Chapter Text
When Tommy walked up to his new house, he stood for a moment looking up at it.
He’d seen it in pictures, of course, on the listing. But it had an almost-tangible energy to it when seen in person.
This was, of course, because it was an old house. A century or two older than the others in the neighborhood, according to the listing, and between the old style and the way it was overgrown with ivy and bushes, bright paint gleaming between the leaves, Tommy knew it had a history, a story.
It was also cheap, and that was what he’d been looking for. Fresh starts often lacked money, and he was just lucky that this house happened to be A) on the market B) good-quality and C) probably not belonging to a serial killer. Sure, there was the fact that he was just renting out a room, and the guy who owned the house didn’t seem super friendly, but come on, it was a pretty good deal.
And the house looked hella cool.
Time for staring over, Tommy finished his walk up and stood on the front porch, watching a set of windchimes glitter with the shapes of leaping animals before pulling what he guessed was the doorbell. Wow. This house was old.
A few seconds later, as expected and considered polite to wait, the main door and screen door were both bumped open, revealing a short dark-haired guy around Tommy’s age.
“You’re the renter?” The guy asked after looking Tommy over. There was a silvery-looking shawl draped around his shoulders, one of the lacy kinds. It did not match his general vibes of dirt-smudged flannel and rolled-up jeans.
“Yeah. Uh, I’m Tommy.” Tommy stuck his hand out, and after a moment, had his hand shook.
“Tubbo. Better come in, don’t want all the air getting out.”
Tommy, respectful of not much but deeply respectful of genuine hardwood floors, took his shoes off once inside. When he straightened again, he stopped and stared.
“Holy shit.”
The inside of the house seemed even more magical than the outside. The main hallway, where Tommy currently stood, was cast in the light filtering through the stained glass above the front door. Patches of color fell on the walls and ceiling, where a crown molding shaped like flowering leaves covered the spot where the two planes met.
“Nice, eh?” The guy - Tubbo - cracked a grin from where he stood leaning against the edge of a wall, between the dining and living room if Tommy had to guess. “It’d be hella expensive if I built it today, believe me.” He absently fiddled with the fringe on the edge of the shawl. “Um…. do you want a tour first, and then we can talk?”
Tommy managed to shut his mouth enough to reply.
“Uh… yeah, that would be great.”
Tubbo nodded and took the lead, Tommy following to the second floor. The house, Tubbo explained, had been renovated many, many times, so it was impossible to say how old, exactly, it was.
“The last major renovations, not including the plumbing and electricity, were about two hundred years ago.” Tubbo grinned, a strange gleam in his eye. “Though I think it’s much, much older.”
Tommy agreed, looking around at the current hall he was walking through. Even from the outside, he could tell that the house was much older than it appeared. Like Tubbo, evidently, who owned a whole-ass house but looked to be around Tommy’s age.
“Here’s your room,” Tubbo said, bumping open a door to reveal a familiar-looking room. It was, indeed, the room Tommy was renting, with the antique-looking furniture left unpainted so it contrasted against the white walls. “I’d prefer if you didn’t go poking around in other rooms on this floor, but the other floors aren’t rented out so feel free to wander about those if the fancy strikes you.”
Tommy nodded (how many floors did this house even have?), and Tubbo continued the tour.
By the end of it, Tommy knew the locations of his room, the nearest bathroom (the most modern room he’d seen yet), the communal area, and the backyard.
“Do you think we’ll be talking a whole lot?” Tommy asked absently, setting his toiletries in the bathroom as Tubbo brought in an armful of towels.
“Not likely,” Tubbo replied. “I spend a lot of time away.”
“Oh.” Tommy tried to keep his wilt from being too visible. He’d half-hoped that Tubbo would be more help as far as settling in went, maybe be a friend. It seemed not. “Have any other renters?”
“Not currently.” Tubbo paused, folding a towel over the rack next to the shower-bath combination. “My boyfriend comes and stays with me, sometimes.” His eyes were on Tommy, and for a moment the emotion there was understandable.
He was seeing how Tommy would react. He was being wary on purpose.
“Alright,” Tommy said with a shrug, even though getting a glimpse into Tubbo’s emotional state - however brief - made him feel odd. “As long as he doesn’t go through my stuff or anything. Or if you guys are super loud when I’m, I dunno, trying to sleep.”
Tubbo stared at him for a second, then rolled his eyes and turned away.
