Work Text:
Tommy grew up happy.
He had a mom, a dad, two doting older brothers.
Wilbur Soot Minecraft, his oldest brother. Wilbur was a musician, a talented one at that. In their tiny, cramped town, people whispered about how Wilbur would get out and make a name of himself with his low, honey-like voice and twangy guitar strings. When Tommy asked, Wilbur would laugh and laugh and swing Tommy around in his arms.
Technoblade Minecraft, his older brother. Technoblade, or Techno as he preferred to be called, was a prodigy in fencing and ridiculously smart. As a child, before Tommy was born, Techno had been diagnosed with ADHD and everyone assumed that Techno wouldn’t amount to much in academics. Techno proved them all wrong and graduated valedictorian of his class, years later. When Tommy asked how Techno overcame that, Techno smiled and pulled Tommy into his lap, running his fingers through the fine golden hair and saying jokingly that he overcame that by running on pure spite. Techno let loose one of his rare laughs when Tommy asked what spite was.
Philza Minecraft, his father. Phil came from a military family, his own father often gone on militaristic campaigns. He lost his father as a 13-year-old and had to begin working whatever job he could find to support himself, his mother, and his two younger siblings. Phil later went into the criminal justice system after graduating from law school. He worked as a lawyer in the city for 8 years before moving out to the small town an hour away. When Tommy asked how he juggled finances and school, Phil laughed and said that he was simply determined to cultivate the best life possible for his future kids.
Kristin Minecraft, his mother. Kristin was an only child. She was a chronic younger sister to her entire friend group, as most everyone couldn’t resist the sunny attitude of the youngest in the friend group. She grew up happy and healthy, graduating from college with a degree in teaching. She met Phil when he had to investigate a lead in his case that took him to the school Kristin worked at. They fell in love, got married, and moved to the small town an hour away. When Tommy asked about her life, Kristin giggled and told him about how she had a passion for flowers and had her own garden, how she saw so much of herself in young Tommy.
And then Kristin was gone.
And then Phil disappeared under the weight of his grief.
And then Techno lashed out at everyone and everything.
And then Wilbur started ignoring Tommy.
And then Tommy felt broken.
Because after Kristin’s death, all anyone could see of Tommy was her . Because after Kristin’s death, Tommy fought to keep everyone happy. Because after Kristen’s death, Tommy fought for his family.
Maybe that was when Tommy should have realized what he was, who he was. Tommy was forever the knight doomed to fight for everything and everyone he holds dear, but never being allowed to rest and have others fight for him for a change.
At age ten, Tommy started facing the harsh truth of the outside world.
Tommy, from childhood, was loud and impulsive and annoying, someone to tune out because they were always demanding attention. Even when Tommy was fawned over, anything he might say was dismissed as simple childish rambles. Tommy’s words were meaningless, meant to fill the silence but never meant to be focused on.
Until they weren’t.
Until Tommy found Wilbur’s old songbook and he got told at fifteen when he turned in his first poem as an English assignment “ your words mean something ,” and he discovered that poetry was its own form of release.
Poetry was a form of release far better than punching the wall in his far-too-empty room, amid the silence of a broken family.
Until he realized he could use his words as a weapon against those who had loved him once upon a time, against the people who only saw him as an extension of her. Maybe they never truly loved Tommy but loved how he was all the best parts of Phil and Kristin and Wilbur and Techno.
Until he realized that no matter how much he acted out, his remaining family would never care like they did once upon a time.
So he learned how to write meaningful words. He learned how to memorize and recite those meaningful words. He learned tone and inflection and projection; he learned how to weave a story out of thin air and how to make people feel his loneliness. He learned how to weave his anger and pain and sadness into words as sharp as Techno’s fancy competition swords; he learned how to aim his poisonous words at the people who hurt him and make the words sting .
He learned his family would never care again, so Tommy in turn learned how to depend only on himself and he learned that he could use words to make people hurt as badly as he used to hurt, as badly as he still hurts.
And maybe that would have been ok, but Tommy was bitter. Wilbur and Techno were adopted by Phil when Wilbur was 8 and Techno was 7. Tommy was born 2 years after the two got adopted and they grew up together. The three were happy, and Tommy never ever saw them as anything other than blood brothers. But Kristin died when he was 10, Wilbur 18 and Techno 17. And Tommy gave up after Wilbur and Techno went away and forgot him. Phil worked longer and longer hours until it was more common to see a note on the counter saying Phil was working than not.
And then Tommy met Tubbo.
And then Tommy met Ranboo.
And then Tommy met Sam Nook, the English teacher who first taught him his worth.
And then Tommy met Puffy and Dream and Foolish and Sapnap and George.
And then Tommy wasn’t alone anymore, because his words were heard.
Tubbo and Ranboo, a scientist and a debater who didn’t understand the emphasis Tommy put on his lyrical words but still extended support, heard him.
Mr. Nook, who recognized the hurting and grieving child and decided to extend an olive branch to him and decided that Tommy was worth fighting for, heard him.
Puffy and Dream, who looked over his poems and encouraged him to open up more, to be angrier, to feel his long-buried emotions and release them all on the words scribbled on the paper full of pain and loneliness and grief and sadness and, eventually, happiness.
George and Sapnap, who treated Tommy like a younger brother who deserved the world. Even when Tommy purposefully pushed their buttons and annoyed them, George and Sapnap never raised their voices at him. Instead, they coddled and hugged and loved and adored Tommy, all things his family hadn’t done in years.
All of them heard Tommy, heard his desperate screams for someone to listen, heard his pleas for support and love and adoration, heard his tiny voice as he asked for them to promise they wouldn’t leave.
Tommy was healing, and that was all he could ask for.