Chapter 1: Lie to Me
Chapter Text
“Tommy…” the sound rippled through the inky void like raindrops in a puddle.
It made every atom of his nonexistent self crease and twist and curl around it. And then it disappeared once more, leaving behind only a trace of being in the eternal nothingness.
“Tommy!” the second time the sound wasn’t a shape, it was a color. It lit the void up in bright green. Too bright. Too much after so long of nothing but darkness.
“Wake up” suddenly his body took shape. He felt something touch him or through him, he couldn’t be sure. Nothing felt certain, not even the pain he was feeling. Not even his own being.
Someone stood in front of him, green like the second sound he’d seen, rippling around him like a tidal wave. They crowded him, watching, speaking, touching. It was so much. He shouldn’t be, shouldn’t feel. He was just atoms stretching and twisting infinitely through nothingness. He only existed as a vague concept forgotten on the tip of someone’s tongue. He existed as a rumor spoken of in hushed whispers by children at night. He existed as a memory that only the dead held.
He wasn’t physical. Not in any way that mattered. He shouldn’t be.
“You’re back!” the person in front of him sounded shrill. Happy. Manic. Expectant. They wanted him to answer, to acknowledge them. But Tommy could only focus on the awareness that he now heard that. It was a sound. Not a vibration, not a color.
Sound felt so weird. So alien to him.
He couldn’t remember ever hearing before. And yet it felt so familiar. Listening was like an innate skill for him. It was like muscle memory, which in itself was weird to think of. He had muscles now.
He looked at his arms, flexed one slightly, watching in awe as his skin stretched over the bone and flesh there. He was aware of every single one of the atoms within. He could feel them rubbing together as they shifted. He could feel them circle each other and intertwine to create the mass that was him. He was that. He wasn’t everything that was anymore. He was only that specific mass of atoms. Only that specific fleshy thing that existed in color and sound and touch.
The person in front of him frowned. “Hello? Tommy?” they tapped him again. It felt like a slap.
Every single atom they touched screamed in pain and he screamed with them.
The person in front of him seemed surprised. “I didn’t even hit you that time… what’s wrong with you?”. Their eyebrows were knitted together in what he had a vague memory of being a sign of disappointment.
He tried to open his mouth to explain himself almost automatically, but all that came out were frantic gasps. He could feel his chest expand for the first time and, oh, right, beings needed air. He needed air. He needed to breathe.
It took him a while just to remember how to do that properly. It was surprising how much easier screaming had been.
The person in front of him kept observing him. They were pacing a bit now, eyes never leaving him as they did that. What a weirdo.
“Tommy…” they really liked that sound. They kept repeating it constantly. It sounded like it held the meaning of the universe in it every time they uttered it. Pretty. “Did you forget how to breathe just now?”.
He blinked a couple of times, trying to remember how language worked. It was like a little puzzle he had to figure out using only hints buried in the recesses of his mind. He didn’t even realize he was speaking in his mind, his thoughts forming into neat little words instead of the flashes in the dark they used to be before.
He took a moment to properly think. It was satisfying to be able to finally express to himself everything he had been experiencing. Or not experiencing. Nonexistence was still too hard to properly conceptualize for his newly formed mind.
When he decided to speak he had to mechanically move his mouth first, forming the shapes the sounds would take even before he let them out. “Am I… a who? Or a what?”.
The person in front of him looked even more upset. There was a mountain now between their brows where they joined together. “Do you really not remember even that?”.
“Remember…” the word sounded weird on his tongue. There was an assumption there. An assumption of being before he wasn’t. He thought it was correct, but there was nothing in his mind to indicate that. Only a distant fog in the darkness, unreachable. “I don’t” he concluded.
“… fuck” the person in front of him turned toward the bright orange wall that closed off the dark space they were in. “Sam!” they yelled. “Sam! Tommy’s back!”.
There that sound was again. ‘Tommy’ so familiar. It felt like it belonged to him. Like it always belonged to him. Was that what his being was called? Was that… a name?
“Am I… Tommy?” he decided to ask, tired of all the guessing games. Existence was so tiring.
The person in front of him looked back at him once more. They let out a breath that sounded annoyed. “Yes, it is. Goddammit, this wasn’t supposed to happen. It never did before. Goddammit-” they continued to mutter to themselves, but Tommy didn’t listen. He didn’t care. He was tired already from obtaining a name.
“Tommy” that was him. The sound crackled from all around him and, for a moment, he thought he was in the void again. That he’d gone back to stretching infinitely as he let existence trickle away from his grasp like sand in an hourglass. But he could still perceive himself, and he knew he was. “Go to the corner with the water”.
Tommy blinked a few times. He looked around, trying to remember what water was when the green person just grabbed his shoulder and shoved him into something wet. The pain was unimaginable once more. He could feel the hot wetness at his feet infiltrate his flesh and boil his bones. It was horrid.
Thankfully, it ended quickly.
Something smashed against him, and, in a flash, he found himself somewhere different. Colder and softer. And bigger.
The new space he was in felt larger than the infinite void where he was not. Though he supposed, existence would always trample non-existence. It felt logical.
In front of him stood someone. Always green, but bigger, softer. Everything was so much softer in this new place. And their green was darker, it didn’t hurt to look at quite as much. Their eyebrows were also furrowed though.
It looked like Tommy was really not good at interacting with beings.
“Tommy… are you okay?” their voice sounded kinder. Soothing. It felt nice against Tommy’s skin.
For a moment he wished he was back in the void, just to feel it pass through him. Tommy thought it would feel like a gentle breeze on a hot Summer day. He had no memory of anything such as that, but somehow his mind had no problems bringing up the imagery.
“I don’t… know… I don’t remember anything” even saying that felt reductive. It didn’t express enough how much Tommy didn’t know. He had barely just discovered how to be a mass, he hadn’t even started the process of remembering. “I don’t know anything. I’m… a who… I think. And I’m named Tommy” that’s all he pieced together so far. He hoped it was enough for the person in front of him to understand.
And it looked like it was. He could see their heart break as the information properly sunk in.
“Oh. That’s… okay. You’re Tommy, you’re a human, a teenager, a…” they stopped, trying to think of more descriptors. Tommy sympathized. It couldn’t be easy to define an existence that wasn’t even their own. “Well, you always say you’re a Big Man and that you’re annoying at first. But you’re a good kid. Funny, kind, bright. You’ve always had a lot of heart. And you’ve always been very social until lately… well… you’ve been through a lot. Got hurt a lot. But you were starting to heal finally. This was supposed to be the last time you came here. Everything was supposed to be fine but-” they interrupted themselves again. Water was leaking from their eyes.
Without thinking, Tommy got up, away from the softness. He wiped away the water. It had been so painful against his feet, he didn’t want this person to feel that. They sounded like they really cared. Their idea of Tommy was so much to live up to though, Tommy doubted he would ever.
Would this person cry again once they realized that Tommy wasn’t that being they spoke so highly about? Would their heart break once more?
He hoped not. He hoped they’d like him too. He liked them.
“Were you… who were you to me?”. There was a whisper in his mind that insisted the person in front of him was family. ‘Father’ it said, with an amount of affection that felt alien to him. It didn’t belong with him, it belonged to the bright sunny kid they spoke of.
A ghost from the past. A glint of recognition in the fog.
“I’m Sam, I’m… well… we’re friends. I built you a robot to help you build your hotel. And I protected you any time I could. We were close” Sam explained hesitantly.
Tommy didn’t understand why they looked so uncertain. His subconscious purred in contentment hearing those words, so they couldn’t be lies. He was certain of it.
He nodded and tried his best to stretch his mouth into a smile at them. He remembered those being reassuring. A sign of friendliness and understanding. He thought they could mean something entirely different as well though, just like the corrugated eyebrows. Facial expressions were even weirder than words.
Thankfully, Sam seemed to understand as their shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Come on, I’ll bring you home. I’m sure you’ll want to rest. And I have a few things to deal with after this”. They were right, he was exhausted. And the concept of home sounded perfect to him at that moment.
On Sam’s suggestion, he closed his eyes before abandoning the safety of the dark structure they were in and left Sam to lead him. He could see the brightness of the outside world even through his eyelids, and it felt all-consuming. He doubted he’d be able to see even with his eyes open.
The pavement under his feet kept changing. They climbed up and down and changed direction. And the sounds his feet made as they slapped against the ground felt so distant as the constant influx of noise overloaded his brain. It was oh so familiar too, however. An old friend from a distant past.
He saw a flash of himself from the outside, laying down a wooden plank after another, building, repairing, polishing, and cleaning a long-winded wooden road. He knew what to expect even before they got to his home. He could see it clearly: a welcoming little abode atop of a hill, right where the path joined another.
The shape of the house was ever-changing. The walls shifted from dirt to stone, to wood, to glass. They never stopped, but it didn’t matter. They were his. They were safe. They were home.
Sam left him there, with an order to get into bed and sleep. Tommy welcomed it, hoping to go back to the tranquility of non-existence, even if it was just for a few hours.
Feelings and sensations were tiring. He didn’t know how everyone else could make being seem so effortless. Like it just came naturally to them. Like they were just born into it slowly, and not thrown into existence out of the blue. It was unnatural. Or maybe that was him. Maybe he was the exception.
He sunk into his bed forcing his brain to stop pondering about everything for just a bit. Just long enough to hand control over to his subconscious instead. That was a grave mistake.
As soon as he did, every memory he ever created slammed back into his mind at the same time. He’d been a brother once, a friend, an experiment, a toy, an enemy, a traitor, someone’s only confidant, a fool, a victim, an unwilling hero, himself.
He could remember everything that he’d ever been, and yet the only thing he knew clearly was Tubbo. Tubbo, his best friend. Tubbo, the president who exiled him without a second thought. Tubbo, the person who accepted death so easily, and yet still couldn’t accept that Tommy would be lost without him. Tubbo, his whole world since he found him in that box at the side of the road many years before, when he took his hand and promised to never let go.
“Who am I without you?”. “Yourself”.
