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Tommy’s been a bit gray the past few months. Winter will do that to you, especially if you’re the god of life. Thing is, you can’t really die being a god. But you can get tired, and you can get exhausted. When that happens, you kinda just turn gray. You look like one of those old movies, like life is sucked out of you, and you don’t seem, well, godlike. Winter does that to Tommy, makes him gray and dreary. He always thinks it’s because of the lack of life. Well, there is life, it’s just that during the winter his abilities kind of just disappear for a bit. He thinks of it as his abilities recharging, which is nice. But at the same time fuckin’ annoying, he just wants to grow flowers man!
But it’s nearing the end of February, and that means spring. Spring, one of Tommy’s favorite seasons, is full of life. Full of things that winter doesn’t have, like abilities that actually work and raccoons that are actually awake instead of sleeping all the time (what? He misses his raccoon friends during the winter). Unfortunately, spring doesn’t come on its own, and he’s the one doing most of the work. Some things come easy, like growing flowers, even if he’s a bit rusty from not doing it at all during the winter. The other things though, get a little harder. At some point, he needs to send a bit of his life force to just boost the earth through the final stages of spring. It’s not very fun.
But there’s time to worry about that later, because right now, sitting in the middle of his garden, which has been barren for the last couple of months, he’s ready to fill it full of life again.
He sits on the earth, dry from the lack of rain and cold, but alive . He takes a deep breath and pushes. Pushes the gray out of his body, and pushes life into the plain earth, urging to grow something, anything. It might not work, as it might not be time for spring, but Tommy’s never one to back down from a challenge. The earth resists (as expected, she’s always been so lazy), refusing to wake up, preferring to stay in her deep slumber. Tommy frowns, and pushes more life, there’s no time to be fuckin’ lazy when he needs to start spring. He knows the earth can manage to grow some flowers, even in her sleep. He definitely has, with vines curling around him, and flowers blooming his hair.
She gives in, after Tommy pushes a fuck ton of life into the earth, so much that she can’t resist. He can practically hear her grumble, and he smiles in return, despite her obvious frustration.
The flowers slowly thrive and grow, rising from the earth as if they are ghosts leaving their graves. The earth hums a little tune, and Tommy can feel the light graze of the leaves and flowers touching him, and the grass growing tickling his legs. A faint fragrance of the flowers rises in the air, he can almost taste it, sitting on his tongue in an oddly comforting way.
Tommy smiles at his garden, once empty with only dirt to accompany it, but now overflowing with plants and flowers. The bright colors contrast with the gray sky, the color of smoke and the hide of a wolf. He gets up from the ground, careful to not crush any flowers around him. He dusts his hand off and walks out of his garden. He turns back to look, just for a minute, sending a faint but bright smile towards the garden. A trail of flowers follows him back to his house, a trail of oriental lilies.
The earth awakens, the leaf of a plant curls, the birds sing their song.
- - - -
Tommy likes frogs. He likes how they jump around, leaping from lily pad to lilypad, soaring through the air. Sometimes, he wishes he could jump like them too. Only sometimes though, he’s perfectly content being able to grow plants.
He thinks that Kristin likes them too, he concludes, watching her laugh at the frogs jumping away, frightened when she moves towards the pond. Her quick movements hardly make a sound, despite her gracefulness being equal to an elephant, trying to catch the frogs. Perks of being the goddess of death, he guesses. Their startled movements make ripples in the water, jumping away quickly. Phil watches Kristin, chuckling at her child-like joy, sitting on a creaky old bench near the pond that Tommy’s sure will give Phil splinters.
Tommy sits on the ground near the pond, legs drawn up to his chest, careful not to let his feet dip into the murky water, the color of a muted emerald. He gets up slowly and quietly, and moves to the pond, making sure not to alarm the tadpoles that were sure to be swimming around the murky pond. He crouches down, jeans getting stained by the slightly wet dirt by the pond, a faint squish arising from the ground. The tadpoles wriggle and dance excitedly in the water, unbothered by Tommy and his presence looming over the pond. Perks with being the god of life, living things won’t be bothered by you. Most of the time. (He still hasn’t forgiven the lion that fucking tackled him because he called him “egotistic”)
He dips his fingers into the pond, the water surprisingly warm. Cautiously, he dips the rest of his hand into the water. The tadpoles, unsuspecting, rush into the palm of his hand, and he can hear the excited whispers from the water, along with the water rippling faintly from the movement. He cups his hands, and then raises them out of the water slowly, as the tadpoles wiggle and splash droplets water out of his hand. Tommy hums a little tune, and they settle down, seeming to hum along as well.
“Kristin! Come here!” he hisses quietly, turning towards the goddess, still entertained by scaring frogs, trying to gesture to his cupped hands to his best intent.
