Chapter Text
Snow danced gently from the darkening sky, pushed into the depths of a boy’s charred, matted curls to rest amongst ash and blood. The dense white drifts were up past his knees, stretching on as endlessly as the inky, star-strewn sky. Cold seeped through the bandages wrapped sloppily around his blistered fingers, burrowing into his bones and frosting over his joints.
Tommy felt like shit. He didn’t know how long he’d been walking anymore, only that his right foot felt like a useless bitch of a meat stump. It dragged heavily through the snow as he stumbled further and further away from the ruins of Logsteadshire, a feeling of numb emptiness beginning about halfway down his shin and swallowing up his whole foot. He had lost his shoe a long time ago, and while it hadn’t been trouble on the soft beaches of his exile, the deep freeze of the arctic had been nearly unbearable. At first, the foot had cramped painfully against the ice and snow, and it had felt like he was treading on glass with each lurching step he took. Now, he couldn’t feel a thing.
Tommy reasoned to himself that the lack of pain meant he was moving faster. His mouth moved around the argument, words coming out as a whispered, unintelligible gurgle. He had taken up the habit of making noise to fill the silence in the third month of his exile, and though the sounds he made were meaningless, they kept certain thoughts and memories at bay. It was comforting. External noise quieted the constant thrum of his consciousness. The further he got from Logsted, the dimmer those thoughts became; all he could hear now was the harsh crunch of snow underfoot and the dull hum of his mind. One little voice, which sounded like a lost friend familiar and made his freezing chest ache, murmured you deserve to be away from Dream. Dream was never your friend, he hurt you. You can live peacefully now! Only a little bit further, there’s a light just ahead!
The battered blonde blocked out everything but the last part. There was a light; a gorgeous golden glow turning the ridge of snow ahead to amber and illuminating the tattered, sun-bleached clothes that rippled against his frame. Tommy didn’t smile, but the ghost of excitement flickered in his dull grey eyes, his cheeks tightened slightly, and his pace quickened until he was stumbling over his lifeless foot with his bandaged hands swinging wildly. There was a cottage. Windows were set comfortably into plain white walls, nestled between sturdy spruce supports and a worn stone foundation. Snow gathered on the a-frame roof, dropping onto a small glass apiary and the top of an empty stable. Tommy had never been so happy to see something so humble in his whole life. He knew who it belonged to, of course. A certain burly, pointy-eared pig man with an obnoxious cape who had come to mock him during his first week in Logsted and who hadn’t returned since. Tommy forcibly shoved this knowledge into a corner of his mind, like everything else unpleasant that had wormed its way into his head during his delirious trek through the arctic; he hadn’t made it through the biting cold by thinking. Thoughts were for bitches, and Tommy was fairly certain that if he had allowed anything other than keep on treckin’ to move through his head during the journey, he would have laid down in the snow and never gotten up.
Hauling himself up the stairs, Tommy fumbled at the brass handle for a moment before wrenching open the heavy, formidable door. When he finally got the door open, a blast of hot air hit him so hard it hurt. Hesitating in the opening, the battered teen swept his dull gaze across the room, ignoring the minor details of the space. He was alone, with the exception of a haggard looking Endermen, who was quite literally glued to a wooden rocking chair next to a roaring fireplace. Tommy’s eyes skipped over the hearth like a scratched record; the thought of fire made him feel nauseous and dizzy, stirring up carefully buried memories of ruin and fighting and oh my god everything was shaking and exploding and burning and Tubbo was being shot by fireworks and he was exploding too and -
Tommy locked onto the chests. They were stacked against the wall adjacent to the hearth, beckoning him with the riches that the inhabitant obviously possessed. Leaving a trail of slush and snow in his wake, Tommy stumbled towards the containers. His hands shook violently as he rooted through them, grey eyes wide with anxious excitement as he sorted through the treasure; glittering emeralds, blocks of solid gold bigger than his head, and potions that pulsed with the fiery magic of blaze powder. The urge to stuff his pockets full of riches and stow it away somewhere almost overwhelmed him. It was a desire that he hadn’t been able to indulge in recently.