As Tommy awoke he realized three separate things at once: remembering shit hurt like a bitch, he was once again aware, and Sam definitely had enough time to tell everyone that he very much was not.
There was a knock at the door and that prompted his next realization: he would have to actually decide what to do about his situation sooner than he was ready. He really could never get a break, could he? First Dream decided that beating him to death was a perfectly acceptable way of solving an argument, then he had to deal with Wilbur being a bitch in Hell any time he had awareness of self and now this.
“Tommy?” and, on top of all that, that sounded like Tubbo. That last thing wasn’t really a bad thing, but still. He was upset about everything right now.
On shaking legs, he pulled himself up and to the door. He cracked it open only slightly peering out. He knew it was Tubbo that spoke, but he needed to know if it was just Tubbo there. What he did next depended heavily on it.
It was not, in fact, just Tubbo.
Ranboo was there.
The fuck was Ranboo doing there?
In a split-moment decision that he would probably eventually regret, he decided to keep his break from dealing with the bullshit of being himself going a little longer. “Uhm… hi? Are you… were you someone to me?” he cringed internally at that pitiful attempt at imitating the speech pattern he had the day before. And then again when he saw Tubbo’s face fall.
Ranboo was shifting their weight from foot to foot behind him glancing nervously between Tubbo and the ground, clearly not knowing how to comfort him. Well, Tommy thought, if he had to be that useless maybe he should have stayed home.
It was kinda mean, but Tommy had just experienced death, Hell, and revival in quick succession, he earned the right to bully people in his mind out of spite.
Tubbo’s expression changed very quickly. Realization flashed on his face. What about, Tommy had no clue. But right after a determined shine appeared in his eyes, his smile turned sly. Whatever he was planning, it couldn’t be anything good. Tommy was already regretting several of his life choices, starting from the time he pulled Tubbo out of his box.
“Yes, I’m your platonic husband, Tubbo. And the lanky cryptid behind me is your other platonic spouse, Ranboo” he hadn’t faltered for a second saying that. If Tommy hadn’t known any better, he would have believed him.
He did know better though, and he was very well aware that he never married his best friend, and he had no clue why the fuck Tubbo was trying to convince him otherwise. What kind of weird ass game was he playing?
“You are?” he asked, making sure to sound uncertain and not just baffled.
“We are?” Ranboo asked, just as confused. It figured, with their own memory issues they probably didn’t even remember their own name most days. Though Tommy was surprised they just took Tubbo at his word instead of fact-checking with their memory book and calling Tubbo out on his bullshit.
“We are” Tubbo confirmed with a nod. “You moved in with us in our big mansion in Snowchester after the wedding. Which is why I was so surprised when Sam brought you here instead” Tubbo lied further.
Why was his first instinct to lie through his teeth? And to get Tommy to live with him nonetheless! As if that ever ended well!
Tommy was a curse. He brought chaos and destruction to everything he loved. He was the reason why Dream had been so obsessed with destroying L’Manburg, and Wilbur, and even Tubbo. He was the reason why Technoblade helped Dream. He was the reason for every single bad thing that ever happened in the server just like Wilbur said. Tubbo would be so much happier without him around.
Tubbo had been happier without him around. That’s why he distanced himself so much from Tommy after Dream was arrested. That’s why he never visited, not then and not when he was in exile. Tubbo was so smart. Tubbo knew he was bad news. So why was he lying to get Tommy to move in with him? Why would he want him around? Why when his life was clearly so perfect without him?
He could have told Tommy that they didn’t know each other well. That they’d just been comrades once, fighting side by side in a war they didn’t start nor want, and definitely couldn’t hope to win. He could have gotten rid of Tommy then and there and he would have graciously accepted it.
It would have hurt. More than being shredded into mere atoms over and over again had. Maybe even as much as losing Wil, but he would have accepted it because, as much as people liked to think otherwise, he wasn’t selfish.
“Oh!” Ranboo’s eyes lit up in recognition. “Right! That’s why we have the Tommy Room! That makes sense!”. No it fucking didn’t.
That made even less sense now. Because them making a room for him meant that it was premeditated. And why would it be when Tubbo had been distancing himself from him more and more every day?
Tubbo nodded as if what Ranboo said didn’t shatter his whole world too. “Exactly. Come on now, let’s go home”.
Tommy wanted to say that he was home. He wanted to say that their rich fuckers’ mansion had never been his home and never would be. Not like his little hole in the side of the hill was. It would never feel like living in the last remaining piece of L’Manburg.
But L’Manburg was dead and buried alongside Wilbur, and his house felt so small, and empty, and lonely, and he just nodded. He followed them without a word because he couldn’t be angry, no matter how much he wanted to. Because he couldn’t force himself to feel indignant when all he could feel was loved and cared for.
Because it was nice to be wanted for once. It was nice that someone cared, even if all they got to show for it were lies and gaslighting. Well, an attempt at those at least. It would have worked the day before though, so it still counted.
---
The mansion was bigger than Tommy thought it would be. It was bigger than Bad and Skeppy’s one for sure. He was willing to bet that it would even beat the prison. Who the fuck needed that much space?
Maybe Tubbo needed the storage for all the lies he told.
Seriously, when had his best friend turned into such a good liar? Was it his time as president, having to deal with all the politics Tommy never understood? Or was it a side effect of having to live a double life under Schlatt as his treasurer and Pogtopia’s spy? Or had he simply always been that way and Tommy just never noticed?
“Do we really live here together?” Tommy asked trying to give Tubbo one final out. Because that mansion must have cost a fortune and Tommy would ruin it, and they didn’t deserve that. Because their life looked so perfect and Tommy just felt like a mud stain they tracked inside by accident.
“Yeah!” Tubbo thrilled, happy as could be. “Ranboo paid for it. He’s rich”.
Tommy hadn’t thought anyone could be that rich until then. Not even Technoblade with his absurd need to overcompensate for his lacking morals with weapons of mass destruction and golden apples could afford something like that. Maybe Dream could. Not because he could pay for it, he only avoided being homeless at the moment by technicality, as the prison was his place of residence. No, he definitely wouldn’t be able to pay for it, but financial means had never been his way of getting what he wanted anyway.
Setting foot inside was slightly terrifying.
His brain kept noting down every object there that was worth more than him, and the list wouldn’t stop growing.
He wondered if he’d ever be comfortable there. He never cared about living the fancy life. The closest he’d ever gotten to it before then was when he lived with Technoblade, and, even then, he never moved out from the small hole he carved for himself underneath the house. One he was sure had been destroyed along with any other trace of him as soon as Techno labeled him a traitor. Probably not even by him. Philza had always been far more vindictive.
He was forcefully dragged away from his thoughts by a jolt of pain shooting up from his hand, all the way to his shoulder. Looking down, he found himself face to face with a small zombie piglin child. He pulled his hand away quickly, suppressing a scream. He couldn’t keep his eyes from watering though.
He thought that with his memory back his weird sensitivity to touch would have been gone as well. He was wrong.
Ranboo quickly scooped up the child, who mostly seemed confused by Tommy’s reaction. Meanwhile, Tubbo placed himself between them and started shushing Tommy gently. It was so annoyingly patronizing.
“Fuck off with that shit Tubbo, I’m fine” he blurted out before he could help himself.
Tubbo didn’t even seem surprised by his outburst. “Huh, I guess some things haven’t changed”.
“Never mind that, why is there a child here? Did you kidnap them?” he squinted his eyes at Tubbo suspiciously. It wasn’t like he thought Tubbo would really stoop so low as to kidnap someone, but, then again, he never thought he’d try to so blatantly manipulate him either.
Tubbo’s eyes widened, and he immediately shook his head. “Prime no! No, me and Ranboo rescued him together a few days ago while you were… busy. He’d been abandoned. And he was being attacked by a very aggressive hoglin”. Ranboo nodded along, confirming Tubbo’s story. Or, well, at least not disproving it, as his memory had more holes than a cheese grater on good days and he was, once more, not checking his memory book to fact-check.
He really had to get Ranboo to use that thing more.
He took several deep breaths both to try and calm himself down and to try and distract himself from the pain still making his arm throb.
“So… you have a child?” he eventually asked, trying to defuse the tension that both he and Ranboo were obviously feeling. Tubbo still seemed as calm as a cucumber, the weirdo.
“We have a child” Tubbo corrected without missing a beat. “We’re married, remember? What’s ours is yours. Which includes this nice house, Snowchester, Ranboo’s many therapy pets, our child, the nuke defense system, and my vault full of potions, armor, and other riches”.
He just nodded for a while, before his brain managed to properly catch up with that information dump. “The what defense system?!” who the ever-loving fuck thought it was a good idea to give Tubbo nukes?
He’d always been a little menace with explosives, ever since they were little!
Tommy remembered very vividly the many times they played with TNT in Phil’s back garden and then blamed all the holes on Wilbur. Thinking back on it, it was weird how Philza never questioned it. The old man had worse perception skills than a five-year-old. He and Techno really were one and the same.
“I built nukes” Tubbo repeated again, as if it was a normal thing to just do. As if everyone sometimes woke up just in the mood to reinvent nuclear weaponry. As if that wasn’t just something only the Blood God himself would be able to relate to if he was any good with technology.
Tommy just sighed.
One thing he had been right about during his delirious state the day before was that being truly was exhausting. And being Tommy meant having to deal with an unusually high amount of bullshit on a daily basis. One would think he was used to it by now, but they’d be wrong. He was resigned, but he could never grow used to any of that shit.
“Right. So… this Tommy Room?” a little something in the back of his head told him that if anyone else built a ‘Tommy Room’ he wouldn’t be so calm about it. Especially if that someone else was a certain green bastard.
He told that voice to shut the Hell up because Dream had done way worse than build a room for him. Because he would have gone along with him too before the man abused him for months on end after dragging him away from the only home he’d ever known and isolating him from every single person he ever loved. Besides, he needed a house if he wanted to build a creepy stalker room and that was above Dream’s pay grade.
He let Tubbo lead him up the stairs to a room that was bigger than his actual house. There was a sign outside with ‘Tommy Room’ written on it, and he made a mental note to burn that one later.
