Blue Light
Tommy snatched the remaining binders from the floor and his best friend’s hands as he crossed to the other side of the room. “Enderchest for these. Don’t want them to burn, I-”
A thought struck him, approximately a minute after it would have been useful. He turned slowly to look at Tubbo’s face, who’s eyes were darting between him and the garments in his hands, mild disbelief in his eyes. Tommy’s stomach did a flip. Of course he knows what a binder is.
Tommyinnit is trans. Tommyinnit is not out to anyone on the Dream SMP yet. Through a series of contrivances, that will change.
(8.1k words, tw for mild transphobia & unsafe binding, you can also read this on my ao3!)
---
Red and white shirt. Red and white shirt. Green shirt (not his). Red and white shirt. Beige cargo pants with no weird dark patch on the left side. Beige cargo pants with weird dark patch on the left side (Tubbo and his fucking bees, man). Beige cargo pants. Inside-out red and white shirt. And then, binder, binder, binder.
Tommy dumped them all in a big pile on the floor and sighed. As he turned, his elbow knocked into part of the door, and it crumbled to ash on impact. This was all that was left of his wardrobe: another hilarious prank, perpetrated by who even knows, gone wrong. He took an axe to the remainder of the burnt wood, demolishing it in seconds and lugging it outside to be used for firewood or something. That was really all it was good for now. He considered writing a sign beside it that would say ‘Burn me!’, but at that point he’d be tempting fate. He didn’t need to come back to yet another hilarious house fire any time soon.
Tubbo stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him and together they were able to heave the wardrobe across the floor. It was actually significantly easier with Tubbo’s help, and Tubbo gave him a funny look, “Weaksauce.”
He was just about done positioning the new wardrobe he’d built - while cussing out the Swedish, for the sacrilegious act of inventing flat-pack furniture - when a certain somebody came loudly through his open front door with enough swagger to kill a man, then abruptly stopped when seeing Tommy straining to push a rather average-sized wardrobe across his floor. “Oh go on then, just let yourself in.”
Tubbo snorted, “Sorry, I’ll be going then-”
“Oh fucking ‘ell, ‘elp me.”
“Wha- Where the fuck has weaksauce come from?” He shook his head and pulled out a bunch of new clothes hangers, as most of his old ones had melted slightly and bent completely out of shape. He set about rehoming his few items of clothing, as Tubbo hummed a laugh, “Don’t know.” The older boy grabbed one of Tommy’s shirts off the ground and lobbed it at him.
“Thanks.”
He stopped short, “This wasn’t you, was it?” Tommy said, indicating the scorch marks on the floor and walls before going back to hanging up identical items of clothing. Why identical? It just made it a whole lot easier. He knew what worked for him, and he stuck with it.
“What? No,” Tubbo said quickly, perhaps a little too quickly, Tommy thought, as he looked up just in time to see Tubbo resuming his position, cramming something into his back pocket.
“Tubboooooo,” He pouted.
“I promise it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with the fire. Any and all businesses I have conducted in this house have nothing to do with that fire.”
A thought struck him, approximately a minute after it would have been useful. He turned slowly to look at Tubbo’s face, who’s eyes were darting between him and the garments in his hands, mild disbelief in his eyes. Tommy’s stomach did a flip. Of course he knows what a binder is. The bewilderment written across his face slowly dwindled, and a kind of allowance emerged. He tilted his head, obviously thinking for an agonisingly long moment. Recollection, and then, recognition. He met Tommy’s eyes again, smiled and winked.
Whatever, Tommy thought. T-shirt, trousers, trousers, “Hey this is mine!”, appropriate teasing, t-shirt, t-shirt, binder, wait-
“Oh yeah,” Tommy snatched the remaining binders from the floor and his best friend’s hands as he crossed to the other side of the room. “Enderchest for these. Don’t want them to burn, I-”
A weight Tommy hadn’t realised he’d been carrying lifted from his shoulders.
He turned and put the binders safely into his enderchest, neatly tucked between his discs and his diamonds. Tubbo came up behind him, leaning on the crafting table, “Wanna go out for ice cream, big man?” There were a thousand more questions waiting behind that one, but Tommy was sure he wouldn’t mind answering them. Of course Tubbo would be fine with it, you moron.
“Absolutely.”
“Hey, um,” Tubbo linked their arms as they left Tommy’s house behind for the downtown SMP. The sun was shining softly, illuminating the land with a yellow-ish glow. A perfect day for something cold. “Who knows?”
“Just- Just me and you.”
Tubbo nodded slowly and winked again.
They giggled all the way to the ice cream parlour.
“What was that?”
“What do you mean?”
“That- You did it again!”
“Have you never seen anyone wink before?!”
---
In some weird twist of fate, Tommy didn’t get to formally come out to Wilbur either.
Tubbo helped him keep it a secret. It wasn’t like he ever felt unsafe, he just preferred people not to know. Y’know. Bloody hell, he already knew Wilbur would be fine with it, what with his ‘little champion’ also falling into that camp. Nah, he just wanted to keep it on the down-low. The last time he almost came out to someone was when he was going to tell Eret; their most openly queer friend seemed like an easy choice to make. They were interrupted by one of Wilbur’s declaration drafting sessions. And not a moment too soon. Tommy was glad for that little butterfly effect moment. He didn’t want the second person to know he was trans to be their traitor. Thanks Wil.
