Chapter Text
Tommy had gotten used to being alone. Alone at school. Alone at home. Always alone. Except in his head—ironically enough, the one place he wished he would be left alone. Instead, he remained stranded, thoughts swirling around him like a tornado sucking up all the oxygen until he suffocated.
Tommy couldn’t remember a time that his head hadn’t been full, bustling with so many words and ideas, he never knew what to do with them. It made him loud and talkative. Maybe he was just trying to give a voice to the things in his head. Or maybe it was that he was trying to silence them with his noise—to speak so loud he couldn’t hear them anymore. But it wasn’t until recently that the thoughts became permanently tinged in darkness.
It had been nearly four years since he had last spoken to his brothers, twice that since he had last seen them. Wilbur and Technoblade were twins, but sometimes it seemed as though they couldn’t be further from identical—actually, they were fraternal, but that’s not the point.
Tommy’s older brothers were polar opposites, a complete contrast to one another. One emotional and aggressive, the other reserved and passive. Not to mention, they looked nothing alike, save for their brown eyes and pale skin.
Wilbur had short curly brown hair, wore round silver-rimmed glasses, and was built like a musician: lanky and tall—he stood a head taller than his twin—and fingers calloused from years spent mastering instruments. Technoblade had long straight pink-dyed hair, wore a permanent expression of indifference, and made up for the lack of height in stature: broad shoulders and arms made strong from years of fencing.
Seeing them, one wouldn’t even consider them related. But growing up with them, Tommy understood what it meant when people said twins had a special kind of bond. Like they could read each other’s minds. Two halves of a whole.
For the first five years of his life, Tommy’s life had been perfect. His brothers hadn’t yet started to make him feel like a third wheel. His father had spent time with him. And his mother had been alive. Technoblade and Philza hadn’t been home much to begin with—Techno spending weekdays at fencing practice and weekends at tournaments, Phil spending weekdays at work and weekends driving his eldest to said tournaments.
But they gave Tommy attention whenever they could. Phil would carry him around on his shoulders as the toddler pretended he was a knight riding horseback. Techno would pretend swordfight with him in the backyard, acting wounded and falling to the ground so Tommy could declare himself the champion. His eldest brother had even been the one to name him.
An eight-year-old Techno, deep into his obsession with Greek mythology, jumped at the opportunity to name his baby brother when their parents offered him the responsibility. For days, he scoured through the picture books of Greek heroes until he found the perfect one. Running to his mother’s bedside where his father rocked the newborn to sleep, he pushed an open page into their faces, pointing at a word: Theseus. Philza had been hesitant, but Kristin thought it fitting, as silly as it might seem. And so, Theseus was named.
Wilbur, on the other hand, had been Tommy’s best friend. He spent every waking moment that he wasn’t at school with the kid. Even his piano lessons with an at-home tutor. Tommy would sneak into the living room and settle into one of the corners, watching his brother and trying to memorize every note and lyric. He had been the one to remind Tommy to brush his teeth every night, to walk him to the bathroom because he was too scared to go alone, to comfort him after nightmares that left him crying. Especially when Kristin had gotten sick.
The first year had been okay. She only felt a bit more tired than usual and resorted to sleeping longer. It wasn’t until the second year that things got bad. Coughing fits became frequent and the common cold diagnosis was tossed aside as soon as she started coughing up blood. After collapsing and being rushed to the hospital, Kristin had been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
She remained bedridden after that and nothing was ever the same. Phil started working longer hours to pay for the medical bills, leaving Wilbur at home to take care of his baby brother. It wasn’t much more than he was used to doing, so Wilbur didn’t mind it. At least, not at first. Besides, Tommy was just as much Wilbur’s best friend as he was Tommy’s.
“Why am I always stuck watching him ?”
Tommy was used to the screaming matches between his brother and father; he often tried to ignore them and focus on whatever else he had on hand. Today, it was his math homework: a worksheet on long division. But the way Wilbur had said that word had Tommy stalling his pencil, head tilting ever so slightly to point an ear toward the voices.
“Wilbur! I know Tommy can be a lot sometimes, but he’s still your brother.”
“Exactly! He’s my brother not my child, so why don’t you just start acting like a father for once!”
Tommy held his breath. Even from where he sat, he could sense the silent seething from his father.
“I have more important things to be dealing with than your immature whining, Wilbur.”
“More important than your own sons?! You do remember that you have three of them right?”
Tommy bit his lip. He could feel the argument escalating. He wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of those that ended with the sound of plates shattering.
“Of course I do! Why do you think I work so much?”
