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Of all the people he asked to come with him that day, he regrets extending the offer to Ghostboo.
Tommy can’t tell what’s giving him his headache - the pounding of the ocean waves on the Snowchester beaches as he waits for Tubbo, or the ghost of his best friend’s husband that hasn’t stopped talking for the past two and a half hours.
Okay, he regrets that the ghost said yes.
“And that’s why it doesn’t bother me!” To illustrate his point of being so unphased, Ghostboo sticks his whole hand into the wound in his chest and wiggles it around. Tommy closes his eyes, “Ghostboo, that’s disgusting.” He makes a little faux-exasperated noise, “Well, well, what has gotten into you lately?”
The other theory is the sea. It crashes in and out in a cyclical pattern against the sand and ice alike, and the occasional big wave will come so far up the beach they have to up-sticks and move back to prevent salty, wet shoes. Tide’s coming in. It's around three o'clock, though you couldn't tell that from the sky through the cloud cover that's thicker than several layers of blankets. Tommy reaches a hand into a little nook nearby where there’s a small rock pool and there’s a kicking up of sand as a small crab skitters away into a crevice in the stones. The water is so cold he can feel his muscles seizing up and then spasming as they return from the cold water shock; the kind of water that’s so easy to drown in. He melts some sand into the pool, adding a negligible amount of sediment to the bottom, and wonders what the crab thinks of this random giant filling his home with mud.
“Got a headache, ‘aven’t I.”
“Ah,” For a second, the ghost’s affected voice and attitude slip away, and it’s like having an old friend back. “When was the last time you drank something?”
His tongue feels like sandpaper. They’ve been waiting here for hours, “I dunno. Exile, probably.”
There’s a few seconds of silence (in which Tommy must make way for a larger wave, shuffling backwards up the beach), and then Ghostboo starts laughing. “Oh, that’s a good one!”
“Alright- It- It wasn’t that funny.”
They lapse back into silence for a little bit before Ghostboo randomly speaks again, “D’you know, some people find beaches really sad?” Tommy actually groans this time. “No… Why.” The ghost picks up the tale, “Yeah, some people find being on beaches really sad! Which is weird, because beaches are happy places where you go to relax and unwind and play, so I was wondering why that is, but eventually I figured out it’s not about the sand and the shells, but the sea. The rhythm of the tide is the rhythm of someone breathing, in and out and in and out. You’re listening to Nature as she breathes. When you’re out on the ocean, it’s different - it’s calmer, you don’t hear the sound because you’re part of it - but when you’re on the beach it’s the main thing you can hear! Makes people feel very mortal, very fragile, to look across a vast ocean, dwarfed by the waves, listening to the breaths of…”
Ghostboo keeps talking, but Tommy’s thoughts are elsewhere. Another beach. Another ocean. The tide never really made much headway in Logstedshire. It only rose and fell a few metres each day. It was certainly never going to part for him so he could reach L’Manberg: that much was clear, no matter how he wanted it to. Ghostboo’s wrong. What makes people on the beach feel mortal is the sea’s power. The immense terror of drowning, the strength of a riptide, the force of current, the pressure that builds the lower you go, the abstract fear of whatever may be waiting in the depths. They’re also never particularly warm, at least, not in this neck of the woods. He’s about to open his mouth to counter when Ghostboo cuts him off at the pass, “And you’ve just reminded me, I was going through some old stuff in my house - most of it junk, organising a clear out burning probably tomorrow - and I found these! You talking about exile reminded me!” Tommy now doesn’t want to take the papers Ghostboo's holding out towards him, but if he’s learnt anything in the past few hours, it’s that the ghost is persistent. He takes the small stack of folded paper (bound by brown string) and slowly opens them, one at a time.
Hi Ranboob!
It’s me, Big T.
Oh no.
Very loenly. Very scared. Please visit soon
Tommy (aka Big T)
No no no no no.
Anwyas ahah im feeling down so fuckin down im alone and no one no fucking one comes to visit me a lot and i want to go
Tommy
No.
Hi ranboo
Feeling distant
Not these.
i’m so alone help me ranboo pelkase for hte lover of god
He’d forgotten about these. He’d left that memory behind. But now, those echoes, fragmented as they are, come flooding back, shattering inside his skull as he tries to resist them. The waves race up the beach and soak straight through his shoes, clothes and skin. His head is full of broken glass and, oh shit, he’s crying. It’s really cold.
“Why? Why did you… keep these?”
Ghostboo, innocent to his predicament, blinks his empty eyes a few times before replying, “People keep letters, don’t they? Keepsakes! And these were from you!”
What he does next, Tommy has no control over. “KEEPSAKES?” His shout echoes across the beach, bouncing between snow drifts and icy houses in the desolate, frozen town. He stands and paces towards Ghostboo, fighting the pins, needles and shivers in his legs from his icy-wet jeans. “YOU KEPT KEEPSAKES?! FROM MY EXILE?”
Ghostboo tilts his head, a little too far to be natural, “Well, what was I supposed to do?”
His voice is small when he finds the words to reply, “Help me-” The words get stuck in his throat, like they did before, like they’ve always done stop it stop it stop it. “You could’ve stopped him, helped me, told Tubbo, something- anything! But you did nothing!” He brandishes the opened letters back at him, some of them slipping from his fingers and falling to the sodden ground and melting into nothing. “Have you ever actually read these? Did you? Or did you- you not bother, just like everyone else that left me to rot there?” His throat is sore, with the cold and the shouting and the tears he’s holding back, ‘cause goddammit he doesn’t want to still be crying about this. It’s been over a year! Why can’t he just move on? Why couldn’t he just forget?
Oh wait.
“No! No one came to help, nobody wanted me around, nobody cared about me enough to stop him, not even you!” He looks up into those big, dull, empty eyes and knows he’s shouting at the wrong person (whether he’d shout at the actual Ranboo now is a completely different question), but he can’t stop. “And you were there the most! Before you stopped caring too. I know you don’t give a shit anymore, airhead, but find the old Ranboo in there and make sure he hears this, yeah? You should’ve been exiled with me. We burnt down George’s house together. But I swore on my soul that it had been me and me only, lied in front of the whole court, lied to Tubbo-! To save your skin. And you didn’t have the decency to help me.”
