Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Tommy was decidedly not having a good day.

You’d think they’d be relatively safe, being a well-known ship with a Piglin and an Elytrian who came from a borderline deathworld, or a third-class deathworld in Techno’s case. Not to mention the Enderian on board, no matter how much of a pushover Ranboo is. 

The fucking cat aliens—actually the same species as the poachers that took him, those fuckers—didn’t even tie him up with metal. These were practically fancy zip ties. Sure it has keys and everything, and mechanically locked onto his wrists, but it’s thin and can probably be cut by fucking scissors.

He even managed to fucking chew through them, for fuck’s sake! Were these sentients even trying?

So yeah, Tommy is not having a good day because these assholes interrupted game night and didn’t even have the decency to use actual handcuffs. Like what? These bitches literally saw him and thought some plastic, mechanical or not, is going to keep him subdued? Fuck no.

The cat-like aliens are monologuing or some shit, and for some reason the crew’s just sitting there. Techno seems to at least be trying to flex out of his stronger restraints, but Ranboo is just hunched over and Wil’s practically sneering at their captors. Tubbo is unconscious and Phil is as calm as pie, if a little tense.

Tommy, well, he’s on his side, pretending to be asleep because that made it easier to chew at his plastic fucking restraints .

“And you see, we have everything to stop each one of you. So if you’d just let us run off with your Apoidean, we’ll let your crew live. Either way, we’re leaving with him, with or without your death.”

Tommy doesn’t even have time to jump up before Phil’s tensing. “Over my dead body.” He spat. The Elytrian would be hissing if he could do that, Tommy thinks.

“Suit yourself.” The seeming leader of the cat-things said smugly. “Di’wata.” It said, probably like a signal to attack, or a name. He doesn’t know, okay? Alien customs are weird.

However, Tommy is right, as usual. He should get an award. 

Unfortunately for the cat-captors, they decided that the best course of action was to kick the seemingly weak link, aka the ‘unconscious’ TommyInnit.

Big mistake.

Before the bastard’s foot even connects, Tommy’s hand is darting forward and grabbing said appendage.

Okay, so here’s the thing. Tommy isn’t exactly the peak of physicality, even against humans. He played online games, talked to online friends and just scrolled through his phone mindlessly. The only exercise he got was walking to and from school and VR.

At the same time though, TommyInnit has always been a biter.

“Agh!” The cat-bitch screamed, hissing as Tommy bit down on his foot. Funnily enough, he crunches on something. It might be bones, it might be ligaments, or it might even be one of Tommy’s fucking teeth. Either way, this bitch ain’t walking anymore, that’s for sure.

Unclamping his jaw from the alien’s foot, Tommy jumps up. He doesn’t even wait before grabbing the closest object and throwing it at the cluster of cat-bitches, hitting two. If the closest object was a chair, then that’s not his problem.

Tommy vaguely thanks all the stars above that these dumbasses held them hostage in the kitchen and dining room combo. All the more weapons to use.

Not even giving the fuckers time to adjust, Tommy grabs a knife from the knife holder and plunges it straight into the nearest cat-bitch’s neck. Pulling it out, he hisses when he feels a bullet enter his shoulder.

Turning around, Tommy sees the cat-bitch he bit, on the ground and holding its foot. 

“Did you fucking shoot me?” He asked, sneering at the terrified cat-bitch. He's actually practically hissing, not much unlike what these bitches do when they're hurt or angry.

The bitch didn’t even answer, just sloppily reloaded its gun. Like that would fucking work twice.

Tommy threw his bloodied knife at that cat-bitch and watched as it hit around its torso. He wasn’t really aiming, so he’s honestly proud that that hit.

While the cat-bitch was crying, Tommy grabbed the gun it dropped and checked it over. Luckily, he knows how to use this one since this is the same type of gun he stole from the poachers to escape. Nice.

Cocking the gun, Tommy points it at the cat-bitch’s head, not even waiting for it to beg before pulling the trigger.

The blood splatter was very much expected. Kinda unsatisfying though because he didn't get to monologue, but there's more cat-bitches to talk to, so. 

Turning around with the gun, Tommy looked at the two other cat-bitches. One was unconscious while the other wasn’t, though it was staring at him. The one awake is the leader.

Grinning menacingly at the asshole, Tommy brandishes the gun. He knows his teeth are bloody, and his shoulder is quite obviously injured, not to mention his wrists are a little red from the plastic cuffs. He thinks it makes him scarier though, really.

And if the trembling cat-bitch leader means anything, then it does make him scarier. Pogchamp. 

“See, I’d have forgiven you if you just left empty-handed, even if you fucking interrupted game night and tied us up.” Tommy began, glaring as hard as he could. “Unfortunately for you, you wanted to take my best friend and threatened my crew’s life.”

Pointing the gun at the unconscious cat-bitch, Tommy smiles harshly. “To add insult to injury,” He continues, pulling the trigger and not even flinching as the orange blood splatter spreads over the room. “You used fucking plastic cuffs on me. Do you know how easy it was to take off?”

“H-how did-” The bitch wasn’t even finished talking when he whimpered as Tommy pointed the gun at him next. 

“I chewed it.” Tommy said, growing bored. He kinda wanted to kill it now, but also, seriously, when was he ever going to be able to brag about how he escaped? Never, not until this bitch asked, of course. Now his crew knows how cool he is. That’s a win in his book.

The cat-bitch splutters. “But you don’t have canines!”

Tommy moved his gun to look at the cat-bitch incredulously. “I do have canines.”

“Well, they’re so small that they shouldn’t be considered canines!” It screams, the fear ebbing away and giving way to some sort of affront. Like he had any credentials to not call Human canines, well, canines.

Tommy glares, insulted. “If you’d just look, asshole, then you’d realize that your flimsy plastic fucking cuffs are useless.” 

Fuck this, he thinks. He points the gun steadily at the cat-bitch leader’s head and shoots without hesitation.

As the blood splatters over the wall, he lets go of the gun and clutches his shoulder. Now that the adrenaline is leaving his body, he can feel that he shouldn’t have probably moved that arm.

Well, that’s black at the edges of his vision. He’s passing out now.