“Gods. I’m your landlord, you know that right? I could kick you out.”
“Will you?”
Tubbo blinked, then shrugged as well, adjusting the towel so it hung straight.
“No. Not yet, at least. You’re… interesting.”
“Oh, good,” Tommy said with relief. “I’d hate to be boring. It sounds… well, boring.”
Tubbo actually grinned at that - one of his canines was chipped - before he left.
And so, Tommy was left to his own devices. He went to his room, flopping down on the bed - holy fuck it was soft - and pulling out his laptop. He clicked away from his always-empty email inbox, then paused. Wait. There was an email waiting.
Tommy clicked back and scanned the text. Before moving to the city (while Tommy had been sleeping shitty-motel to shitty-motel), he’d applied to several job listings in the area. One of those listings was for a serving/prep job at a cafe. Nice, fairly new if the pictures were to be believed, and understaffed.
And they’d emailed Tommy back.
Tommy opened up the email and scanned the text.
“Mister Innit,” he muttered aloud, “After a review of your application we have decided to accept- huh.”
He wasn’t a huge fan of retail - he’d worked as a local supermarket bagger during high school and it was ugh. But maybe this would be better. It wasn’t like anything sketchy would happen, anyway.
Tommy decided to take the job. He needed the money - his savings wouldn’t hold out forever, and Tubbo definitely would kick him out if he couldn’t pay rent.
And so, he pulled up the address on his phone and waited at the bus stop, knee jiggling where his foot rested on the cement. Tubbo’s house, despite being built in a lot with a large cluster of old-growth trees, was surrounded by other houses, all much newer and blander in their designs. This neighborhood was a standard middle-class suburb - HOA-approved house colors, trimmed and violently green lawns, the occasional shy patch of lilies butting up against the siding as if afraid to be more prominent. Still, the wilderness remained, in bits here and there. A small herd of deer trekked across the road, a group of mothers with their spotted fawns uncaring of cars and pedestrians alike. Saplings grew in yards and sidewalk cracks, resisting pruning shears and throwing up more shoots. The forest trying to regain lost ground.
The bus rumbled up and Tommy stood, shouldering his bag as he climbed in.
As the bus went further downtown, Tommy watched the buildings increase in modernity and height, eyes widening because… wow.
There were trees everywhere. Growing up the sides of buildings, roots and branches linking walls of glass and serving as supports for rail lines and walkways. While the forest was beaten back in the suburbs, here it was allowed to roam free.
The bus was cast into shadow, light, shadow, light, as it swung under roots and around buildings blocking out the afternoon sun. Tommy started to realize that maybe he should’ve done more research on the city before he came. If he had, maybe he would’ve been able to accept…. Well, this.
When Tommy’s phone told him that this was the correct stop, he got off the bus and stepped out into air that wasn’t as smoggy as he expected, probably due to all the trees. Up ahead was the Weatherall, set into the side of a gigantic sycamore. Or had the tree grown around it? Tommy couldn’t really tell.
The door swung open with a chime of bells, and a woman working behind the counter looked up and smiled.
“Why hello there stranger! Would you like a seat, or just directions?”
“Actually, neither,” Tommy said. “I, uh, applied for a position here.”
There were a few other people scattered about, and most of them were pretty clearly listening in on this conversation.
“Applied…? Oh! You must be Tommy, then.”
“Yep, that’s me.”
The woman rounded the counter so she could shake Tommy’s hand.
“It’s nice to meet you. You can call me Puffy- I’m the owner, manager, and doer of anything that needs doing around here.”
“Don’t forget a certified mother hen,” one of the onlookers said. It was one of a pair of men sitting at the table, leaned over a chess board mid-game.
“Phil, shut up,” Puffy said with a grin before she turned back to Tommy. “Most of the customers here are regulars, so don’t hesitate to sass them back.”
“Puffy, don’t encourage him,” the other chess player said, and- okay, Tommy had seen a fair amount of redheads in his life, but none with hair quite that red. It looked more like blood.
“If you want your food you’ll let me,” Puffy retorted.
“Mm. Fair.” The pair turned back to the chess game, and Tommy gave Puffy a nervous smile.
“I wanted to come to check things out, y’know. I’d be fine with starting today, since I need the money.”
Puffy nodded.
“You don’t sound like you’re from around here,” she noted, and Tommy nodded slowly.
