the room.

Her hair looked blonder than it was before (Tommy guessed that Linda not having to deal with him meant fewer grey hairs for her). She wore the same granny flower dress she always had on to social worker visits. Tommy swore she had duplicates of the same fucking outfit. The dreaded notepad was already in her hands; the woman was ready to fuck up Tommy’s happiness in his house. If she hadn’t noticed the obvious signs of child exploitation in his last foster home, then he assumed she’d fuck up this one where he finally felt welcome.

Tommy stayed silent as the Craft’s greeted her. She took a seat on the empty sofa and Phil went to fetch her a drink. Tommy shuffled closer to Wilbur and Techno, not liking the look he received from Linda. You would have thought a social worker knew how to conceal their hatred for a person, especially if said person was right in front of them. But nope.

“I assume Tommy remembers how my visits go, so after this, I’ll take him somewhere private, it’s protocol.”

It started awkwardly like it usually did. Linda didn’t help by scribbling down things every time he opened his mouth to reply to her boring questions—he didn’t want to give her a detailed answer about his daily routine or how he spent his leisure time. He understood it was necessary, but still. Whenever Phil or someone other than Tommy spoke, her facial expression changed, almost as if she were trusted their word over his. It went fine though. Well, that was before she asked if she could see his bedroom.

“How come this room doesn’t look lived in?” Linda asked, staring at the blank walls and the unpacked bag Tommy had beside his bed.

It wasn’t the Craft’s fault that he never liked unpacking that bag, which kept all the things he was attached to during this life (this was something he couldn’t grow out of). Or that he didn’t like decorating his room.

His heart dropped as Linda shook her head whilst she wrote something in her notepad.

“Phil’s taking me to IKEA next week though,” Tommy blurted out, the lie coming out of nowhere. “I’m the one who didn’t want to decorate. Or did you forget that, Linda? I would’ve thought that you’d remember what happened in the last house.”

Linda clenched her jaw and crossed out some of the words she had written.

“It’s still a concern I need to report.” Tommy didn’t know how one woman could sound so condescending in just one sentence.

“At least I have my own clothes this time.” He opened the closet door. “Or did you forget about that too, dickhead?”

“Tommy.” Phil scolded, his voice harsh. Wilbur struggled to cover up his amusement.

“Fine. Sorry.” Tommy didn’t want to apologise but if he defied Phil on in front of Linda, then she’d make another note of concern about the parenting style and behavioural management in this household.

Linda’s eyebrows—or, what was left of them—rose in surprise and she closed her notepad.

“I think it’s time for that private conversation,” she said, fiddling with her pen tauntingly. “Is there anywhere for us to go?”

“There’s a café near the park, it’s quiet around this time on Thursday’s,” Wilbur offered.

“Good suggestion.”

The walk to the café was painful, especially as they passed Tobias Underscore’s statue and Linda decided to comment on how weird it was that the statue was dented. When they reached the café, Tommy went to his normal table by the back, not giving Linda any choice in the matter. His mood instantly brightened as Niki came over with a smile on her face. Thank God.

Linda, being the normal bitch she was, ordered a black coffee whilst Tommy just wanted some water. The comfort he felt left as soon as Niki did.

“Do you like it here?” That wasn’t the first question he was expecting.

“Yeah, yeah I do,” Tommy answered, not hesitating. Despite how the town’s history constantly mocked him and so did the way it was taught, the people here made up for it.

“What about your foster brothers? Do you get on with them?” Linda asked, notepad already in hand.

Tommy nodded and she waved at him to elaborate. “Wilbur is more talkative, which is both good and bad because he never shuts up sometimes, but he’s nice, annoying though. Technoblade works differently, he’s more silent. He got me a book after we had a slight argument in the beginning, I haven’t gotten to reading it yet though. But he’s cool.”

“And your foster father?”

“Phil’s cool as well, he created Minecraft and has my utmost respect. He’s a good person.” Tommy didn’t know where the sudden honesty came from, maybe it was the familiarity of the café or the topic.

“So you haven’t been a problem for them?” Tommy’s mood dropped. All hopes that this would go well, that she was listening to him this time drove straight out the window.

“I haven’t,” he said, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.

“Really?” Linda tilted her head mockingly. “No school fights? No police calls needed? You haven’t lashed out at anyone?”

“No.” Tommy gritted his teeth, eyes narrowing at her.

“So if I call up the school right now, they wouldn’t say anything different?”

“Why don’t you ever believe a word I say?” he sneered, voice raising. “Even if it’s positive, you don’t fucking believe me.”

“Tommy—”

“What’s the point of these fucking visits or even having a social worker if anything I say doesn’t matter?”

Niki came over with the drinks, but Tommy didn’t care. He kept his hands under the desk, scared of what he’d do if they were close to Linda.

“Look, we know your history, so we need to take that into account,” she spoke as if she was oblivious to the damage her words did to him.  

“You are such a—”

The cup of water Niki placed knocked over the table, leaking onto Linda’s lap.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” Niki said, wiping at the water with napkins, which caused more water to spill towards Linda.

Tommy’s anger diminished as Linda proceeded to make a joke out of herself and behaved as pathetic as always, complaining at Niki and her waitressing abilities.

“I’m really sorry Miss, there are bathrooms around the corner,” Niki said, pointing towards it.

Linda got up and rushed around the corner.

“Are you okay? She looked like she was bothering you,” Niki asked. Tommy grinned as he realised Niki did that on purpose.

“Well, when you’re labelled as a pathological liar and problem child, social worker visits aren’t very fun,” Tommy admitted, helping her wipe up the water still on the table.

“I’d just run away if she was my social worker.”

“You think I haven’t tried? Kinoko Foster Care are the most incompetent bastards I’ve ever met.”

It took them ages to figure out that one of their rules as a foster agency was violated. Recording and uploading any information of kids you foster wasn’t allowed yet a whole fucking YouTube family vlogging channel somehow went under their noses.

“If it gets any worse, give me a signal and I’ll overcook something to make the fire alarm set off,” Niki said as she picked up the damp napkins.

Tommy smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“Thank Techno as well, he’s the one who texted me asking if I could interfere.”

Linda came back, the wet patch visible on the front of her dress.

“I’m sorry again Miss for the disturbance.” Tommy could tell the guilt in Niki’s voice and face were fake.

“Just be glad it was the water that split and not the tea. For your sake.”

Niki walked away and Tommy rested his hands on the table. “Is there anything else we need to talk about or are you going to find more ways to call me a liar without saying those words?”

“No. I think we’re done with the questions,” Linda sighed, glaring at him. “The next visit will be unannounced.”

“It would be better if you just didn’t come at all, but I guess that’s fine.” A smug smile settled on his lips as Linda sipped on her tea, annoyed at this entire visit. At least the feeling was mutual.

❊❊❊

A relieved breath left Tommy as he slumped onto the sofa. Linda had left and he appreciated every single minute that had passed ever since. He didn’t know where everyone else in the house was but he wanted to be alone anyway. He looked at the decorations in the living room and frowned. Tommy knew that he had to do something with his bedroom before the next visit, yet he didn’t know what. He didn’t have a favourite colour anymore, his old favourites were ruined by the flag of a failed nation. Maybe he could put up some lights, like the LED ones the girl he sat next to in English showed him (she wanted his opinion for her room—she went with the butterfly ones in the end).

The glass door to the garden opened and his body froze at the smell that overwhelmed the room. It was a familiar scent that Tommy would rather forget.

Wilbur walked through the door, vape in hand. “Oh, you’re back. How did it go?”

Tommy breathed through his mouth, trying to blink away the memories that desperately wanted to be heard. Sisyphus clawed at his head.

“It went fine.”

Wilbur stepped closer and Tommy jumped up from his seat, backing away from him. He rubbed at his nose and tried to ignore the reminder of her.

“Can you tell Phil I’m going out? I need some fresh air.” Tommy left before Wilbur could answer, grabbing his bag and coat as he rushed towards the front door.

He didn’t know where he was going but he didn’t stop running. He needed his body exhausted so no thoughts of Sisyphus and his mother in that life could slip by. His bag whacked across his shoulders with every step until he slowed down. It was dark outside, the December sky empty.  

He stopped by a bench beside the seawall. The sea calmed his heartbeat. He sat down and looked up at the sky, only to see one star constellation directly above him; he joined the lines between the stars which formed a half-circle, or some kind of ‘U’ shape.

Tommy reached for his notebook from his bag and opened it to the most recent page. Various drawn tables stared back at him, the boxes either ticked or crossed out. His pen hovered over the myth table named ‘Daedalus’. He drew a question mark on its corresponding box.

He didn’t like the idea that his myth could be Daedalus since it would closely associate him with his past myths of Icarus and Theseus—with Daedalus being Icarus’ father and the creator of Minos’ Labyrinth. Tommy knew he still struggled with the whole moral of hubris, something his Icarus life never let him forget, so this myth was a possibility. But if he was Daedalus, that would mean there’d be an event similar to him harming someone better than him, perhaps even killing like in the original myth. He didn’t like that part.

Sighing, Tommy drew a new table and unlocked his phone, opening up Google. He searched for Greek myths involving found family but rolled his eyes at the shit cites. He wasn’t looking for how ‘Even the Greeks had Daddy Issues – Google Arts & Culture’. He was looking for answers that could prevent him from dying in less than five months.

He rewrote his question and searched Greek myth tragedies involving family, and immediately deleted his search history and turned off his phone as Oedipus’s Wiki page appeared.

Nope, he did not want his myth to be about the motherfucking Oedipus. Killing his father and marrying his mother was not something on his agenda. No thanks. He’d rather just sit out on living if he ended up being that.

He closed his notebook and laid down on the bench. He stared up at the star constellation before closing his eyes, focused on the waves peacefully crashing against the seawall and enjoying the cool breeze of the night.

Tommy did not like having to sit on the floor behind the music block but because he didn’t feel like changing out of his P.E kit for breaktime, he needed to. What kind of sick fuck made him have double physical education with break slotted in between, meaning that he had to get changed just to eat a sandwich for fifteen minutes and get changed again?

It was the last day of school before Christmas break and Tubbo and Ranboo sat beside him, deep in a conversation about their plans for Christmas that Tommy didn’t know if he was a part of. He had only been friends with them for about two months.  

“Should we do a Secret Santa this year?”

That was something Tommy hated about Christmas, the part where you were borderline obligated to get people gifts. He used to love the holiday, especially when his brother would go out of his way to make it special, but then war did what it usually did to things Tommy loved and rotted it to its core.

“A Secret Santa with three people?” Ranboo’s words caught Tommy’s attention. Three people, him included. Warmth travelled to his cheeks.

“Yeah, but we just gotta make sure that each person gets a different name,” Tubbo explained.

“How?”

"We could download an app or something—”

“Or we could get someone to arrange who gets the gifts,” Tommy said, shuffling closer to them.

“No offence but we’re not exactly popular people in this school.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at him. “Speak for yourself. I could get Clementine to do it.”

“Who’s that?”

“She’s the girl I sit next to in English. She teaches me new terminology she picks up from TikTok and Twitter each lesson. Miss King hates it when she includes it in her essay drafts, so I asked Clem if I could do the same.”

“Please don’t tell me she’s the one responsible for you learning the term ‘mansplain’,” Ranboo groaned as Tommy nodded at him with a proud smile on his face. It was the word that Tommy kept whispering to him during science in first period every time the boy answered a question.

“Fine. Clementine decides the Secret Santa. You better not rig it so we all have to give you presents though,” Tubbo said, pointing his figure accusingly at Tommy.

He put his hands up in a mocking surrender. “Hold up, I didn’t even think of that.”

“Nice Tubbo, now you’ve given him ideas,” Ranboo said.

“Now lads, you know me, I would never do that.”

“You literally would.”

The school bell saved Tommy from having to defend himself over something he probably would do, but for the sake of friendship, he won’t rig the Secret Santa. It was probably the last Christmas he’d experience in this life if he didn’t find a myth that made sense.

Tommy visited the bench again last night, the island sea helping him focus on researching the fuck out of Greek myths. He refused to be Jason though; out of all the cool Greek names and the hero who captured the Golden Fleece was called Jason. That was just embarrassing. His myth was filled with betrayal and murder, something else he’d like to avoid being associated with. Though, the shit name disturbed Tommy more.

P.E and English class passed quickly, and he hated how he was in a good mood before history. Clementine had given him Tubbo’s name for the Secret Santa instead of Ranboo’s, which he was thankful for (you’d never catch him buying anything for an American).

He swore Miss Allingham’s history classroom just reeked of ‘I’m here to represent any flaw of the modern education system’. It also didn’t help that this would be his last lesson before Christmas break since school ended early. The tables were arranged differently than usual, placed as lined desks instead of joined tables. Despite that, he sat in between Tubbo and Ranboo and laid his head on the desk.

“I still don’t get why you hate this class,” Tubbo said as Tommy continued to bash his head on the surface.

“Tubbo, I don’t think you realise the historical inaccuracies in this fucking textbook.” He grabbed his book and shoved the amount of red pen he wrote in Tubbo’s face. “Look! It’s so fucking dumb.”

Tubbo scoffed, “You’re like my sister. She hated this class too because of all the mistakes the textbook had.”

“Good. She would appreciate my slander.”

The lesson carried on how it normally did, with Tommy doing the bare minimum and correcting a different section of the textbook, not listening to a word Miss Allingham said.

Well, that was until she decided to call on him.

“Tommy, care to answer the question or should I repeat it since drawing in the textbook is more interesting to you than the history of our town?”

He flushed red as the classroom’s attention diverted onto him. Miss Allingham crossed her arms.

“I wasn’t colouring in the textbook,” Tommy defended, putting down his pen.

“First warning, Tommy. Now, answer my question,” she said. “Can you give me the number of casualties in the First L’Manberg War and how this affected the economy of both the Essempi Kingdom and the L’Manberg nation?”

Tommy froze at the mention of that war. His left fist clenched under the table.

“Second warning—”

“Nineteen died and twelve were heavily injured on the L’Manberg side,” Tommy spat, his hands shaking. “The economy of the Essempi Kingdom remained unaffected since their causalities were soldiers on the front-line whilst L’Manberg suffered as able-bodied workers were hurt during the war.”

His palms stung from the sharpness of his nails.

“I asked for the textbook amount, not the one from the history archives, but thank you for the unasked specifics,” she said, her tone designed to humiliate him further.

He knew the exact amount because he was the one to bury the bodies, the mutilated faces of the dead, the aftermath of the bloodshed. He made sure every single one of them had a funeral and their sacrifice was noted. The torture of burying someone younger than him—someone who shouldn’t have even been trapped in the situation of war—couldn’t be forgotten.

A gloved hand grabbed onto his from under the desk. Ranboo loosened his clenched fist and held it so Tommy couldn’t wound his palm further.

“Now because you’re trying to be smart, can you give me the number of people who died in the Final L’Manberg War?” Miss Allingham continued.

Tommy squeezed onto Ranboo’s hand. He didn’t know. He avoided reading sections of the textbook that occurred after his death for a reason. He didn’t want to know how many of his people died because he wasn’t there to help. There was a certain pain in reliving memories his history class provoked. But hearing events he could have prevented if he didn’t fucking burn down one of King George’s properties and get himself exiled was worse.

“Over three hundred,” Ranboo whispered under his breath.

Tommy repeated it, his mouth dry.

“Thank you, Ranboo, for that answer,” she jeered. “Any significant individuals that died in this war whilst you’re answering other people’s questions?”

“Nick Chu,” Ranboo said. Tommy didn’t recognise the name.

The teacher moved on with her teaching and Tommy exhaled, his chest tight. It haunted him having nineteen people dead over a revolution he partook in, but over three hundred… His people were massacred. There weren’t even that many people in his nation when they secured independence the first time.

“You okay?” Ranboo asked, his gloved hand still grasped in Tommy’s.

“Yeah. Thanks, big man,” he replied, yet the tremble in his voice said the opposite.

Tubbo leaned closer, brushing against Tommy’s shoulder.

“I will beat her up for you,” Tubbo said, rather loudly. But, he didn’t seem to care.

“She’s a teacher who is also taller than you,” Ranboo quipped back.

“I will get you to beat her up.”

“That’s assault.”

“Fine. I will become a destructive force in all her lessons, making her life a living hell until the day she quits.” Tubbo beamed as Ranboo nodded at him.

“That’s more like it,” Tommy added, resting back in his chair.

❊❊❊

It was safe to say that Tommy’s last day of school ended badly after the shit-fest of history class. Tubbo didn’t stop talking during the rest of the lesson no matter the warnings he received from Miss Allingham and ended up getting sent out when he called her a ‘wank-stain’. To be honest, she had it coming since she interrupted his rant about how many nuclear weapons countries had around the world. It had Tommy’s full attention, even if it slightly disturbed him that Tubbo knew this much about the topic.

The dread caused by that class didn’t leave his body though when he was back at the house in the living room. He was tempted to research the details of the Final L’Manberg War since over three hundred people dying didn’t seem real to him. He didn’t know much about what happened after his death, he didn’t know how Snowchester was founded (only that Tobias did so after the wars), he didn’t know what happened to his father, to Tobias, to the people he considered friends once—before they abandoned him in exile. But reading about the tragic fate of the nation your brother founded didn’t appeal to him.

“You alright?” Techno’s voice made him jump out of his seat. The man wore sports gear with a case hung around his shoulder, big enough to carry a guitar in.

“No,” Tommy said. “My history teacher decided to be a massive prick on my last day and Phil should be glad he didn’t receive a call about a homicide.”

“Well.” Techno stood there, not knowing what to do with this information. “You doing anything right now?”

“Nope.”

“Wanna come fencing?”

Tommy immediately got up, gaping at him. “Fuck yes. Sign me up.”

“Get changed into something else and meet me in the car.”

He ran up those stairs and changed faster than he ever had in any life he lived.  

His excitement stemmed from both being able to do something with Techno and because he used to do fencing during his Orpheus life in France with Deo. It was with an épée sword, not a sabre though. Plus, they did it in alleyways rather than training rooms that looked pretentious and expensive as fuck.

Techno had sorted out a fencing kit for him and placed a sabre in his hands. It was lighter than an épée. He tilted the sword to get used to the weight.

“Do you know how fencing works?” Techno asked, tying the straps on Tommy’s gloves.

“I only know épée fencing. Are there any differences?”

“There’s a right of way rule; if both of us strike each other at the same time, the point is awarded to the person who began their attack first,” Techno explained. “Sabre fencing more focuses on cutting and thrusting. Strikes beneath the waist and hands don’t count. But you can use both the blade and tip to score, unlike with the épée.”