Huh. Floor, meet face.

Tommy woke up to angry muttering. Someone is shuffling around the room, too. 

“Fuck this.” He whispers, turning on his side. Or at least, trying to. If the pain in his shoulder meant anything, it’s that he didn’t dream the ship being infiltrated by cat-bitches.

Groaning, Tommy flops on his back and tries to open his eyes. Luckily, the lights are dimmed.

“How long was I out?” He groaned, still adjusting to the lights, no matter how dim.

Someone huffs beside him, and Wilbur’s distinct voice answers. “Not long enough for the amount of blood you lost, that’s for sure.”

“Great. Can I go back to sleep?”

“Tommy, you lost 25 litton of your blood!”

It takes Tommy embarrassingly long to realize that’s about 0.2 gallons. At least, imperial gallons. Eh, that’s fine. He’ll live.

“That’s fine. Humans can lose more before we die, no biggie.”

Wilbur let’s out a noise of frustration, but at least leaves Tommy to go back to sleep.

Ah, blissful sleep.

It takes about a week or so for Tommy to fully recover, or at least, recover enough to be able to walk around without feeling dizzy.

For some reason, that also means he’s capable enough for 'testing.'

“What do you mean chew on that?” 

Tommy is currently looking at the object in Wilbur's hands. It’s a container that looks metal, but the cuffs that cat-bitches gave him kinda looked metal too, so obviously looks don't mean anything in space. 

Grabbing it, this one actually feels more like a combination of glass and metal. He can't bite that, is Wil crazy?

“Open it, you child.”

“I’m not a fucking a child!” He yells out, ripping off the cover of the container anyway. What? He’s curious.

There is, in fact, meat in there. It actually smells decadent, so this was either cooked by Ranboo or Techno, seeing as Piglins are carnivorous and Enderians are omnivorous like Humans. 

Apoideas ate actual flowers, and Elytrians mostly ate seeds, fruits, and depending on the Elytrian, even small animals raw. Phantoms are weird ones who have omnivorous teeth but their digestive systems are made for plant life only. Wilbur explained that’s because some of their plants have meat-like consistency, so yeah.

Point is, this perfectly cooked meat—whatever the fuck it is—was probably cooked by Ranboo or Techno. Meaning it's going to be fucking delicious. 

Tommy doesn't even wait for Wilbur to nag him again before he already has the meat in his mouth. 

Closing his eyes, Tommy savors the taste. It's so juicy, kinda like that lamb meat Scott got them when he was on vacation from his job at ISFA, or International Space Federation Agency. The name is shit, he knows. 

Anyway, his point is the taste is like lamb, with the juiciness too. What's surprising though is how tough it is, especially with how not dry it is. He remembers when Deo accidentally cooked a well done steak. Scott's boss, Noxite, looked like he didn't know if he wanted to cry or laugh. 

This, whatever the fuck it is, is as tough as that, but not nearly as dry nor unsavory. It's like eating a well done steak that was soaked in some kind of lamb sauce or some shit. Maybe it is, Tommy wouldn't know. Either way, this is fucking good. 

Wilbur's just staring at him as he finishes, sucking on his fingers to get the final flavors. After Tommy's done, he looks back at the Phantom. 

"That- that was the toughest meat found in the galaxy." Wilbur says, looking like he wants to take notes but also like he wants to do more experiments. "It came from the Nether System and only Piglins were proven to be able to eat it." 

Tommy snorts. "Well looks like they should update that proof because I just ate that whole fucking thing, bitch." 

"I need to write this down." 

"Here. Don't tell Phil, but it's Aves leg. I got it from Quackity." 

Tommy stared at the giant fucking chicken wing (leg??), cooked nicely to a nice brown. It looks like it's seasoned, which is good. 

Who cooked this, though? Maybe Ranboo, since Techno said there isn't any bird-like animals on his planet. Tommy doesn't really know if Enderians have bird-like meat to eat in the End Systems, but oh well. 

Not even questioning it, Tommy picks up the giant chicken wing-leg and bites into it. 

It tastes like fucking potatoes. 

Looking at the wing weirdly, he pulls it apart to eat it in sections. Yeah, that's how fucking big it is. 

It takes almost half an hour, but Tommy finally finishes. He looks at the wing bones and wonders if it has bone marrow with wings this thick. 

Well, one way to find out. 

Getting the thinnest bone, Tommy ignores Wilbur who's writing in his notebook and promptly snaps it in half. It goes easily enough. 

Just like he thought, there was the delicious bone marrow. 

Tommy sticks the broken into his mouth and sucks, tasting the alien bone marrow. It's surprisingly tastier than the ones he's eaten on Earth. The flavor makes him nibble on the bone itself. 

Funnily enough, the nibbling makes the bone break. How- how brittle is it? Even chicken bones probably weren't as weak as this. 

To check just how easy it is to bite the bones, Tommy picks up the discarded thickest bone and, without warning, bites it. 

It didn't snap, unfortunately, but there was a sizable bite mark. Deep enough that Tommy could just pull at both ends of the bone and pull it apart with little effort. 

He showed the broken off pieces to Wilbur, who stopped writing sometime when Tommy was biting the bones. He looks stricken. Huh. 

Oh well. Tommy goes back to his giant chicken bones, sticking another broken off end into his mouth and sucking. Not my fucking business, innit? 

"I just don't understand! " 

Tommy looks at him, nibbling into some meat on a bone that he stole from Ranboo's plate. 

They were having dinner, the mish mash of food all over the table covering the wide variation of their diets. 

Techno has the meat he ate last time, Hoglin meat apparently, and Ranboo looks like he opted for meat today, too. Tubbo's just snacking on full flowers while Phil has big seeds from his planet and fish on his plate. Wilbur's got some weird ass orange leafy thing. 

Tommy didn't really bother getting specific foods from Earth. I mean, he could just steal from the others anyway. Also, Earth food is scarce in space, and expensive to boot. 

Deo usually gives him some potatoes and the others send Deo Earth food to send to him, but well, Deo still kinda thinks he's a stowaway with no ship at this point, so oh well. 

