Archive of Our Own ^beta

Nights were always the worst in Logstedshire. The air blowing from the sea was frigid and it never ceased screaming in Tommy’s ears and rattling his shabby little tent. Shadows shook and stretched reaching toward him, their visage was never so menacing in the warm light of day but under the silver shine of the moon, they grew in size and malicious intent.

It was no surprise that the first time he saw him was during one of the many long winter nights he spent in exile.

Tommy had been sitting up on his bed doing his best to create a safe cocoon out of the tattered summer blanket Dream got for him many weeks before, back when the sun was still slow to set in the evening and the air retained plenty of its warmth during the night, when Tubbo appeared sitting on the chest he kept by his bed to use more like a stool than anything as he had no belongings to put inside of it. He was wearing his presidential suit, although it fit him much better than the last time Tommy saw him, and he was staring at him silently. His brows were furrowed and he stuck out his tongue as he always did when he was pensive.

Tommy knew that what he was seeing wasn’t real. His mind might have been getting foggier, but his ears were well-trained. He wouldn’t have failed to pick up on the sound of the Nether portal activating as he couldn’t afford to miss out on any visitors (never mind that Dream was the only one that bothered to come by anymore. It would have been rude to make him wait when he at least put in the effort, and Dream didn’t have much patience. He got mean when left to his own devices for too long), and there had been none of that. The flaps of his tent were still buttoned shut too.

And yet the Tubbo sitting there looked real.

The light of the moon that filtered in from the numerous rips in the fabric of Tnret bounced off of his skin just as it did for Tommy. He was slightly out of focus due to Tommy’s blurry vision (a consequence of his continuous lack of self-care lately). He had all his fingers and all his scars, even the small pale one under his right eye that he got when they were playing around on the rocks by the sea as kids. All the out-of-place details that usually signified that something was a hallucination were missing.

“You don’t look too good Boss Man” Tubbo’s voice was low, his tone worried. There were no statics but it wasn’t unnaturally clear either and Tommy was certain that he would no longer hear him if he covered his ears. His mind’s tricks were getting surprisingly elaborate, that was the only explanation he could come up with.

Because Tubbo couldn’t be there.

He hadn’t visited him once after exiling him, and it had been what? Five or six months now? More? The Summer and the Fall had gone by and winter had time to properly settle in and turn the morning dew into frost in the meantime, and he hadn’t received even a single letter from his former best friend. All he had still tying them together was the compass Ghostbur gifted him a couple of months in, and Tubbo burned his one. Heck, Dream told him that the New L’Manburg’s cabinet had been organizing a whole festival to celebrate how good things had gotten without him around!

So why would he have chosen to come now?

He was busy and happier than ever. Why would he have been sitting there, staring at him with pity and remorse?

Tommy was a problem he fixed.

His scowl must have spoken volumes because the fake Tubbo sucked in a sharp breath in the way that indicated that he just realized he fucked up big time. He must have really missed the other for his mind to dredge up even that kind of small insignificant detail from the depths of his subconscious. “Is this one of those times where I accidentally don’t notice the passage of time?” he asked sheepishly scratching at the scabs on the back of his neck where the burn scars from Techno’s fireworks never properly healed.

That might not have been the real Tubbo, but that thoughtlessness and complete lack of tact were typical.

His ex-best friend had always been a disaster with interpersonal relationships.

They met as kids, Tommy found him sitting in a cardboard box with ‘Grab one for free’ scribbled on it with a piece of coal that had not been properly sharpened to avoid having the letters look blurry and wonky. Tubbo had been the picture of calm then, watching as people passed him by with a sort of detached curiosity. He never called out for help, never asked anyone to help him find his parents, and never did anything at all to grab the passersby’s attention. He was an odd kid.

When Tommy had approached him and offered him a hand to get out of the surprisingly pristine cardboard, Tubbo had stared at it in confusion. He had remarked that his legs functioned just fine and that he was waiting for someone who might be interested in explaining to him the human experience, whatever that was supposed to mean. Tommy still remembered rolling his eyes and promising he could do that just fine, he was the biggest of men, right after Philza Minecraft, after all! If there was an expert at humaning it was him.

