Chapter Text
In his dream state, the void is cold.
It is dark, stretching in an endless expanse that makes Tommy feel impossibly out of place.
In his dream state, he sees an animal on the ground far, far away from him.
A white hare sits, head turned from Tommy so he can only see the little cotton ball tail and neat fluff of its back.
It was bigger than they were meant to be, easily up to Tommy’s knee.
The hare is a perfectly clean white; a sharp contrast to the inky black dark surrounding them. It sits still, unmoving except for the steady rise and fall of its body as it breathes.
It reminds Tommy that he needs to breathe too.
Dream starts to stride across the room and he grabs the man's arm in a surge of confidence. Dream stops to look at him immediately, clearly taken by just as much surprise as Tommy is at his actions.
“I want to spar instead.”
Dream scoffs, all smiles. “No, you don’t. We just sparred and you’re sore.”
He jabs his fist once against Tommy’s bruising ribs as if testing him and Tommy winces but doesn’t back away. He clenches his jaw instead, trying to straighten himself up despite the pulsing pain running through him. Tommy grips his staff resolutely, trying to show his confidence.
Dream just blinks at him. “That fight was only a demo. We still have to train after this. It’s better if you take it slow, it’s clear you’re not as good as you used to be.”
“I know. I want to spar with them anyway.”
“No.” Dream replies. “It’ll take forever. You can take half of the trainees.”
“I want to teach them all.” He just doesn’t want Dream to spar them instead.
. Dream doesn’t speak and Tommy refuses to fill the silence. Dream taught him that. If a silence is uncomfortable, try not to fill it first.
He’s never been very good at listening, but he’ll pull out all the stops to get this to work in his favour.
Dream doesn’t fidget, doesn’t speak until he’s certain of what to say, and he doesn’t let his expression falter away from the smile he’s wearing in front of the new hero recruits at the tower unless it’s fake sympathy for Tommy.
“You spent all morning with Schlatt.” Dream has a calculating look in his eye. “You want to spend all afternoon training them and then having a one-on-one training session with me?”
He hesitates. He hates staff fighting. The hare’s ears twitch and Tommy thinks about how soft the fur must be. He wonders what it would be like to run his fingers through that fluff of white.
His hands are rough, and he can feel the tenderness of skin where he’s been gripping staffs on his palm.
“Like it’s hard?” Tommy responds cockily. Dream laughs and it rings painfully in his ears. Tommy steels himself, an iron grip around his staff.
Dream looks like he wants to knock Tommy off his feet just to test his determination.
“They want to be here.” Dream says, simple as that. When Tommy starts to walk off, smile plastered onto his face, Dream throws an arm over Tommy’s shoulder to get close to his ear. Tommy can feel his breath, hot and ticklish immediately. “Tommy, you might not want them to train with me, but they would be honoured to have that chance. You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.”
He can hear the smile in Dream’s voice, just as fake as the one on Tommy’s face.
He takes a few steps towards the hare, excited to see something, anything, aside from darkness. The white hare starts to turn its head slowly as if the action is causing its bones to stretch instead of tendons. Tommy’s only about a meter away when he crouches down.
He feels his stomach writhing; twisting and tightening when the hare turns to look at him with its eyes. Dark shadowed circles surrounding a completely white iris painted like a sheet of paper and a pinpoint black pupil. Emptiness isn’t the right way to describe it. The look is so intense that Tommy’s sure he can feel it weighing onto him.
The longer Tommy looks, the more it feels like the pupil of the eye is completely still as if they’re glued to a spot beyond him.
The hare's eyes are glued and not for a moment does it move its gaze. The pupil never grows or shrinks any smaller. It never blinks. Not once. Only cracks of red appear around the rim of the eye.
Tommy draws in a slow breath, unable to break eye contact or urge his muscles to move.
Wrapping around the scruff of the hare's neck, too tightly to suggest the hare should be able to breathe, are thorns. A dark green-black stem that ties around tightly, like a chain. The thorns cut in, staining the fur around its neck with a deep red.
Tommy has no idea how he didn’t notice it before. He wonders briefly if the injury is new, but it looks as though the thorns have been growing around the neck for a long time. Digging deeper and connecting with tender flesh.
Every second, the hare seems to wilter while Tommy watches.
The thorns shift with a terrible stretching noise as they tighten. The colour darkens like the life is sucked out of it. The blood oozing from the thorns digging into its scruff seems to thicken and drip slower. The hare’s fur gets scruffier, grayer.
Tommy watches the hare shift like it’s moving in fast motion and he’s not even there.
He watches the hare shift into something darker like the wind is blowing away its first version of self. The only thing that stays the same is its eyes. The unforgiving, intelligent stare that it sets onto Tommy, waiting for him to move.
Tommy can’t seem to drag his eyes away. The hare continues to breathe in and out at a slow pace, calmly, showing no sign of being injured.
His heart skips a beat when one of the hare’s eyes falls out as if something behind it has pressed a meaty thumb against it and shoved it out.
It strikes the black ground with a wet, dull thud. The thin red veins inside the hare's eyes crackle and marble, mirroring the shape of streets on a map. Tommy stares at the dead ends and the veins that seem to stretch constantly until they round the eye, slipping out of sight.
Tommy only just realizes that the sound of breathing has gone quiet, engulfing him in complete silence, when the hare sprints at him. Tommy tries to move but finds that he doesn’t have control of his body. His legs won’t move.
The hare sprints at him, a thumping noise in its wake, and leaps straight at his neck. Its claws sink into his skin, an unforgiving grip that chains him to reality. The momentum shoves him onto his back, falling over.
Tommy screams but no sound comes out.