“Is that why they called you the Blade when you walked in here?” There were only a couple of other people in the training room and Techno caught all their attention as they entered. He was popular here, it seemed.

“I am known to abuse the blade of the sabre, yes.” Techno’s mouth upturned, displaying pride. “Oh, and it’s easier to attack than to defend.”

“Of course you prefer the more violent version of fencing,” Tommy scoffed as Techno smirked at him, not denying it.

“Russ, can you referee for us?” an older man strolled towards them and gave them a thumbs up.

Tommy and Techno met in the middle of the piste fencing mat and fist-bumped (neither of them liked the traditional salute you had to do before the match began).

“En-garde,” Russ announced. Tommy put on his helmet and took his place on the mat. “Pret, allez.”

Within a second, his opponent’s blade had already smacked him around the face. Techno’s scoring light lit up.

“What in the—”

“Return to your en-garde line,” Techno said, satisfied.

The round begun again and Tommy stepped back, narrowly avoiding the sabre aimed for his chest, parrying the sword, causing Techno to disengage. Yet, the round still ended with Tommy’s arse being beat as the man fucking lunged at him, striking him on the shoulder.

“Try to riposte after you parry next time,” Techno advised, causing Tommy to glare at him. If Clementine were here, she’d say another one of her buzzwords.

Tommy tried to do what Techno told him to, but the dickhead just deflected his sabre and hit him again.

“You are a bitch.”

“Come on, at least get a point,” Techno taunted, clearly enjoying himself.

“Alright, you little bitch, I will.”

And Tommy, in fact, did not. Instead, Techno practically pushed Tommy off the mat without touching him, scoring a point. It wasn’t his fault that the guy was intimidating with a sword in his hand and kept leaping at him, displacing every single target area Tommy tried to hit.

“A minute break,” Russ said. Tommy sighed as that meant Techno had got eight strikes on him so far.

“You’re not bad, you know.” Techno took off his helmet.

“You are literally wrecking me right now, you egotistical prick.”

“Okay, yeah you’re kinda bad.” Techno grinned at Tommy, who flipped him off. “But you’re holding off well against me.”

“Can I at least start the attack next round?”

“Fine. I’ll play defence,” Techno said. “Y’know, if you manage to get at least four hits on me before I get fifteen on you, we can make this a weekly thing.”

“I am going to get better than you someday.”

“You’d have to train for a hundred years,” Techno declared, as confident as ever.

Tommy’s grin sharpened. “That won’t be a problem.”

Techno frowned at him before rolling his eyes. “Break’s over. Come on, up.”

Tommy was better at attacking than defence with how he managed to score on his opponent five times—Techno attempted to hide his surprise but failed. Tommy’s bruised ego replenished as soon as Techno was forced to not attack first.

When the match had finished with Techno ultimately winning, fifteen to five, they shook hands and got changed out of the protective attire.

“Did you have fun?” Techno asked as he packed his sabre pack into its case.

“Yeah. You fucking bruised me though.” Tommy pointed to the red mark forming on his collarbone.

Techno poked at the red mark, laughing when Tommy slapped his hand away. “Same time next week?”

“Yep. But I’m attacking first.”

“Bruh.”

If you would have told Tommy that decorating a room took this much effort, he would have called up one of those celebrities on TV to do it for him. But generally, the people chosen for those shows had sob stories and he didn’t know if being cursed to go through puberty over and over again was the kind of sob story they were looking for. Having to revisit the embarrassment of your voice cracking in the middle of a sentence sounded depressing enough.

The box of LED lights that Phil had bought for him remained unopened because he refused to set that up himself. He could get Ranboo to do it, the fucker was tall enough to reach the ceiling and if God made someone that tall, forced labour was a fair consequence.

Tommy peeled the back off an adhesive strip and stuck it on the wall. All the drawings and images he had gathered from his time at school sat on the end of the bed. Most of them were things Tubbo had thrown at him whilst in maths class, which ranged from his attempted spelling at German words to a drawing of the Eifel Tower (it was the wrong shape, but all that mattered was that he tried).

He didn’t have an artistic approach to where he was going to stick these things, but doing it randomly seemed to fit the aesthetic he wanted.

“Please for the love of God, stick the pictures so they aren’t wonky.” Tommy yelped out at the sudden voice over his shoulder. He spun around and punched Wilbur in the shoulder. He didn’t even notice the man opening his bedroom door.

“You fucker!” Tommy punched him again until Wilbur stopped laughing at him.

“I came in here to ask you a very important question,” Wilbur began as he took the adhesive stirp box out of Tommy’s hands. “What are you getting me for Christmas?”

“Uh, nothing? I don’t know.”

He hadn’t thought about it. To be honest, it didn’t even cross his mind that this household might expect Christmas presents or include him in the holiday that was only a couple of days away.

“Fine. I’ll return your gift then.”

Tommy stopped what he was doing and blinked at Wilbur, dumbfounded. He tried to find any indication in the man’s face that Wilbur was messing with him but failed.

“You got me a Christmas present?” he asked, his voice vulnerable.  

Wilbur frowned at him. “I mean, I could easily take it back into the shop—”

“No!” Tommy jumped forward and held Wilbur in place with his hands on his shoulders. “Nope, you’re giving me that shit.”

“Fine,” Wilbur said, grinning. “I won’t resell your present.”

“And I keep it?” Tommy asked, trying to keep his excitement to himself.

“Of course you keep it. Why would I take it back?”

Tommy dropped his hands from Wilbur’s shoulders. “It’s something the last family did.”

Christmas was just another cash-grab whilst living in a household that exploited foster children and their glee for a festive holiday for views and subscribers on a shit YouTube vlogging channel. Decorations were placed in angles only the camera would view, empty boxes plastered with expensive gift wrapping sat under the Christmas tree that the children weren’t allowed to go near.

“You keep them,” Wilbur confirmed again, more concerned than before. “I’ve stuck all the strips straight now. Have fun decorating.”

Ignoring Wilbur’s quick exit, Tommy went back to decorating.

The last picture he stuck up before dealing with the LED lights was Tubbo’s drawing of a rocket ship, which had a stick man attached to the side of it (Tubbo later clarified that it was supposed to be Ranboo). Later when he finished setting up the LED lights without blowing up the house, he unlocked his phone and opened the Notes app, creating a new one named ‘Christmas present ideas’. He had Phil and Techno sorted but couldn’t think of anything for Wilbur. Besides maybe a slap across the face. That didn’t seem appropriate for Christmas though.

As usual, Tommy burst into Wilbur’s room unannounced. “Dickhead, what do you want for—”

Familiar voices coming from the speakers left him frozen.

“Why the fuck are you watching them?” he demanded. His heart clenching at the sight of the YouTube video displayed on Wilbur’s screen. The sound of their voices made him sick to his stomach. A frame appeared on the screen and embarrassment flowed through him as he recognised the child crying in the video, as he recognised himself.

Wilbur rushed to turn off his computer but Tommy pushed him away from it. His face burned as he read the title:

Family Vloggers Turned Criminals: The Morrison’s Scandal.

“Why- why are you watching that?” Tommy stammered on his words as Wilbur stared at him, face covered in pity.

“Tommy, I didn’t mean to—”

The video continued playing and a picture of the parents appeared on the screen, the people responsible for taking Tommy’s fifth chance of youth away. He wanted to throw up.

Humiliation pricked at his skin, his throat closed up. Wilbur paused the video. Those videos were supposed to be deleted, gone from the internet for no one to fucking see anymore, but even after he got away from those vile fucking people, it wouldn’t leave him alone. And even worse, it was Wilbur, the person he was probably most close to within this house, who saw him like that.

Wilbur stood up from his desk chair, guilt-ridden. “I was just curious and—”

“Were you that curious that you decided to dig into the shit I went through? Was reading all about it on my file not invasive enough for you?” Tommy spat, hating the horror in Wilbur’s eyes.

Wilbur was supposed to be different, he wasn’t supposed to see him as this little naïve child, who was abused and used for entertainment.

“I leave your past alone with all the weird and confusing shit you pull, and you do this,” the volume in Tommy’s voice grew with every quivering breath, so much that the entire house could hear, but he didn’t care. “I don’t dig into your issues, like how you fight with Phil, your failed therapy and why you sometimes stink of fucking weed and other shit. But you can’t do the same for me.”

“Tommy, Tommy, I know it’s bad but I just- I didn’t want to make Christmas like they did and then this came up and—” Wilbur shrunk into himself.

“…what?” Tommy whispered, his breathing still harsh, the blood in his face pulsing.

“—and then this video kept talking about how it was a child labour scheme that the dad came up with to fix his failing marriage, and that their son was violent towards you and the other foster children in that home and—” Tommy stood, helpless, as the man pushed himself into a panicked state. “I just wanted to know what to avoid, to not ruin it for you.”

“Wilbur…” Tommy trailed off, stepping closer to him.

Wilbur, hysteric, jerked backwards and dashed towards his computer. He opened up Spotify, his cursor shaking across the screen.

“You can look through it,” Wilbur said, his voice breaking. He hovered over the drafted album named ‘Your City Gave Me Asthma’.

Tommy took the mouse off him.

“Wilbur, stop. Calm down.” He moved Wilbur so he was sitting in his desk chair. “You don’t want to show me that, alright? And you don’t have to just because you found out shit about me.”

“But—”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said with no heat. He put his hands on Wilbur’s shoulders like he did earlier, though this time for comfort. “Let’s drop this, okay? Let’s pretend this never happened.”

Wilbur nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Tommy picked up one of the many half-drunken bottles of water from the windowsill and gave it to him.

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” he repeated, staring Wilbur in the eyes as the other tried to calm himself down.

Wilbur leaned forward, his side brushing against Tommy. He waited until Wilbur stopped shaking to pull away.

“Now, I’m gonna do what I was originally going to do when I came into your dumbass bedroom.” Tommy closed Spotify and opened up Google. “I have an idea for Techno and I need your help finding one with the most shit name.”

❊❊❊

Tommy tightened his coat around him and entered the café, ignoring the ‘closed’ sign on the door. He walked towards the back kitchen area to see Niki washing up the rest of the cutlery that couldn’t fit in the dishwasher. She had yellow gloves on that went up to her elbow and the normal jewellery she wore was next to the sink. He never realised how many bracelets she had until they were piled onto each other.

He wondered if he should get her something for Christmas, or even to say thank you for ruining Linda’s day. Maybe another piece of jewellery to add to her never-ending collection would be nice.

“Tommy, are you here to pester me again as I close shop?” Niki asked, knowing he was there without having to look at him.

He jumped up and sat on the counter. “Yep. The house is empty and I am bored.”

“Where did everyone else go?”

“Phil needed to go P.C World before it closed, Techno’s fencing, and Wilbur is in his shed,” Tommy said. He only had a couple of hours until his curfew, so bothering Niki was something he liked to do because she was too nice to tell him to fuck off.

“Take my advice and never go into his shed. He calls it the Doom Shack for a reason.” Niki tried to sound as ominous as possible, but the two just burst into laughter as soon as the words ‘Doom Shack’ left her mouth.

“Why are you working during Christmas break, anyway?”

“I need money.”

“No offence but your family gives off major landlord energy.” Even though it was rude to say, he was correct. He liked judging people by the state of their houses, though Benson was an anomaly in this instance. Landlords normally don’t have ducks as pets.

“We’re financially stable, don’t worry, it’s more to make up to my parents,” Niki explained, finishing with the final plates she had to clean. “I’m adopted if the lack of German accent with the rest of my family isn’t obvious enough. They did a lot to get me here, so this is my way of repaying them.”

“You don’t keep some of the money for yourself?”

“No, I do that as well. How else would I fund the amount of hair dye I need?” Niki attempted to throw her hair behind her shoulder to prove a point but ended up wetting it since she had gloves on. Tommy giggled as she cursed under her breath.

“Why pink?” Tommy asked as she took off her gloves and rolled down her sleeves.

“It was blonde with dark strips at the front before.”

“Oh, the TikTok hair,” he interrupted. Clementine showed him that hairstyle during class; she got her phone taken away but she said it was worth it.

“Yeah and I asked Techno what colour next and he wanted us to match.”

Now Tommy expressed his affection for his friends in many ways, like forced labour (exhibit, Ranboo), insulting them (Ranboo again), annoying them with languages they cannot read (Tubbo this time) and violence (everyone but Niki). Yet, he would never dye his hair to display appreciation for a friend.

“Since you’re here, can you help me clean up? I’m already behind schedule,” Niki asked as she circled around him and walked behind the shop counter.

“Sure, if you pay me,” he said. He was joking but he wouldn’t deny money if Niki decided to give it to him.

“I’ll owe you a favour in the future that you can cash in at any time.”

“Deal,” he agreed, shaking her hand. A favour from the Niki herself was worth having to clean and stack up tables.

❊❊❊

Tommy woke up drowning.

Saltwater pricked at his eyes and choked his lungs. He swam up, relief clinging onto him as he couldn’t feel the burden of his notebook at his side. Good, he wasn’t in exile again.

Air welcomed him; he could breathe again. The sky was black, but not like the night. Fuck, he was dreaming.

“Dream you fucking bitch!” he yelled, water breaching into his mouth as he tried to keep himself afloat. “As if drowning me once wasn’t enough!”

A bright light appeared in the void sky.

Tommy hurried towards it, ignoring the waking memories that trembled his skin with every kick of his legs. The sensation of fighting against the sea current centuries ago never left him.

A boat rendered in the distance and he thrashed against the water, hurrying towards the ladder on the side. He pulled himself up, coughing the water out of his lungs as he collapsed on the boat floor. His wet clothes weighed him down as he sat back up and scoured his surroundings.

Before he could regain his breath, the boat started to move forward, crashing against the sea waves that roughened the second Tommy escaped the water’s grasp.

“Why the fuck am I sailing?” Tommy asked. He didn’t have time for these obscure metaphors Dream gave him. He preferred an empty void—something he had grown used to over the years—to a fucking boat trip.

Another light appeared in the distance, though, it was more red and yellow than the other light. The boat abruptly stopped, throwing Tommy forward. He raced to the side of the boat and frowned. Despite how he was in the middle of the ocean a minute ago, he was now at the shore.

He jumped onto the seashore, his bare feet wincing against the gritted sand. He ran towards the light, the cold finally reaching his body. Annoyance filled him as he recognised the man sitting next to the firepit.

“Dream, you didn’t have to drown me to have me go camping with you,” Tommy complained as he touched the fabric of the tents. The masked man’s amulet glinted in the darkness, reflecting the flames in front of him.

“Pay attention,” was all Dream said, his head focused on the firepit. Tommy scowled at him and sat down next to him and stared into the fire, trying to see what was so interesting that it captivated the God.

“To what?” Tommy asked. The waves relaxed, the tide exposing more sand to his eyes. This was a weird beach.

Dream turned and studied him. Tommy jerking back at the analytic stare from the mask. The smile carved into it always disturbed him.  

“Out of all the others, you really are the dumbest.”

Tommy gawked at him, offended. “I’m sorry that I don’t have a million IQ like you dickhead.”

The firepit dimmed and Tommy’s eyes stung with drowsiness. Even though he was close to the flames, the heat didn’t warm him up.

“I’m doing everything I can without breaking my own rules, Tommy.” Dream sighed, being as vague as usual.

“If you created the rules, then why can’t you break them?”

“You may be special Tommy, but even I can’t break those just for you.”

He glared at Dream, not liking the soft tone of his voice. This was the same man who killed and cursed him. Why was he conversing with him as if they were best friends? A part of Tommy wanted this to be all over, for the anger and betrayal rooted deep in his heart to give out and forget the damage caused. But he never did listen to himself.

“Why am I here?” Tommy asked, his hands gripping the textured sand. “Because I don’t think your answer is wanting a beach party.”

He flinched as his own words registered.

“Wow, a beach party,” he scoffed, liking how Dream shuffled, uncomfortable. “Do you remember that, Dream? That little thing you did to me in exile where you made me believe that everyone had abandoned me, that no one in this sick fucking world cared about me.”

He threw sand at the fire, diminishing it more. “Sure, you were right in the end, but you did mess with those invites. I’m not fucking dumb.”

“Even after all these years, you still bring that up?” Dream said.

“Not to sound like a prick but you did drive me to think about killing myself, so maybe I have the right to bring it up even if it’s a small inconvenience for you to remember about.”

The argument Tommy had on his tongue died as Dream faced the fire again. He had more words to say, more lines to scream until his head pounded and could no longer think about what Dream had once put him through. But there was no point arguing with a God who wasn’t haunted by morality and human compassion.

He fought against the tiredness in his eyes, which kept shutting against his will.

“You’re tired, Tommy,” Dream murmured, moving aside so Tommy could lay down on dry sand. “It’s okay to sleep here.”

“Why should I trust you?” Tommy mumbled, caving into himself as he tried to get comfortable.

“I’m the only one who understands you in this world,” Dream said, gazing down at him.

Tommy rolled his eyes and rested on the floor.

As sleep overwhelmed him, Dream wrapped his cloak around the boy’s shivering body

Tommy did not care that it was Christmas, he refused to get out of bed. He had turned off his alarm and thrown his phone across the room, but it still kept ringing. It took Wilbur yelling at him through the walls for him to roll out of bed and grab his phone.

Bench Trio:

Ranboo: Merry Christmas (Tubbo says it as well!)

Tommy: merry christmas boob boy.

Ranboo: The audacity you have after I just said something nice to you.

Tommy: see you lads on new year’s eve :D

After he freshened himself up, he picked up the bag of presents he had wrapped (he asked Phil to do it for him but the man refused—apparently everyone in this household was bad at wrapping as well) and went downstairs.

He wasn’t sure what disturbed him more, the sight of seeing Techno assaulting the glitter tinsel on the Christmas tree or that the man was wearing a Santa onesie. The safe choice was both. Ignoring all that, Tommy entered the kitchen and Phil was in the middle of preparing the food for Christmas dinner.

“Merry Christmas, I was wondering when you’d bother getting up,” Phil greeted as he checked on the turkey in the oven.

“Is it really my fault that Wilbur made me stay up until midnight just so he could tell me that Santa wasn’t real the second it turned Christmas day?”

“He did that?”

“Yep,” Tommy said, still bitter. “He told me he had something really important to tell me and it was that bullshit.”

He followed Phil out of the kitchen, who started setting up the table.

“Is there any chance I can spit in his food or would he notice?” Tommy asked as nonchalantly as possible.

“Mate, not on Christmas,” Phil sighed.

“So I can do it tomorrow?”

“Shut.”