“So, that about wraps that up then,” Wilbur gathered the last of the papers strewn across the camarvan’s central table into a neat pile and handed them to Fundy. “Make sure these get directly to Des. I swear, if their assistant loses them again-” Fundy barked out a laugh, “Yes sir.” Wilbur nodded back, “Alright then, see you later.”
Fundy scurried away, leaving the three of them, “Okay, you know the drill by now, blah blah government meeting adjourned, Tubbo please put your coat on and publish the minutes, and then if you would,” He paused, inhaling and exhaling deeply and slowly, “Please go down to the bakery and inform Miss Nihachu that if she’s to keep wafting such delicious smells through the windows during government meeting hours that she’s required by law to save us a table.” The two boys sniggered at each other, “Yes sir.” Tubbo gave a mock salute, and they both began to shrug on their coats when Wilbur said, “Just a minute, Tommy.”
Tommy stopped putting his coat on. Tubbo gave him the ‘someone’s in trouble’ look. Tommy flipped him off discreetly. And so it was that Tommy and Wilbur were alone in the camarvan. Wilbur rounded the table to end up at the front, in the redundant driving area where they kept all the photos of family and friends and good days in their great nation. “Come here, Tommy.” He joined Wil, the beginnings of a lovely sunset seeping in through the yellow glass gaps in the walls, giving the land before them a warm, lemony glow.
Wilbur sighed, pushing some of his hair away from his eyes. “I don’t say this lightly; you might think me a hypocrite, but-” He looked over, his face looking unmistakably troubled, “Tommy, I’m- you’re worrying me a little bit.”
“Are- Are you being the president right now?” Tommy cut in, adding a laugh at the end that sounded far too nervous. He couldn’t fathom what Wilbur was talking about.
“I-” Wilbur’s hesitation resolved itself after a moment. “No, I’m being your-” He wafted the conclusion to that phrase with the hand nearest Tommy, then rested it on his shoulder. “I just-” He signed, a knot forming in Tommy's stomach. “You know you can tell me things, right? Less than good things. If anything was going on-”
“Wil, what the fuck are you talking about.” His fear turned mostly to confusion.
Wilbur sighed and his other hand went for his pocket. He drew out a small plastic bag with a biohazard symbol containing some used needles and a syringe and ohhhhh.
Another pause - a moment that felt briefly like an eternity then resolved just as quickly. Then a very deliberate, very drawn-out, typically-Wilbur, “Oh.”
“Tommy, if there’s something you need to tell me about, I promise it’s alright-”
“Wil, that’s for my hormones.”
A pause, “Your what?”
“My hormones,” He swallowed, hand going to his open pocket. Whoops. He pulled out the corresponding vial and held it up so Wilbur could see. “My hormones. I’m trans.”
And then they both burst out laughing.
Tommy didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or scream or cry - or all three - but he decided instead to hold the outburst in, at least temporarily, “This was… Not how I wanted you to find out, but-”
“No, I- I don’t suppose it was.”
“So you’re telling me, you’re just going around with needles in your coat pockets, unmarked- unmarked-!”
“You listen here, man, you’ve gotta be careful disposing of those things, I can’t just throw them in any old bin, I’ve gotta wait-” Pause to intake breath, “What I think is weirder is you walking around with MY THING, being all concerned like ‘Tommy, Tommy, if there’s anything going on-’ What did you think they were?”
A moment passed between them in amused silence, broken only by Tommy’s snickering.
“Look,” Wilbur said, “Consider, if you will. We are in a drug van.”
“Too shay.”
—
“Am I- Am I dismissed?”
Wilbur shook his head, “Yes, you are. And ask Thalia for some zips on your pockets so I can stop finding your shit on the floor of the camarvan.” Wilbur slapped the bag down on the dashboard where Tommy could easily pick it up, “Arse.”
Tommy turned to go, then paused, “Um, thanks Wil-”
Wilbur silenced him with a look, “Don’t mention it. I’ll meet you at Niki’s.”
He smiled, “Yeah.”
Stale, stanky air. The faint, earthy aroma of potatoes simmering in a lidded pot. Smoke of vague, better-unexplained origins. The grit that seemed to sneak into every shoe and pocket like sand at the beach. The uncomfortable slant of every wall, the spotty, sometimes too bright, often useless light from the hanging lanterns. The far-away sound of people distorted through the tunnels. The breeze that came from nowhere and the moans of the caves that often sounded like the ghost of a wounded animal, writhing to get free of a snare.
None of it distracted him from the pain in his abdomen.
“I’m serious, Tubbo, it’s like being stabbed, and you know I know what being stabbed feels like. In fact, it’s worse than being stabbed, because at least with being stabbed someone pulls the sword out. I feel like I’m being repeatedly stabbed, like someone’s-”
“Woah, alright, I get it,” Tubbo put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and started manoeuvring him backwards towards his bed from the doorframe, where he’d been standing like a town crier incessantly complaining while Tubbo had been making him another hot water bottle. “If it hurts that bad, I’d get back into bed, big man.”
Tommy sat down with a sizeable huff, toeing off his trainers, “Do you have any idea how boring it is spending all day lying by yourself in a cave, staring at the ceiling? The only thing worse than these cramps is these cramps and being bored because of them.”
“So the tier list of bad things is, one, cramps and boredom, two, cramps, and three, being stabbed?” Tubbo sat beside him as Tommy quickly wriggled back into the position he’d been in for most of the past few hours - that being, lengthways, very horizontal - and handed Tommy the fresh hot water bottle.