“I would never have been exiled with you.”
Really? That’s what he says to that? Tommy’s pretty sure his eyes must be turning black or something by now.
“Or, if I had, he never would’ve hurt me like he hurt you. He didn’t exile you, Tommy, he kidnapped you.”
“Shut up-”
“Kidnapped and forced you to stay in his location with his rules and punished you when you didn’t follow them and took away your stuff and prevented people from visiting without him so he could control how they saw you. He made it very difficult for anyone to know you were suffering in the first place.”
“Will you just can it? Please. I don’t wanna think about this. About how nobody fucking came.” He sinks back to his knees in the surf - might as well, his shins are drenched already - defeated. “I don’t wanna think about it. ‘Cause he’s back. He’s out of prison, Ranboo. You were there, you died there. And now he’s out and you’re gone and I can’t find Tubbo and- and everything we had-”
“He’ll be back,” The ghost says as he drifts down to place a would-be comforting arm around Tommy’s shoulders, and Tommy looks up at him in horror. “Tubbo, I mean, not Dream.” He quickly amends. “He’ll be back soon.”
Sitting on a cold beach with a ghost’s arm around him. Fucking hell.
Because nobody came. He’d cried night after night, prayed to Prime and the stars and Death herself, begging someone, anyone to deliver him, and nobody came. Only Dream. Dream was the only one at his bloody beach party. Dream was the only one that cared about him at all. And Tommy knows now, knows that that was a twisted, awful, cruel kind of love, because he’s been to therapy and talked about it and been loved properly and thought about it and stayed in the prison and did nothing but think. But it doesn’t change the fact that nobody came. He’d poured all his courage into those letters, stripping away the last of his pride to give Ranboo a piece of his soul to take away and read, trying to write his way out and failing. He’d assumed his forgetful friend had forgotten about it (ouch but whatever), but to know he’d had the letters all along, tucked away somewhere? What was he gonna do, read them at his funeral?
“Ra- Ghostboo,”
“Hmm?”
“Did anyone ever give me a funeral?”
The ghost seems to consider him with an expressionless face, then gives what he might describe as an uncertain chortle, clearing his throat. “Not exactly. I mean, they were planned, but we never quite got around to it.”
“Oh fantastic,” Tommy rolled his eyes. “Too busy to hold a funeral for me. That makes me feel so much better.”
“No, no, it’s not like that.” Ghostboo did that slightly strange thing he would do when recalling a memory: that thing that happened to be staring directly into the sun. Luckily, this time, it was right ahead of them. “Tubbo was always supposed to be in charge of it, but he never wanted to actually do it. Since he had no body to bury in exile, for obvious reasons, he kept putting it off. If he didn’t bury you,” He titled his head down and looked at Tommy with those eyes, in a way that was only slightly unnerving. “Maybe you’d just turn up someday.” Somehow, it makes Tommy laugh. “No way.”
“I’m not saying he ever believed it, but it certainly worked.”
“Yeah,” he hummed, unsure of how to feel.
“What about… the second time?”
“We were waiting for the security issue to be over, so Sam could retrieve the body. Your body.” Tommy cringes, feeling his limbs tingle in a way they haven’t in months. “Thanks for the clarification.” he says, hoping that’ll end that conversation thread, but Ghostboo helpfully tacks on: “He had the memorial built and everything.” Great.
Immediately, Tommy’s thoughts whizz away, digging through months and months of other stuff to the day he re-emerged, the statues by his house, the false legacy they spoke of. A hint of embarrassment creeps into his voice when he hesitantly asks, “Did- Did I knock that down?”
“No! It’s still up, actually.”
“WHERE???” He exclaims incredulously, and Ghostboo laughs open-mouthed. “Just over there actually, out on the ice.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, and then, “Is it weird if I want to see it?”
Ghostboo just sighs and stands up.
The ice makes small cracking noises as they cross it, but Ghostboo assures him it’s just the topmost layer. The further out to sea they get, the worse the mist and the cold gets, and he can’t see shit, and he’s about to suggest they turn back when he spots it. A piece of meadow in the middle of an ice field. It gives him pause. That’s his... his memorial.
“Was I gonna get fucking buried at sea?” Ghostboo just laughs at him again.
There’s grass, mostly frozen and crunchy underfoot. There are flowers, frosted by a layer of half-transparent white and preserved in time, bright red hues and petals all in place. There’s a bench, brand-new and well-made and too perfect, with an engraved placard that says ‘Tommy’s Bench’. There’s a jukebox with the lid iced shut (it says ‘Tommy’s Jukebox’ on the side). The perimeter of the meadow is cobblestone, as he can see when he disturbs the fine layer of snow dusting everything on the tiny island. And there’s a cross-ish-shaped headstone thing, with an epitaph: ‘In the Memory of Tommy. He was taken from us too soon.' It’s hard to say handwriting when talking about carved words, but there’s definitely something akin to that in the stone and woodworking world, and Tommy smiles as he runs his fingers over the inscription, because Tubbo always did do his ‘k’s in a funny way.
He’s alone here; Ghostboo gave him some privacy and is waiting at the edge of the ice sheet, faintly silhouetted behind the mist. Maybe he was being unfair to Tubbo. He did care. It was a high-security prison, after all. Getting in to get someone else out was supposed to be impossible. It’s not Tubbo he’s mad at in this situation. It’s himself, for thinking he was safe, for being so desperate for closure he was putting himself back in harm’s way. And Sam. He’s pissed at Sam.
The quiet is stark, out here where the waves are muted, where the only breathing he can really hear is his own. He briefly wonders where the nearest enderchest is, if he could play a disc, before that idea is firmly shut down by the fact that the lid of the jukebox is, in fact, an immovable object. He gives it an idle kick, and after a couple seconds of silence it makes the most awful grinding noise, like someone trying to run a grill pan through a paper shredder, and starts playing a melody. For one dreadful moment he thinks he’s about to hear Dream’s voice again, but no, it’s just Cat. After a few seconds his heart rate comes down, and he sits down on the bench, nodding idly to the song, wondering if Tubbo sat where he sat, listening. He closes his eyes, and the rest of the world fades into the background. Peace, at last. He only wishes Tubbo would turn up soon so he could share this moment with him. It is kinda weird to have a memorial of yourself, but he doesn’t mind it. It’s nice out here, far enough away from shore to be quiet but close enough that he isn’t cut off from land. Maybe this can be another one of his little spots, when he gets overwhelmed. That’d be nice.
