Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy knows as soon as he hears a knock on the cabin door that his day is about to take a turn for the worse.

He’s curled into the arm of a sofa in the living room of Techno’s cabin, idly strumming some chords on Wilbur’s guitar. He’s not great at it by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s not a lot to do in the middle of the tundra. Besides, he kind of enjoys picking up new hobbies besides the subtle art of assassination his brother seems intent on teaching him. 

And then suddenly: a knock on the solid oak door, echoing hollowly throughout the room. Only four people ever come out this way; Techno picked this spot specifically for its terrible distance from anywhere civilized. Phil’s already upstairs, helping Techno with some redstone enchantment which bored Tommy out of his mind roughly ten minutes in. Ranboo and Tubbo always let him know when they’re on their way, usually asking Techno to escort them through the nether using methods he alone has been able to master. Wilbur is out finding himself, or whatever it is he’s doing now he’s been revived and given a fresh start— an activity that usually doesn’t lead him back home until after dinner.

Tommy’s hands stop abruptly over the guitar strings, frozen with indecision. Whoever’s at the door has come all this way with news, and news in the SMP is almost never good. With the exception of Skeppy and Bad’s wedding a few months ago, the only strange people who’ve shown up at Techno’s door either want to kill him or are in imminent danger of being killed.

(Some stupid, hardwired part of Tommy’s brain shouts that he’ll open the door to find a cold ceramic mask, tells him he needs to hide hide hide, a reflex from the weeks he spent hiding in this house after his exile, after… well, after everything. 

He tells the voice, very firmly, to shut up.)

Techno doesn’t seem to have heard the knock, still chattering on with Phil in the way he only does when he’s very, very focused on something. Tommy figures the chances of him snapping back into reality enough to realize they have a guest are slim and none, so he sets the guitar to the side and makes his way to the door. He grabs a pickaxe on the way, discarded haphazardly against the wall after some mining trip, just in case.

He stares at the door for another few seconds, flinching back despite himself when another knock comes. This is stupid. He’s being stupid, if whoever was on the other side wanted him dead they wouldn’t be asking permission, but he still can’t find it in himself to open it up. Phil said to ask if he needed anything— Tommy shakes the thought away. That was for stuff that mattered, not because his dumb useless brain won’t let him open a door.

He’s saved from making the decision, though, by two pairs of footsteps stomping their way down the stairs. “Someone’s at the door,” Tommy informs them, throwing the pickaxe to the side in a hasty attempt to look much more like a Certified Big Man than he currently feels. It doesn’t quite work, if the look on Phil’s face is any indication, but neither of them comment on it.

“We weren’t expecting anyone, were we?” Techno asks, and Tommy can tell from his brother’s tight grip on his sword that he’s not the only one expecting the worst from their unexpected guest.

“Hello?” comes a voice from through the door. “Uh… is this the right address? Tubbo gave it to me, so I figured… Anyway! Your horse is still here, so I’m sure someone’s home! This is Sam, by the way. You know, helped with the hotel?”

The three of them all relax minutely, and Phil swings open the door. “Sam! To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Uh,” says Sam. He looks nervous, his eyes darting between Technoblade’s protective stance and Tommy’s fidgeting hands and Phil’s grasp still on the handle of the door. In all the time Tommy has known him, even during the whole debacle with the blood vines, he’s always been— if not always confident, then at least assertive. Now, though, he looks horribly out of place, like he’s not sure he’s done the right thing. “Can I… come in? Please? I need to— talk to Tommy. About something.”

Phil looks at Tommy, who nods even as he feels the beginnings of fear coil in the pit of his stomach. So decidedly not good news, then. Sam goes through the motions of sitting on the couch, politely declining Phil’s offer of food, waiting for the other three to find their place on various chairs (or, in Techno’s case, standing ominously behind him). 

Once it becomes clear there’s no excuse for him to delay further, he wipes his hands against his pants and lays his cast-iron mask to the side. It’s nothing like when other people do it (like when he did it), Tommy thinks. Sam isn’t showing his face as a power play, but rather, to make sure they know his intentions. To put them all on an even field.

Sam takes a deep breath. “Tommy. As you know, I guard Dream in the prison. Make sure nothing goes wrong. Other people help, sure, but it’s my sole responsibility.” He opens his mouth, shuts it again. For a moment, Tommy thinks he’s come to apologize (again, for the hundredth time) about leaving him alone for weeks in that filthy cell, and almost preemptively tells him to shut up. “I spend a lot of time around Dream, as you might imagine.”

Something clenches in Tommy’s gut, afraid before his mind has figured out the reason it should be. No one who’s ever come to talk to him about Dream has wanted a pleasant fireside discussion. “Yeah?” he prompts when it becomes clear Sam is not going to elucidate on this point further.

“Are you—” He looks at Techno and Phil, then pointedly at Tommy. “I’m not sure you wouldn’t prefer me to bring this up in private.”

Tommy considers all of the things this could be ( he knows, he knows, he knows ). Considers the few things he hasn’t told his family. It could just be something about his time in exile, the damage done to his self worth, the way he used to stare at lava for a little too long, all the various and sundry ways he was made to feel less than human during his time on that beach. It could be something technical and entirely unrelated. It could be things his family is prepared to hear but Sam wants to make sure are being dealt with. 

Tommy clears his throat. “Tech… can stay. Phil— if you, I mean… if you don’t mind—” He doesn’t look up to see Phil’s wounded expression, just stares resolutely at the floor. If worst comes to worst, Tommy stands by his choice. He needs Techno here to keep him grounded, keep him logical, keep him fighting. He needs his brother to remain unfeeling and tactical if worst comes to worst.

(The truth: Technoblade has already seen him cry.)

“Tommy,” Sam says. His voice has softened by several degrees. There’s something new in his expression, dangerously close to pity, which makes Tommy want to lash out. He wants to break and kill and destroy until people see that he isn’t helpless, but instead he feels his breath catch in his chest as he sits and waits for Sam to continue. “Dream said— well, he’s been—”

“He fucking told you,” Tommy breathes, knowing he’s right from the way Sam’s face crumples. He digs his nails into the palms of his hands. “After all this time. He couldn’t even— let me have this, on my own terms.” He lets out a disbelieving, humorless laugh. “Who else knows?”

Sam’s eyes hold an apology. Shit, this is worse than he imagined. “He’s been telling whoever will listen. Some people don’t believe him, but L’manberg is a small town. I can’t keep him from having visitors forever. I’m trying to limit it to just essential personnel, but I—”

“Tubbo,” Tommy says, his voice cracking on the second syllable. No, no, this isn’t how it was supposed to go. “He doesn’t— I mean, did he—”

“No,” Sam says vehemently. “No, I’ve been… he knows something is wrong, and he knows it involves you, and he is going to find out. You know him. But he thinks it’s just…”

“Okay,” Technoblade says from behind them. Tommy jumps, tucking his hands into his pockets to hide the way they’re shaking. “You kicked Phil out, but I doubt he would be able to even gather anything from this. Would someone care to enlighten me?” His tone is aggressive, but his eyes look panicked. “What’s going on?”

Tommy’s jaw locks up; it feels like a bag of rocks is crushing his chest. “Tell him, Sam. Tell me, too. I want to know what, exactly, that fucking—” He takes a deep breath. “What Dream’s been saying about me.”

Sam looks like he wants to be anywhere in the world except in Techno’s living room, doing what Tommy asked of him at this exact moment, but he nods and exhales. “He wants to get out of prison and— ruin your life, it seems, so this is a pretty succinct way of doing both at once. He’s, uh, he’s saying that the only reason you wanted him in prison— spread lies about him, bribed people— is because you’re angry. That this is a personal problem, since— he’s saying that you two used to be—” Sam waves a helpless hand through the air, eyes silently begging Tommy. 

Anger flashes through him for a split second, over the fact that he still has to deal with this after all this time, over Sam and how he can’t even say the damn words, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. Tommy feels like he’s been hollowed out, like everything important inside of him was scraped out and he’s been left with only the raw imprint of himself. There should certainly be an emotion that he’s feeling about this, or maybe many emotions, but there’s just… blank space. “He’s saying I’m just mad ‘cause we fucked.”

Sam grimaces. “A crude way to phrase it but, in effect, yes.”

“What?” Techno says. His voice is low and dangerous. Tommy understands in moments like these why people are terrified of his brother. 

“Whoa, whoa, hey!” Sam says, voice barely registering over the rush of blood in Tommy’s ears. 

At some point, Technoblade picked up a netherite sword dripping with enchantments, which he now waves threateningly in Sam’s direction. “What? You’re going to try and stop me? You’re going to say that I— that he should’ve— that Tommy isn’t—” His voice breaks. Tommy registers, distantly, that it’s the most open display of emotion he’s ever seen from his brother.

“No! No, of course I’m not—” Sam scrubs a hand down his face. “Think about the consequences for two seconds! The man controls death. He’ll just respawn, and then we’ll be back to—”

Techno growls, somewhere deep in the back of his throat. “I’m just going to rough him up a little!”

“Technoblade,” Sam demands, “look me in the eyes right now, and tell me that if I let you into Dream’s prison cell, you aren’t going to immediately let him choke on his own blood.”

Tommy gasps out a breath, and they both whirl to face him. He whispers something, soft and strangled.

“What?” says Sam. His voice is strained. Both of the men in front of him, hands stained with more blood than Tommy can imagine, look uncharacteristically fragile.

“I wanted it,” Tommy whispers again. It sits heavy on his tongue, but it’s the truth, and he thinks they should know before he drags anyone else into his self-pitying bullshit. 

It hurts to say it; it hurts worse knowing that it’s Sam, who sends him out to pick flowers and makes him robots based off Animal Crossing characters and never pressures him to do anything besides exist, and Techno, who found him bloody and terrified in his basement, who gave him soup and potatoes and endless golden apples until he felt safe . They love him, both of them, and that makes this hurt so much more. 

There’s a moment of silence, like making your way to the top of a roller coaster before plummeting off the edge; Tommy takes it as his cue to plunge forward. “It’s not even— it’s not even the shittiest— plenty of bad things happened when I was in exile. That’s not— it doesn’t even make the top ten.”

This does not seem to reassure them. In fact, Sam looks vaguely like he’s going to throw up, and Technoblade looks even more like he might stab someone, if that’s even possible.

Tommy keeps going, flapping his hands vaguely through the air. “Like, when I died, objectively, it was. Much worse, I mean. Still have nightmares about that shit. But the rest of it? Like, when I was alone in exile with Dream? It wasn’t… I mean, like, it…” He huffs out a nervous laugh. “I asked for it, even. With my words and everything. After that first time.”

“It happened more than once?” Sam asks, voice low and gentle. Tommy doesn’t know what to do with it, with all the raw emotion contained in his green eyes, so he stares at the floor and goes back to attempting damage control. 

“I mean. It was a long time, innit? That I was in Logstedshire? And it’s not that bad, because he was nice, sometimes. He brought— y’know, he brought me food and things from L’manberg. And it was nice. To have a friend there. Not his fault I gave off so many mixed signals.” His reasoning sounds weak, even to his own ears. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince: them or himself. 

“It didn’t even affect—” Tommy cuts off in the middle of the sentence, mostly because he knows he can’t get away with that big of a lie. 

It affected him, in the way he won’t let Phil into his room anymore, the way he slept on the floor for the first few months of staying in Techno’s cabin instead of on the bed, the way Tubbo stares at him sometimes when people move too fast or come too close, the way he can’t wear his bandana anymore. The way Quackity found him sitting by the Prime Path one day and apologized to him, Sapnap holding his hand as if it was the last attachment he had to the rest of the world. 

(He waved them off with some half-hearted platitudes, some thanks and it couldn’t be helped and I’m glad it’s alright now. Tommy pretended, then, that he didn’t know what the apology was for, but the next time he noticed Karl having to usher Quackity away from a server-wide event when someone got too drunk or too loud or too angry— 

He thinks maybe he always knew.)

