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Tommy edges closer to the corner, knuckles whitening around the crowbar clutched tightly in his hands. The wind cards through his hair like a lullaby, and the stars twinkle far past the window, reminding him that he’s a fucking idiot if he dies. Okay, no, that part mostly came from his own head— but Tommy makes do, sucking in a large breath, ignoring the pain, and hoping for the best as he inches closer and closer to the wide open space.
He’s currently trying to loot a mall that looked relatively unharmed. Greenery has shot up to cover all its surface, greedy vines winding throughout windows and brilliant pink flowers sprouting off their arms. It’s abandoned, that’s for sure, so Tommy ducked inside as soon as he saw it, stumbling in in search of medical supplies, the world spinning in circles around him. The nasty gash on his thigh isn’t going away anytime soon, and if Tommy wants to be on his way again by morning, he needs to find something to patch it with soon. He doesn’t want to think about how it’s been slowly getting worse and worse this entire time.
The problem at hand: Tommy got two-thirds of the way through the mall before he started to hear noises.
If he pays close attention now, he can still hear it: the click-click-click- whirr of something in an empty, shabby store floats down the hall and around the corner, sinking through Tommy’s body and warning him of a possible incoming enemy. Of course, Tommy’s no idiot— it could just be leftover technology, which might be really helpful to bring with him. On the other hand, though… he wouldn’t be surprised if it’s something that wants to kill him. Between deathly robots and mutated animals, Tommy can never be too sure anymore.
So he braces his back against the wall and holds tighter to his crowbar, clenching his teeth as he waits. After a few false starts, hesitation coursing through his veins, Tommy whirls around the corner into the dark hall. A hanging light swings further down thanks to the breeze wafting in through busted-out windows, illuminating the left side of the hall and then the right over and over.
Tommy’s eyes move to the red and green vines that snake across the floor, and his eyes widen as he stumbles back and then checks behind him, too. Blood vines are one of the deadliest adversaries out here, despite not being able to move or chase after anyone. They’re fatal to the touch, and unfortunately more common than Tommy would like.
He’s pretty sure he had a run-in with one of them, pretty sure his hand brushed against one in passing, his arm grazed one whilst on the run from a terrifyingly disgusting deer-bird, but nothing ever happened to him, which is… questionable at best. Even so, caution is the best route. Tommy can’t afford to make stupid decisions, which sucks, because most of his decisions are stupid ones.
With a breath, Tommy steps over the cluster of snaking blood vines and moves past them, ears twitching at the next click-click-click- whirr that floats his way. Perking up, Tommy locks onto the origin point of the sound: it’s the empty Macy’s near the end of the hall. Through its windows, Tommy can’t see anything in particular, but he’s not very close yet.
There’s something in there, and he’s going to figure out what it is.
Tommy moves further and further down the hall as silently as possible, keeping the crowbar poised at his side. Inhale, exhale, repeat: these are the steps for success. Can’t forget to breathe, can’t forget to work on his spatial awareness, can’t forget to be ready for anything. Nothing should ever come as a surprise anymore.
Before long, Tommy’s standing in the doorway of the Macy’s, scanning aisles with wide eyes and bated breath, leaning on the entryway to keep pressure off his leg. Something’s going to be around one of these corners, and if Tommy isn’t careful, he may be its next victim.
He progresses through the dimly lit store silently, limping around high heel displays and mannequins with creeping vines pulled tight around their necks. Another few steps, and then Tommy freezes: click-click-click- whirr, far closer to him than ever before. He lifts the crowbar, preparing to fight as he inches across the tiled floor, which is covered in dirt and what looks like dried blood. There was probably a fight here, then. That’s not good; that means it may have been looted already.
Focus, Tommy tells himself, and then peers around a display of jeans to find a robot slumped on the floor, propped up against the back of the stand.
Tommy scrambles back despite the striking pain, extending his arms with the crowbar in warning, but nothing… happens. The robot doesn’t move, or make another sound— in fact, it doesn’t even open its eyes. Which look… closer to human than robot.
With a breath to steady himself, Tommy again limps closer, and then dares to kneel, leaning towards the half-and-half amalgamation. Sure enough, the top half of its— his?— face looks completely human, eyes closed and frizzy brown hair hanging low down his face, but from the jaw below, he’s machine. Tommy inspects the guy’s arms, pulling one up to examine the interface, and there’s a screen built into the top.
RECOMMENDED INTERNAL TEMPERATURE LIMIT EXCEEDED, it reads, a red light blinking rapidly in the dark, and then another much louder click-click-click-WHIRR startles Tommy into dropping his arm, and then something hard smashes into the back of Tommy’s head.
Instantly, the blond goes sprawling across the floor, stars dancing in and out of his vision. Fuck, fuck, fuck, he let his guard down, and now something really is going to kill him. Tommy hears mechanical parts hum to life, and his heart seizes in fear. He’s going to get double teamed, and he’s going to be left with nothing. Or worse— left without his life.
Tommy rolls over onto his back, fighting to see through his swimming vision and the ache in his head, and grapples for his crowbar. He slaps a hand down on top of the jeans display and uses it as leverage to pull himself to his feet, swaying and then slashing the air with his weapon. A blurry figure approaches, tall as all hell, and Tommy dances backwards, hopping on one foot unsteadily to try and find the knife tucked against his leg.
“Back the fuck up,” Tommy crows, his lungs shuddering with the effort, and his knuckles once again whiten on the handle. “Get back. I’ll fucking kill you, bitch,” he shouts, “I’ll rip your face off,” and spits blood, and the pressure on his bad leg begs him to buckle, but he doesn’t.
Tommy jumps when he’s actually met with a voice in return: “Don’t hurt us,” it begs tightly, wavering, and then: “please.” As the world starts to slow down, the spin coming to a stop, Tommy blinks the sluggishness from his hands and strains in the low light of the store and is met with a shaking, masked boy wielding, of all things, a frying pan.
Tommy blinks, and then, after assessing the situation and determining the terrified tall guy in front of him isn’t a threat, he collapses into a heap in front of the vine-covered mannequin.
“Oh my god,” Tommy hears as his head lolls back, crowbar clattering to the floor. “Oh my god.” There are footsteps, and whirring, but Tommy can only breathe, the world starting to rock again to spite him. Tommy’s pain tolerance has never been the greatest, though it’s improved by quite a lot during this whole thing, so with stripes of blood across his thigh and an unrelenting pounding in his head, he can’t trust himself in combat. Thank god this guy isn’t looking for a fight.
Tommy feels a presence from beside him and his eyes snap open. He takes in a sharp breath and yanks up the crowbar, chest aching with the tedious effort of keeping him conscious, and the boy scoots back, lifting his hands in surrender. “I wasn’t going to touch it,” he says, still shakily uncertain, and then draws his brows together, as if he’s worried. As if anyone in the damn world actually wants to help Tommy. “Are you… okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” Tommy deadpans easily. “Doing great, actually. Best I’ve ever been.” When the boy just stares blankly at him, baffled, Tommy throws a hand up. “Haven’t you ever heard of sarcasm, dumbass? No, I’m not fuckin’ okay,” he snaps, spitting blood to his side, “you just hit me with a fuckin’ frying pan, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Sorry, sorry!” exclaims the boy hurriedly, wringing his wrists and fidgeting. He offers Tommy his hand, probably to help him up, but Tommy ignores it entirely, pulling himself to his feet with the help of the display stand. “I’m so sorry, really, I just— I thought—”
There’s a mechanical groan, a creak, a cry, and Tommy yelps, taken by surprise. The world lurches, and Tommy lurches with it, grabbing onto the arm of the mannequin to keep himself stable. “Fuck,” he spits, and then glances to where he left the robot— rather, where he was forcibly removed from the robot— as it spouts another groan, with the exact same tone and cadence as it did just a few seconds ago. Ram something, Tommy makes out. Ram food? Fuck, please don’t tell me they’ve got a mutated ram as a pet, that went so poorly last time—
“Tubbo!” the masked boy breathes anxiously, and then abandons Tommy, lugging the frying pan over and making a sharp turn to kneel in front of the robot Tommy was looking at just a few minutes ago, before being so rudely interrupted. The blond crosses his arms, padding over to the two of them to look on in annoyance. So it’s Pan Boy’s robot, then. That’s annoying. Tommy found it fair and square. What if he wanted the robot?
When he leans over to eavesdrop, keeping his weight on his good leg, the masked boy has a hand around the robot’s arm. Tubbo, he called it. So the cyborg guy’s called Tubbo. From what Tommy can tell, Ranboo’s consoling him in hushed tones, and the cyborg is on the brink of passing out. Funnily enough, he looks just like Tommy did, slumped against a display after the great Frying Pan Incident of Just Now.
“The hell’s wrong with him?” Tommy interrupts loudly, and the masked guy jumps, whirling around with wide eyes to look up where Tommy’s towering over the two, crowbar still in hand. Whoops. He probably does look a little intimidating, huh? Tommy quirks his lips to the side, sliding the crowbar back into its strap across his back. “Not gonna hit you,” he goes on. “I should, cause that fuckin’ hurt, you son of a bitch. But I won’t.”
And when Tommy stops talking to let him answer, the masked boy, seemingly disregarding everything that was just said, goes, “Do you have any batteries?”
Tommy serves him a blank stare. Out of everything you could ask for in the midst of the fucking apocalypse— food, medkits, blankets, anything— this guy asks for fucking batteries. But he’s still staring, hopefully, and Tommy massages his temple, swallowing. “No,” he says finally. “No, I don’t have batteries. I don’t carry anything that I don’t need.”