Tommy dropped the subject. He put the Christmas crackers next to the plates Phil had placed down. He frowned at the number on the table. He counted five, with the seat next to Phil, which was normally empty, having a plate in front of it.

“Is someone else joining us for dinner?” Tommy asked. Phil looked at him confused, so he pointed at the fifth plate, causing Phil to freeze in place.

“Oh right, I must have miscounted.” Phil didn’t make any move to get rid of the extra plate, he just stared at it for a moment.

“Why don’t you help Techno detangle himself from the Christmas tree and I’ll finish setting up the table?” Tommy offered, bewildered by the other’s reaction. Phil nodded, still lost in thought, and made his way into the living room.

Tommy finished with the table and examined the Christmas decorations around the house. It surprised him that none of it reminded him of the previous foster home. The presents were scattered around the fireplace instead of piled under the tree, they were even wrapped in different kinds of wrapping paper (some had the words ‘happy birthday’ on them), and the ornaments on the tree were non-traditional—especially the ones which had swearwords on them. This was probably Wilbur’s doing, at least he learnt something whilst breaching his privacy with that fucking YouTube video; Tommy was still bothered by that, but it’s not something either of them could take back.

He stopped looking at the decorations and faced Techno, who was now detangled from the tree and took to glaring at it instead. “Should I wake Wilbur?”

“No, I’ll do it. He’ll try to kick you,” Techno said.

“Why would you volunteer to wake him up then?”

“I kick back harder,” Techno deadpanned.

Phil didn’t even seem fazed as he found a good radio channel on the TV. When Wilbur came down the stairs, rubbing at his side with a disgruntled expression, the smugness Techno displayed explained it all.

“Now that I am here, the best part of Christmas can commence,” Wilbur said, rushing towards the fireplace. “Gimme gifts.”

They all sat on the sofas and Tommy watched them all go through the presents they received, but the nerves got to him as soon as the gifts he placed down were next. He regretted writing his name in red sharpie on top of their presents now, it would’ve been better anonymous, then if they hated it, they wouldn’t know it was him.

Phil opened his first and gaped at what he saw. “You did not.”

“Look, I don’t support anime, but—”

“You got me the hat.” The green and white striped bucket hat from that anime Phil never stopped talking about laid in his hands. The man placed it on his head, grinning. “Thanks, mate.”

“Weebza,” Wilbur declared.

“You kinda do look like the blonde guy from Bleach now.”

“It’s the hair.”

Techno was next and he frowned at the polar bear plushie he unwrapped. “Why did you get me a toy?”

“It’s not a toy!” Tommy argued, pointing at the piece of paper Techno had disregarded. It was a certificate.

“You adopted a polar bear for me?”

“Yep!”

“Named Steve?”

Tommy laughed at the surprised fondness in Techno’s voice.

“I could have adopted one that you could visit but I don’t support zoos, so Steve is in the Antarctic.”

“Good. That’s where he should be.” Techno held the bear closer to his chest, his fingers stroking the white fur. “Thank you for Steve.”

Tommy tried to ignore the warmth in his chest as neither of the two disliked the presents he bought. Wilbur was last and tore into the paper as if it personally offended him, only to stop when he uncovered the item in his hand. His eyes began to water.

“Will?” Phil said, concerned.

“You fucking legend.” Wilbur sprung forward and wrapped his arms around Tommy, knocking the boy back. “You really- you did that.”

In his hands was an album case, which was newly painted; it had a maroon coloured background with a white cat squashed by an anvil in the middle, the caption ‘Are you alright?’ written below it.

“I mean, your first song on the album started with a cat dying, so—”

Wilbur tightened the hug, wetting Tommy’s shoulder with his tears. He let go and smiled at the art.

“What is it?”

“Album art for my band,” Wilbur sniffed, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “Dude, you- thank you.”

“Can we eat now?” Tommy asked, beaming at the three.

“You haven’t opened your presents yet,” Phil said, pushing a bag in front of him.

“Presents? Like more than one?” Tommy just thought Wilbur got him something.

“Yeah dickhead, we all got you something.” Wilbur threw a package at him. “Open it.”

It was a cyan sweatshirt that looked similar to those fashion boards on Pinterest. He held it up against his chest.

“Oh no. He’s making you dress like him, Tommy,” Techno groaned.

“I have taste and this poor boy does not. He needs help and these clothes will do so.”

“Free clothes is a nice way to tell me I have no sense of fashion,” Tommy agreed, searching through the bag of clothes. “Thank you, Will.” Wilbur saluted back, proud.

“Now, with my gift to you, I can’t physically wrap it so I’ll just tell you,” Phil said. “I coded some Minecraft mods for you.”

Tommy gawked at him in awe. “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“What mods?”

“That morph one you never shut up about and a couple others.”

“Philza Minecraft even though you are close to death since you are a senile man, I will never forget this act of kindness,” Tommy said as he jumped forward and grabbed the man’s hands, shaking them.

“So Will gets a thank you and I get a reminder of my old age?”

“Also, yeah, thank you. I’m forcing you to play it with me.” Tommy dropped Phil’s hands and grinned to himself. Minecraft mods by the creator of Minecraft himself; Tubbo was gonna flip his shit.

“Alright, my go. Be careful opening it.” Techno handed him a massive case that he didn’t bother to wrap. There was an attempt though, with the gift bow stuck on the side.

Tommy unzipped the case and carefully picked up what was inside by its blue handle. It was a fencing sabre.

“I would’ve gotten you a red handle but red is the Blade’s colour,” Techno explained.

“I’ve never got a sword for Christmas before.” Tommy placed the sabre down. “Can I hug you?”

“No.” Techno shuffled backwards away from him.

Tommy inched closer. “I’m going to hug you.”

“Fine.”

Techno stiffened as Tommy did so, his arms stuck by his side but reluctantly, he put them around Tommy. Wilbur muffled his laughter at the sight of Techno being forced to partake in physical affection.

“I can tell all your fencing buddies now that the Blade has a soft spot,” Tommy said, patting Techno on the shoulder.

“I will kill you.”

“Sure, sure.” Techno snatched the sabre by the handle. “Okay, maybe you will—”

Tommy broke off running whilst Techno chased after him, the sword held high.

“Friendly fire is off!” Wilbur called out, laughing at Tommy’s screams.

“Boys! Don’t run with fucking swords in the house!”

“But it’s Christmas,” Techno yelled back.

“That makes it even worse, you chaotic shits!”

Later, Tommy sat at the head of the table, wearing one of the new shirts Wilbur bought him, and with a plaster on his hand (Techno had nicked him with the sabre when Tommy bet that he wouldn’t—spoiler, the fucker did).

Wilbur forced them all to read only the first part of the jokes that came in their Christmas crackers. Tommy and Wilbur found it funnier than it should have been and may have been the cause for Phil to open the wine bottle a little early, but it was funny. Techno had asked if it was possible to harm someone with Christmas decorations and clarified that it was completely unrelated to how annoying the two were being, yet the death glares directed towards them told another story.

Either way, Christmas dinner went fine. Even if it ended with Tommy almost pissing himself over the shit Wilbur kept whispering to him, Techno’s sigh count going into the hundreds and a slightly tipsy Phil. But apparently, this was normal for the Craft household.

By the time it was evening, the four had collapsed onto the sofas and turned on the TV to the channels that played reruns of Christmas films until January. Tommy shared the sofa with Phil, who had his new bucket hat on. It covered his eyes so he wasn’t even watching the film, which was good since Tommy preferred that to Wilbur’s unwanted commentary and Techno throwing popcorn at the screen when he declared a scene as ‘cringe’.  

“Did you have a nice day?” Phil murmured, his words slightly slurred but Tommy wasn’t bothered. He would be lying to himself if alcohol and its influence didn’t scare him, yet it was Phil, someone he trusted.

“Yeah,” he replied, shuffling closer to him. “Yeah, I did.”

“That’s good.” Phil rested his head on Tommy’s shoulder, kicking his feet out to rest on the footstool. “I’m glad.”

Tommy smiled down at the man. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For this.”

“Aww, mate,” Phil cooed, causing Tommy’s face to redden.

“Don’t aww me. Nothing is cute or wholesome about this.”

Phil laughed into his shoulder.

Tommy didn’t know how he fell asleep whilst Wilbur shouted at the TV for how shit the remake of ‘Home Alone’ was and Techno trying to aim popcorn on top of Phil’s bucket hat. But he somehow did.

❊❊❊

“Techno, for the last time, we are not flying to Antarctica just so you can see Steve,” Phil groaned as he prepared the living room for the guests scheduled to come over to celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Tommy was helping him set everything up since he owed it to him. Phil’s hair was still damp from when Tommy had dunked snow on his head earlier (it had snowed for thirty minutes and everyone made the best out of it).

“But surely, if he’s adopted in my name, I get the right to visit him.” Techno propped up his polar bear on the seat next to him. “He’s my emotional support bear, I will do anything to pet him.”

“You can’t pet a polar bear.”

“Try me,” Techno shot back. “I will start an Empire in Antarctica just so Steve is safe from… what’s the effects of global warming in the Artic?”

“Something about ice caps melting,” Tommy answered. “Isn’t that how the Titanic sunk?”

Phil stopped setting drinks to stare at Tommy with disappointment. “What the- no.”

“Have you ever noticed that the IQ of the conversation drops when Tommy joins it?” Techno said. “Why are you booing? I’m right.”

“I could just take Steve back. Both the plushie and the actual bear.” Tommy threatened, bringing his hand closer to the polar bear before Techno snatched it away from his reach.

“Do that and you’re dead.”

“I make one joke about taking a man’s bear away and I get death threats. This is a toxic and unhealthy environment.”

The doorbell saved Tommy from Techno inevitably killing him. Tubbo, Ranboo and Niki were at the door. Tommy eyed the vodka in Niki’s hands as he let them in. Well, it was a party, he should’ve expected this.  

“We are here to celebrate the birthday of the year,” Ranboo said as he took his coat off.

“Ranboo, stop being quirky. It’s called New Year’s Eve,” Tubbo rebuked. “Come on Tommy, Secret Santa time.”

He couldn’t believe he was being pushed around in his own house by a boy shorter than him. Absolutely humiliating.

“It isn’t really a secret though. I realised this the other day. There’s only three of us so we’d know who would have who.” Ranboo said.

“You must be fun at parties,” Tommy teased.

“I can’t believe I had to get a gift for someone who bullies me on a daily basis.”

“I have to humble you somehow.” Tommy took the gift bag from him and searched inside. He picked up a stress ball with Ranboo’s face (mask and all) printed on it. He squeezed it in his hands, snorting as Ranboo’s printed face disfigured itself.

“It’s so you don’t injure your hands.” He stared down at the fingernail scars in his palms and squeezed the ball again. Tommy didn’t expect something so thoughtful.

“Thank you. Really, thank you,” he said as he side-hugged him—blame Ranboo’s height for why a normal hug wouldn’t work.

“Now, where’s my present?” Tubbo asked, holding out his arms. Tommy gave him a box.

“I remembered you talking about them on the first day I met you,” Tommy said as Tubbo attacked the Amazon box.

Tubbo gasped as he recognised the rainbow titanium-coated knife set he had on his Amazon wish list. The utter glee on his face should have worried Tommy since it was caused by sharp weapons, but maybe if Tubbo was taller, it would’ve done so.

“Oh my God. I can cut tomatoes now.” Tommy expected some sort of thanks and not that coming out of Tubbo’s mouth.

“And you couldn’t before?” Ranboo asked, stepping away from the boy with knives in his hands.

“It matters more, the knives make it meaningful.” Tubbo pointed a knife at Tommy, scaring the living hell out of him. “I will make you tomato salad with these knives.”

“I don’t like tomatoes.”

“I didn’t say you could eat it,” Tubbo said.

Tommy opened his mouth to ask him to elaborate on what he meant but decided not to. The answer would probably confuse him more.

Instead, he turned to Ranboo. “What did Tubbo get you for Secret Santa?”

“He bought me a cut-out board of Barack Obama because I’m American.” Tommy blinked at him, stumped. “I have to sleep with the forty-fourth US President staring at me.”

“You’ve unlocked a new fear for me.”

Niki came into the kitchen and stared at her brother, who was still enticed by fucking cutlery. “I’m not responsible for Tubbo tonight. If he stabs someone, that’s on you guys.”

Tommy nodded, taking the responsibility.

“Anyway, Tommy. I got you something,” Niki said.

“Wait, I got you something too!” Tommy put the bracelet Wilbur helped him buy in her hand. “I attempted to wrap it but that failed, so it’s a naked bracelet.”  

She put the bracelet around her right wrist, smiling down at it. “Thank you, Tommy. Here, this is for you.”

Tommy frowned at the knitted wholly hat.

“No offence, but my head isn’t that small.”

“It’s for Henry.” A hat for his cow plushie? Wait.

His face flushed with embarrassment. “How do you know about Henry?”

“Techno told me.”

“How does he know?” Tommy demanded, his voice louder.

“Wilbur told him.”

“HOW DOES—”

“Phil.”

“For fuck’s sake!”

❊❊❊

Thankfully, Tommy’s embarrassment and the teasing he suffered from everyone for having a stuffed animal at the age of fifteen died down when Wilbur decided that the music on the radio channels was shit and did his own performance.

He began with ‘One Day’, which Niki joined in with. By the time he finished his album, you could no longer understand a word he sang since he had started drinking as soon as Phil turned on the disco lights in the living room. Though, his guitar playing somehow stayed consistent.

Now, Wilbur’s Spotify playlist named ‘Party Music To Help Forget about Overpopulation’ played. He had no idea how this playlist had over a thousand likes.

Tommy sat on the sofa with Ranboo as Tubbo set up the Wii.

“Now this isn’t a Cause for Concern but should Wilbur be drinking that much?” Ranboo asked as Wilbur downed another shot of Vodka. Ranboo had been making puns for the past half an hour and had started to use song names—even though it irritated Tommy, it distracted him from the chaos Wilbur was causing.

“Make a pun about Sex Sells, I bet you won’t, you fucking pussy,” Tommy challenged.

Ranboo paused. “One Day I will.”

“You disgust me.”

“I mean, you did Taunt me to make more jokes—”

“Ranboo shut up and help me set this up,” Tubbo said from the floor. Ranboo grumbled under his breath about how no one here appreciated him or his elite humour as he went to help.

No longer placed under the torture of Ranboo’s puns and dad jokes, Tommy got up, only to immediately be tackled back down.

“Wilbur, what the fuck?” Tommy protested, trying to breathe out of his mouth to avoid the smell of alcohol. But that didn’t work as Wilbur proceeded to floor him, choking the air out of him.

“You alright, Toms?” Wilbur clung his arms around Tommy’s shoulders.

He ignored how his chest tightened, though not uncomfortably, at the new nickname. Or maybe it was because he just got floored.

“Besides having you crush me, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” he said.

“I don’t know, just wanted to ask.”

As Tommy glanced down at him, Wilbur had the same look on his face that he did when he was on the brink of having a breakdown over watching that YouTube video about Tommy’s last foster home.

“You still feel guilty, don’t you?” Tommy asked, although he already knew the answer.

Wilbur nodded, his head bashing against Tommy’s collarbone. “What if I tell you a secret that no one knows?”

“Dude, you’re drunk. You saying shit isn’t going to take back what you did.”

“Let me try.” Tommy tried to cover up his mouth but Wilbur fought against his hands. “Did- did you know that I’ve been lying to Dad this entire time because—”

“Wilbur.”

“—I’ve been throwing away those fucking tablets the second he tried to make me take them again. They make me feel like a horse- no the thing that kills horses. Like a tranquiliser,” Wilbur snorted. “Don’t ask how I know what that feels like, year twelve was a funny experience.”

Tommy picked Wilbur up from the floor. It was too late in the night to be dealing with this shit.

“We’re getting some water in your system and I’m gonna pretend you just didn’t tell me that.”

“Shh, it’s a secret.” Wilbur let himself be led into the kitchen and drunk the water Tommy shoved into his hands (even though half of it spilt down his shirt). “I’m glad Dad’s fostering you.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Wilbur pinched at Tommy’s cheeks. “Aww, is little Tommy embarrassed? Little baby man, little—”

“I hate you.”

Techno walked in with plates in his hands.

“Technoblade! My big brother!” Wilbur yelled right in Tommy’s ears.

“I’m not your brother and I’m only slightly older than you,” Techno said as he put the plates in the sink, unphased by Wilbur’s drunken state.

“You wound me.”

“Techno, help.” Tommy struggled to keep Wilbur standing up straight as the man decided that his legs weren’t important to use.

“Go back in, they’re playing Wii baseball.” Techno took Wilbur from him. “I’ll handle this mess.”

“I’m not a mess.”

“Sure.”

A bit shaken by the entire ordeal, Tommy went back into the living room. Tubbo and Ranboo were currently being shit at Wii baseball. It was interesting to watch, especially as Ranboo moved his Wii remote in weird positions and Tubbo missed every shot.

“How can one man be so bad at baseball?” Ranboo shouted. “Just hit the ball!”

“I am trying.” Tubbo appeared seconds away from smacking Ranboo with his remote.

Tommy snorted to himself and sat down on the table that Niki and Phil were at. They were playing some type of card game.

“Can I play?”

“Yeah sure.”

And then, with pride, he lost every game of Old Maid until the countdown for New Year’s Day began on the TV.

Tommy stood with his arms around Phil and Niki’s shoulders as the countdown reached zero. Fireworks sounded, just quiet enough to not remind him of a certain event in his Theseus life, and he joined the hollering of the room, a wide smile on his face.

Out of all the lives Tommy had lived, he finally found one where he wanted to stay.

Tommy wanted to know what he did wrong. He obviously did something for the entire household to act off with him. Just last week, Christmas break had ended and it was fine. But something must’ve happened, whether it was Tommy’s fault or not.

It started with Phil not asking how his day went at school when he got back. The first time Tommy wrote it off as him being busy. But the third time hurt. He sat next to the man, waiting for Phil to just acknowledge him, care enough to ask about his day. Yet, nothing happened.

He didn’t realise how attached he was to the small talk that turned into an hour of conversation and laughter until silence settled in its place.

It was bad enough that the whole routine he’d grown fond of had been disturbed by Wilbur not going to school during this week. At this point, Tommy only thought he did something to Phill, that he had upset him unintentionally, and Wilbur was in another bad mood. But then Techno happened. Tommy never told the man that the only reason he got home quicker than usual—why he rushed out of the school gates to meet Wilbur in the car park—on Thursdays was because he knew the minute he’d get back, Techno would be waiting to take him fencing.