Instead of squirreling away all of the obviously noticeable valuables, Tommy grabbed onto a rich magenta potion, uncorked it with shivering hands, and downed the whole thing in one gulp. Allowing the bottle to slip through his fingers, the teen revelled in the feeling of keen heat spreading throughout his body, defrosting his bones and invigorating him. His skin, which had begun to ache dreadfully as it adjusted to the sweltering cabin, began to ease up as the gentle thrum of power eased through his limbs. Strength potions were pretty cool. Humming a comforting, joyous tune with excitement, he took the essentials: two loaves of bread, basic tools, a ratty old blanket and a roll of wool bandages. Things that Tommy believed their owner wouldn’t miss. Unable to help himself, he added a sack of tantalizing golden apples to his humble hoard before slamming the chests shut. Perhaps they wouldn’t be missed, either.
Tommy didn’t take the time to gaze around the space, as he didn’t want to become too attached to it. His plan, which he had recited to himself via indiscernible hums and mucous-bubbled mutterings while rooting through the chests, was to become a rat. A raccoon, if you will, squirreled away underneath the floorboards where he wouldn’t be found. Just until he was better. When he had some more meat on his big, manly arms and could actually feel his leg. He had refused to look at the foot so far, and didn’t plan to in the near future.
“I’m like an ah-mo-ra… no, remora. Yeah. Very manly.” Tommy garbled, the words scraping through his sore, ill-used throat. It barely sounded like english. He reckoned he was coming down with the flu, judging by how his lungs felt like cold, thick leather that wouldn’t stretch properly. That particular feeling had been alleviated by the strength potion somewhat. Clearing his throat with a wet cough, Tommy dragged himself towards the ladder near the door, keeping his eyes carefully away from the Enderman-guarded hearth and trying to ignore the way his right foot still hadn’t warmed up yet. Descending carefully, Tommy kept the numb appendage out of sight; he had a sinking feeling that if he so much as glanced at it, he would throw up.
Having successfully made it down the ladder without looking at - or using - his right leg, Tommy set about digging below the crowded storage room; an entirely grey-brick basement that smelt vaguely of dried herbs. When the floor beneath him gave way to nothing, Tommy let out a strangled shriek, tumbling unceremoniously into some sort of hidden stone basement beneath Technoblade’s house. A lone cow raised its head from the floor, staring at him with solemn brown eyes. The roughly hewn room was home to two other mobs, each with jack-o-lanterns on their heads. They peered at him through small glass windows set into the wall, making grunting gurgles that sounded oddly like the sounds Tommy had begun making. He incoherently decided that he’d try to make them less.
Gasping for breath, the teen checked himself for new injuries, ignoring those which had littered his skin when he first arrived. As his dull gaze swept over his left leg in search of injury, Tommy felt himself seize up and his stomach roll. He had just glimpsed his right leg in his peripheral vision, and god did he want to throw up, even if that was pussy shit to do. Rolling his left ankle while staring pointedly at the lone heffer, Tommy tried to block out the pressure building up behind his eyes, because his foot was black and bloated and it looked rotten and- men don’t cry from a little fall. His stomach was turning around the strength potion, which was wearing off rapidly, and Tommy desperately wished he had grabbed another.
Hastily replacing the stone overhead, the battered boy crawled his way towards the nearest roughly-hewn corner and began to dig again, forcing his stomach contents to remain where they belonged. This time, he didn’t fall through into any hidden dungeons. Mumbling incoherently about becoming a ferret, Tommy set his “plan” into motion, fashioning himself a horrendous hole in a pain-infused haze. If he had the strength to raise both of his arms straight out, his bandaged fingertips would’ve touched opposing walls. A small ledge hewn from the stone, decorated lavishly with a porridge-coloured wool blanket, was his bed. The air was damp and cold, and each raggedy breath that scraped its way past Tommy’s lips echoed against the stone and made his empty stomach lurch horribly. A few divots carved into the vertical wall formed a haggard ladder, already slick from the condensing moisture within the claustrophobic space.
Dumping the contents of his pockets onto the tiny alcove he had created, Tommy set about relieving the rolling of his stomach by retching into a corner. Nothing but rancid bile came up, but maybe that was a good thing. Tomorrow, he’d make his way up the shitty ladderer and get warm again. He’d clean up the mess in the corner. He’d get a new potion. For now, all he could think about was not dry heaving as he carefully tugged his right foot up underneath the blanket, refusing to look at it while he did so. Maybe if he pretended, it would get warm again. The gnawing hunger that had ravaged his body for so long was gone, dampened by the cold and the nausea swirling in his gut. It was vaguely comforting, to Tommy’s potion-addled brain. Shivering horribly, he slipped into a feverish doze, blocking out his pain with disconcerting precision.
The pouch of precious golden apples lay in a crack of light, which fell from the poorly-replaced stone overhead. He hadn’t touched a single one.