“Yeah, uh. Wanted to get a fresh start, y’know.”
Puffy nodded in understanding and waved to one of the stools pushed up against the counter.
“Go on, take a seat. You don’t have to start right now, but it certainly won’t hurt if I walk you through a few things.”
Tommy perched on one of the stools, bag under his feet as he leaned his elbows on the counter. Puffy went back to making drinks. There were several paintings on the wall behind here - landscapes, but unlike any he’d seen before. They were completely in grayscale, grass and trees the color of thunderclouds and the sky black as night, yet with swirling threads of silver.
“Puffy, I hope you’ve finished my order,” one of the chess players - the one who’d spoken first - said, leaning on his hand. Hair the color of straw fell nearly to his shoulders, though Tommy couldn’t tell if it was a deliberate choice or if he’d just been banned from every barbershop in the city.
“As always, I have to double-check.” Puffy sighed. “Are you sure you want fifteen expresso shots in one cup?"
Tommy slowly turned to look at the man.
“I’m sorry, are you trying to kill a god?”
“What? Pfft, no.” The man slid his bishop across the chessboard. “Check. I’m just going to wake him up a little, you know.”
“Old man, I’m pretty sure your blood is coffee at this point.” His friend the redhead jumped a knight over a line of pawns and sat back. “Checkmate.”
The man sat blinking at the chessboard for a moment, then looked up at Puffy.
“Puffy, I think I need that mega expresso now.”
Puffy laughed and popped the top onto a steaming cup she already held, pushing the cup over to Tommy.
“Take this to the sore loser, would you?”
Tommy hopped off the stool and grabbed the cup, which continued to steam and was warm against his fingers. Luckily it didn’t spill when Tommy set it down on the table.
“Here’s your order, Mister….”
“You can call me Phil,” the man said, lacing his fingers around the cup as if soaking in the heat. He nodded across the table. “That’s Techno.”
Tommy blinked and wrinkled his nose at the redhead.
“Your name is what?”
“It’s an old name,” Techno said wryly.
“Yeah, either that or your parents were high when they filled out your birth certificate.”
Techno and Phil snorted in unison.
“Tommy, there’s sass and then there’s full-level roasting,” Puffy said from the counter.
“Ach, Puffy, let him be. It keeps us humble.” Phil inspected Tommy with pale eyes. “Where are you staying?”
“Uh, I’m renting a room.” Tommy scratched the back of his head, absently leaning back against the counter. “From a guy called Tubbo.”
Phil paused, coffee hovering between his face and the table.
“Ah. I know him. Good kid.”
“You do?”
“Yes, we’re old friends.” Phil finally took a sip, face completely neutral. Tommy wasn’t sure he was even human at that point: that espresso had been completely black. No cream or sugar or anything. “Well, Tech, I think we should be off. Business to do, and all that.”
Techno hummed in agreement and stood.
“I own a shop downtown,” Phil said before he left. “Antiques, books, bits and bobs and the like. Come check it out sometime, I’d like to see you again.”
“Oh, uh-” before Tommy could ask what, exactly, the store was called, both men had already left and the door rattled closed. “Alright. Well, bye.”
Tommy sighed a little and turned back to Puffy, who gave him a reassuring smile.
“You handled that well,” she said. “My regulars take some getting used to.”
“They’re all weird?” Tommy guessed.
“Eccentric,” Puffy said, “is the word I’d use. Still, they like you. I’d be glad to have you work here.”
“Oh, okay.” Tommy was glad. He’d been kicked out of more jobs he could count, on either hand. If this place didn’t really care if he sassed customers, then he’d probably last considerably longer.
But it seemed that this fresh start would be just that. The start. Things would be different here.
Tommy and Puffy worked out a schedule, and Tommy eventually realized that he needed to eat - he refused to make more work for Puffy - and decided to go and find something.
“Oh,” Puffy said, and Tommy paused in the door, “if you’re looking around the city, I’d recommend you go see Temple Street. It’s not as old as L’Manberg’s, but it’s got the first shrines for death gods in the country.”
Tommy blinked.
“Still standing?”
Puffy chuckled softly.
“Yes, Tommy.”
“Oh.” Tommy considered that. “Anything to eat there?”
“There’s food vendors all over the place. It’s a popular tourist destination.”
“Alright, I’ll remember that.” Tommy took a step, and paused again. “Puffy?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For giving me a job.”