Anyway, Wilbur has been staring at Tommy since he sat on the dinner table. Tommy’s just a little too tired to even be offended. His coffee stash ran out about a few weeks ago and while the withdrawal wasn’t as bad as he expected, the tiredness was definitely not a surprise.

He really needs to get in contact with Deo or the other Business Boys, if only to get more coffee. Fuck knows why aliens apparently don’t sell any type of caffeine anywhere. 

So yeah, Tommy doesn’t have the energy to even be fake offended because Wilbur is being dramatic again. He just continues to munch on his meat.

“How did you eat the Hoglin meat? The Aves bones? How did you chew through subatomic microfilament? ”

Not even bothering to swallow, Tommy asks, “Suba- what? ”

“SUBATOMIC MICROFILAMENT.” Wilbur practically growls out, frustrated.

"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about." Tommy replies, finishing the meat off the bone. He doesn't even look up before he's snapping it in half and sticking one broken end in his mouth. 

Wilbur lets out a high pitched whine, flopping dramatically onto the table, face looking away from Tommy.

"It was the restraints the Phiekrat used on you." Wilbur says dejectedly., like Tommy is being impossible.

Tommy just hums in reply, preoccupied by the bone marrow. He already told the bitch that he chewed it, what more could Wil possibly want?

He's also pretty sure he hears a whimper from somewhere on the table, but well, Tommy's very distracted by the bone marrow in this meat.

It tastes sweet, like candy, but less. Some sort of licorice, he's not quite sure. Either way, it makes Tommy want to eat more. 

In his haste to suck up the marrow, though, he accidentally bites the bone. With how unexpected it was, Tommy' brain doesn't catch up and stop him until after his teeth have gone through and bitten off a small chunk. 

Stopping, Tommy pulls it slowly out of his mouth and stares. 

Everyone else on the table stopped to stare as well. 

Suddenly, the bone is back in his mouth and a crunching noise can be heard echoing as Tommy aggressively bites into it. 

The bone tasted like honey.

Like an actual Earth-born bee's honey. 

As Tommy's scarfing down the bones in his hands, he's already reaching for the rest on Ranboo's plate. The Enderian just lets him, recoiling when Tommy snatches the bones on his plate.

Not too long after, Tommy's sitting back in his chair, full and content. 

Also very amused at how appalled the aliens beside him are. 

What? You don't think he figured out what Wilbur's experiments were? He's not dumb, he just thinks it's funny how horrified they are. 

They won't survive a single day in even the most boring parts of Earth, that's for sure.

Chapter Text

Let it be said that Tommy predicted this.

Yes, okay, he’s reckless. He may also be slightly trigger-happy. And maybe a bit violent and aggressive. But he’s protective, and he’s loyal, and maybe he went on a rampage when some idiots infiltrated the SBI again but this time shoved an injured Phil and Techno in a pod. Or maybe he didn't.

Okay, he did do that, but he’s also smart enough to know that he probably shouldn’t have fought the assholes so close to the ejection button. So yes, technically he knew they could have ended up stranded.

It’s fine. They’re alive, Tommy killed the assholes, and they already managed to contact Wilbur for some help.

Oh yeah, they were stranded on a random planet. Pogchamp? 

“They might have planned this.” Techno said, after rummaging through the reserves in the pod. “There’s no meat in here.”

“Ew, are there only vegetables?” Tommy asked, wrinkling his nose. “How long are we staying and can I not eat until Big Man Wil gets here?”

“Then what are you going to eat?” Phil asked him incredulously, his left wing and chest bandaged. “I know you Humans can eat practically anything, but you shouldn’t go without eating at all.”

“It’s fine.” Tommy dismisses. He picks up a water filter and waves it around to emphasize the stream behind them. “We have water.”

Techno looks at him with a raised eyebrow, or at least what looks like a raised eyebrow. Piglins have no visible eyebrows, but he picked up most of his facial expressions from Phil, who has a very Human-like upper body, including the head, though he does have a number of feathers in his hair. His legs, for reference, are very bird-like. Apparently Elytrians are digitigrades.

“What does having water have to do with starvation being fine?” Techno asked, his monotone voice always hard to read. His face is also very hard to read, what with being very reminiscent of pigs.

Tommy raises his own eyebrow, very obvious with his species’ inclination to facial expressions and body language. “Humans can survive for months with only water.” He said, like it was obvious.

Really, these aliens are all preaching about knowledge when they don’t know jackshit about Humans and their diets. Practically everything normal to Tommy is surprising to his crew. Honestly it’s kind of funny.

… Okay, it’s fucking hilarious.

“Let’s shelve that conversation for when we’re on the ship.” Phil sighs out. Tommy shrugs, turning to the stream and looking if there’s any fish.

Weirdly enough, there isn’t a single sign of life. Maybe the planet’s animals just didn’t evolve to swim in streams? Or did they all evolve to be land animals? Was it a matter of the animals having evolved on land first? How do animals even evolve?

Fuck’s sake, thinking about it makes his head hurt.

Tommy turns around when he hears Phil make a sound of protest. He finds Techno trying to pick up knives with his dominant arm, the injured one. Not to say the other arm isn’t injured, because it is. Those asshole infiltrators were quite adamant in making sure he couldn’t hold a weapon.

“The fuck are you doing?” Tommy asked. He wasn’t worried, of course not, but he knows it’s dumb to try and move that arm. His shoulder is probably dislocated, actually. Tommy winces, he knows how much that hurts, and popping it back in hurts even fucking more.

Should he teach Techno how to push his shoulder back in? 

… Maybe later. This shit is funny. 

“Preparing to go hunting.” Techno grunts, flinching slightly when his arm moves too much. “I only eat meat and those Narkiets knew that.”

“But you’re injured.”

“I know, Tommy.”

“And you need meat.”

“I just told you this, Tommy.”

Tommy looks to the lavender sky in exasperation. Sometimes he forgets these aliens have no idea about humans.

“Techno, I’m a Human.” He said, looking back as Techno gives up using his dislocated arm. “We evolved from hunter-gatherers. I’ve seen hunters hunt animals. It’s a sport to some people. I know the basics.”

Techno is silent for a little while. Phil’s just sitting there, either wondering why Humans are like this or why Tommy is like this. Maybe both.