The goddess gets the message and hurries over, steps quick and light. She settles beside Tommy, eyes sparkling and smile radiant when she catches sight of the tadpoles. He grins, and gently lowers his hands down to the water, setting the tadpoles free. They swim away, dark specks in the water. Gesturing towards Kristin, he grabs her hands gently, and lowers them down to the water. They both move to crouch near the bank of the pond, dirt staining their shoes. Once again, the tadpoles rush to his hands, this time covering with Kristin's.
Kristin laughs at the feeling of the tadpoles moving panickily, unused to hands that are not the god beside her. As Tommy watches the goddess of death giggle at the tadpoles, he doesn’t quite get how she’s gained a reputation of being scary and death-like and shit, but then again, she’s scary as fuck at times. Like that time he couldn’t go ice skating because the rink was closed, but she somehow convinced them to let him ice skate. Somehow.
Kristin eventually dips her hands back into the water, and lets the tadpoles escape her hands. They swim away eagerly, small splashes following behind them. Krisitin waves a goodbye, even if they can’t see it, too busy swimming away.
Phil, no longer on the bench, and now standing in front of it, shouts to them about dinner with Wilbur and having to leave. The frogs croak, and the tadpoles wiggle along the pond as the two deities walk back to Phil, the slightly wet dirt staining their shoes. He ushers them back down the trail to the car, and before they leave, Tommy hears the loud chirps! from the pond, and he is suddenly reminded of the thought of spring. Usually when frogs chirp, it signifies the beginning of spring. Once again, spring dances along with his mind, reminding him of the ending of winter, the most fucking horrible season ever to exist.
- - - -
The next time Tommy thinks about the upcoming spring, he’s with Tubbo at the park. Yes, it’s the one where he went and fuckin’ floated in the air. He absent-mindedly grows flowers from the patchy grass since he’s still a little out of practice from winter. He grows a flower crown for Tubbo, specifically with the flowers that bees will like. Tubbo accepts it, taking it from Tommy’s hands and placing it on his head eagerly.
He can hear kids shouting in the distance, a soccer ball being kicked back and forth. The sun beats down on him and Tubbo, the two sitting on the roots of a tree. The wind sighs, a gentle breeze hitting their faces. The flowers flutter slightly on Tubbo’s head, dancing along briefly to the gust of air. He spots bees coming from a mile away, barreling at Tubbo’s crown like they’re the last flowers on earth.
Tommy watches them, making Tubbo giggle in delight as they make a beeline to the flowers sitting on his head. Bees love him for some reason, and Tommy always thinks it’s because of his chaos being alluring or something. But Tubbo always claims that since he “like da bee” the bees like him. He’s learned not to question it, he’s seen the chaos Tubbo has created. For fucks sake, he’s the one making all the earthquakes!
He watches Tubbo sit still patiently in order not to disturb the bees, as they buzz a greeting to him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Tubbo can understand animals too, it seems like something that would come with the package of being the god of chaos. It also seems like something Tubbo would keep from him just for shits and giggles (Like how he didn’t tell Tommy that he and Ranboo are actually married). The bees talk of warmth and flowers, painting a vivid image of sunshine and watercolor in Tommy’s head. They buzz rapidly and pause to take nectar from the flower sitting on Tubbo’s head.
He’s seen enough springs (he’s seen all the springs) to know that spring always has bees. (And his excessive plant growing. But he doesn’t talk about that.) The sign that the flowers have bloomed. He’s always enjoyed watching the bees fly around, happily bouncing from flower to flower.
A bee flies over to an oriental lily tucked behind Tommy’s ear, and buzzes, spring is coming, child of life.
Oh, the realization comes, in stark clarity, oh, spring is coming.
Bees flit around Tubbo, pollen fills the air, and flowers bloom.
Spring is coming.
- - - -
Tommy isn’t one for waking up early, he prefers to sleep in, but sometimes he does. Sometimes, he gets up early, just to listen to the pure silence and still life of the mornings. He did it a lot in the winter, just listening to the cold and the quiet. The mornings provided him comfort of some sort, during the dreary season. A reminder that some things won’t always be loud and chaotic as his life often is.
He’s been doing it more often, with the thought of spring coming in the back of his mind. The silence usually greets him, with cold air and the world still.
Today, it’s different. When Tommy walks out of his house and opens the creaky gate into the garden, now overflowing with different flowers and plants he’s been growing, the silence that he’s grown used to over the last few months is replaced with something else.
Well, it is quiet at first. He breathes out to see if he can see his breath fog up the air and to his disappointment, there is no puff of air to see. He turns to look around at his garden, inspecting his flowers.
But then a bird song greets him, and says a hello!, interrupting his serene morning. Tommy’s shoulders jump in the air, surprised. He hasn’t heard a bird song for a while, since the birds migrated in the winter, but they seem to have come back. (The silence was getting kind of lonely, anyway.)