He promptly regretted that act of kindness when he and Tubbo arrived home and his newly-acquired friend took one good look at Wilbur before turning to Tommy and asking if it was his hobby to pick up homeless strangers from the side of the road with an amusing level of seriousness. As if he somehow fully believed that the eight-year-old could be the owner of that house and that the admittedly rather shabby-looking adult (Wilbur had been doing his best to raise baby Fundy by himself, but the sleepless nights weren’t doing wonders for his appearance) was only there out of the kindness of his heart.

The bluntness didn’t stop there, as when Tubbo spotted Fundy for the first time, he asked Wilbur if he had ‘copulated with a fox’ to his older brother’s astonishment and great embarrassment as he found himself admitting that, no, it was a salmon actually.

Those kind of behaviors continued throughout their lives.

Tommy never understood how everyone seemed to miss how much of an ass Tubbo could be. Everyone who met him seemed to think that he was some kind of saint sent by Lady Prime herself to bless their miserable existence. It was embarrassing how easily fooled they were.

He was different.

He always knew about Tubbo’s flaws, but never cared about them, just like Tubbo hadn’t cared about his. Not until they’d gotten so out of hand that the President was left no choice but to exile him and burn any bridge standing between them.

Well, Tommy was done making excuses for him too!

He removed the one shoe he had left and threw it at the fucker’s face with as much strength as his chronically malnourished body could summon. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to get the object across the short distance and through the hallucination’s face, vanishing it from existence.

What a prick.

---

The second time he saw Tubbo, he’d been mining.

He was standing on some obsidian near a pool of lava. The suffocating air was making him dizzy and the fine dust filling the air as he gathered what few scraps of iron there were left down there was staining the inside of his lungs. He’d coughed up blood before as he spent hours deep below the earth in the vain hope of saving himself from another brutal beating.

The flickering light of the few torches he could afford cast moving shadows that had tricked his mind into believing he wasn’t alone before. They slithered along the natural stone walls in quick erratic movements that could be easily mistaken for the crawling of cave spiders if one caught them from the corner of their eye. His constant exhaustion and the heat from the lava didn’t help his paranoid mind remain rational about it.

So, once again, it wasn’t a surprise that his mind would drag out his past in those conditions.

Tubbo was wearing his suit pants that time too, but he wasn’t wearing the dark jacket from the last time. Instead, up top he only wore a plain white button-up with his sleeves rolled up kinda like Quackity always had them. He was wearing brown suspenders like the duck as well. Had his mind decided to mix all those he missed into one entity for his convenience?

Well, he wouldn’t complain.

Perhaps this Tubbo-Quackity hybrid would be more tolerable.

“What?!” he asked sharply, breaking the ice first this time around.

His hallucination had been looking around, grimacing at the unsafe conditions of his mine. He didn’t mind his brisk tone or his aggressive demeanor. As a matter of fact, when he turned back to look at him his eyes held nothing but pity (like those of everyone else that had visited so far. Everyone but Dream. Everyone but the one guy who couldn’t do jack shit about his situation. All the ones who held any amount of power preferred watching him like a caged animal while feeling sorry for themselves instead of doing anything productive and it was infuriating. Dream was his only true friend).

“Your hands are bleeding” that fake mix of his old friends said, voice dripping with concern. Without waiting for an answer, he stepped forward and reached down for Tommy’s hands.

He hadn’t even noticed how many splinters there were embedded in them. He’d been using nothing but crappy stone pickaxes to mine for so long that he assumed he had enough callouses to protect the flesh below, and yet his life never failed to give him shitty surprises. A steady flow of blood trickled down his palms, wrists, and forearms. He felt no pain and with all the sweat covering his skin, he couldn’t feel its wetness either. For a moment, he wished the wounds were deeper just so he could feel alive again.

Then Tubbo’s hands touched his and all thoughts vanished from his mind.

The contact was barely there. It felt like a cool breeze against his scorching hot skin. He wanted to melt into it, seek refuge in the arms of his best friend like he’d done as a child when thunderstorms roared outside their bedroom window (he always pretended it didn’t sting how Wilbur would take great care to coddle Fundy, cover his sensitive ears, and sing sweet lullabies to calm him down all while telling Tommy that he was a grown boy and should have been able to handle the thunders himself. In time he understood why their treatment had been so different: he and Wilbur were brothers while Fundy was his son. It was natural, but the wound in his heart never stopped aching). It took him a great effort to keep his knees from buckling and his gaze steady on the small bloodstream marring his pale skin.