“Not even extras for a flashlight?” the guy begs. “Or the ones in your flashlight?”
Tommy curses under his breath, remembering that he can’t deny owning one— it’s strapped to the outside of his bag. “No,” he replies flatly, “you can’t have my fuckin’— why would I give you my batteries?” The boy starts to gesture to the robot-guy, stammering, and Tommy cuts him off before he can get anything coherent out. “Dude, you literally just tried to smack my brains out. Why are you asking me for shit?”
The masked boy deflates, turning back to Tubbo, who groans something out, looking sickly. “No, it’s okay,” he replies, “it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be okay, really, I promise.”
And that’s when Tommy starts to feel bad.
“Uh,” he starts, and another wave washes over him, and Tommy sways where he stands. There. He’s got it. “Hey,” he says, and the guy looks up hopefully. “I don’t have any other batteries, swear it.” He shifts uncomfortably and bends his knee, putting bloodstained fabric on display. “But I need medical supplies. For, uh, humans,” he adds as an afterthought, and uh oh, he’s fucked up.
The cyborg whirrs angrily, and the masked boy looks miffed. “Tubbo is a human,” he interjects defensively, and Tommy gestures to him and then crosses his arms, peeved.
“Well, he’s all metal-y,” he huffs, holding his hands out, “and he makes robot noises, okay? So I thought he was a robot. He’s battery-powered, for fuck’s sakes.”
Tubbo makes a mechanical slurring noise that sounds suspiciously like a drawn out fuck you.
“He’s not battery-powered,” says the boy with a sigh, nudging Tubbo to get the angry hurricane of whirring to slow. “He’s…” Warily, he looks to Tubbo, and the cyborg shifts uncomfortably, shaking his head once. “We’re just using batteries as a substitute for what we really need,” the masked boy elaborates, looking back up at him, and Tommy squints.
“How do you know I won’t have what you really need?” he demands, lips quirking down, and the masked boy shoots him an annoyed look as Tubbo grumbles.
“Because no normal guy carries a nuclear reactor around in his backpack,” he says, shortly, and Tommy blinks, proven wrong.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” The masked boy sets his jaw, staring hard at the ground, and then clears his throat. “So if we could have your flashlight batteries, it might be really helpful, because Tubbo…” He trails off, but Tommy gets the gist of it: Tubbo is in danger.
That’s when Tommy starts to feel really, really bad.
“Right,” he murmurs, swallowing hard. “Well… alright, then. I’ll tell you what, I’m… you could say I’m in the business of med stuff,” he starts carefully, trying to find the best way to say it, the way that doesn’t make him sound pathetic. The way that makes him sound like he’s on top of things. The way that makes him sound like he doesn’t really need it— he could just use it (even though he does need it, badly; his leg has taken to stinging something awful each time he so much as moves it). “And if you have that, then I’d be willing to give you my flashlight batteries and maybe help you with your reacty shit. In exchange for it.”
There’s a pause, a silence, and Pan Boy and Tubbo exchange a glance, the latter looking rather tired as he does so. All Tommy does is stand there awkwardly, pain shooting through his leg when he shifts his weight, and a short breath of exertion leaves him. When the masked boy looks up, wary, Tommy scowls. He’s fine. He doesn’t really need anyone’s help. He just needs bandages. And maybe disinfectant. And maybe a cane, maybe just for a bit, but he’s not going to get that here.
After a good few awkward moments of silence, the masked boy turns to him and stands, though not without patting Tubbo’s hand. “We have stuff you could probably use,” he says wearily. “But not much of it. So if you use the last of our medical supplies, then you have to give us your batteries and help us find coolant. Deal?” He extends his hand, and Tommy stares down at it, a twist pulling at his gut.
Rule one of the apocalypse: never trust anyone.
“I want to see it,” Tommy insists, crossing his arms instead of completing the handshake. He doesn’t know what type of coolant they need, but it probably won’t be easy to find— nothing is. “Before we shake on it, let me see what you have. For all I know, you could be packing a handful of smiley face band-aids, freak. If you don’t actually have anything I can use, I’m out.”
“We do,” the boy insists weakly, “really,” but Tommy stares him down with a dead look, and the boy sighs, wringing his hands. “Alright. I just… showing you our entire inventory is a risk. You have to understand.”
“Tough shit,” says Tommy impatiently, “show me the stuff or I’m gonna leave you dumbasses here to figure it out yourself.”
So tiredly, the boy beckons for him to sit with him, letting his own backpack slide off his arms. Tommy does so gladly; if he had to spend a minute more standing, he might have been forcefully assigned sit by his own legs, against his will. He lets out a breath as the masked boy rifles around in his bag, lifting his gaze to exchange another glance with Tubbo that he probably thinks is stealthy. It isn’t.
“I’m Ranboo,” the masked boy says, pulling a case out from his bag that Tommy’s already desperate to get his hands on, and then it clicks: Tubbo wasn’t groaning out ram food , what the fuck. It was Ranboo. Ranboo.
What a stupid name. “Don’t care,” says Tommy, reaching over, “show me the money,” and Ranboo pulls it out of his range with a glint in his eye and what looks like a frown tugging his face down. Tommy glances up, blinking— “What gives?”— but Ranboo shakes his head.
“Your name first,” he demands, and Tommy squints.
“What is this, a fuckin’ bank withdrawal?”
“Tell me your name or I won’t give you anything,” Ranboo threatens, and Tommy sighs, long and drawn out and dramatic to get his point across. Tough fucking talk from the guy who looked like he was going to piss himself when Tommy first got here.
“Fine,” says Tommy. “My name’s Theseus.” Rule one of the apocalypse: never trust anyone.
Satisfied, Ranboo hands the case over, and Tommy unzips it hungrily, squinting to see better as he sifts through the materials as quickly as possible. Ranboo was right— they really don’t have that much— but right off the bat, Tommy scores a not-quite-empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide and what’s left of a roll of gauze tape. Good. He can use this. This is perfect. Unfortunately, it does look like he’ll be using most of what’s left, which means… fuck. He’ll be stuck with these guys for the foreseeable future.
Before Tommy can begin to weigh his options, another jolt of pain shoots down his leg and back up, scattering throughout his entire body, and he grimaces. Fuck it. If he really needs to, he’ll abandon them at some point later. For now, he really needs what they have. He can’t keep looking.
Tommy pulls the shit from the case, and before he can rip the tape off, Ranboo’s hand shoots out to stop him. Tommy looks up sharply, glowering at him, but Ranboo extends his hand. “Gotta shake on it before you can use it,” he insists, woefully attached to the idea that a handshake makes betrayal impossible (even though it does make Tommy feel a little obligated to follow it).
Rule two of the apocalypse: sacrifices must be made. He shakes Ranboo’s hand hurriedly and then returns to the case to retrieve his desired items, his leg burning.
The two, Tubbo and Ranboo, sit in silence as Tommy works, unscrewing the cap of the hydrogen peroxide and setting it down on the tiles, going back and forth with himself as he yanks his pant leg up further and further. It’s going to sting like a bitch, he thinks regretfully, eyes raking over the bottle. Maybe he shouldn’t do it. No— he has to. If he doesn’t, it’s probably going to get infected, and then he’s going to end up some crazy, mutated piece of shit, just like the animals past the windows, the ones he usually fights off with crowbars and luck.
If he doesn’t use the peroxide, he might die. Turns out that’s not on his agenda.
Once Tommy finally reaches the wound, he carefully, gingerly pulls his pant leg over it, and the cloth he’s been using as a temporary solution shifts agonizingly against his leg. Tommy lifts his shirt and stuffs his collar into his mouth with a grunt, only then moving to untie the knot.
Ranboo’s got his nose in Tommy’s business the entire time, which is really annoying, but it doesn’t matter. He can ignore it long enough to fix himself. “What are you—?” he starts as Tommy bites down on the fabric of his shirt, but the masked boy cuts himself off with a gently sharp inhale when Tommy finally pulls the disgustingly bloodied fabric off and tosses it to the side. “Jesus,” Ranboo murmurs under his breath, and Tommy grunts again, a low, rasping thing scraping against the sides of his throat on its way out.
With a breath, he resteadies himself, swallowing. This is fine. This is so incredibly fine. He’s okay, he’s fine, and it’s okay, and his hand is moving towards the bottle, and it shakes, and a pool of crimson has already started to seep underneath him, and fuck, fuck, he pours the last of the solution over the nasty looking cut, fuck, shit, Tommy throws his head back and squeezes his eyes shut as a sting so bad he feels it in the tips of his fingers rockets through his body, filling his entire nervous system with static as it bubbles and fizzes over the wound.
Fuck, he tries to cry, agonized, and it comes out as a garbled, jumbled, slurring mess of a loud groan.
There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Tommy’s jaw clenches as he cracks one eye, batting at Ranboo’s arm. Then another wave hits him, excruciating fire running up his leg, and Tommy changes from batting to grabbing until he’s gripping Ranboo’s bicep with force, with white knuckles.
Fuck.
And then it’s over. And then the white fizz fades out, and he’s sufficiently disinfected. And he knew he could do it. It’s fine.
Tommy lets the shirt drop from his mouth, wiping saliva from his chin and letting out a long exhale as he comes back to his senses, the white world replaced with color and dimension. He takes note of his surroundings and lets go of Ranboo’s hand like it’s a red hot stove, shaking his hand out. He wants to shoot Ranboo a dirty look, but it’s not worth it. Instead, Tommy pulls his leg up, swallowing a wince and wiping scarlet from his skin.