Wilbur released a low laugh, dry of any humor. “Why? So that the only time you have left you’ll spend taking Techno to his tournaments. It’s like he’s the only one you care about!”
Phil sighed. “You know that’s not true.”
“How could I? The only time you talk to me is when we fight. Besides, how would you know what I think.”
With that, the argument was over and the sound of retreating stomps up the stairs echoed through the otherwise quiet house. The distant slam of a door made Tommy flinch and he heard a small snap. Looking down, he realized he had been pressing his pencil into his paper so hard it broke. The metallic taste of blood on his tongue reminded him to release his lip.
That night, Tommy got into bed and pulled the covers over his head with the hope that his makeshift cave would help him pretend his family wasn’t falling apart a little more every day. By the time he fell asleep, his pillow was wet with tears and snot dripped from his nose.
By the time Tommy was ten, both his brothers were out of his life and Tommy learned to be alone. When the time came, Wilbur tried his hand at community college and as soon as he could, transferred to a university in England to study music. Techno, on the other hand, had been admitted to an Ivy League as an English major on a full-ride fencing scholarship straight out of high school and leapt at the opportunity without a second thought.
By the time Tommy started high school, Wilbur had decided to permanently stay in England to try to make a career out of a band he had started with a few friends and Technoblade had been admitted to some prestigious graduate school on the East Coast to pursue a Masters in Classics. And so, Tommy spent the next three years trying to survive his teenage years alone. Or as alone as he could be with two best friends who did their best to never let him forget his worth.
He had met Tubbo in his freshman year biology class and the two immediately clicked. Tommy had long come to the realization that the humanities were his calling, and even then he struggled to concentrate on anything. Really, he was just hoping to pass the class to avoid summer school.
Thankfully, after new seating assignments for the following quarter, he was sat next to the short, curly-haired brunette with an affinity for all things STEM. With someone willing to sit and explain things to him in words he understood—to be patient with him in his inability to focus, and body buzzing with energy released through bouncing legs and tapping fingers—it seemed that Tommy would pass the class with higher than a C.
In return, Tommy helped Tubbo with his reading. The boy had dyslexia, but Tommy didn’t mind doing this for him. After all, Tubbo was the reason he would go on to be a sophomore without any issues on his permanent record.
Ranboo, on the other hand, had been introduced to him by Tubbo their sophomore year. The two had met in a class they shared and the friendship was quick to form. However, Tommy was a bit harder to win over.
Ranboo stood nearly a head taller than him, but despite their size difference, he remained generally reserved and passive in contrast to Tommy’s outward aggression toward him. Maybe it was because the boy with heterochromia and split-dyed hair could sense that this angry blond boy was hurting and thus, lashing out at everyone around him, but they wouldn’t allow Tommy’s incessant cursing to scare him off. Soon enough, Tommy realized Ranboo wasn’t going anywhere and gave in, allowing the anxious, constantly-apologizing sophomore to make their duo a trio.
By the time they became juniors, the three boys were inseparable.
Sometime into the beginning of his junior year, Tommy’s AP U.S. History teacher, Mr. Nook—or Sam as he preferred to be called, although students added a “Mr.” in front of that, too—asked him to stay after class one day.
With the amount of lunch periods Tommy had spent in this classroom—free snacks and a quiet space away from everyone was hard not to take advantage of—Mr. Sam had quickly become his favorite teacher ever and possibly adult, too. And although Mr. Sam had been the only teacher not to treat Tommy as an annoyance, the anxiety clawed up his throat as he approached the teacher’s desk, making it hard to swallow. Perhaps his hyperactivity had finally become too much.
Mr. Sam seemed to notice Tommy’s nervousness as he glanced up at the boy from the papers in front of him because he immediately reassured, “Don’t worry, Tommy. You’re not in trouble.”
Tommy inwardly sagged with relief, but then why did Mr. Sam ask to speak to him?
As if reading his mind, the teacher responded, “I just wanted to share something with you that I thought you might be interested in.” The young man—only slightly older than his brothers—offered him a flyer with a small smile.
Tommy took it, confusion still written all over his face as he scanned the colored paper. It presented details about a free contemporary dance class on Saturday. Tomorrow. The blond glanced up to meet the eyes of his teacher. The confusion hadn’t cleared his face.
Mr. Sam pursed his lips as if trying not to spook him. “An old friend of mine runs the studio and is hosting this free class as a recruitment of sorts. I figured you could use an outlet for all of that pent up energy you always have.”
Tommy opened his mouth to speak, but it took him a few seconds to find the right words. When he finally did, he winced at the way his voice lilted with uncertainty. “But…I’m not a dancer?”