“Anyway,” Tommy says, realizing he’s been silent for maybe a beat too long, “it’s nothing to get worked up about.”

Techno lets out a low, pained noise. That, in and of itself, almost causes Tommy to break down. He’s a little surprised already, that he isn’t crying, but privately he thinks he may have forgotten how to. 

Everything is crashing down around him. Everyone is going to know, know just how much he belongs to Dream, know every dirty secret that he kept to himself for the sake of something like decency or self respect. He almost scoffs at how insane that idea sounds now. He should have known. He should have known that— that Dream would find new and inventive ways to ruin his entire life now that he had finally found something close to a happy ending— 

Tommy feels his breath catch. “No— no one was ever supposed to find out. He said— he asked me not to— Dream promised—”

“He lied,” Sam says. Tommy isn’t sure when Sam moved to sit next to him on the couch, but the grounding pressure next to him is nice. Despite that, though, he can’t find it in himself to lean over and close the distance, to admit weakness, to let them see how much he’s hurting. Hardwired survival instinct takes over, time and time again. “He lied about a lot of things, Tommy.”

“No,” Tommy says again. “No, it…” Because if Dream was lying about that— if it wasn’t something Tommy did, if it couldn’t have been prevented, if it was only Dream’s choice—

(Then there’s nothing to stop it from happening again.)

Tommy sucks in a deep breath, too much oxygen for his lungs to process at once; he almost chokes on it. It’s this final shame, this last straw, his body betraying him like it always fucking has, that does him in. 

“Tech,” he whispers, a childhood nickname he hasn’t used in years. 

As soon as the words leave his mouth, he’s being wrapped in strong arms, not in any danger, enveloped in the safe scent of his brother, something like the fireplace or damp earth. He can feel Sam’s hands hesitantly carding through his hair, calloused from all his work as a builder and Warden. 

“It’s okay,” Techno is saying, though the words of comfort sound foreign coming from his mouth. He’s always been better at action, violence, fluently speaking the language of blood. But there’s nothing to be done now except hold his little brother as he crumples into himself, mumbled apologies looping over and over. “It’s alright. I’m not mad.” A pause. A deep breath. “I love you.”

Tommy isn’t crying, but he can feel his whole body trembling. Nerves and adrenaline and gut-wrenching fear are all competing for the driver’s seat of his mind, and despite all of that, he can feel Sam and Techno next to him, trying their best, holding him close, protecting him. Despite how rare it is to hear Techno speak the words aloud, Tommy almost thinks this gesture is better than hearing I love you; always, always, to be protected by Sam and Technoblade is to be loved a million times over. 

Eventually, though time seems to pass blurry and skewed as he continues to bury his face into Techno’s chest, a hand cradling the back of his head, Tommy sits up. Scrubs at his eyes with the palms of his hands, gently presses two fingers to the pulse point on his chin. It’s a habit he picked up from Wilbur, a reminder that he’s here, that he’s alive. 

Tommy’s eyes remain fixed on the grain of the floorboard in front of them. There’s plenty of thoughts racing through his head, keeping his attention: They all know. They all pity me. I have to leave. I can’t leave. I can’t face them. I have to. All of them? Do all of them know? How much? Is that why Quackity knew? Or was I that obvious? Have I always been that obvious? Is there something wrong with me? Is that why Dream— 

“What the fuck am I going to do now?” Tommy says instead. His voice sounds raw and gritty. 

“I know you don’t want to,” Techno says, and Tommy can’t help the groan that escapes him. No good sentence ever starts with those words. “But Dad and Wil are outside, and they’re worried about you.” 

That snaps Tommy’s attention from the floor, his gaze going to Techno’s face. “ What? They’re here? How long have we been sitting here— fuck— did I just toss Phil out into the snow?” He can see the light from the porch window; it’s golden and hazy, an indicator of the setting sun outside. It gets dark fast in the tundra, but even Tommy knows it was a good two hours until dinner the last time he checked. 

Sam is sitting, one arm still draped protectively over Tommy, loose enough that he can easily move away if he chooses; Tommy’s so far into Techno’s personal space that it’s hard to tell whose limbs are whose. 

“It’s okay, Theseus,” Techno says. His voice isn’t— it’s not soft, Techno’s voice never gets soft, but it’s something eerily close to it. “It’s alright. I told Phil there was something we needed to deal with, so he’s been finishing up some tasks of his own. He’s a grown man. You’re not imposing on him, or whatever, by asking to have some space.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, and after another deep breath, “Okay.” There’s a long pause in which he relishes the touch around him, the way it doesn’t burn like a lot of the contact he’s used to. 

“Sam?” Tommy says. His voice is still a little shivery, like a string pulled taut, but it’s not quite as close to snapping as it was earlier. The shame is washing over him now, dark grey and bitter, waves overlapping as he thinks about the ramifications of this conversation. 

Sam snaps to attention as soon as he hears his name. “Hm?” 

“What did—” His voice breaks in the middle of the sentence; the other two politely pretend not to notice it. “When, uh.” Another deep breath. A lot of times, he wishes he could stop himself from talking; it’s odd, Tommy thinks, to be out of words in the moment when he needs them the most. “Whatever he told you, I’m sorry you had to hear it. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“What?” Sam sits up even straighter. “No, no. Hey. You don’t owe me any part of your story. I am here if you ever need someone to talk to, and I’m sure your brothers are too—” Here, he glances up at Techno, who is bristling with some unnameable emotion. “—but you don’t need to apologize for not telling me something personal, especially not something like this. I want you to be safe, and I want you to be able to get the support you need, but you never owe me anything you’re uncomfortable sharing.”

“Or anyone, for that matter!” Techno cuts in.

Sam nods solemnly. “Or anyone.”

“I’m not going to make you do a single thing,” Techno says. The underlying meaning is clear: No one is going to force you to do anything you don’t want to ever again, so help me God.

“Okay,” Tommy says. “Right.” He feels weak and shivery, more so than before. It’s probably shock or whatever, he thinks, making him feel like the walls are closing in. He would feel a lot more panicked if he had it in him to feel anything. The most he can muster is a vague sort of anger, which he assumes will probably grow stronger if he has to do anything with this problem at all besides shove it down into his subconscious and try not to think on it too hard. 

Which he is. Which he is going to have to do, because Phil and Wilbur are waiting for him outside. Because he doesn’t want them to have to hear this from Sam or Fundy or, heaven forbid, Dream. Because it’s his own fucking secret, the one that’s been sinking its teeth into the corner of his memories and nightmares for the past six months, making a home beneath his skin like some sort of burrowing insect. 

There’s a moment of silence in which the only sound is the faint ticking of a clock. “I need to head back,” Sam says, sounding apologetic. “There are— I have duties there, I’m sorry. About all of this. Call me if you need anything, either of you, alright?”

Techno thanks him in quiet murmurs; Tommy doesn’t think he can muster up the strength to listen to what’s being said, much less reply with niceties of his own. He misses the warmth of Techno next to him as soon as he stands up. The cold leather of the couch makes him feel dizzyingly alone. 

He doesn’t even feel like himself anymore. Tommy can’t put it into words, what exactly he’s lost. It isn’t safety; that was gone a long time ago, back in Pogtopia, back at the beginning of their great country which now lies in ruins. It isn’t love, because he still has plenty of it, no matter how hard he tries to avoid the fact. 

(Above all, Tommy is worried he’s lost every part of himself that mattered.)

Control, maybe? The ability to feel alright? The ability to sleep through the night? The ability to see himself as more than a collection of parts for someone to use in whatever way they want, regardless of how he feels about it, regardless of how much he screams, until his lungs feel raw, until it becomes painfully, searingly obvious that he’s alone here, in a ragged tent by a sea he keeps waking up in— the knowledge that no one is coming, that they’re somewhere else living life as they always have, and all he has is pain, heart-stopping pain and a pair of acid green eyes and a touch that burns?

It’s that. That emotion, the knowledge that he is capable of feeling that alone, which has taken something from him. 

Which is a lot to take in at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night, so he blinks twice and tries to come back to himself. Tries to deal with the issue at hand: Phil, right. His dad. And Wilbur. His… something important. 

That’s the downside, he thinks, of having a family that loves him so much. He’d rather die than make them sad, than be the reason for that pinched look Phil gets when he sees something that he designates in need of saving. Tommy understands, on some level, why Quackity decided to become something to fear rather than someone to pity. 

He feels, sometimes, like he’s missed a memo, like he’s not on the same page as everyone else, like they showed up for practice and he’s just supposed to play the game without it. There are things he wonders why someone didn’t explain to him, before he comes to realize that most people just— they just know how to do this, how to exist, how to get up each morning and eat the right amount of breakfast and go through the motions of life with minimal effort. 

But this conversation is going to hurt. The first one, the one about why he flinched back from loud noises, why he showed up in Technoblade’s basement after a year of no contact with a broken arm and a black eye— that wasn’t fun. It took weeks of cajoling and carefully dancing around each other for Tommy to tell his family anything. He figured it’d be the same, with this hurt: that he’d get sick of carrying it around with him all the time, reach a breaking point, tell them what happened and how he’s not sure why it’s affecting him like this.

But it hasn’t, and he kept pointedly pushing that out of his mind without telling them. Without telling anyone. The first discussion was out of necessity, as well; now Dream is in prison. (Tommy trusts Sam; he’s not going anywhere any time soon.) Besides, Dream hurt plenty of people on the server. Dream has been weaving in and out of scenes, manipulating everyone, killing and destroying and infecting them with whatever made him a monster to begin with. The whole SMP is effectively a Screwed Over By Dream Support Club, which made it much easier to admit that he was still affected by the violence and abuse of exile.

This is different. He doesn’t know why , doesn’t know why it hurts so much more, but it does. He had an opportunity to tell them before, and he didn’t, because he wants to cling to one last fucking lie. He was content to live like this for the rest of his life, without telling a soul, quietly moving on and becoming the bigger man and only crying in the shower about it once every couple days. This is going to wreck him, going to devastate everything he has worked so hard to build for himself here.

It’s going to shatter the illusion that Tommy’s anything but an utter disappointment. 

He can see it now, the way the whole family dynamic will change as soon as the words are out of his mouth. Techno is here, sure, and he knows, but he’s a warrior. He’s seen Tommy at his worst, just like he’s seen plenty of other men on the battlefield. He hates it, hates the unfairness of it, but he understands violence. Blood for the Blood God, and all that. He knows how to wield brutality very effectively, and as such he is intimately familiar with the effects of it. Tommy, however hesitantly, can handle Techno knowing what Dream did.

It’s Phil and Wilbur that are going to dislodge every single bone from his body with the sheer amount of compassion they carry around. Phil, the Angel of Death, has spent his whole life adopting whatever kid needed him without considering the consequences to himself. Even Wilbur, despite all his destruction and insanity and terror, has become something like he used to be, softened by the years and given a place to rest. Just a man with a passion for music and the desire to make the world better, brighter somehow. 

They’re going to wonder how they didn’t notice, how Tommy carried it with him all these months. They will ignore the effort Tommy has gone to, to make sure he takes up as much space as possible, pleases everyone he can, keeps talking in an endless stream with joke after joke. He can’t drown when he’s laughing. He can’t die when he’s the protagonist. 

There will be no trust, just an overbearing sense that he’s being treated like a child, like he can’t care for himself. Like he hasn’t taken care of himself for the past sixteen years. He just— fuck, he’ll handle this, just like he handled everything else: without any help from the adults in his life. 

This is also about the moment he realizes he’s been quiet for a worryingly long time, frozen staring at his hands with his thoughts racing a mile a minute. There’s a long, dark scar that spans the length of his forearm, and it took him months to stop keeping it wrapped. The rest of his scars remind him of survival, of fire and gunpowder and a burning nation. Those memories catch in his throat sometimes, but this one— 

It reminds him of being helpless. 