“Are you okay?” Ranboo asks. Tommy ignores him.
He tears gauze from the roll and wraps it around his thigh, just a few inches above his knee, in three layers. Honestly, this could be a lot worse. Though it’s still bloody, it’s clean, and there’s nothing wrong with his bones or joints, and his feet and arms are fine, which means he can still run and fight and protect himself.
A short exhale, and Tommy rips the edge of the gauze, leaving a little left on the roll in case he needs to change it soon. Tommy’s eyes trail to Ranboo, who’s still watching him like a helicopter mom, and he pulls his backpack closer experimentally. When nothing happens, he pulls the zipper open, and sets the rest of the gauze inside instead of returning it to the first aid kit, all without breaking eye contact.
It’s Ranboo’s turn to say nothing. Satisfied, Tommy shimmies his pant leg back down carefully and then reaches over to unhook his flashlight from the outside of his backpack.
“I dunno how much life these batteries have left,” he admits, breaking the silence as he jimmies the panel off the back of his flashlight and starts to dig the batteries out. “But they should work for at least a little bit, probably until we can find more.” He grunts, turning the flashlight and dumping three D-size batteries into his palm, and Ranboo swallows.
“Any little bit helps,” he offers kindly, and Tommy pushes down heaps and heaps of guilt at the fact that he is nowhere near as kind. Rule two of the apocalypse: sacrifices must be made.
“Right.” Tommy clicks the panel back into place, leaving his flashlight powerless, and then reaches over to hand the batteries to Ranboo, at least fulfilling that much of the deal. The coolant part, he’s not too sure about, but Tommy can wiggle himself out of any tight spots if he needs to. “Here.”
“Thank you,” says Ranboo, tired eyes displaying his relief, and he avoids the puddle of blood Tommy conveniently left on the floor, skirting around it and back to Tubbo, who he prods gently. “Hey,” he murmurs, “hey,” and Tubbo’s eyelids flutter from where they were closed, his cheeks still flushed red. If he squints, Tommy’s pretty sure he can see glistening sweat dotted across his forehead.
Temperature limit reached. Coolant. So Tubbo is overheating, then, and the batteries are powering the nuclear reactor enough to bring his internal temperature down. That means that he can’t regulate his own temperature, which means that he probably relies pretty heavily on whatever’s powering him. He’s swimming in a hoodie with the sleeves rolled up, though, so Tommy can’t see much of his chest, or maybe he’d know more by now.
People think Tommy’s stupid, but he’s not. He’s not stupid. He just tricks himself, overthinks too much to solve certain problems. Tommy’s smart, and he’s observant— he already knows all he needs to about these two characters from the abandoned Macy’s. They care too much about each other is what he knows the most. They care too much about each other for circumstances like these.
Tommy doesn’t. He wouldn’t let himself fall into that trap. Tommy doesn’t care about anyone. Rule three of the apocalypse: do not form emotional attachments, living or not.
That’s one of the ones he’s the worst at so far.
Ranboo fiddles with a compartment on Tubbo’s arm, and Tommy tries to give them some privacy, rifling through his bag, but his eyes keep trailing back to land on the two of them as they sit together on the floor. He’s intrigued in the cybernetics Tubbo’s got implanted in his body, interested in the things that make him tick. Tommy can hear it, after all, the clicks and whirrs and the mechanisms that hum as they hold Tubbo’s life in their hands.
And then something snaps shut, and Tubbo coughs, and with an underlying digital grumble to all his words, he says, “Jesus fucking Christ.”
Something hisses, and it sounds like sizzling steam escaping from a pot boiling over. Tommy’s attention is captured as Tubbo sits up straight, rolls his joints out, and the redness slowly begins to fade from his face. Tommy watches, captivated, as Tubbo opens and closes his jaw. It creaks as it snaps shut, but just like that, with the extra energy, he’s lost the thick, robotic voice he’d been toting earlier, replaced with something almost completely human. “That fucking sucked,” says Tubbo, and Ranboo pats his arm sympathetically.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“These batteries are shit,” says Tubbo pointedly instead of replying to Ranboo, casting a dirty look at Tommy, and the blond grows annoyed instantly, stomach rolling with irritation. I saved you, you needy bitch.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Tommy recites innocently, and then pulls his bag up, standing and leaning back in an attempt to find a window. He hasn’t slept all night; he needs to figure out if there’s still time before the sun will come up in the morning.
“Fuck’s sakes,” Tubbo grumbles, a whirr floating Tommy’s way, and the blond looks back over to catch him wrinkle his nose. “Got blood all over the floor and everything. My god.”
“Felt like decorating,” Tommy hums back, eyes drawn to the crimson puddle and then back to the walls.
“Well, you’re pretty shit at it.”
“I don’t imagine you’re too much better yourself, robo cop.”
“Hey,” says Tubbo sharply, “hey, dick, watch who you’re—”
“Guys,” Ranboo cuts in, and Tubbo falls silent, and Tommy gloats inside. “Seriously. I know we have our differences, but a deal’s a deal. Okay? Theseus needs our first aid kit, and we need to find parts.” We, says Ranboo, as if he couldn’t just decide to leave Tubbo in the dust and be absolutely fine. Tommy doesn’t get it, even if he is bad at rule three. “So let’s just… calm down, maybe. And see if we can get any sleep before we head out.”
Well, Tommy’s already thrown that idea out the window. No matter what time it is, he’s not sleeping around robo-bitch.
“You do that, then,” Tommy proposes, getting to his feet and crossing his arms, “and meet me at the front doors at dawn.” Ranboo looks like he wants to protest, say something, but Tommy turns tail before he can, already heading for the exit of the Macy’s. As he walks out, combat boots clunking against the tiled floor and leaving slowly fading bloodprints in their wake, he hears Ranboo mutter something nervously under his breath, and Tubbo’s buzzing reply, jittery and artificial-sounding.
He hates it. He doesn’t trust it. He can’t believe he got himself into this mess just for a handful of gauze and enough pain to last him the next three weeks.
Tommy reaches behind him with one hand to feel for his crowbar, and with his other, he fluffs his hair out of his eyes, wiping blood from his arm onto his shirt. He descends the unmoving escalator slowly, purposely using the one labeled up just for fun— he’s got to get his kicks somehow— and when he finally reaches the ground floor, he lets out a sigh, stepping over a cluster of particularly thick blood vines and casting his gaze towards the entryway.
Tommy threads his way through vines and foliage as he ducks into a different, much darker store, the space around him practically completely pitch black. The whole mall is overgrown, bushes sprouting in corners. Tommy crouches just inside the wall, regretting the unfortunate loss of his flashlight, and weighs his options, as he often does.
He’s exhausted, especially after finally comfortably wrapping his wound, but he’s not sleeping. If he sleeps in the same building as Hateful RoboCop, Tommy will get fucking sniped before he has the chance to wake up. The plan is to either help these guys as quickly as possible or sneak away one night if he gets too bored and things get too risky. He doesn’t want to have to spend all his time with them, but…
He has to admit, it’s horrible wandering aimlessly, and it’s even worse wandering aimlessly for months and months with no one to talk to. (It’s horrible wandering aimlessly where he once wandered in good trusted company, with purpose, but it feels like there’s nothing that can be done to fix that— at least, not if he sticks religiously to rule one of the apocalypse.)
So he’ll stay with them for that reason, if nothing else— just to hear their voices float down the stairs as he leans his head back against the musty wall.
This will be fine. He’ll help these guys get some shit to keep Optimus Prime alive and well, and he’ll keep leeching off of them without getting too close, so that when he needs to leave, he can leave. When he feels too purposeful, not aimless or aloof enough, he’ll just fucking dip.
When the deal ends, hopefully soon, they won’t need him, and he won’t need them. He can go back to talking to himself as he loots, singing his own tunes when he pops cans of pineapples open with his knife, and dancing around houses he ransacked and set up camp in, to no music.
Things will be fine. What isn’t fine is Tommy’s gently slipping mind, his head that feels too heavy on his shoulders and dips before he catches it every few seconds. Frustrated and pained, Tommy lifts his head higher and forces his eyes open, but within five minutes, his mind is gone, and his dreams echo loudly as they begin to dance behind his eyes, and he is completely asleep.
Hopefully, his body will tell him when dawn arrives.
—
“...think he’s awake?”
“Don’t care.” Tommy’s head aches something awful. The words are buried as he tries to pull himself out of the void. “...should just leave him here, honest. Loot his…”
“Stop that.” A light smack. “He’s going to help you.”
“He’s going to stress me out.” There’s shuffling. Tommy can’t tell if he’s in dreams or reality. “Is that…? Look, idiot’s got a knife strapped to his… let me just…”
Something brushes Tommy’s ankle, and within a second, Tommy’s on his knees with the crowbar clinking against the metal of the underside of Tubbo’s jaw, wide awake.
A heavy breath leaves him, pain rattling through his leg as he shifts. Cold blue eyes focus on Ranboo, who looks guilty as all hell, and then they turn back to Tubbo. Kleptomaniac, he thinks bitterly. Knew I shouldn’t have slept around this freak. “I don’t care how sticky your fingers are,” says Tommy darkly. “Keep them off my shit. Got it?”
Tubbo doesn’t answer, greenish-grey eyes searching Tommy’s face, so he prods him with the crowbar until Tubbo has to step back to alleviate the pressure. “Sure,” says the boy after a moment’s hesitation, eyes flickering and face stony. Unsurprisingly, Tommy still doesn’t trust him.