This Thursday though, he had to learn the hard way that Techno had already left to go without him. Nothing was more humiliating than getting changed and waiting downstairs only for an hour to pass by and the sinking doubt you tried to ignore from the first five minutes had won.

By Friday, Tommy had reached his breaking point. He sat at the table during breakfast with his head resting on his hand. His cheek ached from the constant biting.

Wilbur joined them for once. His arrival sparked conversation.

“Will, are you sure you want to go in today?” Phil asked, and Tommy hated how he perked up at the sound of his voice, not used to hearing it for days.

“I need to work on something,” Wilbur said.

Techno sat up straighter. “That’ll make it worse, Wilbur. Especially today.”

Tommy scowled at the food in front of him, despite being with them for three months, he was back to the beginning, awkwardly out of the loop with where he stood within the household.

Phil faced him, his eyes tired. “Maybe it’s best if you go round someone else’s house after school.”

“What did I do?” Tommy blurted out before he could stop himself. “You’ve all been acting weird this entire week. What the fuck did I do?”

“This isn’t about you, don’t worry.”

Tommy scoffed. “How can I not worry when—”

“Drop it,” Techno grunted, only fuelling Tommy’s impatience.

“Maybe you shouldn’t foster a fucking child if you’ve still got your own family problems.” Tommy glared at anyone that would meet his eye and left the table. “I’m walking to school.”

He tried to convince himself that the wetness trailing down his face was due to the rain but failed. He remembered the last time he shouted at his foster parents. That house had only lasted a week. As much as his life was destined to repeat itself, he didn’t want that part to be included.

The dread swelling in his throat didn’t leave him the entire day. He didn’t want to return to that house to see Linda Smith there, waiting with a smug look on her face, as if she’d knew he would fuck this up and get himself thrown out of a family that didn’t treat him like shit for once. Would they let him keep the gifts he got for Christmas? Would they even tell him what he did to deserve being alienated out of the blue? He wasn’t sure he wanted answers if it hurt that much just thinking about it.

“Tommy, you missed the count-in again.”

He blinked, clasping the drumsticks in his hands. He glanced at Tubbo, who was at the piano.

“Tommy?”

He stood up and grimaced at the concern written all over Tubbo’s face.

“I need a shit.”

That concern quickly changed to disgust. “Some things should be left unsaid.”

“You don’t appreciate me enough.” Tommy exited the music practice room and circled the building. He headed towards the direction of the toilets but the sound of someone singing from the last practice room stopped him.

“—don’t fucking love you.”

He ducked under where the blinds stopped in the window and Wilbur was in there with an acoustic guitar. He was the one singing.

“Shout at the walls,” a sharp inhale of breath, “because the walls don’t fucking love you.”

“There’s a reason—” his voice broke, it straining into a sob. Wilbur balled up his hands and rubbed harshly at his eyes, the guitar dropping on the floor.

Tommy gulped; this wasn’t something he should be seeing.

Wilbur picked up his phone and dialled a number, his shaking hands holding it up to his ear.

“Can you come drive me home?” the man sniffed into his sleeve. “Tech, it’s happening again and… and I don’t want to be alone right now.”

Before Wilbur could turn around and face the window, Tommy moved and rushed back into the music block. He didn’t know what to do, whether he should go into the last practice room and comfort Wilbur, despite how the man had been ignoring him, or if he should pretend he never saw that.

“What’s wrong?” Tubbo asked as Tommy returned, breathless.

“I just saw something I shouldn’t have.”

Tubbo rolled his eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you walked into the girl’s bathroom again.”

“No!” he gawked, face reddening. “And you promised you’d never bring that up again. It was traumatising enough the first time.”

“Then what’s up?”

Tommy sat on the drum stool. “Is there a reason why the Crafts are acting weird this week?”

Tubbo frowned and grabbed his phone, his eyes widening as he checked something.

“Oh, I forgot about that,” he said, being as vague as they were, which irritated Tommy even further.

“That doesn’t answer my question, Tubbo.”

“It’s not my place to say.”

Tommy silently fumed. This wasn’t something he wanted to take out on his friend, that would just add another person he cared about to the list who completely isolated him.

“Oi, dickhead, where’s the stress ball?”

Confused, Tommy looked down at his hands to see them clenched, his fingernails piercing against his skin. He retrieved the stress ball out of his pocket and compressed it in his hands.

“Happy now?” he snarked at Tubbo with no heat.

“Very,” the other replied, satisfied. “Now get on the drumkit. We need to finish this before lunch.”

❊❊❊

He knew he was breaking Phil’s rules by not replying to any of the messages or calls he got from Techno and him, but at this point, they kinda deserved it. Tommy had his own rules and randomly being a twat towards him broke one of them.

He had been walking around the town since school had finished, rather aimlessly—he had passed the café four times. It wasn’t his fault that this town was fucking tiny.

By the time it had gotten darker and his legs ached, he stopped at the bench by the seawall. Instinctively, he took his notebook out of his bag and opened it to the most recent page. Last night he added another column called ‘myths associated with boats/ships’ because of the last Dream visit. The lad with the shit name, Jason, was on there again because of the Argo, but he didn’t like how Theseus’ father, Aegeus, came up during his research. The guy who was prophesied to die of grief and ended up killing himself when Theseus forgot to change the colour of his ship sails.

Not understanding an oracle about your fate and it killing you was something Tommy would rather not share with a man who drowned himself.

With one glance up at the same half-circle star constellation in the sky, he slammed the notebook shut and chucked it over the seawall. It was futile since the book would appear by his side soon, but it was more for cathartic purposes.

Tommy walked home but entered through the back way in the garden; he didn’t feel like risking it if an angry Phil or Techno were waiting for him in the kitchen. The shed light was on, meaning Wilbur was doing fuck knows in there.

He paused in his step, staring at the shed in the dark. He was tempted to go in there and demand what the fuck was up with everyone but hesitated since he had witnessed Wilbur have a breakdown in music. That wasn’t enough to stop him though.

He opened the door, and immediately coughed, his throat under attack from the amount of smoke in the air. Of course this prick was hotboxing. Wilbur was buried in a bean bag, a plastic bong by his side and a DS in his hands, playing Tomodachi Life (what the fuck?). He had sunglasses on, probably concealing his red eyes. Some lifting weights sat in the corner.

“What kind of crack den is this?” Tommy asked as he covered his nose with his sleeves, trying to keep his eyes from fluttering.

Wilbur put down his DS. “Doom Shack.”

“Why the fuck does the sheep have a cigarette in its mouth?” he pointed at a blue, knitted sheep that laid on the other bean bag.

“That’s Friend.”

“Your friend’s with a sheep?”

“No, that’s Friend,” Wilbur repeated, grinning.

As much as it was harsh to think, Tommy preferred the man crying over whatever the fuck he was doing now.

“Are you high right now?”

“Well, that’s the aim.”

Tommy glared at him. “You’re such a fucking mess.”

“At least I admit it,” Wilbur shot back, his grin widening as Tommy scowled.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

Wilbur attempted to get out of his bean bag. “You still in denial that you’re not a total fuckup?”

Tommy sprung forward, grasping Wilbur by the shoulders, and shoved him against the wall. His teeth gritted as Wilbur kept grinning at him.

“Now you’re angry,” Wilbur giggled.

“What the fuck is your problem?” he toughened his grip on Wilbur. “No actually, what the fuck is everyone’s problem? I am so sick of having to walk on eggshells around you all and letting you treat me like shit.”

He pushed him harsher against the shed wall, making Wilbur wince. Tommy faltered, the close proximity with Wilbur did not help the memories trying to seep themselves through the cracks in his consciousness. If he closed his eyes for a second longer, he could almost feel dried blood on his arms and the weight he held for hours.

He cleared his throat, reining his head back but held Wilbur in place.

“Ah, it makes sense now.” Wilbur had stopped laughing.

“What makes sense?”

“It’s the smell, isn’t it?” the man struggled against Tommy’s arms until he let go. Wilbur picked up the plastic bong on the counter and waved it in front of Tommy’s face, who jerked backwards. “Holy shit, it is.”

“Shut up,” Tommy muttered, his teeth still gritted.

“What does it remind you of, huh?” Wilbur placed the item back on the counter. “Maybe we have more in common than you think, Toms.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

The clipped tone in Tommy’s voice only urged Wilbur on even more.

“What drugged-up escapades have you gotten up to before coming here? What wild adventures made you hate it?”

His hands shook as he swallowed down the bile creeping up his throat. Flashes of her blonde hair and pale skin wouldn’t leave his head.

“It killed her,” Tommy whispered, unshed tears welled in his eyes. The grin fell from Wilbur’s face. “She- she overdosed.”

He would never forget the fear of a quiet room, too silent for someone to be breathing in there, knowing empty pill bottles and lit spoons laid on the floor.

“She was battling something she knew she wouldn’t win but I didn’t know that… I thought, I thought she was getting better, I- I thought I was enough that she would stay. And it killed her,” he exhaled sharply. “I killed her.”

He tried to stop himself from sobbing but the pain in his chest was too much. His vision blurred.

“It was my fucking money that she used, it- it was because of me.”

“Tommy—” he shoved Wilbur’s hands off him.

“Is that what you wanted to hear?” Tommy shouted, his voice cracking. “The reason I fucking hate the smell of that shit is because it meant I was left alone in this world with the dead body of my own fucking mother in my arms.”

His lingering anger faded as the tears finally fell. He hated that life, loathed how the curse of Sisyphus, the man who would never achieve fulfilment, burdened them both.

He stood, his eyes set on the floor, hoping for it to swallow him up. His ears rang, white noise echoing the emptiness he felt in her last moments. The same emptiness that burrowed itself deep inside of him, creating a void that didn’t leave.

Tommy looked up into Wilbur’s eyes, the brown in them reflecting the amber that was once in hers.

“Did that sober you up, dickhead?” his voice shook with his legs. “Bring the fucking laughter back, I dare you.”

Wrecked breaths left his chest as Wilbur stayed speechless and sombre.

Wilbur grabbed a blanket from his seat and draped it around Tommy’s shoulders. “I need to show you something.”

Tommy let himself be led into the darkness of the streets, the adrenaline and hostility had abandoned him with the man who caused it all to arise. Instead, a hollow boy who lost all battles, even those he won, was in his place.

As they reached a gate, Wilbur’s grip on him wavered. He kicked at the dented part of the metal and squeezed through the bars, forcing Tommy to do the same.

It didn’t register in Tommy’s head where they were as he absently followed him. They passed flower bushes, rows of benches, plaques in front of trees, weeds intertwined in the brick pathway. Though, the gravestones made it obvious.

Especially when they stopped in front of a grave which shared the same last name as Wilbur.

Unease fell to the pits of his stomach as the date engraved on the stone matched the current one today. It was the anniversary of her death.

Tommy tugged the blanket around his body.

Wilbur moved towards the bench, his hands clasped over each other and eyes focused on the metal plate of her carved name. It seemed they both knew what the loss of a mother was like.

It was silent in the graveyard, so silent that Tommy could hear the muffled cries that came from the bench. He stood still, staring at the man from a distance, the moon glistening above them.

“She got sick so quickly.” Wilbur’s bottom lip trembled as he spoke. “I got to say goodbye but it felt empty. Like the woman on that bed wasn’t even her. She didn’t even say it back.”

Tommy sat beside him with his back straight as Wilbur crumbled into himself.

“Let it out,” he whispered, wrapping half of the blanket around Wilbur. “Let it out, man.”

And Wilbur did until there were no tears to be shed.

Brushing his hand along the other’s back, Wilbur buried himself deeper into Tommy’s side. His hold on him tightened as Wilbur shook.

“We’re both fuckups, aren’t we?” Tommy huffed humourlessly whilst Wilbur sat up.

“Seems like it,” Wilbur croaked back. He sighed and shuffled closer to Tommy, relishing in his warmth. “I’m sorry.”

Tommy rested his head on Wilbur’s shoulder. “You were being a dickhead.”

“A selfish dickhead who lashes out at the very same people who try to help him,” Wilbur said.

“Add on that he’s a twat as well, then it’s you.”

“Good addition.” Wilbur sniffed and wiped his face. “I’ll make it up to you. The shit I’ve put you through this week, I’ll make up for it.”

“You said that last time,” Tommy mumbled, too tired to fight back. He closed his eyes as Wilbur rearranged his hold on him.

“I mean it, Toms.”

“You’re being awfully brotherly towards me,” was what Tommy said instead of unleashing the doubt swarming in his head.

“Don’t say that or I will cry.”

“You’ve done enough of that for today.”

A silence passed between them.

“She’d be proud of you,” Tommy said quietly as he stared at the gravestone. “And of your shit music.”

Wilbur’s mouth upturned. “You think so?”

“Hm. Was she a dog or cat person?”

“Cat.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t like your new music then.” Wilbur turned his head, confused. “Stop, ‘cause why’d you have to kill my cat?”

Wilbur burst out laughing, his chest vibrating against Tommy. The graveyard hummed, as if not used to such display of contentment.

“She loved music,” Wilbur murmured, a bittersweet smile on his lips. “That’s why I made my sixth form music piece about her. I regret it now since it’s something personal and- I don’t like having breakdowns in music rooms.”

“Is that what your album is?” Tommy asked. “‘Your City Gave Me Asthma’.”

“Pretty much,” Wilbur nodded, eyes dull. “I need to rewrite one of the songs soon, make it about something else.”

“Which one?”

“I have one called ‘My Mother Was Right’ but now… I don’t think having a song about that is good for me.”

Wilbur sighed and thread his fingers through Tommy’s hair.

“When she was sick, I visited her in that hospital. Dad told me not to, said I shouldn’t see her like that. But I went anyway.” Tommy leaned closer to him. “She would… she would speak a lot after her medicine kicked in, a lot of it made no sense but some of it did. And it was about me.”

“She was worried I would fuck myself up if she wasn’t here, that I would be my own downfall,” he laughed dryly. “After all that time, she was right.”

Tommy faced him. “What if you interpret it the other way? If you’re the only one to do that to yourself, then you can prevent it. Only you can help yourself.”

“How the fuck do I do that?” Wilbur whispered, tugging on the blanket.

“Therapy,” he said, biting his cheek as Wilbur scoffed at him. “It’s not a bad thing, Will. We can use Phil’s Tory money to get you a good one.”

Wilbur didn’t answer, his eyes unfocused. Tommy opened his mouth to argue but was interrupted.

“Only if you do it with me.”

“Fine,” Tommy replied with no hesitation. “If I have to talk about my shit to get you to do the same, then fine.”

Wilbur’s eyes watered and he reached forward, hugging Tommy harder than the last one. “Why couldn’t we have fostered you earlier?”

“Blame family vloggers,” Tommy said and he felt Wilbur smile into his chest.

“You ruined the moment.”

Tommy snorted. “Shut up, man.”

The two sat in the dark graveyard until the sun came up, exchanging quiet words and soft laughter as a burdened weight on both of their shoulders lifted.

Tommy blamed Wilbur for all his problems, which for once, was accurate since it was Wilbur’s fault for him returning home freezing his arse off with a scratch on his leg. Who the fuck forced a tired and emotionally burnt out child to jump over a massive garden fence at five o’clock in the morning? A selfish dickhead, that’s who. (And yes, Tommy only called himself a child when it expedited pity points).

“Stop hitting me, you’re the one who couldn’t jump properly,” Wilbur grumbled as Tommy whacked his shoulder for the sixteenth time.

“Die.”

“You need to get more creative with your death threats,” Wilbur said. “Try visiting TikTok comment sections.”

“I will murder you and bury you with only one sock on.”

“That’s not the creativity I was looking for.” Wilbur opened the glass door connected to the living room.

It was suspicious how the door was unlocked. But the major red flag was Techno sitting on the sofa reading a book in pure darkness with Phil asleep next to him.

“How the fuck are you reading that?” Tommy blurted out.

“I’ve memorised this book so I know when to change the page,” Techno replied, his eyes still glued onto the book in his hands. Tommy was more concerned over how the book Techno chose to memorise was The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

Techno closed the book and drew their attention to Phil. “Who’s gonna take the blame?”

Both Tommy and Wilbur pointed at each other and said at the same time, “Not me.”

“You taking the blame is the first step of you making it up to me,” Tommy declared, grinning as Wilbur pouted at him.

“Dad is going to beat me to death.”

“Then you won’t have to be in debt to me anymore.”

“In debt?” Techno asked.

“He emotionally scarred me, these are the consequences,” Tommy explained and patted Wilbur on the back, annoying the man further.

“Heh?”

“Don’t ‘heh?’ me dipshit. You’re in debt as well. You ditched our weekly fencing.”

Techno at least had the decency to look guilty about it.

“I want an apology and not another Greek mythology children’s book.”

“What about the adult version?” Techno huffed as Tommy narrowed his eyes at him. “Alright, sorry. We can go fencing later after you sleep.”

“Good enough.”

“Now you guys are back, I’m going to bed. Good luck dealing with Phil, Wilbur.”

Techno picked up his book and left the living room. Wilbur hadn’t moved a muscle, his gaze stuck on Phil.

“I’m sleeping in your room tonight,” Wilbur said.

“Nope. I’ve had enough of Wilbur Craft for the rest of my life after today.”

“I will wake up dead.” Wilbur grabbed Tommy’s shoulder and shook them as he spoke. “Dad is going to skin me alive.”

“No therapy needed for you then,” Tommy shrugged, unbothered as Wilbur continued to shake him. “Goodnight.”

Wilbur groaned and flicked Tommy on the forehead. Then ran up the stairs as fast as he could—scared of the repercussions of his actions like a fucking pussy.

Yawning, Tommy looked around at the dark living room and turned off the muted TV. He gripped the blanket around his waist and draped it over Phil.

“Techno?” Phil said, groggily, waking up from his sleep. Tommy tensed. “Oh, you’re home safe.”

“Yeah, we’re back. We’re okay.” The man’s eyes began to shut again. Tommy finished tucking the blanket over him.

“Good.” It didn’t take long for Phil’s breathing to even out. Tommy watched him for a moment, a softness crawling throughout him. He felt guilty, for worrying the man to the point where he tried to stay awake downstairs hoping for Wilbur and him to return. But, Tommy was kinda pissed at him.

Still though, Phil cared about him.

❊❊❊

Waking up at two o’clock in the afternoon was an acceptable time after having to chill in a graveyard until the ‘aesthetic vibes’ were ruined by the sun rising (those were Wilbur’s words, not Tommy’s). If sitting on a bench in front of your deceased mother’s gravestone was an aesthetic, then he did not want to see Wilbur’s Pinterest boards.