“Yeah,” He said, half-panting. “You got it.”
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t be here, I have no idea what’s been stealing so much of my attention,” Tubbo had a glint in his eye as he said it. Tommy grinned.
“Couldn’t be anything important.”
“Not at all.”
“Nothing useful to our general cause or conducive to winning our home back.”
“Nope. No matters of Manberg national security at all.”
“None.”
Tommy groaned, “What time is it? And, more to the point-” He sucked in a pained breath, “How long is it until I get to take more ibuprofen - my best friend?” He looked up to see Tubbo giving him faux heartbroken eyes.
“I thought I was your best friend.”
“Well, if you’d have been here in my worst hours-” He broke off with a snicker that turned into a wince and felt Tubbo shuffle closer.
“It’s twenty to seven, and don’t you think you might need some stronger painkillers?”
“I’m a big man,” He managed. “I’ve met Vikkstar, you know-”
“Mmhm.”
“-I can handle this.”
He glanced over his shoulder to watch as Tubbo kicked off one shoe in a dramatic arc and pivoted around to lie beside him. He heard the shoe knock something over with two dull thuds as their eyes met, and Tubbo cracked a guilty smile, “Oops.” Tubbo’s arm burrowed into the bedclothes, and Tommy nuzzled into his side without thinking, the hot water bottle pressed between them.
It was a few minutes before Tommy remembered to ask, “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Now I may be wrong - which, admittedly, is not often,” he paused to let Tubbo snicker. “But I thought someone had a meeting with the President tonight.”
—
“Fuck the President,” Tommy barked out an unexpected laugh. Tubbo turned his face to look down at Tommy’s, “I don’t care. I’ll think of something to tell him tomorrow, some excuse. I’ve got more important things to take care of right now.”
It was the kind of remark that would have him calling Tubbo ‘really fucking clingy’ normally, but something about the previous few hours made it land true. Tommy snuggled closer and drifted off to the rhythm of his best friend’s heartbeat. Tubbo smiled and drew the blanket around them both, waiting for the lamps to burn low.
Someone gave Fundy a harsh shove, and Tommy was backing up to let him sorta stick the landing on the camarvan floor. Taking up a lot of the space was Schlatt: rather, he took up relatively little space, but no one wanted to go near him. The space reeked of alcohol and something possibly identifiable as protein shakes left to rot, and the whole scene was depressingly disgusting. Fundy picked himself up and faced the President himself, clearly sweating and dishevelled, with a glint of something dangerous in his eyes.
As soon as he’d straightened up Schlatt launched at him, swinging an empty glass bottle. The crowd around them livened into protests as Schlatt kept swinging, aiming for his unprotected face as they swung around the small area, though - once again - no one got involved, as if they were an arena crowd at a spectacle. Fundy shoved Schlatt off him and brought his arm up in time to catch the next swing. The bottle smashed against the armour plating on his forearm and glass shards exploded out. Tommy was one of the handful of people down on the floor that managed to get his shield up in time to shelter from the barrage: when he lowered it he saw Wilbur brushing glass out of his coat.
Schlatt continued to whale on Fundy, the edge of the broken bottle scraping against his armour as he aimed again and again for anything unprotected. Quackity stepped forward, shield in hand, trying to put it between them while voicing his objections, but trying to block Schlatt was like trying to catch smoke in your hands. He ducked and weaved, roughly shoving Quackity aside, contorting like a snake as he lunged. Although, perhaps his evasion was more due to Quackity being slow: Tommy realised after observing for a moment that Quackity was shaking.
“You bitch!” Fundy managed to hit Schlatt’s forearm hard enough that he reflexively dropped the bottle, then shoved him back forcefully. He collided, hard, with the back wall of the crumbling camarvan, yet surged forward again, standing with a shaky stance but commanding some sort of raw power, holding something vaguely cylindrical in his off-hand. Tommy hefted his shield pre-emptively and caught Wilbur’s eye, and Wilbur just pressed his mouth into a thin line. Schlatt’s unpredictability in this state is what made him dangerous, even to someone in netherite armour, and Tommy still couldn’t shake the feeling they’d wandered into yet another trap.
“Who’s gonna lift dumbbells with me, man?” Prime, his breath reeked of alcohol, even from a few blocks’ distance. Fundy struggled to find an answer, “Schlatt, you fucked up the country! You fucked up everything!” The cylindrical object in Schlatt’s furthest hand turned out to be a protein shake, which he opened while Fundy was speaking and started to chug it. Milky liquid dribbled around his mouth and ran down into the collar of his shirt. It was, plainly, disgusting, and even Dream seemed to draw back as everyone made that ‘arena floor’ wider in the positions they’d taken up when Wilbur had led everyone into the dilapidated vehicle.
“You had a dream and I followed it but- You brought it downhill! Everything- You ruined it. You ruined everything we had.” Tommy felt somewhat sorry for his pseudo-nephew, even if he normally disagreed with most of the things that came out of his mouth. It was hard to linger on Fundy’s despair though, as Schlatt finished gulping his protein shake and wiped the lower half of his face with the back of his sleeve, leaving lovely, pale skid marks on the already-filthy black cotton twill. “God,” He rasped. “This fuckin’ protein shake has somethin’ in it, it’s working its magic!” Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy saw Tubbo and Quackity make eye contact.