Most likely both, knowing Phil. 

Groaning, Tommy takes the knives Techno’s been staring at and goes to the stream’s bank to find anything resembling flint for fire. He may not have any survival experience, but Tommy’s been exposed to the internet for long enough to have a good enough idea on how it works.

He could also just ask if they have anything to start fires, actually.

Turning around again, Tommy rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “Do we have anything to start a fire?”

Phil laughs.

“Do you even know what to hunt?”

Tommy had found a good stone by the bank to sharpen the knives with. After some trial and error, he managed to figure out how to make spears out of long sticks, too. It’s pretty cool, and while probably useful in hunting, Techno pointed out it’s a good weapon to use in case they’re ambushed.

He decidedly did not feel proud after that. (That’s a lie.)

“We’re by a stream. There's always animals in or around water, bitch.” Tommy dismisses, making sure his spear was sharp enough. Do they have rope? Maybe he can figure out how to tie a knife to the end of a stick.

“Well, speaking of.” Tommy hears Phil saying. He looks up, finding Phil looking in a direction where the weirdly orange trees and cyan plants were hiding something else brightly colored by the stream. Tommy couldn’t see anything and was about to scoff when what looked like a deer lowered it’s head to drink from the water.

The alien, hopefully not sentient, was more orange than the brown Earth deer are known for. Probably for better camouflage in the bright plant life of this planet. It’s also hopefully an adult, because a fawn about the height of an adult moose is terrifying. It’s antlers looked like it came from a moose too, except it’s about a shade lighter than the cyan of most leaves and plants on the planet, probably also for camouflage.

Despite the eyesore the animal’s coloring is, its camouflage is surprisingly good. Tommy can barely see its body behind the foliage, meaning it’s either a great predator or a prey.

Tommy remembered his biology teacher saying prey’s eyes were on the side of their head, and right now he can see one beady eye on this beast’s side profile. What kind of predators does this planet have for prey to be this big?

Well. Moose are prey animals, aren’t they?

“That one.” Tommy says, pointing to it.

It’s Techno’s turn to look incredulously at him.

“That’s giant.”

“It’s fucking moose-sized.”

“Moose?”

“Giant fucking prey animals on Earth.”

“Prey animals. That size.”

“Yes. Are you fucking deaf?”

Tommy wanted to bash his head against the ground. He didn’t because it might alert that deer-moose hybrid thing. Deer and moose have great hearing, so fuck knows if this one has it too. 

“We have bigger animals. We put bigger fucking animals in captivity for our entertainment. We put apex predators on display for fucking entertainment. This is fucking fine.”

Techno is silent for a while and Phil is just watching them. Tommy grins at them to lighten the mood.

“If you have a gun, I can just shoot it instead of chasing and wrestling it.”

“You were planning to chase and wrestle it?! ”

Oops.

Techno did, in fact, have a gun. According to him, it’s Piglin culture to have more than one kind of weapon at all times.

How he managed to hide the alien version of a fucking rifle, Tommy will never know.

It actually kind of shot like a rifle, or at least what Tommy thinks a rifle would shoot. It took some adjusting and probably some bruises on his shoulder from the recoil, but he eventually learned how to shoot good enough to hit a target. 

It might not matter, but Tommy’s a good shot in games, especially in VR. He’s also shot an alien gun once or twice now.

Unfortunately, practicing shooting meant the alien he planned on hunting was startled. Tommy was going to have to scout the area to see if there were any other animals. He doesn’t even mind if it was a predator, anymore. Food is food. 

Grinning and aiming his newly-acquired gun at the tree he’s been shooting at for practice, Tommy thinks that he can get a lot of meat with this gun.

Pulling the trigger, Tommy whoops when the bullet hits the tree, making it finally fall over from how much he's shot at it. Swinging it over his shoulder, Tommy looks behind him to Techno and Phil, grinning proudly at them.

“Big Man Tommy with a gun, what’ll he do?”

Phil looks at him like he’s done something weird again, which at this point, Tommy’s not even surprised. 

It’s only been about six Earth months since he started staying with the crew. That translates to like… almost 5 space months, give or take. Or, well, almost 5 idum, but Galactic Units of Time is confusing, and conversion in general is hard, so sue him for not being accurate.

Anyway, point is, Phil should really be at least semi-used to Tommy by now. Honestly, Tommy doesn’t even know what he did to get this reaction again, but it’s definitely a Human thing, that’s for sure.

Or a Tommy thing. Fuck knows the crew’s been exposed to him enough to know that he’s not exactly normal even by Human standards. Deo's mentioned it enough times, after all. 

“You never told us you know how to use a high-powered pulse shooter.” Phil said warily. Like he’s expecting Tommy to say some kind of bullshit.

Which, fair. Tommy likes bullshitting. Not this time though. (Maybe because his answers seems like bullshit already, but oh well.)

“Because I don’t? The fuck is a high-powered- whatever the hell?”

Phil looks at him tiredly. “That gun you’re holding.” He points out. “How can you use it? That’s one of the hardest guns to master and you missed only 10 out of 50 shots since you held it.”

Tommy looks at the fallen tree behind him and shrugs as he looks back at Phil. The alien rifle is still slung on his shoulder. It’s surprisingly light.

“I had shooting games on my VR console. Guess that translated to at least some real life accuracy." Tommy says. "Also, guns are guns. They're all mostly 'pull a trigger and hope for the best,' you know?”

Phil looked horrified. Weird, but again, normal. 

"Shooting games?" 

Tommy sighed, plopping down on the ground and surveying the high-powered gun or some shit. He can't be fucking bothered to remember the name. 

"Fuck's sake. There's been shooting games as long as there's been games. I'm pretty fucking sure the concept of shooting games predated video games." 

Phil still looks horrified. Tommy's kinda just vibing now, trying to figure out how to dismantle the gun. 

Maybe this gun is less like human guns and more like video game guns? 

"They teach you to use guns as children?"

"I'm not a fucking child." Tommy grumbles, successfully pulling off the butt of the rifle-thing and putting it back on. When it snaps back in properly, he grins in triumph. 

