Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy was having a shitty day.

It was more of a series of days, really. A shitty past few weeks, if you will. A shitty couple of months, even. A shitty year if you include all the time he spent being fucking kidnapped. 

This isn't even the shittiest day, all things considered, but it’s definitely the fucking weirdest.

The four-armed bitch is looking at him again, eyes blown wide with fear like he thinks Tommy’s gonna break straight through the glass and go for his throat. You’d think after having him locked in here for weeks the guy would realize he’s not exactly the Hulk. 

Still, he makes a half-start towards him anyways, baring his teeth like a feral dog, and revels in the way he jumps half a foot in the air and scrambles back to avoid him. It’d be a lot funnier if he still wasn’t trapped in a glorified fish tank. 

And then there’s the pig fucker. He lets his eyes shift over to him, looking him up and down. 

That’s new. Four-arms hasn’t brought anyone back here to gawk at him since he was stuck in the tank in the first place, but it was only a matter of time. If what He said is right, he’s the only human around for lightyears. He’s surprised he hasn’t been turned into a circus attraction already. 

Still, this guy doesn’t actually look like your typical circus-attendee, if you catch his drift. 

He’s big, for one, the biggest space-fucker Tommy’s seen thus far. A couple feet taller than him and nearly four times as broad in the chest. He's an ugly fucker too. He lets his eyes linger on the scars criss-crossing his leathery face, and the two big tusks jutting out from his bottom lip. He’s definitely some sort of boar-man thing if the tusks and ears are anything to go by. Not the weirdest thing he’s seen in space, but it’s up there. He’s got red eyes, for fucks sake. Between that and the whole cloak and dagger thing he has going on, anyone else probably would have been scared shitless. 

But not Tommy. Because Tommy was a fucking man.

He spits at him, instead. “What the fuck are you looking at, bitch? I could take your ugly ass any day!”

Predictably, he doesn’t respond. He hasn’t been around anyone who’s been able to speak English in a long, long time, but his face does shift a little. Something like rage flashes in his eyes, for just a second. It’s so quick Tommy wonders if he just imagined it. 

He spits at him again, just for good measure, before he starts his usual routine of pacing back and forth in front of the glass just to watch four-arms twitch. Fuckin typical. What a coward. What did he think he was gonna do? He weighs what, ninety pounds soaking wet? He’s been able to count his ribs for the past few months, and gets dizzy when he stands up for too long. He wasn’t going to be busting through solid glass as thick as he is around the middle anytime soon.

Still, he’ll take what entertainment he can get in this hellhole. So what if it’s mean? He’s the one in a fucking cage.

The pig turns to four-arms sharp enough to make him flinch back, growling something in a low, rusty sounding language that shares an eerie resemblance to the sound Clara’s old diesel truck makes when the engine turns over. Four-arms chitters something back in his own annoying, meek little voice, quickly correcting himself when the pig gives him a look.

Then, the pig pulls something out of his pocket. He’s seen these things before, like the alien version of an iPhone, and leans closer to get a better look at the holographic screen. It’s nonsense, of course, but the swiping motions he’s doing with his fingers are familiar, like he’s scrolling through Twitter. A few weird symbols come up, and he dismisses them. 

He isn’t able to get a good look before glass shatters somewhere in the front of the shop, and alarms split the air.

He jumps back with a shout, and barely has enough time to blink before the pig is reeling back his meaty fist and clocking it against four-arm’s temple hard enough to make him wince in sympathy. He falls to the floor in a heap of limbs, and the pig sets his eyes on Tommy.

His heart is pounding out of his chest, the flashing lights and blaring of the alarms already making him dizzy. He scrambles to the far end of the tank as fast as his shaking legs will let him. 

“Stay back!” He snarls, lips pulled back over his teeth, “I’m fucking warning you, pig face!”

He doesn’t stop.

He matches right up to the metal door, not even bothering with the handle as he rips it off it’s fucking hinges.

His heart drops to his shoes. He snarls again, baring his teeth like a dog, the same thing he’d done to four-arms, but the pig doesn’t even blink. He clenches his shaking hands into fists, but what can he do? The guy can bend metal like play-doh, just standing is making him all lightheaded and shit. What the fuck is he supposed to do?!

Still, still, he’s not gonna let himself be bought and sold like a fucking animal. Once was more than enough, thank you very much.

The flashing red lights paint him in crimson, leaving his face in pure shadow. He tosses the remains of the door to the side with ease. He catches the glint of narrowed eyes and razor-sharp tusks, and prepares for the worst. 

