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There are crows, all around the car, thronging. Their cries mingle with each other - a cacophony so all-consuming that it’s almost a song. Tommy shifts in the back seat, staring straight ahead. He knows what they mean.
The sinking feeling is all through him, hasn’t left him in weeks, not since the last time all of them were - since the last time Tommy saw SBI, y’know, a dangerous entity which may be one or three monsters depending on who you ask, nothing good in store for him, et cetera, et cetera. Since he saw them. He feels oddly - cold, dejected. Which means, of course, he’s been laughing more. There’s a weird emptiness -
Who’s he kidding? He knows crystal fucking clear what that emptiness is. He’s their fourth, and they’ve been looking for him.
The taxi inches forwards, and the crows do not scatter. The cabbie says, incredulous, “What the -”
Tommy swallows. There is a crow with its face barely centimetres from his, perched strangely still on the outside of his door; their eyes lock. There’s too much of a spark there for it to be a normal bird. (He knows this the same way he knows they’d never hurt him: illogically, foolishly, a wild guess if you take wild to mean coming from the most visceral parts of him .) Tommy looks at the crow, and takes a long, shuddering breath, and says, quietly, “Please -”
The crows rise as one, gone before Tommy can even see where to. “Thank you,” he adds uselessly. They’ve never listened to him before. His forearms itch.
The cabbie gives a stunned chuckle; the car has been idling ever since the crows first descended, but finally it begins to move. Tommy stares out the window. He thinks he sees the shadows of black wings disappearing behind a tree, but the nature of this is that he’ll never know for sure.
They get on the motorway before long. There isn’t a crow in sight, but unease prickles at Tommy like a storm awaiting permission.
The thing is - Tommy’s not stupid. He knows damn well they aren’t human or safe, or even really kind. But the longing isn’t bothering to tell him they are - that’s just the part of him that’s still logical, trying desperately to justify the longing because he knows he cannot shake it, fighting to make it okay. The way Tommy misses them already - this fierce sense of belonging that has overstayed its welcome, like he’s found something he’s been searching for, like he is caught in home’s clutches - that longing isn’t logical, and it doesn’t give a damn about kind, or safe, and it certainly couldn’t care less that they aren’t human. It doesn’t bother telling him They would never do harm, only never to you. It doesn’t try to convince him they’re just like you.
He thinks, shivering, I’m just like them, and realises he’s gripping onto the strap of his shoulder bag so hard that his knuckles have gone white. A prickling sensation murmurs through him - his arms, his fingers, all of his skin - and tells him, gentle, Come home to us.
He’s on his way home. He’s given the cabbie his address, and he’s told Tubbo he’ll be home in an hour, and he can’t shake the sensation that in an hour he certainly will be home, just not -
He reminds himself harshly, they are not human, they are not home. Nothing in him objects to the first item; at the second, a wave of incredulous derision swells in his throat. It’s his own voice, and it’s saying Are you fucking thick? And his arms are still itching. He glances down to find them red and irritated where his t-shirt leaves them exposed. Hey - looking on the positive side here, fellas - if SBI have fucking poisoned him or some shit, then at least that archive dude can have his I told you so moment. He seemed pretty desperate to get to say it.
Tommy watches the cars go by. He feels like a kid lost in a supermarket. Like he’s already gone missing - and it’s getting harder and harder to hate himself for it. He thinks of Wilbur saying, mock-conspiratorial and full of laughter, “They found me the same way, you know.”
He didn’t tell the guy about that.
Probably should’ve. But every time he considered bringing it up, he imagined the warmth that was sitting at the fourth side of the square table in that restaurant, and shut his mouth about it.
When he’d told them he had to go - reluctant, all kinds of cold inside about it, in ways he couldn’t quite place - Wilbur had looked at him with something like poorly disguised mourning. Techno had called him a child about it, and Tommy had snapped something about how they couldn’t all be fucking ancient old men like Phil, and that, at least, made Wilbur perk up, snorting like he knew something Tommy didn’t. Phil had only looked levelly at the three of them, bickering like brothers, and given a faint smile he didn’t bother trying to hide.