Tubbo draws over it sometimes, with an ink pen, weird little doodles and scribbles until it can’t be seen anymore. Tubbo can tell he doesn’t like it, without being told why, without needing to ask, because he’s fantastic like that. And fuck, Tubbo, he’s going to have to—

“How am I going to tell Tubbo? How am I going to— I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this,” Tommy says, pulling one hand through his curls with a bit too much force. He’s distantly aware that he’s panicking, that his breath is short, that he’s falling and about to hit the ground hard. 

“Hey, hey. It’s alright,” Techno says, sitting next to him and carefully placing Tommy’s hand on his chest. “Like we practiced, right? Keep breathing, same as me, in and out. Okay?”

After a few minutes of this, Tommy feels himself yanked back from the brink of a panic attack, though privately he thinks this must be achieved by virtue of Techno being a miracle worker. “With me?” Techno asks, and Tommy nods.

Techno, ever practical, dives right back into problem-solving. “We can call them in and wait until the morning, or however long you’d like. Phil can go back and stay at his place in L’manburg. Or I can tell them, if you don’t think you can handle it. Whatever you want. Whatever needs to happen, I’m in your corner, Theseus.” He cups Tommy’s face with one hand, a gesture that’s almost overwhelmingly full of comfort. Combined with the nickname, it’s almost enough to make Tommy start sobbing, if he wasn’t currently halfway detached from his body.

It’s going to be Tommy’s life before this conversation, and his life after. Even— even when it— even after exile, after everything else, things didn’t change. He could avoid Dream, and it was like the whole thing went away. He could relax with his family and feel, for a brief moment, as if none of it had ever happened. It never affected the rest of Tommy’s life, because he treated those nights as a parasite, as a tumor to be excised, as blood-red vines wrapping around the back of his mind and keeping it captive, a thing to be kept entirely and wholly separate from the rest of him. 

It never affected the rest of Tommy’s life, because he never fucking let it. 

But, he realizes bitterly, everyone already knows. He can’t possibly keep this under wraps. Whatever you want, Techno assured him, and what Tommy would like most is to ignore it for the rest of his life, but that isn’t an option anymore. Dream took away his choice, because that’s what he does to Tommy, over and over again in a million little ways. It’s the final push of a cornered animal, realizing it’s trapped and destroying itself in an attempt to escape. 

Dream’s in a cage, and Dream is going down, and Dream is going to do whatever he can to drag them all to hell with him, fingertips bloody and eyes wild. And it worked, Tommy thinks— the most infuriating part of all this is how nicely it worked. Even now, even chained up, even miles away behind feet upon feet of unbreakable obsidian, Dream is still just as capable as he’s always been. He’s still found a way to push his fingers into the soft spots of Tommy and twist. 

But it’s— Tommy’s not there, not anymore. He’s here, safe at home, arms wrapped around his older brother, hands balled into fists and clutching the soft cotton fabric of his shirt. Techno is terrifying and vengeful and bloodthirsty. Tommy knows this, and he also knows that Techno can’t stand tags in his clothing, that he holds a proper funeral when one of his thousands of dogs die. 

“I don’t want to see him again,” Tommy blurts out. There's a beat of silence, then, “Dream,” he clarifies, in case there was any doubt. 

Techno stares at him, expression slightly confused, and Tommy realizes he hasn’t been expressing any of his thought process aloud. He doesn’t know how to elaborate, exactly, so he settles for, “I never want to go back to the prison. I never want to talk to him. I’m— fuckin’, I’m done, right. He doesn’t get to control this anymore.”

“Okay,” Techno affirms. Though he still has that same expression, confusion mixed with mild concern, he understands that this is something important, something he ought to be listening to. “You'll never see him again, then. You— that’s your choice. You get to make that call, and I— well, personally, I think it’s a smart decision.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Technosoft, Tommy thinks, and almost lets out a wildly inappropriate burst of laughter. 

“Good. That settles that, then,” Tommy says, and silence descends once more. Techno waits, patient and careful, for his next decision. 

Above it all, above everything else rushing through his head in a terrified storm, he’s tired of lying. He's tired of being afraid. And he— he wants— he thinks he wants to stop carrying this alone. He thinks it sounds nice, almost, under all the primal fear and adrenaline, to have someone else know. On his terms. In his own words, not whatever fucked up concoction Dream is spreading. 

This is a part of love, he thinks— to choose who you hand the knife to, to choose who you turn your back to. He’s so scared there’s no way to describe it properly, base instinct and physical sensation and a million scenarios of ways this could backfire. He doesn’t want his family to leave. He doesn’t think he could survive it, again— being alone. 

“You’ll be here the whole time,” Tommy says, not looking up at Techno. “All of it. In case anything goes wrong.”

Techno hesitates, as if he wants to say something else, something comforting and useless like nothing will go wrong, but instead he just nods. “Always.”

“And you aren’t mad,” Tommy says. He knows what his brother looks like when he gets mad, knows what the answer will be, but he’s having a little bit of trouble making his mind get with the program.

“Never,” Techno confirms, tugging his cape securely around Tommy’s shoulders. “There’s not a single thing to be mad at you about.”

“Okay,” Tommy says, then, again, “Okay.” He swallows, spit dragging its way down his dry throat. “Tell— could you tell Dad and Wil to come in?”

Techno nods again. “D'you want to do this right now?”

Tommy thinks for a moment, but he knows that any time spent delaying the inevitable will be worse to bear than the actual discussion. “Yeah. I think— yeah. That would be best.”

Techno stands up, slow and predictable, allowing time for Tommy to tug him back down if need be. Tommy doesn’t, folding his hands into his lap so his nails can’t dig into his arms out of instinct. 

“As soon as you need to leave, you’re allowed,” Techno reminds him. “This is on your terms, Tommy.”

“Right, right, you’ve said all that shit already,” Tommy says. The words come out stilted and flat, void of any real heat. 

Techno reaches out. The door swings open.

Chapter Text

He’s not sure what changed; he just knows with a nagging certainty in the back of his mind that something has.

Ranboo, who is nothing if not adept at ignoring feelings he doesn’t want to have, doesn’t think about it too much. 

It’s not like anything happened. Plenty of people don’t like being touched, especially after involvement in war. It doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes, when Phil puts a hand on his shoulder without announcing his presence, Ranboo flinches in a full-body way that he can’t recall doing before the events of the last year. It’s probably just because he’s part enderman, the way he can’t stand eye contact or fast motion, the way he freezes up over certain things and his useless brain refuses to tell him why. It's probably nothing.

He sits there, night after sleepless night, and tries to imagine what could have happened. It doesn’t get him very far. He gets flashes of emotion (anger fear stopstopstop), but as far as he knows, they’re all just the product of an overactive imagination. He doesn’t have any concrete memories, any proof, anyone who could have— done this to him. He just has several detached memories, a swirl of blinding feelings, and no answers. 

Eventually, he concludes that it’s easier not to worry. He’s just looking for attention. Surely, if something happened, he would remember it. (You forgot about so much. There’s no way to trust yourself. There’s no way to be certain. Why can’t you be normal?) If Techno hugs him, and his hand ends up a little too close to resting on Ranboo’s hip, no one cares if he moves Techno’s arm over his shoulders instead. It’s fine. It’s whatever. 

(So why can’t you stop thinking about it?)

No one in L’manberg, or what remains of its people and devastated land, is good at keeping secrets. 

When whispers go around and Tommy gets a little louder and angrier for a few days, when Tubbo visits Wilbur and then refuses to leave their house in Snowchester for much longer than strictly necessary, when Sam increases security around the prison, when Phil tries to discreetly ask him if he ever noticed anything off when Dream talked to him— 

Well, Ranboo isn’t an idiot. He can put two and two together. He knows what happened to Tommy, even though he still hasn’t mustered up the courage to talk to him about it, and he knows now that he was never safe. That there was someone manipulating him the entire time, capable of doing… something like that. 

(He doesn’t want to talk to Tommy about it, in all honesty. He’s afraid that some part of it will be too familiar.)

So, now there’s someone he could blame, and the thought makes him feel guilty deep in the marrow of his bones and the pit of his stomach. (You’re making this about yourself. You’re doing this for attention. You aren’t even sure anything happened. Nothing happened. There’s just something wrong with you, and you’re trying to blame it on someone else.)

Whatever horrible things Dream did were done to Tommy, not Ranboo. He has to keep reminding himself of this. It’s enough that Dream had Ranboo in his pocket the way he did, enough that Dream preyed on what was left of his sanity and sent him into a downward spiral. That should be enough to get pity from anyone, if that’s what he’s looking for. He doesn’t have to go making up stories to himself. 

Even if he was around Dream alone a lot. Even if his mind always found a way to let him know about the things that really mattered. Even if the thought of gaining attention for this makes his whole body go cold. Even if he looked through his journal sometimes only to find missing pages and— 

It’s fine. 

Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, it’ll become the truth.

Ranboo can't stand it. It's like picking at an old scab, unable to let it heal, prodding the same wound over and over in hopes of healing.

He visits Dream in prison.

The whole place is terrible, obsidian walls and strength-draining potions and windowless cells. He dresses in his favorite three piece suit and tells Techno he’s going to go see Tubbo before asking Sam if he can visit the prisoner. That’s how they always refer to Dream: the prisoner. As if calling the monster by name might give it more power, might allow it a chance to escape.

As the curtain of lava parts, Ranboo begins to think that maybe he should have had a plan in mind before showing up here. A script, maybe. He’s not sure what answers he’s hoping to find. “Dream,” he tries. His voice cracks terribly in the middle of the sentence, so he tries again. Damn puberty. “Dream, I want to ask you something.”

Dream looks a lot worse than the last time Ranboo encountered him (at the other end of Tommy’s sword). His hair is long and matted, and the edges of his stupid mask are beginning to chip. Ranboo feels chills run down his spine as he notices Dream’s nails, bitten to the quick. 

“Oh, well.” Dream fixes his gaze on the wall, the ceiling, the threadbare sheet on his cot. “I think I’m busy today. Sorry.”

Ranboo thinks about all the strong people he’s known, of how Technoblade would march in and handle this, of how Puffy would speak without a waver in her voice. He’s here to ask a simple question (though it’s quite possibly the most complicated thing he’s ever done, isn’t it), so he clears his throat again and shoves his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “What the hell did you do to Tommy?”

There must be some part of the sentence that gives him away, or maybe Dream is too good at reading people, or maybe Dream is just too good at reading him, because his eyes narrow. A moment of excruciating silence passes as Dream observes him from behind the mask. He speaks slowly, as if he’s afraid to scare Ranboo off before going in for the kill. “Nothing he didn’t want, but I think you already knew that.”

Bile churns in the back of Ranboo’s throat. No matter what answer he gets today... he worked with Dream once, he trusted the monster in front of him—

Dream folds his hands together in his lap. He doesn’t move forward, but Ranboo finds himself unable to resist the urge to take a step back. “Did you really come all this way just to ask about Tommy? After all this time?”

Ranboo gapes at him. “You were— how can you sit here and just— he’s my friend—“

Dream shrugs, cold and composed. “I figured you’d have a more… personal vendetta.” 

Ranboo freezes in place like a deer stuck in a pair of headlights. He feels pinned to the spot, unable to move, like Dream can see right down to his cells and has deemed them unworthy. “You—“ he starts weakly. “Of course I’m upset, you bastard. You manipulated me for months. You made me think I couldn’t trust my own—“

“I may have influenced a few of your choices,” Dream says. He sounds too smug; Ranboo’s missed a step somewhere in this dance, but he's unable to locate quite where things went wrong. “But you’re not asking me about those, are you? You’re asking about Tommy.” He rests his chin in his hands and observes Ranboo for a moment, before slowly, slowly moving one hand towards his mask and pulling it down. “Why?”