Tommy feels the pain as if it’s real. The weight, like the hare is actually on his chest, sharp claws ripping his skin into shreds.
The smell of plant rot, searing into his nose.
He fights to keep his eyes open as his body wills him to shut them and shield his face. The jaw of the hare ruptures, hanging wide open. White fur peels away to reveal flesh and blood. The mouth consumes his entire vision. He hears a shriek, blood curling and never-ending. The sound isn’t human, it’s barely animalistic.
He turns his head to look away and finds he’s directly level with the hare’s eye that dripped to the ground only seconds earlier.
Tommy turns, shredding his lungs as he tries to yell but no sound comes out. He doesn’t kick or punch but every time he moves his hand he feels a chunk of fur come away with it, littering the ground.
Tommy shoves the hare off with a heaving, shaky breath.
The hare snarls, so loud and deeply that for a second this is a wild beast and not just a wild hare.
The hare flicks its body to get straight back up. The thorns digging in around its scruff are deeper now. Dripping crimson liquid in a careless display as if it’s got plenty to spare.
Every voice in Tommy’s head screams danger and he jolts upwards as fast as his body will let him. Immediately, a rush of pain goes through him. The gauze wrapping the wounds on his arms and the bruises painting his torso is a discordant symphony of pain that makes his entire body tense and for a pained noise to escape his mouth.
Even Tommy’s fingers ache, a dull throbbing pain that he’s only distantly aware of amongst everything else.
“Hey, hey…” A hand pushes him back down, firm against his chest and Tommy can’t stop the panicked sound which escapes him. Tommy’s fingers dig into Purpled’s wrist but he acts like it’s nothing. “Breathe, idiot.”
Tommy’s grip tightens around Purpled’s wrist and Purpled’s eyebrows twitch together. Tommy’s stare meets Purpled. A hurricane meeting the wind.
Purpled’s eyes are a rich purple colour, as you might expect, but nothing brings Tommy more relief than seeing Purpled’s questioning, worried look.
Tommy squeezes Purpled’s wrist testingly and Purpled’s eyes dart down to his wrist and then back to Tommy’s face.
“What is it?”
He focuses on the rapid rising and falling of his chest and tries to even it out. Tommy swallows hard and lets go. He lets a breath out, melting a little bit.
“I just needed to see if this was another nightmare or not.”
Purpled keeps his hand planted on Tommy’s torso, not trusting him to stay down.
He was right of course, Tommy desperately wanted to bolt up and make some space between the two of them.
“And?” Purpled asks, eyebrow raised.
“Better than the last one.”
Purpled hums an acknowledgment, then slowly removes the pressure on Tommy’s chest which he’s more than grateful for, breathing in deeply as if he was starved of air.
Tommy manages to get enough sense to recognize he’s lying on a gray couch. There’s a throw pillow stuffed beneath his head and a different pillow discarded on the floor, alongside a blanket. The coffee table Tommy can see in the corner of his eye is covered in bandages and creams, a first aid kit practically pulled to shreds as it spews out its contents all over the table.
He wants to ask where the fuck he is but Purpled’s face is as concerned as it can get so Tommy swallows his words and makes an educated guess that he’s in Purpled’s room inside the hero tower.
“You have any stitches?” Purpled asks and slowly removes the pressure he’s applying to Tommy’s chest.
“No.” Tommy has to think about it.
“Are you lying to me like the dumbass you are?”
He doesn’t think so.
His mind blurs between the last few days. He sees flashes of green and staffs, of eating fried rice and staring out the window, of bruises and smashed bottles. He hears mumbles of people talking about the egg organization at the docks and flashes of Schlatt’s anger. He can smell alcohol in Schlatt’s office like he’s still there. And the burning singe of ash from a cigarette, filling the room with a haze and a smell that will linger on for days.
He’s almost there, but it’s like looking through a smeared window.
He can feel the accusations of knowing about the egg organization like Schlatt’s actually hitting him with the words. He can feel Schlatt’s hands grabbing at his shirt, demanding answers. He can taste the acrid thickness of a lie on his tongue as he answers. Can taste the rotten meat flavour of more threats than Tommy can count.
“Earth to major Tom,” Purpled says with a tone of caring and an emotion Tommy only now recognizes as concern. “If you have stitches, I need to know.”
“No.” Tommy sits up carefully so he can’t feel the tightness of Schlatt’s grip on his shirt so heavily against his chest.
Purpled shoots him another look but nods after a moment. “Alright… I want to play questions.”
Tommy shuts his eyes and groans, earning a scoff from Purpled. He had a love-hate relationship with this game. “I want to start.”
It was truth for truth. Ask a question, get an answer, then ask a question right back. It was simple, and it worked. You were allowed one veto, but they hardly ever found they needed it.
“You’ve got a question lined up already?” Purpled asks. Tommy can feel the couch shifting in weight as Purpled stands and walks around behind the couch.
He had a lot of questions, it was more difficult to choose just one than it was to think of any. They all make him uncomfortable to ask but he needed to fill in the blanks.
“Yeah,” Tommy whispers, letting his head sink into the couch and squeezing the little pillow that was set up for him. “How did I get here?”
“Dream brought you over,” Purpled responds simply and Tommy thinks he can remember clinging to Dream and mumbling about how he’s sorry for… for something. “You were fighting for consciousness until he left. Once it was just us you were out.”
Tommy’s nods spacily. “He’s pissed at me for something.”
Purpled just watches him warily and then decides to busy himself by rummaging through what sounds like the fridge. “What happened?”
“I don’t remember the details.” Tommy shrugs, hand roaming from his side to the little patch over his ribs which felt all kinds of fucked up. He remembers a kid, short with a zap of black hair, waiting eagerly for Dream to call out that the match had started. Tommy blearily can recall trying to carefully swipe the legs out from beneath him and end the fight.