He’s examining one of the frozen flowers when he hears soft footsteps on the ice, the familiar cracking sound as Ghostboo floats towards him. “I thought I’d said to give me some privacy, airhead.” He sits down heavily on the bench, and something in the back of Tommy’s mind is casting doubt. Why would Ghostboo crack the ice? He floats.
Someone living has just joined you.
His heart swells with hope.
Tommy turns, and screams, as loud and as long as his voice will allow, shooting off the bench, putting as much space between them as he can before he collides with his own headstone, knocking it askew, treading on the perfectly preserved flowers. The notable new feature is that Dream’s netherite armour is now decoratively spiked at one of the shoulders, just like it used to be - it’s not Nightmare it can’t be Nightmare he must’ve made new armour he didn’t find Tubbo - but other than that, he looks about the same as he did when they first met again, in Logstedshire. Long hair, green hoodie over an orange jumpsuit, mask set to the side slightly to reveal his face streaked with scars and dirt. He stands, so calmly, and smiles, and every bone in Tommy’s body is screaming RUN RUN RUN.
“Hello again, Tommy,” He closes the already too small gap between them, putting out an arm and pinning Tommy to the skewiff headstone with an ironlike grip. The slight weakness to his frame from his time in prison is already gone, and with it the slight advantage Tommy had last time. He can’t throw Dream off him like he did before, try as he is doing. He scans the landscape over Dream’s shoulder - WHERE THE FUCK IS RANBOO. He’s alone here: alone with a maniac.
“Oh settle down, Tommy,” He’s still trying to dislodge Dream’s hand with no results. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“That’s a lie!” His throat is closing up with the cold and the fear, and so he saves his voice: he’s not sure how much longer he can keep screaming for help. Behind him, he can feel his wooden headstone creak again, and an idea pops into his head. You can beat this. You will get away. “You said you were gonna kill me over and over-”
“Oh, did I?” The malice creeps back into his tone, like Tommy had reminded him of an idea he’d forgotten. For a moment, Tommy freezes. Dream bursts into cruel laughter, “You’re so funny, Tommy. Your face went all horrified, like this-” Tommy takes that opportunity, as much as it makes his skin crawl, to press up into Dream’s hand, giving himself about an inch to work with. Sorry Tubbo, he thinks as he arches his back and throws himself backwards. It was a very lovely memorial.
The wooden cross-thing buckles under his weight, splintering into pieces and sliding away across the ice. The main part of the debris takes Tommy with it, bruising his back slightly, but he’s out of Dream’s grasp. As soon as he feels the cold sting of the ice beneath him, he scrambles to his feet and starts to hoof it, slipping and teetering like an unstable windmill on the slippery surface. A quick glance back tells him Dream is in pursuit, and a slightly longer glance tells him that Dream is also having trouble with the floor. Must’ve forgotten to put snow treads into his new armour. Actually, the sight of the terrifying Dream, spiked armour and all, with one leg up by his head like he’s a dancer because he can’t find purchase on the surface of the fjord is a mental image Tommy saves for later in his momentary glee. He’ll remember that one later when he’s scared. Green Bitch defeated by a little snow and ice.
Tommy’s trainers’ treads aid him over netherite boots for once, and he leans into his steps as he finds a rhythm and accelerates across the ice. They’ve done a wide loop around the now-dishevelled island - sorry again Tubbo - and where the sea ice stretches its hand out to caress the coast, the ice gets narrower, not enough to ever risk being cut off, but enough to give it the appearance of a wrist. He takes three steps onto the natural bridge and crack. crack-CRACK CRACK CRACK.
He backs up rapidly, taking a shaky breath as a veritable web of cracks divide the ice sheet between their chasms. It shouldn’t crack like this. Ghostboo assured him it had never broken, and the cracks were only the top layer of ice. (And he told him he wouldn’t leave him.) Every second he spends debating whether the ice will hold his weight, Dream slips and slides his way, and the ice just keeps breaking. He takes another shaky deep breath, steels himself, and just as he kicks off he feels a gloved hand seize him by the hood and yank him back, constricting on his throat for a second. His eyes are on the floor as he involuntarily bends double to catch his breath, Dream having let go but standing over him like a monolith, and only then does he see the wicked-sharp pickaxe impaled in the ice just a few steps away on their side of the breaking bridge. He watches one of the cracks advance along a jagged line, and his heart turns to lead.
“Don’t run away from me, Tommy. I’d rather pretend we were both grown-ups than play chase all day.” Dream’s disembodied voice drawls from behind the mask, the fixed smile injecting fear directly into his veins. “You-” He rasps, stumbling back. “You said you’d kill me, last time. You tried to kill me.” And this time, he doesn’t have a shield, he doesn’t have armour, why the FUCK did he come out without gear? With Dream on the loose?! And WHERE THE FUCK IS GHOSTBOO? Dream tilts his head to the side, standing nonchalantly, as if the axe glinting on his back couldn’t split Tommy in half in mere seconds. “That’s sweet. Have you been thinking about me?”
Bile rises in his throat and he keeps backing away, turning slightly to each side to survey the ice sheet, searching for another way off. All sides lead to the ocean: he’s trapped. He doesn’t have enough wood for a crafting table, nevermind a boat, he doesn't have enough blocks nor time to get back to land and even if he can outrun Dream initially, they can’t play ring-around-the-rosy forever. Shit shit shit.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Dream giggles a little bit, a noise uncharacteristic for him. “Say, it’s a bit cold out here, isn’t it? How about we take this elsewhere, hm?”
“N-No. Absolutely not.” Tommy finds his courage is much harder to draw on without anything to protect it.