Despite Ranboo having no memory of ever seeing behind Dream’s mask, he’s not surprised by the way he looks. Somehow, though, the move destroys any notion Ranboo might have possessed that he holds the upper hand here. “I just—“ he starts, shoulders hunching in. Yeah, a script was definitely a good idea. “I wanted to ask… to know— there are some things—“

“Oh,” Dream says. His expression is tight and sympathetic, like the look one would give to a kitten trying to wander into the road. “Oh, you want to know if I did that to you.” An incredulous laugh bubbles up from his throat, and Ranboo can feel his face flushing, his shoulders drawing tighter together. “You think— you think anyone wants to fuck you?”

Ranboo hisses in a breath at how easily he says it, as if it’s not the most horrifying way he could have responded. “I think that you got drunk with power, and that you thrive off of manipulating people—” 

“How do you know?” Dream says. He’s having fun now, playing with his food once he’s sure it can’t escape. The thought makes Ranboo sick to his stomach, head spinning in a way entirely unrelated to the heat of the lava behind him. “You’re going to come in here and accuse me of this— what are you talking about?”

“I…” Ranboo’s words remain trapped behind the lump in his throat. He feels like a child, being chastised by his parents for doing something stupid. Like he’s a disappointment. This was a terrible idea. He should have told someone where he was going. He should have—  

Dream sneers at him; even though Ranboo stands several feet over Dream, he feels smaller than ever. “It’s like you want people to think you’re pathetic! The only tragedy here is your desperate need for attention.”

Something flashes against the back of his eyes, white hot and scalding. It’s a memory, or the imprint of one, or something that might be a memory or might just be wishful thinking— Ranboo can’t consider it, can barely breathe, doesn’t know why his brain is providing him with the distinct sound of what his voice would sound like, sobbing and begging for Dream to stop. It’s not a memory— Dream’s telling him it isn’t, he’s being stupid, but his chest feels tight and he’s— 

“I’m sorry you think something happened to you, truly I am,” Dream says, his words dripping with insincerity. “But you can’t pin this one on me.” He gazes down at the floor with an air of affected nonchalance. “Statistically, it’s more likely that it was Phil.”

Ranboo’s heart crashes desperately against his ribs. Does he know? Does he really know? “No," Ranboo says, then again, "No. He wouldn’t— I’m not— they would never—” 

Dream shrugs. “It’s always who you least expect, isn’t it? At least, that’s what they say.”

Ranboo shakes his head, trying to stop the thunderstorm inside his chest from taking over. “It wasn’t. He hasn’t— tried anything. Ever. He’s kind, he’s not— he isn’t like you.”

Dream lifts one shoulder calmly. “It sounds like I’m not the one you have to convince here.”

There’s a pause. The only sound in the small jail cell is the sound of Ranboo’s ragged breathing. This isn’t how things were supposed to go. He’s the one in control here, the one who’s going to walk away when everything is said and done, not Dream, so why does he feel so scared—  

Dream smiles at him, regarding him from a distance. The expression looks wrong on his face. “Not that I wouldn’t have taken the chance. I get why Phil keeps you around. And probably Techno, too.”

He squeezes his eyes together. There’s not enough oxygen in his lungs, the room, the whole world. “Shut up.”

Dream looks him up and down. Ranboo suddenly feels like three layers of clothing is far from enough. ”I mean, you’re tall, lankier than Tommy, probably good at screaming—“

“Sam!” Ranboo shouts at the ceiling, turning firmly towards the door despite how little he likes turning his back to Dream. “I want to leave! Now!”

Dream laughs. “Yeah, that’s what Tommy said, too, when you blew up the prison and trapped him in here. We had a lot of fun, Tommy and I. Ah, I’m sad it’s over. I’m sure you’re sad you never got a chance to—”

Ranboo stops listening, marching out of the cell without rising to the other’s taunts. Dream's words ring in Ranboo’s ears, even as the lava parts and he rushes through, even as he makes his way out of the prison without looking in Sam’s direction. The persistent voice in the back of his head now sounds less like himself and more like the man he left behind to rot.

You are making yourself into a tragedy.

Ranboo must talk to Sam. Or… he’s pretty sure he does. He had to have, because he ends up at Technoblade’s cabin. 

So, Sam sends him there, probably. He gives him gentle, simple instructions, something stupid that he urgently needs delivered to Techno. It’s a flimsy excuse, but Ranboo is in no condition to respond, much less see through the white lie.

(In hindsight, Sam probably knows. Ranboo doesn’t dwell on this fact, for fear of it eating him alive.)

He’s not entirely sure what’s happening. His arms and legs seem to have gone numb, and he can’t stop shaking, even though he’s sitting in front of the fire. Thoughts filter through his mind half-formed and hazy, none stopping long enough to make any permanent impact. 

Technoblade tried talking to him at some point, and dimly he registers that the man must be worried about his lack of response, but Ranboo is tired. There’s no energy left to worry about how he looks, or whether someone else figures out how pathetic he is. There’s not much of anything left, or at least, anything he recognizes as being himself. Someone else is occupying the space, something else, a great and yawning void masquerading as a person. His ears continue ringing. He still can’t feel his hands, but somehow he’s aware that they’re shaking. Weird. That’s never happened before. Or maybe it has; who is he to say?

Maybe, Techno will finally realize he’s not worth the trouble. Maybe Techno will send Ranboo back out into the cold, and he can finally— he’ll lie there until the snow covers him, and he’ll be able to— 

A gasp bubbles out of him at the incomplete thought. It’s not a sob, because that would require enough emotion to be crying, and he doesn’t feel anything. It’s just a small, choked-off sound, echoing in his ears as the closest thing he can muster to horror settles over him. Guilt and dread settle in the pit of his stomach. This is his fault his fault his fault— 

Techno murmurs something, voice low and trying its best to be soothing. It’s not really working, but Ranboo appreciates the effort. There are hands on his shoulders, though he didn’t hear Techno approach, and suddenly he’s being lifted into the air. He kicks out for a moment, struggling in vain, but Techno’s voice breaks through the static in his mind. 

“It’s alright. I’ve got you, it’s okay. You don’t have to do anything. No one’s going to hurt you.” Ranboo is pretty sure most of those are lies, but he relaxes slowly in Techno’s grasp. He’s being carried like a child, all six feet of him, a rather impressive accomplishment. It’s warmer in the man's arms, despite his continual shivering, so he buries his face into the fur lining of Techno’s cape. It smells like woodsmoke and iron. It smells like his family. It smells safe. 

They must have made their way up the stairs at some point, because Ranboo is distantly aware that they’re in Techno’s bedroom, a space he has been explicitly banned from entering on his previous visits. Techno is very particular about things being in a certain order, about his space remaining his own, about concepts like privacy and autonomy. Ranboo fixes his eyes on a slightly singed portrait of Techno as a child, lovingly framed and nailed on the wall. It seems too personal, out of character for a bloodthirsty warrior. 

Ranboo is so engulfed by this line of thinking that he barely registers being laid down on the bed. Techno is still talking, and Ranboo can hear him now, but none of his words have any meaning. He curls tighter into himself, chest heaving in and out as he tries to suck in a breath. He tries desperately to ground himself, and then it’s— well, it’s like one moment he’s floating somewhere outside of his body, no longer its inhabitant as much as its spectator, and— and then he’s crashing into his body, all too aware of every single thing happening around him.

Every muscle in his body tenses. There are hands on his wrist. He is himself again, he is present, and he does not want to be because someone is touching him. Everything registers at once: the rough fabric of the sheets against his back, the dryness of his mouth, the uncontrollable tremor wracking his entire body. Techno, frustrated, snapping at him to stop moving.

He’s not wearing a shirt. Ranboo has no idea when that happened. The last he checked, he was in a three piece suit, but his jacket is draped over the chair pushed into Techno’s giant mahogany desk. No one else is in the house, no one else is coming, they’re alone and— Techno is running a hand across his chest. 

I get why they keep you around.

His need to get away get out don’t touch me stop becomes overwhelming, and before he knows it, he’s on the floor and trying desperately to suck breath into his unrelenting lungs. A litany of pleas is falling from his mouth before he can even consider halting them. “Stop. Please, I’m sorry, just don’t— I don’t want you to, please—” 

“Ranboo?” Techno says. His voice is soft, and so is his touch, and Ranboo wishes he would just make it hurt. At least then he could stop feeling so conflicted about the whole thing.

“What?” Techno says, in a horrified whisper, and Ranboo realizes with dawning horror that he’s been speaking out loud. “No, Ranboo, I’m not— I just wanted to—” He takes a deep breath, in and out. “You’re injured.”

Ranboo glances down numbly at his ribs and registers the mottled purple bruising across one of them, blood running from crescent shaped indentations he thinks might have been accidentally self inflicted. “Oh.”

Techno’s hand hovers uselessly near him, but it doesn’t move any closer. “I told you I was going to check your cuts, but I don’t think you heard me. I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

Ranboo frowns, gaze still fixed on the floor. Why is he apologizing? Ranboo wonders, and it must show on his face, because Techno sucks in a breath.

“I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to. Ever.” Techno’s voice is fierce. “I’m not going to hit you, I’m not going to touch you if you ask me not to, and especially not—” His voice shakes, which is weird, because Techno isn’t afraid of anything. And yet here he is, looking at Ranboo as if he’s liable to break at any second, and Ranboo realizes with sudden wonder that this may not be an incorrect assumption. “—not anything sexual. That’s fucking disgusting. No adult should be asking that of you.”

“Oh.” Ranboo shakes his head. “Right. Of course you weren’t— I’m sorry, I should have known you would never hurt me. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Techno says. “I’m not mad. It was a battlefield impulse to help you when you were hurt, and I didn’t even think about it being…” He tilts his head, suddenly, and looks at Ranboo like he’s trying to see straight through him, like the pieces of a puzzle finally clicked together in his brain. Ranboo schools his expression into something halfway normal and prays Techno doesn’t recognize it from living with Tommy.

Techno continues to look at him, voice practiced and gentle. “Ranboo, can you tell me what just happened?”

“Had a panic attack.” It comes out more monotone than he was aiming for, so he clears his throat and tries again. “Happens quite a bit. I have a whole room for it, dunno if you’ve noticed.” Which, he’s not sure that the emotion he was trying to infuse in his voice was sarcasm, exactly, but at least it’s one of the emotions. 

“Ranboo,” Techno says. He’s staring a few feet behind him, which is the closest thing they can get to eye contact while keeping Ranboo comfortable. Stupid enderman genes. “You know that wasn't what I meant, don’t you?” His voice isn’t prying, not pushing the other to answer, but it's clear he can see through Ranboo’s bullshit from a mile away. "Can you tell me when this started?"

“I don’t remember,” Ranboo says. And that’s— that’s usually the truth. As with most things in his life, he really doesn’t remember when this started happening. But— 

But, he’s been thinking about this for a long time now, and he thinks— it was definitely— 

“That seemed… different than how I've seen you react in the past,” Techno says. He’s hesitant, now, a little less sure of himself. Ranboo isn’t sure how he feels in moments like these, seeing a man feared by entire nations, awkward and fumbling for words, all so that he doesn’t hurt Ranboo. 

The least Ranboo can do is be honest with him. And maybe, just maybe, he wants a little help figuring this out.

“A… a while,” he admits. “A year, maybe? Two?”

Techno sucks in a breath. “You didn’t tell anyone.”

“I don’t know if it’s different,” Ranboo says, though it doesn’t come out as convincing as he wants.

“Did something… cause you to start feeling this way?” Like people were going to try and hurt you sexually hangs unspoken in the air. Dream’s words ring heavy, somewhere in the back of Ranboo's mind. “Did— did someone do somethin’ to you?” 

Terror must flash across Ranboo's face, because Techno takes a step back. “You might not wanna tell me. I know, I know that. But, I just— I think it’s important. I want to make sure all of you are safe. Tubbo. Drista. Michael.” Something flashes across his eyes, brief and miserable. “Tommy.”

Ranboo stares at him for a moment, presses his lips together.