He remembers the fire in the kid's eyes, all too similar to Tommy when he was younger, and how the kid had fought tooth and nail to take him down. He’s pretty sure the kid didn’t succeed, although Tommy didn’t feel like a winner right now.
Tommy’s brows knit together, watching Purpled look through the fridge. “Dream doesn’t want me to train the new recruits.”
Purpled reappears from sorting through the fridge, vegetables in hand. He opens his mouth like he’s about to say something, his brow furrows and then flattens. He decides against saying his initial thought before trying again.
“I can’t believe you said yes to training recruits.”
“If I said no, I’d be doing it anyway. I just wouldn’t know.” Tommy shrugs and there’s a short silence before he speaks again. He gets a quick, vivid flash of sitting on the couch in his apartment instead of Purpled’s apartment and feels Dream’s presence next to him. He suppresses the race down his spine by rolling his shoulders. “Schlatt and Dream can’t decide where they want me and it’s a pain in the ass. Dream wants me to start driving again; Schlatt only wants me as his healer and a recruit trainer.”
Purpled stares at Tommy in horror, the words not quite processing.
“You’re insane. ”Purpled comments, placing the vegetables on the counter and fixing Tommy with a concerned look. “You’re healing Schlatt, training new recruits, and doing missions with Dream?”
“No.” Tommy shakes his head, letting his neck go limp and feeling content to lean back and stare at the ceiling. “Dream’s upset because I’m not doing anything he wants. I told him no. I won’t go back to training with him. I work with him now, not for him. We train the recruits together, it’s just Schlatt and Dream don’t like the way I’m doing it.”
“How are you training them?” Purpled asks. “You’re not bad at fighting. Believe it or not, I’ve always thought you were competent with a weapon.”
Tommy scrunches his face up and mocks a laugh to Purpled’s amusement.
“Of course I’m competent with a weapon. I just won’t use one against the kids. It’s against what Schlatt and Dream know. They have a.. a pattern. I refuse to play into it. I won’t let another kid go through the same shit I did, I can break the pattern.”
Purpled’s in thought, trying to think of a solution instead of offering support.
That was how Purpled usually handled this kind of thing. Support came second to an answer.
“The kids want to be here,” Purpled says, almost questioning. He leans against the kitchen counter, not quite understanding.
“They don’t know what they signed up for.”
“Of course they do. Not everyone started working for the heroes because they owed a favour.” Purpled says and Tommy flinches. Purpled’s face softens, like he wants to say sorry, but instead he just keeps talking. “Wouldn’t it just be easier to do what Schlatt asks?”
Tommy blanches. He looks at Purpled, unable to recognise him. “I’m not going to hurt a kid.”
“I’m not saying you hurt kids. I’m saying you need to train them properly. Shit, Tommy you make it sound awful.”
“It is awful.” Tommy’s voice rises before he’s able to stop it.
“They want to be trained. Why else are they here?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Tommy tries to swallow despite how dry his throat feels.
“You can’t make that decision for them.” Purpled answers casually, crossing his arms, and Tommy scoffs. “Tommy, they want to be here. They know they’ve signed up for hero training. Everyone here wants to make a difference and we’re all willing to make a few sacrifices to do it. This is the real shit, Toms. Not just some corner boxing gym. We have to be prepared so we can protect others.”
Tommy thinks he sounds exactly like Dream. It makes him want to rip his own skin off.
“I’m just not letting a trainer hand their ass to a new recruit on a silver platter.” Tommy puts it as simple as he can, trying to get Purpled to see what he sees. “Don’t you fucking hate the punishments for mistakes? Christ, I fucking hate the yelling and the rematches. All the staffs and the crappy wooden swords can go fuck themselves and the driving route they make us practice on can burn for all I care.”
“That’s what being a hero is. Sometimes you get hurt, but you’re stronger for it.” Purpled responds in a genuine voice. Like he believes it. Like if he was in Tommy’s position, there wouldn’t be a problem.
“You’d smack a kid for fucking up?”
“No! No, where the hell did that translate in your head? I’d train them properly, yeah, but I wouldn’t go around smacking them.”
“That’s what they do!” Tommy complains, exasperated. He doesn’t realise his chest is heaving before he’s caught in the moment. “They correct with strikes, not words, Purpled! These are teenagers! Teenagers who are littered with bruises because they think it’ll make them a better hero.”
“They signed up for it!”
“Well I didn’t! They don’t know what this place does to you! I fucking didn’t sign up for any of this and I’m genuinely sick— so bloody sick to my stomach whenever Dream says a kid messed up and I have to show them how it’s done. I won’t train them like they want me to, I’ll do it better.”
“The system works, Tommy. If they don’t like it, they can leave. The people who stay will be fantastic heroes though, and it’s because they had the right training.”
“They’re not punishing kids while I’m around. I won’t fucking let it. Every single time Dream wanted to punish a kid, I think about how much I wish someone would have stepped in for me.”
Purpled looks away like Tommy’s burnt him when he realises what Tommy means. “You can’t take the punishment for all those kids.”
“They need someone on their side!”
“So do you, knuckhead.”
“You’re on my side.”
If the pause didn’t catch Tommy’s attention, the silence sure as hell did. He looks over to Purpled like he’s seeing him in a completely new light. Maybe this whole time, Purpled had been using his powers to disguise how he really looks because who Tommy sees right now isn’t his friend.
“Am I?” Purpled asks incredulously. “How the hell am I meant to help you, Tommy?”
Tommy stares at him in shock. This isn’t the person he healed with shaky hands after a night of tears and fighting and a new beginning that Tommy didn’t know how to begin. This isn’t the person who helped Tommy when Tommy couldn’t help himself.