He expects him to come marching forwards and grab him by the neck. He expects to have his throat ripped out, or head crushed in by those big, meaty fists that knocked out four-arms with one hit. Every part of him is tensed, muscles coiled tight like a spring trap, adrenaline lighting sharp in his veins, heart pounding in his chest. 

None of that happens, though. 

The pig just… Looks at him, head tilted to the side. He doesn’t make any efforts to drag Tommy out of the tank, which he appreciates, but he doesn’t just leave either. He just. Stands there. Shifting his weight from hoof to hoof. Looking at him with those heavy red eyes. 

Tommy stares back warily, untensing inch by inch the longer they stare at each other. 

...If Tommy was a lot more fucking stupid, he’d say that it almost looked like he was struggling to find the right words to say. Of course, that would be fucking ridiculous, because as far as he knows they’re in the middle of fucking space, millions of miles away from Earth, so there would be no possible way-

“Safe.” The pig eventually growls at him, in his rusty, diesel-engine voice. “Follow. Now.”

For a whole three seconds, all Tommy does is blink.

What the fuck. What the actual fuck. They’re in the middle of fucking space how the fuck-

Wait a minute. 

Was... Was he being fucking rescued?

The pig huffs in frustration at his lack of a reaction, and growls again with more insistence. He jerks his head towards the opening in glass where the door had been. “Follow. Now!”

His heart jumps again, and he scrambles forwards towards his rescuer, stumbling on still-trembling legs. “A-alright, okay, big man. Lead the way.”

The pig just tilts his head at him again, huffs out a long-suffering sigh through his nose, and turns around with a swoosh of his brown coat around his hooves. Tommy follows right at his heels. 

...Was following some random alien one of his best ideas? No, probably not. Hell, following some random alien was the thing that got him into this whole mess in the first place, but it’s not like he had a ton of other options. What, was he just gonna sit around and wait for four-arms to wake up? Hell to the fucking no. 

So, at least for now, he follows. The pig man strides confidently through the back rooms of the pet shop, with Tommy carefully picking his way through behind him, watching everything suspiciously with narrowed eyes. He doesn’t have a hundred pounds of muscle to his name, okay? If he could afford stomp around like he owned the place, he would. 

He avoids the tanks along one wall with the animals sleeping soundly, and steps lightly over the spilled back of food on the floor, walking quickly on his toes and trying to pick out shadows the best he can with the lights still flashing and alarms threatening to burst his eardrums. 

Predictably, he’s lightheaded after the first few steps, but he shakes it off, doing his best to block out the alarms. The pig seems to notice him lagging behind, and adjusts his own quick pace accordingly, hovering by the purple curtain covering the entrance to the main part of the shop so he can catch up. 

He doesn’t seem upset by his slow pace, which helps to loosen the knot of anxiety in his chest just that much more. 

And besides. He spoke English.

...Tommy can’t remember the last time he talked to someone. Really talked, without Him just barking out orders and commands. There’s some small, pathetic part of him that just wants to talk to someone again.

It’s a little pathetic, maybe. But still. Still. There’s just something about the pig man that makes him trustworthy. Something about the look in his ruby red eyes when he first saw him in the tank, eyes flashing with indignation and fury on his behalf. Something about the way he’s looking at him now, head tilted to the side again like a puppy. He’s a lot less terrifying when he’s not leering over him.

He wants to believe he’s being rescued. He wants to believe it so badly. 

He looks him over again. He can’t see his face through the shadow of his hood, but he’s pretty sure he’s not mad at him. Like. Seventy percent sure. He’s gotten pretty good at reading alien body language. A handy skill to have in space. 

When he’s caught up, the pig brushes aside the curtain and steps through first, letting Tommy trot behind in the shadow on his coat. 

He blinks furiously in the bright yellow light of the main shop, shaking his head to try and clear the sunspots. There’s so much noise, here, all set to the wonderful blaring of the alarms. Chirping, barking, screeching, howling. He could hear it in the back, sure, but there were at least a few stone walls and a thick pane of glass muffling it. And he’s not even gonna mention the smell, like the shitty zoo they used to have at the county fair but somehow worse. 

God, it’s so fucking loud. He’s gonna have such awful tinnitus when he gets somewhere quiet again. 

He doesn’t even see the other guy at first. Walking behind pig man is like standing behind a brick wall, it’s only after his eyes finally adjusted to the obnoxious amber-colored lights that swung overhead, cashing horribly with the bright red of the alarms, might be add. Okay when he could finally manage to hear himself think over the noise, did he glance around his shoulder to the front window of the shop.