Tommy isn’t stupid, but neither are they: he knows full fucking well they let him see them, that night. Phil was still wheeling in the sky above like some great horrible spectre when Tommy bolted, and Techno watched him with eyes that reflected too much light to be all human, and Wilbur, caught somewhere between shade and man, had given that same teasing, full-bodied laugh. Like Tommy didn’t get the joke yet. Like he was certain that, one day, Tommy would.
It makes Tommy’s chest hurt, thinking about it - he misses them enough that it’s a physical fucking ache, like they’ve infected him with - with eldritch clinginess. Actually, his arms kinda hurt too. He should really do something about that, but he can’t tear his eyes away from the road: black car. Grey car. Green car, keeping pace. There is a crow, perched on the sign for the next exit - Tommy’s heart leaps into his throat.
Before he can think better of it - no, before he can doubt himself - he leans forwards. “Hey,” he says, “hey, can you - can you get off the motorway here please?”
The cabbie blinks at him, but only says “If you’re sure, mate,” and merges into the next lane over. Tommy remembers Phil saying mate, and -
Oh holy fuck, he’s going to see them again. He’s going to see them, as they really are - Elation rises in him, illogical and impossible and inhuman, and he fights the whoop that rises in his throat.
His nerves are thrumming, body alight with anticipation, and he tells himself I’ve given in, given up, thinks I wasn’t strong enough, thinks This is exactly what they wanted to happen, and they’re dangerous, and they’re monsters. Waits for the sickening jolt to hit his stomach at his own thoughts. Waits for it to sink in as to exactly what the hell he’s doing.
It doesn’t. Or rather - he knows exactly what he’s doing, and can’t bring himself to care that logic would dictate he shouldn’t.
The taxi slows as it exits the motorway, and Tommy’s got his eyes fixed to the pavement they’re passing before he knows what he’s doing, feeling about a second from throwing the door open, moving car be damned. The cabbie says, dubiously, “D’you know where you’re going?”
“True north,” Tommy says, then blinks, startled at himself.
The driver chuckles. “Which way’s that, then?”
There are three crows perched in a row atop a street sign; as Tommy watches, a fourth alights and joins them. “Down here, please,” he says, and the cabbie mutters something but turns down the street obligingly.
“Someone picking you up?” he asks.
“My family’s waiting, yeah,” Tommy says.
There is a man filling out a long coat, with pink hair falling unnaturally neat about his shoulders, his head tilted, the slightest hint of gentleness to the set of his jaw, standing by the side of his road. (Tommy probably shouldn’t be able to read his expression from this far away, and definitely not while he’s in a moving car.) “Just here,” he says, and catches the way the cabbie’s brow furrows, and adds, quickly, impulsively, “Don’t worry, that’s my brother. He’s been waiting.”
The car pulls to a stop, in the middle of nowhere two minutes from the motorway. Tommy thanks the driver, paying him with shaking hands. All the while, Techno watches him impassively, quietly, patiently.
Neither of them speak until the taxi has disappeared from sight. Then, finally, mildly incredulous, Techno says “You came.”
Tommy swallows. “I did,” he says; it comes out strangled, weirdly harsh, like some kind of bird noise. He clears his throat. He’s TommyInnit - he can handle a little awkwardness. “Can’t believe you’d doubt me, Mr. Blade. Very rude of you.”
“I’ve just lost a bet. You could show a little sympathy.”
Tommy blinks. “You bet against me?” he demands, catching the silly slight first; he already feels like he’s thawing, like he’s come into the sun. Like someone is letting him share their jealously guarded sunrise. Then, with chills settling uncomfortably into his stomach, “You guys knew I’d -?”
“Of course,” Techno says, like Tommy’s stupid. His eyes bore into Tommy’s, brown, unassuming - incredibly fake, Tommy knows this, can remember exactly the shade of red as it caught the moonlight. “You’re tryna play it cool,” Techno accuses, sounding incredulous. “You actually wanna pretend - Oh, gods, that’s priceless.”