This sure as shit isn’t the same person who Tommy told about how badly the heroes had hurt him.
“Help me.” Tommy’s voice is soft and shaky. “Don’t let them win.”
“How?” Purpled begs and he starts to walk back over. If Tommy was shaking, he was doing a good job at hiding it. “Tommy, you’re killing yourself. Do you think it’s easy to watch you get hurt? Every time you come to my apartment I have to check if you’re still breathing. Every single fucking time. It’s not like we shake hands and talk about the weather, I have to try and figure out if your injuries are something I can bandage or not.”
“It’s not my fault.” Tommy chokes out and Purpled shakes his head.
“Of course it’s not. It’s not your fault, I’d never say that. I just need you to understand that what you’re doing right now? Rebelling against the system, forcing yourself to take punishments you don’t deserve— Tommy, it’ll kill you and I think you know it but don’t care.”
Tommy stares at his hands. He doesn’t remember coming here so often. He knows he’s been here a few times, but that’s all. What happened is scrubbed away like a book full of empty pages. He knows there are blank chapters, he just doesn’t know what he missed. He’s not sure he’ll remember this time either.
“What day is it?” The words are heavy on his tongue, uncomfortably out of place.
“Jesus,” Purpled reels back. His disbelief in Tommy’s demeanor is clear in the way he lets out a surprised breath. “Can you just talk to me? Can we stop dancing around the issue? Tommy, I’m so damn worried about you, I swear to god if you tell me you’re just throwing your life around for the sake of it—”
“It’s my turn to ask a fucking question.” Tommy snaps. “Purpled, what day is it?”
“Wednesday. It’s Wednesday, Tommy.”
Tommy’s heart sinks, repeating the word for himself over and over inside his head.
He had no idea how much time he’d lost.
Yesterday was Friday. He spoke to Schlatt yesterday. He remembers seeing the time and the day. He’s not sure if this is the following Wednesday or if time had really drifted from his grip that much, to the point he’s lost weeks.
Tommy combs his memory. He hates everything that it comes up with and granted, it’s not a lot. What the hell happened in all that time between? Are the bruises on his ribs even from dueling that kid with the black hair or are they too fresh for that?
“Tommy, are you okay?” it snaps him straight out of his thoughts and Tommy turns an empty gaze onto Purpled. He’s sitting right in front of him, on top of the coffee table where medical clutter has been shoved haphazardly away. It was weird not being fully alert when Purpled moved positions, but Tommy didn’t dwell on the thought.
“Don’t waste your question.”
“You can ask for the day of the week but I can’t ask if you’re alright?” Purpled asks but Tommy knows he’s not expecting an answer. “What’s wrong?”
Purpled whispers it with all the desperateness of a friend who just wants their friend to be okay. With all the care of someone who hates seeing their friend injured. With all the concern of someone who’s watching their friend waste away in a way that Purpled wholeheartedly believes is avoidable.
Tommy responds with all the years of hurt he’s suffered, all the memories of when no one listened to him, and the belief that if he doesn’t keep fighting he’ll be just as bad as the other trainers. That is to say, Tommy doesn’t respond at all.
He swallows his own truth as a painful lump in his throat. He shakes his head at Purpled as a silent plea. Purpled hates it and Tommy can tell based on how his eyes flash and his mouth presses together.
There’s a silence that separates them by an ocean and when Purpled finally does speak, it’s like that distance starts to close back in.
“Tommy, every time I go to bandage you up, do you know what happens?” Purpled inquires, but it’s phrased more like a statement than anything. Purpled rolls his sleeves up and Tommy’s eyes fall onto a bandage on the top of Purpled’s forearm.
He tears the bandaid off in a swift motion, no hint of feeling it come off. Underneath the bandaid, there’s nothing. It’s just a smooth patch of skin, completely unharmed.
Tommy doesn’t speak and when Purpled tries to make eye contact, he doesn’t return it.
“Tommy, your hands glow.” Purpled’s voice is strained. If Tommy was thinking more clearly, he would have noticed the fact that Purpled is completely ungrazed despite his daily private training sessions. He should have realised it much sooner. “Your hands don’t glow to heal you, Tommy.”
“I don’t control that.” Tommy croaks.
“No, I think you do. I think subconsciously, you healed me and not yourself. I think in the back of your mind, you were more willing to use the last of your energy to heal my scratches instead of your breaks.” Purpled insists, blinking away the moisture in his eyes. Even though Tommy doesn’t understand why Purpled is upset, he is.
He’s so unforgivably upset at seeing his friend destroy himself for a reason he doesn’t fully understand and Tommy doesn’t know why.
“I don’t control it.” Tommy spits and then testingly, he sends a weak pulse of healing to his hands. The muscles ache disappear but he doesn’t do it to heal himself. He does it to prove that he can.
“Tommy, if you did what they tell you, you wouldn’t be in this position. Do you know what I mean? I wouldn’t have to see you with purple and blue bruises growing over older yellow and green ones. I’m on their side, Tommy, and of course I’m here for you, and yes I think Dream is a piece of shit just as much as you do, but you have to listen and stop destroying yourself.”
Tommy starts to struggle to his feet. “Help me up.”
“What?”
“I’m fucking leaving.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“No, I really am.”
“No.” Purpled exclaims, pushing Tommy back down onto the couch and god, he wishes Schlatt would just take the fucking wheel. Tommy hits the sofa again with a grunt and shoots Purpled the deadliest glare he can manage.
“This is kidnapping.”
“No, it’s not.” Purpled grapples for the words. “We’re still playing questions. I’m not done. Ask a question, asshole. It’s your turn.”