Or, what used to be the front window.

You see, what used to be a perfectly good window, purposefully tinted black so you couldn’t see inside, and adorned with hanging bird cages, was now just a black hole.

A giant, gaping hole with shards of glass strewn about, and dented metal from where the hanging cages were sent sprawling. Ah, so that’s were the squawking was coming from. Apparently, space birds don’t enjoy their houses getting crumpled like tin cans. He doesn’t blame them. 

And, standing dead center in all of the chaos, is another alien. 

He was halfway in through the shattered window, dusting broken glass off his dark-green jacket. His head is dipped down, some kind of weird, striped hat shielding his face from view, but he doesn’t focus on it for long, attention quickly drawn to either side of him. 

Wings . 

Honest-to-god bird wings, each one taller than he was and nearly three times as broad. Glossy black and grey feathers shift, catching and throwing the amber over headlights and the flashing alarms  as he shakes glass off of them too, flapping the ends and brushing them off with gloved hands. 

Tommy is completely frozen in place, watching him with wide eyes, still half-hidden behind pig man. The pig either hasn’t noticed him, or is equally as dumbfounded, because he doesn’t move from where he’s standing, just in through the curtain.

Actually, now that he’s mentioning it, it’s probably the second one. There’s literally a door right there, and this guy chose to jump in through the window and set off all the alarms. 

Then, he turns towards them, and Tommy’s veins fill with ice. 

...He’s a little ashamed to say that his first coherent thought after just “AHHHH!” is , “Holy shit, it’s fucking mothman!”

Well what the fuck was he supposed to think?! He turns towards them sharply, all crouched over like some sort of predator, wings flaring as if he had just noticed their presence. His face is completely pitch black and featureless under the hat, and those eyes, perfectly round and bright red, like he’s staring at twin stop lights or directly into the pits of hell-

Oh, wait. No. Those are googles.

He lifts a hand to his face, and in one smooth movement the googles are pushed up into his hat, and his black mask is pulled under his chin. The face it reveals is shockingly human-like, honey-blonde hair trying to escape his hat and fall over his nose, sharp blue eyes with slitted pupils. There are black markings across his face, feathers trailing down the side of his jaw like ears. Almost human, in a way that puts him on edge. 

His face lights up when he catches sight of pig man, and he chirps out a greeting, expression apologetic. 

The pig man rumbles out a response. He can’t make heads or tails of their conversation, but since the pig hasn’t tackled him yet, he assumes Mothman is probably safe, and lets himself relax just a little. He’s still tensed to run if things go south, there’s an opening right there, but he knows he won’t get too far. A last resort, he decides, resigning himself to his fate. There’s no way he’d be able to move around both of them fast enough. Hopefully they’ll take him on a ship and he can just steal an escape pod. Or the whole ship. Beggars can’t be choosers.

It turns out he doesn’t really need to speak their language to get a gist of the conversation. Mothman is an open book, expressions shifting like water as the two talk. His face goes quickly from sheepish, to concerned, before settling in confusion, head tilted and eyebrows pinched. 

Then, pig man steps out of the way, and those bright blue eyes zero in on him.

He does not squeal, because he is a big man who was not afraid fuck you, but he does try and scurry back behind the pig-turned-barricade as soon as possible.

Mothman just cranes his neck to get a better look, eyes filled with something disgustingly like pity. He snaps his teeth to show he means business, he’s a big fucking man, thank you very much, but Mothman just starts cooing at him instead. 

Fucker. He’s not some pet. 

The pig grumbles out something else, and Mothman nods and coos along, still tilting his head to try and meet his gaze. He glares back, but all he does is ruffle his feathers and make that cooing sound again, the kind of noise you’d make to a lost puppy caught out in the rain.

Tommy bristles, opening his mouth to snap back, but he’s cut off by even more fucking alarms.

It’s far off, this time. The high pitched wailing of a siren in the distance, but closing in quickly. What, did this planet have fucking space cops or some shit?! 

Mothman’s ear feathers twitch, and his eyes go hard. He nods again, determination settling in his furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, and he steps carefully back through the hole he came in from. Pig man starts moving fast, and Tommy moves faster to stay right on his heels, keeping the pig between him and Mothman. He’s seen the guy knock someone out in one hit and bend metal with his bare hands, if Mothman tries anything, he’s confident the pig can snap him like a toothpick. 