Fundy’s arms betrayed his immense frustration, “I thought you were something.” At the same time, Schlatt scoffed, sauntering towards Fundy, running a hand through his hair and playing up his irritation, “Oh my fucking god. Yeah.” He prodded him in the chestplate, “Yeah, I am something. I’m what you’re not, Fundy.”
The atmosphere in the room sharped to a knife’s edge, the crowd hanging on their every utterance, falling once again for the trick of Schlatt’s charismatic persona. Schlatt leaned in, smiling cruelly, and Tommy couldn’t imagine what that smelled like. “What?” Fundy challenged, “What am I not?” When Schlatt spoke, he raised his voice loud enough for everyone to hear, but kept his eyes locked intently with Fundy’s, in the same way a gun is heard by everyone nearby but kills only with an inch.
“I’m a MAN.”
The crowd devolved into various noises of outrage, but all Tommy could see was Wilbur, his eyes burning with hatred, sweeping in front of Fundy, taking Schlatt by the shoulders and throwing him full-body into the side of the crowd. He stumbled past Tommy, bounced off Quackity’s shield and staggered back towards Wilbur, but Wilbur parried him with his sword, “That’s it.” His voice was cold. Schlatt was shouting something incoherent about Manberg, but Wilbur’s harsh tone cut through.
Tommy looked behind them, to Fundy, looking rapidly between the crowd, Wilbur’s figure standing over him and his trembling hands. Tommy wanted Wilbur to kill Schlatt. Tommy wanted Wilbur to run Schlatt through with his sword. Tommy wanted Wilbur to do it, right now, because Tommy couldn’t move, frozen in place with the weight of the room, the words invoked, Schlatt using them against Fundy and Wilbur’s sudden leap into action. Wilbur looked towards Dream, murder in his eyes, for permission to end this mess, and Tommy wanted nothing more than to give that permission himself, but he kept quiet.
“Schlatt, are you ready to have this end now? Are you ready to die?”
“What?” The drunk president barked, trying to use Wilbur’s sword as leverage to stand taller.
“Are you ready to fuckin’ die, Schlatt?”
“Don’t let him get to you,” Quackity’s voice was quiet in his ear, yet he still startled slightly. “He’s a useless piece of shit on a power trip. Take it from me: don’t listen to a word he says.” Tommy turned, looked at his face, and was wondering if there was a delicate enough way to ask the next question when Wilbur called his name.
—
“So, gentlemen, are we approving this planning application or not?”
In the blue corner, Quackity and the unstoppable force of his aspirations for New L’Manberg. In the red corner, Tommy’s immovable ideals of what L’Manberg had always been and should always be. They’d been arguing (civilly - mostly) for the past half an hour. Tubbo had to admit, they’d both laid out their arguments with good logic and minimal swearing at each other, and each had a good claim for whether the Party Island expansion should go ahead or not. A little flower of pride bloomed in his chest: this was his cabinet, in his country, having the most reasoned debate he’d heard on the server since… Maybe ever, actually.
He had the deciding vote, but Tubbo preferred to have other cabinet members at least half-swayed before casting it. He was not going to be accused of hoarding power or using it against people in the slightest; this was his collective government. It may take a little longer to make decisions, but it was the healthiest democratic process an unelected cabinet could produce. And whatever the detractors said, Tubbo was proud of it.
Karl stood on the far side of the table, looking very glad to be nearest the door as Tommy and Quackity went back and forth. Fundy, on Tommy’s side, stood to the side of him, occasionally chipping in to the discussion.
“The noise disruption, Quackity-” Tommy protested. “L’Manberg is a peaceful haven-”
“So we implement noise restrictions,” Quackity said matter-of-factly. “Midnight to seven, no loud music, all partying to be subdued and quiet, or underground, with facilities in place to contain that noise.”
“What about people coming and going?” Tommy spread his hands. “You really expect… revellers to be quiet as they leave?”
Quackity raised an eyebrow, “Are you accusing our great nation of having some kind of anti-social behaviour problem?”
The quiet that stretched over their sustained eye contact was broken only by another stellar Fundy contribution, “Ooooh.”
Tubbo’s laugh cut him off, but Quackity looked quietly smug. “Alright, alright. Quackity, you’ve been very convincing. I hope that we will all be in agreement that, with the suggested restrictions and amendments fully implemented, the Party Island expansion plan will bring us more tourism and an economic boost with minimal damage to our usual way of life. Therefore, I vote in favour of the proposals, which means they pass 3-2. Thank you, Karl, Quackity.”
“No, I-”
“And we hardly have the other kind of problem, I mean,” Quackity looked triumphant and Tommy seemed to yield in all but word as he delivered his final flourish. “When the President and Vice aren’t old enough to-”
Quackity discreetly punched the air, turning to fist bump Karl who was effectively restraining himself from throwing his arms around Quackity. Tubbo continued, “I think that concludes our business for today, so get yourselves off and I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
Tubbo watched Tommy in his peripheral vision as he visibly relaxed, shaking the tension out his shoulders, jumping up to sit on the counter and rifling through his inventory for something. Tubbo took a long swig of water and paused, leaning against the central table and staring at Tommy, who was staring into space, papers clutched in his hands, with a thousand-yard-stare out the tinted windows of the camarvan. The last rays of the day’s sun trickled between the buildings, illuminating their city with a hazy yellowish glow. Their city. Their home. Tubbo followed his gaze and let it linger there for as long as his distracted mind would allow, trying to imagine what was running through Tommy’s mind. Eventually, his curiosity won.