“I’m not playing this game anymore.”
“Fuck you. I have more questions.” Purpled shoots back and Tommy glares at him, to no avail. “Tommy, what’s Schlatt’s power?”
“That’s—”
“No, tell me. I don’t want whatever excuse you were about to bullshit.” Purpled demands. “‘Cos you’re not normal. You’ve been off. Most of the time you’re doing whatever Schlatt says with a smile but sometimes, usually the second we’re alone, it changes and it’s scary. Tommy, not knowing what day it is? You’re hardly here right now.”
“Veto.” Tommy croaks out and Purpled looks like he’s been slapped. His jaw drops open and then snaps shut before he crosses his arms defiantly.
“You can’t veto.”
“We get one veto.”
“Well, I veto your veto.” Purpled says and his voice softens when he sees Tommy’s expression.
“I’m done with this, okay Purpled? I’ll figure this out myself. I don’t need your fucking help.”
“I don’t doubt that, Tommy.”
“Good. I can take care of myself!”
“Of course you can,” Purpled says, letting his words draw out. “But what’s the harm in letting me help?”
Tommy clenches his jaw, looking away.
“Tommy, what is Schlatt doing to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Don't lie to me, imbecile. There's something wrong and I know it.”
“No.”
A beat passes. Purpled’s stare is unmoveable. “Let me know what's wrong or I’ll march my ass up to his office and find out myself.”
“No! Don’t.” Tommy panics, leaning forward despite the rush of nausea. He takes a heaving breath. “Don’t.”
“Tell me.” Purpled presses and the unspoken part of his statement lingers in the air. Tell me or else I’ll find out some other way.
Purpled was good at pushing buttons to figure out the truth and it frustrated Tommy endlessly when he flipped the script onto him.
Tommy breathes air into his lungs, focusing and forcing himself to stay present.
“Jesus, Purpled, it's not that fucking simple. None of this is easy. Schlatt- he’s…” Tommy bites his tongue, blinking hard to stop the water in his eyes. “Purpled, I’m not me when I’m around him. I’m losing time.”
Purpled’s frown only deepens. “Time powers? He controls time?”
“No.” Tommy answers snappily. “That’s all you’re getting, alright? Let me leave.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Take it or leave it, twat.”
“No! What the fuck do you mean you’re losing time?”
“I mean I’m losing time! I can’t remember! I’m not— I’m not me.”
“Explain.” Purpled demands and he gives no room for discussion.
“It’s difficult. It’s like, like I don’t have a choice.” Tommy says desperately, grappling for the words. “Purpled, he controls me.”
Purpled’s eyes widen and he looks like he’s about to move back. He shouldn’t tell Purpled, he knows he shouldn’t. It's the tower's most closely kept secret. Tommy doesn’t want to think about what would happen if someone found out he told Purpled.
But what more does he have to lose?
“I don’t remember what he’s making me do.” Tommy lets out a mortified laugh, bordering hysterical. “I get glimpses but it hurts to remember. I can’t fight it, I’m so fucking tired of fighting.”
He’d been fighting and running between people his whole life. He’s tired of picking side. There are a thousand questions dancing on Purpled’s face that he manages to swallow in favour of one. “Why?”
“Because I’ll run.” Tommy says and to him, it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ll run, and we both know it.”
“Tommy that’s ridiculous, he can’t—”
“He can.”
“—that’s awful. Tommy, there are laws! We’re the good guys, we can’t let him get away with that shit. Tommy—”
“Stop! I told you the heroes aren’t the good guys. You didn’t listen.”
Purpled looks like he’s about to argue but he quickly cuts himself off. He takes a breath, struggling to get his thoughts in order, and then bursts out again.
“Why’s it happening to you?” Purpled exclaims and the anger is poorly concealed in his voice. “You left and god, I knew they wanted you back but I realized what they’d do to ensure it. What the hell has made them so desperate?”
“Schlatt’s sick.” Tommy mutters. “Once he’s gone, I… I don’t know. My healing can’t keep him alive forever.”
“Wow,” is the only word that comes to mind when Techno enters Sam’s lab.
The entire thing looked like Tubbo had exploded a cabinet and the papers had burst outwards, covering every surface imaginable.
The state of the lab was the worst Techno had ever seen it, which spoke volumes considering Sam once called Techno for help to disarm a weaponized bot he’d created that Ranboo thought was a microwave for his spaghetti.
“Yeah,” Sam responds sheepishly, hands resting on his hips as he looks around. He scratches the back of his head. “There’s so many deleted records, it’s infuriating.”
Plastered onto the screens that were attached to various walls of the lab was a huge array of information— mostly obscure— but all relating in some way to Tommy.
It had been decided to not include Phil.
He knew, obviously they’d never have gone this far without telling him, but Phil wasn’t in the right space to be contributing so they under exaggerated the lengths they were going to find out more about Tommy.
“How much have you found?” Wilbur strides in from behind Techno, stopping when he’s stood next to him. There were mountains of photographs and street camera quality footage that had Tommy’s face hidden somewhere within it.
“Not as much as I’d like.” Sam sighs, picking up a notepad with messy writing scrawled all over it. Techno watches one of the videos on the screen that auto-plays— a video of a young Stitch holding the hand of Dream as he’s dragged through a crowd of people, face tucked down and earbuds on.
Techno nods appreciatively. There were papers strewn about haphazardly, as if someone had created book confetti, and there were sticky notes attached in the most unlikely of places throughout the lab. Fran runs over to greet Techno, sniffing his leg most likely because he smells like Floof.
"Sam, every day I wake up grateful to be on your good side.” Techno carefully pulls a sticky note from Fran’s fur that reads ‘Light Blue Suzuki Swift - TLT’. He’s not sure what it means.