They burst out into the street like a bat out of hell. A large, heavy hand closes around his upper arm, and they take off down the road. 

It’s so jarringly different from the pet shop that it's almost scary. Through some noise filters out through the shattered window, once they get away from it the city outside is completely silent and still. A cold wind blows in from up the barren street, kicking up dust and making him shiver. He blinks sharply, eyes adjusting to the dark as he stays stubbornly at pig man’s heels. 

He squints at the arm holding him close. Pig man’s, big enough to wrap around his whole upper arm, gripping him firmly but not quite harsh enough to bruise. He lets his gaze travel up the arm to pig man’s face as he’s frog marched along, nearly having to jog to keep up with his larger steps. His ruby red eyes flicker to him occasionally, but otherwise stare straight ahead.

He swallows, and the sirens get louder. No turning back now. 

They duck down an alleyway, and he follows blindly into the dark, squinting to make out shapes in the shadows. Neither of them give him enough time to get a good look at their surroundings before they’re off again at a brisk walk, tugging him along. 

He can barely see anything, no matter how hard he blinks and squints to try and get his eyes to adjust. The buildings are all dark and the same shade of greyish blue, so it all just blends together like one giant, ugly bruise. Only the other alleyways stick out, slashes of tar-black between buildings like knife wounds. He thinks he catches a glimpse of movement, once or twice, but as soon as he tries to get a better look they’ve already moved on. 

They move quickly between buildings, weaving down side streets small enough to make him wince. For the big fucker pig man is, he can sure as hell move fast on his hooves. They check over their shoulders every once in a while to make sure he’s still behind them, eyes glinting in the dark as the sirens get closer and closer. 

Finally, they yank him sharply into the smallest side street so far, barely large enough to fit the width of pig man’s broad shoulders. He clenches his teeth hard enough his teeth ache, leans his head back against the brick wall, and holds his breath. 

If the space-police works anything like it does back on Earth, being caught won’t mean anything good. At best, he lives out the rest of his life behind bars or glass, getting poked at with needles and pointed at by snub-nosed kids on school field trips. Worst case, they send him back to Him.

Pure terror, ice-cold and sharper than glass floods through his veins at the thought. Yeah, fuck that. He’d rather stick with pig man any day. 

The sirens get even louder, footsteps cutting through the silence of the city like gunshots. He clasps a hand over his mouth, just in case, heartbeat pounding in his ears. He risks a glance up at pig man, who’s still staring straight ahead, face like steel and perfectly calm. If not for the way he kept glancing back at him, hand tense on his arm, he’d think the guy was having just any normal Tuesday. 

Just who the absolute fuck are these people? What the hell did he get himself into? Did he get rescued by the fuckin’ space mafia?! 

The sirens are on top of them, then. A glimpse of flashing lights reflects off the brick walls, and the hand on his arm tenses again. He clenches the hand not over his mouth into a fist, and peers out into what little of the other alleyway he could see. He thinks he catches a glimpse of a shadow along the far wall, and he freezes.

It’s quiet, for beat. The only sound his blood rushing in his veins, heart a steady ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum in his ears. 

They wait. 

Then, the lights fade, and the siren eases off. In a few moments, it’s nothing more than background noise, a faint wail in the distance as it retreats in the opposite way it came. A few more, and it’s completely gone.

He sags against the wall in relief, gasping in air like a drowning man as his shaking legs threaten to buckle underneath him. Holy fucking Christ that was close, but he doesn’t get more than a few seconds to recover before he’s being tugged out of the side street, and they’re off again.

They walk for a while.

Slower than before, thank god, and he doesn’t have to jog to keep up anymore. They walk down side streets and alleyways, still, and he’s only able to catch a glimpse of main roads between gaps in buildings, but even those are strangely empty. 

He still hasn’t quite recovered from the close call of before, and he can still feel the nervous Jack-rabbiting of his heart, the electric thrum of adrenaline in his veins. Yeah, talk about a fuckin’ adrenaline rush, he feels like he’s just downed a six pack of Coke and topped it off with enough sugar to send a grown man into cardiac arrest. Wired up and ready to go. 

He moves lightly on his feet, still tensed and ready to spring, eyes flicking from building to building, looking for threats. Just in case.

The pig and Mothman don’t seem as tense anymore. The hand around his upper arm has gone from yanking him around like a rag doll to lightly tugging him this way and that, grip loose. They chatter lowly to one another in a series of soft grunts and chirps as they walk, heads leaned together, leaving him unsupervised on pig man’s other side. 