“It wasn’t—” The rest of the sentence catches in Techno’s throat. “Ranboo,” he says, kneeling down on the floor, putting one hand close enough to Ranboo that it’s comforting without being confining. “I really, really need you to be honest with me here. I know it’s scary, I know you feel like no one’s going to stand by you. But I want you to know that no matter what you tell me, I believe you. I will help you. I am in your corner.” He slides down the wall until he’s fully sitting on the floor, words reassuring and calm and enough to make Ranboo let out a small sob.

“It doesn’t matter how close I am to that person, alright? I know you, kid. You wouldn’t just lie about someone— about something like this. So, I need you to understand all that before I ask you,” he concludes, “did someone I know hurt you?” There’s something brutal simmering behind Techno’s eyes, and Ranboo is overcome with a dizzying wave of emotion. “I need— I want honesty, Ranboo. If— if Phil hurt you, if he ever made you uncomfortable in any way—” 

Ranboo winces, then. It’s just— Dream’s words are still fresh in the back of his mind, combined with the fact that he doesn’t know, he can’t be sure, can never really tell who hurt him and who didn’t. Phil’s never done a thing, as far as Ranboo knows, besides support him and love him and give him a place to call home. It makes some new emotion churn in his stomach, though, plants a creeping seed of doubt insidiously in the back of his mind. He could have. He could have. 

Ranboo shuts that down at its source fairly quickly; it’s no different from his usual paranoia, in most regards. He recognizes bullshit (read: intrusive thoughts) when he sees it. Then, despite his best efforts, his mind is off, racing down another avenue of thought. Because Techno was going to— he, he trusted Ranboo, wanted to listen to him and support him, and— 

Even if it was Phil. Even if it was the man he’d known for centuries, the only one he’d trusted with his life in battles since before Ranboo was alive. If it was true, Techno was willing to cut all ties and drop every bit of that history the moment Ranboo gave the word. The amount of complete and utter trust, of raw protection, slams into Ranboo like a brick wall. 

Techno, blissfully unaware of this inner turmoil, misinterprets the wince by a mile. “Right. Okay.” Rage settles on his face, pure and unfiltered. Ranboo cringes back even more, mostly out of reflex. It’s not a coincidence he got the nickname Blood God; Techno’s anger is a terrifying thing to behold. He can almost taste the copper in the air, sprayed across the walls, dripping from his fingertips. Ranboo is very grateful to be on the list of those he protects. 

“No,” Ranboo says, his voice finally working. “No, no no no, it wasn’t— It wasn’t Phil.”

Techno’s brows knit together; he’s almost worked himself up into a standing position. “Kid—”

“That’s not what I meant,” Ranboo says, continuing to shake his head. “Phil’s never done anything bad to me, I swear—”

Techno cuts him off. “You don’t have to protect him. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you—”

“Techno, you aren’t listening to me,” Ranboo says, sudden irritation lining his words. Techno sits back down, thoroughly chastened. 

There’s a moment’s pause. “Sorry,” Techno says. “You’re right. I said I’d support you no matter what the answer was, and then I didn’t.” 

“It’s alright,” Ranboo says, his voice thin. There’s a pause where neither of them move, both content to sit with the silence. He knows Techno is waiting on him to say something, and he’s got absolutely no clue how to say it.

“I’m not…” he starts. The words get stuck in his throat, refusing to come out, and he coughs a few times before attempting to start again.

He grits out, “I’m not sure.” Techno nods at him, expression one of pure encouragement. “It’s not that I feel like you’re not going to believe me,” he continues, slow and careful. “It’s that there’s nothing to believe. ”

“Okay,” Techno says, giving Ranboo his undivided attention. “Okay, so talk to me. If you don’t remember it, how do you know? What is it like?”

Techno doesn’t mean anything by it, but it’s a question he’s been dreading. 

He knows it in the way a space inside of him opened up and began to ache. He knows it in every time he wakes up from a nightmare he can’t quite place, in every day that touch becomes overwhelming, in how something crucial inside of him seems to have splintered off into jagged bits and now he’s attempting to put them back together on his own. He knows it in the way some memories won't click into place, in the way he hears about certain things and realizes he knows how that feels, in the way his chest gets tight and his vision gets blurry and his mind keeps doing its best to convince him that he’s made the whole thing up.

He knows the words are true in the way he’s spent months desperately trying to unknow them.

Ranboo waits for more questions to come, but Techno just tucks his knees under his chin and sits patiently.

With this encouragement, he takes a deep breath, in and out, before forging onwards. “Like— like, everyone has holes in their memories, right? It’s natural to forget things as you grow up. Phil, he’s been alive for centuries. There’s no way he remembers more than a highlight reel. And it’s not— it isn’t—“ His voice grows thin and reedy. “It’s not written down anywhere. If it were important, I would’ve written it down. I would have.”

Techno opens his mouth, shuts it again, seemingly trying to find the right words. Ranboo hits the ground with his knuckles once, then twice, trying to get the nervous energy out of his body. It doesn’t help quite as much as he’d like it to.

“How did no one ever find out?” Ranboo says, his voice on the verge of breaking. “I was— if it hurt me so badly, why did no one else see what I was dealing with?” He presses his forehead against his knee for a moment and tries to remember how to breathe.

“Your memory,” comes Techno’s voice, “tends to shut things out to protect you. That’s somethin’ we already know.”

“It shuts out good things, too!” Ranboo protests into his knees. “And it— it keeps plenty of terrible things, so I don’t, I don’t understand, how the thing is picking and choosing at random. I don’t know how to be certain that anything like— like that ever happened to me.”

“I don’t think,” Techno says, tone slow and measured, like he’s trying to make sure the words come out right, “that it matters, exactly.”

At that, Ranboo squints over at him, mouth tugging down into a frown. “What?”

“It’s not…” Techno shifts so that he’s sitting criss-cross. “Like, your body isn’t choosing what level of trauma to respond to. Maybe— maybe Dream took advantage of you, okay. That is within the realm of possibility, given… everything else. It could’ve happened, and your brain could’ve just shut it out. There were so many other bad things going on, maybe it just locked that whole aspect away so you could survive the rest of it.”

He holds up a second finger. “Maybe you remember it someday— maybe it fades in gradually, or maybe something triggers it— or maybe you never remember it at all. That doesn’t change what you think happened, or what you know about yourself and your body.”

“Or maybe someone else hurt you,” he continues. With each new word, Ranboo untenses, just a little. “Not even someone we know, just— just someone. Sometime in your past, before the rest of us came along, or maybe they came through town and went on their way. Maybe Dream, for once in his miserable life, is telling the truth, but something still happened to you.”

“You don’t remember what happened outside of bits and pieces. You might never remember, and I am so, so sorry you have to deal with that fear. But… maybe it doesn’t matter that he— or she, or whoever—” He sucks in a deep breath, weighing his words. “It might not matter if they touched you, or showed you something inappropriate, or went even further than that.” Techno looks like he might be sick, even as he continues on.

“Whatever happened, however extreme people would consider it— that doesn’t matter. It could just be, knowing what we know now about Dream, that being vulnerable around him for a long time made you uncomfortable. It set your fight or flight response on edge. Even if he never tried anything, and if you never understood why he made you feel this way,” he concludes, “it can still affect you. Your experience doesn’t have to be traumatic enough before you can consider yourself a survivor. This isn’t Bedwars. There isn’t some leaderboard for pain.”

“What matters is…” He gestures to the room around them. “All of this. What we’re dealing with now. How that unknown event is affecting your life right now. It sounds like the way you’re processing this is… really similar to the way I’ve seen people process sexual assault. So, if you feel like this, and the things survivors use to cope benefit you— there is no shame in that. You don’t have to be sure of what happened to you before you can start lettin' yourself heal from it.”

Ranboo can feel the sting of tears, but Techno doesn't tell him to hold them in, doesn’t tell him to save them for more important things. Techno just lets him cry, trying to stop the water from touching his skin, cradling the boy’s face into his cape. 

“Who doesn’t—” Ranboo gasps out. “Who doesn’t remember their own—“ 

Techno has no reply. They sit like that for a while, Ranboo curled into a ball in Techno’s lap, two ships tethered to each other on the ocean of wood floors. Once Ranboo no longer feels like he’s going to shake apart, he shudders one final time before wrenching his face out of its place buried in Techno’s chest. 

There’s a long moment of silence. Techno waits; Ranboo almost lets out another sob at being given this small measure of control. “Can I stay here tonight?” Ranboo says finally, his voice small. 

Techno frowns, just slightly, and Ranboo takes that as a signal to plunge ahead. He cannot handle being alone in his dirt shack right now. “I can make it up to you later, I promise. I just— I just don’t want to be alone, and I can go sleep outside if I have to, that’s okay, or I can clean—”

“No,” Techno says firmly, taking one of Ranboo’s hands in his. “No, Ranboo. You’re not going to sleep outside, kid. I’m sorry anyone ever made you feel that way. I always want you to stay here, and especially right now, after such a hard day. Alright?" He pulls both of them up until they're standing, Ranboo still leaning heavily on him. "I can get you some blankets, and you can take the couch, or you can steal the cot downstairs. I’m going to make some soup. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” Ranboo exhales. “Yeah, okay.” And, to his surprise, it does.

Chapter Text

As soon as Wilbur and Phil step inside, shaking the snow off their boots and jackets, Tommy realizes how they must feel— completely frozen out of their own house for hours, only to come back in and find him shivering underneath Techno’s cape.

“Hey, Dad,” Tommy says, instead of literally anything else he needs to say. He just needs a few moments to breathe. He just needs a second to pretend this isn’t going to happen before he has to go back to being strong. “Big Dubs. How was the, uh, roaming the woods like a pretentious shit?”

“Big talk coming from a child,” Wilbur shoots back, but there’s no heat to it. His eyes look worried, crows’ feet at the corners. Tommy doesn’t know when his brother started to look so old. 

“So, Sam came by earlier to talk with you about something, and you wanted to share it with Dad and Wil,” Techno prompts. 

Tommy suppresses a wince at that; he’s trying to play the Cool, Calm, and Composed Big Man card. But Techno never calls him Dad, always Phil or Philza or, on the occasion he’s managed to monumentally piss Technoblade off, Philza Fuckin’ Minecraft. In the fourteen or so years Tommy’s lived with them, Techno has never called him anything else, until now. 

When Tommy glances up at Phil, he knows he’s not the only one who’s noticed Techno’s words and the weight behind them. He locks eyes with his father, just for a second, and Phil looks at him with so much love. So much worry. 

That’s the moment Tommy realizes how much this is going to hurt. 

Because Phil is so good. Phil never hit him, never let him go hungry, never told him he was stupid when his mind just wouldn’t let something go, when— after exile— he needed reassurance over and over that yes, it’s okay to ask for more and no, that wasn’t normal and it’s over now, that was just a bad dream, you’re here with me. 

Phil said he would always have a home here. He said there was nothing Tommy could do to make Phil stop loving him. He said that however badly Tommy fucked up, he could talk to him about it, and they would find a way to fix it together. 

And Tommy wanted that. He wanted safety and trust and home, so he made himself easier to handle. He doesn’t know if he can live without it now. He doesn’t know what to do without the warm love he’s come to expect, free of stipulations or repercussions. Without Phil asking for anything in return.

(Dream always asked for something in return.)

Tommy never wanted it to come to this, to find out whether or not I love you was truly unconditional. 

The moment passes, and he looks up at Phil. Something clicks. Some neurons fire in Tommy’s brain, and he can’t look into Phil’s eyes for a moment longer, because Phil knows. Tommy doesn’t know how he’s figured it out, or how long he’s known, or what he saw on Tommy’s face that told him, but Phil looks so softly devastated that he’s sure of it. He can make whatever excuses he needs to, but Phil knows what happened, and Tommy knows that he knows.

They already know. There isn’t a point in lying anymore; it’s just going to make him come across as untrustworthy.

