Chapter Text
It’s dark, he feels like he’s floating, like he’s in limbo again. Drifting in complete and utter darkness with nothing to keep him company but Wilbur’s annoying voice tormenting him non-stop about his evil little plans.
It’s suffocating, he can’t breathe, he feels like his lungs are on fire, like they’re waiting to combust into flames. He feels numb, tired, like he wants to do nothing but lay down and never wake up again. It’s tiring.
He blinks then suddenly he’s standing on a familiar place, a place where he would rather want to forget.
The sun blazes down on the sandy beach, sea water coming up to the shore line. The sand hot to the touch, the trees breezing with the wind. Remains of what was left of Logstedshire surrounds him as he smells the leftover smoke covering the land.
He’s standing on the ground, bare feet, with a hole in front of him. He feels a sense of Deja vu overcome him. It’s not the good kind, it’s the kind that makes him want to curl into himself.
A familiar figure stands in front of him. He can make out that insufferable lime green hoodie, that makes him want to gouge his eyes out, the pale porcelain mask that stares at him mockingly challenging him to disobey.
“Put your stuff in the hole, Tommy” says a voice that grates at his ears, a calm, smooth voice that reeks of the smugness he absolutely despises, the voice that wants to forget and never hear again. The voice that damn bastard.
Explosions break out around him, he shuts his eyes tightly, trying to shun out the flashing lights, there’s a constant ringing in his ears, he wants it to stop, he wants everything to stop. Hands grasping his own ears to shut down the noises. Screams break out, smoke surrounding him, he wants nothing more than for it to end.
People surround him at the community house... or what was remained of it. He stands with Techboblade, the man that took him in and gave him shelter away from his abuser. The man that he teamed up with to get his discs back.
Dream is there too, demanding for Tubbo to give him his discs. The disc that once belonged to him. Tubbo is struggling between what he wants to do. Should he give up his best friend's attachment for the good of a long dead country? Or should he abandoned the country that he helped build up from the ground again only to throw it away in the end?
The answer is obvious. He knows this. He knows it's not Tubbo's fault, but rage consumes him. He doesn't think before he says it. Everyone hates him for it. He hates himself too.
''THE DISCS WERE WORTH MORE THAN YOU EVER WERE!''
Silence is the only thing that comes next, his ears are ringing, gasps can be heard all around him. Their judgmental looks drilling onto his back. He sees the look on Tubbo's face, and it makes him want to rip apart his own throat for even saying that. His eyes wide as saucers, full of disbelief and sadness and worst of all self-loathing, it makes him despise himself for what he has become.
He wants to tell Tubbo that no it was not his fault, it was not his doing, Tubbo wasn't the one to blame for what Tommy had become, it was his own doing, he became this sorry excuse of a person by himself.
He wishes he could tell him that he could never ever hate Tubbo, that he means the world to him, he wants to hug him and tell him he's sorry over and over again until his voice dies out. He wants nothing more than to tell Tubbo that the discs could never ever be compared to him. He hates himself even more now, how could he say that? He's become someone he hates the most, this is why Tubbo left him, why everyone left him.
Tubbo's figure phases out before he could reach out, he's alone in the darkness again.
He presses his palms on his eyes. Why? How could he say that? To Tubbo, his best friend, someone who has been there for him for as long as he can remember? He's a terrible best friend and an even more terrible person.
A sob slips out before he can swallow it. He wants to cry, to scream his lungs out. Why has the world been so cruel? A tear slides down his face, forcing down another sob, he opens his eyes.
He’s back in L’manburg again…. or what remains of it after Doomsday.
Techno stands there on a pile of debris. Crimson eyes stare him down with disappointment, disbelief and betrayal. He’s used to it by now, he doesn’t understand why it still hurts. Betrayal stings in the worst way possible. He understands why Technoblade hates him.
“YOU USED ME, YOU CALLED ME THE BLADE, I WAS NOTHING BUT THE BLADE TO YOU!” he yells, voice full of fury and betrayal. His eyes are narrowed in anger as he stands there looking down on him while withers danced behind him, nothing more but creatures of destruction, blowing up his last remaining home, his last remaining memory of the man he once looked up to, destroyed down to bedrock with nothing left but soot and smoke than stains the once fresh air.
"YOU WENT BACK TO TUBBO! THE GUY THAT EXILE YOU!!" Techno shouds with enough in his voice to poison an entire lake.
He knows that. But what could he have done? Should he had chosen the person took him in, gave him shelter and protected him from his abuser? That said person would've giving him to Dream for a favor anyway. Or should he had chosen his best friend, the who's been with him through high snd low. The want that he cares deeply about.The one that exiled him in the first place.
The answer is obvious. And he pays for it. By betraying Technoblade, by causing Doomsday.
He wants to get out of this nightmare, mocking him of past memories that do more than enough to stab at his heart, he wants to forget everything that happened on that god forsaken day. He wants, yearns for it to go back to the way it was before, where he would run around the server pulling pranks on people, lay on the grass and listen to his best friend, that’s now nothing more than a blurred memory, ramble about his favorite insects, he wants to go back to the time where he could relax and not feel the need to be on guard as if he expects to be hurt.
He wants to be a kid again.He doesn't deserve to be.
He doesn’t notice the scene changing around him, reverting into an obsidian prison. That damn prison that he died in by the hands of his own abuser, by the man that he trusted to keep him safe.