Mr. Sam chuckled softy, nodding. “Maybe not, but I think you might surprise yourself.” When Tommy didn’t seem convinced, he added. “Listen, it’s not a commitment, just a single class. If you decide to go, it’s just to try it out and if you like it, you can keep going. If not, you forget about it and no harm done.”
Tommy bit his lip, glancing back down at the flyer. Mr. Sam certainly had a lot more faith in him than he himself did. And the last thing he wanted was to disappoint the person who’s class he actually looked forward to. His grip tightened almost out of determination, wrinkling the edges around his fingers. “...I’ll think about it.”
Satisfied with that answer, Mr. Sam sent him a kind smile and wished him a good rest of his day. History was Tommy’s final class of the day and unlike his two best friends, he didn’t have an extracurricular to attend, so he made his way to the bus stop, staring at the flyer the entire way. It was a mix of muscle memory and luck that got him there without causing an accident or missing the bus and having to wait a whole half hour for the next one.
It was Saturday morning and Tommy stood staring at the pile of clothes he had shoveled out of his closet onto his bed—not that his room wasn’t already covered in discarded clothing from throughout the week. What does one even wear to a dance class? Tommy groaned, throwing his head back. Maybe this was the universe telling him not to go. But then he remembered the promise he made to his two best friends in their call last night.
“I think you should do it,” Tubbo declared without hesitation.
Tommy spluttered. “What?! Really?”
Ranboo hummed in agreement. “Having a consistent extracurricular can really help give you a routine and it creates a better school-life balance.”
Tommy would argue, but he knew the two were only trying to help. He couldn’t blame them, really. They had found their callings in extracurriculars. Tubbo, the STEM nerd he was, had both Science Bowl and Robotics. Ranboo, who had an affinity for talking himself out of anything and a special interest in law—they wanted to be a lawyer, if you can imagine—had Mock Trial.
Tommy was the odd one out. He wasn’t great at Academics, which you would only know from the hours he spent studying every night or getting tutored by his best friend. And he certainly wasn’t athletic, at least not in the way that all the sports at school required. Once, he tried his hand at art but couldn’t paint for shit and his sculptures all came out looking like blobs. So he gave up trying to find his “thing”.
Unless…what if this was it? There had to be a reason Mr. Sam told him about this opportunity instead of someone else, right?
“Okay…”
“Really?” Ranboo asked doubtfully.
“Yes. I’ll try it out.”
“Promise?” Tubbo demanded.
Tommy rolled his eyes, but knew better than to go against his stubborn—and scary—best friend. “Yeah, sure. I promise.”
Tommy lowered his head, stubborn determination etched into his face. Digging through the pile, he plucked out a clean pair of white sweatpants and a loose red t-shirt. He just needed something he could move freely in. At last, Tommy stuffed a backpack full of everything he might possibly need and hurried out the door to catch the bus.
Unfortunately, the studio wasn’t within walking distance, but Tommy didn’t mind buses. He’d mastered them after years of being left to figure out how to get places on his own. He’d stopped asking his father for rides when he realized that waiting at school for an hour to get picked up wasn’t Phil just running late. The man wasn’t home enough to even know where Tommy would go off to, so he didn’t bother mentioning the class in the first place.
A thirty minute bus ride later and the bus dropped him off at the corner of the block. Checking the time, he was thankful to see he still had twenty minutes to spare. Tommy could see the studio a few buildings down, decently sized with a white neon sign spelling out: SMP Studio.
After a little bit of research, Tommy had found that SMP stood for Success Means Practice. A little on-the-nose for him, but all the reviews and ratings had proven to be good ones, so he figured they must be doing something right. He walked up to the black-painted, one-story building and with a deep breath, pulled the door open.
The inside of the building was designed to look incredibly modern and professional. Black-and-white striped wallpaper met black-tiled floors, silver chairs lined one wall and a white desk stood facing him. Behind the desk, a young man not quite the age of his brothers clicked away at some monitors. He had jet black hair and the build of an athlete. Gold jewelry adorned his neck and fingers.
Hesitantly, Tommy approached the desk, tightly gripping the flyer in hand. The man noticed him, meeting his eyes. With an easy smile, he asked, “Can I help you with something?”
“Hi, uh, yeah,” Tommy said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as the other raised up the flyer to present to the man. “I’m here about the free contemporary class at noon?”
The man’s eyes widened in recognition and he nodded. “Of course! I’m guessing this is your first time here?”
Tommy shrunk at the comment, biting his lip nervously. “How’d you know?”