And it’s not like he hasn’t wanted to talk about it. It’s not like he hasn’t been trying, every single fucking day since the day it happened, to let all of this spill from his mouth. To let it drip to the ground like bile, excising this foreign poison from his body.

“Okay,” Phil says, so soft and gentle that Tommy almost starts crying. “Let’s sit down, okay? C’mon. Let’s all sit down and then we can talk about this, if you want. You get to take the lead, Tommy. We’re just worried about you. That’s all.”

They sit; Tommy sits. There’s nothing else he can do. He wraps his arms around Wilbur, and for once, the touch doesn’t burn. It’s good and solid and there, even though he’s embarrassed— no, that’s not the right word. He’s not embarrassed. There’s a solid wall of pure fucking shame that’s driving a stake into his heart. 

“Would you like to elaborate on what we’re having a conversation about, Tommy?” Phil says. It feels like God in Eden, asking Adam why he’s hiding as if he doesn’t know. His dad is trying so hard, trying to let Tommy tell his story on his own terms, but Tommy doesn’t fucking want to. He buries his face a little further into Wilbur’s chest. There’s a long pause. His whole body is tense; Wilbur rubs a hand over his shoulder blades.

“Um,” Tommy tries, finally tearing his face away from Wilbur (gentle, warm, safe). “Uh, maybe we need to talk because I… because I haven’t been doing very good lately? And, um, you’re worried that maybe this is— I mean, that it’s… something serious?”

“Mm,” Phil says, neither agreement nor disapproval. When it becomes clear Tommy’s done talking for the moment, he continues. “I’ve always let you boys come to me with whatever you’re going through. And— and I never want to force you to talk about anything before you’re ready. But I also never, ever want any of you to feel unsupported. Alright? I’m here for you. We’re all here for each other.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, breakable and much too quiet. He bites down on his bottom lip, tears he didn’t think he was capable of pricking at the corner of his eyes. Stupid. Stupid. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” Techno reminds him. Above him, he feels Wilbur nod. “We just want you to know you can talk to us, okay? We love you so, so much, and we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I—” Tommy swallows hard and tries not to think of the view from the top of a tall, tall tower. His voice is betraying him, as much as he’s mentally snapped at people for not being able to just say the fucking word. “I mean. Sam came by today because he— Well. I mean, he wanted to, y’know, talk about Dream, and the way he—“ His full body is shaking now, face flushed. “Uh, I don’t—”

“You don’t have to say it,” Wilbur says, his voice soft and earnest. “We don’t have to hear it out loud.”

“I need to!” Tommy snaps, loud and frustrated. It would pack more of a sting if his voice wasn’t wavering like a scared fucking child. “When we were in, um, when I was gone— in, in exile, I just— and, um—”

His throat is dry as sandpaper, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth, and he can feel the hands moving around him, on him, inside him. His breath catches on a sob. “Dream raped me,” he whispers.

The words explode over the house, silently decimating it, in widened eyes and covered mouths and soft inhales.

“We don’t need to know anything else,” Wilbur says from beside him, voice soft. “I believe you. We believe you.”

”Break,” Tommy chokes out, suddenly shoving away from Wilbur. A rule Phil’s always implemented, in discussions and arguments and everything in between. “I need a break.”

He runs on shaky legs into the kitchen, drops heavily into the chair, and shoves air in and out of his lungs the way Puffy always tells him to. After a few minutes, his heart stops trying to escape from his chest, and— like a man facing his executioner— he trudges back into the living room. Maybe he should give himself more time, but each minute spent dreading the next is making the whole thing become a loop of terribleness ad infinitum, and he just wants this day over with.

After he returns and retakes his seat, there’s a moment of awkward, unbearable, untenable silence, and then, “Why didn’t you tell us?” Phil says. His voice cracks halfway through. It makes Tommy bite his lip harder, burying his face once again into the soft fabric of his brother’s shirt. 

Millions of truths flash through Tommy’s mind. I didn’t want you to think I was weak. I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t want to admit it out loud. I tried to say it so many times because it was eating me from the inside out but as soon as I said it, I could just imagine the way you would look at me— dissecting each joke, each movement, each bad day.

I didn’t want every interaction I had to be colored by the worst parts of my life. I wanted to be more than this. I wanted you to still be proud of me. I am sick of being treated like an open wound. I am more than what is missing from myself. I am sick of being viewed as an absence.

Instead, he shakes his head desperately. “I didn’t want you to worry,” he gets out. “I didn’t— I, I love you.”

Phil makes a wounded noise at the words, and then he’s got his arms around Tommy. “I love you. I want to help you with this. I knew something was going on, but I didn’t say anything, because I just— I thought…” He shakes his head. “That one’s on me. I’m sorry that I missed it, and I’m sorry you felt like I would judge you, but I’m here for you now. Whatever you need, okay? Regret isn’t going to change a thing, and I know that.”

Tommy shakes his head more insistently, with the meager amount of power his body still possesses. “It’s not because I didn’t love you. I need you to know that.” He rests his head gently against Phil’s shoulder. “It’s because I loved you so much. And I—”

Tommy’s breath hitches, breaking into watery hiccups. “And I was so scared. Everything— My life was going back to normal. I didn’t want to break it all just because I couldn’t be. And I don’t want it to make things weird. It isn’t going to, alright, Dad?” he says, looking up with a sudden fire in his eyes.

Even as he says it, even as he begs the universe for this one small thing, he knows it will not be granted to him. Still, he pushes on. “It was just another form of violence. It didn’t, like, change who I am,” he continues, even though he’s not sure that’s quite true. “I’m exactly the same person I’ve always been, and Dream’s mediocre dick does not have the ability to take that away.”

Wilbur makes a high, wounded noise, and okay— not the time for joking, decidedly not the time to make a joke like that, but it’s all he knows how to do. It doesn’t have to hurt this much if he can just keep people laughing. Tommy feels at a loss, exposed, open and raw in ways that were trained out of him years ago.

So, they talk about it. They talk about how they can help, and what Tommy needs from them, and how much they love him (over and over, in every way they know how to say it, they tell him how much they love him, how much he is loved). They talk about other things, too, when the whole terrible mess of it gets too much to bear— inside jokes and dumb tangents and half-hearted goofs. 

Only an hour has passed before Tommy’s adrenaline runs low and the feeling of I need to do this turns into I don’t want to do this anymore, and they haven’t even talked about it, about what actually happened, but the offer’s there. The offer’s open, the next day and forever after. 

Tommy can’t build Rome in a day, and he can’t make any of this better on his own, but he thinks…

He thinks this might not always hurt as much. He might not feel the terrible crushing weight of this forever, always on the backburner of his mind, like it has been every day for the past two years.

Maybe. Maybe. 

The most bizarre part of talking to Tommy’s family about his trauma isn’t even the conversation itself. It’s the days afterward. 

Tommy excuses himself to go to bed that night and sits on the ground for a while, thinking about what happened, what this means. The next day, he wakes up before sunrise.

It hurts. Honestly, it might just be distance making him a little numb, but he kind of thinks this part hurts worse than exile ever did. As soon as he opens his eyes that second morning, he experiences four seconds of sleep-addled bliss before the reality of the situation slams into him like a freight train.

They know. They know. His whole family knows about Dream, and there’s no way he can go back and live in a world where that isn’t the case. All of his muscles tense; his heart slams against his ribs like a scared rabbit. This sucks. This sucks. This sucks.

“This sucks,” Tommy says out loud into the empty room, emphatically, just to make sure he can still speak.

He doesn’t come out of his room until well after lunchtime, stumbling into the kitchen with bags below his eyes. Phil’s in there, because of course he is, putting away some clean dishes, and Tommy works around him to grab a bagel from the counter. He pretends he does not notice that Phil’s face is red and puffy.

They’re both trying so, so hard not to break it, whatever it is, because they want to go back to normal. But it seems nothing will ever be normal again, because he’s the same Tommy he’s been for two years now, but he’s an entirely new person to Phil, all of his actions reframed and realigned through the lens of the worst moments of his life. 

(This day is the beginning of a long, long string of days involving what Puffy calls attempts at healthy family interactions and Tommy calls being forced to talk about his feelings like a little bitch.)

The day after he tells his family, both because he can’t stand to be alone with it and because he figures he might as well rip the whole band-aid off at once, he sends Tubbo a borderline incoherent message consisting of the phrase ‘emergency beest friend meeting code Red’.

(He can’t lose Tubbo. He can’t, no matter what it takes, no matter what he has to become.)

Tommy gets it out through grit teeth, no emotion in his voice. Short, simple sentences. A clinical, undetailed evaluation of what has happened these past few days. 

Tubbo breathes in, breathes out. “I want to know what’s going on with you,” he says finally. His voice is devoid of every hint of pity, and Tommy suddenly loves him more fiercely than he has in years (an impressive feat to manage). 

“It is not a burden to me, or whatever it is you’re thinking, because I love you— I want to be here for you. You helped me through my hardest times, and you told me over and over it was just what best friends do.” Tubbo looks at him. Tommy doesn’t meet his eyes, and Tubbo doesn’t push him. “So let it be my turn. Okay?”

Tommy lets out a low, guttural groan and collapses against the grass beneath him. 

“Okay, big man?” Tubbo repeats, the words slanted with sarcasm in their regular comforting way.

“Fantastic,” Tommy says, half-breathless. His stomach seems to think he’s just run a marathon. “Better than, even. Let’s go commit some crimes.”

Tubbo gives him a toothy grin, hair flopping into his eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Tommy doesn’t want him here. 

In terms of how well people hide their thoughts on a scale from Technoblade to Ghostbur, Tommy definitely leans towards the more transparent end of the spectrum. Which is why Ranboo is well aware he doesn’t want him here, and Tommy knows Ranboo knows he’s not welcome, and Technoblade is making them sit together at the dinner table and act civil, like the absolute bastard he is. 

“Can you pass me the salt?” Ranboo says, a temporary lapse in judgement making him believe that perhaps Tommy could be polite. 

Tommy pushes the salt shaker further away without looking in his direction. 

“Boys,” Techno says sharply. He’s sitting between the two of them in a vain attempt to keep the peace. 

“I resent being included in that,” Ranboo says, because he does. He’s not the one acting like a child here. 

“Ranboo,” Techno says. There’s a warning in his voice, but Ranboo has known him long enough that it doesn’t even register any alarm bells in his head. Techno isn’t going to hurt him— Techno isn’t going to do anything, save for glare at him half-heartedly and huff in frustration. 

“What?” says Ranboo, a petulant whine creeping into his voice. In his defense, when he asked to spend the night at Techno’s, he didn’t sign up for a war of passive-aggression whilst trying to eat his potatoes. “I’m not even doing anything! I just asked for the salt, and Tommy decided to—“

Tommy frowns at him, something sharp and trained into cruelty. “Oh, Tommy decided, eh? Tommy decided to stop being nice to the person who waited until he was dead to steal his best friend—“

Ranboo grits his teeth, willing his jaw to stay attached, willing his voice to stay human. He stands, palms flat on the table, but he’s not sure if he plans to fight or run. “I didn’t steal anything! Snowchester was a—“ 

A what? An escape? A pipe dream? A memory? Something of all three, maybe. 

Tommy is out of his seat now, body tensed. Like the hammer of a gun drawn back, like the string of a bow drawn. “Oh, Tommy, how could you? Tommy, why can’t you just play nice with the people who treat you like a fucking—“

“Tommy,” Techno says. There’s something firmer in it, and both of them take a step back from the table. Tommy’s chest heaves up and down; something wild stirs in his eyes. Ranboo thinks, briefly, of looking in a mirror. 

The silence only lasts a moment; something in Tommy’s face sets, and he looks Ranboo in the eyes before he can glance away. “How rude of me, obviously, to not make small talk about the weather and the news with the person who blew up the prison and helped Dream MURDER ME.”