Puffy smiled, passing a cup to a woman with pink hair and a tattoo of a dove above her elbow.
“It’s no problem, Tommy. I needed another employee anyway.”
Tommy nodded and let the door swing shut behind him.
Even in the afternoon, Temple Street was a bustle of color and people. The temples, each unique and towering, gleamed in the light. They were the only buildings completely free of trees, though at the very top of the street Tommy could see a temple raised off the ground by a gigantic twisting oak, leaves spread and bright green.
Tommy tilted his head, a box of fries loosely held in one hand. His family had never been especially religious- they went to Temple Street once a year, and that was about it -so he didn’t recognize which god this temple was for.
Naturally, he went in. Alright, a lot of plants. Skulls. The main iconography seemed to be trees, flowers, skulls, and the statue of a deer in the main entryway. Tommy kept walking. While this all seemed familiar, itching at his brain in a way that made him frown, he had literally no idea which god this was supposed to be.
He stopped when he came to the end of the temple. The part open to the public, of course. Priests and the like could go wherever they felt like. Not through this wall, however, which was where the main shrine was located. Offerings spilled off tables and pooled on the ground, carvings and bouquets and potted plants turning the air to something mulch-y and adding color. When Tommy looked to either side of the shrine, he could see a pair of mosaics, kitty-corner to the shrines and made of a variety of materials obviously unlike traditional tile. It was obviously old, but Tommy could see the picture clear as day.
There were two gods. Wait. No, just one. But there were two different versions of him- one with a crown of flowers and cloak of green, the other colorless and dead. Both had faces shaped like goat skulls, the same dark hair and blue eyes. Tommy frowned again. Huh. This was definitely not a god from the Diad.
Some part of him, buried and cowering in the darkness, felt a deep sense of familiarity.
“Do you need help with something?”
Tommy jumped and nearly crashed into the wall.
“Wh- what the fuck, man?”
Tubbo stuck his hands in his pockets and shrugged.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Okay, um.” Tommy let out a breath, trying to calm his racing heart. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking the place out,” Tubbo said. “I like looking around in the temples.”
“Come here often?”
Tubbo grinned.
“As long as I could remember.”
“Alright, well, uh.” Tommy waved at the two mosaics. “What is this? I’ve literally never seen this god before.”
“Mm. Doubt it. He’s pretty local, yes, but he’s got influence in every city. You’ve definitely seen him before.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know who he is.”
“Oh. He’s the life god.” Tubbo looked up, watching the mosaic with something unreadable in his eyes.
“That’s…”
“One of the old gods,” Tubbo finished. “Yeah. This city is one of the last remnants of the Old Religion.”
“Okay, uh. This god isn’t one of the Diad.”
“Obviously.”
“Despite being in the most important place, with basically the biggest temple.”
“The Old Religion still worships those two- the new Diadic Church sprang from the original pantheon, after all. They’re just not the most important of the gods.” Tubbo paused, then gestured vaguely at the mosaic. “It’s a whole historical thing, y’know. It’s like four hundred years old.”
“That’s cool.”
“You don’t sound interested.”
Tubbo had completely changed the subject.
“Hey, man, I’m not exactly an art aficionado.” Tommy spread his arms. “I’m certified trailer trash, and I know it!”
Tubbo raised his eyebrows.
“You’re admitting that freely?”
“I’m, like, joking.” Tommy dropped his arms and kicked at the floor. “Can we go? Temples always make me feel cold.”
They took the bus back to Tubbo’s house. Tommy shelled out the money - his wallet was getting depressingly thin - but Tubbo had a bus pass, which he swiped and promptly stuck back in his pocket before Tommy saw more than white and red plastic.
On the bus, Tommy watched trees and glass blur together from out the window. Tubbo, next to him, was silent.
Inside, Tommy was kicking himself. This was supposed to be a fresh start! And here he was, spilling his past to a practical stranger!
“I got groceries,” Tubbo said finally, and Tommy was startled out of his thoughts.
“Huh?”
“Groceries,” Tubbo said again, nodding to a canvas bag between his feet. “I figured I could cook dinner, help you get on your feet.” He made a bit of a strange face. “I hope you’re not allergic to anything.”
“Only if you count nickel,” Tommy said. Tubbo grinned.
“Well, I’m not the kind to eat metal, so you should be safe there. Anyway. What were you doing after you left?”
“You noticed I was gone?”