Tubbo’s hands glowed gold for a few seconds, and all the splinters fell out on their own while the small cuts on his palms stitched themselves back up. It was unreal.

Was that why he felt no pain? Because his mind made the whole scene up?

He was about to ask his hallucination like a complete moron when Dream’s voice boomed down the mine’s corridors demanding his presence as usual.

Tubbo’s worried frown turned into a deathly scowl. His hands tightened around Tommy’s (for a moment he could swear that bony fingers had been digging into his flesh), gripping him possessively.

It was no secret that Tubbo had never been Dream’s biggest fan (or that was what Tommy believed until the trial when his supposed best friend gave in to all of Dream’s demands and even asked him to drag Tommy away from the country he sacrificed two of his lives and several years for). From the very beginning, he’d been suspicious of the masked man’s intentions. He told Tommy again and again that all he touched turned foul and that he smelled of rot and decay. He still didn’t know what Tubbo meant by that, but his distaste for the man had come through loud and clear.

However, as far as Tommy knew, their relationship had improved significantly ever since he left. They played chess together regularly, and Dream had been invited to be the guest of honor at the Peace Festival they were holding toward the end of the year. They were supposed to give some kind of speech together about peace, unity, and all that other fancy crap that usually only rich people could afford. He knew because Dream had asked him for ideas on what to say.

Evidently, his mind hadn’t updated his hallucinations enough to fit those new pieces of information he indirectly received. Maybe it could only emulate what he’d observed himself…

Dream called again, and Tommy yanked his hands free. He turned around without another word and ran upstairs. The hallucination remained buried down in the mine.

---

As he laid on the grass, blood trickling out of the deep axe wound in his abdomen, Tommy took stock of his condition. His skin felt cold and clammy, he’d started shivering at some point. His heartbeat was faster than usual. He was managing to breathe, though it didn’t feel like any of the slow desperate gulps he could manage brought in enough oxygen for his lungs to be satisfied. Moving had ceased to be an option once the red puddle he was lying in became wide enough to reach the tip of his fingers. His head felt foggy, his thoughts only came in lazy waves, always lapping at the edges of his awareness but never sticking there.

He’d been a soldier for years at that point, he knew what blood loss felt like. He knew how dangerous it could be. In Logstedshire, far away from anyone who may have had the resources needed to make a Regeneration Potion or, at the very least, a Healing one, it was a death sentence.

And yet, despite knowing that, he couldn’t summon any panic.

He’d been waiting for his time to die for a good while. Had it been up to him, he never would have made it so many months into his exile. On the second day of his stay, when he was allowed just outside the main Nether Portal but not a step further, he had wanted to jump into the lava below. He knew deep down, that his exile wouldn’t only last two years. He knew that there was no coming back. It was pointless to wait and delay the inevitable, but for Dream, he did.

And now, as Dream stomped away with no intention of giving him any assistance with the injuries he’d inflicted upon him, it was obvious that even that last strand had snapped.

Unsurprisingly, as he was lying there half-delirious, Tubbo showed up again. He looked furious in a way Tommy had never seen before. It wasn’t the quiet anger he’d displayed when exiling him, no, it was more akin to a roaring inferno. Gold flames surrounded his eyes as he flared his nostrils and clenched his teeth. If he squinted his eyes enough, he could have spotted the dark smoke filtering out of his mouth. He looked similar to an Ender Dragon ready to rain death on whoever was unfortunate enough to find themselves underneath it.

He couldn’t help but wonder how he’d fucked up that time. Was it his surrender? Would that be considered as him avoiding his punishment? Had he committed some other minor crime that would never have been punished had he not been the one to carry it out and then promptly forgotten about it? Had Tubbo and Dream truly grown so close that any slight against his jailer would now be considered a slight against the New L’Manburg’s president as well? Or was it something sillier? Maybe his blood had stained one too many flowers and now he’d be berated for irresponsibly leaving behind more work than strictly necessary for those in charge of getting rid of his corpse. Then again, he was so far away from civilization that he was sure they’d be able to suck it up for once, especially as there were plenty of wild animals in the area that would have been glad to feast on his remains instead.