Ranboo’s face is hot, anger seeping into every part of his body. His ears are ringing. Your fault your fault your fault. “I didn’t mean to. You know that I—“

“Well, I didn’t mean to blow up Sapnap’s house, but I still got fucking exiled, didn’t I?” Tommy says, and there’s something brittle and wrong about the way he says it that stops Ranboo from spitting out his next retort. 

In the instant it takes Ranboo to hesitate, Techno slams his hand down on the table. “Boys!”

Both of them flinch back. A practiced dance, a remembered routine. The placing of a grass block. The breaking of a child. 

“Sorry,” Techno says, and he looks like he means it, eyes gone all squinty and sad. “Force of habit. Now, can we all just sit down?” 

Tommy looks at Ranboo for a moment, something like curiosity on his face, before he huffs in frustration. “Whatever,” he bites out. Ranboo is struck by the uncomfortable sensation of being perceived. 

“Let’s address this maturely,” Techno says. He’s stoic and matter-of-fact, addressing them as War General Techno and not Idiot Older Brother Nerd Techno. There is a problem to be fixed, and they are going to fix it, one way or another. 

Which— to be honest— Ranboo prefers in these scenarios. At least he’s not looking at Ranboo like a kicked puppy anymore. 

“I’ve never seen you address anything maturely in your life,” Tommy bites out. “I was nice to Tubbo once and you blew up an entire nation about it.”

“Phil’s having a bad effect on me,” Techno says, deadpan. “Ranboo, would you like to tell me why you’re upset?”

Ranboo gapes at him.

“Humor me,” Techno says mildly. 

Ranboo crosses his arms. Whatever. Whatever. “Fine. I’m upset because Tommy keeps acting like— like an asshole.” He spits the word out, venom lacing each syllable. He’s just so tired of having enemies come from his own home. “Even though I’ve never done anything to him.”

“Good,” Techno says. Against his will, Ranboo flushes at the praise. “Tommy?”

“This is bullshit,” Tommy grumbles. Ranboo gestures to Techno, as if to say, See? 

Techno pointedly ignores him. “You’re really going to let Ranboo have the last word? Just like that?”

Every muscle in Tommy’s body clenches tighter, coils and winds in a way that has to be painful. His eyes narrow into slits. “He’s a fucking—“

Techno interrupts, firm, no room for arguing. He really should have gone into babysitting, Ranboo thinks. “I’m. Upset. Because?”

Tommy groans, crossing his arms over his chest and hugging them hard to himself. Ranboo finds himself mirroring the gesture, so he shoves his hands into the pockets of his suit jacket to prevent it. “I’m upset because he’s a fucking idiot,” Tommy grits out. 

Ranboo opens his mouth to shoot back a reply, but Techno gives him a death glare before turning his attention back to Tommy. “Elaborate,” he says evenly. 

“He—“ Tommy gulps in a breath. ”Well, Ranboo thinks he can blame whatever bad shit he did on Dream, and that absolves him of all the blame. Just because he was— manipulated, gaslighted, whatever— he can’t just—“ Tommy puts his head in his hands and takes another deep breath. In through his nose, out through his mouth. His shoulders don’t shake, but it’s something close to it. 

Ranboo opens his mouth— though even he’s not sure whether it’s to gloat or to comfort— but Techno discreetly gestures for him to stay silent. 

When Tommy speaks again a few moments later, it’s fractionally calmer. “I’m upset because Ranboo won’t own up to anything. I think— I think, uh, Dream probably, y’know.” He waves a hand through the air, broad and all-encompassing. …Tired. Exhausted, just like Ranboo feels. 

“Messed something up, inside of me,” he continues. “That was probably important. And you don’t see me blaming all my poor decisions on it. I mean, hell, all of L’manburg thinks of me when they see Dream now.” He says the man’s name with a different inflection than the rest of the words, Ranboo notices. There’s a pause right before and right after it, as if he can’t stand to have the word touch the rest of the sentence. 

“Just poor little Tommy, all scared and alone and breakable. It would be so fucking easy for me to play the victim card, but I prefer to be in control of my own life, thanks.” He’s trying to make them uncomfortable now, to throw everyone else off so he can win. To get out of an unpleasant conversation by guilting the other party into ending it. This would work on anyone else; Techno tenses next to him, eyes uncertain. They’re treading uncharted waters. 

“Uh,” Techno fumbles. “Well—“

Sudden anger crackles under his skin. Ranboo scoffs, the sound harsh and echoing. He’s fucking charted them. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. “What is your problem? You’re acting like you’re so much better than me for— for ignoring everything that happened? Is that it? That doesn’t give you the upper hand! It just means Dream ruined both of our lives, and you’re mad at me for not blaming myself!”

“Ranboo,” Techno says. Less of an admonition, more of a question. But Ranboo is too far in to stop now, poisonous anger still flooding his system. He can feel his eyes glow the slightest hint of purple. 

“I’m not trying to steal Tubbo, I’m trying to be happy,” Ranboo says, some bitter part of him relishing the way Tommy’s eyes widen, “because heaven knows it’s hard enough for me to feel safe. And just because you want to— to keep wallowing in it,” he spits, “to keep telling yourself that everything Dream made you do was your fault, that I blew up the community house because I wanted to, that you— that I— that we wanted—“ 

Ranboo feels all the fire leave him suddenly, all the air sucked from his lungs. The room tilts on its axis. He’s not sure when he went from mad at Tommy to just… mad. 

“We didn’t deserve that,” Ranboo says softly, Puffy’s words echoing in his head. “I need to own up to my mistakes, sure, but not the things I did out of fear of being hurt.” Ranboo realizes with a start that his arms are crossed again. This time, he just stares down at them, resigned. “Because it wasn’t our fault.”

There’s a brief pause. Techno’s eyebrows are raised in a gesture he suspects is completely involuntary. It’s Ranboo’s turn to draw in a few deep breaths. 

“Are we still talking about the community house?” says Tommy. 

“Uh,” says Ranboo. Shit. What? Shit. Tommy continues to stare at him. Error: Ranboo Has Ceased To Function. 

“Uhhh,” Ranboo says again. He curses his brain for its lack of filter, Tommy for not being able to read his mind and making him say this out loud, Phil for raising them both to be weirdly perceptive, his birth parents for shorting him the three additional enderman genes that would allow him the ability to teleport and fix this situation easily. 

Tommy stares at him, gaze bright blue and knowing. Like he’s seeing Ranboo for the first time. “Dream hurt you.” It’s not a question, just a simple statement of fact. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Ranboo sees Techno wince. Traitor. 

The world condenses itself down to this moment, to Tommy and Ranboo and the cold hardwood floor, to the next words out of his mouth. To two sets of crossed arms. He takes a deep breath, in and out. “Yes.”

Tommy’s eyebrows furrow. He looks pained, face tight, the wheels in his head turning visibly. “Not just— fuck. Not just the manipulation. Or the sleepwalking or whatever. Like… y’know.” His next words come out half choked and half disbelieving, reaching, hoping for common ground in hell. ”Like me.”

In for a penny, in for a pound. Ranboo closes his eyes. Everything quiets— the shake in his legs, the burning in his chest. It’s just him and Tommy and his innermost desire to stop lying about this. 

“Yes,” he says. “I think so.” Then he nods, like maybe Tommy wasn’t clear on his words. 

“Holy shit.” Tommy continues to stare at him, mouth slightly agape. Ranboo feels studied, examined, but for once in his life, he doesn’t really mind. “And I just…”

“I’m going to make hot chocolate,” Techno says, clapping his hands together lightly. He rises, pretending not to see the unbroken eye contact between the two boys. “I’ll leave it on the stove for when you’re ready.” 

With that, Techno leaves; to his surprise, Tommy reaches out his hand. 

To his surprise, Ranboo takes it. 

Chapter Text

There’s a concept Tommy read about a few months ago, in one of Techno’s books— some sort of study on trauma that struck a nerve until he was 100 pages into his brother’s boring nerd shit that was somehow simultaneously fucking him up.  

Anyway.

The concept he’s reminded of now is that of trauma survivors having ‘cover stories’, for lack of a better term (and it does make him feel better to think like this, it does, clinical and calm and sterile, makes him forget the parts of his trauma that were messy and burning and humiliating).

It’s the story they present to others. To their loved ones who just want to understand. A collection of detached facts, a news report of The Thing That Happened in nouns and verbs and adjectives, followed by a small dissection of emotions, usually the ones pertinent to the situation. Sometimes, things now remind me of things then. 

He— he gets that. Because he knocked it out, saying what happened in the barest of terms, but he’s still yet to scratch the surface of everything he feels. Everything kicking and swirling inside him, making him feel like he’s not so much a person as he is a vessel for a series of catastrophes. 

There are so many things— little things, the things that pop up unexpectedly, not the Big Moments that have him waking up in a cold sweat, but the shit that pops up when he does unavoidable things like holding a pickaxe or laying in bed— that he’s carried with him for years now. And it’s just him, because as appealing as it sounds to get those memories out in the open, to share them with someone else, to heal in community the same way he was traumatized in it… 

He just can’t. He can’t describe this shit to his brothers. To his dad. It’s weird and embarrassing and even though he knows, he knows all that good shit like the fact that he didn’t want it and it wasn’t his fault… 

Like, it was still sex. Of course, of course, it was an assault and an attack but it— it was still sex, the mechanics of it, the experience of it, the action and the reaction. And it’s fucking embarassing to talk about your sex life with your family! Who you live with! As a teenage boy! So there are parts of Tommy’s memory that sit, rotting and festering, inside him.

That’s why this feels so different. When he and Ranboo are still in front of the fireplace an hour later, completely alone, and Ranboo has told him everything, and he knows he isn’t quite as alone as he thought. When Ranboo whispers— whispers, like he knows this moment is something sacred— “I don’t even know what parts of it I asked for.”

When Ranboo looks at him, and Tommy sees permission to share from someone who understands, in some small way, how unbearably fucking awful this whole shitshow has been, he barely thinks before he says, “It was the night after the beach party.” His voice comes out weird, honest and raw to the point of breaking. He clears his throat. Tries again. “Or, uh. The night the party was supposed to be.”

He remembers it— the way Dream looked at him. The way he didn’t understand what was happening at first when Dream asked him to take off his armor, because it had happened so many times before. He— he didn’t realize it at the time, but the fucker must have slipped something into his food, because— 

Everything was so foggy and hot and he didn’t understand, not until Dream was shoving his bandana into his mouth and— and there were hands across his chest, fingers trailing down his side, a mouth and a nose at the crook of his neck, and then— they were around him, in him, and he couldn’t even think to say no. 

It didn’t hurt, physically. No part of his body hurt (except his heart, his joints, his self). None of it hurt, and when Dream asked him in a heated whisper how it felt, the only thing he could manage were the breathy moans the other man forced out of him. That’s most of what he remembers: fear, pleasure, confusion. Feeling better than he’d ever felt before while also feeling certain that he was already dead.

Tommy spills it all out, the bloody vines growing in his chest, interspersed occasionally with a self-deprecating, “Wow, this sounds proper fucked up when I say it aloud, hm?” 

“Yeah,” Ranboo says, firm and unpitying, light enough to accomodate the tone Tommy needs for this discussion to happen. “Yeah, it was.”

Tommy heaves a deep breath, in and out. He feels wired, like there’s way too much adrenaline coursing through his system. He feels like there are bees under his skin. He feels like this moment matters so, so much, and he wants it to stop mattering at all. “I woke up the next morning, and I— I didn’t— I had no idea what to do, and it hurt. I wasn’t— you can’t fucking prepare for that.” 

Tommy remembers it, the utter fear of waking up and lying there, muscles cramping that he was previously unaware of. Bruises had already begun to pop up on his hips, and it hurt to move his legs because of the unnatural positions they had been in for hours, bent and wrapped around and twisted, and fuck, he wasn’t going to cry he was not going to— 

Instead, Tommy swallows hard. Clears his throat again. “I— and then that morning, he left, he went back to L’manburg, and he said…  ‘See you next time’.”