“Um. Yes.” Now Tubbo looked…uneasy. “I like keeping track of all my renters, especially if they’re new to the city.”
“Oh. Well, uh, I was accepted for a job, so I went to check the place out.”
“Oh, really? Where?”
“Cafe called 'The Weatherall’.”
Tubbo nodded.
“Ah. Good place. I go there all the time. Puffy’s nice.”
“Yep.”
“Meet anyone else there?”
“These two guys who played chess while I was there. Uh… Phil, that was the one guy.”
“Mhm, mhm.” Tubbo paused, then made a very wicked expression. “Did you get to see his order?”
Tommy made a very exaggerated cringing expression.
“He scares me. He scares me, big man, he ordered fifteen espresso shots. In one cup. And he drank it.”
Tubbo laughed and nodded.
“Yep, that’s Phil. Ever since he discovered coffee he’s been drinking that monstrosity. It’s impossible to kill him because his body would just keep moving from all that caffeine.”
“I sure hope you’re not the same,” Tommy said.
“Oh, no, don’t worry.” Tubbo leaned against the nearest pole. “I’m not big on coffee. Too bitter for me. Boo loves tea, though. Says it’s soothing.”
“I’m sorry, who?”
“Oh, uh. My boyfriend. I’m not huge on tea either. Cider’s good, though, I make a batch in the fall every year.” Tubbo absently fiddled with a chain around his neck, on which a tiny deer charm hung. “I’ve got an apple tree in the backyard, you know. Fruits every year, and this year will be a big crop.”
“How can you tell?”
The pair got to talking about gardening, and plants. Tubbo knew a shit-ton of stuff about plants, Tommy discovered, from how to identify edible wild plants to pruning fruit trees. When he talked about the garden, and the yard, he looked… gentler. The harshness to his expression, the sharpness of his words, both melted away so he looked almost like a little kid, hands fluttering around him as he rambled about butterflies and accidentally knocking over fences. This was clearly something he cared about. Something he loved .
Tommy couldn’t remember ever loving something like that. Ever getting that expression on his face when he talked about something, as much passion in his voice as a bonfire. So he sat and listened. He listened to Tubbo ramble about powdery mildew and grasshoppers and the taste of bluebells and the way mint devoured everything, and he began to understand a little better. Tubbo wasn’t unfriendly, he was just someone who preferred the wild outdoors to the city and all its people.
They were still in conversation as Tubbo unlocked the front door and let Tommy in, grocery bag hung in one elbow as they kicked their shoes off.
“- see the problem is that so few people keep bees nowadays,” Tubbo explained, shutting the door and walking to the kitchen. “So little gets pollinated if I don’t do it by hand, and the only other real pollinators are wasps. Which suck. Yes, they deserve to live, but they suck. Wasps hate everything.”
“You could get a beehive,” Tommy suggested as Tubbo began rattling around in the kitchen. “There was this old lady where I used to live who kept a beehive. She let us eat the honey when there was extra.”
He still remembered the taste. Sugary with a mix of flavors, intertwined with the smell of clover and wax and the sound of humming wings.
“I should,” Tubbo said, “but it takes two years to get a hive up and running and I keep putting it off. Plus there’s shit like zoning I’d have to deal with. Ugh. Ruins perfectly good civilizations, that does. I have to ride the bus for ten minutes just to buy a damn box of noodles.” He huffed and slammed a pot down onto the stove. “And what with more people moving in from other cities, there’s more pesticides, which kills bees, and more people to freak out over bees. They’re bees. They eat flowers. They only hurt you if you piss them off.”
“Oh no,” Tommy said in his best Karen impression, “there’s some insects in my yard. Young man, you must get rid of them! You must! I shall call the police if you don’t!”
“Yeah, probably.” Tubbo sighed. “I wish the city hadn’t developed all this land. If this house was all by itself, I could do whatever the hell I wanted.”
“But you’d have to drive ten minutes to get noodles,” Tommy noted.
“The city used to be smaller.”
“It’s not smaller now.”
“Fair enough.” Tubbo opened the grocery bag and started taking out ingredients. “So, Tommy. You seem young.”
“I am.” Tommy wasn’t sure where this was going.
“You don’t have any family in the city? Anyone to help you? At all?”
Tommy looked away, fiddling with the strap of his bag.
“They have other things to worry about,” he said. “And no. All of my family lives in L’Manberg.”