Cake for breakfast (or brunch) was acceptable as well, no conditions applied. The look of disgust Phil gave him as he worked from the second Tory kitchen table meant nothing to Tommy. He also ignored the exasperation Phil had as he sat with his plate of chocolate cake opposite him—on the table that you weren’t supposed to eat on.

He had a couple of aims for how his brunch was going to go: firstly, he wanted to annoy the living hell out of Philza Minecraft—that was easy; secondly, he wanted an apology; and lastly, Tommy wanted to cheer the man up.

“You get no say in where I eat after how you treated me this entire week,” Tommy said, digging his spoon into his cake. It was Wilbur’s cake, but communism existed for a reason. “I get that this week and even now is hard for you, but you could have just told me instead of making me think that I was the problem.”

Phil closed the lid of his laptop. “You’re right, I should’ve. And I shouldn’t have been distant with you either.”

“You could’ve still been distant, Phil.” Tommy waved his spoon around to emphasise his point. “If that’s how you get through that, go for it. But next time, tell me beforehand.”

“No, you don’t deserve everyone ignoring you just because we’re going through something, Tommy.” Phil’s kind eyes sharpened with solemnity. “I’m sorry for putting you through that.”

Tommy shovelled another piece of cake into his mouth. As much as he aimed for an apology, it still made him uncomfortable. “When’s our next Tesco’s visit? I have more things to blackmail you with now.”

“You are the devil reincarnated.”

“I mean, I could be.”

Tommy didn’t know if there was a devil in Greek mythology. His first thought was Hades, but he was more the keeper of the dead, and Thanatos was the personification of death. But he did read one Quora post that argued how Prometheus, the Titan who pissed off Zeus and gave fire to humanity, was like Lucifer, with how they both rebelled against their God and tried to bring knowledge to humans.

Hm. Nah, he wasn’t Prometheus. Though, the whole rebelling against Gods did sound like him. He resonated with the phrase that you should live a life that would get you burnt at the stake during Medieval times—which he was experienced with (Transylvania wasn’t nice to Icarus).

“Is Wilbur dead?” Tommy asked, suddenly remembering the fear Wilbur felt earlier today.

“Wilbur is, unfortunately, alive,” Phil replied. “He agreed to take the punishment for the both of you, after removing ten years off my life expectancy due to stress.”

“Ten less years having to deal with Wilbur and Techno,” Tommy rebutted.

“Sounds like a dream,” Phil chucked under his breath but then his expression hardened. “If you pull this shit again though, there will be no loopholes.”

“Understandable. I can’t wait to figure out what Beltza is like.”

“Oh my fucking God—” Phil facepalmed and rubbed at his eyes as if it was too early in the morning to deal with this (despite how it was the afternoon). “Stop listening to Wilbur. I don’t belt kids.”

Tommy laughed and shrugged at him as he got up from the table with his empty plate. It surprised him how much he missed conversations with Phil like this, where it ended with either Phil cussing him out or laughing with him. He was glad that insinuating that Phil belted children made the man feel better—anything to stop him from distancing himself again.

His brunch mission was successful, so now it was onto the plan he had with Techno. He didn’t quite know how this week affected Techno, it must’ve upset him if he wanted to be alone whilst fencing. Tommy fetched his school bag from his room before he knocked on Techno’s bedroom door. It was time to amuse (and annoy) the anime man.

“You aren’t even changed,” was what Techno said as he opened the door, already dressed in his sports gear.

“That’s because you’re helping me proofread my history coursework before we go,” Tommy answered, shoving the papers into Techno’s hands.

“And why would I do that?”

“You underestimate the power of guilt-tripping.”

Techno rolled his eyes and put on his glasses. He began to read it, though stopped after a minute. “Did you give me the right thing to read?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Your introduction starts with you talking shit about your history teacher.”

Tommy grinned. Slandering Miss Allingham was just something that came so easily to him. “She said the coursework had to come from the heart. This is my heart.”

“You called her a ‘Disney adult’ when summarising your argument about what factor was most significant in causing the L’Manberg Revolution,” Techno said, his voice stoic though there was an inkling of an amused smile on his lips.

He continued reading, his smile becoming more prominent as he did so.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate to say, ‘King George was uckers and deserved to die’ in a paragraph that’s supposed to argue about the corruption of the Essempi monarchy,” Techno said, crossing out the words on the paper with a red pen.

“Am I wrong though?”

Techno rolled his eyes again.

“Tommy, you can’t include hashtags in your essay.”

“Why not?”

“You even put them in your references!”

Tommy didn’t really care about history and he held a grudge against the teacher, so why would he be formal and professional in any written work? His plan seemed to be as successful though, as Techno looked both entertained and disgusted at his work.

“Do you at least agree with my conclusion?” Tommy asked.

“Actually, yes,” Techno said. “The question is, as you said, ‘dumb, biased, stupid, and dumb again’. The structuring your teacher made you do is weird as well.”

“Technoblade, be my history teacher.”

“No.” Techno handed him his coursework back, his mood lighter than before. “Get changed, we’re leaving in five minutes.”

When they arrived at the fencing building and the training started, it seemed like the guilt Techno felt earlier for ignoring Tommy throughout the week went away. It was obvious due to how Techno was absolutely destroying the fuck out of Tommy and littering his body with bruises. Not only was his ego wounded, but everything else Techno could technically reach was as well.

“This is rigged. I am at a disadvantage,” Tommy fumed as he rubbed the aches on his chest.

“Then do better,” Techno said, smug.

Russ interrupted Tommy’s train of thought (which was just many, many insults about Techno) by counting them in again.

Within seconds, Techno flung himself over the centre line and sliced his blade across Tommy’s already bruised shoulder before his feet touched the floor.

“I swear to fucking God—”

“A minute break,” Russ announced over Tommy’s complaining.

It took everything in Tommy to not strangle the bitch to the floor as Techno dared to look proud of himself. He sighed and contained his anger.

“You know any therapists around here?” Tommy asked, not knowing what else to say during their break.

“That is not a conversation starter I expected.”

“I got Wilbur to agree to therapy if I do it as well,” he further explained.

Techno scowled at him. “How?”

“I have my ways.” Techno hit him with his sabre, shrugging off the penalty Russ gave him for attacking during a break. “Fine! Jesus. I have my problems, he has his. We’ve agreed to both try to deal with them via therapy.”

“He told you, didn’t he?” Tommy frowned. “About his mother.”

“Yeah.”

Techno walked forward and Tommy kept his eyes on the blade in the other’s hand.

“Don’t break his trust,” Techno muttered, it sounding like a threat. He bit on his lip and continued, “And don’t let him break yours either.”

He saluted. “Yes, sir!”

“Stop giving me more reason to stab you.” Tommy gasped at him.

“Break’s over,” Russ said.

Techno immediately aimed for Tommy’s throat, so the reasonable and highly illegal move Tommy chose to make was to tackle the man to the ground.

“Corps-a-corps, penalty,” Russ called, glaring at Tommy.

“Russ, he threatened me!” Tommy shouted, sitting on Techno’s legs so the man couldn’t get up.

“You still can’t touch him.”

Tommy groaned and hoisted himself up, leaving a disgruntled Techno still on the floor. “Get up, pussy.”

“You are the sole reason why children deserve less,” Techno grumbled.

❊❊❊

After being humiliated by the same man whose name printed on their birth certificate was literally ‘Technoblade’, Tommy decided to bother Niki more. She had sent him her work schedule and he abused this as much as he could—especially when she was the one closing the café.

“You’ve been staring at your phone like it personally offended you for half an hour,” Niki said as she placed plates into the dishwasher.

“Because it has!” Tommy shouted, tempted to throw his phone into the freezer and leave it there. “Why is therapy so expensive?”

“Let me guess, you’re on the Las Nevadas website.”

Tommy exited the site, glaring at it. “Yeah.”

“That therapy industry specialises in dealing with addiction. It’s a rehab centre, so it’s going to be expensive,” Niki explained.

“Wait, how do you know that?”

“I tried to sign Tubbo up to it when I was fifteen because he was annoying me.”

“Did it work?” Tommy asked and Niki gave him a look. “Y’know, you could just tell me when I ask a stupid question instead of judging me.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” she laughed as Tommy flipped her off.

Niki closed the dishwasher and turned on one of the sink taps to wash the rest of the cutlery. She let out a loud shriek as boiling water burned her right hand. Tommy jumped from the counter and grabbed a cloth. He turned on the cold water and held her right wrist under it, trying to ease her burn.

“Are you that incompetent?” he joked.

“I get the hot and cold taps mixed up,” Niki defended, whilst laughing at her own stupidity.

Minutes passed and the redness on her hand seemed to simmer. Tommy went to let go of her but the black ink smeared on her inner wrist caught his attention. He rubbed at it with the cloth before Niki reared her hand back.

Even with Niki attempting to cover her arm, Tommy could recognise the mark of Zagreus from anywhere, seeing as the same tattoo burdened his wrist too.

“Niki?” he gaped at her, a plethora of emotions flowing through him, ranging from amazement to relief. “You’re- you’re like me. He wasn’t lying, holy shit, he wasn’t lying.”

“Tommy—” Niki didn’t share his elation.

“I’m not alone, oh my God, you’re…” he smiled. He had someone like him, someone who understood the pain of reincarnation and built-up frustration at having no free will over the events in your life. “How many lives have you lived?”

“Tommy,” Niki’s clipped tone caught him off guard. She looked up at him, unease practically flying off her. “Do you not remember me?”

He stared at her with startled eyes, confused. He tried to remember every face from every life, though they were all mushed together over time. She untucked her necklace from under her collar and the blood drained from Tommy’s face. The same charms his brother had crafted everyone before their declaration of independence hung around Niki’s neck, their token of togetherness and brotherhood.

“Nihachu.”

The scars of Theseus across his back flared as he pushed himself away from her. He could almost picture a younger version of her, the girl he loved like a big sister, who sowed patches onto the rips of his uniform and bandaged his wounds. Too bad her concern over his health had died by the time he actually needed it—when cuts from enemy swords meant nothing compared to the damage Dream did to him.

“You abandoned me,” Tommy whispered, his throat constricted. “You… you let me die in exile.”

Loneliness followed him in every life, but he could never forget its origin. Her betrayal hadn’t hurt as much as the other’s did, partly because by the time it hit, he was counting down the days for everyone to follow in his brother’s footsteps, to leave him.

Niki’s face furrowed with pain. “I was mourning your brother—”

“So was I!” he cried out, voice harsh. “So was I.”

“You abandoned me too. You all did!” Niki tugged on her necklace. “And my myth practically confirmed it.”

He swallowed down his objection.

“I was Calypso. Every person I fell in love with ended up leaving me, just because I decided to follow you and your brother over the King. My own family begged me not to join the Revolution but I did anyway. Through war and death, you both left me,” she scoffed, tears present in her eyes as Tommy sank deeper against the wall. “I wasn’t your priority, I was nothing.”

“The last time I saw you, you were shouting at me during my trial, siding with them to punish me, even if it meant exile,” he bit back, anger gritting at his teeth. “I was manipulated, tortured and killed, and you just let that happen.”

Niki winced at the fight in his voice. He had longed for confrontation ever since his first death and she unlocked a part of himself that he had buried as he was certain he could never achieve it. She knew what happened after his exile, she knew what happened to his father, how the wars ended.

“Who else is cursed?” he demanded, his head pounding.

His entire world had flipped in a matter of minutes, unanswered questions at the root of all his problems; he thought he was alone, but now he wasn’t, yet the only person who understood what it was like to be cursed was her. Someone he thought was his friend, two times now in different lives.

“I only know of those who were with me whilst I waited to be reborn.”

Tommy paused. His mouth dried as her words registered. “You had other people in your void?”

Niki hesitated to nod.

“Who?” he asked, more aggressive than the last. “Who was with you?”

“Tommy—”

“Who the fuck was with you?”

“Your brother stayed the longest,” Niki whimpered as if it hurt her throat to say. “Tommy, were… were you alone all that time?”

Tommy flinched back, the black emptiness that accompanied his dreams swallowing him whole. Niki had his brother in her void. Would it even be a void for her? She wasn’t trapped in years of solitude, she had him and that was all Tommy ever desired.

“What about Dream?” he asked, more frantic. “Was he there?”

“Who’s Dream?”

His breath hitched. She wasn’t haunted by a masked man who laughed at the pain he caused and whispered comfort when it all got too much. She didn’t know the torture of being forced to converse with the very same God who ripped and ruined your youth, the one responsible for every scar on his body and mind.

“Look, Tommy, I’m—”

“I need to go,” he said, out of breath. He ran out of the building, the cold air suffocating his lungs as the thousands of realisations came upon him.

❊❊❊

He sat on his bed and traced over his brother’s handwriting in his notebook with the sickness worsening in his stomach.

Niki, someone he called a friend, knew who he was this entire time and didn’t tell him. She didn’t even know who Dream was. On top of it all, she was over sixteen, so she had guessed her myth correctly already. Niki was free, not burdened by the guilt that wormed into Tommy’s heart after he wasted another day without getting closer to knowing who his myth was.

Jealousy stopped him from being able to sleep. Someone with the same curse had a happy ending, but where did that leave him? Alone, scarred and fucked up. He didn’t have a family, a purpose in life, or confidence in himself.

His tattoo burned, meaning that Dream knew a visit was inevitable, yet every time he closed his eyes, the same brown shade of his brother’s stared back at him.

He never said goodbye to his brother, or even got an explanation for why he changed ever since their first banishment to Pogtopia. The unknown reasons as to why his big brother, who once comforted him when he had nightmares, became the man who caused them.

Tears pricked in his eyes out of frustration.

He rushed downstairs into the kitchen, ignoring Techno and Phil, who were watching the TV. His hands shook as he reached into the highest cabinet and retrieved a box. He held the pharmaceutical box with Wilbur’s name on it and bit his inner cheek. Amitriptyline was also a medication for insomnia and Tommy couldn’t die from an overdose—it was still a stupid idea though. But he needed to sleep. He needed answers that only Dream could give.

“Tommy, you alright in there?” Phil called from the living room. He opened the box and stuffed a strip of the tablets into his pocket.

“Yeah, just needed a drink!” he said back, hoping that the quiver in his voice wasn’t obvious. He put the box back into the cabinet and got a water bottle from the fridge.

He muttered a goodnight to the two and walked back upstairs, the weight in his pocket fuelling the anxiety clawing at his chest.

His tattoo pricked at his skin, almost warning him not to, but he never did listen to Dream’s advice. Before he could convince himself not to, he unwrapped the tablets and swallowed them dry. The four empty vessels in the strip glared back at him. He probably should’ve researched the maximum dose for amitriptyline before shoving two hundred milligrams of it down his throat. His curse didn’t make him immune to side effects.

Tommy laid on his back, burrowing himself under his covers and clinging onto Henry. The hat Niki had knitted for him was still on Henry’s head. Why would she do that? Why would she go along with being his friend, even as far as to give him a Christmas present, if he had abandoned her too?

It wasn’t his intention to isolate himself from those he loved during the peace periods between wars, Niki included. But having your brother be brutally murdered by your father and Tobias caring more about saving an already dead nation over his own best friend ruined the idea of love for Tommy.

He raised his arm to rub at his eyes, only for him not to feel the contact. He tried to sit up, but his body weighed him back down. His skin tingled, drowsiness overwhelming him as his eyes kept fluttering shut.

Tommy pried his eyes open, yet he wasn’t in his bedroom anymore.

Grey walls adorned with red vines surrounded him. He was in the maze again, in the void.

Fed up with playing into any more of Dream’s games, he ran forward, holding onto the walls as he navigated himself through.

“Dream!” he yelled, his limbs dragged him down as he reached another dead end. “Dream, you fucking coward, come out!”

He shouted until his throat was hoarse.

Dream appeared in front of him, drops of blood stained against his mask and green cloak.

“You have questions I can’t answer, Tommy,” Dream said, his mouth thinned into a line.

Tommy threw his fist forward, but it phased straight through the God and smashed against the maze wall.

He held his hand to his chest. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me my brother and Niki are cursed?”

Dream didn’t entertain his questions.

“You fucking bitch. I was alone all this time when I could’ve been with them!” he rested against the wall, his body defeated. “Why am I different?”

Dream stepped forward and towered over him. “You’re special.” His mask glistened.

“How?” he spat, anger seething on his tongue.

“You’re special to me.”

Tommy tried to hit him and his knuckles scratched against the wall, bleeding gold instead of red.

“Stop hurting yourself,” Dream ordered. Tommy did it again, over and over until he collapsed onto the cold floor.

Tommy sniffed, the exhaustion and pain catching up to him.

“How do I know you’re even real?” his bleary eyes tried to remain open. “Nihachu didn’t know who you were.”

“I’m real, Tommy.” Dream’s hand cupped his cheek, the gentle grip conflicting him. “I’ll tell you more in time.”

“I don’t have time!”

Dream’s hold on him tightened, his fingers grazing past his chin as Tommy’s eyes closed. “Then pay attention.”

The touch disappeared and Tommy’s back resigned against the wall. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know Dream had left him in the void. Alone again.

All Tommy wanted to do was eat his cereal upstairs in peace. He woke up literally dying, but without the permanence of death—his curse made it that overdosing didn’t kill him but it sure did hurt. He could barely feel his pulse, he breathed like one of those inbred pugs with respiratory problems and his body felt like he was in Antarctica with Techno’s polar bear Steve. Speaking of Techno, the fucker wouldn’t leave him alone.  

“Techno, please, let me eat my Coco Pops,” Tommy whined as he sat on the edge of his bed with the bowl in his hands. Techno scowled at him from the door frame and shook his head. “Dude, what did I do?”

“You know what you did.”

“If this is about me lying to you like literal months ago when I said that Will ate the last of your waffles, I’m not sorry and I’d do it again.”

“Oh I already knew about that, I just wanted an excuse to beat up Wilbur.” Techno crossed his arms and succeeded in coming across as threatening as possible. “But, this is about him.”

Tommy frowned. For once in his life, he wasn’t admiring the ominous aura Techno had, because frankly, the man was confusing the fuck out of him.

“Remember to put the printed paper that tells you about the medication and side effects back into the box next time you steal Wilbur’s meds,” Techno said.

Oh fuck.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tommy replied, twitching under the harsh glare of Techno.

“Look, I don’t want to go through the stages of grief with you.”

“What?” Tommy said as Techno rolled his eyes.