The man that he had called out to countless of times, but yet was met with nothing but silence. He hates himself for being weak, for cowering in dream's presence. He could still feel the heat from the lava on his back. The yelling and the punches, the hands that held him down as he was beaten to death. The feeling of fear and the pleading as darkness overtakes him.
Then he was revived. The feeling of his own body stitching itself back together, the feeling as if something ripped his body apart and build it up back together all wrongly. He can feel the tingling on skin, like needles stabbing him every time he even once takes damage. He hates it so much, he doesn't feel like himself, he feels all wrong, he doesn't feel alive, like he's dead.
Everyone treats him differently now, they look at him like he isn't suppose here, like he's all wrong, like there's something wrong with him. They build statues of him, he thinks it's stupid, it's disgraceful.
They cared about him more when he was dead then when he was alive. Then after all he was always an annoying child to everyone, they always say that, they'd rather want him gone. Nobody wants him, Tubbo doesn't want him, Wilbur left him, Philza doesn't want him, Dream doesn't even want him either. He doesn't even want himself either.
He’s yelling about something, he couldn’t be bothered to know what it’s about, too caught up in his trashing, staring into Ghostbur’s pale eyes full of fear and trust, so much trust, the trust that he once had put onto the same but yet so different man, all thrown away like nothing but trash.
Someone has his arm in a tight grip, it's so tight he thinks his arm might be turning purple. He knows it’s Sam. Sam, the man that he once had a bond with, that he looked up to as a father figure, that he thought that maybe this was finally someone that would care for him and look after him. He was wrong, of course. People like that can never keep their promises.
Dream kills Ghostbur in front of him. He can still hear the pained screams, the pleading and oh god the snap of his neck as his body falls motionless onto the floor. The lava wall flows down covering the prison cell.
He hears a scream, a scream of bloody murder, of despair and regret and worse of all, guilt. A guilt so crushing and heavy that it tears him apart from the inside.
Everything is closing in on him, he can’t breathe, he wants to curse his brain for having him relive these memories every night just to make him want to curl in on himself, he doesn’t want to experience what happens next, he doesn’t want to live through that again.
He doesn’t want to see the look of disappointment on Ranboo and Tubbo’s faces, when he walked out, shaking and on the brink of a panic attack, holding onto the last thing that remained of Ghostbur, poor, sweet Ghostbur got killed because Tommy could get his shit together.
He doesn’t want to hear the pure disbelief and anger in Ranboo’s voice when he asks him what he had done.
“What the hell did you do?’’
Narrowed eyes stared at him as if he’s the worst thing to have ever happened to them, as if he’s a nuisance, a thorn by their side, a bother, a burden to everyone around him. He’s gone through it before, way more than he’d liked, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel the pit growing in his stomach every time one of them looks at him with those eyes.
Eyes full of hatred, full of disappointment and eyes full of loathing. It eats his insides every time and he hates how he still cares for them, how he still seeks their approval, their attention.
He hates how he still loves them.
Everything is silent, here he is again, standing is a pitch black void, staring into nothingness with ringing in his ears. He hears the whispers, their soft barely audible words drift around him as he feels the need to cover his ears.
There are different voices, some he recognizes and some he refuses to acknowledge. They’re cruel, even though they’re barely above a whisper, he still hears them, talking about the nuisance of the server, the thorn by their side to achieving peace on the server, the burden that everyone had to put up with, talking about him.
Then he appears, standing there like the bastard he is, smugness radiates off of him, with no emotion recognizable with that mask covering his face.
He looks at that plain, creepy pale mask with tired, dull eyes that once held the innocence of a loud, bubbly child, a foolish innocent child. His eyes lost their blue a long time ago, he doesn’t even remember if they were even blue in the first place.
The figure comes closer, that annoyingly bright green hoodie fills his vision. He can’t help but grimace, he still manages to torment him even in his dreams, he plagues his nightmares like a damn disease, he’ll never escape, will he? When will he finally have his time in recovery? Everyone’s finally moved on, so why can’t he just leave him alone?
Why can’t he just have his happy ending like everyone else? Why does he have to deal with this? Why won’t that fucker just leave alone? Why won’t anyone just help him?
Why him?
Why him of all people?
WHY
WHY
WHY
WHY-
His eyes snap open, quick intakes of breath barely even getting air into his lungs, sweat covers his forehead as he slowly gets up from his bed. He looks outside, right it’s dark outside, he's yet again woken up in the middle of the night by a nightmare.
His head hurts like crazy, pounding into his skull like someone’s hammering down on his head with a bat. He doesn’t even notice the wet streaks running down his face, it has become a normal occurrence for him now.
Waking up from a nightmare, with tears running down his face as he thinks about the choices he made in his life. He’s weak, can’t even handle a nightmare without having a panic attack, why can’t he do anything right? Why does he have to disappoint everyone around him?
He sighs, laying down and pulling the covers over his head. Staring at the ceiling as he thinks about the long lost forgotten memories of a peaceful time. A time where he would sit down in a field and listen to his brother’s soft tuning to the guitar and his soft melodic voice.
The soft sound of crickets cricking lulling him to sleep as he closes his eyes letting darkness overtake him. He knows he should have shown more of a reaction after having a nightmare like that, but he’s gotten used to it by now. He’s too tired to care about it, he feels exhausted, at least he can go to sleep thinking of the soft singing of his brother.