Chapter Text
Sam left him in that cell with a sense of nervous confidence and the satisfaction that a monster was locked away, and left him void of many things. His head pounded and his body ached, an all over chill settling in his bones and his muscles burned with every step. His head splitting, the headache getting so much worse now that the sun was stinging his eyes. His senses attacked on all fronts now that he stumbled out the front gate of that hell hole.
Tommy's head thick with fog, half stumbling down whatever path he was on. He honestly couldn't tell where he was or where he was going. He had just stumbled out the gate and picked a direction.
--
His head was a mess of thoughts and memories, all clouded and fuzzy. Two months in the afterlife can really make a person forget, he forgot how grass smelled. He forgot how his shoe laces flopped around wildly as he walked. He was back, and it was excruciating.
He forgot how the sun at its peak, would assault his eyes with blinding light, as it was doing now. He forgot how itchy and uncomfortable his worn out and honestly disgusting clothes were. He forgot how generally loud living was, every sound, smell, and feeling seemed to invade his senses and create a massive knot in his skull. Adding with the pulsing and denseness of his cranium.
Dream had revived him, after a week of annoyance and with one final stance, Dream had beat him to death, and Tommy felt every bit of it. Every fucking punch, kick, and slap. All of it.
Thankfully the revival had mended some of his worse wounds, but it didn't completely heal him. This resulted in how he now walked with a limp, his left foot barely of any use to him now. The damage from the walk through the tundra almost took the limb from him in the first place, now he might just have to have it removed for sure. His vision wasn't spectacular anymore either, he sat way too close to the lava for it to be healthy. He tried to avoid his unwanted roommate as much as possible but still ended up with his skull bashed in. That didn't really help his sight either, being one of the things revival couldn't completely fix.
Tommy already had a bet with himself that migraines were gonna continue to be a very wonderful problem for him in the future.
A full body shiver brought him back to the present, he really needed to regroup for just a minute. He kept walking as the fuzz clogging his brain started to recede, enough so that he started to make sense of the other buildings around him. He couldn't really see fine details but he can tell he's on the prime path at least. A very tall black and red building being very obviously his hotel was a nice indicator of his location. That meant his house, or dirt hut, or whatever you call the thing, is close.
(it wasn't a home, his home. It never was.)
Right across from his hotel there was a new building. Tommy had to squint at the small sign outside the gate to make sure he was reading it correctly. He read the words “Bee & Boo Motel.” It had taken a few minutes for Tommy to really understand what had happened but before he could process any of it footsteps started to fade into focus, coming from behind him. Tommy whipped around, arms up in defense only to see Tubbo stopping dead in his tracks.
They stood a good few feet apart. Tommy tried to take a good look at him, it felt like months since he saw him last, or maybe because it had been months, for Tommy at least. He almost forgot what his eyes looked like, his memory churning and blurring into a shorter boy whose hair had fallen into his eyes.
He stood stock still, completely lost in himself until the sharp noise of wood hitting wood shocked him back to focus.
Tommy squinted slightly. He could see Tubbo, but his head hurt and so did his eyes. All the finer details were just a bit smudged, but he could see the crate that had slipped from his friend's grip, he could see the weird shiny band on his horns and the way his hair stuck up in absolutely untameable curls. Also the unmistakable O his mouth was making right now. It's all Tommy could really see now with how fucked his vision was.
Time stopped as the two boys tried to process what, or who, they were seeing. They stood there for what could have been an hour, or just a few minutes (sure as hell felt like hours). He couldn't know.
Tubbo was, well he kinda just stood there. Tommy however, he was going through it. His mind whirled through a lot of different things. Tommy missed his friend, so badly. But did he feel the same? Tommy reminded himself that he shouldn't get his hopes up. Tubbo had built the bed and breakfast across from him, not that it was a bad thing. Tommy was actually proud of his best friend(?) for such a nice build, but right across from his hotel?
Had he really moved on so quickly?
His mind started to float away again. A veil thick with doubt, confusion, and pain separated his mind from his body. He watched through clouded eyes, the eyes looked at Tubbo, then the half finished building, to the materials scattered around the half built motel.
He never even registered that Tubbo was looking a dead man in the eye, and before either of them really had any type of cognitive thought, Tubbo had screamed.