“You make it so easy to bully you. You’re in denial. I know you took his meds.” Techno stepped closer into his room. “I monitor whether Wilbur takes his medication, he’s not subtle either with flushing it half the time, and one of the strips is missing from the kitchen.”

“Is big brother Technoblade gonna kill me?” Tommy knew that taunting the man who could currently blackmail him to death wasn’t the smartest choice, but he did it anyway.

“No, but I can tell Phil and—”

“Don’t!” he shouted, straining his throat. “I just needed to sleep, okay? I won’t do it again.”

“Good.” Techno walked back into the corridor, satisfied. “Now come downstairs, you’re ruining breakfast.”

“I would’ve never thought you’d be the sworn protector of family breakfast.”

“I am one yell away from notifying everyone in this household that you stole drugs.”

Tommy flipped him off but did, very reluctantly, follow Techno downstairs with his cereal bowl.

❊❊❊

The next day at school, Tommy travelled from his English class to the bench uncomfortable. Maybe it was because Clementine had been off sick today so having to deal with analysing Macbeth wasn’t as entertaining as it usually was. Or perhaps it was because the side effects of shoving two hundred milligrams of an unprescribed antidepressant into your system just to harass a God still hadn’t left his system. But Tommy knew the true reason: he was terrified of what would happen after school. Phil had found a therapist for both him and Wilbur, arranging for different people but the sessions would occur at the same time in the same building. And he was slightly regretting agreeing to it all.

He sat down on the bench, not partaking in Tubbo and Ranboo’s avid conversation about the dreams Tubbo had about Soviet Russian human experiments. Though, the mention of his name did scare him.

“Tommy, I just said that you were one of the doctors who forced a syringe of radioactive substances into my neck and you haven’t even reacted.”

He blinked, staring wide at the pair. “What in the actual fuck—”

“Okay, I’ve got your attention now. What’s up?” Tubbo asked, resting his hand under his chin as if he hadn’t just said the weirdest shit Tommy had ever heard.

“You could’ve done anything else to get my attention and not be gruesome.”

Both Tubbo and Ranboo stayed silent, and Tommy groaned, knowing they wouldn’t say anything until he answered.

“Guess who has therapy after school.”

“Would I be correct to say you?” Ranboo said.

“Yep.”

“What’s my prize for guessing it right?”

“A hug.”

“Really?”

“Fuck no.”

Tommy laughed as Ranboo crossed his arms as exaggeratively as possible since his mask and sunglasses covered his anger.

“Don’t worry, you’ll ace this,” Tubbo encouraged.

“I’ll ace therapy?”

“Dude, I don’t know, but I had to say something.”

Ranboo put his hand over Tubbo’s mouth. “Just take it easy and don’t feel like you’re obligated to share anything you don’t want to, especially on the first session. They’re there for you.”

“You are finally proving your use to me,” Tommy said.

“How do you turn everything nice I do for you into an insult?”

“That’s not my problem.”

“It’s a problem you cause!”

Tubbo bit Ranboo’s hand until he took it off his mouth. “But yeah, you’ve got this boss man. You can come round mine after if it goes badly. Wii bowling is a great way to get out anger.”

“Or cause anger,” Ranboo added, holding his gloved hand that had been assaulted by Tubbo’s teeth close to his chest.

“Nah, I have an agreement with Will to hang out with him after, but thanks anyway.”

“Now that’s over, can I go back to explaining my Russian dreams now?”

“No!” both Ranboo and Tommy yelled.

❊❊❊

It seemed that Wilbur was even more nervous for therapy, with how the man hadn’t said a word since they got in the car to drive to the place. He also completely froze when the receptionist asked for their appointment, which pretty much confirmed that Wilbur did not want to be here.

“We’re Wilbur Craft and Tommy Idelle for the appointments at three-thirty,” Tommy said over the counter, pulling Wilbur to his side before he could get the chance to run out the building. If it were any other circumstances, Tommy would’ve made fun of Wilbur for crumbling at a balding middle-aged man who looked like he wasn’t paid enough to do deal with this.

They were given directions to floor three, where both their different therapists were located. Tommy had an iron grip on Wilbur’s arm as he tugged him in the elevator lift. The music that sounded like one of those ‘study with me Lo-fi beats’ did not help.

“You can back out after if you think your therapist is shit, but you have to do this session,” Tommy declared, loosening his grip as they reached their floor.

“I can’t believe I’m being pushed around by a child,” Wilbur grumbled.

“This child is walking you to your therapist’s door, you ungrateful bitch.” Tommy pushed him in front of the door and knocked for him. “I’ll meet you in the reception after. I hope you cry.”

Wilbur flicked his forehead. “Go cry over your own trauma first, dickhead.”

“Will do!” Tommy called as he knocked on his therapist’s door.

A short woman with split-dyed brown and white hair opened the door. She had a spirited smile and open eyes that radiated warmth and safety, though her red blazer and white vest did throw him off—she looked like a sailor.

He entered the room and sat down on the chair facing the desk which had a plaque on it named ‘Captain Puffy’, only the captain part was written on a piece of paper and stuck over what it said prior.

“Would you like a drink before we introduce ourselves?” the woman asked. Of course his therapist was American. Why can he never catch a break?

She gestured towards the minifridge next to her desk and Tommy took a can of Coke out of it.

“Right then, I’m Dr Puffy, but you can just call me Puffy, and I’ve been assigned for you,” Puffy said, opening her can of Green Monster (what kind of therapist drunk that shit whilst on the job?). “I’m more of a conversational therapist, so think of it as floor one of a video game.”

She stopped talking and Tommy narrowed his eyes at her. She hadn’t even taken a sip of her drink, yet she acted as if she had downed it already with how much energy she exhibited.

“I’m Tommy,” he said, not sure what else to say. “Hi.”

Her smile changed into a more welcoming one, but her eyes stayed the same. “Hi, would you like to tell me why you booked a therapist here?”

“I have an agreement with my foster brother. I’m only here so he does therapy as well,” it was partly a lie but Tommy didn’t see anything wrong with lying to her (despite how she was there to help him, so maybe that was a dumb move).

“Well, that’s quite nice of you to support your foster brother like that. How long have you been housed with him?”

“I got there at the beginning of November.”

“Ah, so three months.” Tommy nodded, a chill ran down his neck as he hadn’t realised how long he’d been living there. “Even though you are here because of your foster brother, you can still use our services. Anyone can have therapy, no matter the state of their mental health.”

Now, Tommy knew he didn’t have the perfect mental health a person his age should—well technically, for someone born in 1509, he should be dead—but his problems weren’t that bad. Maybe he should discuss with Puffy his tendency to lie to himself as well. Though, he went with blurting out the words on the top of his head instead.

“Why’d you look like a sailor?”

Puffy straightened her blazer. “I’ve been told I dress before my time so I just embrace it. Sure, it is a bit unprofessional in this setting, but I think it adds character.”

“I like it.”

“Thank you, my boss would disagree though.”

“Fuck them,” she laughed as Tommy’s face reddened. “Wait, not like that, I mean, screw them. No, like—”

“I know what you mean, don’t worry.” She continued to laugh until Tommy had drunk his entire Coke can to avoid further embarrassment.

“Nothing I say leaves this room, right? And you can’t judge me?” he asked after the small silence.

At Puffy’s confirmation, Tommy was tempted to just bust out with an entire monologue about his problems centred around cyclical reincarnation, confusing myths and Gods who wouldn’t leave him the fuck alone. But he didn’t want to be misdiagnosed with a mental disorder, which would happen if he told the absolute truth.

“I’m a foster kid,” was what he said instead. “Are you going to psychoanalyse me for saying that?”

“I’m not one to psychoanalyse, especially without someone’s consent. I can only make inferences, but if I did make any from just that, it would be an ignorant generalisation.”

“Is that the special way of saying, it’s inappropriate for me to do that but I’ll kinda do it anyway?”

Puffy leaned forward. “Do you want me to?”

He bit on his cheek. He always thrived with bouncing off people who had no backbone or initiative to be blunt. But Puffy seemed to match his energy.

“Do it,” he challenged before he could regret it. “Be as brutal as possible.”

Puffy stood up and gestured for him to do the same. He straightened his posture and tried to act as normal as possible, but as she walked closer and circled around him, he tensed. Her eyebrows furrowed and her jaw clenched with concentration. Tommy gulped, not expecting such a scrutinising gaze from a therapist, yet he did kinda ask for it, and according to Reddit, people who had psychology degrees were judgemental as fuck. (But since when was Reddit a credible source?).

She faced him again and sat back down. “Do you want the good or bad news first?”

“Bad news.”

Puffy grinned. “Bad news: I’m not trained to psychoanalyse people.”

“So you just made me stand up for nothing?” Tommy gaped at her.

“Not for nothing, but maybe for my own entertainment.” He stifled a laugh. “But the good news, from my untrained perspective, I think you’re a nice kid since you’re doing this for your foster brother. You might have some unsolved issues with how you wanted me to think badly of you and feed into the stereotype already placed on you by your fostering agency.”

Ignoring her complimenting him, he agreed with her. “Linda Smith is the spawn of Satan.”

“Your social worker, I presume?” Tommy nodded.

“She attached labels to me before I even met her,” he scoffed. “A problem child, a pathological liar who looks for trouble and fights.”

“Well, without meeting her, I think the label of the spawn of Satan fits her pretty well,” Puffy said and Tommy smiled. “Do you want to talk more about your experience with foster care?”

He liked having the option of whether he wanted to talk about it or not. Having a choice and free will was rare to someone whose life was predestined and out of their control. There was probably a loophole in bringing up his curse to talk about without the fear of being put in an asylum.

“I’ve been placed in many homes, some lasting just for a week and others for months. The most important ones I’ve assigned names to. Well, they’re more Greek myths. My first house is Theseus, then Icarus, Orpheus, and Sisyphus,” he eventually said, bullshitting on the spot.

Puffy seemed interested. “What inspired the names?”

“They resemble the lessons I’ve learnt with each house.”

“Oh, so with your second home, with Icarus, you learnt to either control your ambition or listen to your elders?”

If being ambitious and careless meant attempting to overthrow a village cult in 15th century Transylvania, then yes, Puffy was correct. He should’ve listened to the elderly women in his village as well when they told him not to set fire to the Church. Icarus was a life he preferred not to think about, for his sanity’s sake.

“Yeah and with Theseus, I learnt not to trust green men or I’ll be stabbed in the stomach and pushed off a cliff.” Puffy blinked at him, stumped. “Metaphorically, of course.”

“Of course, I wouldn’t think a green Teletubby would push you off a cliff anyway.” Tommy chuckled at her words, Dream did remind him of a Teletubby. “Uh, what about Orpheus?”

“Smallpox was a dangerous disease,” Tommy explained, referring to Deo’s death, his Eurydice.

He would be lying if Puffy’s rising confusion didn’t amuse him. “And Sisyphus?”

Tommy’s amusement dropped. He couldn’t joke about that.

“I learnt that… that no matter how hard I try, I will never achieve what I want. It will always be out of reach.”

“Oh,” Puffy mumbled. “I’m guessing this house meant the most to you, whether that’s negatively or positively.”

“It had the most recent impact, yeah. I’ve got mental baggage now, or whatever that means. Wilbur said it once in a song.”

“What about your current placement? Do you have a myth for this one yet?” Puffy asked.

“No. No, that’s what I need to figure out before it’s too late.”

“Too late?”

Tommy glanced down at his right arm, despite how he had long sleeves, the stain on his wrist never left his mind. He could almost feel his upcoming birthday in April get closer and closer just by thinking about his tattoo.

“I end up ruining good things, this included,” he muttered.

“How so?”

In every life, no matter how attached he was to it, he always ended up alone. It didn’t even matter if it was his fault at this point because the first thing he saw after each death was a masked man there to remind him of his failure. Dream loved to rub it in that Tommy could never guess his myth correctly.

“I feel like I’m cursed, it’s inevitable for it to end badly,” he winced as his tattoo stung from under his sleeve. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“That’s fine. We can talk about something else,” Puffy said, her smile reassuring him.

He hesitated to answer. Maybe he could ask about what he should do with Niki, but he’d rather not get into that just yet, especially on the first session.

So instead he asked, “Have you seen the movie ‘Moana’?”

It was obvious to say that this therapy session ended on a weird note.

❊❊❊

The same nerves Tommy had when entering the building had disappeared as he waited in the reception for Wilbur’s session to finish. Though, the anxiety returned at the sight of Wilbur, who had bloodshot eyes and a red nose. Obviously, Wilbur did not discuss Dwyane The Rock Johnson (yes that was his full name to Tommy) and the logistics of ‘Moana’ with his therapist.  

“Will? You alright?” Tommy asked, softly, as Wilbur stopped in front of the lounge chairs.

“It seems I may have underestimated the number of issues I’ve been bottling up.”

“You fucking think?” Tommy couldn’t stop himself to say, gesturing to the tear tracks down Wilbur’s face. Wilbur snorted and retrieved the used tissue from his pocket to wipe his eyes. “You good, though?”

“Let’s go get something to eat.” Wilbur walked out of the reception.

“That doesn’t answer my question!” Tommy said as he rushed to follow him into the carpark.

After another silent car ride, the two entered the local café—Tommy was glad that Niki wasn’t working today, he couldn’t handle seeing her right now. They sat at his normal table by the back.

4/3: Family Chat

Phil: How did therapy go?

Tommy: Dr Pussy is cool

               PUSFY*

               PUFFY**

               SORRY AUTOCORRECT

Technoblade: …

Tommy: shut the fuck up

Phil: We’ll talk more about this more when you get home.

Tommy looked up from his phone, face flushed with embarrassment, and blinked at the waiter Wilbur was talking to. He ordered a side of chips and frowned at Wilbur after the waiter left.

“So was your therapist nice—?”

“I’m not talking about this right now,” Wilbur interrupted and wrapped his coat tighter around him.

“Fine, fine, I’m just saying, you’d be jealous of the one I have,” Tommy said. “Do you think this has potential though?”

Wilbur rolled his eyes but answered anyway. “Eventually, I think it’ll help. I just don’t react well to people pointing out all the flaws in my thinking process.”

“Did you punch them?”

“I’m not listening to you anymore.”

Wilbur grabbed his AirPods from his pocket. Tommy glared at him until Wilbur tossed him one of the earbuds. Yet, he regretted it when Wilbur put on a song.

“What the fuck is this emo shit? Wilbur, I am not listening to your angst edit audios playlist after a fucking therapy session.”

“You put on something then.”

Tommy snatched the phone off him and grinned when Wilbur groaned at the song he chose.

“You have a problem with ‘Mr. Brightside’, bitch?”

Wilbur slammed his head on the table.

“Listening to sad songs will make it worse,” Tommy said, ruffling the man’s hair to irritate him more.

“So ‘The Killers’ will make it better?”

“Is it working?”

Wilbur raised his head from the table and scowled. “You are so annoying.”

Tommy smiled widely. “It’s working.”

Now, Tommy had many enemies but he would never wish upon them having to sit through two hours of English class with Miss King. Most of his enemies were dead yet his point still stands. His teacher peaked in her twenties when she had a youthful face, a role in the theatres and hadn’t developed a nicotine addiction yet.

The only part of his English lessons he enjoyed was the running commentary he got from the person to his left. Clementine, a girl with dark tanned skin and pink butterfly clips in her brown hair, practically carried the class. If Miss asked a question and no one answered, she’d just volunteer the most random shit—she once compared Romeo and Juliet to ‘Twilight’ (she did make good points though).

But the way Miss King droned on about a specific poem even drained Clementine, who kept drawing flowers Tommy’s clear pencil case rather than paying attention to the teacher’s unanswered questions.

When she had finished her drawing, he gathered up enough confidence to bother her.

“Clem, you know girls, right?” he asked, not too sure on how to start this conversation. The whole issue with Niki had been irritating him this entire week and he didn’t know what to do.

“Well, I am one, so yes. Why?” she said as she closed the cap of her pen.

Tommy leaned closer to her. “Okay, this is hypothetical and does not apply to me. So, a girl, who’s like a big sister to this person, betrayed them years ago but now it seems like she’s sorry and has changed. Should I- should they just get over it or…?”

“What did this girl do to betray you?” Clementine asked, smiling widely when Tommy frowned.

“I didn’t say this was about me.”

“Tommy, you do not have a subtle bone in your body,” she said. “Answer the question.”

He glared and she returned the look, only a thousand times harsher until he answered, “She basically left me when I was in a bad place mentally.”

“Oh.” Clementine’s glare softened. “I wasn’t expecting that. How has she showed she’s sorry or has changed?”

Tommy bit on his cheek as he recalled his conversation with Niki—it was something he tried to forget ever since the following Dream visit.

“She hasn’t apologised, but she’s dyed her hair.”

“I was aiming for changes like emotional maturement or improvement, rather than long-term hair damage,” Clementine said.

Tommy shrugged and she rolled her eyes.

“In my opinion, you should first focus on healing or whatever from the betrayal and bad place you were in. Then, it’s a matter of her apologising and whether you choose to forgive her or not,” she explained, not caring the teacher was openly staring at the two of them talking.

“What if this betrayal is deeply rooted trauma and not something I could get over in time?”

“Get drunk or get a therapist, I don’t know,” she muttered as Tommy sighed. “Don’t look at me like that, you came to me for advice.”

Tommy banged his head on the table. “Ugh, thanks anyway.”

“Now that’s over, help me analyse this poem.”

“Clem, Ozymandias isn’t that deep, you don’t need to analyse it again.”

“Say that again, I dare you,” she threatened, holding her pen fiercely as if she was about to shank him.

“Fucking hell, fine, I’ll help.”

She grinned and handed him her green highlighter.

❊❊❊

He didn’t expect to see Techno at the wheel of Wilbur’s car when he reached the carpark after school had finished.

Tommy opened the door and scowled at Wilbur, who was in his seat at the front. “I usually sit there.”

“Cope,” Wilbur replied. He flicked Wilbur on the forehead before getting into the back of the car.

“Why is Techno here, anyway?” Tommy asked as Techno began driving. He did appreciate how Techno was more careful with driving since Wilbur normally sped out of the school main road and tried to run over the year nine’s who didn’t look before crossing.

“MCC is soon. You need training,” Techno said.

“What the fuck is MCC?”

“It’s the school’s sports day. Technoblade here takes it very seriously despite not even being a student anymore,” Wilbur answered, patting Techno on the shoulder as he spoke.

Tommy wouldn’t have thought that Techno would be this invested in sport’s day, especially for a twenty-year-old man with a fully paying job. But Techno was competitive.

“Why do we need training?”

“Because you need to win,” Techno said with too much emotion needed for a fucking sport’s day tournament.