Defying all of his predictions, Tubbo didn’t start yelling nonsense at him. Instead, just like they had the time before, his hands started glowing the same golden shade of the fire that surrounded his eyes, and Tommy’s wound quickly disappeared.

He was still light-headed as none of the blood on the ground had gone back into him, but at least the intense pain in his belly ceased. He didn’t know whether to be happy about it or not. Hallucinating and losing sensitivity could not be good signs for him, but, then again, he’d rather die without pain, and the idea of taking the leap entirely alone scared him. Not even his brother had done that, he had sought out his father’s comforting embrace during his final moments. Tommy didn’t get that option. He never had a father, his family was either dead or busy pretending he didn’t exist, and he’d lost any friends he’d ever had on the day of his trial, so fake Tubbo had to do.

“You’re not gonna die, Tommy” the hallucination stated firmly. His body was still tense and his words came out in a semi-growl, but Tommy could see the amount of restraint he was putting into his act. Usually, that was his way to communicate that his ire wasn’t directed at Tommy, but with the one in front of him not being the real deal, he didn’t know how to interpret this behavior. It certainly didn’t bring him the comfort that the other had hoped for.

Why would he trust the cruelest hallucination his mind ever concocted to diagnose his condition? Tommy wasn’t a doctor, at least not one qualified to handle anything harder than a couple of stitches, therefore nothing his brain came up with could be either. Besides, he’d been lulled into a false sense of security only to get stabbed in the back before. He knew how much it hurt, and his self-hating ass wasn’t above giving him a repeat of it while he was already down.

But as time passed and the scenario around him didn’t change aside from the sun going down over the horizon, he had to concede that fake Tubbo had probably been right. He wouldn’t say it out loud as the fucker was still there, staring intensely at him as concern, fear, guilt, and rage danced around in circles in his eyes. He couldn’t risk being heard by that jerk.

“I’m good now” he muttered after a few hours. He went to push himself up, but his arms immediately buckled under him. He was too weak. He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in who knows how long, and the frost that enveloped his bones due to a mix of blood loss and the cold winter air wasn’t helping him summon any strength either. Perhaps with some adrenaline cursing through his veins, he would have managed, but not even a near-death experience was enough for his body to decide to start being useful.

He pressed the back of his head into the wet grass underneath him. He was tired.

“Sleep” the hallucination whispered with a smile. “I’ll take care of everything else”. He sounded so tender and fond, just as he had when they were little kids and Tommy couldn’t stop crying for some silly reason. Sure, he had often been a weirdo with less understanding of basic social norms than even Tommy, but he had his good moments. He always took all of Tommy’s plights with the utmost seriousness. For baby Tubbo, Tommy getting a paper cut was reason enough to steal some ice cream from Wilbur’s freezer, raid the cupboard in the bathroom for all the bandages they had, and then wrap him in as many blankets as he could get his hands on and plant him on their shared bed (the room wasn’t spacious enough to fit two in and they had never been allowed to enter the two bedrooms reserved for the one time every decade Phil or Techno decided to visit).

Tommy missed when they’d been that close. He missed being Tubbo’s priority, his special little guy.

Perhaps that was why he didn’t protest the hallucination’s request. Sure, he huffed out a: “Fine, but not because you asked me to”, but still he obeyed.

It didn’t take long before he was out like a light.

---

His hallucination refused to leave in the days following his brush with death. At most, he would wander off to gather resources, food, iron, wood, stone, and so on, or to hide somewhere when Dream visited. He’d never been very good at hide and seek though, and it showed. Whenever he knelt behind a bush or pressed himself against a tree the glowing fire around his eyes gave his position away. The fact that his friend never spotted him was just further proof that the Tubbo he was seeing was a fake.

Dream didn’t acknowledge the fortified castle that was slowly getting built in the prairie next to Logstedshire’s beach either, so Tommy assumed that too had been made up by his hyperactive brain. He ignored the fact that not only did it feel solid to the touch, but he could also feel the different textures of every material that it was built out of. He had physical hallucinations before (usually of mobs attacking him) and they never felt so detailed. Usually, he could only feel a distant throbbing akin to pain where he’d been hit by the phantoms in his head. But, well, if Dream didn’t see it, it wasn’t real.