“And there were.” Ranboo says, voice barely above a whisper. He reaches out and squeezes Tommy’s hand, the barest point of human contact. Tommy squeezes back before dropping his hand. “Next times, I mean.”

“Yeah.” His voice is so, so impossibly close to breaking. “He, uh— the— I mean.” He coughs a few times, clears his throat. “The prison…”

“Jesus,” Ranboo says, eyes widening. He doesn’t look surprised, not really, but he looks like he hasn’t considered it from this angle before. “I mean— Tommy, just. Really. Fuck.”

Tommy bites out a laugh without any humor in it. “It wasn’t that bad once I got used to it. That’s why he brought me back— he wanted me to be his girl. He wanted me to be everything he had made me, even in death.”

There are tears burning behind his eyes, but he can’t stop talking. He wants to talk about it, so, so badly. He can’t handle holding all of this inside of him for another fucking minute. “I asked for it, even. With my words and everything. After that first time. Enthusiastic participation, or what-the-fuck-have-you.” Tommy does not look at Ranboo. His whole face burns.

That’s it— the part he can’t confront. The part that makes him feel so incredibly fucking disgusting every time he looks directly at the monster of this truth, at the whole and terrible face of it. It felt good, and sometimes he misses the way it felt, and this feeling curls up inside of the softest parts of his chest and rots there. 

He’s— he’s a teenager, and he can’t even enjoy normal teenage boy things because of fucking Dream. Because when he thinks about it, thinks about kissing or sex or all of the normal coupley things that people his age are supposed to enjoy, all he can think about is what he knows: fear, someone pinning him down, someone hurting him even when it feels nice.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ranboo says. Tommy knows this, and they both know he knows it, but sometimes he just needs to hear it. “None of it. Your body was doing what it was meant to do, y’know? It— it wouldn’t have mattered who or even what it was. And— and then afterwards, you were trying to keep yourself safe.” 

Ranboo models a deep breath, and Tommy doesn’t realize he’s not quite breathing properly until he mimics the action and finds himself gasping for air. They spend a few seconds like that until Tommy regains his breath and nods the go-ahead to Ranboo.

“Listen, Toms,” he says fiercely. “Would it have mattered, do you think, if you had said no? If you had tried to fight it?”

“It could have,” he tells Ranboo. Begs him to believe. “It could have. I’ll never know, because I didn’t even try.”

Ranboo shakes his head. He, Tommy notes, keeps all his motions within Tommy’s field of vision. “He was an adult. You were sixteen, Tommy. Being violated for the sake of safety isn’t fair. That should never have been a choice you had to make.”

His ears are ringing, his fingers are going numb, and he— he can feel this shifting from ‘something hard’ to ‘something impossible’. His goal is to get this off his chest, not have a full-out panic attack. “Okay,” Tommy says. “I don’t— I’m done. For right now.”

“Sounds good,” Ranboo says. Just like that. No follow up questions, no pushing the matter. He clutches a sword in one hand and entwines the other with Tommy’s fingers. His palm is warm and clammy and grounding. “I’m still right here. I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

True to his word, Technoblade left hot chocolate on the stovetop. They stay in the living room, hands wrapped around warm mugs, and sit together in the late-night silence.

Here is a series of events, of snapshots in time that are eternally important or eventually forgotten or both:

Someone says the words good boy, and Ranboo finds that he’s lost all feeling in his hands. Generally, what he’s done for the past year of his life is to immediately push that down; besides, as soon as the bile rises in his throat, his brain does its best at shutting out the thing that caused it, and who is he to argue? But now that he wants to be kinder to himself, now that he thinks of it less as another piece of a puzzle he’ll never solve and more as a thing to avoid and be mindful of… Well, Ranboo makes a little list in the back of his journal labeled ‘TRIGGERS: DO NOT READ EXCEPT WITH THERAPIST PUFFY’. 

Tommy wakes up from a nightmare, except it was just a dream. Except all he remembered were the good parts, the pleasure and the endorphins, except he woke up with sweat dripping down his face and something else, sticky and familiar, between his legs. He changes into a worn pair of boxers like the old ones were on fire, chest exploding into static and self-hatred. It feels like there are maggots, crawling and festering under his skin. Like the inside of him is rotten. He spends the rest of the night dry heaving into the sink. 

“What memories do you associate with this shame that you carry?” Puffy asks Ranboo, about six months into therapy, and his brain just. Shuts Down. And it— it sucks, the way it feels like bees under his skin, burning and scraping and taking until all he can do is cling to the blanket thrown over his shoulders and wait for the storm to pass. Which it does, just like every other time— he presses his headphones tight against his ears and focuses on the music blasting through them until he can actually hear it over the ringing in his ears. 

Tommy stands under the spray of the shower, cranked as hot as it can go— which is pretty hot, considering Techno designed the water system for getting blood out of his clothes. Tommy stands there until his skin is pink and raw, but it doesn’t get the feeling of filth off of him.

Ranboo wakes up from a nightmare, and when Phil tries to touch him, he stops responding altogether. Tommy rides six miles on horseback just to come see him, to come help pick up the pieces.

Tommy has a Bad Day. This is not an altogether uncommon thing, except today he has things to do and he wants to do them, but he just can’t, and instead of verbalizing this in a healthy manner, he decides to go sit in the living room and force himself to feel better. To no one’s surprise but his own, he ends up snapping at Phil when he asks if he’s okay, and then they end up getting into it, and then Tommy’s yelling at him, I hate you I hate you I wish you were dead instead of me. 

Ranboo gets in the shower and startles at the feeling of hands on his thighs. His own hands on his own thighs. “What the hell,” Ranboo says aloud, tiredly, like this hasn’t happened twenty times before. 

Things get better, and Tommy finds that he fucking hates it when they do. He hates not remembering how it felt to want to ruin his own life. He feels like he should be over this by now, and he also feels like he never wants to move past any of it. He triggers himself on purpose and he shuts himself in his room and he stews in it, all the memories, the way he knows he isn’t supposed to. He punches the walls and screams at the top of his lungs. He finds himself bored and restless and terrified, in a new way, in a way he doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t want to know what parts of him are left— after the trauma is gone, after he removes every part of him that is really just Dream.

“I don’t remember anything important,” Ranboo says during therapy one week. “That’s not the same as not remembering anything,” Puffy says, a question in her voice, and it feels so good to be taken seriously that he starts trying. It sucks and it’s hard but he tries, and soon Puffy shares in this knowledge, in this pathetic little series of disjointed memories. The smell of chicken grilling. A meeting in the L’Manberg town hall, the contents of which he cannot recall. A single photo of himself at the lake which, when viewed years later, sent him into an immediate panic attack. 

Here is the thing about these moments: they are only moments. They get better. Phil apologizes to Tommy. Tommy apologizes to Phil. Panic attacks end, triggers become manageable, and bad hours do not necessarily spiral into bad days. Ranboo starts a new medicine, and then another, until he finds one that works. 

Tommy wakes up one day, a few months into a new antidepressant, and finds that the world is a little more colorful. That everything is a little more vibrant. Ranboo takes up running, Tommy takes up kickboxing, and they stop wanting to lose their minds every time things get good. 

They go to therapy session after therapy session, every week, until eventually they don’t need them at all. Things are very bad and very good in turns, and they’re both there to help each other through it, and there are dozens of other people who only want to see them succeed.

And Dream?

Dream stays in prison or he doesn’t. Dream does not escape, or maybe he does. This is not a perfect world. None of us have perfect worlds. 

Maybe he does get out, and maybe someone takes his last life before he can get very far. Maybe it’s Sam. Maybe it’s Technoblade. Maybe, in some version of the story, it’s Puffy. 

At any rate, Tommy and Ranboo never see him again. 

The thing about this story isn’t that it hurts. 

It does, for both of them— it hurts quite a fucking lot. There are sleepless nights and days where Tommy feels like peeling his skin off, and Ranboo has panic attacks so intense he throws up, and both of them spend countless evenings in therapy with Puffy, trying to reconcile the hurt person inside of them with the person they are becoming. 

But the thing about this story is not that it hurts. 

And it does, it hurts so badly that both of them have the thought that they might not make it, both about themselves and about each other. They want to feel safe so, so badly, a palpable ache inside of them. Tommy wants to stop freaking out every time someone touches him. Ranboo wants to stop picking over the gap in his memory like it’s a problem to be solved, like it’s something that can’t be moved on from. 

The thing about this story is not that they find answers.

Because there aren’t any for Tommy to find— there is no reason Dream decided to hurt him, not because of his actions or his gender or his attitude. The only reason Dream decided to hurt him was because Tommy was there, and that makes no fucking sense. He goes back over it hundreds and hundreds of times; maybe if he’d been stronger, maybe if he’d been more peaceful, maybe if he’d— 

But the thing about this story is not that they find answers.

Because there aren’t any for Ranboo to find— no matter how much he begs and pleads with himself, no matter how much he wants wants wants to know what happened, no matter how many times he triggers himself in hopes that a memory will emerge out of the nothingness he’s gazed into so many times. 

The thing about successful recovery is that, one day, you forget it’s recovery and remember that it’s just life. The thing about trauma is that in order to keep it from destroying you, you have to realize that it’s not the part of you that matters, that you have lots of other things worth focusing on. The thing about memories is that you will make new ones.

The thing about stories is that once you’ve said them out loud— not just to anyone, but to people who care, and the people who you would rather die than tell— they lose their power. They lose momentum. They lose the control they’ve taken from your life. The thing about losing is that someone else gets to be the winner, and that someone is you.

A happy ending involves hard work, certainly. A happy ending involves tears and effort and verbalizing one’s emotions. It also involves joy, personal growth; it involves looking back at yourself and thinking, ‘I can’t believe it got that bad.’ It involves sitting at a table with your family one day and thinking, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it got this good.’

But really, really, at its core— are you listening to me? Do you hear what I am saying to you? — recovery is not the moment when you think, I feel so much better than I used to. Recovery is the moment when you think, I need to pick up some butter from the store. It’s when Ranboo learns how to ballroom dance at one in the morning because Tubbo dared him to. It’s when Tommy gets home from a long day of mining and sees the chimney smoke rising over the tundra, and he knows he's finally arrived at home. 

The thing about this story, in the end, for it to truly be a good one, is that it isn’t fucking about Dream. 

Tommy sits on the living room couch in Technoblade’s cabin. He isn’t thinking about pain — he’s thinking about guitar chords and how much he’d like to give up on trying to play C major right about now. 

“You’ve got it,” Ranboo says around a mouthful of bobby pins. “Keep it up. Surely, if Wilbur can do this, you can figure it out.” He isn’t thinking about terror— he’s thinking about hair elastics and getting this braid to look right before Techno has to head out. 

“Fuck you,” Tommy says affectionately, collapsing back into the couch. “I am never going to learn how to play this, and in fact, I am going to burn every guitar within a 500 mile radius. So there.” Then he picks the guitar back up and starts attempting the chords for the fifteenth time in an hour. 

The year this occurs isn’t important; they’re both nineteen, or maybe twenty. The moments surrounding it aren’t important either: there are plenty of bad moments before it, and there are probably plenty after. What matters is this: they feel happy, they feel whole, and it’s barely even noteworthy. It isn’t a ‘good day’. It’s just a day, and it’s good, and they enjoy it. As simple as that.

“God,” Tommy will whisper to Ranboo later that night, as they sit in the living room and watch the embers of the fire die out. Techno’s already gone to bed, and they’ve already teased him for being a ‘fucking old man and a killjoy’. “I’m so happy right now. Right here. Y’know?”

Ranboo will lean over and bump him with his shoulder. “You’re such a sap,” he’ll say. Because he does know.

This is the story, and this is the ending: The fire will go out. They'll go to bed feeling safe and warm, as if there was never a possibility they would feel any other way. They'll wake up the next morning, and the next, and the next.