The man chuckled. “You don’t have to check in for the free classes, you can just walk right in.”
Tommy’s mouth shaped into an inaudible “Oh.”
“I can show you the way if you want? We have a bunch of different rooms and the hallways can get confusing,” he offered, raising his eyebrows.
The teen nodded, sending the man a shy smile of gratitude.
“I’m Foolish, by the way,” he said, clicking out of some tabs and standing up. “I work here part-time and teach the occasional hip hop class, if you’re ever interested.” The man moved toward a door behind him, nodding for Tommy to follow.
The blond hurried to catch up, replying, “I’m Tommy. I’ve never really taken a dance class before, so I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here.”
Foolish nodded in understanding. “I grew up surrounded by this stuff, so it’s all pretty normal to me, but I get that it can be nerve-wracking. Just try to remember that this is a judgment-free zone and everyone is only ever gonna try to lift you up.”
Tommy chewed on his lip, nodding along. He sure hoped so because he was certain he was about to embarrass himself to no end. He tried to pay attention to the route they were taking. Straight down the hall, take a left, then a right, and the room is on your right. Tommy noticed that some rooms were occupied with already-started classes. Two rooms in particular caught his attention.
The first was in the main hallway. A clean room with light wooden floors and white-painted walls. A full-length mirror lined the entirety of one wall while the opposite wall had a wooden bar running along the remaining three walls. Dancers in tights, leotards and ballet shoes stood in a line on one side of the room before leaping across to the other with such precision it seemed like they were clones.
The second was in the following hallway. It had a more rustic feel to it with the walls made entirely of brick except for the one that was just a mirror. The floor was the same light wood as the first room, but the lighting was more dim. Dancers in baggy clothes and hair down scattered the room, bouncing on their toes before joining into a collective dance. They weren’t in perfect sync but their quality of movement made up for it.
Soon enough, they arrived in front of the final room and Foolish gestured to the door. “This is it. They’re probably stretching on their own, but I’m sure there’ll be a class warmup. Have fun, kid.”
Tommy thanked him and, with a small wave, Foolish was on his way. For the second time today, Tommy took a deep breath and pulled open the door.
Upon first glance, there was a lot to take in. The floors were the same light wood, but the three walls outside of the mirror were painted a deep red. The lighting was similar to the brick room, dim and casting shadows across the many bodies scattered along the edges of the room.
Dancers varied in age from early teens to mid-to-late twenties. Their attire consisted of mostly loose clothing, leggings and sports bras so Tommy didn’t stand out too much. Just as Foolish had said, most were keeping to themselves, stretching quietly. Those that seemed to know each other were quietly chatting as they sat in the splits. He was nowhere near as flexible as most of the people here.
Suddenly, he felt extremely out of place. Tommy took a shaky breath as he glanced around the room for an available spot to set down his stuff.
Along the closest wall, he caught an empty space beside a young woman with long dark hair slipped into two French braids and bright blue eyes. She wore black leggings and a loose, white long-sleeved crop top with roses embroidered up the sleeves.
Swallowing his nerves, Tommy walked over and set down his backpack. Looking around, he noticed that half the room wore socks while the remaining half were barefoot. He slipped off his ratty white converse covered in sharpie scribbles and doodles by Tubbo and Ranboo.
If he looked hard enough, Tommy could still make out the outline of a penis on his right toe tip put there by his short, surprisingly vulgar best friend. As soon as he saw what was happening, he had forced Tubbo to scribble over it with new shapes until the penis wasn’t noticeable anymore.
The woman looked over at him from where she had been settling down and smiled. It was the kind of wide, toothy smile Tommy wasn’t used to receiving. “Hi! I’m Hannah,” she said.
“Hello, I’m Tommy.” He sent her a shy smile in return.
“This must be your first time taking a class here, huh?”
Tommy’s eyes widened, brows flying up his forehead. “How does everyone know that? Is it written on my forehead?” He groaned, facepalming.
Hannah just chuckled softly, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “When you’ve been coming here for years, it’s not hard to tell the newbies apart from the veterans.”
Tommy looked up at her, smiling nervously. “Well, I’m definitely a newbie. This is my first dance class ever .”
This time she widened her eyes in shock, but within seconds she was giving him a quick run-down of what to expect and any pointers she could think of. A few minutes later, a woman strode into the room with a warm smile and an excited twinkle in her eyes. Her long curly hair was split-dyed brown and white and pulled back into a high ponytail. She wore black biker shorts and a red sports bra.