As for his relationship with his last friend, they’d thankfully been able to reconcile (and Tommy promised he would never let Dream find him empty-handed again when he visited, so, hopefully, there would be no repeat of that day). Dream had been regretful about his actions. He never apologized, he had no reason to as Tommy did deserve the punishment, but he mentioned that perhaps he’d gone too far and let him borrow his cool trident. The one that allowed him to fly when it was raining. 

Fake Tubbo had ranted to him later about how that was all bullshit. He said something about how Dream had been starving him and forcing him to work with unsuitable equipment until his lungs were full of dust just for his entertainment. Because he got a sense of sadistic glee from blowing up whatever scraps Tommy owned in front of him. He also mentioned how a useless gift here and there didn't make up for any of that. 

Tommy only allowed him to talk like that because he’d saved him quite a few trips to the mines by gathering iron himself. He wasn’t sure why his hallucinated iron got accepted by Dream every time, but, then again, very little made sense nowadays.

He wondered if now that he’d lost it so much he’d ever be accepted into society again. Everyone already thought of him as an irredeemable troublemaker before, what would they think now that he couldn’t even differentiate reality from whatever his brain showed him? What if his hallucination gathering materials for him was actually him stealing it all from somewhere? It wouldn’t have been the first time he blacked out for a few hours during the day. It had been happening a lot already in Pogtopia and it had only gotten worse during his latest exile.

He didn’t bring those doubts up with anyone.

Dream never liked it when he mentioned possibly going back to New L’Manburg once his exile was up. It was a surefire way to get an axe to the stomach. He didn’t like Tommy mentioning his old friends either, but at least when he did that he only got some vicious remarks about how they were all doing so much better without him around to bother them. It hurt, but he preferred it to the violence.

And the idea of receiving reassurances from fake Tubbo scared him. His mind would regurgitate anything he wanted to hear and he was afraid that, sooner or later, he’d start to believe it. There would be no coming back from that. He didn’t have the strength to fight his way back to the barely aware state he had going on at the moment. He’d be stuck in Fantasyland forever.

Nobody else ever came around and he wasn’t in the mood to bare his soul to the zombies and skeletons roaming the area at night.

He left those questions hanging in the air, unanswered. Just another painful reminder that he’d been shut out of the world, stuck in a Limbo while everyone else kept moving on with their lives.

At least with fake Tubbo always there, his stay in Logstedshire didn’t feel quite so lonely.

Mushroom Henry helped too. She provided him with a steady supply of mushroom soup and with entertaining silly dances here and there, but it wasn’t the same as having someone to talk to. Even if that someone was a figment of Tommy’s imagination.

He loved her though.

Second best cow ever.

He even reluctantly agreed to move her into the castle. Tubbo had purposefully made an internal courtyard for her with obsidian walls to protect her from all the TNT explosions happening in the area. Tommy had tried to tell him that Dream never targeted Mushroom Henry with those, but Tubbo insisted that it was only a precaution and Tommy couldn’t argue with that logic. Especially since she always got spooked by the loud blasts. Being in there would most likely give the poor beast some peace of mind. If the castle even existed. Which he seriously doubted.

He refused to leave Tnret himself though, much like he had when Ghostbur had been the one to build a cozy home for them. Anything sturdier than a tent felt final. It felt like acceptance. Like understanding that there truly would be no end to his exile. That he’d be rotting far away from anyone he’d ever known and loved (Techno’s cabin being a walk away didn’t change anything because they’d never been anything more than casual allies. They weren’t family, they weren’t friends, and the pig had made it clear that all he wanted from Tommy was for him to die in a ditch. Why that was the case he’d never know, but it was).

Tommy had decided at the start of his exile that he would never acknowledge that reality.

One day he’d pass away in that tent under his too-light blanket. He’d open his eyes to the grinning face of his brother, cheering because the other evil at the root of every disaster in the server had finally been slayed. Tommy doubted he’d find any comfort in death. There would be no pearly gates waiting for someone as rotten as him, only whatever fiery depths his brother had been shoved in. It was the natural outcome of existing only as an extension of someone else (he’d always been nothing but a cancerous growth on Wilbur. It made no sense that he was still alive when he’d been cut off from his host. There was nothing left to sustain him, and yet he persisted. Perhaps succumbing to the cold winter nights would finally bring balance to nature once more) even in death he could do nothing but follow.