“Shut up,” Tommy says immediately. Half of him wants to shrink away. The other part’s weirdly desperate for a hug - eldritch clinginess, he fucking swears.
“Yeah, okay,” says Techno, Technoblade, some impassive immortal entity who’s been looking for Tommy longer than Tommy has been alive; he sounds wry. “How’s the arms?”
“The -?”
“You’ve got a little - eczema, happening there.” Techno gestures, and his hand seems to blur like when Tommy jitters too fast on camera, like his eyes can’t keep up with the speed at which Techno moves. “Looked at them lately?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” Tommy says brashly.
“Alright, and whatever you do, don’t think about blue elephants, either,” Techno says; it’s nonsensical for a moment, before Tommy remembers that night in the restaurant, and some stupid comment he’d made about how you think about shit the moment someone says it - he’d used the words blue elephants, and Techno’s remembered it even though Tommy was sure he wasn’t even listening to the rapid-fire rambling -
He looks down. His arms are covered in little red pinpricks, raised and tender when he skims the tips of his fingers over them; he hisses, while Techno only watches him quietly. Panic begins chewing quietly on itself in the depths of his stomach, but it doesn’t boil over.
“What’s fucking happening,” he says, trying to convince himself of his own fear. He doesn’t know if it’s working.
“Same as these, I’d assume,” Techno says coolly, and when Tommy looks up at him, wide-eyed, there are tusks that weren’t there a moment ago. He wants to flinch. Wants to be frightened. But instead the sight of them soothes him, somehow - a true-formed falling into place. Tommy clenches his fists briefly, then hisses again when it sends little pinpricks of pain wavering all over his palms.
“Look who’s here,” Techno says, taking pity on him - Tommy feels a jerk in his gut, compass-like, and pivots on his heel. Wilbur is grinning at him. Floppy-haired. His jumper looks soft. Tommy’s eyes flicker to the ground; his feet touch it, but he does not cast a shadow.
“Hello,” he says, which is inadequate and perfect and everything. Tommy feels choked. Smothered, but gently, in softness. “Did you miss us, Tommy?”
“No need to make it sound so fucking - ominous,” Tommy says, bristling. “So what if I did?” It’s weirdly easy to fall back into boisterousness, now, and he doesn’t know why.
“Just curious,” Wilbur says, too lightly. “Are you doing alright?”
“Where’s Phil?” Tommy asks. “I thought you three were, like - attached at the hip - God, you’re all so clingy -”
“He’ll be along in a minute,” Techno says, sounding as though he couldn’t actually give a single fuck. Tommy admires that in a man. “Busy getting the flock together - they got a bit scattered.”
“I thought that might be it,” Wilbur agrees. Tommy looks between the two of them, brow furrowing. “What with being sent - all over the place, you know. And it’s all your fault, Tommy,” he adds, eyes alight with laughter, giving Tommy’s shoulder a playful shove. “We’ve been running around all over.”
“To find me,” Tommy says. He’s taller than Techno, not that much shorter than Wilbur, but he feels very, very small.
Wilbur’s smile softens, from sharp to sweet. There’s still something to him, some - layered-over quality, like the skin wrapped round his cheekbones isn’t quite real - but it’s not unsettling. (Tommy doesn’t think he could feel unsettled right now. Nervous, antsy, somehow undeserving, but - strangely steady on his feet.) “To find you,” Wilbur agrees, his voice a hundred whispers all holding hands, his eyes a thousand nights spent stargazing. “We’re all very - very happy, Tommy, that we finally did.”
“Speak for yourself,” says Techno.
“Sure, if you try saying what you mean,” Wilbur parries easily, cheerfully, the ash gone from his grin. “For once in your life.”
Pain lances down Tommy’s arms, a lightning strike jittering across his skin like licks of flame, and he swears before he can catch it. Techno’s eyes flicker to him, the rest of him very still - Tommy shouldn’t be able to see the miniscule movement, maybe, but catches it in his periphery without thinking much of it. Wilbur moves closer, and almost by accident Tommy lolls backwards, leans his weight on him, exhales. The jumper is soft, and his skin stings a little less at the contact.