He gets a better look at the hand now that his eyes are adjusted. The leathery, heavily-calloused skin, the slightly-sharpened black nails. The mirad of scars across his knuckles tell stories of fights long past, and people long dead. 

He’s not paying attention, Tommy realizes with a jolt. 

He could leave, if he wanted to. He gives the hand another critical once over as he thinks. He could break his grip pretty easily, he decides, it’d be child’s play for him to twist his arm loose and make a run for it. They just passed another main road, and these backstreets are a maze. It’d be easy to lose them. 

Freedom. So close he could taste it, sharp and clean on his tongue. He won’t lie and say it’s not tempting. He watches the dark alleys pass with longing pulling under his skin. 

Pig man gives him another little tug as they turn down a different street, and he crashes back into reality. He shakes his head, shoving away the thought. Running would be a really stupid fucking thing to do. He literally ran from the cops five minutes ago, he was an accomplice now. 

Besides, pig man rescued him for a reason. He was his best shot at getting off this hellhole planet and back home.

When he’s pulled out into an open road, he goes. 

He follows right at pig man’s left shoulder as they walk, still keeping him as a barrier between him and Mothman. He gives the guy another glance over in better lighting, as they step out into an open street, and the stars glimmer brightly overhead, dusting them all faintly in blue and silver. There’s no moon, but after walking through pitch-black side streets, there might as well be. 

He seems harmless enough, thin, with laughter lines around his eyes and a gentle sort of smile. Tommy knows better than that, though. He shoots him a glare and shuffles closer to pig man’s side. His own personal bodyguard, he’s really living in the lap of luxury, huh? 

He’s calmer, now that the adrenaline has started to ebb off, but that comes with another problem.

He’s fucking freezing. 

An ice-cold wind blows at from his back, and a shiver violently runs through him. The thin white shirt and sweatpants(?) he's dressed in do next to nothing to keep out the chill. He rubs his hands up and down his arms, breathing warm air into his hands every once in a while to warm up. It’s worse now that they’re not penned in by brick walls, the icy wind nipping at any exposed skin. 

Pig man doesn’t even spare him a glance but unfortunately, Mothman takes notice. He looks back when he shivers, and his eyes go all soft again. He makes that same cooing sound, spreading the wing between him in the pig in an invitation. 

He glowers at him. Yeah, fuck that. He’d rather freeze to death than get any closer to some random alien. Following them is enough, thank you. 

He rubs his arms again. They better get to where they’re going soon, It’s fucking freezing.

They make it to an intersection.

It looks the same way they do on earth, weirdly enough. No signs or crosswalks, though, just four empty roads meeting in a cross. It’s silent as a tomb, their footsteps and quiet conversation the loudest things for what seems like miles. 

He looks up and down all three streets cautiously, but there’s nothing new. No sirens, no other footsteps or shifting shadows. Just the same grey buildings disappearing into the same black, lightly star-speckled sky. If someone were to tell him that they were the only people on the entire planet, now, he’d believe them.

Then, it’s not so quiet anymore.

It starts as a quiet hum. He thinks it’s just tinnitus at first and ignores it, but then he catches the way the pig shifts, tilting his head as he looks towards his horizon, and he catches on when the sound gets louder.

It’s an engine. 

Not the purring of a car or the rusty growl of a truck, it’s closest to the sound of a motorcycle, if anything, but even that’s not right. It’s a hum, the low, thrumming sound you get when you listen to a fast song with the bass turned up way too high. A low, rolling sort of noise that ebbs and flows. It starts soft, but eventually it’s loud enough he can feel it in his chest, thrumming alongside his heart.

Two red dots appear on the horizon, cutting through the dark and dust. Headlights.

It’s a hoverbike, and it’s coming straight at them.

He’s heard of hoverbikes, of course, but in the same way he’s heard of personal helicopters, real hoverboards, and super yachts with put-put courses. Rich people shit. The kinds of things that probably only exist in movies, and that the stuck up kids that lived a few streets over always bragged about owning. The kinds of things a foster kid like him would never see in his lifetime, much less own or ride on. 

But there’s one right in front of him, hovering just above the ground as it roars down the streets, red flames licking from the exhaust pipes. The rider laughs maniacally as he revs the engine, and the resulting sound makes the windows in the nearby building shudder, and his sternum rattle in his chest. He can feel the shuddering of the engine in his teeth. 

The headlights get closer and closer, and right when he decides to try and dive out of the way, they swerve to the left as the bike shrieks to a stop.