"And anyway," Tommy continues as he proceeds to pull off and put back parts of the gun in quick succession, "We have a lot of fighting games, sometimes strategy fighting games. There’s a lot of violent games before VR even came out. It’s pretty fucking pog." 

“They let you play war games?! ”

Oh my fucking god.

It’s about noon now, and Tommy just found a herd of those deer-moose thing fuckers. The suns are high in the purple sky, one farther than the other, and he was perched on a tree not too far from the herd.

Phil and Techno decided to tag along, after Tommy managed to teach them how to set a shoulder.

(Yes, he’s set his own shoulder before. He didn’t want to go to a hospital so he had to figure it out himself. Thank god for the internet.)

Techno’s arm is still sore, of course, but at least he’ll be able to move it eventually. It was a little harder to fix since his bones are denser than Humans’, not to mention his skin is also about twice as thick. Fucking Piglins.

Anyway, the point is, with Techno’s arm in relatively working order, they could tag along and make sure Tommy doesn’t scare off the prey. Or even go ahead and tackle them.

Tommy would be offended if he wasn’t actually debating on foregoing the gun just killing the deer-moose with a knife.

As it was, Tommy is on a tree, which was another surprising thing because apparently he has neither wings nor a tail and 'how do you balance?'

Phil should be used to him by now, but he isn’t, so Tommy will continue being himself to drive his captain crazy.

A rustle from below him catches Tommy’s attention, and he shoots Techno a sharp look.

“Keep quiet, bitch.” He whispers harshly, keeping the prey in his peripherals to make sure they don’t notice them.

“We’ve been waiting for almost a whole ventir.” Techno replies back grumpily, Phil massaging his sore shoulder.

It takes Tommy a little while to convert a ventir to about just under an hour before he replies. “I need to fucking focus and you’re not fucking helping.”

“You can just say if you’re backing out, you know.” Techno nonchalantly says. “I can hunt them for you.”

Tommy’s eye twitches, the urge to yell and hit the Piglin coursing through him. Unfortunately, he also knows how important meat is to the alien, and if they scare these prey, who knows how long it’ll take them to find other meat sources?

(No, he’s not worried. Fuck aliens and their ‘Humans pack-bond!’ nonsense. They don’t and Tommy Danger Kraken Innit is not attached. Fuck you. )

Instead, Tommy focuses back on the prey.

He remembers watching some hunting documentaries, the hunters having both eyes open, so Tommy keeps his too, despite instinct saying otherwise. He has a scope, which is nice, but it’s got extra things that measure distance and shit you’d expect from aliens. Tommy doesn’t even bother reading those.

Noticing the deer-moose start to settle down, Tommy braced the gun against his shoulder and properly aimed at the biggest prey’s thigh. He’s got no experience in hunting, but he does know that no one can effectively run with an injured thigh. He can just slit the prey’s neck once it and maybe another one or two are down.

Hopefully Wilbur and the rest of the crew find them fast, because Tommy’s probably about to get at most three days’ worth of meat. That’s like, 2 opton, give or take. 

Tommy already figured that the prey would run once one cries out, but at that point he’s hopefully aimed at another. There’s two prey he’s going for here, ignoring the smaller ones that he assumes are children and the deer-moose with children close to them.

(Tommy may need to kill food to help someone, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to orphan animals, nor kill baby animals. He’s not barbaric.)

He places his cheek against the… the extended part of the gun, and aims the crosshair. He breathes in to calm his nerves. When he breathed out, he noticed how his aim moved slightly, and realized that he’s going to have to hold his breath for this.

Breathing in again, he fixes his aim and holds his breath before firing.

With his ears ringing and his heart beating fast, Tommy doesn’t even wait for the deer-moose to cry out before he’s aiming at the one closest to it. He can’t see it’s flank, but he can see the front legs, so he shoots there.

That’s when the deer-moose things start running away, which makes aiming harder. Luckily, he managed to hit another one, but the prey’s running was too fast and messed with his aim, the bullet hitting just at the thing’s hoof instead of its thigh.

That’s okay though, better than nothing.

When the other deer-moose have left, Tommy jumps out of the tree he was on. Letting the rifle fall into the bushes, Tommy stands and sprints straight to the fallen animals. He pulls out a knife as he does so.

The deer-moose is much bigger up close than at the end of a scope, but that doesn’t stop Tommy from pulling at the biggest prey’s head and putting the knife against its neck.

Breathing in and closing his eyes, Tommy digs in the knife as deep as he dares and pulls it across.

Blood sprays over his face and arms, making him squawk and let go of both the deer-moose and the knife. He takes a few steps back, wiping at his face to get the weirdly clear blood off.

Flicking his very bloody hand to get at least some more blood off, Tommy eyes the now-dead deer-moose. Sneering in disgust at the wet, cyan grass, he picks up the knife and cleans it on his shirt.

“Fucking blood-spray.” Tommy mutters, speed-walking over to the next deer-moose.

This time, he swings a leg over to one side of its neck, effectively straddling the back of its large neck and head. Tommy wipes his hands on its fur to get off more blood and grip his knife tighter before pulling the prey’s head back and digging the knife and pulling it across, the blood spraying away from him this time.

He holds the deer-moose’s head back until there’s no more blood spraying out, and after that he moves on to the last one. He does the same, waiting again for the blood to stop spraying before he lets go of the head and falls limp against the now-dead prey, adrenaline starting to crash.

Groaning, Tommy slips off the carcass and flops on the ground, closing his eyes. He hears footsteps approaching not long after.

“One of you better know how to clean and skin these because I’m just about to fucking pass out.” Tommy says, covering his eyes with his arm. He doesn’t even bother wiping it, the clear blood reminding him of water more than anything.

“Are you okay?” He hears Phil ask from above him. Removing his arm, he sees Phil blocking out the sun, casting shade on Tommy’s face.

Groaning and turning on his side, Tommy replies, “Yeah, just fucking light-headed from the adrenaline rush.”

“Adrenaline?!” Phil exclaimed, grabbing Tommy  shoulders and hauling him up into a sitting position. “You’re taking drugs?! That’s dangerous!”