To be fair, aside from the name, it looked entirely like a normal room, if not a bit bare. There was a king-sized four-poster bed against one wall, with double chests on either side of it, and a desk on the other side of the room, with one of those nice ergonomic chairs he’d only seen in the White House before. They hadn’t spared any expenses for him. Which would be thoughtful if they ever bothered to ask him what he wanted.
The little exceedingly clingy part of his brain that always thought Tubbo could do no wrong was delighted by it all. The rest of him was vaguely creeped out, but not enough to actually do anything about it, nor enough to stop the clingy brain from taking over.
He smiled, and he surprised himself when he found that it was genuine. “This looks nice. Very nice”.
He wandered in slowly, spinning around to look at everything. The walls had been painted red, with small hand-drawn cows and music discs running all along the corners. The ceiling was painted like a sunset. It was so bright, he loved it. Genuinely loved it.
He opened one of the chests only to find it already full of warm Snowchester clothes. Which he would have assumed were his if he really couldn’t remember anything still. As it was though, they were just one more hint toward the fact that Tubbo must have really wanted him to move in. He had not been messing around.
Perhaps what Tommy had perceived as Tubbo distancing himself from him had just been Tubbo taking his time to make everything perfect. The fear of rejection must have been eating at him just as much as it was Tommy. Or, well, that was how he rationalized the whole thing because it wasn’t like he could just ask Tubbo what his intentions were. Not without revealing that he was faking his amnesia to avoid having to deal with everything he’d been through, and he was in way too deep now to do that.
Tubbo was standing at the door smiling at him as if he’d hung the sun. “I’m glad you like it, Boss Man. I know you’ve been through a lot… and I’m partially to blame. More than partially” Tommy wanted to tell him it wasn’t true. That Tubbo wasn’t to blame for Dream’s actions. That Tommy didn’t resent him even a little bit. But that wouldn’t be completely sincere. Tubbo wasn’t responsible for Dream’s actions, but he was responsible for his own. He was responsible for exiling Tommy over something dumb and he was responsible for never visiting him. And he was responsible for letting him think they were drifting apart instead of telling him about the room. And for going off to adopt a child while he was trapped and getting beaten to death. Tommy had forgiven him, but he couldn’t lie to him to make him forgive himself. So he let him speak uninterrupted. “So… I’m happy you can be here with us now. Safe and sound”.
He did feel safe.
Despite the butchered attempt at manipulation, and the creepily named room, he would never not feel safe around Tubbo. Ranboo, he still had to get used to, but Tubbo would always have his undying trust.
“Yeah, me too”.
They fell into silence for a few minutes. It wasn’t an uncomfortable one, Tommy just needed the time to properly take everything in, and Tubbo understood and respected that. He stayed there, leaning against the wall looking pleased with himself.
He had a right to be, the house was gorgeous. And, from the style of it all, Tommy knew that Tubbo had been the one to direct the works on it, not Ranboo. Ranboo wasn’t much better than him when it came to having style.
He had no proof of that, but he could feel it in his gut. Nobody who wore a suit at all times was to be trusted with building with the single exception of Mumbo Jumbo.
“So, what now?” he asked once the excitement of the new situation wore off. He’d always been quick to restlessness, and he was glad that that part of him hadn’t changed. That he still had some of his old spark. It meant that Dream couldn’t break him. That not even him doing the most horrifying thing imaginable to Tommy could truly snuff out his flame.
Tubbo shrugged. “Kinda thought you wanted to rest”.
He did.
Earlier when everything got too overwhelming and all he could think about was how exhausting living had gotten lately. But one hint of being truly wanted by anyone was enough to cure him of that melancholy. And that room was way more than a simple hint.
“I’m okay. Just got a bit too much earlier” he looks down at the hand that was still throbbing from that small skin contact he’d gotten. “This may sound weird, but I can feel every atom of my body slam against each other when people touch me. It’s okay if I do it first because I know how much pressure I can put in and how slow I should go, but… otherwise, it really hurts”. Hiding that weakness wouldn’t have helped.
Tubbo would hate himself if he found out later on by himself that he’d been hurting Tommy all along, and Tommy would only feel guilty for piling even more lies on top of his fake amnesia. And he was an awful liar already, so he’d most likely forget what he was lying about if he kept more than one going at a time.
No, he’d be honest, he decided.
As honest as he could be while lying about how he’d forgotten himself and everything he’d lived through.
“I’m sorry, I’ll make sure Michael doesn’t grab you again” Tubbo promised. “Are there other sensory issues I should know about?”.
There would have been the day before. Light, and sound, and colors, and everything really. Being at first had been torture. He honestly thought it had been worse than being beaten to death. More agonizing.
But that was because he was discovering everything all at once for the first time while still getting used to having a physical body himself. And Dream being the first person he saw didn’t help because the bastard was allergic to helping someone clearly in distress.
All those sensations weren’t new now though.
He remembered and that made everything less overwhelming, so he just shook his head in response.
“Alright, well, want a tour of the rest of the house we scored by being golddiggers?” Tubbo asked with a mischievous grin.
It made Tommy chuckle. It was always so effortless for Tubbo, making Tommy happy.
“Yeah, why not?”.
---
After a week Tommy was fully settled into the mansion.
He created a routine for himself. He woke up early, made some breakfast for everyone, and a full pot of coffee for Tubbo because for some reason he started drinking that unholy concoction while he was president. Then he went outside to work in Snowchester’s potato field and make some small talk with Jack Manifold while the bald man badly concealed his suspicions about Tommy faking everything. Then he went back inside for lunch and spent the afternoon with whoever decided to stay home.
He even babysat Michael one of the days, though that hadn’t ended well. The kid couldn’t see well, so the only way he had to properly familiarize himself with the world around him was through touch. And he was really curious about Tommy.
Ranboo had come back home to find Tommy rocking himself back and forth on top of their oversized fridge and Micheal crying at the bottom.
Ranboo had apologized to him and insisted it wasn’t his fault, but Tommy still felt really guilty and he locked himself away in his room for the rest of the evening. He didn’t even go downstairs for dinner, which only made him feel worse, because it was obvious how much Tubbo worried about his eating habits.
In his opinion, Tubbo worried too much about it.
He’d been doing better after he left exile. And death had purged his system of his little golden apple addiction too, so he had started eating things with proper nutrients as well. There was still a mental block he could feel sometimes, when he would punish himself for misbehaving by taking away his own food in the mornings, or, like that day, by skipping dinner, but he didn’t think Tubbo had noticed.
He thought everyone agreed that things were going well. Clearly, he was wrong, as one week in Tubbo sat them all down around the table and told them he set up a therapy appointment for all of them. Group therapy.
Tubbo really went out and decided they should all go to couple counseling without consulting either him or Ranboo, huh?
“Tubbo, what the fuck man” he grumbled “You could have asked”.
“You would have said no” Tubbo correctly pointed out. Him being correct didn’t make him any less of a dick though.
“Then you should have respected that. Why would I need counseling anyway? I’m fine. Got one full week of bliss” and, as far as they knew, that was true. All his trauma was in the past, supposedly long forgotten.
He was fine. He was dealing with everything, and he was so good at ignoring his problems he’d made it his art form.
“People who are ‘fine’ don’t skip their meals every time they think they’ve upset their family” Tubbo’s eyes were stern. He wasn’t mad, but he clearly also wasn’t open for discussion, so Tommy just shut up with a huff.
He’d nail therapy and prove to them that he was okay because he was. And then Tubbo would drop the weird pity that felt like genuine concern, but couldn’t be because Tommy was fucking fine so there was nothing to be concerned about.
“Uhm… do I have to go to therapy as well?” Ranboo asked awkwardly, breaking Tommy’s and Tubbo’s staring contest.
“Yes. You aren’t any better than Tommy, Boo. Don’t think I don’t know about your little experiments. Philza snitched”. Tubbo said all of that as if he was any better than them. As if Tommy couldn’t hear him wake up screaming almost every night because of some night terror. As if the amount of coffee he downed was normal and not his way of enabling the late nights in his lab. As if he hadn’t built fucking nukes because of his paranoia.
They were all a mess.
They’d gotten trampled over and over by adults who didn’t care about them. Used as pawns in wars that weren’t theirs and then discarded and dismissed like used toys.
He hadn’t known about Ranboo’s problems, but he wasn’t surprised that the server screwed them over too. And, for as much flack as Tommy gave them, they did not deserve that. Nobody did, but them and Tubbo especially so.
Both of them were good and loyal. They’d been willing to take Tommy in despite knowing his track record with everything he loved. They were kind. It was unfair. But when had their world ever cared about fairness?
“When’s the appointment?” Tommy asked gruffly. Because even if he understood it didn’t mean he wasn’t gonna be insufferable about it.
“She’s coming here in half an hour” Tubbo answered casually.
It made Tommy spit out the coke he’d been drinking. “Tubbo! You can’t just spring that on us last minute!”.
“Well, I did, so, clearly, I can” Tubbo shot back, smug as a cat who just found a way into the aquarium.
“And this is why we need group therapy, gotcha” Ranboo joked, making them both snort. Which was horrible, because the laughter made it really hard to keep up the death glare he was giving Tubbo.
Honestly, he wasn’t as opposed as he was making it seem to getting therapy. He had actually given it a few thoughts that week.
Group therapy was a different thing though. He had to keep up his charade with the amnesia, which meant he couldn’t really talk about anything that happened before his revival. Well… unless he passed it off as something Ranboo told him and then promptly forgot about. It had to be something Ranboo would reasonably know about, but that was easy since Ranboo was the only one who consistently visited him in exile.
Perhaps it was cruel to exploit them like that, but, well, it wouldn’t really do them any harm. And wasn’t Tubbo already doing that with the whole fake marriage thing anyway? It couldn’t be that bad if Tubbo did it.
Puffy showed up thirty minutes later. Tommy had no idea she was a therapist. He kinda thought she was either a pirate or a mascot of some kind of food place with how she was dressed.