“Thanks.” He twirls the crowbar and then slides it back into its strap, using the wall of the naturally lit sports store he slept in to pull himself to his feet, grumbling, “Good morning to you too, then, dickwads.”
“Hey, I’d really appreciate if—”
“Fuck you,” says Tubbo to Tommy, interrupting what would have been a polite request to cease and desist from Ranboo. The latter shifts on his feet awkwardly behind Tubbo, silent, and Tommy scoffs.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. You’re the one who’s got heart failure.” Tommy stretches and then moves past them, running a hand through matted, tangled hair and stepping over red vines, and Tubbo doesn’t reply, though something hums to life behind Tommy. He notices, with a glance at the floor, that Ranboo does the same as him, but Tubbo takes careless steps, his heel brushing against one of the red vines. Neither of them say anything about it, so Tommy turns his gaze back to the entrance of the mall, where sunlight is streaming in through the doorway. Tubbo must be immune.
If Tommy weren’t so paranoid, he’d step on the blood vines himself. Unfortunately, despite his lucky track record, he’s not willing to risk any freak accidents. If he’s already stayed alive this long, it would be stupid to die to his own hands now in a fit of superiority.
“So,” says Tommy tiredly as they make their way outside, Tommy knocking leaves out of his face and letting them swing back to hit Ranboo. “What exactly are we looking for, then? Coolant, you said?” If he’s going to be stuck with these guys, it’d be nice to have at least a little background information about the supposed mission he’s on.
“Coolant,” Ranboo affirms before Tubbo can say anything, thank god. “It’s made of—”
“Glycol and water,” interrupts Tommy, calloused hands flashing behind his eyelids, “I’m not stupid.” He leaves out the part where he wouldn’t have known that in any normal circumstance; Ranboo doesn’t have to know where he got the information. “It’ll be fuckin’ hard to find glycol on its own, though, so there’s that to figure out. There’s an auto shop a city over, surely you’ve checked there already?” Tommy turns on his heel in time to catch Dynamic Duo Ranboo and Tubbo look at each other again, and he gapes. “You can’t be fucking serious. You didn’t check literally the place that stocks coolant?”
“We’re not from around here, dickhead,” Tubbo snaps, lashing out before Ranboo can apologize again. “Of course we don’t know our way around. I don’t like you talking down to us all the damn time.”
“Well I don’t like you, at all,” says Tommy scornfully, turning back around and letting his boots fall heavier against the ground. “So you should be thankful I didn’t leave you here to die instead of holding up the fucking deal.” Because he could have gone. He should have.
Maybe he’s not very good at rule two, either.
“You should fix your attitude,” Tubbo bites back, voice seeming to flicker mechanically, and Tommy doesn’t turn back around, squinting as he steps onto the pavement outside.
“You should fix your temperature problem.” Whether he’s talking about Tubbo’s explosive remarks or his failing heart, Tommy doesn’t make it clear. Instead, he lifts a hand to shield his eyes from the sun and speaks again before the argument can drag out any further. “Auto shop’s that way,” he starts, hooking a thumb. “If we start now, we’ll get there before noon tomorrow, probably, as long as any breaks we take are short.”
If he wanted, he could lead them the wrong way and then leave them to die. If he wanted, he could lead them astray and never look back, knock them out and take their shit and run. Could he take both of them at once? Ranboo’s taller, and Tubbo has body modifications, but could he?
Maybe. Probably. A cowardly boy with a frying pan and a slowly dying cyborg can’t be that hard to take out on his own, not with the kind of experience Tommy’s got.
Whatever. He’ll decide later. For now, Ranboo’s pulling up to walk alongside him, and even through the mask, Tommy can tell that a smile is pushing his eyes up. “Thank you, Theseus,” says Ranboo, and Tommy’s chest falls at the reminder of the fake name he’s given the two. “We really appreciate it.”
It’s such a loss, not being able to hear a real, living person utter Tommy, that he considers taking it back right then. But Ranboo’s eyes look so kind, full of hope, naive and trusting, so Tommy keeps his mouth clamped firmly shut, and just nods back. He doesn’t mention his name. To them, he’s Theseus, plain and true, and they don’t have to know any different.
There’s a lot of things these two guys will never know. Of course, Tommy aches to get shit off his chest, aches to air his traumas out, to tell his story, so that if he dies, there will be someone else to keep his memory alive.
But Tommy’s already lost too much to consider something as risky as that. He’s already missing too much to give another piece of himself away. So instead, they walk in silence, Ranboo falling back to walk with Tubbo as Tommy leads the way. They exchange the occasional sentence, back and forth, but Tommy’s silent through it all, his rules of the apocalypse sticking firmly in his brain. If he doesn’t remind himself to follow them, he’ll be a hypocrite and a fool, and Tommy is no fool. His brothers made sure of that.
They pass abandoned fast food joints, a crumbling gym, a desolate bank. The sun beats down on them, and sweat makes Tommy’s shirt stick to the small of his back, each step sending a gentle ache through Tommy’s leg. It could be worse; he could be completely immobile, handicapped so badly that he can’t work. Even so, it’s something worth complaining about, but he keeps his mouth shut.
That is, until Ranboo says, hurriedly, “Theseus, I’m sorry, but I think we need more batteries, I think we need a break,” and a haunting, creaking electrical groan pushes its way out of Tubbo’s mouth.
Tommy whirls around, and sure enough, the cyborg looks like he’s two steps away from his deathbed, the red light on his metallic arm blinking rapidly. Tommy reads the exact same heat warning from before and then casts an agitated glance at the sun overhead, sighing.
“Fine,” he says through gritted teeth, knowing their arrival to their destination is being slowed with each passing second they waste. “There’s a gas station around the corner. Probably been looted, but it’s one of the nastier ones, so maybe not. We’ll try there.”
Tommy turns accordingly for the street he mentioned, boots thunking against burning hot asphalt as he pulls ahead. From behind him, he’s pretty sure he makes out Tubbo slurring together something stupid like it’s fine, I’m fine, and Ranboo arguing with him quietly under his breath. Shaking his head, Tommy scoffs. Altruistic people are the fastest to die in the apocalypse.
He buries his own altruism and pushes the door of the 7-Eleven with the sticky floor open, boots crunching over shattered glass as he proceeds.
Once the rusty bell rings at the opening of the door, it’s quiet inside, and a bit foreboding. The store doesn’t have many windows, so the sun’s light only reaches so far, fading out as it reaches the back of the dirty little shop. The door swinging shut behind him is the loudest sound he’s heard the whole time; there is no gentle hum of the freezer that used to hold ice cream pops, and there’s no clicking or dinging of a cash register at the front of the establishment.
Tommy’s gaze sweeps across the rest of the store, and he progresses beyond the entrance, noting the mold growing around the bottom of the walls and the smashed liquor bottles and the empty shelves.
A lot of the food, most of it, is gone. There’s a pack of peanuts that Tommy pockets, and he surveys a bag of half-eaten chips, stomach rumbling, but doesn’t go for them. That would be a stupid decision, eating after someone else. He’s hungry, but not hungry enough to risk getting sick. His leg hurts badly enough as is. He’d hate to have to deal with anything else.
Which reminds him: he’s on a mission here. Tommy sighs and traipses down the aisle, turning to check for any packs of batteries hanging off the shelves that he can snag and take with him. Maybe if he stockpiles enough, keeps them away as incentive, they’ll give him more shit. Maybe he’ll get free stuff out of it.
Or maybe he won’t be such a bitch. Maybe Tubbo deserves the batteries, he thinks, as pained, droning buzz floats his way from the doorway, the bell jingling shortly after.
“Found anything yet?” calls Ranboo worriedly, and Tommy pushes air out his nose all at once, a huff. He peeks over the aisles, watching Ranboo help Tubbo settle against the dusty wall.
Jealousy burns bright, hot red in his gut. No one’s there to do that for him anymore. That’s not fucking fair. “No,” he says flatly, and resumes his search bitterly, feeling dreadfully tied down by the overbearing weight of commitment. These people only know him as Theseus, anyway.
There are more hushed voices, the buzz sounding agonized even as usual. Maybe being in the shade will help Tubbo, at least enough to get him more batteries. Apparently, his half-burnt-out Ds weren’t enough to keep him up and running during the heat spell. Tommy searches the shelves, pushing rotting expirable snacks out of his way and crouching to inspect the bottom shelves.
It’s only when he gets low down that something catches his eye. Across the floor, past the door that leads to the walk-in freezer and in the back corner of the gas station, a pack of double-A batteries sits untouched under a shelf. “Hey!” Tommy calls, looking up and watching Ranboo’s head pop up with his black-and-white mask across the store. “I found some, I think. Gimme a sec.”
Tommy hops to his feet, leaning on his left leg to keep the ache off his wound. It’s annoying, and insufferable, but he maneuvers himself as painlessly as possible, standing at his full height to walk across the aisle so he doesn’t have to crawl across the still-sticky 7-Eleven floor.
And as Tommy passes the walk-in freezer, a thud loud enough to rattle his spine sends him stumbling back, stomach sinking and eyes widening rapidly. At first he wants to think it’s just something that’s fallen over. At first, he wants to think it was just a door shutting, or a display stand crashing to the floor. But carefully, his insides squeezing, he turns to glance at the window at the top of the door, and—
“Fuck my life!” he shouts, because staring back at him with a single crazed-looking eye is a mutilated, animalistic creature. That definitely wants to kill him.
“What’s wrong—?” calls Ranboo frantically from the front of the store, and Tommy hears his footsteps get closer and closer until they stop short entirely. “Oh my god.”