Wilbur says, sounding a little panicked, “Techno, help.”
“Ha,” Techno says, and doesn’t move.
Tommy should be panicking. Can’t make himself. Blood is dribbling in little rivulets down his arms, thin intricate trails, each river to its own arc of tributaries, their wellsprings the pinpricks opening up along his arms. Still, it fucking stings. Should hurt more, but he’s gone bit numb. Has to say he’s grateful for it. “The hell is going on,” he demands, trying to muster up the bits of him that have fight and fierceness in; they’ve gone to sleep, though. Napping. Really, Tommy? At a time like this? He snorts at his own joke, then sucks in a breath through his teeth as a shudder goes through him and brings more stinging with it. This is sharper, angrier, like acid rain.
“There you go,” Wilbur is saying, shushing him, patting his shoulders awkwardly - not quite sure what to do, maybe. Tommy’s an enigma of a twenty-first-century teenager, and he’s damn proud of that fact. “We’re so proud you came to us, Tommy, really. When it was my turn I freaked out so much that they found me on a bridge.”
“This fucking hurts,” Tommy mutters. Under his breath. Almost too quiet to be heard.
“I know,” Wilbur says. “I know. But this is how you’re meant to be.”
There’s another shudder, but it’s not Tommy; the world itself gives a shiver, and the air tries its hand at going dark, and then everything rights itself in a flurry of feathers. “Oh, hey, Phil,” Techno says, sounding utterly nonplussed.
Wilbur brightens. “We were wondering when you’d get back,” he says. “Techno owes you money, but then you owe the same amount to me, because I guessed the feathers right, so really he just has to pay me directly, right?”
“Sure, if he wants.” It’s Phil’s voice, Philza, Tommy remembers from the interview thing - the oldest motherfucker here, apparently, like, crazy old, but Tommy finds it difficult to think of him as anything other than that nice blond guy with the stupid hat from the best evening of his life. Wings and all.
“Hey Phil,” Tommy says. He lifts a hand to wave, does his best to turn around to say hi properly; Wilbur chuckles, places two hands on his shoulders to help him spin. When his own hand enters his field of vision, the blood makes him do a double take - he’d entirely forgotten about that.
Phil’s coat is just like Techno’s, suspiciously bulky and everything, but the dumb hat is the same. What is it, 2015? Or is he, like, a fucking weeb? Whatever the explanation, Phil only smiles when Tommy meets his eyes, soft. “Hey,” he says. “How’re you doing, mate?”
“Frankly not so poggers,” Tommy says. “Since my arms are bleeding to death, or some shit.”
“Hey, I know what ‘poggers’ means,” Wilbur contributes. He seems very proud of this fact.
“Not to death,” Technno says dryly. “To the opposite, maybe.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Tommy demands.
Wilbur says, “Oh, shit, we were supposed to explain that bit before Phil got here.”
“Eh, it can wait,” Phil says; Tommy’s looking between the three of them and feels a bit like he’s watching a tennis match, except he’s standing under the net, balls and oblique references to a shared history flying completely over his head. “You’ll be fine, though, Tommy. Just gotta give ‘em a bit of time to grow in.”
“Them?”
By way of answer, Phil holds out a hand. Fumbles up the sleeve of the coat. His skin is lined with glossy black feathers, all the way up his arm, and Tommy glances back at his own - blinks - nausea coils in his stomach.
“Oh, fuck,” he says. “That’s - They’re coming out?”
“In their own time,” Phil says, and lets the sleeve fall, and pats Tommy’s shoulder commiseratingly. “C’mon, guys, we should get out of here sooner rather than later.”
“Why?” Tommy asks, voice still a little weak.
Wilbur gives him a weighty look, significant in some way that Tommy can’t quite read. Techno offers, “We are technically conducting a kidnapping.”
“No you’re not,” Tommy says.
Techno raises an eyebrow. “Why’s that?”