The rider dismounts, shucking off his black helmet and tossing his dark, grey-streaked hair free. He, too, looks almost looks human, but the illusion is lost when he turns towards them.

His face is greyed out and ever so slightly translucent, catching the starlight as it shifts strangely over what should be smooth skin. His ears are pointed, almost fin-like, adorned with golden jewelry that glints as he brushes his hair out of his face, and though his eyes are brown, they flash an unnatural green-yellow when the light hits them just the right way, like an animal caught in a camera flash. 

He’s grinning, showing off pointed canines as he greets the others with a drawl, leaning against the front of his bike. 

Tommy watches him warily from behind the pigs arm, tracing his movements. He looks cool as hell, from the black leather biker gear to the silver streak in his hair, but there’s something about him that just screams danger! This guys a fucking psycho!

He talks to the others in a low, thrumming sort of voice that rises and dips like music. He’s not quite as much of an open book as Mothman, but he’s a lot easier to read than pig guy. The smile melts off of his lips the more they talk, lips pursing as his eyebrows pinch together. It only takes a few moments for his eyes to slip off of the pig man to meet his gaze head on.

His expression shifts even more, and he scowls, talking loudly to the others as he glares with those strange flashing eyes. Complaining, it seems like, or just plain talking shit. Tommy scowls right back, sticking close to the pig’s shoulder and curling his lips back over his teeth in the start of another snarl. Oh, he’ll give him something to complain about- 

Mothman snaps something at him, chirping voice bordering on a screech, and he jumps.

For a second he thinks it’s aimed at him, but no. His feathers are all fluffed out, bristling slightly in biker guy’s direction, and there’s the faintest snap of teeth, like a mother hen chastising her goslings. He can’t get a good look at his face from where he’s standing, but he makes himself pretty fucking clear. 

He jumps again when pig man tosses his head at both, growling something impatiently, and shifting his weight to his left, blocking him a little more from view. Biker guy’s scowl only deepens, but after a few moments of tense staring, he gives in with a shake of his head. 

Tommy just blinks, lost. What the fuck just happened? Did they… Did they just… defend him? 

He doesn’t get the chance to think about it for too long before Pig Man, now with a capital ‘P’ and ‘M’, is lumbering towards the bike, and he’s forced to follow at his heels, head still spinning.

Biker guy shoots him one last glare over his shoulder before he puts his helmet back on, and he and his flashing eyes disappear behind black-tinted glass. The other two don’t bother with helmets, Pig Man getting on just behind the biker guy. He turns and levels his gaze at Tommy, patting the seat behind him. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what that means. They want him to get on. They want him to get on that. 

Mothman chirps comfortingly from his right when he steps back, unsure. His blue eyes are round with sympathy as he urges him forwards with a smile. He bites back a hiss, he was not scared, thank you very much, he wasn’t some child who needed to be coddled. He just. Has never been on a motorcycle before. That’s all. He wasn’t scared. Not one bit.

Mothman chirps again, and he bristles, stepping up to the bike. It’s beautiful, really, all glinting black and silver metal with red accents, leather seats a little worn from use, but otherwise in perfect condition. It’s bigger than any motorcycle he’s ever seen, not to mention it’s fucking floating, and he has to jump more than he’d like to get himself on the seat. His fingers brush over the leather, and the entire thing hums underneath him with a strange energy. 

There’s another coo from behind him, and he turns sharply to snap his teeth at Mothman, but Pig Man beats him to it by rumbling something over his shoulder. 

He gets a good look at his face this up close and personal, ruby red eyes calm as they meet his. He jerks his head forwards, and it takes Tommy more time than he’d like to admit to realize what that meant, hold on tight. 

That’s what you’re supposed to do when you ride motorcycles, right? It’s what they do in movies. Pig Man has no problem looping both his giant arms around biker guy’s waist. 

He hesitates, but scoots a little closer on the seat, and when he doesn’t get snapped at, inches a little closer than that. Sue him, he’s freezing and The Pig gives off body heat like a fucking stove top. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he buries his hands in The Pig’s brown coat. It’s thick and loose, so it’s easy to find a good grip, and less embarrassing than grabbing him by the waist. He gets a nod of approval before The Pig turns back to the front, speaking in a low voice to the biker guy. 

The bike shifts as Mothman gets on behind him, and his heart starts up again, beating rabbit-fast in his chest. He can’t see what he’s doing, and it’s not long before he can feel him settle in, just a little too close for comfort. .