Though, to be fair, having met her before only once when he asked her to cover for him at his exile trial, he didn’t know much about her as a person. All he could do was make a few baseless assumptions. It was fun to do, but he wasn’t surprised that they turned out to be wrong. Or, at the very least, that it turned out that wasn’t all there was to her. Because she could still have multiple jobs, most people on the server did.
Tubbo one year established the record for most jobs held at once. One of them was as a bath water salesman with Tommy. He missed the simplicity of those times a bit.
After all the greetings and the introductions, they all sat down together in the living room. Puffy grabbed an armchair for herself, while Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo all piled up on top of each other on the couch. Michael was in view, just a couple of meters away. He was sitting on the floor, drawing something with chalk on the wood under him, completely oblivious to what they were doing.
“Well then, I’d like to start with why you felt the need to set up this appointment” Puffy started. Her body language was open and relaxed, and her expression was attentive. She felt like a professional even to Tommy who had no experience in the matter.
“Well, I set it up because Boo is keeping secrets-” Ranboo just looked confused at the accusation, flopping ears flicking nervously as he looked from Tubbo to the ground repeatedly, frown deepening every time “And Tommy just… well, there is the under eating, and the flinching, and the whole thing with touch, and about a thousand other things. And both of them try to hide it, so I want some help with this whole communication thing”.
The hypocrisy was what hit Tommy the hardest.
He couldn’t deny that he’d been hiding things. Ranboo clearly also was, even if he probably hid just as much from himself. But who was Tubbo to speak as if he hadn’t done just the same? He straight up lied to Tommy and Ranboo about being married to both of them! Not that Tommy minded, but he could not take the high horse when it came to communication abilities after that.
“How about you Tubbo? You haven’t told us about the night terrors, I had to figure it out by sleeping in the next room over. And how about your habit of overworking yourself into a delirious sleep-deprived state?” his eyes were fixed on Tubbo’s as he spoke. He would not let him lie his way through therapy, and he wanted to make sure that Tubbo understood that. Since he set up that appointment he would have to live with the consequences of his actions.
“That was only once!” Tubbo protested weakly, cheeks flaring red in embarrassment.
“Once in the last week” Ranboo amended. “And it was still worrying”. They pulled out their memory book, so their recounting of the events would be more accurate. “You busted in through the door screaming for help, then, when we came downstairs, you started crying. Then you said you loved us and that we’re your best friends. I tried to get you to bed and you started laughing. And then Tommy asked you to be quieter because you might wake up Micheal and you started crying again and then you passed out” they closed the book and looked up again. Not at Tubbo’s eyes, eye contact was awful for him, but still clearly at Tubbo’s face “Even if it happens only once a week from now on too, we’re still worried”.
Puffy hummed in consideration. The sound made Tommy jump. He genuinely forgot she was there.
“It sounds like you all could benefit from being a bit more honest with each other” she said, as if that wasn’t obvious already. As if that hadn’t been all they’d talked about to answer her first question. Prime, being a therapist sounded like the easiest job ever. Tommy could do it with his eyes closed. “Don’t start from the big things. It’s obvious that there is some trust that needs to be built here between you three. Start with small questions and small answers. Like, for example, Tommy, when’s the last time you drank a glass of water?”.
Despite not really understanding the point of the whole exercise, Tommy went along with it for the sake of the other two. They would probably benefit from this therapy session, and he was not willing to screw it up for them.
“Like, an hour ago? I think?”. She nodded along, pleased. Then she gestured for him to continue with the question chain. Tommy uncertainly turned toward Tubbo.
He had to keep it light. No questions about nightmares, or addictions, or trauma. That really reduced the number of questions he wanted answered drastically. He was starting to think that the exercise might not be as silly and pointless as he first assumed with how hard it was turning out to be.
“Does it… bother you that I don’t hold your hand anymore?” he asked, voice small and uncertain.
Tubbo had done nothing to express disappointment toward Tommy’s newfound fear of touch. He’d actually been extremely accommodating. But it wouldn’t be the first time Tommy straight-up missed signs from others trying to express their displeasure in small or big ways.
He missed it several times in exile with Dream, and every time ended with him getting beaten or sliced with an axe. He’d missed them with Techno too, every time the man would make fun of him for being constantly so confused and incapable of making his own decisions. They were clear in hindsight, but in the moment he knew he could be a bit blind.
Besides, hand-holding had always been his and Tubbo’s way to show each other affection. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for his friend to resent him for taking the chance away from him.
Tubbo did look upset at Tommy’s question, but not in the way he expected. He genuinely just looked offended. “Do you really think I am that shallow?”.
“Let’s keep our tones civilized” Puffy admonished. She wasn’t being harsh, just moderating the conversation in the most impartial way possible. It was kinda nice to have someone there who helped keep them calm.
Tubbo took a deep breath to calm himself. “You’re right, you’re right. I’m not upset that you’re trying to take care of your own health Tommy. I understand. It’s the whole ‘boundary’ thing people always talk about. Sure, ours is a platonic marriage, but we still need those to make it work” he ended his spiel with a small reassuring smile.
Tommy really wished he could knock his forehead against Tubbo’s as they did as children to apologize to each other right then. But he knew that, if he tried, he would be writhing on the floor in pain. So, instead, he very slowly interlocked his pinky finger with Tubbo’s and swung them together back and forth a few times. It was something new, but it made Tommy happy to be able to do at least that much, and Tubbo didn’t pull away, so he counted it as an all-around victory.
“Wait, since when are you two married? I thought-” Puffy started, only to be immediately interrupted by a very panicked-looking Tubbo.
“OH MY GOD, WE FORGOT TO INVITE YOU!” he screamed so she had no chance to get any more words out.
Tommy couldn’t help but snort at the interaction. Honestly, he knew that Tubbo was lying about the marriage already. But Tubbo didn’t know he knew, and he would keep milking that shit as long as he could. He wanted to see how far their whole situation could develop before either his or Tubbo’s lie would crush and burn it.
Puffy looked incredibly confused by the whole thing, and so did Ranboo. It was clear they were both about to ask something else when Tubbo turned to Ranboo with a small nervous laugh and resumed the exercise. “Anyway, I believe it was my turn!”.
The awkward tension slowly disappeared as the session proceeded, and eventually, the weird interaction was entirely forgotten. At least by Puffy and Ranboo.
They continued with the exercise, keeping it light for that day. Puffy insisted they kept some more serious topics for later sessions. Tommy supposed that it did make sense for her to not want to solve all their problems the first time around, otherwise how would she earn money? Or maybe he was being far too cynical and she really was thinking of what was best for them, no one could know for certain.
She left an hour after she arrived, and they were all exhausted.
“Therapy is better than a workout” Ranboo joked after a few moments of silence.
“True” Tommy agreed.
“Neither of you has ever worked out once in their lives” Tubbo shot back teasingly.
“Oi! I’ll have you know that I was a soldier once!” Tommy defended. “Though I do think someone stole my veteran card because I can’t find it anymore…” he had the suspicion that Connor had been the one to steal it from him since he saw him use the veteran discount around and he had never even been anywhere near a battlefield in his life.
“… How do you know about that…?” Tubbo asked, squinting his eyes suspiciously at Tommy.
Ah fuck.
He started sweating, anxiety spiking.
He shouldn’t know about that. That hadn’t happened in the last week. That was an old Tommy thing. New Tommy was a pure little angel who never held a sword in his life. The only tools he knew how to use were a hoe and a TOS bible, praise be to Prime. He was, like, such a model devoted citizen now.
“Well… you see…” he looked around for some help when his eyes landed on Ranboo. “They told me the other day”.
“I did?” Ranboo questioned, surprised.
“Yeah! You were all like ‘remember when you were a soldier Big T?’ and I was all like ‘of course not Ranboob, I don’t remember anything. What a silly silly question to ask’, you know?” he was still only looking at Ranboo as he spoke. He didn’t want to look back at Tubbo. He knew his friend could read him way too easily to chance it.
“Right…” Tubbo didn’t sound convinced at all. “Anyway. I think the therapy was a success”.
Tommy gratefully accepted the easy out nodding weakly.
He hadn’t realized how easy it would be to mess up his cover. He also hadn’t realized how perceptive Tubbo could be. It was a wonder it had even lasted that long without an incident.
He would have to come clean about it eventually, he knew that. He couldn’t keep the charade going forever. But his pretend amnesia had made things so much easier for him lately.
He overheard Jack and Niki talk in hushed tones about how it didn’t make any sense to try and kill him now that he couldn’t remember what he’d done wrong to them. Honestly, even without amnesia, he couldn’t remember ever hurting Niki, but that was another topic.
And he’d managed to start hanging out with Jack again too! Jack didn’t really believe the whole amnesia thing, and, to try and catch Tommy in his lie, he’d pretty much decided to show up at the field he worked in every day with a different wig impersonating different women to try and get Tommy to confess using his biggest weakness. It was a bizarre plan, to say the least, but he missed spending time with his friend without the other one trying to take revenge on him for who knows what, so he didn’t mind whatever way the other chose to do it.
In general, even aside from them, people had been a lot less hostile toward him.
It was nice being able to live without constantly having to watch his back. It was nice being close to Tubbo again. It had been nice properly getting to know Ranboo outside of the context of his exile, and growing close with them. It had been nice taking care of Michael, even if he was nowhere near good at it. And it had been nice having a home that wasn’t mostly made of dirt.
He liked the life he was building for himself. He wanted the second chance that he earned with his death.
And he knew it couldn’t last forever, no good thing did, but he would keep it going as much as possible, no matter how much of a selfish asshole that made him. Because after years of being a scapegoat, and a hero, and his big brother’s caretaker, and everyone’s right-hand man, and giving up everything he had, including himself and his childhood, maybe he deserved to be just a bit selfish. Maybe he’d earned it.
And maybe Tubbo earned it too. And maybe that’s why Tommy didn’t bring up his weird interaction with Puffy during the session even if he remembered. Maybe Tubbo didn’t have anything go right for him once ever since he joined that goddamn server. And maybe, just maybe, Tommy thought that if all it took to make his friend happy was having him there, he, for once, would be more than happy to oblige.