“Yeah,” says Tommy, pulling the crowbar slowly from his back as the door handle rattles. He pushes down the ache in his head and reminds himself to ask for painkillers later, as thanks for this, because there will be a later. He’s determined. “Oh my god is right. Get back to Tubbo.”
“But—”
“Go,” Tommy says, and doesn’t look to make sure Ranboo has followed the request, instead sprinting past the door and sliding to his knees in front of the shelf. He reaches under it with the crowbar, clawing for the batteries, and then trying again when he misses. Fuck, fuck, fuck, it takes him three tries, and the creature bangs again, and Tommy’s fingertips press against the plastic, and there’s banging again.
Fuck, Tommy thinks, and then a glowing hunk of flesh and bone bursts through the freezer door, and he’s fucked, he’s so incredibly fucked.
“Theseus!” Ranboo yelps, but it sounds like it’s from farther away, so that’s good. Tommy surveys the creature in front of him as it takes in its surroundings, clutching the pack of batteries in one hand and his crowbar in the other.
It’s pretty fucking big. He’s not sure exactly what it is, but it’s clearly some kind of cat mixed with something, because it creeps on all fours. Instead of short and stout, though, its limbs are more wiry and flexible. Spines are raised along its back, all the way down its tail, which looks like it’d behave like a crocodile’s, but swishes behind it like a cat’s. Half its chest is open on display, ribs dusted with dirt and mildew, but that doesn’t seem to hinder it. In fact, it drops its maw open and roars in his face, echoing throughout the entire gas station and striking up a ringing in Tommy’s ears, and the inside of its mouth glows a brilliant bright blue.
Nice, thinks Tommy, and then hooks his crowbar across its face so hard he knocks a few teeth loose.
The creature grows angrily at that, stampeding towards him as blood trickles to the floor from its gaping jaw, so Tommy takes that as his cue to run. He ducks under its snapping teeth and then makes a jump for it, propelling himself up and over one of the stands into the aisle over. Ranboo’s shouting something, but Tommy screams back, “Do not move!” and chucks the batteries as hard as he can, something in his arm popping as he does so. “Get those in Tubbo and get the fuck outta here!” he shouts, and there are no more footsteps other than the thundering beast’s, so Tommy assumes he’s taken the order. Thank god. He doesn’t need two extra bodies to defend.
The creature bellows, knocking the whole display stand down in front of Tommy, the one he just jumped over. The blond jumps back and scowls at the creature. “Seriously? Manners, dude, come on.” The thing does not stop to apologize, screeching again, and Tommy sighs, limp-sprinting down the aisle and back towards the freezer. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”
He weighs his options. Tommy needs to stall until Ranboo and Tubbo are done, and then he needs to get out, too. If he dies in here just because he came to get batteries for some guy he doesn’t even like, he’s going to be pissed the fuck off in whatever afterlife he appears in.
The creature rears its ugly, narrow head, and Tommy dances back as it howls, fending it swiftly off with another crowbar to the face. “Bitch!” he shouts tauntingly, waltzing away to avoid a swipe, and it stomps towards him angrily. With these mutated animals, it’s best not to get bitten, scratched, or anything of the sort. That’s the fast route to getting mutated yourself.
“Die!” Tommy screams, yanking the knife from his boot and rearing back for a nasty swipe, and then he’s thrown all the way across the store, slamming into the back wall.
Fuck. Fuck. Tommy groans, long and low, and pulls his crowbar up in front of him, pulling his head up. He’s smarter than this. He’s been playing risky to keep its attention as Tubbo and Ranboo worked, playing too unsafe to keep the thing sicced on him, and now he’s paying the price for it. What fucking happened to rule one?
The monster cries furiously for his blood, and Tommy rolls to the side, the world rocking. He told Ranboo and Tubbo to leave, because he had it handled. He thought he did. It can’t be over so soon. Tommy scrambles to all fours and casts a pointed look across the store, his vision no longer obscured by shelves because of the thing quite rudely knocking them all down, and then a ravaging paw is pressing into his chest, blue saliva cast across the floor.
So he knifes it in the arm, sending crimson splattering in a fatal pattern across the tiled floor, and gets to his feet to sprint.
Tommy makes it to another aisle still standing, the thing scrabbling across the floor after him. He’s noticed that it’s not very good at making sharp turns, which is where his brain comes in handy. The floor of the 7-Eleven has always been sticky, and his combat boots provide him with all the grip he needs on the floor, thundering into the ground as he turns quickly around another aisle.
He thinks he’s got it, thinks things are fine despite the way his whole body aches, but then its paw collides with his back, and Tommy’s sent sprawling towards the back wall again. Every fucking time. He underestimated its reach. It was a fatal mistake.
Tommy gets to his feet just in time to turn and find the beast right in front of him, snapping for his head. He forces the crowbar against its mouth, holding it back as nausea rolls through him in crashing waves, but even upon trying to assess his options, he doesn’t think he can get away.
A paw lands on his chest and compresses him to the wall, and Tommy gasps, dizzy, and pushes the crowbar harder against it, its teeth scraping against metal. It can’t be over so soon. He had a promise to keep, and not the one with Tubbo and Ranboo. He can’t die now, can’t let this be where it ends, but the beast keeps going, pressing him into the wall like a clamp. Tommy’s arms shake with exertion, pushing as hard as they possibly can to force the monster away from him, force its jaw away, and then the crowbar slips and Tommy rapidly switches to his hands, holding the two parts of its jaw as far from himself as possible to prevent them from snapping together.
The creature is angry. He can’t breathe, and the world is going dark, and his arms are shaking so hard with the force of holding the two ton beast off him and they’re going to fail him, there’s a claw digging into his shoulder and slowly breaking skin and a horrible stench washes itself over his face because it just keeps getting closer and closer—
And then the loudest explosion Tommy’s heard thus far rattles the entire store, and the creature shrieks and crows and whines, and the building flashes bright white, and the pressure lifts off Tommy’s chest and the whole floor shakes as the monster goes crashing to the ground right in front of him.
Tommy sinks instantly, legs buckling under him and arms filled with static. He pulls his eyes open, dizzy, and smells smoke. When he yanks his head up, slowly drawing in a breath experimentally to see if he’s broken any ribs, he catches sight of his savior:
There is Tubbo, arm outstretched and smoke curling off his hand. In the center of his palm is a circle with a slowly dying white glow, matching the slow fade of the blue in the cat-bird-crocodile- thing’s mouth.
“Are you alive?” says Tubbo shortly, staring at him, and Tommy remembers to breathe for his burning lungs, to blink for his stinging eyes. He remembers to live, just like he’s supposed to be doing. He didn’t do all that for nothing.
“You’re like Iron Man,” is what tumbles from Tommy’s mouth instead of an affirmative, and he coughs, his head pounding.
“You’re welcome,” Tubbo says flatly, but there’s something in his gaze, something small and glinting and spiteful. Instead of stepping over the thing and leaning forward to help Tommy off the floor, he turns around, met with Ranboo, who fusses worriedly over him. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Did it get you?
Tommy wipes blood and saliva off his chin and stews in silent envious anger, because there’s no one left to coddle him.
His eyes are drawn to the beast in front of him. He considers salvaging some of the meat, trying to cook the chemicals out of it, but that one was pretty badly mutated, and they’ve got places to be, anyway. Tommy’s arms ache from overexertion, feeling like jelly when he tries to move, and his hands don’t work right when he tries to wrap them around the crowbar. A shaky breath leaves him, and he swallows hard. He’s alive.
“Theseus,” says Ranboo, and in his dazed state, Tommy doesn’t even try to form an answer. That’s not his name. Then, though, “Theseus,” he says again, and Tommy startles, realizing that yes, that is his name— to these two, at least. “Are you okay?”
He pulls his gaze up, frowning, and swallows bile. Ranboo’s asking after him. That’s new. Tommy forces his eyes to narrow, forces the dazed look off his face, as Ranboo does step over the beast and offers his hand to him. “I’m fine,” says Tommy, but he takes Ranboo’s hand, because his own body feels like rubber, and Ranboo pulls him up swiftly from the floor, reaching down and returning his crowbar to him.
“That was crazy,” breathes Ranboo once Tommy’s on his feet, swaying slightly. “You held that thing all by yourself. You must be really strong.”
Tommy doesn’t want to entertain the flattery, Ranboo buttering him up, but he can’t help that it works. He can’t help that it feels good to have someone appreciate him. He can’t help that validation is highly effective after all this time alone. “Been training,” he croaks out, coughing again and leaning on the door to the freezer. “Can’t go around expecting to beat everything without training. You guys were supposed to get the hell outta here.”
Ranboo looks quietly surprised at this. “But you would have died,” he replies softly, as if it’s the most heinous thing on earth. As if the guy’s never seen a little death before. As if Tommy wouldn’t have been perfectly fine, never dead. He wouldn’t have died. That’s not even possible.
“You aren’t responsible for me,” Tommy mutters, dusting himself off. He definitely needs to change the gauze around his leg. He’s insanely lucky that the claw on his shoulder didn’t cause much more than a shallow scratch. He lets a heavy breath out that he didn’t know he was holding, and steps carefully around the creature on the floor, turning his eyes away from its bloodied flank and smoking form.
Ranboo, on the other hand, reaches out to guide him. Tommy’s too tired to argue, so he lets him, and they make it to the other side together, and Tommy leans on one of the few display racks still standing. “We wouldn’t have just let you die,” Ranboo finally says, and Tommy feels his stomach churn. “And we need your help.”