“I’ll rephrase,” Dream says, and the amicability drops out of his voice. “You’re going to come with me, Tommy.”
“No! No, I won’t.”
“No, you will.” He advances one step, two steps, Tommy matching him pace for pace until he misplaces a foot and starts to fall towards the freezing water. Dream lurches forward and catches him by the wrist, and he’s fighting to suspend his own body weight with Dream leaning over him, staring up into scratched porcelain. “You’re going to come with me now, or I’ll kill you and take your body with me. What’s it going to be, huh?”
Tommy can see his frozen breath in the air between them, bouncing off Dream's mask, some of it sticking to it in a sheen of condensation. You have to go with him and get help when you're back on land. You don't have a choice. He swallows his fear and pride and all of the thousands of impulses screaming NO as he stares back into the unfeeling, uncaring smile. You don't have a choice.
"Okay," His voice cracks pathetically, the last shred of his dignity slipping away. "I'll go."
"Thank you," Dream says with a huff, as if he's been inconvenienced buying carrots. He pulls Tommy back onto the ice sheet and shoots him a singular look as he pulls out nearly a stack of obsidian, "Don't run."
Tommy scans the horizon again, desperation setting in as the adrenaline high starts to die and the cold makes him shiver. There's no one. Not even a ghost. Just the two of them, the broken remnants of a memorial on an island in the middle of an ice sheet, and the pickaxe.
The pickaxe.
"It was a lovely island back there," Just hearing Dream's voice sends shivers through him, his attempt at small talk pulling him right back to the prison cell and days of lonely fear. Where will Dream take him? What's Dream going to do to him? The slow horror of a realisation he had months ago and buried suddenly resurfaces. His abuser - his tormentor - has power over death itself. He can do whatever he wants to Tommy: break him apart in an infinite number of ways, put him back together and do it again. And again. And again.
("I'll kill you, and revive you, and kill you and revive you again and kill you and revive you again and kill you and revive you again-")
"Tubbo built it, right? Seems like something he'd do." Dream builds a path of pure nightmarish-black-purple across the ice, and Tommy sees no choice but to follow. Bide your time. "Say, when was the last time you saw Tubbo?" Dream glances back at him, halfway across the bridge to hell. “I-” He gulps. Don’t tell him anything. “I don’t know.” Dream cocks his head, the smooth circle of his mask rotating forty-five degrees. He can tell you lied, why wouldn’t you tell the truth, he knows, it’s just going to make everything worse- He turns back around to continue his task, and a sudden surge of pure desperation sends Tommy across the ice to the pickaxe, his hands around the handle and yanking it free to hide behind his back before his fear drowns it out. “Awh, shame. I would’ve liked to have seen him too. Like old times, right? Or-”
Tommy’s mind is racing as Dream completes the path. He might be able to outrun Dream again, but unless he wants to go around the frozen coast, there’s no guarantee he’ll be able to keep the kind of pace required to escape. He tucks the illicit pickaxe into his belt at the back and tries not to let its weight affect how he stands. Last time he got lucky: Phil was nearby. He knew how to run from Logstedshire. He doesn’t know if anyone’s gonna be nearby. He tries not to fidget anymore than before, the weight of this secret shaking his whole being. Or maybe that’s the cold. He can’t guarantee he’ll find someone that’ll help him. He doesn’t know where safety is this time.
Keep waiting. His hands itch to attack. Patience.
“Or has he left you out again? He’s too busy for you now? Awh, poor, lonely Tommy.” Dream chuckles to himself. The ice is beneath them again as they walk slowly back towards land. Tommy aches for a real weapon, a shield, a friend, anything. He knows Ranboo is dead, but fucking hell, he’s going to kill that ghost the next time he sees him.
“Stay close, Tommy. I don’t want to have to hold your hand like some little kid. You can behave for five minutes, right?” If Tommyinnit’s fear is a furnace, introducing anger makes it a house fire. “Why don’t you just kill me already, if I’m such a fucking problem?” He stares as hard as he can at the back of Dream’s head, trying to burn holes in his skull with imaginary lasers, but Dream doesn’t dignify his outburst with any more attention, just continues walking towards shore. “I would,” He says, cool as a cucumber, “But you’re not exactly living off potatoes anymore.”
“Can’t even be bothered to carry my corpse, what kind of kidnapping is this.” Tommy retorts before his brain can catch up with his mouth. Dream still doesn’t turn, but sounds more bemused, “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to die.” Certainly feels that way sometimes. “I- I-” Now, go now. “I-”
“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you for a little while. And even then, you won’t be dead for long.”
“Lovely,” He mutters, another significant shiver shaking him. The pickaxe slips a little, and he cringes at the stoop he has to do to rescue it.
He needs Dream to turn around, he realises, that’s what he was doing. Dream’s helmet covers most of his stupid head underneath the green hoodie - even if he hasn’t seen it, he knows it’s there, he wouldn’t be out and about without one - but under the mask, he’s unprotected. If he can just shatter it- Heck, he doesn’t even need to break it. As much as he’d love to, he doesn’t need to kill Dream to get away. A decent whack to the noggin would do him in perfectly for making a hasty escape. Dream isn’t even glancing his way. He slowly unhooks the pickaxe from his belt. This is his one shot.
For the first time since sitting down on the Snowchester beach that morning, he feels real warmth return to his limbs; the heat of adrenaline and determination and a streak of rebellion, like old friends coming to his aid, heaping their lots at his feet. He adjusts his grip on the pickaxe. Although, as already established, he doesn’t need to get through the mask so much as give the bastard a concussion, the wicked sharp point of the pickaxe glances against his shin, and he feels the minute brush leave a small gash. With another force, he could put it straight through Dream’s skull. Pickaxe certainly wasn’t how he’d imagined this might go, but he reckons he’d win originality points for a new, unique way to kill someone. He draws back the pickaxe and clears his throat, and when that doesn’t work, he tries an old technique he’d once seen Wilbur do to get Quackity’s attention at a particularly busy Las Nevadas party they definitely should not have been at. A theatrical gasp, and then the delivery:
“Tubbo! Oh, thank Prime!”