The bird who greeted him is a warbler bird, her chest a bright yellow like the color of the sun, hints of a darker yellow lining the chest. Her wings have dashes of yellow and black, blending with each other like a painting. Tommy waves at her and chirps back a hello. She ruffles her wings and settles herself, as if getting ready for a performance.
After settling down, she opens her beak and sings. She sings about her journey back to the UK and what he’s missed during the winter. Her chest huffs with all the chirping and singing she's doing, and at the end of her song she looks up expectantly at Tommy. He stares at the warbler bird, unsure of what she wants him to do. She chirps annoyedly at Tommy, fluttering her wings once again, looking more annoyed this time.
Oh, she wants me to compliment her. He realizes.
Tommy claps hurriedly, once figuring out what the bird wants. She huffs, indifferent and he offers her a compliment about her singing. She chirps happily at that, content. He lets out a sigh of relief. Angry birds are not something you want to deal with.
The sky lightens to a light sapphire color as other birds join the warbler bird in his garden. They tell him their news, and he welcomes the symphony that is their chirps. The sun rises, a beautiful ruby in the sky. Tommy sits in his garden, growing sunflowers per the bird's requests, and he watches them as they flit to the flowers excitedly and peck at the seeds. Some of them flit up to his shoulder and onto his head, moving their claws around in his hair while settling down, and messing it up. He scolds them quietly for that, telling them to settle down in short chirps.
They stop singing at some point and chirp at him to tell his own stories. So he does. Tommy tells them about his family, about streaming, about his excitement for the coming spring, and the things they’ve missed while away during winter. The birds add their occasional input, especially agreeing with him when he talks about how cool Techno is.
Eventually, Tommy has to head back inside, being lunchtime. The birds sing a dramatic goodbye, promising to be back the next time he wakes up early to accompany him as they lift off of his shoulders and out of his hair.
As he makes a sandwich for his lunch, the birds fly around outside the window, doing tricks to make him laugh. Birds have always been one of his favorite animals (raccoons being at the top, obviously), with their ability to always make him laugh, no matter his mood. They’ve always reminded him of spring, as well.
Spring is here! Spring is here! they sing, making loops outside of his kitchen window.
Tommy chirps back in agreement, spring is here!
- - - -
Butterflies have always been such delicate things. Their wings, although delicate, have always seemed so strong, the wind never tearing them. (They have good taste in flowers, as well.)
There are many butterflies , Tommy notes, watching them glide with the wind, as if they are airplanes and the park is their sky. Ranboo watches them, entranced. They’re at a park, (a one that Tommy made sure had butterflies since he wanted to see them) eating lunch and watching the butterflies dance. He’s wanted to see them for a long time, with the weather getting warmer and flowers finally blooming from the earth after a lot of convincing from his part.
The butterflies flit from flower to flower, as they mutter different things. Tommy hears an occasional, “Yum!” or a “Did you hear what happened the other day?”. The butterflies are really social butterflies, aren’t they? He always trusts them to know the latest news. Well, for the most part. The one time he went to live with the raccoons they spread false news that he died to all the animals. But it didn’t even make sense in the first place, since he can’t die, as he’s immortal.
The grass sways in the light breeze, tickling their legs. Ranboo occasionally asks him the name of a flower, spotting the specks of colors in the grass. He responds eagerly, sharing facts about the flowers. Eventually, the butterflies fly around their heads, dipping and twirling in the air. Ranboo laughs and tries to make a butterfly land on his hand with no success.
They laugh at him, and Tommy snorts. They really get a kick out of bothering Ranboo, don’t they? he notes. By this point, some of the butterflies have already crept onto his head, holding onto his hair and their wings fluttering in the wind. He’s reminded of cattails that sway in ponds, their long heads swinging back and forth with the wind.
Ranboo turns his head up, the sun highlighting his face. Tommy watches him visibly relax, wind brushing his face, an oddly calm serenity surrounding him. A butterfly flits down from his hair, and lands gently on Ranboo’s face, latching onto his nose. The wings spread out to cover some of his face, the color of a cornflower. They move up and down slowly in the wind as if their wings are a fan. He listens to them murmur a hello, asking Ranboo little questions.
Ranboo’s eyes flicker open in surprise at the feeling of something on his nose, but Tommy quickly reassures him that it’s just a butterfly, so he closes his eyes again. He smiles and whispers a quiet hello to the butterfly, and Tommy can hear the butterfly greet him back, moving their antenna in a lazy hello.
They stay like that for a minute, as if they are both trapped in time, with Tommy being the only one who can see them. After a moment, the butterfly sings a goodbye to Ranboo and floats off to another flower. The butterflies intertwined with his hair leave as well, murmuring goodbyes, wandering off to other flowers in the sea of grass, wings fluttering in the wind.