Chapter 2: May The Truth Set You Free
Notes:
Here we are with the second and final part of this whole story. This one is from Wilbur's point of view!
Little disclaimer, all of Wilbur's judgments aren't, like, objective truths. They're just the character's thoughts. And he's a bit of a bastard because trauma. Enjoy mean girl!Wilbur!
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Limbo was an awful place.
Wilbur had been relatively lucky with what he’d gotten. At least compared to the horrors he’d heard from Tommy. But even with a space that felt physical enough, and a constant awareness of self, nothing soothed his utter and complete isolation or his boredom. Not ever since Tommy had been taken away from him.
It wasn’t fair of him to be upset about Tommy getting to live, but he didn’t care. Tommy wasn’t made to be on his own. What little snippets of his life he got to see through Ghostbur’s eyes proved it.
He could see moments of Tommy lying to Tubbo. He knew Tommy better than anyone else, he knew that his little brother was faking his whole amnesia situation. He understood why. He understood that sometimes people needed to resort to deception to ensure someone’s cooperation. And in this case, Tommy needed to make sure Tubbo would still grant him a roof over his head, food, and that fake idyllic life they were living.
He wished Tommy of all people wouldn’t resign himself to a life of mediocrity, but he understood. Without him, Tommy was left with no guide to follow. He couldn’t be expected to reach for greatness on his own.
It hurt to watch, but he did understand. He truly did.
Still, when he saw his miserable ghostly self get thrown off a train and he saw his father in the door, hand outstretched to help, he didn’t hesitate to reach out. He’d seen enough from behind the screen. He’d been unable to intervene for long enough, leaving Tommy adrift. His brother needed him and he’d comply.
Tommy wasn’t there on the day of his revival. Only his father and Eret were.
Not the welcome-back committee he would have wanted, but he still gifted them a bright smile. And, as the setting sun set his gaze aflame, he laughed loudly and proclaimed it his sunset. His new start. He promised his two men audience that he would not let his rise from the ashes go to waste.
Eret looked upon him with horror. Wilbur didn’t mind that. Let the traitor be terrified for all he cared! They would never get along regardless.
His father meanwhile was just smiling serenely, a stark contrast to the last time he’d seen him. He welcomed Wil into a hug that felt like nothing but pain. His new body felt far too sensitive for physical touch. And yet, he only held tighter.
His father offered to bring him home. He promised Wilbur could stay with him and Techno. He’d get his own room, his own shower, his own space. It felt slightly condescending. As if his father thought he could build none of that for himself, despite him already having done that in the past.
“I wouldn’t need to stay with you hadn’t you destroyed my home. Broken him down enough that he’s barely recognizable” he muttered softly before letting go of his father and taking a few steps back from the hug. His father’s face lit up with guilt, but Wilbur got the impression that he didn’t really understand what he was blaming him for. He never really did. His father had always been a bit of a naive fool, ready to follow anyone with pretty words and big ideals. “But everything is forgiven and forgotten now! I’ll get to fixing what was broken”.
Phil’s face scrunched up. “Mate, it’s really no longer L’Manburg’s time…”.
“I know. It has outrun its use around the time of the first election” he left it there with no further explanation. They wouldn’t understand anyway. So, in lieu of that, he just spun around and walked off, with one final wave of his hand as a goodbye.
He knew where he was going thanks to the wanderings of his ghost. He learned of the tunnel to Snowchester that his ghostly self could not traverse without melting. And he learned of the potato fields his little brother worked in every morning.
He could picture the scene clearly even before he arrived. He knew the outside walls of the mansion with their rich dark spruce wood, and the stone bricks twisting into elegant but sturdy patterns. He knew about the small village in front of it, full of people in heavy brown coats, working away either in the berry fields, or fishing from the protective walls that kept the town safe from the sea. And he knew the small potato field in the middle of Snowchester better than the back of his hand. He could see Tommy there, caring for each of the plants individually, a small smile on his face that felt utterly underwhelming compared to what Wilbur was used to. He could see him looking back toward the mansion ever so often, eyes filled with dread.
He knew why.
He’d always known that Tubbo wasn’t truly loyal to them. That he would betray them eventually. Leave them out to rot. And Tommy knew that too. That’s what all the lies were about.
He’d set him free, Wilbur decided.
He would let Tommy come back to his side, where he was genuinely loved and cared for.
The one thing he hadn’t expected when he arrived was to find Jack Manifold there in a pink wig casually talking to Tommy as Tommy laughed like a hyena. He knew Jack didn’t like Tommy, so he didn’t really understand why he’d be there looking so calm, but he decided not to question it. Rarely whatever Jack did made any sense.
“Tommy”.
Tommy stopped laughing, his face fell slightly. He turned around and paled even more when he saw him.
Jack didn’t have to be told to leave them alone. He was hightailing it out of there the second he saw Wilbur. What a peculiar individual. Though, in all fairness, Wilbur did remember taking one of his lives in a moment of madness fueled by bloodlust. He couldn’t imagine Jack still being hung up on that though. After all, they had been at war. There were always casualties during war.
“Tommy…” he repeated, taking a step forward, hands outstretched in an invitation.
Tommy gulped nervously. His pupils fixed themselves on Wilbur’s hands, significantly shrunk from the panic. He looked like he used to in Pogtopia. It was almost annoying, but he knew he was at fault for that. He knew that all the terror Tommy held was deserved. He hadn’t been the best of brothers back then.
But this was a new beginning, and he’d make things right this time.
“I- I don’t think I know you…” Tommy tried. He didn’t sound convinced of his lie either.
“Yes you do Tommy. I know about your little lie, you don’t need that with me”. He’d meant his words to be reassuring, but Tommy shrunk in on himself further.
“How are you- did Dream…?” Tommy was stuttering frantically. That too reminded him of Pogtopia.
In a flash, he was brought back to Tommy’s trembling eyes fixed on him as he talked about TNT and buttons. He saw him hunch in on himself as he mentioned that the explosives were primed and ready to go off during the festival. He faintly remembered Tommy trying to protest, trying to remind him that Tubbo would be caught in the crossfire, but he didn’t care. He let it all wash over him and slip away focused as he was on his objective.
There were no talks now. Just him and Tommy standing in a field as a thousand questions hung between them.
“The how doesn’t matter, I’m back! Haven’t you missed me?” he asked, sounding far more desperate than he’d meant.
He needed to know that Tommy was as ready as he was to go back to how things had been. Just the two of them against the world. They could start all over somewhere else. They could get a new van, a new life. Cut out all the people whose love depended on a long list of conditions, like Tubbo, Phil, and Techno.
It could truly be just them.
There was nothing he wanted more than for it to go back to just them.
“I- yeah. Of course, I missed you Wil…” the ‘but’ after was left unsaid. Wilbur really wished it wasn’t there at all. There had never been conditions between them. They were family, true and tried. Closer than blood. They’d always be.
So why was Tommy hesitating?
Why was he adding stipulations?
Was it all because of his weird arrangement with Tubbo?
Wilbur walked closer to Tommy. He didn’t grab him, didn’t ruffle his hair, didn’t touch him at all. He just stood closer, where Tommy’s warmth could truly reach him and melt his frozen bones. Tommy didn’t move away, and Wilbur took it as a victory.
Perhaps things hadn’t changed. Maybe he was just imagining hidden meanings in Tommy’s words. It wouldn’t be the first time his paranoia twisted his perception of things.
“Why are you lying to them about your amnesia Tommy?” he asked.
Tommy gasped in surprise as if Wilbur’s question had come out of nowhere. It hadn’t. There was a point he wanted to prove. Something they needed to get over and done with before they could properly reunite.
“I was just… tired. And it made things so much easier. I get to be married now, to two people! And I live in a mansion. I have a kid. I go to therapy. Jack Manifold visits me every day. Sam even checks in on me every week! Life’s good like this… and all it took is just one half lie” he said, and it sounded like begging. Like he was pleading for Wilbur to understand. Like he was praying for him not to take it all away, not again. Not after Wilbur already took so much from him.
Wilbur couldn’t acquiesce.
For Tommy’s sake, he couldn’t. Tommy deserved people who were as fiercely loyal to him as he was to them, and he couldn’t get that from a whole relationship built on a lie, with someone whose loyalties were as stable as the water in a river.
He didn’t say any of that though. Tommy wouldn’t understand, and he didn’t need to know. Wilbur would fix things for him. He would tell Tubbo about it all. He would reveal how truly temporary and destined to fail the fake stability they built was. He would reveal Tubbo’s true colors. He’d do it all for Tommy.
“Why would you go to therapy? You know what I think about therapy!” he huffed instead of saying all that. He didn’t even have to fake the indignance in his voice. He truly did not respect therapists.
They always tried to turn families against each other, blaming whoever raised their patients for all the problems in their life. And they always tried to make up stupid words like ‘trauma’ to describe people simply being too weak-willed for their own good.
Tommy huffed. “Puffy isn’t like that. Besides, the only reason you’re always hating on therapy is because they try to get you to work on your mental illnesses instead of encouraging them. You’re just salty they’re right Big Man” Tommy sounded confident again. His gaze was stern, but there was an underlying softness to it that wanted to be encouraging, but failed to be anything but pitying. Wilbur despised pity.
It was one of the reasons he and his father could never truly get along. His father always thought of him as helpless. Just a misunderstood soul destined to suffer from his own intellect. The personification of every struggling poet that ever lived.
He never understood that that was simply the role Wilbur liked to play in the narrative.
“Right. As if. Anyway, don’t let me distract you here. I just popped in to say ‘hi’, but my father is actually waiting for me at his house” he said. It was a plausible excuse. A believable lie. And Tommy didn’t question it for a second.
He just waved goodbye at Wilbur. There was a glint of relief in his eyes as he did so, that Wilbur didn’t like at all.
With renewed vigor, he marched straight for the mansion as soon as he was out of Tommy’s line of sight. He didn’t bother knocking, they didn’t lock their door anyway, and just let himself in.