“Hold— just hold on a second—” says Tommy, pale, and then he turns and steps halfway around the corner and rapidly empties his stomach of any nutrients he tried to put there yesterday. Fuck, that shit’s good for his body. He needs that. He’s going to get fucked over, throwing it all up, he needs to conserve as much as he can— at least he’s got the peanuts.
Ranboo looks sympathetic. Tommy straightens up, wiping his mouth and shooting the creature on the floor a dirty glance, before turning his attention back to the masked boy. “You aren’t responsible for me,” he says again, quietly, and Ranboo shakes his head, but Tommy goes on, forcefully. “You shouldn’t worry about me. If I die, I die.”
“If you die going out of your way to help us out,” says Ranboo, eyes painted with grief, “I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself.”
And Tommy wants to argue, but he finds himself at a loss of words.
“Hey, assholes,” says Tubbo from the doorway, and Tommy straightens up, hefting his backpack further up his shoulders. “We’ve got somewhere to be.” Tommy wants to ignore the way it makes his fists curl, wants to ignore the annoyance he feels, wants to ignore the inferiority he feels— but the best he can do is stuff them down so they don’t come out of his mouth.
“You heard him,” he mutters to Ranboo under his breath, and Ranboo shoots him a sympathetic look.
“He really is nice,” the boy replies quietly as they make their way towards the exit. Ranboo sticks close, evidently to make sure Tommy doesn’t fall all over himself again. “I promise. He’ll warm up to you.” No matter how much he wants to believe it, though, he can tell it’s a false hope, just something Ranboo the mediator has said to placate their hatred for each other.
So he doesn’t entertain it.
“If we get to the auto shop fast enough,” Tommy mutters in response, pulling ahead, “he won’t have to.”
—
Wilbur’s hands guide his own to their only plate, egging him on excitedly, and a cold breeze rattles Tommy’s spine. “Come on,” Wil urges, and Tommy fights against him. “Just try it.”
“No fuckin’ way,” Tommy crows, pushing against Wilbur unrelentlessly until the man’s laughter outweighs his strength, and he moves back. Tommy picks the plate off, violently tossing the dead bugs off to the side, watching as they land in the bushes of a building that has already half succumbed to the plants that have started to creep throughout the entire city.
“I hate you so much,” says Tommy, reaching out to slug Wilbur in the arm, and his brother laughs and laughs, shaking his head.
“You would never hate me. I’m wonderful, Tommy,” Wilbur prompts, poking at his sides, “aren’t I,” and Tommy shrieks, batting at his hands with one arm. With Wilbur, it’s easier to forget the hunger. It’s easier to forget the tourniquet tied around his left bicep. It’s easier to employ tunnel vision. It’s easier for everything else to fade away. “Why’d you throw them away! You love bugs!”
“Not to eat!” Tommy replies. “Bugs are friends, dickhead!” Wilbur lets up, and Tommy relaxes, reaching for the plate and handing it back to Wilbur to put away. After that, he lets his arm fall to hang by his side, just like his other, useless one. With a sigh, he turns his gaze to the blue sky.
They’re sitting in the dirt outside of an empty McDonald’s, all their things strapped to their backs. They’re ready to leave at any moment. Tommy’s got a wooden baseball bat that’s beginning to splinter. Wilbur keeps begging him to get rid of it, trade it out for something that isn’t wooden, but Tommy likes it. “Keep your grimy hands off me. I hate you,” says Tommy again, but a smile splits his face. A smile keeps him grounded. Nothing can reach him here.
Wilbur makes to reply, but there are footsteps, and then a much deeper voice. For a second, Tommy poises to fight, but then: “I think I got that car fixed,” says Techno, and Tommy whirls around with bright eyes as his oldest brother approaches. His hands are black and smudged with oil, and he’s scrubbing at it with an already dirty rag, which doesn’t seem to be helping very much.
It’s cold. It’s not supposed to be cold. It wasn’t cold, that’s not right— it was hot, and his arm hurt much more than it does now.
“Techno, our resident genius,” sings Wilbur, and Tommy grins, beckoning for the pink-haired man to come over. Techno does, moving towards them to sit in their half-circle, on Tommy’s side. “What would we do without you?” asks Wilbur in fake adoration, and Techno scoffs.
“Techno, I get shotgun, right?” Tommy asks overtop of Wilbur, who promptly cuts himself short and feigns offense.
“What the fuck— no, Techno, I get shotgun. Yeah? I’m older, I get superiority.”
“I’m younger, I have so much left to experience in my life,” Tommy says solemnly, eyes hard, and Techno rolls his eyes, settling into the dirt next to Tommy. “I could die today, you know. And then I’d never get to ride shotgun in our stolen car.”
There’s a beat, and Techno raises one eyebrow. “No one gets shotgun,” he deadpans, and Wilbur and Tommy groan in unison. “Both of you get to sit in the back, how about that.”
“You’re no fun,” says Tommy, laying his head against his brother’s shoulder. Techno usually doesn’t like that very much, usually shrugs him off, but he’s tired, and he lets Tommy do it sometimes, and he looks like it helps, so Tommy remains there. “I can’t believe this, Blade. And to think I call you my brother.”
Wilbur nods in agreement, and something pours from his lips in agreement, but it sounds like static.
Tommy jumps, his head snapping up, and he jolts upright, pulling his weight off Techno. “What the fuck,” he says, and Techno turns to him with blank, unseeing eyes, and Wilbur’s face is scribbled out, and it’s too cold, it’s supposed to be hot. It was hot when it happened. It was hot when— when—
“It’s your fault, Tommy,” Techno says, in a robotic, two-toned voice, and the world splits in two, the ground shaking and a haunting, shrieking roar piercing the air, and—
—and Tommy wakes up with a scream dying on his lips, jolting upright and gasping for breath.
Tommy shudders, a violent chill running down his body, and takes note of his surroundings as best he can. It’s dark. Very dark. Tommy recounts his decisions: after the taxing run in with the gas station beast, the three of them kept going until nightfall, when they crashed at what was once a cafe. The three of them— Tommy and— and Tubbo and Ranboo, not Wilbur and Techno, not— it’s cool in this cafe, not scalding hot, and there’s no sharp, stabbing pain in his arm, and Wilbur— and Techno—
Fuck. Tommy runs a hand through his hair, breaths coming out shaking and jagged, and everything is wrong. He needs his flashlight to see his brothers’ faces. He needs to dig the Polaroid in his bag out, he needs to see the picture, needs to see their faces. Tommy pats around for the strap of his bag and then stumbles to his feet as quietly as possible, hoping he hasn’t been robbed. Tubbo and Ranboo are across the cafe, against the other wall, Tommy made sure of that, so it’s with ease that he slips from the building, skirting around the dark, shadowy figures of tables as his eyes adjust.
Tommy makes quick work of it and then pushes the door open just a crack, just enough to get himself outside and on the sidewalk. He breathes fresh air, sucking it hungrily into his lungs, and shatters. There are tears on his cheeks, he thinks; he wipes them angrily, sniveling and staring up at the moon, which taunts him from the sky full of stars. His brothers are up there, somewhere, twinkling brightly. Watching him as he goes. They wouldn’t be proud of who he is. They wouldn’t like who he’s become.
Tommy looks back down, inconsolable, and rifles hurriedly through his bag to reach the pocket he keeps his most prized possessions in. There isn’t much, but out of it, he produces a flimsy Polaroid that he’s been holding onto since… for at least a year.
Tommy wipes his eyes again and stares at its surface, turning it so it’s illuminated by the moonlight, and emits a shuddering sigh. Wilbur smiles brightly, holding Tommy’s legs, and Techno is trying to hide a smile, carrying the top half of Tommy’s body. He can’t be more than ten or eleven in this picture. It’s from years and years and years ago. He grabbed it from his house when everything was happening, at the very beginning of it all. At first, he thought it was stupid. Now, he’d die if anything happened to it.
Tommy swallows the ache in his throat, a shuddering exhale leaving him, and then: “You woke me up, asshole.”
He jumps so hard that his shoulders come up to his ears, twisting around to find another shadowy figure standing in front of the door. Only one of them would ever call Tommy an asshole. Feeling fury build in his veins, he turns back around, stifling another uneven breath and forcing himself to act normal. “What do you want?” he asks instead, but it’s a mistake; his voice comes out so wobbly that he wouldn’t fool anyone, not even Ranboo.
“I told you,” says Tubbo, coming forward and dropping to the ground beside him. “You woke me up.” A pause. “Are you crying?”
Tommy wipes angrily at his face. “No,” he says flatly, shakily. Tubbo looks like he definitely wants to disagree. Tommy prepares himself for the jab, steels himself for the incoming insult, but then…
“Okay,” Tubbo says instead, motioning towards the picture clutched gently in Tommy’s hands. When his digital-sounding, tinny voice goes on, it seems… more cautious, in a way. “Who are they?”
Tommy yanks the picture to his chest, head snapping over at Tubbo, whose eyes shine with a green grid pattern until he can’t see the picture anymore. For a second, he wants to lash out, wants to scream at him, but the grid fades from Tubbo’s eyes, and the cyborg’s gaze moves to Tommy’s face, and there’s nothing but curiosity.
So Tommy sighs, shudderingly, and pulls the Polaroid back for Tubbo to look. “Wilbur and Technoblade,” he mutters, leaving out the part where he explains their relation to him. That would just give the robot more ammo. From Tubbo’s face, though, he seems to understand anyway. Tommy sucks a breath in, wondering whether or not to go on, because Tubbo probably gets it, has probably put the pieces together, but— “They’re dead,” says Tommy, choked and strangled, and hot salt rolls down his cheeks as he turns his face to the moon again.