Dream turns on his heel like a spring beneath his feet has fired, just as Tommy swings the pickaxe in a wild arc, aiming right for where the nose should be on the mask. The moment of connection feels like no blow Tommy’s ever landed before: at once he knows the material he’s striking is much stronger than any ordinary porcelain. It’s like hitting a netherite chestplate directly in the middle, if such a chestplate was only the size of a dinner plate. The mask doesn’t give but something beneath it does, and Dream lets out a satisfying howl of surprise and pain as he staggers back, slipping and arching his back as he tries to remain on his feet. Tommy doesn’t know if he does: he’s already as gone as he can possibly be.
The world narrows to the distance between each one of Tommy’s strides. All that matters is the pounding of his feet against sheer ice, regular and measured so he doesn’t slip. The burn in his lungs and his arms and his eyes and his legs means nothing: those are sores he can ease later, for now he has to get away. The path he’s running takes him straight back to Snowchester, where he can run screaming through the town and someone will come, someone will see him, and Dream will vanish again, gone like a bad dream. He dropped the pickaxe as soon as he didn’t need it, but, strangely, his hands ache for something to hold onto. He shakes the feeling out of them, concentrating on running and only running, surviving a few more minutes, always reaching for the end of the rope and never quite making it. He risks a glance over his shoulder and sees the distant speck of green and iridescent black far behind him. He doesn’t slow down, but the sight brings him immeasurable relief. He may be trapped in an eternal game of cat and mouse, but at least he’s winning.
Left, right, left, right. He's going to make it, he's actually going to make it. Relief floods his system as the edge of Snowchester proper comes into his line of sight: Tubbo's house, standing like a snow-dusted sentry at the edge of his salvation. For just a moment, Tommy smiles through the ache in his legs and the burn of the frigid air against his throat, because ho goodness he's done it again. He's made his great escape.
And then there's a devastating thud of netherite boots landing on ice right behind him, and the hand closes around the back of his neck. He's about to swing an elbow back to dislodge it when his feet leave the ground for a moment and he hears his own name in a voice he hates-
And he sinks with a splash into the freezing water of the fjord.
Cold. That's all he feels. The icy water permeates his clothes instantly, chilling him straight to the bone. His teeth chatter as he shakes, the movements beyond his control, and he supposes it might sound like someone had replaced all of his blood with hailstones, then shook him to hear the rattle. For a few seconds his mind is still onshore, marvelling at the beautiful way the light penetrates this glacial otherworld in rippling waves of white on white. He stares through the crisp water with eyes that are starting to sting by salt, and in the distance, he swears he sees a shape, moving towards him through the frozen ocean. A ghoulish figure, with torn, russet robes of some kind swirling behind him as he advances through their snowglobe-fishtank world. Its skin is grey, and the hair-stuff that obscures sunken eyes sports a stray streak of snow.
And maybe it's down to the creature, with its black eyes and reaching hands, swimming towards him at a steady pace through the surf, or perhaps its merely on account of the cold water shock finally registering. Either way, every muscle in Tommy Innit's body chooses that moment to seize, and Tommy finds he has no more air left in aching lungs.
His chest feels impossibly tight, begging him to breathe in when there is no air to breathe. He can't convince any of his limbs to function, so though the surface is not far away, he'll never get there. It's too cold. He's going to drown. Oh Prime, he's going to drown. No, not this, not this, anything but this. He wishes for the prison cell, its warmth, its air. He can't drown. He'd fight Dream with his hands tied behind his back a thousand times if only someone would come and rescue him.
At the same time... The creatures arms extend. It's maybe thirty metres away now, gliding towards him, fighting a current. He doesn't know what it is but he... He knows who it is. Maybe succumbing to the depths - with him - wouldn't be so bad. Maybe death won't hurt this time. Maybe Death will hold him close like an older brother. Maybe it won't be so bad. He's knows he's crying, even if his tears are indistinguishable from the net that strangles him. Two bad choices. A lose-lose situation.
He can't hide, swim away or take air into his lungs. So he screams. For help, for safety, for someone to come save him. Under the water, no one will hear him. But he screams anyway. Throws back his head and shrieks with everything left in him. Water floods in and he gags on the impossibly salty taste. But still he screams.
For help that won't come.
As the nimble fingers caress his cheeks, the rough hands wrench him from a watery grave and fling him to the icy ground. He coughs once and the water starts coming, and it never seems to stop. He coughs, chokes as Dream slaps his back callously, then he turns and vomits, not quite strong enough to turn around and throw up on Dream. Still the water keeps coming: as the air rushes in to replace it, everything is too cold and he's sure he stops breathing, shivering so much that respiration is impossible. The strikes between his shoulder blades turn to a hand tracing circles - no, sideways figures of eight, infinity symbols - and he doesn't have the strength to make him stop. He wants it all to stop: the burning feeling every time he steals another breath, the spinning of the whole world like a top before him, the sick feeling and the throwing up of seawater and Dream's hands on him and the image of Wilbur gliding towards him through bitterly cold water with blank, dead eyes.
His face hits the ice, and between then and the next breath he's stuck to the floor, Dream's hand casually petting his hair. Darkness receeds - did he pass out? He doesn't know. Can't know. It's all too much. He's so cold. Prime, he wants Dream's hands off him, but when did Prime ever care what he wanted? No one ever comes to spare him the worst of his pain, so why not just give in? Stay with the maniac. It's over - his life, y'know. This is it, the beginning of the end of Tommy Innit. Checkmate, Dream. Tommy's ready to resign.
"-what I think, well, I mean, I'm no professional, but I think I figured it out." Oh, the bastard's been talking. "It's just: no one taught you to behave, or be a bit respectful. Like, that's it! And that's a pretty easy fix. I mean, we did it before in what, two weeks? Just gotta make it stick this time. And I've-"
Tommy's mind floats out to sea, but this time there is no shining city across the water he can pretend will send the fleet to bring him home. He drowns out all that Dream rambles about as he is manhandled to his feet and they begin the long walk to wherever Tommy will die. It doesn't matter. He won't let it matter. That's his final act of defiance: apathy. His greatest act of rebellion yet will be to make peace with the end of his life - it's coming, whether literally or figuratively. He wonders if anyone will feed Shroud when he's gone. The things you think of at the end.