He found Tubbo on the floor. He had marker all over his legs, arms, and face and looked utterly unamused as a young zombie pigman child kept on scribbling on him. It looked like Tubbo had tried to stop him from the many dots and lines on his palms and the two broken markers a couple of blocks away, but he clearly lost the war.
Wilbur would like to say he could sympathize, but he rarely was the one to handle Fundy when he got difficult. He was never good with capricious moods, they only irritated him, and he at least had the amount of restraint needed to offload that job instead of screaming at his child to shut the fuck up. Besides, Tommy was good with that stuff. He always got Fundy to calm down in no time.
Though, clearly, Fundy didn’t pay him that respect back, choosing to side with Schlatt against his own flesh and blood. And, sure, he claimed to be working as a spy last second, but he never had any reason to believe him on that. Not when it was far more likely that he simply recognized he was on the losing side of the war and found it could be an easy excuse to be accepted into Pogtopia’s ranks.
He wondered if Tommy with all his naive trust ever ended up forgiving his adopted nephew.
It didn’t matter anyway. If that ended up being an issue they’d deal with it as it came.
Tubbo had looked up once he heard him approach. He looked surprised and slightly defensive, but there was none of the palpable fear he got from Tommy. How peculiar. Tubbo had far more reasons to fear him, especially since his attachment to Tubbo started and ended with Tommy. Once Tubbo decided to backstab him it was all over.
“Wilbur. I didn’t think I’d see you like this again” Tubbo stated. His tone was detached and formal. To Wilbur, it implied that he hadn’t wanted to see him alive and strolling around freely either.
“Right. I’m here for a business visit actually” he casually sat on a chair right next to Tubbo, so he would tower over him. All the childish scribbles blemishing Tubbo’s skin made their difference in status even more apparent.
Wilbur was a leader. A general. A president.
Meanwhile, all Tubbo had achieved so far was masquerading as Wilbur with his hand-me-down presidential suit and relying on someone else’s wealth and good standing with Wilbur’s family to even get himself a place to live. The most notable feat he’d managed was getting back into Tommy’s good graces which, due to Tommy’s nature, wasn’t quite that impressive.
Wilbur’s reminder of their respective places mostly served to re-establish his authority as a trusted figure, so Tubbo wouldn’t doubt his claims. That was all of course. There was no pettiness or jealousy pushing him to act.
Tubbo grimaced when he sat, eyeing his dirt-stained trench coat with barely contained disgust.
“Right. Business. Let’s get to the point then”. Tubbo looked up, face still scrunched up in annoyance. His tone didn’t change at all, if anything he just sounded more impatient. As if he couldn’t wait to get Wilbur out of his ridiculously big mansion to go back to his faux-perfect life.
He clearly had changed quite a bit if Wilbur’s tactics left him that unaffected. Perhaps that change was what led to him throwing away his best friend without a second thought. Wilbur didn’t like this new Tubbo.
“I assume that, by now, you at least suspect that Tommy has been faking his amnesia” he didn’t give him the time to confirm if that was the case or not. He actually hoped it wasn’t. He hoped that his information was completely new to Tubbo, so he could see his genuine reaction, untainted by previous knowledge. “Well, I’m here to confirm that it is”.
Tubbo frowned for a moment, considering Wilbur’s words.
He was probably scrutinizing every suspicious moment he’d shared with Tommy. Every information that slipped out of his lips that he wasn’t supposed to know. Every expression that looked a bit too pained or scared for someone with only a few weeks of life. Wilbur was certain that he could find plenty. Deception had never been his younger brother’s strong suit.
Wilbur waited for some anger or betrayal. Then when those didn’t come he expected some questions to at least test the veracity of his accusations. When that didn’t come either he just waited for anything at all. Even one single hint to how big that discovery was.
Eventually, Tubbo just shrugged. “Alright, I’ll deal with that. Now, is there anything else? Because I’d like to get those cushions-” he pointed to the armchair Wilbur was sitting on “And burn them” he concluded with a bright smile. As if he hadn’t just defied an authority figure, something the Tubbo he knew never would have done.
He truly did prefer him as a yes man.
“That is all” he confirmed. As one last act of pettiness, he took his sweet time before getting up.
Tubbo stared at him the whole time in contempt.
He didn’t overstay his welcome after that. He knew that Tommy would be flocking back to him soon anyway. He’d probably be furious at first if Tubbo mentioned his snitching, but he’d get over it once he understood that it was all for his own good. Tommy always understood in the end, it was that hyper-empathy of his.
---
He ended up accepting his father’s offer of a room in his house.
He got the attic to himself. It was nice, bright, and spacious, and his father even agreed to install a big shower there for him, eager to satisfy any of his whimsy if it meant keeping him from spiraling back into the Minotaur he had to slay.
He just hung out there for a couple of days, waiting for the moment Tommy would inevitably come knocking. That moment never came.
The only person that came knocking at their door was Ranboo, and they were just there to hang out with Phil and Techno. Which, apparently, was a regular thing for them. Wilbur was forced to hang out with them too by his father.
Philza insisted that socializing would be good for him. He did not account for how insufferable Wilbur found Ranboo. He was such a nothing person. One of the non-confrontational types, not by choice but by lack of spine. He also seemed to lack any concrete ideal, though he couldn’t be certain of that because his father interrupted his questioning early on.
He did, however, learn that Ranboo was hanging out with his family less lately. “Well, we’ve been planning a new wedding ceremony now so Tommy can properly experience it too. It’s been fun” they admitted, eyes shining brightly as they spoke.
That information confused Wilbur even more. So Tubbo’s reaction to knowing everything about their current relationship was built on a lie was to marry Tommy? What was his angle with that?
He decided to dig a bit. Ranboo probably would spill everything, as he apparently struggled to remember what he was and was not supposed to say. Phil had told him about one time Ranboo accidentally told them all the launch codes for Tubbo’s nukes. Phil had been laughing as he told him the story as if handing the key to mass destruction weapons to known violent terrorists was nothing but a silly little mistake.
Personally, he thought of Ranboo as something akin to a parasitic worm. He slowly dug his way into people’s lives lowering their defenses a little at a time and sucking up everything they had to satiate his selfish need to be constantly liked.
They were a social parasite, and Wilbur’s family was far too socially and emotionally incompetent to notice. Though it was a bit of a surprise that Tommy hadn’t. With as optimistic and willing to give as he was, he’d still always been quite bright. Though maybe allying himself with someone like Ranboo had been more of a matter of desperation than choice. Perhaps they were his last chance at a peaceful future.
He put on a charming smile and angled his whole body toward Ranboo, so they’d know they had his undivided attention. “We’re invited I assume. Since we are Tommy’s family”.
Ranboo let out a nervous warble.
“What? Why would I want to see my protege marry the government? Again?” Techno protested. Of course, that’s what he focused on, completely oblivious to Wilbur’s plans.
“Well, they’ll need my blessing if they wanna marry Tommy. And I’m not willing to give them unless I see them all together at least once. The marriage ceremony wouldn’t be the best place to see that… but I imagine they’re all too busy with preparations to manage anything earlier, am I right Ranboo?” his eyes fixed on Ranboo’s at the end, and Ranboo started fidgeting even more.
He must have inherited the endermen’s typical dislike of eye contact. He had a surprising amount of traits for just being a half-and-half hybrid. It was honestly the first interesting thing Wilbur found about him.
“Well… we could invite them all over to dinner?” Phil proposed hesitantly. “Because I don’t think they’d want us at the marriage ceremony… what do you say Ranboo?”.
The amount of self-awareness Phil displayed there was a surprise. He’d never been the type to understand where he wasn’t wanted and when his advice wasn’t warranted. Technoblade was in a similar boat, but his anti-social tendencies tended to save him from most awkward situations.
Ranboo pulled out his memory book and jotted something down. Probably what Phil just asked so he could report back to Tubbo more accurately, as Wilbur assumed he was the one actually making the decisions. “I’ll let you know”.
They hung around a bit longer, enjoying some cake and some more idle chatter that Wilbur couldn’t be bothered to listen to. He’d already gotten what he wanted anyway. He didn’t excuse himself early just because his father kept giving him impossibly soft and proud looks and, as much as Wilbur wished he could say he didn’t care for them, he absorbed all of them like a sponge. His craving for validation after all this time thinking he was his father’s biggest disappointment was almost all-encompassing.
They sat around the table until the sun set, and then took a few more minutes to say their goodbyes.
Ranboo fit well with Phil and Techno. They were the perfect little brother that Techno always wanted. One that was easily malleable and not stubborn and headstrong as both Wilbur and Tommy had been. And, of course, they were so weak-willed and thoughtless that they’d never even think of questioning any of Techno’s ideals. They were also the perfect child for Phil for similar reasons. Though for him the ability to dote on Ranboo without complaint from them was definitely a factor too.
Wilbur didn’t like admitting loss often, but he’d definitely been beaten there. Ranboo was a great replacement. And, in what he came to understand was just a couple of years since his death and not the sixty years he’d experienced in Limbo, nonetheless. Perhaps that was part of the reason he hated them so much.
He was sure that the Tommy that was now would suggest he attend some therapy to unpack all of that, but that’s not what he needed. He just needed the family that mattered by his side. He needed his little brother and a fresh new start. He needed a worthy cause to fight for, a new foe to stand up against. He needed passion and ideals. He needed to be the exact opposite of everything that perfect Ranboo stood for.
For now, he’d start by wrecking that perfect little marriage they were organizing.
---
One week later he finally got to see Tommy again.
He kept himself from visiting Snowchester, as he didn’t want to give Tubbo any more reminders of who snitched to him in case he hadn’t already told Tommy. The least his name came up, the more likely it would be for Tommy to seek him out right after the falling out. The falling out that hadn’t happened yet for some reason.
It was obvious in the way they all interacted that the tension Wilbur hoped to create simply was not there.