Tommy shook his head, smiling, “I’m satisfied.” He extended a hand across the table to Quackity, and they shook, “Pleasure doing cabinet meetings with you, Q. Pleasure cabinet-ing.”
Quackity chuckled, “The pleasure’s all mine.” He started to exit with Karl as Fundy slipped out around them, nodding quickly to Tubbo who was busy taking off his jacket. Karl and Quackity left arm-in-arm, Karl talking in a voice he probably wished was several decibels quieter, “Y’know, watching you two go at that was a bit like watching you and Wilbur again-”
“I can hear you!” Tommy chimed in to Quackity’s laughter and the sound of the van door swinging shut.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
He heard Tommy scoffing and turned, “Oh come on, they’re worth much more than that.” His best friend slid off the counter and joined him at the window, “Mr President, a moment of your time, if you please.”
Tubbo’s eyes jumped back to his jacket, and Tommy slid cooly between, “-Not that long of a moment, hopefully. We’ve um… had some interesting reports from citizens. And a petition.” He flapped the papers in his hands, “Reporting things I was quite incredulous to find out, but I had some people look into it and-” He cleared his throat.
Despite the official feeling and all indication things were very serious, Tubbo fought to bite back a laugh. When did we get all official like this? “What in the world is this going to be?”
Tubbo stifled a laugh, just, “Yeah, yeah, okay-” The force of Tommy’s almost-outburst took a moment to subside, as Tubbo watched his best friend pull himself back to his ‘business mode’, clearing his throat, “Now, I asked around, and while Niki said - she’s kinda spear-heading this, by the way, you should see what she’s doing in the market on a Friday - she never specifically looked into any of this stuff back when we were in government last time, but she does remember things going drastically up in price when Schlatt came in.” He sucked in a breath between his teeth, “I think for her, a lot of things did.”
Tommy offered him the papers, his voice the epitome of restrained professionalism, “L’Manberg has a ‘tampon tax’. As in, we charge VAT on feminine sanitary products.”
While Tubbo watched Tommy wrinkle his nose at the words leaving his mouth, his face was contorting into a look of indiscreet confusion, “W-What?” He barked out a laugh and caught himself. “We have a- When did- What?” Tommy screwed up his face, amused. “When did that happen? We didn’t- We wouldn’t have- I mean, I know Wilbur went on to lose his mind, but I don’t think-”
Tommy looked at him, mock-offended, “I’ve been listening to Big Q debate too much, clearly. No, yeah-” He sighed. “Anyways, if it helps, I also noticed an increase, but I just thought it was- inflation, or whatever.” He shook his head, “It’s all in the papers.”
Tubbo fought past the incredulity, “So, you’re saying-”
“We don’t have those kind of records anymore - presuming we had such in-depth consumer price records in the first place - but yes, my suggestion is that we have a discrepancy between pre-Schlatt and post-Schlatt prices.” He nodded, mostly to himself, and Tubbo cut in, “‘Discrepancy’, who are you?”
Tubbo took the documents from him, flipped through them, casting a quick eye over the figures and trusting Tommy to have caught anything egregiously out of place, “Yeah, I-” He shook his head, “I was not expecting that, being completely honest.”
“Core element of the job: always expect the unexpected. You must be new here,” Tommy said, taking the papers back with a cheeky smile as Tubbo handed them to him. Tubbo blew out a breath between his teeth, leaving the obvious unsaid. Tommy bumped his shoulders, “So?”
“Sure,” Tubbo ran a hand through his hair, smiled, then started hunting for a pen. “Find me an official-looking bit of paper, then we can both go home.”
“Yeah, I don’t see why we can’t get rid of that immediately,” Tubbo said. “Do you want to be the one to take the order down to the Treasury?” He looked up in time to catch the end of Tommy’s mock salute.
“Absolutely. It would be my pleasure. I’ll tell the press as well, if you want.”
—
“Home,” Tommy echoed, feeling like a stuck record, like the melody of an old-favourite tune played over and over until it becomes distorted by the sharp scratch of the needle. He followed Dream, even as his sword swung at his side, asking the question even though he knew the answer: the completion of the cadence, the harmony that clashed. “When can I go home?”
He let the silence run long, then he was alone.
“Oh Tommy,” The mask and its creepy-ass smile slid into view as Dream pivoted on one foot, barely missing a step as he continued his stroll towards the portal, “You can’t go home. Your friends don’t want you there right now.”
“They do-” Curse Prime for making his voice shake so pathetically, pitching higher for a moment. “They do want me. I’m going to go back.”
“Tommy, you can’t,” Dream stopped in front of the portal, arms outstretched, physically preventing him from running through, though there was much more stopping him from making that run. “You can’t be un-exiled until you’ve learnt your lesson, and until then, you can’t go back to L’Manberg or be in the Dream SMP. Besides,” Dream shrugged. “If you work on yourself out here, maybe when you go back you’ll be the kind of guy that people actually want to keep around.” There was a pause before he left with a small, satisfied noise: a silence in which Tommy desperately tried and failed to think of a retort, a comeback, anything useful to say.
Being by himself wasn’t so bad. He had lived by himself for a while. He was fine with the quiet.