---

The day everything went to shit started like many others.

It had been raining heavily in Logstedshire since the wee hours of the morning. Tommy had been shivering in his tent. He could see the white puffs of condensed breath dancing in front of his face, they haunted him.

As he couldn’t sleep where he was, he decided to make his way to the castle to cuddle up with Mushroom Henry for the rest of the day. After all, Dream rarely showed up when it was raining (his cape was heavy as it was without getting it soaked), so trying to rest out of sight should have been a safe enough bet.

The only out-of-place detail he noticed at first was the absence of fake Tubbo.

For a month straight his hallucination hadn’t once left him alone. He actually remarked many times how he should have started hanging around earlier. How things wouldn’t have gotten so dire had he not forgotten how quickly time passed for mortals (it wasn’t surprising to find that his brain assigned almost a divine connotation to Tubbo. His best friend had always seemed above all of them. Like Dream always tried and failed to be). Tommy rarely paid attention to his rambling, but it was undeniable that without it Logstedshire felt eerily… empty.

He tried to reason that maybe fake Tubbo had vanished because he’d been spending less time down in the mines inhaling toxic fumes and he’d been eating more. Maybe his body was slowly healing from months of neglect and abuse. It didn’t sit right with him, but it was the only logical explanation he could find. And he needed some kind of argument to shoot down the nasty voice at the back of his mind insisting that he’d found himself in the eye of the storm and there was no way out for him that didn’t include complete destruction.

Mushroom Henry was spinning happily when he got to her enclosure. Tommy smiled at her and hurried over. Her warm breath brushed over his frozen skin soothing the ache deep beneath his flesh.

He didn’t know when it happened, but that place had become his sanctuary.

Dream never acknowledged the castle, even after fake Tubbo was done building it. That could have been because to someone outside of Tommy’s fucked up brain the place looked like one of his average dirt shacks, he didn’t know. But what mattered was that no explosions happened there. He was never cut down with words or weapons. Dream didn’t step foot there at all. Nor did any mobs, though that was most likely because of all the torches and lanterns shining light on every block of the place.

Even the weather gave him respite in there. The pelting rain sounded less aggressive as it crashed against the glass ceiling of the courtyard instead of beating his skin black and blue. And the wind blowing furiously outside felt like the distant chant of lonely wolves instead of the cries of war it usually resembled.

In his sanctuary, he was at peace.

Of course, nothing good could last for him. He wasn’t a saint nor was he wealthy, he didn’t deserve it and he couldn’t afford to take anything he didn’t deserve.

“Tommy!” Dream’s voice rose above the thunderstorm still raging in the early afternoon. It was loud and demanding.

Tommy immediately sprung up. His legs were shaking (from fear, cold, or his weak constitution. He had more reasons to tremble than not) and yet he made his way outside. He couldn’t see Dream’s dark figure across the veil of rain, so he followed the flashes of TNT instead.

He found Dream where Ghostbur’s house once stood. There was a crater there now with his one and only friend inside. His body language spelled danger: his shoulders were tense, and he had his netherite axe in one hand and a stack of old pictures of Tubbo that Tommy had stashed away down there at some point in the other.

Tommy knew he messed up when his useless pea brain caught up with what he was seeing. That was the secret room he dug up during one of Ranboo’s visits. He didn’t remember why he made it nor what was down there. He hadn’t gone in once after making it, and that had been months prior. He vaguely remembered putting the only diamond he ever found in the mines of Logstedshire down there. He knew he hadn’t hidden away the disc Badboyhalo gifted him, but maybe he had put away a spare jukebox? Nothing else came to mind. But the content of the two hidden double chests must have been really bad for Dream to look so murderous about it.

He tried to step back on instinct, but Dream’s axe flew through the air and planted itself at his feet cutting off all his escape routes.

Tommy’s breathing picked up.