“This is sad man, you’re living vicariously through a fifteen-year-old.”

“Do you want an MCC coin or not?”

“A coin? Does it look cool?” Tommy asked and Techno nodded. “Fine, what training?”

“I’ll show you PowerPoints in how to get the fastest times in some of the games, but for now, we’re building up your stamina.”

“You fucking nerd. PowerPoints?”

“Don’t mock this, he’s the reason why I got an MCC coin,” Wilbur defended.

Techno parked near the football field and threw sports gear at both of them when they exited the car. “Get changed in the bathrooms and prepare yourselves for a five-mile run.”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“No, he’s trying to kill us,” Wilbur corrected as he unfolded the clothes in his arms.

Techno didn’t deny their words and pointed at the public bathrooms, too smug for his own good. Tommy groaned and followed Wilbur, knowing that his lungs were about to be abused—it wasn’t his fault that he was slightly below average with his athleticism.

The torture lasted hours and if you asked Tommy, he was not being a little bitch for sulking in the front seat of the car on their way back home. At every red light, Wilbur did another mocking action whilst he called Tommy a ‘little baby man’ and Techno laughed from the backseat.

The exercise Techno forced him to do would have killed him if he didn’t have slight immortality; he had never run so much in his life (and he had been through many wars). Halfway through their run, Techno decided to heckle them from the stands and cheered whenever Wilbur tripped Tommy over.

“I hope you crash this car. My body could not be more damaged than it already is,” Tommy retorted as he rubbed the mud off his knees.

Techno kicked the back of his seat. “You’re exaggerating.”

“Yeah, stop complaining,” Wilbur said and reached over to ruffle his hair.

“Dude, focus on the fucking road unless you actually want to crash the car!” Tommy shouted.

“I’ll have you know, I haven’t hit anyone.”

“Yet.”

“Shut up, I’m gonna be one teaching you how to drive,” Wilbur said, grinning at the fear on Tommy’s face.

“He has no chance of passing then,” Techno added, making Tommy laugh.

He would rather have driving lessons from Techno than Wilbur when he turns seventeen—

His throat choked up and his stomach dropped. He’d never been seventeen before.

He never will be unless he figured out his myth. It was February and he had until April. Fucking April.

All the unleashed tears he stifled at nights where his hands ached from writing in that stupid notebook caught up to him. Who was he kidding at this point? His attempts at researching his myth were futile. Pointless endeavours to cling to the family he always dreamed for and couldn’t keep when they were finally here.

He hated how he wasn’t born into this family, didn’t have hundreds of more memories of car trips with Wilbur and Techno—he would’ve had more than six months with them and that was all he ever wanted. He would’ve grown old with them, one day become better than Techno at fencing, learn how to drive from Wilbur and maybe even be there when he became a musician and performed his heart out on stage. He wanted to be Phil’s son, his actual son. Tommy would do anything just to wake up every morning and not be scared that this might be the last he has with them.

He didn’t realise he was crying until Wilbur parked into their driveway.

“Tommy, you coming?” Techno asked as he exited the car.

“Toms?” Wilbur said, softer.

He rubbed harshly at his face and opened the door.

“I’m gonna go round Tubbo’s house,” he murmured before walking away, ignoring Wilbur calling out for him to come back.

The tightness in his chest amplified as he rushed down the street, his vision blurred from the tears. He didn’t expect the reminder that he’d never reach seventeen and enjoy those moments to hit him so hard. Hiccups broke Tommy’s attempts to breathe as sobs reaped from his heart.

Tubster:

Tommy: tubbo open your door before I kick it down.

               please I need your help

Tubbo: coming

He tried to control his breathing as he waited, gripping his arms around himself to stay grounded. Tubbo opened the door, took one look at the state Tommy was in and ushered him inside his house. The next thing Tommy knew he was sitting on Tubbo’s bed, his back against the bed frame with a box of tissues placed in front of him.

He couldn’t think straight. The realisation that he had less than three months of this—belonging to a family, surrounded by people who cared about him—left until it was all gone, until he was all gone, overwhelmed him.

“I don’t know how to comfort people,” Tubbo said as he sat opposite him. “Wait here.”

Tubbo grabbed the ukulele from the corner of his room and got back on the bed.

“You cry whilst I play the same song over and over again until you feel better.” Tommy snorted into the tissue, only Tubbo could make him laugh whilst in the middle of a mental breakdown. “‘Riptide’ time!”

He leaned more against Tubbo’s bed and breathed heavily, trying to stop it from hitching, as Tubbo played his ukulele. Surprisingly enough, Tubbo’s rendition of the song was pretty calming to hear (besides the times he messed up the chords and shouted various swearwords, scaring the shit out of Tommy—though the jump scares did get rid of Tommy’s hiccups).

An hour passed and Tubbo had moved onto ‘Wonderwall’, yet he made up his own lyrics after repeating the song twice. Tommy sat up, a lodge still stuck in his throat, but he knew that was all in his head, it wouldn’t leave until the thoughts did. At least he had stopped crying.

“You wanna talk about what caused all this?” Tubbo asked as he absently strummed random chords.

He was tempted to lie, to say that it was stress caused by other events that he didn’t care about. Like how he had exams coming up for school, preparing for his GCSEs that he would never sit since those begin in May and—

Maybe let’s not talk about that.

Tubbo put his ukulele down and moved closer to him, just close enough so their shoulders touched. “What’s wrong, Tommy?”

He shouldn’t have come here. As much as he frequently annoyed Tubbo, he was one of the only people who he couldn’t ignore, he couldn’t lie to him. He could lie to Ranboo, sure, but not Tubbo (that was another lie). He had a problem with doing that.

“I’ve never felt part of a family before, since ages ago,” since the pain and grief of Theseus, “and I don’t know how to feel.”

Sighing, Tommy turned to face Tubbo, which was another mistake since now he definitely couldn’t lie to him now.

“I want to be close to them, be part of their family but… I’m scared I’m going to ruin it,” he rubbed at his left wrist. “I am going to ruin it, just like I always fucking do. I know it.”

“How would you ruin it?” Tubbo asked, quietly, holding the hand Tommy was scratching himself with.

“I have something I need to figure out about myself, and if I don’t work it out, it’s just going to take away everything I have here.”

It would take him away from them, permanently. He wasn’t even scared of dying at this point, it was the leaving the living behind that terrified him.

“You having an identity crisis or something?” Tubbo suggested. Tommy chuckled dryly, it did sound like he was without context.

“Kinda, but not in the way you’re thinking,” he said, staring down at their joined hands. He wouldn’t call a curse from a God an identity crisis, but the crisis part was correct.

“Tommy, you deserve a family even if you think you’ll do something to fuck it up,” Tubbo said. “I’ve fucked up before with how I treated Niki at the beginning of her adoption, but she forgave me because she’s my family.”

“I’ve done it before. I’m the reason my first family fell apart, it’s always my fault,” Tommy whispered, his voice weak.

He remembered his brother’s maddened words in the caves of Pogtopia, the cruel blame placed on him by the man who raised him, and the guilt that followed after he thought he was enough for his big brother to stay.

“It takes everyone in a family for it to fall apart, Tommy. Not just you.” Tubbo threaded their fingers together. “You are a part of Phil’s family, whether you like it or not. It’s up to you to embrace that.”

Tommy sighed again and rested his head on Tubbo’s shoulder, not caring that the position was awkward due to their height difference.

“Thanks, Tubs,” he mumbled. “Sorry for springing this onto you.”

“I prefer playing the ukulele to you crying than doing my homework,” Tubbo said and Tommy giggled into his shoulder.

“Shut the fuck up.”

A creaking sound came from the window. “Aw man, did I miss a bonding moment?”

“Ranboo what did I tell you about climbing through my window without warning me?” Tubbo complained as if this was a normal occurrence (which it was).

“You wouldn’t answer your phone, so scaling your house was the only appropriate option,” Ranboo replied.

“You couldn’t just knock at the door?”

“I get nervous, okay!”

Tommy laughed again; he was glad Ranboo was here.

❊❊❊

As Tommy walked into his house, he stopped himself from addressing Dream by his full name and guessing the myth Pandora. Just the sight of everyone in the living room with Linda Smith and her fucking notepad waiting for him made him want to incorrectly guess his myth and die.

“Fuck off Linda, I’m not dealing with your shit,” he snapped and hurried up the stairs, slamming his bedroom door shut behind him.

His head hurt enough already, but now he had this bitch to deal with. Kinoko Foster Care really took the whole ‘unsuspected visits’ and ran with it.

He shrugged off his coat and collapsed onto the bed, hoping for the covers to smother him to death. Not even the cute, beady eyes of Henry could save Tommy from this fuckery. He grabbed his notebook from under his pillow and opened it to a new page.

Whilst delaying the inevitable visit from Linda, he might as well be productive with it. Last night he had the idea to write down all the events that had happened in this current life and attach themes to them. So far he had written down:

- Don’t remember actual parents =

abandoned.

- Family vloggers as parents(?) =

violent, unfaithful marriage, hated children.

- Snitched on family vloggers to police =

betrayal.

- Current home =

second chance (hopefully).

Though it didn’t help much since betrayal, unfaithful marriages and hatred for children were popular themes in Greek mythology, especially with how the literal birth story for the Titans and Olympians applied to these.

He should probably add details of his Dream visits in there as well.

The knocking on his door was too annoying and patronising for it to not be Linda. She opened his door; the pestering sound of her cheap heels digging into the floor alerted him that she was in his room. Linda Smith didn’t deserve the attention, so he just went with ignoring her.

“You still writing in that book?” she asked—well, more like demanded, but she never got her way with Tommy.

“Why’s this any of your business?” he bit back, not looking up from his notebook.

“Sudden mood changes are a concern.” She said the word ‘concern’ as if it was a threat, which it probably was since a certain amount of concerns resulted in relocation.

“As if you fucking care.”

A tense silence followed; if he was looking at her, her face was probably all screwed up with disgust at him disrespecting her so-called authority.

“At least your room is decorated,” she said and scribbled more down in her notepad. “These your friends?”

He had stuck more printed pictures of what he had taken in school onto his wall (including one where Ranboo was trying to stuff Tubbo into a locker). He didn’t answer her question and instead added more information to his notebook, such as ‘antagonistic women wanting to make my life a living hell’. That was a common feature for every single Greek myth that involved Hera, Queen of Olympus, and Goddess of marriage.

“Tom, as your social worker—”

“Don’t call me that,” he interrupted, anger thick on his tongue.

“You need to cooperate with me.”

Tommy closed his notebook shut. “I’m not being neglected, malnourished or abused here. Now, can you stop pretending that you give a shit about your social worker protocol and get the fuck out of my home?”

“Your home?” she repeated. “That’s the first I’ve heard you call your fostering placement that.”

“Is it bad that I think of it as one?” he asked, daring her to disagree.

“It’s not bad. But it’s surprising.” Linda wrote another line into her notepad, disregarding the piercing glare Tommy sent her way.

She cleared her throat and opened his door again.

“I’ll conclude this as a short visit. I’ve got enough from the conversation I had with the family earlier.”

Tommy frowned, not liking the smirk on her face. She left his room before he could question her about what they talked about, which was more of a blessing—anything she said was utter bullshit.

He got changed and waited to hear the front door shut before going back downstairs. They were still sat on the sofas; Phil had paperwork in his hands which he sorted into a folder.

Not wasting a second, Tommy jumped onto the sofa and laid his head on Phil’s lap. He was too tired and drained to give a fuck. He turned to face himself more into Phil’s side until he was content.

“Did she bother you that much?” Phil asked as he combed his fingers through Tommy’s hair.

“Can I start a petition to revoke Linda Smith’s British citizenship?” Tommy asked, his words muffled.

Wilbur scoffed lightly from where he sat on the other end of the sofa. “You support Brexit or some shit?”

“Shut up, you’re the fucking Tory,” Tommy shot back, shuffling so he could see Wilbur. “You probably voted for UKIP.”

“Well, if you want to discuss British politics—”

“No,” Phil interjected, knowing that Wilbur could rant for hours about the problems with how much money the government funded to militarisation and defence.

“Let the man speak,” Techno encouraged.

“Would you prefer American politics then, Dad?”

“Shut,” Phil shouted light-heartedly. Tommy laughed and closed his eyes, leaning into Phil, who put his arm around him.

“Philza Minecraft, you are the bravest man I’ve ever met,” Tommy said, gazing up at him.

Phil knew what that look meant. “What do you want?”

“Can we get Dominos and watch Netflix?”

“We’re getting the chocolate cookies,” Techno added, knowing that Phil would cave in.

“Fine.”

“If you put on a Marvel film Tommy, I’m spitting in your pizza,” Wilbur said, glaring across at him.

Tommy sat up and chucked a pillow at Wilbur, only to scurry back to Phil’s side when Wilbur caught it.

“If you hit me, you hit Phil!”

Wilbur threw the pillow anyway.

If Tommy was honest to himself, he really shouldn’t spend most of his therapy sessions with Puffy just talking shit about Linda Smith. Puffy never tried to change the subject or direct it to something else, like maybe the massive number of issues and underlying trauma he had picked up from centuries of death and torment from Dream. But, as always, Tommy preferred to ignore that and talk about something else.

Nonetheless, he did get some heat off his chest with slagging off Linda for a solid hour—Puffy had to calm him down when he got a bit too into describing what he would do to Linda in a lawless world. Apparently wanting to curb stomp an elderly woman who was there to help foster children was an immoral thing to say (Puffy seemed to want to fight the women as well though).

The agreement he had with Wilbur was what he liked most out of these therapy sessions. This time, they sat on a picnic bench in the local park, snacking on the meal deals they bought from the Tesco Express. Wilbur still came out of his session crying, but it wasn’t as bad as the last. A triple chicken sandwich distracted Wilbur enough.

“What do you talk about with your therapist to get you all… crying and shit?” Tommy asked as he took another bite from his sandwich.

“Stop talking with your mouth full, you disgusting child,” Wilbur scolded. “And uh, we talked about my mum.”

Tommy sipped on his drink as Wilbur fiddled with his hands, something he regularly did.

“I told him about the song I made about her and the idea I had to turn it into something else,” he explained, peering past Tommy’s head, almost as if he wasn’t able to look Tommy in his eyes.

“‘Your Mother Was Right’?”

“Yeah, that one. I might just base it on a past breakup I had during year twelve,” Wilbur said, looking back down at his hands. “God, her sister hated me during that relationship.”

Tommy threw his Mars bar at Wilbur, catching his attention. He didn’t like the anxiety rummaging in Wilbur’s head. “Were you a dickhead or something?”

Wilbur chuckled humourlessly. “Yep. Some general advice for you: don’t go into a relationship with someone after a family death. It’s not a good idea.”

“Her sister was right to hate you then,” Tommy joked, hoping that if he treated this entire thing like a piss-take, then Wilbur would do the same. It was usually how he got out of dealing with sadness.

“Thanks for the new song title.”

“Credit me, you prick.”

Brown eyes stared back at him, glinted with hilarity. “Nope.”

“You are the worst person I have ever met.”

“The worst person you have ever met literally bought you your food,” Wilbur quipped back, his shoulders more relaxed than before.

“Don’t gloat over buying me a three pound meal deal, that’s just sad.”

There was a sudden pause before the two burst out laughing. Warmth radiated in his chest, melting the Spring chill on his skin as Wilbur beamed at him, all anxiety forgotten about. He liked it better this way.

“Will, with your album,” Tommy began, his voice softer than usual. “Would you ever sing them to me?”

“If this goes well, I’ll sing them to everyone. You and Technoblade first,” Wilbur said with a timid smile.

“Why Techno?”

“I crave his validation.”

“From The Blade?” Tommy asked, his scowl creasing as Wilbur nodded. “You are a sad, sad man.”

“You keep calling me sad today.”

Tommy pointed to the opened tissue packet on the table and Wilbur whacked his hand away.

“What about singing them to Phil?” he asked.

Wilbur put down his sandwich. “He’ll be the hardest to do them to.”

“Well, I’ll have you know, I am the harshest song critic that you will ever meet. So, it should be worse to perform it to me,” Tommy replied, grinning.

The man rolled his eyes half-heartedly. “If you’re there as well, I’ll sing them to Dad later on.”

“I’ll be there,” Tommy said, his throat strained as he willed himself to forget that if Wilbur didn’t perform before the ninth of April, he wouldn’t be here at all.

Wilbur’s lips formed into a smile, his eyes lingering on Tommy before he continued eating his sandwich.

Tommy’s phone vibrated on the picnic table. He grimaced and hesitated before replying.

Niki<3:

Niki: I need to talk to you if that’s alright.

Tommy: I’m in the park with wilbur. you can join us if you want

He put his phone back on the bench, no longer hungry.

“Who was that?” Wilbur asked.

“Niki, she needs to talk to me.”

“What about?”

Tommy froze. “Maths.”

“Maths?” Wilbur repeated, sceptical.

“Yep, mathematics, Pythagoras, equilateral triangles and all that,” Tommy rambled, avoiding eye contact.

“You’re so shit at lying,” Wilbur scoffed. “I’ll leave you two alone when she comes.”

“Good, I don’t think you’d want to be here when we go on our rants about how much we dislike Wilbur Craft.”

“You are the reason I need therapy.”

“No, I’m the reason you’re getting therapy.”

Wilbur ruffled his hair harshly from across the table. “Disrespect me again, I dare you.”

“You are a bitch,” Tommy exclaimed as he tried to fight against Wilbur’s hold on him.

The two continued to attack each other across the picnic table until a feminine voice interjected from behind them, “Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh hey Niki, you can join me in beating the shit out of Tommy if you want,” Wilbur said nonchalantly as he strangled the boy.

“This is child abuse!”

Niki pulled Wilbur’s ear until he let go of Tommy.

“Niki, what the fuck? You traitor.”

“I came here to talk to Tommy, not to watch him die,” Niki said as she sat beside Wilbur. Her hair was styled differently today, the pink dye had faded and appeared blonder. She was still in her sixth form clothes from school earlier.

“Anyway, Niki do you want the rest of my crisps before I go?” Wilbur offered.

“So you give them to her but not me?”

“Yes.” Tommy gaped at him.

“No thank you, Will,” Niki replied, a small smile on her lips as Tommy glared at Wilbur.

Wilbur stood up and threw the crisp packet in the bin, saluting at an annoyed Tommy as he walked away. Now that it was just Tommy and Niki, the boy grew nervous. He had an idea of what Niki wanted to talk about (since there was only one thing it could be), but he wanted to discuss this with Puffy before he decided if he should forgive Niki or not.  