The wind whispered in his ear, a familiar voice pointing out all the facets of his personality that made him so unlikable, the parts of him that made him so unworthy of his home. He looked up and he was on the edge of the sand, watching the sunlight struggle to illuminate a murky horizon that stretched back the way he had come.
Back towards L’Manberg.
He sank to his knees as the voice rambled on, turning more into his own, self-hatred curdling in his gut, what little he’d felt like eating threatening to come back up. The pain in his chest was the worst part.
He kept telling himself, melodramatically, that it was his heart breaking. It was better, in this case, than the reality of the situation, peeking through his shirt starting to wear thin around the seams and peppered with snags where Dream’s axe had threatened to cut through. He’d complied to save his binder, still relatively intact underneath where he was pretending it was a second skin.
Fifty-six hours, it had been. If Dream didn’t kill him for disobedience, his ribcage might get a good shot at collapsing.
He knew what he should do.
He knew. From the squeezing sensations of pain that ran up and down his sides, as if he was tied up and being tied tighter and tighter: he knew exactly what he should do.
But without access to an enderchest, he had no alternative clothes. Just a tatty, white, slightly see-through t-shirt.
And of all of them, he couldn’t bear to face that specific demon. Not yet.
In a week maybe. But not yet.
—
“Okay-” His voice was weak, limbs trembling as he held out the axe, blade towards Dream, and let it be ripped from his hand. He backed up, arms out, stepping a little up the incline to cover Tubbo, watching as his worst nightmare slowly came true around him, willing himself to wake up from this bad dream.
“You’re gonna listen to me. Or you’re gonna die, because I’m not playing around now. Drop the Axe of Peace, Tommy.”
“You’re not gonna kill me.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna kill you,” Dream’s axe came down hard on Tubbo’s left leg, sending him crashing to the ground with a gasp of pain, shield raised seconds too late to deflect the blow.
He wouldn’t.
“Put your stuff in the hole.”
Every muscle in his body went stiff. He could faintly hear Tubbo getting to his feet behind him, muttering confusion, but he could tell that he and Dream were looking solely at the other, waiting for the first sign of Tommy’s defeat. He wouldn’t give it. He couldn’t.
Their warning came in the form of another swing, loose and obviously meant to miss, glancing lightly off Tubbo’s armoured shoulder, exactly symmetrical to the bloody gash on his other shoulder where Dream had backed him into a corner on the side of the mountain and stuck the blade of his axe against his neck. Both boys froze, “We don’t really have a choice-” Tubbo said, yanking at the remaining straps keeping his chestplate in place. Tommy watched in despair as Tubbo let it drop to the floor, legs, boots and helmet to follow as he kicked them into the hole, the rest of his items quickly following. Dream’s eyes turned on him.
“All my- My stuff?”
“Tubbo, no, don’t,” He tried to hold firm, trying to put himself between Tubbo and Dream as Tubbo came forward to peer into the freshly-dug pit at their feet and Dream gestured down, his meaning excruciatingly clear. “Don’t-”
“Tommy. Drop your stuff in the hole or I’m gonna kill Tubbo.”
Slowly, as fast as he could make himself move, Tommy undid the straps on his armour, letting chestplate and leggings come loose. He tossed his helmet first, then toed off his boots, then disposed of each of his items - gapples, weapons, the compass that led them here - before finally chucking his armour, plate by plate. He released the straps keeping his shield attached to his arm, and it fell last with a clatter onto the pile of their stuff, just as Dream said, “All of it.”
He backed away slowly, empty hands raised, towards Tubbo, before his arms went instinctively around his chest. He felt a lot colder: no items, no means of protection or escape for either of them. Just a thin cotton t-shirt. At least Tubbo had a hoodie that would give him approximately 0.2 more seconds of life, should Dream decide to strike him down. He felt bile rise in his throat. Dream was right. He couldn’t protect Tubbo. He’d brought him to his demise.
The dull boom of the TNT in the ground only metres away kicked dirt and gravel into the air where it quickly rained back down in a shower that stung. Tommy closed his eyes against it, quickly blinking dust out of them, determined not to cry. He peered down into the tiny crater where there was nothing but dirt and burnt scraps. His voice felt ragged leaving his throat, “That took us so long-”
Dream started to walk, still watching them but expression and body language unreadable beneath mask and armour, “Alright. Here, I’ll take you to the real discs.”
“What?” Tommy felt slightly faint as Dream strolled casually to the side of the mountain, retrieving a water bucket from his inventory and peering over the side. A shoulder knocked into his.
“Hey,” He looked straight into his best friend’s eyes, which made him realise he was hunched over, curled into himself quite dramatically. He tried to straighten up.
“Hey.”
“It’s not looking good,” Tubbo, he realised, had taken off his hoodie and was holding it in his arms.
“No, it’s not,” he said softly, glancing back towards Dream, still momentarily absorbed in choosing a spot to place his water bucket. When he looked back, Tubbo was holding the hoodie, unfolded, out to him.
Tommy slipped the hoodie on, feeling the recent warmth inside, as well as a different kind of warmth like a fire lit inside him. Burning low and small; he imagined this was how a dying star would feel. He didn’t have time to dwell on it: he simply took Tubbo’s hand and held it as tightly as either of them could bear. They shared a quick look before Dream cleared his throat and they looked up to see water gushing off the side of the cliff.
“Here.”
“Are- Are you sure? You won’t get cold?”
“Yes. Positive,” Tubbo reached out and took one of Tommy’s hands from around him, placing part of the hoodie in it. “Quickly.”