He though he would die of some kind of infection, of starvation, of hypothermia, or by his own hand. He never once thought he’d be betrayed once more by someone he considered to be his best friend. No, it wasn’t betrayal. It wasn’t, because Tommy had caused it. He burned down a few of the blocks of George’s house and then let Dream rile him up during the trial, Tubbo had no choice but to send him far away, where no one could easily reach him. And he’d made that room, probably in an act of defiance against Dream’s kindness. His friend had no choice but to finally realize he wasn’t worth the effort, there was nothing that could be gained by keeping him around.

Slowly, Dream climbed out of the hole. He didn’t look at Tommy once as he went to grab his axe once more. He didn’t say a word as he grabbed Tommy and threw him to the ground, scratching his already irritated skin enough for it to bleed.

Tommy knew he deserved it. He knew he had to take whatever punishment the other saw fit for him. That was the law of Logstedshire; whatever Dream willed happened.

And yet, as the sharp blade of the enchanted weapon came down on him, he kicked Dream right in the nuts and rolled away. It wasn’t really out of a desire for survival, more so that the abandoned little town Ghostbur had made before fucking off just like Wilbur always did wasn’t the place he wanted as his grave.

He figured that if he had to die regardless, he could be a little selfish.

Dream yelped in pain, stumbling back a bit. It allowed Tommy to push himself up on unsteady legs and turn to leave. He was stumbling at first, then limping, then running as fast as his body let him. Which, thanks to fake Tubbo and his health regime, was actually a pretty decent speed.

He was still slower than Dream. He could tell as he heard his steps slapping on the wet puddles of mud behind him closer and closer with every passing moment.

“Oh, Tommy~” Dream singsonged in that annoyingly sweet tone of his that always turned Tommy’s thoughts into a jumbled mess. “You shouldn’t have done that. When I get my hands on you I’ll make you regret it” he promised in a dark tone.

It only encouraged Tommy to pick up his pace more.

Through some kind of miracle, he made it all the way to the castle and slammed the heavy metallic door in Dream’s face. His heart was racing and his eyes were wide. He couldn’t believe he’d done… well any of that. He’d been meant to die by his brother’s side over a year before. His continued survival was a slight against the laws of nature and yet against all odds he persisted.

All he could think about was that fake Tubbo had gone through so much effort to make him a home in that desolate place, it would have been an insult to him to die in Ghostbur’s shabby settlement instead. And maybe… maybe it would have been nice to see him again before leaving for good. Because, while he knew that he was just a hallucination, the attachment he had toward the guy was real. And, since his death would be the end for both of them, he at least wanted to apologize.

Dream didn’t follow immediately. “Where did you go?!” he demanded loudly as if he hadn’t been right behind Tommy when he entered the castle.

Tommy was confused, still, he took the opportunity to sneak away quiet as a mouse. He made his way to the courtyard, to Mushroom Henry. The cow couldn’t protect him, she was but a calf in his mind, looking at him with wide soulful eyes devoid of any thought or malice. But her presence still reassured him.

If he couldn’t have fake Tubbo by his side at least he had her.

He waddled over and snuggled into her side.

Dream must have figured out that Tommy had gone inside the castle eventually because he heard a loud crash as the metallic entrance door was ripped off of its hinges. “What kind of fucking sorcery is this, huh Tommy?!” Dream yelled even angrier than before. “First you hid the chests and now- now this?! How many things have you been hiding? Did- did you find it funny, huh? Was it hilarious to play me for a fool?!”. A flower pot was shattered. There were a lot of those scattered throughout the castle. Fake Tubbo had insisted on them, something about how the smell of flowers helped with mental health or something.

Tommy wasn’t feeling very mentally healthy at the moment. He’d go as far as to say he was heavily distressed.

However, the fact that now Dream could see the castle as well did bring him a modicum of reassurance. He wasn’t that far gone then. Not that it would matter soon enough when he finally died.

It didn’t take long for Dream to find his way over to the courtyard. He stomped his feet on the ground as he walked toward him looking like he wanted nothing more than to filet Tommy.

Tommy shut his eyes tight. At least his corpse would fertilize the flowers and grass in Mushroom Henry’s enclosure. In a way, he’d end up providing for the one who’d been providing for him that whole time. And the cycle of life would continue.

He only opened his eyes again when he heard an agonized scream and realized it was not his own.