They're almost past Snowchester, a new snowstorm beginning to shed its flurries upon the earth and ice, when Tommy's foot catches on uneven terrain and down he goes. Due to Dream's arms around his shoulders, he crouches with him. Ironically, that causes the first arrow to sail uselessly over Dream's head. "Really, Tommy? Bit pathetic. Didn't you used to fi-" The second arrow finds its mark, striking Dream's armoured shoulder with a sharp thunk, lodging itself in the space between the wicked spikes. Dream rises rapidly, drawing his sword and shield with a noise of confusion. No mob would join them out on the ice at this time of day, even with the snow beginning to fall.
In the gap beneath Dream's right arm, through the billowing wind growing thicker with white by the second, a figure stands out against the banks and drifts of the hillside not far from where Tommy lies at the edge of the still shoreline. A dark green cloak ripples in the wind and invisible hands fire another arrow that Dream dodges with a short hop. From where he is frozen to the floor, Tommy watches the figure advance firing arrow after arrow from the gleaming crossbow, netherite armour minus a helmet lending the invisible person the impression of being headless. A slightly frightening savoiur, but after the day he's had, Tommy's not complaining.
Or maybe he's frozen with shock. Somebody came.
"HELLLLLLP. STOP HIM, HEL-" The next arrow thuds off Dream's chestplate, a dodge he sacrifices to kick Tommy hard in the stomach, rolling him over, fresh tears springing to the boy's eyes. "Shut up. Prime, you're so annoying." He manages half a roll back over when Dream's foot connects with his shoulder, pinning him harshly to the ground. The glance back for the figure is futile: the snow's coming down so fast now he can't see the smile on Dream's mask. He's so cold. He's going to die of hypothermia at this rate.
With another shove to his shoulder to plant him on his front, Dream stalks away, the sound of tinnily cracking ice reaching the ear of Tommy's that is stuck to the floor as Dream stomps away, his sword and shield drawn. Tommy hears his footfall change - swiften, and then the telltale thunk of an arrow buried in a shield, then the fight begins. As Tommy wrestles with his own limbs and will to go on, the cloaked figure and Dream clash blade to axehead, two flashes of green in a world that resembles a blank canvas. Whoever it is has good armour and a dedicated swing, but even from his position on the icy floor, slowly trying to mount an escape attempt, Tommy can see the imperfections in their technique, the minute hesistation in each movement, as if they're focused on something else.
With a crash of axe against shoulder the figure crumples, going to the ground with Dream's axe pressed against the vulnerable side of their neck, blood leaking from unseen skin onto the flat side of the deadly-sharp weapon. "Tell me," Dream pauses to swallow, and Tommy finally gets on his knees to get up, wondering who's about to die for trying to come to his aid. This is why no one comes to help.
"Tell me who you are. And perhaps, I will let you live." For a long moment, the only answer he receives is the billowing wind. Tommy's brain screams at him - and his unknown fighter - to run, but his limbs won't respond. He shivers violently, completely helpless to his own fate and that which awaits his would-be savoiur. Thank you for trying. A sound like the great clock of the universe rings out across the fjord, counting down the last seconds of their lives.
Without further warning, Tubbo's invisibility potion runs out. Trust the powers that be to go for the drama. He can't see Dream's expression thanks to the mask, but all is made quite transparent by the way he steps back, laughing with his axe raised.
"Tubbo! How nice, how nice of you to join us! We had just said- Hadn't we just said it'd be nice of you to make an appearance?" The awful smile that haunts Tommy's every nightmare turns away from him as it leers back towards Tubbo, lying prone on the ground propped up by his elbows. "Anyways-" Dream raises the axe, a scene from an old night terror come true. The clock ticks faster, seconds running away from them at breakneck pace. "-I believe we've had some unfinished business leftover from last time we-"
Faster than a lightning flash, Dream is gone. The crack as the pinkish-red blur collides with his unprotected side is louder than the groan from the ice sheet, snaking fissure lines chasing them across the shore away from the impact crater of Dream and- Technoblade. With a shimmer of magical invisibility, Technoblade's grimace comes into view beneath the boar skull mask. Watching them, for a moment Tommy is not fighting for his life on the ice but back home, in the van, watching a very similar fight on his phone. The knowledge of that contest's result surges through him, the warmth of hope reviving his heart. He gapes at the spectacle as long as his surroundings permit: the strikes are harsher, the shouts and japes are malicious, the blood is real, the snow replaces a grainy display. Even as the maelstrom wraps them in ivory laurels, the pink of Techno's hair and the green of Dream's hoodie glow flourescent against the backdrop of the peaceful town. The canvas is spattered red.
Suddenly, a fracture line rips through the ice beneath Tommy, quickly soaking his left calf in freezing water. It feels like being bitten by razor-sharp jaws, and no, he can't do that again. This time, he really will drown. Finally, he wrenches his gaze from the rematch of the century out on the ice and moves, stumbling, staggering towards safety, soaked shoes and socks and slurred swear words lost to the snow. Staying upright is a difficult task - with solid ground a step ahead he pitches towards it, no longer caring, when arms encircle his middle at what seems like the last possible moment and pull him out of his fall. "Tommy-"
A memory comes back to him, clear as a puddle on ice. L'Manberg, then, a notably warm summer's day, their revolutionary coats abandoned on a rock with their boots, paddling. He's staring into the water of the river and Tubbo's arms are wrapped around his middle, suspending him above the water where he's caught him. Their faces are side by side, scarless, round with the marks of boyhood, and he watches as Tubbo's twists mischeviously, before he lets Tommy topple into the water below. Here, now, enveloped momentarily in the scent of clean cotton and wilting lilies, Tommy knows Tubbo will not let him go.
"I'm sorry-" His voice comes out as a hoarse murmer, barely audible over the chattering of his teeth. "-about the island."
"What?" Tubbo's voice is familiar, like the melody of a beloved song. He pulls them both back and turns Tommy around, their eyes meeting for the first time since... forever.