As Phil continues to fret over the teen, Tommy looks at him tiredly. He’s literally having an adrenaline crash and this man is asking him about drugs? What is he on about?

“What are you on about?” Tommy asked irritably, beginning to stand up. He’s becoming a little jittery, which is actually normal for him after every adrenaline rush.

(Tommy doesn’t have much knowledge with adrenaline crashes, but he’s a gamer, and the more intense games he plays always leave him irritable and itching to move around.)

Grabbing the knife that fell on the ground, Tommy starts to flip it between his hands. It helps his need to move a little, but not enough, so he paces while flipping the knife.

“Adrenaline, Tommy! You’re taking drugs?!”

When Phil’s words finally register, he looks incredulously at the man. “Drugs?” He asks, wondering if he heard wrong.

“Yes! Adrenaline is a fast-acting drug, an enhancement steroid that makes you stronger but leaves you with a one-track mind! It’s illegal!” Phil says, looking frustrated. Tommy just looks at him weirdly.

“The fuck do you mean?” Tommy asks, voice starting to rise. He breathes in to calm down, knowing how easily he blows up after a rush. “Humans produce adrenaline naturally.” He finishes through his teeth, trying to keep from yelling.

Phil stops trying to pull his hair out and looks at Tommy. “Naturally?”

“Are you fucking deaf? Yes, old man. We have glands or some shit that produce it plus helps with other shit.” Tommy shrugs, the knife almost slipping from his hands. “I don’t fucking know, man. Ask my biology teacher.”

“So you’re not taking drugs?”

“I don’t know how sneaky you think I am, but where the fuck would I even hide it?”

“Sorry, I just- I just thought-”

Sighing irritably, Tommy stops pacing and puts the knife back into the small bag on his hip. 

“It’s fine, you didn’t know.” Tommy says, starting to walk toward Techno who managed to disembowel one deer-moose and is in the process of disemboweling the other while Phil was freaking out.

“Human biology is weird.” Phil groans out, moving to the disemboweled deer-moose and pulling out a knife to presumably skin it. Tommy snorts.

“You’re fucking telling me, man. I grew up on Earth. Biology in general is a complicated mess.”

When they're successfully back on the ship, about 3 and a half days later, they still have some leftover meat from the deer-moose. 

"Wait, you're telling me Tommy hunted these animals with a gun he's never used before?" 

"Wilbur, that's not the craziest thing." 

"How is it not the craziest thing ? " 

"Humans produce adrenaline naturally." 

"HUMANS DO WHAT?! " 

Safe to say Wilbur got a crash-course on Human biology. At least, as close to a crash course as he can get from a 16-year-old who hasn’t been to school since he was kidnapped by poachers.

They really need to figure out how to connect to Google. Tommy’s phone is just sitting in his room unused, and honestly these aliens would appreciate the Human information goldmine.

Chapter Text

For the first time since Tommy joined the crew, they’re going to the Market System. Or, at least, one of the multiple Market Systems in the universe. More specifically, the one connected to Hypixel, aka Deo’s current place of residence.

Deo as in Tommy's personal Earth food provider.

And like the man he is, of course Deo knew he was visiting the area. At this point, Tommy’s pretty sure he and the boys strapped a tracker on him somewhere with just how much he accidentally and purposefully rides the wrong ship.

It has happened before. That’s how he found his crew, after all.

Anyway, so yes, Tommy is about 90% sure Deo has a tracker on him at all times, and that is the only reason why he’s right outside the ship dock in the Market System.

Well, it’s not like Tommy’s complaining. Especially considering Deo is holding a tote bag full of what he’s assuming is food. Wonderful, wonderful Earth food.

If there's caffeine in there, Tommy will never insult Deo ever again. 

(Not really, but you get his point. Caffeine makes the world go round and all that bullshit.) 

Launching himself off the ramp before it's even fully descended, Tommy runs over to Deo and practically tackles him. 

Luckily, the aliens on the planet don't seem to want to go near either of them so Tommy doesn't even need to push someone over to get to his friend. He still would have if he wasn’t so excited at the prospect of caffeine.

“Big D!” Tommy laughs out, letting go of Deo. “Do you have coffee? I ran out of coffee. Come oooonnnn, I need caffeeeiiinneee.”

Deo laughs at his whining, making Tommy sulk. Sulk, not pout. Big men don’t pout.

“Yes, yes, I brought you caffeine, you addict.” Deo pulled up the hand holding the tote a little to indicate it. “I brought a couple of other things too, you know. Scott sent tea, chocolate, and fruits. Also some meat and vegetables so you can cook.” He finishes, gesturing to a box sitting by his feet.

“Yes!” Tommy screamed, snatching the tote from Deo. Looking through it, he can see a few boxes of different types of tea, a couple of bars of Cadbury and– holy shit. “You got me mint chocolate!”

Deo smiles at him fondly. “Technically it was Scott who got you mint chocolate. I got you vegetables.”

Tommy was about to glare at Deo, but he suddenly felt a hoof on his shoulder. Techno’s shadow looms over them, the tall Piglin using his bulk to intimidate Deo, probably. He wouldn’t put it past him, the dickhead.

“Tommy, who is this?”

Rolling his eyes, Tommy shrugs off the hoof on his shoulder to step closer to Deo. He pulls off the man’s sunglasses and christmas hat to prove that no, he’s not an alien in disguise. Really, his crew keeps forgetting he’s Human.

“This,” Tommy begins, gesturing with his now full hands at Deo and facing Techno, “is Deo. We were from the same orphanage on Earth.” He glares up at the asshole Piglin. “We were taken by the same poachers.”

He gets the impression that Techno is glaring at one or both of them, but seeing as his eyelids don’t really move other than twitch, no one can really tell. Except for Phil, because he’s Phil and he’s the only man ever.

Rolling his eyes, Tommy turns his back to the Piglin again.

“Big D, this is Technoblade.” He introduces. Deo just looks at the Piglin with an unreadable face. Tommy raises his eyebrow. “He’s the security guard for the crew, or something. I don’t fucking know.”

“You’re the closest we have to a guard dog, Tommy.” Techno huffs.