“Jack helped a lot. A weird amount of files on Tommy have been scrubbed but Jack was able to help me hack into some single copy files that the heroes were holding onto.”
Techno spots a 3D print of what he’s pretty sure is meant to be Stitch’s mask. Egg-shaped, designed to hide the entire face. In the 3D print it wasn’t clear, but Techno knew that in person they glowed with white light. The 3D print appears animated as the mask shrinks into a visor that has a white glare to it.
It’s weird to imagine Tommy’s face hidden behind it.
Wilbur clears his throat. “How easy is it for you to track patterns within images and footage?”
“You insult me, Wilbur.” Sam smiles, turning towards his computer. “What do you want to look for?”
Wilbur takes a steadying breath, eyes fixed on the screen behind Sam. “Arguments, fights.” Wilbur bites his lip and shrugs. He thinks of the scars on Tommy’s back. “Look for injuries too.”
“I don’t know if it’ll do anything to explain why they wanted him back so badly.” Sam hums into his hand, eyes flitting between sticky note and screen. “If he was just an upset kid who ran off, why would they even bother? The only thing I can think of is Tommy was sent to spy on us.”
“Which he didn’t—” Wilbur says stubbornly. “So there’s got to be an explanation.”
“Wilbur,” Sam scolds, not in a mean way. “We need to be logical about this.”
“There’s something we’re missing.”
“Then we find more.” Techno reasons, looking over from Wilbur to the disheveled piles of information. They needed to make a dent in the files they had, one way or another. “Where can I start?”
Sam turns and pulls up something on a big screen. A recording begins that looks like it was taken by a traffic camera. It films a car that Techno vaguely recalls to be the one that Tommy drove the very first time they met and the reason why ‘Light Blue Suzuki Swift’ was scrawled onto a note.
Tommy’s parked outside a big office building that Techno doesn't recognise.
Inside the car on the driver's side is Tommy, clutching the steering wheel with a death grip, taking a deep breath, and leaning back into his sea at with rigid posture. Tommy glances over at the empty chair next to him and smiles.
Techno frowns as the camera seems to catch an odd sort of ripple effect over that area and his frown deepens when Tommy starts talking to empty space.
That felt like a good place to start.
It hurt to try and eat, so a part of himself wished that Schlatt would just take the reigns again and he wouldn’t have to think too much about it.
He knows it’s wrong. In the back of his head, he should hate wanting someone to command him to eat his fried rice.
But when his arms ache trying to lift the fork and everything tastes like ash disintegrating in his mouth, he thinks it would be a lot easier if someone else could just eat it for him.
He doesn’t want to eat it.
“How was Schlatt?”
“He’s fine.” Tommy shuts his eyes, sending a small pulse of healing towards his headache. It fades into a dull throb. “It’s Schlatt, you know? Same as ever.”
Dream holds Tommy’s eye as if he’s searching his face for a few seconds. Tommy looks away fairly quickly.
He’s counting the second until Schlatt is ill enough that even healing can’t save him. He’s waiting for the moment the leash he’s on is loosened to the point it’s not choking him and he can try to leave.
Dream looks like he’s going to say something but settles for silence and a blank expression.
“Yeah, I know.” A beat. It’s not long enough to let Tommy try to speak but it’s long enough that it makes Tommy feel like he should have said something. “Schlatt told me it was your idea to expand. It’s a good idea. Great media, sending heroes to protect areas with a school and apartment building. I suggested that if it goes well, we could even look into getting that mall to open back up. Store owners like to buy safe locations and people love to shop there even more.”
He doesn’t look at Dream, although every part of his being wants to gauge a reaction. Suggesting an idea for what Schlatt should do next is ballsy. Suggesting the area down towards the docks and having someone point out why it’s a bad idea was a death warrant.
To stop Dream from noticing any traces of the truth, Tommy brings a white-gold glow to his finger tips and lets it slowly race up through his veins, soothing the ache in his muscles.
“It’s a good idea.” Dream repeats. “Good publicity for something easily stopped.”
Tommy nods, biting back a relieved breath. He wanted to leave. More than anything he wanted to leave.
He hopes to god his idea works.
Tommy knocks impatiently on the door, fingers tapping patterns at his side in anticipation.
Purpled’s door creaks open and he opens it, dressed in his pajamas and looking disgruntled to be awake at this time.
“Tommy?” The recently disrupted sleep is evident in his voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I know how you can help me.” He doesn’t take a beat to disguise his nervousness but he’s more than grateful that Purpled skips over it.
Purpled cracks a lazy smile. “What do you need?”
“A favour.” Tommy says quietly, biting the inside of his cheek. Purpled raises his brows, rubbing his eyes.
“You’re desperate.” Purpled responds, opening the door further. The light inside his hero apartment was a sharp contrast to the dark hallway Tommy was stood in.
“What part of my look suggested otherwise?” Tommy jokes.
Purpled snorts and then steps out of the doorway and Tommy enters the apartment, speaking in a careful voice.
“Do you want a coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee.” Tommy answers and Purpled frowns. “I don’t think I can stay long before Dream knows I’m gone.”
“Alright.”
“It’s a big ask.” Tommy wrings his hands together as Purpled shuts the door and rolls his shoulders, turning to Tommy with a shrug.
“I expect nothing less.”
“You can say no. It’s okay if you can’t.”
His plan was banking on Purpled saying yes, but the concern in his eyes was enough to make Tommy panic.
“Well obviously I’m saying yes,” Purpled stretches his arms and walks over to turn the kettle on.
“You can’t talk to me afterwards about it.” Tommy says quickly. “I don’t know if it’ll be me or… or not.”