“I gathered that,” says Tubbo quietly, and there is a click-click-click- whirr, and then nothing but silence, aside from Tommy’s uneven breathing. A hiccup here and a sniff there, and then he’s wiping his face again, composing himself, breathing. Living, even though he doesn’t deserve to.
“I’m Tommy,” he says abruptly, knowing that somewhere in the vastness of the galaxy, Wilbur is scolding him for being dishonest. “My name is Tommy. Not Theseus.” He takes in a breath and lowers his head, looking anywhere but Tubbo. “Theseus was just what… it was a nickname.”
“So you lied to us,” Tubbo points out flatly, but he doesn’t sound mad. He doesn’t sound like he’s going to attack Tommy, or spit at him, or curse him out. Funnily enough, the very second things don’t feel like a competition anymore, the rage is gone. The wrath that was alighting inside him each time Tubbo’s metallic voice said something is nowhere to be found.
“Yeah,” is all Tommy replies with, tiredly. “I lied.”
“Well.” Tubbo pauses, and something inside him buzzes to life, carrying the same sort of sudden humming a laptop fan would make. “I would have done the same thing.” Surprised at the honesty, Tommy pulls his eyes up from the ground, fixing them on Tubbo, whose own face is now tilted towards the sky. The cyborg pauses for a second, and the silence is fragile, until he asks, “Did you steal anything from us?”
Annoyance flickers across Tommy’s face. “I should be asking you that,” he says, pointedly, but draws in a breath and resets himself. “No. Unless you count the rest of the gauze I took from the first aid kit, then no.”
“Okay,” Tubbo says simply, and then turns to look at him, his arm beeping. It doesn’t say anything about overheating now. Tommy can’t make out what is on its screen. “My eyes are up here,” the cyborg mutters, “you’re staring,” and Tommy blinks, pulling his gaze up.
The blond shrugs. “You’ve got an Iron Man arm,” he counters. “Anyone would stare.”
Tubbo seems to accept this as an answer, amusement flickering in his eyes. Tommy can’t tell if they’re human eyes or robot eyes, because they did the whole grid thing, but they seem so… expressive. “I’ve got a robot arm because a wolf-lizard trashed my human one,” he admits suddenly, out of nowhere, and Tommy’s eyes flash with understanding.
“Really,” he replies in a quiet murmur, genuinely interested, and Tubbo nods, and then that’s that. They’ve each exchanged something meaningful. Tubbo says nothing about the nuclear reactor, about his heart, about anything else, but he doesn’t have to, because Tommy said nothing about his brothers, about their kindness, about who they were.
“You wrapped that gauze like shit, by the way,” says Tubbo, circling back to Tommy’s wound and breaking their brittle conversation, and he snorts. “Wilbur and Techno didn’t teach you how to do that, I guess.”
It’s kind of funny.
“Shut the fuck up.” Tommy moves to hit him in the arm, hesitates for just a second, and then reaches over and does it anyway, before starting to pull his pant leg up to look at it, see how messy it really is. “You do it then, if you’re so good at it,” he fires back, not really mad, and Tubbo sits up straight.
“Okay.”
What? “What?”
Tommy picks his head up, but Tubbo’s shuffling to his hands and knees, coming around to the back of Tommy. “Where’s the gauze?” asks the cyborg, unzipping his bag, and Tommy swallows.
“The small pocket in the front.”
Tubbo reappears at his side in just a few beats with the rest of the roll of gauze tape, raising an eyebrow. “You tore this off like shit, too.”
“Well, I didn’t have C-3PO to do it for me,” Tommy mutters, and then, a little accusatory: “You were passed out on the floor of the Macy’s. I was fending off helicopter mom Ranboo. We are not the same.”
“Whatever,” says Tubbo, “I hope you’re the first to die,” but there’s no fire behind it. He just sounds tired. He motions for Tommy to finish pulling his pant leg up all the way, so Tommy does, staring down at mostly-crimson gauze where it once was all white.
Tommy swallows. “I won’t be,” he says, with finality, and Wilbur’s pleading eyes and Techno’s stony ones flash in his brain, and then he shifts, starting to unpeel the stuff from his leg. Thank god he used the peroxide, he thinks as he gets to the last layer and exposes it to the air— it definitely would have gotten infected otherwise.
Tommy reaches for the gauze, but just like the first time, Tubbo pulls it out of his reach. “Hey,” says the cyborg, squinting one eye. “We had a deal.”
“Oh.” Tommy blinks. “You’re actually going to do it.”
“Are you stupid?” Tubbo seems to say without thinking twice. The boy rolls his eyes, and then motions for him to turn. “I mean— of course I’m going to do it. I said I would, didn’t I?”
“You’re the one who tried to steal my knife off me,” Tommy points out, crossing his arms, and Tubbo huffs.
“That was before you almost died getting me batteries.” It strikes him, and Tommy falls completely silent, opening and closing his mouth. Tubbo glances up and then back down very quickly, seeming embarrassed, and adds, under his breath, “Dumbass.”
Tubbo cares about what Tommy did for him. Tubbo is appreciative. The thank you follows him in the tone, the air with which the insult rolled quickly off his lips: Tubbo has seen him fight, and heard him try to protect them, and maybe, if Tommy’s lucky, the cyborg has grown a new respect for him.
So Tommy sits, quietly, and the wind cards a hand through his hair, and he lets Tubbo wrap gauze around his thigh, nicely and neatly and much, much better than Tommy’s own sloppy craftsmanship. Tubbo’s right; he’s much better at it. No matter how much information Tommy tried to absorb from his brothers, some of it was always doomed to end up escaping.
When Tubbo’s done, he pulls his hands back, staring to admire his handiwork, and Tommy stares with him. “There,” the cyborg presents, a digital tone underlaying his every word again. “Now you don’t have to walk around looking stupid.”
“No one else could see it, anyway,” Tommy murmurs defensively, ignoring the fact that there’s no one else to see it, and the breeze wraps him in a knit woolen blanket and hands him the cup of hot chocolate he wishes he had so bad. The breeze reminds him he’s still human. He’s still just how he’s meant to be.
Rule four of the apocalypse: don’t turn into a heartless bitch. “You aren’t as bad as I thought you were,” he tells Tubbo quietly.
A beat, and for a moment, Tommy thinks Tubbo’s going to say something hateful, act all pissed off again. Maybe it was just a temporary thing. But then, the electronic buzz kicks into action again: “I could say the same for you.”
Maybe Ranboo was right. Maybe they’re warming up to each other.
Tommy exchanges a glance with Tubbo and then stands, offering his hand to pull him up before they turn to walk back into the cafe.
—
Tommy shields his eyes with his hand, glancing to his side, to Ranboo and Tubbo. It feels like a million degrees, but to Tubbo, running on double-A batteries and spite, it must feel like a trillion. “We’re almost there,” he says, breaking their (slightly more amicable) silence, and Tubbo just nods. Tommy catches a glimpse of the screen on his arm again— RECOMMENDED INTERNAL TEMPERATURE LIMIT EXCEEDED, it reads, and this time, instead of intrigued, Tommy finds himself a little worried.
He’s pretty sure he knows his way around this city. They’ve been traveling all day, since they woke up and packed their shit and got out of the cafe, with very few breaks to eat and get water. Tommy’s got two bottles left, and a filter in his bag from Techno. Still, the urge to hide everything he has from the other two plagues him, but he supposes if one of them really needs it, he could spare a bottle of water.
Tubbo and Tommy haven’t spoken one-on-one since last night, and Tommy’s pretty sure Ranboo knows nothing about the conversation that was had on the pavement outside the cafe, because he still greeted Tommy with Theseus when he woke up, and it looked like Tubbo took great delight in watching Tommy squirm as he confessed his lie.
Ranboo didn’t take it hard at all, though. He’s got to be the most cheerful guy Tommy’s ever seen. Tommy doesn’t usually get along with optimists, but hey— they need someone to balance them out.
Speak of the devil: “You’re doing great,” Ranboo says gently, offering Tubbo a hand, and Tubbo takes it sluggishly. Tommy can’t imagine what it would be like to live like that, body sustained by failing technology. He’s not supposed to feel pity for these guys— he’s still going to be leaving once he helps them get what they need, after all— but rule four of the apocalypse reminds him that he can’t be a little bitch all the time. It’s cool to be kind, or whatever Wilbur would say when he was little— point is, Tommy and Tubbo haven’t argued all day, and Ranboo sent Tommy a knowing look when he shared half a pack of crackers with a starving Tubbo on their lunch stop. Ranboo hasn’t eaten, the handful of times they’ve stopped for lunch, and it’s a little weird. He’s strangely dedicated to the mask.
Whatever. Tommy’s just trying to make sure the other guys stay alive. He can’t uphold his end of the deal if one of them fucking dies.
Tommy zones back in, soaking in his surroundings. It’s desolate in this town just like the last. Most people are either dead or gone, evidenced by the fact that Ranboo and Tubbo are the first living people Tommy’s been able to hold a conversation with in about a year. Without anyone to keep doing maintenance on buildings and cities, leaving the genetically modified plants and animals to run free wherever they want, any parts of the city Tommy’s seen are overgrown with foliage and leaves, vines, shrubbery, and everything else. Still, though, as he surveys the streets, they look cleaner than he’s ever seen them, and the air is fresh and crisp, and— “Oh, shit,” he says, and takes off into a hobbling run, leaving Ranboo and Tubbo bewildered behind him.