“That’s great.” Deo says, voice a little strained. He grabs Tommy’s arm and starts pulling him in one direction. “Tommy, can we talk? In private?”

“What-” Tommy says. “Deo, what the fuck?” 

Deo looked tense, clutching now at both of Tommy’s arms. Tommy is honestly just confused.

“Tommy- Tommy, do you know who that is?”

Tommy raises his eyebrow again. “Mate, I just said his name.”

“No no, do you know who he is?” Deo shook him a little, urgency in his voice. Tommy’s other eyebrow shoots up as well, concern starting to form in his mind.

“Deo, what are you talking about?”

“Tommy, you know how I’ve been on Hypixel for a while, yeah?” Deo suddenly asks, forcing himself to let go of Tommy.

“Yeah, Big D, but what is this? You’re kinda scaring me, man.”

Deo runs his hand through his hair, visibly anxious. His eyes keep darting back to Techno who’s still very much imposingly watching them. 

“Okay, so you know how I sometimes join in the Pit Tournaments?” Tommy nods, and Deo continues. “That’s Technoblade, the Pit’s Champion. Rumors say he joined The Angel of Death to be a bounty hunter; they’re criminals.”

Oh. Okay, so Tommy sees his point, but the thing is, well, they’re essentially criminals, too. He says so. “Deo, we’re criminals too.” And, to make the older feel better, he puffs his chest out and boasts, “And I’d be more criminal than them, that’s for sure!”

Like a charm, Deo relaxes at the familiarity. 

Time to drop the bomb.

“And anyway, I’m part of the crew now, so technically I’m a bounty hunter too.”

Deo deadpans at him, and Tommy pulls a wide grin to cover the awkwardness. He slaps Deo on the back. “Well, if that’s it, we have a shopping trip scheduled! Bye, Big D! See you, who knows when!”

And he walks away.

(Tommy inwardly cringes. He can already imagine the boys blowing up his communicator, nevermind Scott possibly sending space police his way. Actually, nope- no no no, he’s not going to think that. Ignorance is bliss.)

Tommy is just about ready to worship Scott. The older Human sent a tea kettle and a coffee maker. He should have probably asked why the bag was heavier beforehand or why it wasn’t in the box, but oh well. At least this was a pleasant surprise.

He grins widely as he prepares his coffee. Tommy would have gone with the tea if he hadn’t been craving coffee for weeks now. That is to say, he’s still most likely drinking both by the end of the day. He never said anything about having self-control, anyway.

Smelling the coffee from the pot,Tommy practically swoons. He picks up the mug he bought from the Market run—an Earth design, specifically the Union Jack. Pouring the coffee into the mug, he faintly hears someone enter the kitchen.

“What’s that?”

Turning around with his now full and steaming mug, Tommy finds Tubbo at the door. He sees Tubbo’s antennae twitch before his mug is suddenly out of his hands and in the Apoidean’s.

“Hey! Give that back, bitch!” Tommy yells, trying to swipe the mug from Tubbo. The alien just flies close to the ceiling—not even Tommy can reach him, considering the abnormally high ceilings of the ship.

The fucking audacity.

“Tommy!” Tubbo exclaims, keeping the mug away from himself while still holding it. “Do you know what this is?!” He’s obviously panicked, but seriously, Tommy just wants caffeine. Can’t a Human have caffeine in peace?

“Yes!” He yells back, trying to climb the table to at least grab Tubbo’s foot. “It’s my fucking coffee!”

“It’s caffeine!”

“I know!” He grits out, frustratedly trying to swipe at Tubbo who’s just buzzing around out of his reach. “I haven’t had caffeine in weeks Tubbo! Give it!”

“Caffeine!” The Apoidean screeches like it’s some kind of offence. Tommy doesn’t even want to know.

“Why are you yelling about caffeine?” Turning around, Tommy sees Ranboo. 

Ranboo, who’s tall enough to grab Tubbo.

“If you grab Tubbo for me, I’ll stop insulting you for the next week." Hopefully that translates for him because Tommy can’t be bothered to use Galactic Time Units right now. He needs that caffeine.

Luckily, Ranboo is kind of a pushover, so he does, in fact, grab Tubbo. The mug falls from the Apoidean’s grasp, and Tommy all but dives for it. Looking into the mug, he sees at least a good two thirds of the coffee left.

He chugs it.

“No!” Tubbo screams. He turns to Ranboo, grabbing the Enderian’s shoulders. “That was caffeine!”

Ranboo, because he’s a pushover as Tommy’s mentioned before, looks over at Tommy. He has a weirdly horrified and disbelieving look on his black and white face. “What?”

Here Tommy is again, in the medbay. The constant visits are getting tiring at this point, with the accidents Tommy gets into, and the experiments Wilbur put him through.

Weirder still is the fact that Tommy hasn't gotten into an accident, fight, or anything that made him bleed or bruise. Neither is Wil experimenting on him. 

"See, I just think this should be considered kidnapping." Tommy says, watching Wilbur stab him with a syringe and take some blood. "And really, this 'mad scientist' bit is just boring now, Wilbur." 

Wilbur sighs as he pushes the red blood onto a small glass tray, sliding it into a microscope-looking thing. Tommy doesn't know what it is, okay? He’s essentially a drop-out at this point, really.

"Tubbo said you drank caffeine, Tommy."

"Well yes, but I don't see the problem—I usually chug it by the liter everyday." 

"Caffeine is poison— what do you mean by the liter?" 

Tommy looks at Wilbur weirdly. The blue-skinned alien had whipped his head from the microscope thing and is now looking at him as well, eyes wide. 

"Yeah, everyone has like, a good hundred milligrams or something. Deo has almost more than I do, actually." 

“He’s the human you met in the market, wasn’t he? He gave you caffeine and a lot of other human food.” Techno’s voice rings out from the infirmary door. Tommy sees him standing there, arms crossed.

“Yeah, Time Deo. He stayed Hypixel after we trashed the fucking poachers.” Tommy confirms, reclining into the chair he’s sitting in. Might as well relax, really. Wilbur isn’t letting him out until after he does what he does; Tommy would know.