Ever since he realised she was Nihachu, the physical similarities between the two were obvious, yet the slight differences threw him off. The Nihachu he knew was nineteen, with her youth disrupted by the commotion of warfare and responsibility, and eyes darker, burdened by lives she had slain during the conflict. This Nihachu, this Niki, was younger, more relaxed; there were no scars across her face, no slit in her eyebrow and no bloodshed staining her skin. She was free and that was all Tommy hoped to achieve.

“How are you?” he asked after the silence, not quite sure how to start this conversation or if he should wait for her to say something first.

“I’m fine,” Niki said. She exhaled sharply. “I want to explain myself, or uh, just tell you what I think about all this with our past. If you’ll let me.”

He nodded and Niki sighed again, preparing herself.

“When I joined the Revolution, I always admired you. Even if you annoyed me sometimes with how impulsive you were in battle, that carefree part of you was so… intoxicating. You made me feel lighter, younger whilst we were on the brink of another war. Though, after your brother died, that intoxication I felt died along with him.” Niki fiddled with her necklace as she spoke. “I blamed you for everything, for causing the wars, for instigating more conflict, for- for your brother dying. But even after your exile, the conflict still happened. It wasn’t your doing.”

Tommy pulled his coat around him, hating the self-deprecation plastered on Niki’s face and guilt riddling in her eyes. “But I did cause more conflict—”

“We both wronged each other,” Niki interrupted, taking his hand. “But my wronging of you resulted in your death. So let me apologise, okay?”

He looked down at Niki’s hands; her nails were painted a pastel blue. He remembered how she and Fundy used to gather materials so she could do nail art during the calmer periods before the major wars—they used beeswax, egg whites and dyes from flowers. The result was never pretty, but she loved it, they all loved it. He preferred those times before any of them had taken a life and could never look at an innocent Kingdom civilian the same way.

“You’re right that I did abandon you in exile. I stood by as you were sent away and I regretted that decision every single day until I died on that battlefield. I had failed someone I saw, and still see, as a younger brother.” Tommy flinched and she held his hands tighter. “I failed you Tommy, and I’m so sorry for that.”

A part of him just wanted to say that it was okay, reassure Niki that it was all in the past and didn’t matter anymore. But he didn’t want to lie to himself about this. Even though it was in the past, every single void visit reminded him of his relentless suffering in exile, where a man he thought was his friend, instead of his captor and abuser, never left him alone, never let a day pass without another scar—whether physical or mental—haunting him. It wasn’t okay, and it couldn’t be until he healed from it. Yet that would take years, years he didn’t have.

Niki squeezed his hand softly, snapping him out of his thoughts. Her blue eyes glistened with tears and her eyebrows furrowed. She was waiting for his response, but he didn’t have one.

“You don’t have to forgive me, Tommy,” Niki whispered over the cold wind.

He bit on his cheek and fiddled with the rings on Niki’s fingers. He focused on Clementine’s advice; to recover from this, he needed to know more about the aftermath.

“What was it like after I died?” he asked, his voice hesitant. He hadn’t read this part in his history textbook—he didn’t want to learn about that from an inaccurate and biased point-of-view that butchered Niki’s history as well. He figured out that Nick Chu was Niki; no wonder she hated that class.

“It was peaceful for a while, quieter,” Niki said, her honest words lodging a sword through his heart. “But loveless. The one person who still had joy for the Revolution, optimism for freedom and the compassion to endure as many wars the world threw at them, had gone.”

A tear fell down her cheeks. “Tobias then failed to secure peace and we knew what we had to do. We had to kill George but even our President wasn’t keen on that idea. Either way, our Revolution ended with bloodshed, with mine, Fundy and George’s deaths, and Tobias fled to establish Snowchester.”

Tommy didn’t understand how she could say such news, such events with a soft tone, no bitterness or spite present. But it seemed she used her centuries in the void to accept this. Though he was glad he wasn’t there to see the tragic fate of the Revolution his brother founded, to see his former best friend abandon his people and fellow soldiers die to a losing battle.  

“What was my brother like in the void?” he asked, his eyes lingering on the necklace around Niki’s neck, the one his brother crafted.

Niki fidgeted in her seat. “He was… different. After every rebirth, he came back more broken than before. He asked me to stand at the gates every day he wasn’t there in case you showed up. He may not have shown that he loved you during his last moments alive, but he did. He did love you.”

Tommy believed her words, or at least wanted to believe they were true. He savoured the times where his brother wasn’t destroyed by Eret’s betrayal, corrupting the fight for freedom into a quest for power and control. He missed the man who always drew small circles into Tommy’s shoulder with his thumb whenever they hugged, the man who gazed at Tommy as if he was the only shining star in the empty sky. He loved the man his brother used to be. He wasn’t sure about the man he died as.

Niki unclasped her necklace and placed it in Tommy’s hands, a sad smile hindering the kindness in her eyes. “Take it. He’d want you to have it.”

He touched the stone tied to a frail rope and sighed; he was there when his brother crafted them, each necklace had a different coloured stone with Niki’s one being white. He fiddled with the necklace before putting it on, the weight felt natural around his neck.

“Thank you,” he mumbled and cleared his throat, wanting to change the subject from his brother. “Anyway, what’s your myth in this life then?”

Niki blinked at the conversation change, her eyes still glued to the necklace.

“You better have not been Oedipus.” Niki frowned. “No, no, you are not a mother-fucker.”

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No, I wasn’t the incest guy. I was Daphne. The nymph who was shot with a hatred arrow for Apollo whilst he lusted over her because of Eros’ arrow.”

“Oh. That must’ve not ended well for you,” Tommy said, grimacing.

“Having a myth that results in an obsessive man stalking you, despite being rejected multiple times, was not fun,” she muttered. “It’s why I moved from Germany to here.”

“Does Tubbo know about the curse?”

“No, he knows about the tattoo, but he thinks it’s related to some German mafia.”

Tommy paused, then remembered the weird conversation he had with Tubbo when he went around his house. “Is that why Tubbo thinks I don’t like Germany?”

“If he saw your tattoo, then yes.”

“Well, that explains it,” he said.

A silence followed and Tommy huffed; he didn’t know where to go from here. Niki expected a response from him.

“I don’t think I can forgive you yet. But I’m fine with you if that makes sense,” he eventually said, his throat closed up. Niki nodded. “I’m sorry as well, I did abandon you too, especially after he died.”

“You were grieving, you shouldn’t have needed to comfort me during that,” she said, sorrow on her face.

“Stop trying to defend me, I fucked up.”

“I’ve had many years in that void with the other people who wronged me too, I’ve healed from it,” she reassured.

“That’s what I need to do now.” Tommy didn’t know how he was going to get over it, get past exile and recover from the wounds that were centuries deep. But he’d try.

❊❊❊

Dream deciding to give him a visit as soon as he fell asleep when he got home fucked with Tommy’s path of recovery though.

He was back on the beach that the boat took him to before. Well, it looked more like an island now. Dream stood there, waiting for him, an empty table by his side.

Tommy walked over, the wind violating his exposed skin. “We’re not playing that board game again, are we?”

“No, we’re not playing the Knossos Game,” Dream answered. “I need to show you something.”

Dream reached forward and gripped Tommy’s arm harshly, and before he knew it, the void swallowed him whole. His eyes flew open, dazed and distressed, as he regained consciousness. Dream no longer stood by his side; he was alone in a dark apartment.

The walls had wood panelling, bowl lights hung from the ceiling. A dark green sofa with orange pillows sat in front of an old television. There were framed pictures on the walls of a mother with a baby in her arms and two younger children by her side. The mother had bruises under her eyes from a lack of sleep but the smile adorned on her lips as she gazed down at the baby cuddled to her chest brightened her entire face. Tommy pulled back the striped curtains, he was in a city apartment, probably during the 1950s or 1960s.

He walked into the closest room and two children lay in their beds with their mother asleep on the chair beside them. The mother’s hand perched on the side of the bed; she was probably holding her son’s hand before the exhaustion took over. Shelves were nailed above their beds, one had dinosaur figures placed on them and the other had old play dolls. A comfortable feeling rumbled in his chest as he stared at the family, the love between them was obvious, but it confused him. Why did Dream bring him here? To rub in that this was what a loving and stable family looked like, something Tommy never grew up with? He didn’t know.

He went back into the living room and a startling noise came from around the corner. It came from a pink crib which had a baby girl inside. He stepped closer and the baby started to cry.

“Hey, no, no, shh, it’s okay.” Tommy picked her up and held the baby, rubbing her back to calm her down. He continued whispering, “You’re alright, you’re fine.”

Tommy cradled her head with his hands, trying to be as gentle as possible, and rocked her until the cries slowly stopped. He smiled down at the baby, its wide and innocent eyes staring back at him. A toothless grin came across her face as he tickled under her chin.

“Hello, little one,” he said, softly, still smiling. “What’s your name?”              

With his other hand, he carefully pulled the blankets from the crib to see the name ‘Estella’ embroidered on it. He wrapped it around her.

“Estella,” he murmured. “That’s a beautiful name.”

The baby giggled, her tiny hands attempted to grab onto his fingers. He allowed her to do so and she instantly chewed them. “You’re lucky you’re cute, you can get away with using me a chew-toy.”

His thumb caressed her cheek, drawing little patterns on her skin with his thumb just like his brother used to do with him. He walked with Estella to the window and looked over the city from a high distance. Only some streetlights were on, and those that were flickered at timed intervals.

A separate apartment building was opposite them, one room was lit and a cloaked figure stared at them. Tommy held Estella tighter to his chest, narrowing his eyes at the figure. A taunting smile reflected; it was Dream. The masked man pointed to the street, Tommy followed his direction and frowned at another figure running from the bottom floor of the other apartment building. The tall figure had a beanie on with a grey streak of hair peeking through. Tommy looked back up to the lit room but it was empty.

Uncomfortable, he continued rubbing Estella’s back and moved to close the curtains.

Windows smashing and concrete crumbling beneath itself reached his ears before a violent fire and explosion blurred his vision. The apartment opposite him burst into flames from the bottom floor, bricks cracked from its layering. A dust cloud immersed the street.

Tommy froze, his voice locked in his throat. His ears rang and Estella’s high-pitched cries rattled the apartment. His grip on her tightened and he ran towards the children’s rooms. More explosions clattered the streets and he rushed to wake the family up.

Tears slipped down his face, the family laid silent. Everything Tommy did to wake them up didn’t  work. Estella shrieked as the floor beneath them rumbled. Another explosion sounded, the walls shook and Tommy ran, Estella clutched to his side, down the apartment stairs.

His heart pounded and his knees weakened as cracks splintered the staircase. Broken pieces of concrete flew at his body, cutting his skin. He tried to console the crying baby in his arms. For once, in all his lives, Tommy was scared to die.

Fumes watered his eyes and his flesh burned. Fire, blood and dust engulfed them. The single cry of a baby bounced off the walls as he kissed the top of her head. The floor collapsed, taking them both with it.

Someone kicked him awake. His lungs ached as fresh air encased them. He opened his irritated eyes to a dark room. Tommy clawed at his chest but the lack of weight in his arms, the lack of Estella instilled fear in his core. His breathing hastened, panic rendering him useless.

“Estella?” he yelled, the stabbing in his throat didn’t stop him from screaming out her name, hoping that this wasn’t real, that she was safe in that fucking crib and none of this ever happened—

Steps echoed through the dark room. He scrambled backwards, whimpers left his quivering lips. Dream towered over him, his mask painted with blood.

“What- what was that? Dream, what the fuck was that?” he stammered, his body tense and exploited.

“You asked me questions in our last visit that I couldn’t answer,” Dream replied, his tone too casual for what Tommy had just witnessed. “This is me answering.”

“Where’s Estella?” he demanded. “Where the fuck is she?”

The sigh that left Dream only furthered the fear and doubt in Tommy.

“Please, Dream, where is she?” he repeated, more desperate this time.

The lack of response killed the growing hope in him, he didn’t want the answer to be true.

“Why did you…” Tommy’s voice broke down into sobs. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to mimic the comfort Estella brought him. “Why did you show me that?”

“That wasn’t all,” Dream said and light in the room flickered. Two figures stood in the room, the man he saw earlier running away from the other apartment before it exploded, and another version of Dream. This Dream’s mask wasn’t stained with blood.

The two were arguing as the man with the beanie drew tallies on the whiteboard in front of him. Tommy crept closer, the man’s face illuminated against the light. It was his brother.

He scrambled backwards to Dream, gripping onto his cloak as his head ached.

A radio turned on beside them, announcing two explosions that went off in central North Dakoda, detonating apartment complexes and taking a confirmed two-hundred and seventy lives. The tragedy was another act initiated by a terrorist named Willow’s Siren.

His stomach dropped as he realised the tallies his brother had written on the whiteboard matched the number of confirmed deaths from the explosion caused by Willow’s Siren… caused by W. Soot. His big brother.

Police sirens thundered from outside the dark room, and the other Dream began to shout. Yet, the words didn’t render in Tommy’s ears as bile lodged in his throat.

His brother grabbed a knife from the counter and plunged it deep into his heart. He fell backwards into the whiteboard and opened his mouth to speak, “Zagreus, son of Zeus and Persephone, God of hunting and rebirth, I am Medusa.”

Dream grasped onto Tommy’s shoulder and with tears in his eyes and screaming in his head, they appeared on top of the maze walls, in the void again.

He didn’t understand what was going on, he didn’t understand why Dream was doing this to him. His brother was a fucking murderer, his brother killed that family, killed—

Tommy dropped to the floor, sobs wrecked his throat. He hugged himself as he shook, tears drowning his misery. Dream kneeled in front of him and placed a hand on his back. The masked man whispered comforting words, just like Tommy did to Estella, until he could breathe again.

“What… what happened?” Tommy wept, gripping at his chest with guilt.

“You asked me why I didn’t tell you your brother was cursed, and that was why,” Dream said, bitterly. “Your brother took advantage of his immortality and caused destruction in every single life. He realised the potential he could achieve in a world where you never have to face the legal repercussions of your actions when you could restart just by guessing incorrectly.”

Tommy’s tears continued to fall, his heart faltering. All this time, he was grieving and remembering a man who slaughtered innocents for centuries, who thrived on chaos. He thought death would’ve healed his brother’s broken soul, but it only fuelled the madness.

“What did the other version of you say to him? Before he- before he…” he trailed off, his bottom lip trembled.

“I gave him an ultimatum. Either he disclosed his myth, that he already knew was his, or I would drown him in the River Lethe and send him to Tartarus, breaking his curse of immortality,” Dream explained and Tommy’s breath hitched.

“What option did he choose?” he asked, frightened of the answer he would get.

Dream remained silent.

“Where is my brother?”

“He guessed incorrectly. The brother you knew is gone.”

More tears shed and guilt wormed into his heart; he was mourning a murderer, a terrorist, his big brother. The man, who hugged him close when the dark nights after the First War got too hard for Tommy to handle on his own, was imprisoned in the infernal abyss of torment and suffering, the deepest level of the Underworld. Tartarus.

Dream reached for his arm and Tommy jerked backwards; he didn’t want to be shown any more of this. He underestimated how small the maze walls were and slipped, his back hurdling to the ground before Dream caught him by his hand.

The breath left his lungs as he hung, the only thing keeping him from falling to his death was the hand of the God who dropped Theseus in his first life.

“Dream, please, please just tell me,” Tommy beseeched as he squeezed Dream’s hands. “Is my brother still alive?”

“He is, though he’s not your brother anymore. The River Lethe makes you forget who you are, its water strips you of everything, your identity, your memories, your appearance. Everything.”

The grip between them wavered as Dream continued, “But, I did grow tired of watching your brother act like an amnesiac ghost crying in Tartarus, so I let him be reborn into another body, without the curse, without the memories of who he really is.”

“Where- where is he?” Tommy demanded, his legs kicking at the vines on the maze wall to secure his safety.

“That’s the exciting part. He’s still a brother to you.” Dream’s grip loosened as a cruel smile twisted on his lips. “Say hello to Wilbur for me.”

And Tommy fell.

❊❊❊

He woke up screaming. He thrashed violently against hands that held him down. His throat scratched itself raw until the view of his bedroom rendered for him. His entire world, his entire memory of his brother had shattered and rebuilt into something more terrifying and traumatising right in front of him.

Someone beside his bed grabbed his arms, holding them still as the adrenaline left his system and a frail mess remained behind. Techno, with his pink hair braided, sat by his side and consoled him as tears poured from his eyes and wails strained his chest.

Another pair of arms touched him, and the brown eyes that once brought warmth to Tommy chilled his core. He screamed again, more hysteric than the last, as Wilbur reached to comfort him. He flinched backwards, his body shaking into Techno. This- this was his brother, Wilbur was his brother whether he remembered himself or not. This was the man who blew up the nation he founded, massacred thousands until Tartarus detained him.

“Get away from me, get away. Please, please just go—” Tommy begged, his voice breaking with every plea as he backed further into Techno. He shut his eyes and leaned into Techno’s shoulder, wishing that this was still part of the void, that this was just part of Dream’s tricks.

“Wilbur, I’ve got this. Go back to bed,” Techno whispered as he put his arms around Tommy.

He opened his eyes to see hurt flash across Wilbur’s face as he left the room, but all Tommy could think of was the distress on Estella’s face as the building crashed around them.

“It’s okay, Tommy,” Techno said, his voice low and tender. “It was just a nightmare.”

Tommy shook his head in Techno’s shoulder. “No, no, it wasn’t a nightmare. It’s real- it’s real and I can’t—”

“Shh,” Techno soothed, rubbing his back. “Calm down, it’s alright.”

He didn’t know how long had passed until his breathing evened and his face dried. Techno tucked Tommy back into his bed.

“I’ll stay here until you fall back asleep,” Techno said as Tommy’s eyes drooped with exhaustion. He didn’t want to deal with this anymore.

“Can you…” he stopped himself. “No, don’t worry.”

“What do you need?” Techno asked, earnestly.

“Can you keep talking?” he said. He couldn’t fall asleep to silence, or even alone, not after what he had seen.

“Now, if Wilbur was here, he’d sing you to sleep but I’ll do you one better, I’ll recite The Art of War for you to fall asleep to.” Tommy tried to conceal his flinch at the mention of Wilbur.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, resting his head against his pillow.

His eyes shut and consciousness slipped, with Techno’s voice anchoring him to a peaceful rest. A rest that didn’t haunt him with the knowledge that the man he was closest to in this family was the same person who abandoned him in a world stained with war and blood, whether Wilbur was aware of it or not.