There it is. That’s the auto parts store. Tommy did it; he led them the right way.
He stops and once he makes it to the outside of the entryway, turning and throwing an arm up into the air to wave them on. “You guys are slow as fuck!” Tommy shouts back at them, his voice echoing and reverberating throughout the empty streets.
While Ranboo just looks sheepish, Tubbo calls back, “Fuck you!” his voice shifting pitches choppily. Tommy throws his head back, laughs, shakes his head, and then falls quiet, realizing that’s the first time he’s laughed in… he doesn’t know how long. He can’t remember.
Tubbo made him laugh. Tommy doesn’t think he hates him very much anymore. “Fuck you! Come get coolant!” he calls back, less playful and more overwhelmed, and that’s that. He turns, shuffling into the store, where light filters in through slim windows around the top of the store. It’s cleaner than the 7-Eleven, and seems much less picked over, because who’s going to stop at an auto shop whilst skipping town for the apocalypse?
He’s still looking around the store when Tubbo and Ranboo make their way in, Tubbo teetering dangerously on his feet. Tommy shoots him a look, says, “You look like you’re gonna collapse, idiot,” and Tubbo flips him off with the robotic arm in return. “Shoulda kept the wolf-lizard arm,” Tommy says, and Ranboo’s eyes flash in shock, turning on Tommy. “It woulda looked sick.”
“How do—?” Ranboo begins, but Tubbo cuts him off.
“Shoulda kept the brothers,” he says, “maybe you’d’ve turned out better,” and just two days ago, it would have been a sentence aimed right at Tommy’s heart, meant to destroy him from the inside out. Now, a laugh bursts from Tommy’s chest, strangely melodic, and he shuffles to the back of the store, perusing the shelves for what he needs.
He feels light. He’s walking on air. A bright yellow bottle of Prestone Antifreeze stares him in the face, and Tommy’s heart rattles happily in his chest. He’s done something. He’s achieved something.
Tommy swallows, listening to Tubbo and Ranboo’s hushed voices carry to him on the breeze pouring through the windows. In an attempt not to interrupt, Tommy makes his way back to the front of the store quietly, toting two containers of engine coolant with him.
And he is met with Ranboo, maskless, the bottom half of his face mutilated beyond belief and murmuring something to Tubbo as he flips a cookie around in his hands.
“Oh,” says Tommy, blinking in surprise, and Ranboo whips around with wide eyes, instantly yanking his mask up and over his face, and Tommy stews on what he’s just seen. The most noticeable part of it all was the fact that Tommy could see Ranboo’s teeth through the side of his face. Through his cheek.
“Hey,” Tubbo says, looking just as furious as the day Tommy met him, “hey. Could have given us a little warning, dickhead,” he snaps, and Tommy swallows, eyes bouncing between Ranboo and Tubbo, feeling like all his progress has just been reset. He didn’t mean to see what he saw. Of course, it’s a little scary, but…
Ranboo lifts his hands placatingly. “It’s,” he begins quietly, gaze flicking to Tubbo and then Tommy. “It’s fine. I just… uh.” He shifts awkwardly on his feet, wringing his hands, and Tommy’s stomach hurts at how nervous Ranboo looks. “I just, uh. I was attacked, and then… well… I’m not contagious, or anything,” he assures Tommy worriedly, mediatingly, and the blond’s eyes flicker. “Sorry,” says Ranboo softly. “You can go if you want, don’t— don’t worry. Thanks for, uh, for helping us get here.”
Two days ago, Tommy would have celebrated that he was finally free of these fucking morons, especially since Ranboo looked like a discount version of the same beast that attacked Tommy in the 7-Eleven. Two days ago, Tommy would have flipped out, called them both freaks, and fucked off to nowhere. Even now, the similarities between Ranboo now and the way Wilbur looked right before he died are striking. But…
Rule five of the apocalypse, the most important one: trust your gut.
Tommy clears his throat, says, “I don’t care,” and lifts his hand, presenting both of them with the coolant. “Cool face. Merry Christmas.”
Tubbo’s eyes light up, seemingly before he can stop himself, and he grabs Ranboo’s arm. He casts one last wary glance to Tommy, but the blond, feeling uncharacteristically benevolent, just shrugs. So Ranboo’s face is fucked up. So Tubbo’s a robot. He doesn’t care. They’ve all got their weaknesses, their quirks. Tommy won’t be one to judge whether they’re bad or good. That’s not his job.
“Oh my god,” says Ranboo, and Tommy can tell he’s smiling. “Here. Oh, god, thank you,” Ranboo says, reaching out to take it, and Tommy, with a weird feeling in his stomach, just hands it over with a nod. “Tubbo— here, yeah. Sit down.”
Tommy leaves them to get that done and slides to the side, past them and out the front door. Carefully, he sits down in the street, surveying the vines by his legs and their luscious leaves. He picks one up and loops it around his hand, pulling it into his lap to inspect it. It’s green, so no harm there, and it smiles up at him, each individual ridge on each individual leaf staring back at his face. Tommy runs his thumb along the edge of it, breathing in clean air as the sun beats down on his dirty blond hair.
He’s a good person. Ranboo’s face scares him a little, and Tubbo’s nuclear reactor heart scares him a little, and he doesn’t know them well, but he helped them. His brothers would be proud of him. But now he’s not sure what to do. Would his brothers still be proud if he split off from Tubbo and Ranboo, forgot about them forever and left to do his own thing?
It’s a painful sort of thing, something that pulls harshly on Tommy’s chest. He’s safer alone, he wants to think, when he can take care of himself and only have one body to look after. He’s safer on his own, and nothing can get him if he doesn’t give more pieces of himself away, doesn’t leave more of himself in other people’s hands.
But at the same time: three is better than one, or two. Three means more people to catch danger ahead of time, more people to work together to take down threats, more people to scavenge for food and supplies. Three means two more living, breathing bodies beside him when he wakes up every morning, two more people to talk to instead of just himself.
His rules jumble together in his head, and rule five sinks low into the ground, unhelpful. Tommy can’t trust his gut if he can’t figure out what it’s trying to tell him. He can’t make the right decision if no one’s going to tell him what the right decision is, least of all himself. Things were so much easier with his brothers around, so much easier when they were there to tell him when he was making mistakes and when he was fucking up and when he needed to fix something he was doing. Things were easier with Techno to adjust his fighting stance and Wilbur to teach him what he stopped learning once school ended.
Now he’s alone, and he has to pick and choose things for himself, and it’s terrifying, because he doesn’t feel wise enough to do that yet. The end of the world happened without giving Tommy a say in it, when he was still a little kid, and even now, he’s not that old. Seventeen isn’t grown. Seventeen isn’t enough to call an adult, yet Tommy’s still got to make all the decisions of one. It’s not fair. Tommy picks up Ranboo and Tubbo’s voices from the auto shop and swallows the lump in his throat. There’s no one left to look after Tommy that caringly except himself— unless he sticks around, and these guys decide he’s worth the effort.
Even Tommy himself isn’t sure if he’s worth the effort.
Some of the buildings down the street have graffiti on them. Tommy squints, trying to read one of the biggest messages to distract himself from making a decision, which is written in a deep blue. Clean-something, it says. No— Clear. Tommy leans towards it, eyes tracing the blue spray paint, and then clocks it as Clearwater. It says Clearwater.
Huh, he thinks, getting to his feet, because there’s more written under it. He takes a few steps towards the building across the street, shielding his eyes with the sun again, and reads more and more, and his stomach drops into his shoes, his mouth dropping open.
CLEARWATER, it reads. SAFE HAVEN OPEN TO ALL. FOOD & CLEAN WATER.
And under it is a longitude and latitude.
“What the fuck,” Tommy hears, and he whirls around to find Tubbo staring at him, surprised. A part of Tommy is happy to see him standing up and perfectly well, his eyes brighter than ever. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah, bitch,” says Tommy without thinking, and then lifts an arm, pointing for the building. “You. You’ve got the fucky eyes. What’s that say?”
Tubbo blinks in surprise, moving forward to fall alongside Tommy. Ranboo emerges from the auto shop not far behind him, and also looks surprised to see Tommy still standing in the middle of the street, not far at all from where he left them. It’s no secret that Tommy hated them at first, wanted to get away from them as fast as possible. But…
“Holy shit,” says Tubbo, turning to Tommy with a wide-eyed look, and he knows there’s hope for them.
“Is it real?” Tommy asks quietly, too hopefully. His brothers won’t be there— they’re watching from the stars— but other people might. People that will help them might. Never trust anyone rings in his ears, but trust your gut comes right after, and Tommy swallows. “Is it… what do you know?”
Tubbo is silent for a moment, staring at the ground. Tommy almost wants to ask again, impatient, but he forces himself to wait until finally, finally, the cyborg answers, very quietly, “The paint’s fresh.” A pause, and then before Tommy can ask: “Within a week.”
“What’s going on?” Ranboo asks from behind them, looking between the two, and Tubbo and Tommy turn simultaneously. Tommy glances at him, and Tubbo glances back, and then they both look back to Ranboo, who’s still got his mask back on, and Tommy feels a hundred pound weight lift from his chest, because he knows Wilbur and Techno are smiling at him from the sky. In that moment, he makes his decision, finalizes his choice. No matter what he does, Tommy will always remember to make his brothers proud.
“I know where we’re going next,” is Tommy’s answer, a hint of awe (a shred of hope) in his voice, and Tommy sees Tubbo smile for the first time since he’s known him.
“We’re gonna need a map.”