They’re silent for less than 10 seconds before Tubbo bursts into the room, just in time because Tommy’s just about to burst out of boredom himself. Ranboob is following the bee-like alien, holding the tote and box he forewent putting away in favor of making his coffee immediately. Look where that got him.

“He has more!” The dramatic bitch yells, all despaired or something. Tommy watches Ranboob place down the box and tote on the ground close to Wil, Tubbo turning to open the box and show the pre-packaged fruit, vegetables, and meat Scott sent him to make ‘healthy’ meals. There’s even a cookbook passive-aggressively placed on top of all the food.

“What do you mean more?” Wilbur asks incredulously. He looks like he’ll pull his eyes out the longer the day goes on, and Tommy hasn’t even done anything today. Well, anything other than drink coffee anyway.

Then Tubbo pulls out a red, wrinkly pepper from a container and Tommy is pretty sure it wasn’t only Scott who packed this for him. Scott wouldn’t have sent Tommy ghost peppers if there was even a possibility of him being a stowaway. (A precaution in case Tommy used it as a poison for his unwilling drivers. The other boys seem to beg to differ, if this means anything.)

As it was, he has no time at all before Tubbo is dropping the pepper and crushing it under the container. The smell of the spice isn’t really that bad from where Tommy is, but Wilbur practically shrieks and phases through the infirmary bed behind him, getting as far from the pepper as he can.

“Is that capsaicin?” He screams, covering his nose and mouth. Ranboo is also covering his nose, and Tubbo’s already flown closer to the ceiling. Technoblade is surprisingly more affected than Ranboo, his cape now covering his snout and having stepped out the door, yet keeping the door open.

Tommy sighs, not knowing if he should mourn the loss of the prank material or celebrate not having to accidentally eat it. Well, there were still more in the container, and he could just ask Scott if he ran out.

He stands up and swiftly picks up the container on the floor, some pieces of ghost pepper stuck under it. Glaring at the mess, Tommy wipes his hand against it to take off the ghost pepper and contemplates rubbing it on Ranboob, who’s closest to him. Then he shrugs and licks it off his hand, ignoring the whimpers he hears.

Literally not a second later, he may be grabbing the carton of milk Scott also put in the box, a note stuck to it saying something about Tommy being a dumbass and Scott anticipating it. He's a little too in pain to notice.

“Fucking hell-” Tommy says, ignoring the panicking of his crew mates (when did Phil get here?) and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His tongue is still tingling a little, but the whole carton of cold milk helped a lot—thank fuck for technology, right? 

“I probably should have expected that.” He continues, placing down the now empty carton. He’s still surprisingly holding the container of ghost peppers. “This is like, a million on the Scoville scale or something, and I’m nowhere near used to heat.”

Wilbur looks very stricken, Tubbo looks like he wants to cry, Ranboo is already crying with his purple particles practically falling off him, and Techno is now more relaxed than he was. Probably figured that Tommy will survive, the prick. He could at least pretend to be shocked for Tommy’s entertainment.

Phil looks very stressed, which kinda puts a damper on Tommy’s amusement.

He groans, opening the container and pulling out a pepper. He holds it out in his palm, crushes half of it in a fist, and then places the now-weird shaped pepper under the weird microscope still on the table.

“Ghost pepper, one of the hottest and spiciest peppers on Earth.” Tommy starts, trying to get this done fast now. “It’s about a million on the Scoville scale, something we use to measure how hot food is. Pure capsaicin is like… 16 million?”

“Hot?” Techno’s voice carries over, somehow having walked closer without making noise.

Tommy looks at him, his eyebrow raised. “Yes, hot. And spicy. As you saw, ghost pepper is painful unless you’re used to eating food like that. The capsaicin in it, like, activates pain receptors or something? I don’t fucking know, mate. It just makes everything feel hot and painful.”

Phil makes a keening noise. “Why are there foods that are painful to eat?” He asks, his feathers puffed up.

Tommy faces him and shrugs. “Pretty sure it’s an evolution thing, I think.” Tommy places the container he’s still holding on the table, next to Wilbur and Tubbo who are taking turns looking through the alien microscope. “Plants didn’t want to be eaten, so they made their stuff spicy.”

Techno huffs, something like indignation. However, before he could even open his mouth, Ranboo asks with a high voice, “Why eat it, then?”

Tommy looks at him like he’s grown another head. “Why not? It’s not like we died.” He rolls his eyes. “It got to the point we even made our own.” He then points to the ghost peppers and continues, “Those are actually bred by humans; can’t find that in the wild, mate.”

“YOU MADE THIS?”

So apparently, Humans can eat quite a bit of Galactic Empire Grade Poisons. Tommy very much delights in eating in front of the crew and whipping out some pretty badass lines, if he does say so himself.

(Like the first time he ate a pineapple in front of Wilbur, he was asked immediately why he’s eating it. Apparently it’s a carnivorous plant on Phil’s planet that allegedly eats you.

Tommy, well, he was quite happy to say “It can’t eat me if I eat it first.”

Wilbur paled so fast that Tommy wondered if he should call a doctor, and then remembered Wilbur is the doctor, and well.)

Apparently, even the poisons on Earth are considered lethal in the tiny tiny doses you find in fruit.

(Tommy was eating an apple once and Wilbur requested a seed to see if they could plant it—they quite liked the taste of the fruit, after all. It wasn’t long after he finished his apple when Wilbur came barreling through the ship to Tommy, all the while in a panic.

“Tommy!” He screams, shaking the Human back and forth. “There’s cyanide in your fruit!”

Tommy looks at him like he’s going crazy, which he probably is, and says, “Yeah, in the seeds, you dickhead. Anyway, it isn’t like I’m gonna die.” 

To prove a point, he takes a bite of the apple core he still has in hand, making sure to swallow about 3 seeds.  He shows the seeds on his tongue, swallows, and shows his mouth again. 

“See? It’ll take me hundreds before I even feel the effects, let alone die.”

Well, apparently, anything more than a milligram of cyanide kills most aliens, and no less than 10 milligrams kill the rest. Who knew?)

As it is, at least he has his own food, now. Of course, he still steals the others’ food, but they can’t steal from him, not if they don’t want to risk potentially eating poison.

Tommy is very smug.