Tommy introduced himself to Techno and Phil, and they both seemed uncomfortable with the whole thing, but not surprised. Clearly knowing about the amnesia. Well, the fake amnesia, though he’d be surprised if they picked up on any lie ever. What was weird about the whole thing though, was that Tubbo didn’t call Tommy out on his behavior. He just went along with it, explaining to Tommy who Phil and Techno used to be to him as if he was still convinced of Tommy’s lies even after Wilbur’s warning…
And yet he was so sure that Tubbo believed him.
He had seen it on his face during their talk. He saw the moment Tubbo realized he wasn’t lying. That unmistakable flash of recognition. It had lasted a fraction of a second but he was certain that it had been there.
He didn’t understand.
What had he miscalculated?
Had Tommy lied even more convincingly during whatever confrontation certainly already happened to cover his tracks? Was he really that desperate to stick around people who only wanted him around as this naive bumbling fool?
What was happening?
“We brought cake” Ranboo was saying. In the midst of his irritation at his plans being foiled Wilbur realized how grating he found his voice. It sounded somewhat similar to Techno’s albeit less monotone than his, so there was no real reason for him to despise it so much aside from his already-established hate for the teen.
He grit his teeth and smiled, thanking them as politely as he could without exploding for all the pretenses everyone was putting up.
Phil gave him a weird look as if he could tell something was up. He stepped forward to take the cake from Ranboo’s hands since Wilbur thanked him but didn’t move to grab it. Then, with one hand on Wilbur’s back, he started leading them all inside. “Thank you Ranboo. Well then, come in guys!” he sounded cheerful despite everything.
Probably another side effect of having his favorite child there.
“Not gonna lie, we didn’t really expect the invite…” Tubbo gave Wilbur a suspicious look as he said that. “What was all that spiel about Tommy needing your permission to get married? He’s not your property Soot” his last name sounded like an insult coming from Tubbo.
How he managed to infuse so much snark in everything he said, Wilbur didn’t know. It was a talent they shared. Perhaps taking part in raising Tubbo did leave behind some traces on him, even though Wilbur never did much towards it.
He met Tubbo when he was already older. Or, well, Tommy met him. Found him in a box at the side of the road apparently. Of course, quick to create attachments as Tommy was, he insisted on holding Tubbo’s hand tight until Phil signed the adoption papers so Tubbo would always be family no matter what.
Tommy himself had never been legally adopted, but nobody had the heart to point that little discrepancy out to him back then.
Guess that came back to bite Wilbur now that they were getting married.
“He is my little brother though. Someone needs to look out for him”. Not by blood, nor by law, but Tommy had always been the closest thing to family Wilbur had. Not his father, not the fridge that birthed him, nor even his father’s wife or Technoblade. All the people he’d known since birth had only ever felt like familiar strangers.
The only other one who ever managed to break his barriers down and worm his way into Wilbur’s heart had been Fundy. His precious little champion. The one he created a country for and who decided to stab him in the back with no remorse. What a mistake that one had been.
It’s clear that Tommy wanted to say something snarky back at that, but he bit his tongue instead. Clearly aware that his disputing anything Wilbur said would raise questions about his fake amnesia once more. Perhaps that was the way to go. Piss Tommy off so much he would be unable to keep his mouth shut.
Tubbo didn’t share those same worries. “He did that well enough on his own for the past two years” Wilbur was about to laugh at that, because, truly, Tommy hadn’t managed much since his death. He’d even followed him once, and he barely avoided doing so again ever since. He didn’t even learn to choose his alliances wisely, though, with Wilbur being gone, he couldn’t fault him for that. He had ran out of options. Tubbo didn’t let him even get a chuckle in though. “And before you make some stupid remark about how he didn’t do a good job of it; considering he had an obsessed dickhead out to get him and he’s still alive purely because of his own efforts, you better spare us. It’s more impressive than what you managed to pull Mr. Gotta Go Down With My Ship” he was panting and red from anger by the end.
Wilbur was unwillingly impressed.
He could tell that Techno was too. He had an eyebrow raised in surprise, and the side of his mouth was quirked up in a rare display of amusement.
Tommy’s cheeks were dusted pink, probably from the embarrassment of having someone else stand up for him. Usually, it was the other way around. Though it could also be because Ranboo was holding him up like a dirt block to soothe their own stress at the yelling.
Phil was the only one who looked mostly unaffected. Raising three children left him pretty indifferent when it came to arguments and yelling. He just clapped his hands, dragging everyone’s attention back to him, and smiled dangerously. “How about we all calm down and sit at the table before I get the belt?”.
They all shut up at that despite knowing that there was no real belt and no real threat. Phil could still be intimidating if he wanted. Even now that they were all full adults. It must have been his dad aura.
Of course, the lunch mostly consisted of potato-based dishes. You could take Technoblade away from the potato farms but he would find a way back to them somehow. Possibly through bloodshed. And, according to the legends, orphans would be involved.
He saw Techno slip some extra food on Tommy’s plate without even noticing. As if he’d simply done so out of habit.
Tommy smiled when he received it, and Wilbur realized only then that Tommy looked quite underfed. How had he not noticed before? Was he really so focused on liberating Tommy from the clutches of his traitorous friends that he hadn’t noticed he’d been struggling?
It appeared so.
He felt nauseous at the thought. It was unpleasant and it was closing up his throat. Guilt. It was guilt.
He hadn’t felt it so strongly since that day in the button room when Tommy and Quackity both stepped out of his way and stared at him expectantly. They both thought they’d die that day, he could tell. Tommy had been resigned to that fate for a long time by then. It was inevitable he’d be one of the first ones to perish since he lost two lives in one day for their independence, they had all tried to make peace with that knowledge. Still, Wilbur couldn’t help but hate himself knowing that Tommy hadn’t doubted even for a second that Wilbur would push that button knowing that would be it for both of them.
Quackity too. While he still had three lives at the time, maybe still did now, and was not gambling as much as they were, he didn’t run as many would have. He stayed. There was less resignation in his eyes though. More fear. He was hoping that Tommy had a plan in case Wilbur actually decided to go for it. He didn’t know his little brother very well.
Wilbur pitied him at the time. He didn’t feel guilty for putting Quackity through that heartache exactly, but it hadn’t felt great. He didn’t get along with the man, but he fully realized that he didn’t deserve that. Not after all the emotional abuse he’d already endured at Schlatt’s hands.
The first course went by in complete silence.
Not even Ranboo and Phil, who usually got very chatty around each other, dared try to break the tension in the room.
Tommy started nervously rocking his chair back and forth by the time the second dish was served. “Wil…?” he uttered hesitantly eventually. Wilbur looked up at him. “Do I have your blessing then?” and there it was again, that pleading tone. His eyes were watery, but Wilbur knew Tommy wouldn’t allow himself to cry. He never did. Not even as a kid.
It was either toxic masculinity or childhood trauma, and Wilbur was inclined to believe in a mix of the two.
He could not give in though. For Tommy’s good, he could not.
“Well, it depends. A good relationship is born from honesty. Have you been honest with Tubbo and Ranboo Tommy?” he prodded. He wanted to give Tommy a chance to come clean himself. Tubbo and Ranboo would undoubtedly react more favorably if he did.
People loved when others took accountability for their actions! It was a whole thing.
“He has” Tubbo was quick to answer with a sickly sweet smile in Wilbur’s direction. “There is nothing I don’t know about Tommy. So you can rest assured that we’re fine”.
Tommy looked down, guilt distorting his features. He nodded weakly along with Tubbo’s words, refusing to speak up for himself. He was probably aware he’d end up spilling the truth if he did.
It was frustrating for Wilbur.
He was trying to help Tommy. He was trying to get him out of the mess he’d created for himself. He was trying to pull him out of the quicksand of lies he’d foolishly dived head-first in before it could swallow him whole and leave nothing but a broken mess behind. Why couldn’t Tommy understand that it was for his own good?
“Cut them some slack mate. Even if it ends up being a mistake they’re still young. They have time to fix things” Phil cut in, in a rare moment of empathy. These moments were getting less rare lately. Perhaps it was Ranboo’s influence on him. Who knew that having kids could actually fix a person if the kid was the right one?
Just gotta keep producing miserable ones until you get it right apparently!
It was so irritating because Phil had never tried for him. He never tried to be understanding. He never tried to cut him a break. Never tried to lower his expectations and allow Wilbur to fail miserably when the consequences for it were minimal. And now that he finally decided to try it was for someone else. And it was against Wilbur too.
Wilbur slammed his hands on the table, frustration reaching a breaking point for him. “Tommy is lying about his amnesia Philza! This isn’t a simple lie, this is a fundamental one. Because it’s the whole foundation of their relationship. And because it blinds him from the fact that Tubbo’s and Ranboo’s affections are so fucking conditional that they’re gonna be out of there as soon as they properly realize!” he ranted. And it felt good to let that all out. To finally give the thoughts haunting his mind at all hours of the day and the night a voice.
He looked toward Tommy as soon as he was done. Eager to see the well-deserved anger and the pushback, but Tommy only looked petrified. His eyes were wide open and he was gripping the table so tightly that his knuckles turned completely white.
“Are you done throwing yourself a pity party?” Tubbo scoffed, utterly unimpressed by his rant. “We all knew that-” he tried to explain, only to be immediately interrupted by Ranboo.
“We did?!” they asked completely dumbfounded.
“Yeah Boo, we did. Tommy blurts out stuff he shouldn’t know constantly. It wasn’t hard to figure out. But it wasn’t your place to tell people, Wilbur. It was Tommy’s. And if you cared for him as much as you think you do you’d respect his agency on that” his gaze was hard, accusatory.
Wilbur didn’t know how to respond.
Because his whole thought process regarding this situation turned out to be completely wrong. Tubbo had been in the know the whole time. Ranboo apparently wasn’t, but Ranboo didn’t seem to know much of anything. Still though, even now that the truth was out in the open for everyone to see, neither of them left Tommy’s side.
Ranboo was actually right next to Tommy, fluffy tail wrapped around one of his wrists gently, trying to get him to let go of the table. They didn’t seem mad. Didn’t look like they just got their trust broken. They only looked concerned and incredibly confused, and the latter just seemed to be always par for the course with Ranboo.