His hands tighten in Pig Man’s coat, and he forces himself to take a deep breath. This was fine! It was fine. Pig Man saved his ass from four-arms and the space police, the guy can speak English! He trusts him. Sort of. Besides, Mothman hasn’t done anything but chirp and coo at him, and is only a few inches taller than he is. Birds are supposed to have brittle bones, right? He could totally kick his ass if he needed to. 

It was fine. He was fine. Fucking fine. 

The bike rumbles again, and Mothman shifts. He flinches when two thin arms appear on either side of him, but they don’t touch him like he’s expecting. Instead, Mothman leans in real close and wraps them around Pig Man’s waist, boxing him in.

He screws his eyes shut. He’s never been a big fan of small spaces, and the feeling of two bodies pressing against him is overwhelming. God, when was the last time he’d been this close to anyone ever? 

It’s a bit of a squeeze, all four of them on a bike made for two, maybe three, max, and they just barely fit. He can feel the solid weight of Mothman at his back, breathing in his ear, and his nose is filled with the smell of leather and burning fuel, something similar but not quite the same as gasoline. Dark grey feathers enter his field of vision as Mothman pulls them close, and he shudders when they brush against the bare skin of his upper arms. 

...It’s warm, though. A welcome relief from the cold wind that bites just beyond the shield of feathers. Not that he’s grateful , or anything. He’s no fucking pussy, he can take the cold. Fuck you. 

The bike rumbles again, and whatever biker guy shouts back to them is drowned out as the engine roars to life.  Pig Man rumbles something in response, and pressed this close, he feels it more than he hears it. Mothman chirps something back right in his ear, because of course he does, and that’s all the warning he gets before the bike roars off down the street. 

He’s never gone this fast in his life.

He wraps both arms around Pig Man’s waist, personal space be dammed, and presses his face into the back of his coat. The wind rips at them, tearing through his hair and pulling at any exposed skin, raking cold fingers down his spine and making his stomach roll with every rise and dip of the bike. 

It’s not like riding in a car, hell, the closest thing he could compare it to was riding a rollercoaster, but even that wasn’t right. They glided, no turbulence, no grinding of wheels of asphalt or speed bumps to slow them down. He risks a glance to his side, and regrets it almost immediately. The grey buildings pass in a dizzying blur that makes his head spin, and he goes back to trying to bury himself in Pig Man’s coat the best he can. 

Its awful. It's exhilarating. Wind in his hair, bike rumbling underneath him, the rest of the world nothing more than a blur of speed and the humming of adrenaline ice cold and electric under his skin. 

A whoop rises in his throat, but the second he opens his mouth, his breath is sucked right out of his chest. He can’t decide whether he wants to laugh or scream. 

He’s never felt more alive. 

They ride for what feels like hours, rising and dipping over hills. They only turn sharply twice to avoid the sirens, which disappear into nothing more than an echo in the wind. 

He’s given up on trying to look around at this point, content to lean his head against Pig Man’s back and let himself relax, just a little.

...It’s warmer than he thought it would be. He wasn’t kidding about Pig Man giving off heat like a stove-top, the guy was a walking radiator. Moth man’s feathers press tighter and closer around him as they drive on, and the wind glides right off of them like water off a duck's back. If he ducks his head down, he barely feels it at all.

He’s warm, too. Not like Pig Man, but warm. Stable. 

The bike doesn’t shake or rattle like a car, gliding smoothly over the roads without hitting a single bump. There’s a gentle rise and dip as they go over hills, a sway when they turn corners, but even that’s smooth sailing. Even the sharp turns from earlier were nothing like being tossed around in the backseat of a car.

It’s pretty fucking comfortable. Really fucking comfortable. A lot more comfortable than he’s been in a long, long time.

He buries his face in Pig Man’s coat. He smells like leather, and something else. Tea, maybe? Something like that, earthy and faintly spicy. The smell of not-quite-gasoline still clinging to the fabric from the hoverbike’s exhaust pipes. It’s almost comforting. 

He lets himself drift. 

-

“-keeping it, Phil.”

The Elytran’s wings bristle, and he clutches the sleeping child in his arms just that much closer. He lays it carefully on the bed, fingers brushing gently through its greasy, matted hair. 

 “I know, I know.” It sighs, “ But it’s not like we can just leave it. It’s just a baby! It’ll just get killed.”

“I can’t believe you brought that thing on my hoverbike.” The Phantling on the Elytran’s other complains, crossing his arms over his chest petulantly as he glares at the child on the bed. "you don't know what kind of diseases it has-"

The Piglin behind both of them smacks him lightly upside the head. “Shut up, Wil. The adults are talking.”