Tommys whole body jerked with the sudden and piercing sound, making frantic movements to cover his ears. He was stumbling back from the shock alone. Tommys mind being pulled sharply and painfully back into the land of the living. His head throbbed. Everything was getting so- damned loud. Squeezing his eyes shut he tried to breathe, in for three and out for three. He tried to ignore how much he could feel, everything. He ignored it, and breathed.
Soon enough he was stumbling back up to his feet, favoring his good leg. Cracking an eye open to see Tubbo had backed up more and they were now farther apart. He could no longer see the definition in his scars that littered his face and how his chest heaved with shock. Tommy froze. It was unnerving, seeing his friend so scared, scared of him.
He tried to pull himself together, lowering his hands slowly and opening his eyes more.
He tried to offer a truce of sorts, “Hey big T, um, long time no see…” Tommy said casually, waving slightly. There was no response to it, barely a reaction. Scared shitless as he was, Tubbo still wasn't moving. He looked like he'd seen a ghost, a dead man.
And just like that the pieces clicked in place within Tommys head. Tubbo had seen a ghost. It was him. Tommys expression morphed into something of guilt and fear, “Oh, o-oh wait, I was dead. Holy shit, oh shit I'm so sorry Tubs, I didn't even think-, I-”
He was starting to get tired of this hammer continuously pounding his brain to mush, his senses still being assaulted on all fronts. Tommy huffed out a breath and tried to pull himself together. Trying, and failing, to keep his composure. “I didn't mean to leave like that, It was just supposed to be the last visit. I never expected it to go down hill so fast-” Tommy tried saying, his poor explanation was soon put to rest when a new person entered the picture. It was Ranboo, his large stature and unnatural eyes, almost glowing, catching Tommys attention. Squirrel brain kicking in.
Walking from a side door of the inn, a place that was completely out of Tommy's field of vision, and dumping a box of supplies from his arms to a workbench somewhere off to Tommy's right. He leaned back a bit to stretch out his back as it popped. Oblivious to the situation at hand he started speaking without looking up from the box at hand, “Hey Bo, where do you want this to go?” The hybrid asked, still ignorant of the boys and what seemed to be a wonderful reunion.
Unfortunately Tommy has a very bad habit of not learning from his mistakes. His attention swiveled, now fully onto Ranboo. He jabbed a finger in his direction, “Ranboo, you’re building this?” He asked rather loudy, the question sounding more of an accusation. Ranboos' head snapped around so fast Tommy could have sworn he heard another pop. His face went through what seemed to be, all the stages of grief at once.
“Tommy, how are you here?”
There was a heavy pause, Tommy was not really in the mood to explain the situation. Unfortunately he didn't really have a choice, he shook his head cursing himself and his big mouth “It's uh, um. It's a long story,”Tommy sighed. Ranboos' shocked eyes didn't waver, still completely dumbfounded. Still standing half turned from the workbench and mouth still gapping. “But Tommy, you were, you were dead, you had died!” he had said, slowly turning and making his way to stand beside Tubbo, curling his hand around a smaller one.
That struck Tommy weirdly. He felt it curl tightly in his chest, watching Ranboo try to comfort Tubbo. Thoughts swirled around in his head, things ranging from; ‘ He doesn't need you anymore’ , to, ‘ get your ugly ender paws off my friend you prick’.
--
The tension was palpable, you could practically taste it in the air. “I’m pretty sure I'm aware, Ranboo,” Tommy said after a tense pause, glancing between the pair slowly, he really had replaced him. All it took was a week and two days. Enough time for his friend to have let go, to have moved on. Maybe, maye Dream was right. No one here really loved him, no one had missed him. The thought burned, it struck him across the face and laughed at his bruises.
Tommy took a shaky breath. No one had spoken for a while, a silent standoff, seeing who would break it first. “Um, Dream, that revival book he was talking about? He wasn't,” a broken laugh escaped his lips, “he wasn't lying.”
All his words did were tighten the already stifling feeling surrounding the trio. Wrapping them all in shock, fear, and other strong emotions none of them could place. But Tommy could tell when he wasn't wanted, his years on this server taught him enough to know.
He shifted on his feet slightly, trying to relieve the pressure that had built on his bad leg. Body tight with tension and mind reeling with too many emotions, Tommy started to turn back to the prime path, “Ok um, well i'm going to go. Uh, yeah. See you guys later.” Neither of the boy's expressions changed as Tommy continued to hobble on unsteady feet, trying his best not to show his limp.
Tommy, honest to prime, has no idea what to do with himself.