“Thanks,” Tommy murmured low as they walked towards it together. He thought he heard Dream chuckle quietly as they approached, but Tubbo squeezed his hand. He squeezed back and stood as tall as he could.
“Tubbo,” He heard a small noise that served as his best friend’s response. He replied through gritted teeth, staring into a porcelain mask, “Stay close.”
—
In the end, it wasn’t planned, nor had he thought up some big speech. The best things in life are always unplanned. Best friends, drug van-revolutions, quiet nights in laughing ‘till you cry.
Big parties in half-built Snowchester celebrating you and your best friend making it back from the brink alive.
Coming out.
All around him: joy. Ranboo stumbled up a half-constructed set of stairs, somehow not spilling the six hot drinks he was holding, three to each hand. Puffy was down on the dock, laughing with such gusto the sound reverberated around the snowy banks to some story Niki was telling her. Even Jack seemed in a good mood.
All the SMP seemed to be in attendance - he hadn’t seen this many people in one place since L’Manberg fell only weeks before. He pushed that thought from his mind. The King herself vaulted a wall with a flourish of velvet cloak and pride flags. Tommy chuckled.
“Big Man!” He turned, and there, Tubbo, his best friend in the whole world, with a half-eaten muffin in his hand, careening towards him at speed. They crashed right there on the deck and Tubbo managed to spin them both around to come out upright, while Tommy wrapped around him like a cable, stumbling dangerously towards the ground. The Independence-Declaring Party of Snowchester, the celebration of their successful return - it didn’t matter how many people were present, Tommy had been and would be clinging onto Tubbo for the foreseeable future. At least the rest of the party. Maybe the rest of the year.
A deep voice calling for a toast caught their attention. They both turned to advance with their three and a half collective legs and one free arm to draw towards Eret, glass in hand, waiting as mugs, baked goods and tankards were distributed through the crowd by members of their entourage - so identifiable by the pride flags and paper crowns they sported. Once the distribution was complete - including a mug of something warm and wonderful for Tommy’s free hand - they raised their glass. “To the good fortune and longevity of Snowchester, and long may she keep out the cold!” An enthusiastic murmur clunkily echoed ‘Long may she keep out the cold’, and the other patrons chuckled. Eret continued.
“Still warm enough?”
Tommy chuckled his reply, “Yes, plenty.”
“That’s odd. Someone appears to be leeching off me at every opportunity.”
“You run warm, Tubbo. Someone has to make sure you don’t overheat.”
Tubbo barked out a laugh, “That is plainly untrue and you know it.”
“To the good health and terrible fortune of one masked maniac, name uninvoked, so that he may languish in the Vault for as long as history takes to forget him. Long may he rot!” Some joined in that chant, while others chose to marvel or scoff at the intensity of the King’s proclamation. Whispers raced the crowd of the bargains and betrayals, the righteousness and regret of the King bound up in two short sentences, but they soon subsided as the King lengthened her arm to hold her glass towards the best friend conglomeration. Tommy tried somewhat unsuccessfully to separate his legs from around Tubbo’s.
“And to the good health, good fortune and long lives of the young men of L’Manberg,” Her voice lowered, almost reverentially, “If I may be allowed to invoke that name.”
Tommy smiled, “Sure.”
She returned the smile and went on with a final flourish, “Long may they live in peace!”
Tommy drained his mug and leant his head against Tubbo’s, losing himself to his thoughts for a moment. This time. Because they’d had failed attempts before. So. Many. Failed. Attempts. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Tubbo trying to catch his, “What?”
The echo was accompanied for everyone by the cheering of the gathered, and for Tommy, his best friend squeezing him to his side. Tubbo raised his half-devoured muffin and Tommy obliged to clink it against his mug, “Peace. That’d be nice.” Tubbo snickered.
“Don’t sound so disbelieving. Maybe things will be different this time.”
Tubbo’s head jerked ever so slightly before he caught himself, “Funny.” They stared at each other, holding stubbornly neutral expressions for a long moment. Then Tubbo broke first, and then they were both laughing, clinging onto each other for reasons that had everything and nothing to do with remaining upright.
“Stop thinking about that.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking about.”
“Yeah I do,” Tubbo quirked his eyebrows, and they conducted a brief moment of challenges and counter-challenges solely through facial expressions, “You’re thinking about W- About everything going wrong.” He crossed his arms in faux irritation, “What did we say about false prophecies?”
Tommy snorted, “Blah blah self-fulfilling- Hey, look over there-”
“Yesterday was-” Tommy felt, as well as heard, Tubbo’s incoming objection, but he couldn’t leave it unsaid, “A close call.” His best friend sighed.
“It was, it was. I don’t wish to dwell on it now, though.”
Tommy threw half an arm up, “If you say so.”
Tubbo extricated himself from Tommy, hauling him around by the arm so he didn’t fall, and, satisfied that Tommy had two feet back on the ground, dropped his arm and took his face in his hands, a chunk of muffin moist against his cheek, “My country has just declared its independence. We are here, at a party, alive and okay, with a couple hundred people all enjoying themselves.” He lightly bonked his forehead against Tommy’s, “Dream is in the prison. We’re safe now. You’re safe.”
“Don’t-” Tommy’s voice was small, and Tubbo pulled him in for a hug.
Tommy blinked, and Tubbo looked back at him plainly, “Not what I was going to say at all,” he said with a laugh, “But okay.” They giggled together, Tubbo suddenly a little shy, “Good to know.”