“Okay.” Purpled hesitates, expression wavering. “What do you need?
It’s rice again. It’s fucking fried rice.
He almost thinks it's a kind of sick joke that half the time he’s not under Schlatt’s control it’s so he can suffer through a silent meal of warm ash with Dream.
He looks over at Dream. He’s dressed the same way as yesterday. Or maybe a few days ago?
“What do you want, Tommy?” Dream asks and then in a swift change in tone, he asks carefully. “Are you alright?”
“When did we last talk about Schlatt expanding the patrol distances?”
Dream goes deadly quiet and Tommy’s heart races.
Dream can see right through him. Tommy knows it. He fucking knows that Dream knows what he’s trying to do. He thinks he might throw up in the silent that follows and the heavy weight of Dream’s eyes beating into him.
Dream’s fork scrapes his bowl loudly and Tommy glares at it from where he’s sat across the table. Dream notices.
“Eat.” Dream deadpans. Tommy scrapes a mouthful onto his fork and just holds it there for a while. He’s not hungry and the idea of eating right now makes him feel ill. He’s too nervous to even imagine
“I’m not hungry.” Tommy grits out and Dream’s eyes flick up to Tommy, a cold glaze in his stare.
“Why?” Dream asks. Tommy shrugs slightly, trying to swallow his nerves. “I’m not telling you the date.”
“Okay.” Tommy whispers, breathing sharply through his nose. He was trying to control his breathing and if he was successful, he couldn’t tell.
After a hefty silence, Dream puts his fork down.
“It’s something else.” Dream states and Tommy knows he’s expecting an answer.
“It’s nothing.”
“Is this about driving?” Dream questions.
Tommy clenches his jaw. He was too tired to hide the full scope of his reactions to things Dream said. “Can we eat in silence?”
Dream pauses to consider his options but Tommy’s pretty sure he’s got his mind set on talking about the subject, with or without Tommy’s enthusiasm. “It’s painful to see you denying yourself happiness.”
“Refusing to drive isn’t painful.” Tommy spits, a venom starting to creep into his voice. “It’s nowhere near painful.”
Tommy eats a forkful of rice, swallowing without tasting. He stabs a piece of meat slightly too hard. He knows Dream is watching.
“You’re lying.”
“Fuck off, Dream.” His heart lurches.
“I hate liars.”
“Yeah, well I hate you.” Tommy snaps and in a heartbeat, Dream’s out of his chair. His seat makes a grating, scraping noise across the ground and Tommy’s adrenaline soars. Tommy jerks back, fork dropping as his arm flies up to protect himself.
It happens so quick that Tommy hears the sound of his bowl shattering on the wall before he sees it. Dream throws it like it’s weightless, not bothering to have his gaze follow where it lands.
Porcelain pieces cover the floor and explode from the impact.
He stops breathing. Stops thinking. There’s a record scratch in time and Tommy sits through it, trying to match the silence and stillness of his environment.
He listens to the sound of Dream slowly sitting back down in his chair. His seat scrapes against the floor gently as he pulls it back in. Tommy doesn’t move.
He thinks if he tries, he’ll bolt for his room and won’t be able to stop himself.
“You’re here because you lost the race, Tommy.” Dream says calmly. A hundred different alarms ring in Tommy’s head. The fake peace in Dream’s voice causes goosebumps up his spine.
Fuck you, he thinks. Fuck you a million times over. Tommy doesn’t lower his arm in the silence that follows Dream’s outburst. He shrinks back into his seat, unable to stop his fast and uneven breaths. He stays inside his own head and counts to twelve.
“When I gave you that five minute head start,” Dream begins and he doesn’t sit down. He keeps standing across the table from Tommy. “I thought you’d make it. Lower your arm.”
No, you didn’t. You abso-fucking-lutely did not think I’d get away. Tommy wants to yell at him but the part that wants to get out of this without anything else breaking is louder than that voice.
“Lower your arm.” Dream commands, not says. It makes Tommy’s chest tighten painfully.
Mechanically, Tommy lowers his arm to his lap. He resists the urge to fidget and calm his nerves.
Dream doesn’t bother asking Tommy to look at him and a weird rush of gratefulness rushes through Tommy.
“You failed, Tommy.” Dream murmurs in a soft voice that makes Tommy feel sick. His voice goes from honeyed to sharp. “I spent months covering your tracks. I hid you from Schlatt. I gave you every advantage I could— Tommy, I faked an entire building! I dragged George into this because I knew only you would know there was a road there.”
“Do you want me to be grateful?” Tommy asks in a small voice. Dream goes deathly quiet, watching him. Tommy clears his throat. “Am I meant to be happy for all that false hope?”
“There was nothing false about it.” Dream spits and that venom creeps into his voice. “You failed. After everything I did to help you, Tommy. All I need you to understand is that your failure is my failure.”
“It was false hope.” Tommy whispers insistently, not able to bring his voice any louder. “You were waiting on that fucking beach.”
“I gave you every chance to run. The one time you didn’t have that option, you tried. When all of your villain friends were willing to fight, you decided to run.”
“It was the only option.”
“Or maybe you’re not as close to them as you thought you were.” Dream says lazily, tilting his head to better see Tommy’s reaction. He tries to keep his face clear of expression but it’s damn near impossible. Tommy feels impossibly small, hands twisting together as guilt rolls through him
Tommy shakes his head. Fuck off.
Fuck right off.
He cared about them so damn much, Dream didn’t know anything.
“You wouldn’t let me leave,” Tommy says, lifting his gaze. His stomach twists like a rag when he makes eye contact. “You let me leave once, why won’t you again?”
“You never left, Tommy.” Dream responds, a confused lilt in his voice. “The only time I saw you willing to truly leave everything behind was on that beach.”