"The island. It may have got a bit destroyed... The memorial." Tubbo's eyes tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about; doesn't care, his hands gripping Tommy's side and pressing against his forehead and the back of his neck. "You're so cold, hold on-" He glances very obviously over Tommy's shoulder, watching a blizzard fight a thunderstorm and, apparently satisfied, begins to remove his chestplate. He shrugs out of his snow jacket dotted with squashed flowers and straps his chestplate back on with reckless haste.
Reaching around Tommy's body with the jacket, Tubbo can feel the shivers that roll through Tommy's shoulders like a running river. He's soaked to the skin, cold to the touch, breathing as if a great boulder he's unable to roll away sits upon his chest. "Did you fall in the water?" Tommy's answer consists of a wet cough and the way his hands grip Tubbo's forearms, holding to him as if he's driftwood in an endless sea. Snow snags on his nose above lips quickly turning blue, so Tubbo closes the space between them, throwing his cloak over Tommy's legs. Anything he can do to keep him warm. They need to get out of this snowstorm. Preferably now. Time is not on their side, as usual, and Tubbo can almost see the hands of the great clock of the universe ticking steadily down, passing over his head like the shadow of a pillar. Third time is not the charm. He is not losing Tommy today.
Inside the green-brown world of Tubbo's creation, Tommy begins to cry again. Pitifully, silently - because he doesn't want Tubbo to know he was so convinced no one was coming he had already resigned himself to that awful, awful fate. That he doesn't know what else to do with this miraculous rescue than break. And he is broken. He has been for a long time. Doesn't know what Tommy without the missing pieces and fracture lines looks like. (But it looks like a boy in his best friend's arms, trusting him entirely, for better or worse.)
(So, really, he does know.)
Through the whirling wind's howling turmoil, Tubbo sees the outline of a victorious combatant approaching, weapon of choice leaning against his shoulder. In preperation of a swift flight he tenses every muscle in his body, but relaxes them when the looming shadow proves to be friend, rather than foe. Flecks of blood decorate Techno's armour between the intricate etchings and stain his face around the boar mask, though there isn't enough of it to suggest Dream lost badly enough. He knocks the mask back onto his head with the back of a hand, breathing heavily and sporting an expression somewhere between a smile and a grimace.
"Is he- uh, okay?"
Tubbo flips stray hairs out of his eyes before responding, squinting through snow, "We needed to get him inside, about ten minutes ago, but he'll be alright." Tubbo pretends his voice didn't break on the final word of his pronouncement and Techno pretends he didn't hear. "How's Dream?"
Something dark flickers in Techno's eyes, just for a second. "Oh, he'll need a few days to recuperate from his run in the snow." They both pretend not to hear Tubbo mutter, "So will we."
They make a good team, Tubbo and Technoblade. Tubbo tries not to think about all the time they called each other enemies, all the time they might have wasted boasting about who had the biggest rocket at their disposal. Still, they haven't found Michael. It's a pure stroke of luck they stumbled upon another kidnapping in progress and intervened. It's even luckier to have been the other person Tubbo was searching for. Since Dream's escape and... everything else, Tubbo had been going out of his mind with grief and worry, but Techno had been the steady floor beneath his feet; a solid place to land. It had almost slipped his mind that Tommy would be wrestling with similar emotions. As they cross the shore to Snowchester together: victim and bodyguard and best friend travelling as a tight trio, Tubbo's mind races with a thousand questions for Tommy.
"Did he hurt you?"
"Have you been eating well?"
"Why were you here?"
"Did you miss me?"
"Did you miss me like I missed you?"
Tubbo's house is empty and cold; Snowchester is a ghost town. Yet, the ghost of something that was once home rises between the cracks in the floorboards with the lighting of a fire in the grate. Techno busies himself with sweeping the melting snow from the floor and starting something warm cooking on the stove. Tubbo can't remember stocking anything in the pantry in months, but Techno obviously found enough of something that they can at least feed Tommy, and maybe he'll stop looking so Death-touched. With an arm full of blankets, Tubbo returns dutifully to Tommy's side, as he always (hoped) imagined he would.
Slowly, carefully, Tubbo unwraps the layers of Tommy's blanket cacoon. The flickering reflections of flames dance in his eyes as he stares blankly into the fire, sat a mere metre away, though he starts when Tubbo's fingers brush his bare arm.
He squirms between Tubbo's look of plain concern: he doesn't shiver, despite the icy pallor of his skin and the lack of any warmth to their connection. Too weak, too tired, too cold. He could fall asleep here and never wake up again. If he had the energy he'd crawl into the fire to warm up.
Frostbite and hypothermia - though bitches to deal with - are old acquaintances of Tubbo's now, being a dweller of a town that literally has 'Snow' in the name. He knows (from attempt and instruction and trial and error) he knows that 'dry heat' from a fire or torch does more harm than good - the only thing worse than frostbite is a burn on top of frostbite. As he shifts across the floor, pressing tentatively against Tommy, he doesn't know whether to expect resistance. Yet, like the ice that still clings to Tommy's clothes, drying much closer to the fire, Tommy melts into his touch. He arranges the blankets around the two of them, slipping the other arm around Tommy, feeling his head against his collarbone and his hands balling themselves in his shirt and his breathing, low and chilled, just like the rest of him, against his sternum. A chill shakes his spine as his body adjusts to having Tommy's next to it again, seeping cold into his bones, drawing out his warmth. He gives it freely. Right here, Tubbo closes his eyes and rocks them back and forth, breathing in this respite at the end of a day that didn't end in disaster.
From his spot, head lolled against Tubbo's chest, all that Tommy can see is an unremarkable view of the side of Tubbo's kitchen counters. He's vaguely aware of Techno clattering around in the kitchen, bashing pots and pans and Prime knows what else. Dimly, he's aware that his headache is back. Great. Insult to injury. He listens to Tubbo's breathing, rising and falling slightly against his chest, feeling very mortal and fragile and cold.
In. Out.
In. Out.
Like the tide.
The rhythm of someone breathing.