“Hm.” Tubbo started pouring water into the pot. “That’s pretty close by.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I… I couldn’t go much further.”
Despite the events leading up to this fresh start, Tommy had been reluctant to go farther than a city or two away. He’d lived in one neighborhood his entire life, with a small exception, and it felt weird leaving the city. It was like there was a tether on his soul, keeping him tied to the house he’d grown up in, with the cramped rooms and peeling linoleum and the tire swing hung from a walnut tree in the backyard.
“That makes me sound pathetic, doesn’t it?” Tommy muttered.
“No,” Tubbo said, ripping open the plastic of the noodle bag and pouring about half into the pot. Then he snapped his fingers at the windowsill above the sink. “Pass the salt, would you?”
Tommy did so, and he couldn’t help snickering at the shapes of the salt and pepper shakers sitting there. The little ceramic bottles were shaped like ghosts, one with an S on its chest and the other with a P.
“Ranboo got them at a garage sale,” Tubbo said with a vague smile. “They said that I should have more stupid tacky stuff in the house, y’know, like a normal person does.”
“Oh, okay, so I can’t blame you for them,” Tommy said, and Tubbo actually laughed.
“That’s right, you can’t.”
Tommy paused, and decided to ask-
“Do you and Ranboo, like hang out together a lot? Or is it more of a recent thing, and you still don’t get together that much? Cause it doesn’t seem like you live together.”
“It’s, uh, not recent.” The corner of Tubbo’s mouth twitched. “We have different jobs, and live pretty far apart, so… we don’t see each other that regularly.”
“Ah.” Tommy set the pepper shaker back down on the windowsill. “Sorry, for all my questions. I basically just got here, and it’s like I’m interrogating you.”
“Eh, I’m used to it.” Tubbo turned on the burner and went to get a saucepan. “It makes sense that you’d want to know more about me- we’re complete strangers and it would be great if there was a mutual reassurance that neither of us are serial killers or something.”
“Well, I’m not a serial killer,” Tommy said. “You?”
“Nope.”
“Guess that’s the mutual reassurance, then.”
Tubbo smirked, going to grab a spoon to stir the noodles.
“Sure hope so.”
Tommy cleared his throat, leaning against the counter.
“So, uh, what else do you grow?”
Tubbo shrugged.
“Anything, really, I guess. This year I’ve been working on blackberries, and peas. Tomatoes, too, though those are ridiculously easy to grow so I don’t need to pay as much attention to them.”
“Huh. Onions are pretty easy, too.”
“Oh yeah, I have a whole patch of walking onions.” Tubbo set the spoon down on the counter. “I’m just too lazy to do anything about them so they’ve started growing into the yard proper. The back’s a mess, honestly.”
Tommy looked outside the kitchen window, and, yep, the backyard looked more like a jungle than a yard. In fact, it was hard to even see the yard what with the trees growing right next to the window, branches casting shadows on the glass.
“Are you allowed to have trees that close to the house?” He asked.
“Ha. No. But I don’t care.” Tubbo set the saltshaker back down on the counter. “It’s not like I have a basement that’ll get grown into, just a cellar, and personally I think tree roots would make it look cooler.”
“What about the foundation though?”
“The foundation is several hundred years old, Tommy. It’ll be fine.” Tubbo went back to stirring, this time whatever was in the saucepan. “Now, go outside or something, it feels like you’re hovering and that makes me nervous.”
Tommy grinned, but did so.
Off the back porch, he was immediately set upon by all the life.
The backyard was a landscape that made something in Tommy’s chest ache, trees stretching up into the sky and painted with moss and mushrooms. There were raised earth beds with stakes and gates for more domestic plants, but looking away from the house Tommy might have been standing in the middle of a forest, a thousand years ago. Birds darted through the trees, insects making patches of stringy grass and more lush-looking underbrush rustle and chirp.
And over all of it, flowers. Vines of wisteria and morning glory drooped off the porch, roses and lilacs entangling with tree roots and turning the forest floor into a quilt of color. There were more wild plants too, clumping against fallen logs and boulders in sprays of bright blue or pink. Any colors Tommy could imagine, really.
Tommy began to walk away from the house, grass tickling his bare feet. The wilderness swallowed him up, and it felt…. It felt right . Like this was the first time Tommy had ever really drawn breath in his short, meaningless life.
Hello, the plants seemed to whisper, branches catching at his skin. We’ve missed you.