A hand covered in golden flames and holding a beating heart was sprouting out of Dream’s chest. Tommy had never been the most observant fella (he had the focus and the attention to details of a dead goldfish) but he’d seen that fire enough times to know that it was the same exact one fake Tubbo’s eyes always burned with.

“I know what you did, you green bitch” Tubbo’s voice cut through the air loud and clear and far more confident than he’d heard it in years. “And I know what you were about to do. You should never have gone after my mortal”. With that, he pulled his arm back, still holding Dream’s heart.

Dream fell to his knees and then flopped down face-first on Tommy.

Tommy couldn’t even think to avoid him, as the shock of everything going on was too much.

Tubbo was standing there, golden eyes covered his whole skin. His goat horns were more prominent than ever, and even his legs looked more beastly, bent, and covered in thick dark fur as they were. More flowers sprouted at his feet as droplets of blood falling from the heart in his hand crashed against the ground. Mushroom Henry bowed her head to him, and Tommy almost felt inclined to do the same.

Almost, because he’d known that guy since he was a literal toddler, he’d seen him pick his nose and ask the world’s most inappropriate questions at the worst possible time, he wasn’t about to be seriously impressed by a spooky makeover.

At most, he was perturbed to have just witnessed his last remaining friend die in front of him, though he must have been in shock or something because he couldn’t feel any actual sadness at the idea. Just relief and an overwhelming feeling of freedom. Which made no sense as Dream had always been kind to him. They were best friends. He was kinda of like a new older brother, he acted exactly like one too.

“Tommy” Tubbo’s tone, suddenly so gentle and soft, broke him out of his thoughts. The president was now kneeling in front of him, hand hovering close enough to his cheek that he could feel the warmth of the fire that covered it still. Tommy pressed himself against it with a questioning hum. It didn’t burn him, though, for once, it felt solid, real. “I’m sorry” he sounded genuine “I’m sorry for leaving you so long. I’m sorry for only sending my projection to guard you. I knew right as I saw Dream sneaking this way that he was planning to come to you when I was distracted. He figured out my one weakness”.

Tommy huffed. “Don’t be so full of yourself Bitch Boy, you got plenty of those”. He regretfully righted himself again, leaving the warmth of Tubbo’s palm, to give him a proper look up and down. “I reckon right now I could take you if I had a hose”.

Tubbo laughed loudly. “Oi! I’ll have you know that as the God of Life and Progress, I technically have power over hoses!”.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Dude, you also just fucking murdered a guy. You clearly kinda suck at your job as the God of Life and Progress” he said the last part in a high-pitched mocking tone.

It was weird how easily they could get back into silly banter when so much had happened between them. Months had gone by, trust had been broken, Tommy had almost died several times, a few of which were self-inflicted, and yet there they were laughing like old friends.

To be completely honest, Tommy wasn’t entirely sure of what had happened. He assumed that fake Tubbo hadn’t been so fake after all though, and that healed some of the hurt he felt at being abandoned to his own devices for so long. Some. The rest would take time and a lot of talking. Possibly, if Tommy got lucky, even some groveling that he would abuse the shit out of to get some funky perks. He had to get something for being a god’s mortal after all. And, if not that, at least for being a god’s best friend.

“Shall we go home now?” Tubbo offered Tommy his hand.

Tommy thought it over for a moment. He still wasn’t sure he’d be so readily accepted into society. Then again, Dream was gone so there wasn’t anyone left interested in kicking him out. Worse come to worse, he’d hide in Ranboob’s walls as revenge for that tall fucker not visiting for so long.

“Yeah, let’s go”. He took Tubbo’s hand and let himself be pulled up. “You’re carrying Mushroom Henry by the way”.

Tubbo groaned. “But Boss Man, she’s a whole ass cow!”.

“Yeah, well, you exiled me so-”.

Tubbo pouted. “You’re just gonna use that against me forever, aren’t you?”.

“Yep, now get a move on Bitch Boy, we ain’t got all day”.

With a deep resigned sigh, Tubbo picked up the cow, startling her quite a bit, then followed Tommy out of the castle. Maybe he’d ask him to rebuild that castle on top of his dirt shack too. A whole new world of possibilities was opening in front of Tommy’s eyes and he couldn’t wait to explore them all!