Ranboo opens his eyes, with a startling wide smile on his face. He turns to look at Tommy, excitement visible in his eyes.
“Tommy! Did you just see that? A butterfly landed on my nose!” Ranboo hurriedly says, words rushing out of his mouth all at once like a waterfall.
Tommy laughs at his childish excitement, and nods.
“Yeah, I saw! They’re pretty fuckin’ cool, aren’t they?” he asks, struggling to contain his laughter at Ranboo’s eagerness.
Ranboo nods eagerly, choosing to turn back to the field and watch the butterflies again. As he absentmindedly stares out at the field, he thinks, huh. Flowers plus frogs plus bees plus birds plus butterflies mean…spring.
Spring is here, isn’t it?
- - - -
Tommy’s never been one for waking up early. Never been an early bird, and never will. Except for those occasional times he wakes up early for the birds. He always prefers to sleep in.
Today is different, he would say. Tommy is sleeping in his very comfy bed when he hears it. A quiet, but sharp and quick rap on the door. It wakes him from his slumber, and he shoots up from his bed, already having an inkling of who it is. He races out of his blankets and out of his room, clearly awake.
He practically stumbles his way through his house to the front door, and excitedly flings it open. The door slams against the wall, and probably will leave a mark, but Tommy doesn’t care. If it’s who he thinks it is, it doesn’t matter. He peers down at the doorstep, where a raccoon sits, rather impatiently? Who knows, he can never tell with Spot.
Tommy greets the raccoon excitedly, reaching down to grab him into a tight hug. Spot relaxes into the embrace, and curls into his arms when he’s finished hugging him. Spot chitters at him, waving his paws in the air, saying something about Tommy taking too long to open the door, and he chitters back annoyed, (even though he’s not) claiming that he took a short amount of time, thank you very much. He carries him to his room, setting Spot down on his bed.
He lays down in his bed again to sleep, he can be excited about Spot later when he’s more awake. Tommy folds his blanket over the both of them, snuggling closer into it.
All is quiet. There’s not a peep, a chirp, or a single noise around them. Tommy shuffles around, turning side to side, obviously trying to find a comfortable position and go back to sleep.
Spot has different plans. He huffs, throws the blanket off with his paws, and climbs onto Tommy’s chest, batting his furry paws at his face. He tries to push Spot off, but he clutches onto his shirt. Spot chitters at him expectedly, and Tommy knows exactly what he wants.
“Fine, we can go outside.” he mumbles sleepily, and pulls himself out of his bed, the raccoon still clinging onto his shirt.
Tommy stumbles out of his room, and pads his way to the door. He opens the faded red door once again, less forcefully this time, and walks out onto the warm ground. He doesn’t bother putting on shoes, even if his feet will be dirty later.
He walks over to his garden, Spot now repositioned, curled around his neck. He unlocks the gate latch, a worn out cornflower blue. It swings open, and Tommy enters the garden, overflowing with flowers and plants from the past few months. Spot leaps off of his shoulders, and tumbles into the middle of the garden, where a patch of grass lies.
Spot curls up onto the patch of grass, sunlight shining onto the raccoon. He sighs, and walks over to the raccoon, settling to lie down next to Spot on the patch of grass as well. He leaps onto his chest once again, and curls up into a ball. Tommy absentmindedly moves his hand to the raccoon, running it through the raccoon’s brittle hair, and Spot purrs sleepily in content.
He hasn’t seen Spot since fall, the raccoon taking his leave when it started to get colder to go to sleep somewhere for a long time, as raccoons do. Tommy always tells him that he can just stay with him, but Spot always claims that he’s “too loud” (which is not true) or something along the lines of that. He’s always had Spot by his side, since the beginning of time. He’s had him before Henry and Clementine, and before he met his family.
It’s been him and Spot since the beginning.
It’s a funny thing how even though the earth always gives her own signs to Tommy that a season is upcoming, he always looks for it in Spot.
He knows that it’s fall when he starts growing his winter coat, and he knows that it’s winter when Spot leaves to survive the cold on his own (despite being an immortal animal). He knows that it’s spring when Spot comes back to him, the same sharp rap on the door.
Spring has always been Spot.
Tommy closes his eyes, his hand now still on Spot's back. The sun gazes at them, the wind sings a little tune. The leaves sway dainty on the trees, the bees buzz, the butterflies murmur their news, and oh-
It’s spring, isn’t it?
Spot snuggles into a tighter ball, and flowers creep up from the earth.
Yes, the earth sings, finally awake.
Yes, it is spring.
Birds sing, frogs croak, the grass sways.
A vine curls around his ankle, and a flower creeps into his hair.
And in the glory that is of spring, the sun, the wind, the flowers, Tommy knows that it is spring.
Spring has come.