“Trying to fight was insane.” Tommy says, volume rising.
“And trying to run was stupid.” Dream shrugs, fixing Tommy with a calculating look. “I think I’d rather follow an insane plan than a stupid one.”
“It wasn’t fair.” Tommy spits, “You had more people, more energy, more weapons. For fuck sakes, we were soaking wet, sharing a couple of knives between us all, and we were exhausted.”
“It’s not about what either of us had. It’s about the fact the villains were ready to all die together. To protect each other. Protect you.” Dream leans back in his chair, watching Tommy get more and more upset. Tommy doesn’t even realise what Dream’s doing. “In return you tried to abandon them for a run along the beach.”
“You know what, Dream? I fucking hate it when you talk about my decisions like you know better than I do.” Tommy snaps. “You don’t. You don’t fucking understand a thing about what I was thinking. That’s the truth.”
“Is it?” Dream wonders absently, pulling Tommy in.
“Yeah it is! You don’t fucking know. You never do. You don’t know a god damn thing about what I was thinking. I knew my odds and I fucking liked them a hell of a lot better if I ran.”
“I think you’re a coward. I didn’t teach you to be a coward.”
“I’m not a coward!” Tommy yells. “I was willing to lose everything to get away from you! Everything. That’s not cowardice, you fucking asshole.”
Tommy stands up swiftly. He’s caught between two minds of storming off or trying to punch Dream for his smugness but the second his chair scrapes the floor, Dream’s back out of his seat. His hand yanks Tommy’s shirt forward so he loses his balance.
Dream takes the opportunity to press a hand against the back of his neck, pushing Tommy into the table. Tommy takes a choking, gasping breath of surprise. His head is stuck, turned towards the spot where his bowl had exploded into pieces and scattered shards all over the floor.
“You’re so predictable, it’s almost pathetic.” Dream sighs, like he’s disappointed, and Tommy’s face flushes with hot anger. He hated him. With every fibre of his being, every cell inside his body, it all was aflame with fury.
Tommy steadies himself, palms pressing against the table to get himself up as fast as possible the second Dream releases him.
“I hate you.” Tommy hisses, taking sharp inhales through clenched teeth.
“Maybe we can work on that next time in training.” Dream deadpans. His grip tightens and Tommy cringes. “You’d do better if you respected me. Tommy, I’m the number one hero. I’m in charge! You don’t have to listen to me anymore, but it’s a mistake to keep pushing your luck.”
He sounds crazy and it’s probably because he is, but Tommy knows that behind the proud and confident tone is someone who’s willing to do anything to keep the upperhand.
“Bastard.” Tommy sneers, pushing against the hand to try and get his footing. “Fucking bastard.”
“We’re night and day, Tommy. You can’t outrun your shadow. Stop trying.”
He imagines Dream dead in a hundred different ways. There was anger pulsing through him, burning hotter than his powers had ever heated his blood.
Dream inhales slowly and then lets go of Tommy in a bored movement. Tommy rights himself immediately, muscles aching to fight.
Predictable. It rings in his head like a curse. So predictable.
Dream watches him with a blank face and then sighs before walking off.
“Clean up your rice.”
“There was nothing useful at his apartment. Kid made sure to not hold onto any of his old stuff.” Sneeg shoves a cardboard box of scrap over to Techno.
Techno doesn’t rummage around the burnt remains of Tommy’s old stuff. The smell of smoke lingered even this long after the fire. Inside the box was just junk anyway. A random chunk of what Techno assumes is from a cup or a bowl, a scrap of Techno’s last cape which he forgot had even caught on fire in the first place, and some other burnt garbage like a singed shirt, some blackened cutlery, and a toothbrush. It’s nothing useful, is the point.
“Probably a good thing it burnt down,” Techno jokes dryly. “Who knows what pathogens were growing in that apartment.”
Sneeg manages a smile. “Oh, and no healer records of him either.”
“We blew the physical copies up, remember?” Wilbur adds, flipping the page of the notepad. Wilbur sighs and then reaches for a can of whipped cream and his tea. Techno looks away before he can see Wilbur ruin a perfectly good cup of tea.
Techno shakes his head. “Nah, the heroes probably scrubbed his records before we ever got around to it.”
“Well, we’ve got one lead and it’s a pretty weak one.” Sneeg draws a chair out with a shrug and sits down. “Some guy who set Tommy up at his old job at the TLT building. I wouldn’t hold my breath though.”
“Tommy didn’t betray us.” Wilbur says insistently and Sneeg’s eyes flit up to meet Wilbur’s before darting away and towards a screen.
“Yeah, well, if this goes nowhere then I’m at a loss. I asked Jack to do some digging on the guy Tommy went into the building with— he was a pretty minor vigilante called Purple Problem for a while. Now he goes by Iris?”
“Vaguely familiar but overall, no idea.” Techno bites the inside of his cheek and Sneeg nods.
“Yeah, I thought the same. None of Tommy’s co-workers knew who I was talking about. Only the boss could tell me that Tommy got set up from Gambit. Came in with a guy called Purpled and rummaged around the office.” Sneeg makes quotation marks with his fingers. “He said he was ‘making sure it was clean’ for when Tommy started working there.”
“Why does Purpled sound familiar?” Wilbur hums, combing his memory, a hand running through his hair.
Techno hesitates as the pieces slowly shift into place. It’s like the floor slides out beneath him and reveals a whole new level of the building he’d never seen before.
“Wasn’t that the name of the guy who gave Tommy the note?” Techno drags his eyes between Wilbur and Sneeg.
“Holy shit.” Wilbur mutters.
“Do you know where he is now?” Techno questions, getting right to the point.
Sneeg smiles.