“I, of course, always encourage the healthy exploration of your emotions, but you don’t need to think about any of that now. We’re good. We’re okay.” He pulled back, but they stayed firmly in each other’s arms, “We’re at a party! C’mon-”
“Yeah just,” Tommy took a very deliberate breath. “As long as you promise we-”
“I will never exile you from this one. Ever.”
The slight awkwardness of the moment was shattered by a loud shout of “Tubbo! You gotta see this!” from down in the small valley behind them. They looked at each other with a knowing smile, before Tubbo dropped his hand into Tommy’s and tugged him along with a jolly “C’mon!”. They made a hasty descent to the source of the voice, including a quick drop into a snowbank, in which Tommy lost his mug, sputtering his objections, but he didn’t mean any of them as they snaked through the assembled people to the guy waving his arm frantically in their direction. Familiar faces among the assembled were Foolish and Ranboo, one looked overjoyed and one flushed, respectively. The young man that had called them over was named Luke, and he was soon flanked by the King herself, cheeks ruddy.
“Tubbo!” The young man laughed, brandishing a pamphlet that Tommy recognised as the submissions for the Snowchester flag. It was open to the central page, to the design Tubbo had contributed most to and was most enthusiastic about: fortuitously, it was the design the citizens had so far seemed most receptive to, from what Tommy had heard. It was two shades of blue with a white stripe in the centre and a yellow diamond-thing. Tommy thought it was pretty alright.
Luke was indicating that design and laughing, looking to Eret as if preparing the punchline, “Just thought I’d ask if you knew, I think your flag has a bit of plagiarism going on.” Tommy’s face wrinkled a little in confusion, but Tubbo was amused, “Please, elaborate.”
Luke coughed. With a swish of a wrist, Eret brought forth one of their many pride flags: the achillian flag, complete with matching shades of blue to the proposed Snowchester design. There was a mixture of laughter and cheers, someone chanting “Gaychester!” and Tommy even caught Ranboo staring intently at his best friend, which, weird.
Tubbo had screwed his face up in delight, “Unintentional, but…” He paused to take a deep breath, impeded by laughter, “Fantastic!” Fists were pumped, people bent in half to recover their breath from the throes of hilarity, Ranboo ducked away, expression unreadable, Foolish picked Luke up and span them around and Eret threw the flag to Tubbo, who laughed further and attempted to arrange it around his shoulders without letting go of Tommy’s hand. Tommy let go to help him, “Great way to officially come out,” he snickered.
Tubbo waved his hand dismissively, “If anyone hadn’t worked it out already, they clearly haven’t been paying good enough attention.” Tommy looked around at flags flooding the crowd around them; people bedecking themselves in bright colours and brighter smiles. There was something very safe in the air around them, even beyond what Tubbo had been saying about Dream being in the prison. “You were right,” He said with a smile he couldn’t banish, even for the bit. He felt… brave. “This is good. A good party.”
He was pointing to a trans flag in Eret’s left hand. He was a little bit aware the people around them had gone quiet, watching, but he narrowed his world to himself, Eret and a flag. And the best friend clinging to his side, squeezing his arm reassuringly. Eret spoke, “What did you say?”
Smiling up at him, Tubbo was about to reply when a young woman appeared next to them, “Tommy, do you want a flag too? We can see if we’ve got a L’Manberg one of some variety back here-”
“A L’Manberg flag?” Eret’s distinctive voice replied as they looked over, “We have those?”
“What,” Tubbo immediately challenged, jokingly, “Sore spot?”
“I just-”
“Actually,” Tommy cut in without thinking, “Can I have one of those?”
“Can I,” And he smiled, heart and stomach a-flutter, “Can I have that flag, please? The- The trans one.”
Eret crossed the space to him and placed the flag into his outstretched hand. They paused a moment, Eret clasped his hand, nodded their head to him, and stepped away. He was slightly aware of Tubbo taking the flag from his hands and shaking it out around his shoulders, tying it with a small knot at his neck, smoothing the material over his collarbone. What he was absolutely aware of was the sun shining down on them, powerful rays of yellow that reflected off the snow around them, turning the whole of Snowchester golden. The perfect kind of day to be somewhere cold.
“How long you’ve known,” They were back in the centre of Snowchester now, bathed in light and happy sounds and delicious smells. Tommy could hear reactions around him: he blocked them out, laughing to himself about the Eret thing, “How awkward would it be to explain I almost told him the day before he- Well, Final Control Room’d.” Tubbo held in his laugh, then didn’t, then they were both falling about on ice and each other.
“You in there?” Tommy blinked and glanced down at Tubbo, smiling at his side.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m- I’m great,” He was almost giddy off the feeling and giggled without quite knowing why. Tubbo grinned and started pulling him back towards the centre of Snowchester.
“That was a pretty cool moment right there. With the sun suddenly coming through the clouds and- Though,” he smirked, “I think Eret wants to know how long.”
“How long what?”
And they marched away, coloured capes wafting in the breeze.
“I hardly think it matters anyway-”
“I’ll tell them later,” Tommy paused to take in a decisive breath, “Right now, there’s a party calling my name- Scratch that, there’s a very good smell coming from over there calling my name, and I think it’s only fair I partake in Snowchester culture on this very important day for your great nation.”
Tubbo snicked, “Sounds good to me, Big Man.”
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