“Well, kidnapping implies that I don’t wanna go with you guys.”
“No it doesn’t,” Techno says. “Legally, it’s still kidnapping if -”
“No, but I’m talking what it implies here, Technoblade -”
“This isn’t a discussion of connotation, I said technically -”
“Of course you did, you’re - they call you Technically-blade, you know, full of bullshit -”
“How would you know what they call me?” Techno says, a little amused.
“Okay, you two, can it,” Phil says, but there’s a smile in his voice. “Where to, then? Up? Out? Left? We’ve got a few weeks to kill until the solstice.”
Tommy would have thought it would be stranger, to fall into place with the three of them, but - it’s stunningly easy, like there’s a space in the conversation that is the same shape as his voice, like there’s always been an empty seat at the dinner table, so to speak. His brashness fits, and so too, he knows, will the times he wants to be quieter. For now, though, he’s comfortable being somewhere between the two. “Can we go back down to my and Tu - to Brighton and that, for just a bit?” he asks. “I kinda wanna do a couple last things. Can’t get into my Twitch without TFA.”
Wilbur blinks. Phil, who actually knows computer shit, shrugs and says “Sure, if you want. You won’t need any of it, though -”
“Yeah. Yeah, I figured.”
Techno tilts his head. “How’d you do that?”
“Maybe I’m just fucking psychic, Technoblade, you don’t know.”
“You know what’d be really funny?” Phil says, the tilt to his head birdlike, the gleam to his grin a little feral. “Wil, d’you reckon you could find the same bus stop you found Tommy the first time?”
“Wouldn’t dream of forgetting,” Wilbur says. “Why?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Phil says, and snickers to himself.
Tommy, then, cottons on. “That’d be so -” he says, then pauses, cutting himself off. It occurs to him that people are going to look for him, that they’d track the place he sent messages from because - oh, hell, he’s gonna be a missing person case, isn’t he, and like any missing person, people are going to miss him. Wow. Shit. He wonders if Tubbo’s gonna -
“Tommy,” Wilbur says gently, and Tommy wheels around to stare at him, and his irises aren’t pretending to be anything other than ash; the sight is comfort, is home, chills Tommy to the bone in a way that says everything is as it should be. “You alright?”
“Yeah, big man. Fine.”
“You want a hug?”
“No,” Tommy says, and collapses into him.
Wilbur rubs his back, says - stupid shit, probably, Tommy can’t quite make out the words. His form dissolves a little every time Tommy clutches him too tightly, but that’s okay.
Finally, Wilbur pulls back. His voice is half-teasing as he says “Aw, Tommy, you’re like a little baby bird.”
“Shut up,” Tommy snaps, habitual. His - His arms are covered in down, now, grey and white and still bloodstained, and he thinks he should find that more disturbing than he does. But he’s the fourth, after all; this is the role he’s meant to fall into, the place he’s meant to fill. He’s their fourth. So he stares at the down feathers with something like approval, and then, like the irritating little shit he takes such pride in being, grabs Wilbur’s jumper sleeve and wipes his arm against it, attempting to scrub off the blood.
“Hey,” Wilbur says, affronted. “That’s mine.”
“I claimed it with my DNA, bitch,” Tommy says, and finds it easier than ever to laugh.
When the moment passes, he looks around; Techno and Phil are watching them, both with the exact same soft joy to them - shittily disguised in Techno, while Phil just doesn’t seem to care about concealing his own. And, well, Tommy’s not gonna give them shit for it, not today - not when they’ve waited that many thousands of years for him. Maybe later. Yeah, definitely later. Clingy-ass idiots. Oh, he’s gonna bully them so fucking mercilessly about it.
“You done?” Techno says, pretending, badly, to be impatient.
“Yeah, sure,” Tommy answers. He’s looking at Phil; his eyes are all beady and yellow, and Tommy doesn’t have to wonder why he missed it earlier, just as he doesn’t have to wonder why Phil isn’t hiding it now.
“Come on, you three,” Phil says, grinning sharply, his eyes the crow’s. “Let’s go.”