What happened to Ghostboo? He has no idea how much time passed while he was being chased the length of the bay, but it's surely been at least a few hours since they parted so Tommy could look at his own memorial in peace. Prime, the memorial. As the day's events catch up to him, Tommy finds he just wants to block it all out. Too much, too many. What a fuckin' mess of a day. He's lucky to be alive, really. He was really, really close to drowning.
He's really lucky to be alive.
In. Out.
In. Out.
Unbidden, a flash of something with black eyes and a streak of white hair appears in his mind. Was that real? He's not sure what the least concerning answer is here: hallucination? Is he losing his mind with the paranoia and sleeplessness? Or does Snowchester have some kind of problem with... sirens? He's delirious from the whole near-death experience, but, firstly, he's pretty sure that's not what sirens are supposed to do or look like, and secondly, sirens don't exist. Probably. Actually, in a world of gods walking among men, fairies, demigods and a giant red egg that nearly took over the server, sirens in the Snowchester fjord wouldn't be the strangest thing. But, shapeshifting sirens masquerading as your once dead pseudo-brother...
Actually, the most logical explanation here is that, in his almost-last moments, his brain conjured up an image of Wilbur coming towards him through the water. Which is a totally reasonable thing for his brain to have done.
In. Out.
In. Out.
In-
"Y'know, I'm so glad I found you." Uncharacteristically, Tubbo's voice is both quiet and brimming with sincerity. Oh no, things must have been bad. "I mean, it was really irresponsible of me to rush in like that - Techno told me to wait but as soon as I saw- Him, I- I just saw red, y'know? I put both of us at risk, and... I'm sorry, but I'm more sorry I didn't come sooner. That he- he already hurt you."
An uneasy silence settles on them before Tubbo speaks again. "And all I could think, when I saw you on the ground, was... Was what if I was too late? I'd done it again: I'd been too late to save someone- you, again, and I- Well, I don't have much left to lose anymore. But, I knew- I knew you'd be fine - you'll be fine - because I- I haven't lost you yet..."
"If he didn't bury you, maybe you'd just turn up someday."
A memorial for a kid that isn't dead. A muttered, "You're actually alive." He knows this dance well. He could just leave it be. Settle into the comfortable familiarity of badly-kept secrets and truths unspoken. Draw warmth from old fires. But they say that even bad things can feel comforting through repetition. Familiarity in the sting of a hit from the masked man that says he loves you when no one else will. When you've seen it enough times, it can become comforting to watch the world burn.
So, Tommy bites. Or croaks, rather.
"You didn't come-"
"I came, Tommy, I'm here."
"When I was exiled, you didn't come." At the mere mention of it, Tubbo goes completely silent. Even the steady rise and fall of his chest stops. The halting of the tide.
"You never came," He continues, his voice growing stronger, raising his head. "Nobody did. And, I don't want to make you feel all guilty, or blame you for anything, I- I just want to know why. Please."
A long silence follows, broken only by the sounds of Techno in the kitchen. Eventually, awkwardly, Tubbo clears his throat, "You want the truth?"
"Yeah, preferably; it's why I asked."
"I- Okay, I-" He swallows, and then Tommy realises where the tide went. A tsunami sweeps over the land. "I was scared. It's a pathetic excuse, really, isn't it? I was scared you didn't like me anymore. That you'd hate me for exiling you. Dream fed us all these lies that you were okay or that you were misbehaving or that you didn't want to see anyone but- None of that would've mattered anyway, y'know? I'm a great spy or whatever, I can sneak around, but... I was afraid you would hate me for what I did and we would never be best friends again and, Prime, it was a horrible choice and you have no idea how much I wished day after day I had done it different, but I thought if I- if I stayed away, you couldn't hate me. Couldn't tell me you hated me. And I could about convince myself we were still... friends."
A single drop splashes into the ocean of Tommy's grief. The water spills over the side of the cup, the river bursts its banks, the swell of the tide overwhelms the flood walls in an empty town that doesn't care its been washed out to sea. The spray is cold and salty. No one comes, and no one cares. The little town by the sea is peaceful, because when a wave crashes on a beach with no ears to hear, it makes no sound.
Tommy closes his eyes and leans his head against his best friend's chest again - like the night after the beginning, or the dawn of the end. "Prime, Tubbo, you're so clingy."
A pause. Then: "Really? That's what you say to that?"
"Real sweet, Tubbo. Next time, just send me a message, yeah?"
He doesn't miss the note of frustration in Tubbo's voice when he responds, "You never even read any of my messages."
Tommy replies with his usual brashness, "Well, so-rry. I had shit signal in exile. You should've made wifi part of the declaration." But then, finally, a pause, "Really?"
"Of course I tried to reach you. I even visited you a couple times. But you weren't there."
"I- You what?" He looks up, though all he can see is the underside of Tubbo's chin.
"Ghostbur showed me around once, but you were off in the Nether or something and I didn't have time to wait around. And then-" His voice goes small. "One time I got through the portal and immediately went back. I-" His nervous laugh stills them both. "Like I said, pretty pathetic."
It was real. It was him.
In a way, he came.
Like a relentless tide, the quiet swallows them again. One boy living with the ghosts guilt over hard choices he feels he'll never leave behind, one with the phantoms of the past that refuse to stay there. But together, it is easier to stay warm, whether pressed skin-to-skin in freezing water or inside a mound of blankets.
"For the record... thank you."
"For saving your ass? You're welcome."
"For trying," He shifts so his hand finds Tubbo's, groping blindly with no way of seeing, no compass to guide him home. He makes it anyway. "It was a very unsuccessful attempt, but thank you for trying to visit me."
He can feel Tubbo nuzzle into his hair, maybe kiss the top of his head like he's seen him do with Michael. Affectionate bastard. "Still best friends?" He whispers.
"Duh. Come on, shift it, I've got a shit headache and my back hurts."
"Ah, Phil moment- Oh, you're all bruised."
"Oh help me Tubbo, I've gotten old."
Together, they laugh. Long and hard and louder than needed. The sun sinks below the horizon, marking another day survived - barely, but still. That is how Tommy's day ends. Relatively bloodlessly and almost warm and with a hand clasped in Tubbo's and complaining about Techno's affinity for potatoes and breathing life back into an empty house, accompanied by the people that came to get him.
The people that came.