“I don’t-” he stuttered. For once he genuinely had no words. What was all his eloquence worth if he couldn’t even explain his reasoning at such a crucial time? Perhaps he should have held his tongue this time. He always knew how sharp his words could be, and yet he never learned carefulness.
A barrage of questions started flooding his mind as he fell deeper and deeper into his panicked spiral. What would his father think of him now? Had he gone back to the destructive monster beyond saving from the day he died? What about Tommy? Would he forgive him? Would he understand?
There was a hand on his shoulder all of a sudden, and he had to force himself to focus only on that. He didn’t like touch. He only really indulged in it as a form of self-inflicted castigation for his past failings. But the pain was what he needed at that moment.
He took a few deep breaths, mind still stuck on the hand firmly on his shoulder. It was large, warm, and a bit callous. Probably Techno.
How unusual of his dad’s best friend. When had he learned to recognize the signs of a panic attack?
He remembered vaguely seeing something about it through Ghostbur’s eyes. He remembered Tommy in a turtle helmet in front of Techno’s house. His breathing was erratic, he was swaying on his feet from the too little oxygen his brain received. Techno was there.
Right.
They’d been friends too once. Family even.
Wilbur didn’t know what happened. Whatever it was, it must have been unpleasant, as his ghostly counterpart failed to relay it to him.
“I’m confused” Techno admitted. “Why keep this charade going? Especially since the government over there already knew. What was the point?”.
Tubbo rolled his eyes. He didn’t dare go on a tirade against Techno as well though. His newfound defiance still wasn’t enough to stand against him of all people. He just closed his mouth and shrugged in lieu of an answer.
“Come on mates, after you involved us in your drama we deserve to know” Phil piped up too. He didn’t really look upset by the whole situation either. It all went back to him already having four children in Wilbur’s opinion. He definitely dealt with a fair share of lies when Wilbur was a teenager and Tommy and Tubbo were children.
The only one who most likely never lied purposefully to him was Ranboo, and that was just because he had to know that, with his memory issues, he could not keep a story straight if he tried. Not that Tommy fared much better even with his memory intact.
Some people simply weren’t born to deceive.
Tommy finally spoke up. His voice was small and a bit wobbly still from his earlier panic. “I just wanted something for myself for once… I’ve given up so much over and over and over” he saw his father wind up to dispute that. Tommy did too. He shushed him with a death glare that would have made any lesser person recoil. “You wanted an answer. Listen”.
Phil nodded. Finally, he sat down again. Techno joined him soon after, and then, one by one, they all settled, ready to listen to what Tommy had to say.
“At the age of twelve I gave up two of my lives and my only real possessions for L’Manburg. I got exiled a few months after. I lived in a cave underground alone with Wilbur for almost two years. I had to sacrifice so much of what was left of my childhood in that cave just to keep Wilbur going” he looked at Wilbur, his eyes were soft. Wilbur didn’t feel like he deserved that leeway. Not after screwing with Tommy’s life yet again just minutes prior. “I don’t resent you for it. Puffy would probably say I’m allowed to, but I don’t. You needed someone and there was no one else there”.
“Techno was there” Tubbo pointed out unhelpfully.
Techno looked away. He knew fully well that he hadn’t helped. He had only exacerbated all pre-existing issues Wilbur had. Feeding into his destructive tendencies until they consumed him.
Phil looked surprised at that piece of information. He gave Techno a look that promised some more talks later, once they were alone. They’d achieve nothing with them. They’d always been each other’s echo chamber. Only ever agreeing and going along with what suited the other’s narrative. But at least he was willing to make an effort. Sometimes that was enough.
“Yeah…” Tommy sighed. “But Techno… he wasn’t good with people who stopped talking”. That was way more generous than how Wilbur would have put it. He could see it in Tubbo’s eyes that he agreed. “Regardless. We went to war, again. I gave up the presidency because I was told over and over that I couldn’t do it anyway. Wilbur was killed. I was… alone. I thought I could have some harmless fun like before, but Dream would never allow me that. I was exiled and, once again, I had to give up the safety and space to recover from the year of intense physical, emotional, and psychological abuse I found here, with Techno, for my country. Because I would never have been able to live with myself if I hadn’t done that sacrifice” he stops one moment to wipe at his eyes.
Wilbur hadn’t noticed until then that he’d been crying.
His hand twitched. He wanted to reach out, to wipe away those tears and coddle him as he did with Fundy when he was a young child. He doubted Tommy would have found much comfort in that now. He had changed so much and so had Wilbur.
They’d lived worlds apart for so long that they didn’t really know each other.
And yet, even now, he couldn’t help but think of Tommy as his only real family. He couldn’t help but think that he wanted to make an effort, he wanted to fix what he’d broken.
“You know, it’s kinda funny when you think about it: I gave away everything for my country. My discs, my home, my lives, every single shred of happiness I’ve ever had. And then I lived there only a few months at the start” he chuckles bitterly. Everyone else is silent. “Maybe it’s only funny to me”.
Tubbo scooted closer to Tommy with his chair, and Tommy immediately reached for his hand. Tubbo squeezed Tommy’s hand back softly. They looked at each other for a moment, and an entire silent conversation happened there. One that Wilbur wasn’t privy to.
He wondered when he’d lost that complicity.
Tommy smiled faintly. “I went to the prison a while ago to get some closure. I ended up being beaten to death. In my Limbo, I had to experience non-existence. I can’t really explain to you guys what it’s like being aware of every single atom of your body, and yet being unaware of your entirety. When I came back I genuinely couldn’t remember how to be at the start, I didn’t lie. But then… then I just thought… as myself I could never be selfish without repercussions. And I thought maybe… maybe if I stayed unaware I could get something. One thing. I thought Tubbo would never forgive my selfishness if he knew-” he couldn't finish that rambling, as Tubbo interrupted him with a burst of loud laughter.
“I wouldn’t forgive your selfishness? Tommy, I was fully on board with manipulating my amnesiac friend just to keep you by my side. Because I wanted you where I knew you were safe more than anything. Talk about selfishness… and then I found out you were lying, like, right after our first therapy session. And, once again, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to give you a reason to run. I have no legs to stand on here”. Wilbur couldn’t help but think that Tubbo was very nonchalant about his admission of attempted manipulation.
And yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to call either of them selfish.
Misguided seemed more accurate, but selfish? Was it truly selfish to want companionship after you’d been denied it for years? Or to want to keep your friend close to you out of a valid concern for their safety?
Wasn’t that what Wilbur had wanted too with his convoluted plan?
Wasn’t that just a basic human need?
“I’m such an idiot” Wilbur said, sagging back on his chair defeated. “All this time I thought I was doing something to protect Tommy, but I only fucked things up again”.
“Well… not exactly” Tommy said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Tommy got up. The corners of his mouth were curved upward in a tender smile. He sat down close to Wilbur, in that way he always appreciated. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to be soothed, if only for a moment, by another human’s warmth. By the warmth of his very own sunset.
“I don’t have to hide now. I probably still will with some people. There’s like, a whole cult out to get the old Tommy. Also Niki. And Jack. Probably more I’m not even aware of-” he rambled on, his list seemingly never-ending.
“Bruh, how’s making enemies the one thing you excel at?” Techno teased in a playful tone.
Tommy stuck his tongue out at him childishly.
“Anyway, before I was rudely interrupted I was saying that I’m glad I can be open with Tubbo and Ranboo. I’m glad to know I can still have them by my side. And I’m glad to know that, in your own fucked up Wilbur way, you were trying to look out for me too” Tommy concluded. He was smiling brighter than the sun now. All the fear and panic from earlier was gone, thankfully.
As it turned out, happiness really suited his little brother.
He should have known that, but he hadn’t seen a genuine smile from him in far too long. Well over sixty years for him at least.
Tubbo gave Wilbur a small warning glare. A silent ‘don’t fuck this up again’ that seemed almost like a temporary truce. Wilbur gave him a curt nod back. There was no way for them to truly go back to getting along. Tubbo wasn’t the easy-to-manipulate kid who would fall to any adult pressure Wilbur knew anymore. And it would take years for Wilbur to work on his possessiveness and jealousy issues if he ever decided to give that a try.
But for now. For Tommy. They could manage to be civil.
“So… does this mean we’re inviting them to the wedding too?” Ranboo asked hesitantly, already pulling out their Memory Book to jot down the answer.
“Absolutely not” Tommy and Tubbo instantly yelled in unison.
“This was an awful family reunion. I’m not doing this shit again for a good ten years” Tommy explained with an apologetic smile directed at the rest of them. “I love you guys, but you can be right pricks sometimes”.
“I don’t love you guys, I actually straight up hate two of you and despise the other one. I’m here entirely against my will, and nothing this evening changed my mind. Phil, Techno, I will only see you again at your funerals, I refuse to do anything before that. Wilbur, you’re on thin fucking ice, and I’m not banning you from my house altogether just because I know you and Tommy have an unhealthy fucked up codependency and it would kill both of you. Hope this helps” he explains it all with a sharp smile that shows off his teeth in some sort of primal animalistic threat.
Well, Wilbur counted his sentence as a victory.
In time, perhaps, Tubbo’s opinion would change. But for now, Wilbur decided he’d focus on himself as well. On bettering himself, and socializing, and doing all that alive people stuff he’d been denied for so long.
And he’d work on things with Tommy. Maybe get to know Ranboo a bit better beyond what his feelings of jealousy and inadequacy wanted him to see.
He would work on healing, and he knew Tommy had already started to as well.
And one day maybe their worlds would align again and they’d be truly happy. For once in his life, Wilbur looked forward to a faraway unplanned future, with no need for him to play a character in a narrative.
In the end, truth really did liberate them, both of them, even if it wasn’t quite in the way Wilbur predicted.
Notes:
And here we are!
I hope you guys enjoyed this little thing I made! Again, many thanks to LadyCatland because I would have stopped at the first chapter without her, and that would have left me incredibly disappointed in the ending. She's the one who gave me pretty much every idea here with Wilbur. So, yeah, go show her some love people! She wrote a couple of fics too.
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