“Hello, everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Puffy! I’m excited to get started today, but I’ve got to connect to the speaker first. While I do that, please find a spot on the floor.”
She turned to the large speaker at the front of the room and fiddled with it and her phone for a moment as the dancers organized themselves into windows—Hannah had explained it as standing in horizontal lines like checkers so you were in the window between the two people in the line in front of you. Tommy had ended up in the middle of the room beside Hannah. Within a few minutes, the speaker made the little dinging sound that meant it had been connected.
Puffy turned around and clasped her hands together in front of her. “Alright, class. We’ll spend thirty minutes on warming up and another thirty minutes on conditioning and across the floors. The remaining hour of the class will be focused on learning and performing a short combo. Sound good?”
She was met with a chorus of “yes”’s and satisfied, she pressed play on her phone and began leading the warmup. The music was mostly pop with solid beats easy to count to and the occasional top hit would excite some of the dancers.
Tommy easily slipped into the rhythm of the songs, counting along in his head as he followed along the basic stretches. That had always come easy to him, whether he was listening to music in his headphones or watching his brother play piano and guitar.
By the end of the warmup, Tommy felt the loosest he can remember feeling and realized just how much tension his body had been harboring. The teen had also discovered that he wasn’t nearly as inflexible as he presumed to be—he couldn’t quite do the splits yet, but there wasn’t much resistance in the basic stretches like touching his toes or clasping his fingers behind his back. But he met his match during conditioning.
It took Tommy all of five minutes to understand he lacked strength. By the end of the session, his arms trembled under his weight and he could barely stand. But no one seemed to mind. In fact, the entire workout was full of encouragement and shouts of “You got this!” and “Almost there!”. Tommy had never been surrounded by such sheer positivity and support.
Across the floors weren’t any easier. In fact, all the different steps and arm placements to keep track of made his head spin. Thankfully, Hannah helped explain each move before it was his turn without hesitation and Tommy may have successfully avoided making a fool of himself in front of a room full of experienced dancers. Once he got the technique down, the rest seemed to come to him naturally and he was floating across the floor before he knew it—although, he could definitely use a lesson in adding some grace to his movements.
After the first hour mark, Puffy gifted them a water break as she prepared to teach the combo. Even as he dragged his tired body to his water bottle, Tommy couldn’t stop smiling. He was having so much fun .
“It’s the best feeling once you get the hang of it and your body moves with the music,” Hannah said after a few gulps from her own bottle. A bright smile creased her lips as she dabbed away the sweat lining her forehead and tried to catch her breath.
Tommy returned the smile, no longer timid and unsure, but wide and full of joy. “It’s fuckin’ unreal, man.”
Hannah laughed at his cursing and raised her bottle toward him. “I’ll cheers to that.”
Tommy clinked his aluminum bottle against hers, still giddy with adrenaline. Soon enough, Puffy was calling everyone back to the floor and Hannah stood, holding her hand out to Tommy. He took it and she pulled him up, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Now the real fun starts.”
“Before I get into teaching, I want to show you guys the combo. I think it helps give you a better understanding of the movements and the meaning behind them,” she said, turning away. “Or maybe I just want to show off a little for you guys,” she added over her shoulder with a wink.
The class buzzed with laughter before settling down. Tommy waited in anticipation. He had seen dance performances before, but only in passing and he never really cared enough to stop and actually see . She pressed play and the song started from somewhere in the middle. After a few seconds, Tommy recognized it, but he couldn’t name it. Puffy settled into a pose, waiting for her cue. He noted the lyrics she started on.
They say, “You’re a little much for me. Her body shifted out of the pose, creating shapes with each word.
You’re a liability. You’re a little much for me. She flowed from one move to the next, her body as fluid as water.
So they pull back, make other plans. I understand… Puffy sped up to match the rise in tempo.
I’m a liability. Get you wild, make you leave. With the lyrics, her dancing grew powerful and aggressive. Waves in an ocean.
I’m a little much for e-a-na-na-na-na, everyone. And suddenly, she slowed and her body grew smaller like a river flowing into a creek. Her movement faded as the song came to an end, but it was like the whole room was holding their breath. It wasn’t until she stepped out of it to pause the song before the last two lines of lyrics could be heard that the breath was released in the form of clapter and cheering.
Tommy had to remind himself to breathe, too. Maybe it was the way her movements captured the emotions of the lyrics so perfectly. Or maybe it was that the lyrics were so familiar to him. Words he had heard over and over again. Words that didn’t hurt less no matter how many times they were said. That was the moment Tommy understood what it meant to truly move someone. That was the moment Tommy fell in love with dance.