“You little-“

“Enough, you two.” The Elytran interrupts before the fighting can escalate, eyes never drifting from the pale, too-thin face of the child. “You’re gonna wake it up.”

The Phantling huffs petulantly, but falls silent. 

It’s quiet, for a beat, as all three of them watch the child on the bed. He looks small, curled up in a ball in the center. His clothing is barely more than tatters, the grey shirt and pants ripped and dirty, exposing dark bruises on too-pale skin. They can just barely make out the shape of scars as well, far too many for a child so small. His chest rises and falls slowly with every breath. It’s pitiful. 

“...What if we bring it to the Council?” The Piglin finally says. The Elytran nods at the suggestion.

“That’s an idea.”

“The sooner we get it off the ship, the better.” The Phantling huffs, “What if it has fleas?”

“It doesn’t have fleas. Humans don’t get fleas.”

“Says who? Tubbo?”

“Enough.”

-

He wakes to muffled conversation.

“Do ——- translators even w—k?”

“— guess w—- nd out.”

He frowns, burning his face deeper into the pillow. His stupid foster siblings always wake up at the crack of fucking dawn, can’t they see he’s trying to sleep? 

“T—- translators —-e a bust, Tech. I think—u got ripped o—.”

“I sto—  them,—yways.”

He rolls over with a huff, fucking idiots. They only get to sleep in on Saturday’s, you’d think they’d at least try to make the most of it.

...Was the mattress in his room always this soft? He could have sworn it was a lot shitter than this. Did they get new blankets, too? When did that happen? 

“Wait, l—k! I think —- waking up.”

No. No that’s not right. None of this is right- 

“Hello? Can you hear me, little one?”

“...It looks pretty asleep to me.”

“Let it sleep, it looks like it needs it.”

He drifts.

Chapter Text

He blinks open his eyes.

The pillow under his head is a crisp white. The same color as the blankets he’s swamped in. The room around him is gunmetal grey, steel walls badly welded together, filled with dents that weren’t quite hammered out all the way, a few panels a slightly different color grey. He huffs, whoever built this ship had no idea what they were doing- 

Wait, What?  

No, no that’s not right either. 

He blinks again, shaking his head muzzily as he thinks. He… He’d been in that stupid tank, right? With four-arms. He’d escaped that ship. Besides, His ship didn’t look like this, the walls were darker, metal perfectly brushed and polished. There weren’t any dents or weld-marks. He never settled for anything less than perfection. 

He blinks again, and the memories come back all at once.

Pig Man, four-arms crumbling to a heap on the floor. The blown-out windows of the pet shop, the winged man with the red goggles. The cold, dusty streets of that grey city. Biker guy scowling at him, the roar of the hoverbike.

He throws himself upright into a sitting position, head spinning. He’d gotten out. He’s out. 

He’d met someone who spoke English, he’d been saved, he must have passed out on the hoverbike, so where was he now? Was this their ship? Were they in space?

Wait a minute. 

Something had woken him up. He’s heard voices, he’d heard voices that he’d understood.  

Something like hope flares in his chest, white hot and fragile. Maybe… Maybe the Pig Man was on a rescue mission. Maybe his foster family reported him missing all those months ago, and there were people looking for him! Maybe they found out he’d been kidnapped, maybe they sent people out searching for him, maybe they found him!

Maybe he’s going home. Just the thought of it makes anticipation fizzle under his skin. 

Hell, maybe he’s already home. Maybe he recognized the voices because they belonged to his foster family, maybe they’re just waiting for him to wake up before they take him off the ship. Maybe, maybe, maybe-

He hears footsteps coming down the hall, and he lets himself hope. He tightens his hands into fists, tears pricking at the backs of his eyes, and he hopes.

The metal door slides aside. Pig Man steps through.

Oh. 

Right.

Yeah, that makes more sense. Obviously.

He feels himself shrink, the flare of hope in his chest melting away. Stupid. Of course he wasn’t on fucking earth, he’d been on His ship for months. He was at least a year from earth, and that’s being generous. He hadn’t been out that long. 

The homesickness bites at him, a familiar ache, and he swallows it down. He scowls up at pig man, instead, “I don’t suppose you’re here to drive me home, huh?”

Pig Man blinks at him. He flicks one of his ears. 

He looks… different without his coat. Smaller. He finally gets a good look at his face, too, in actual lighting. It’s still as scarred and leathery as ever, but it’s… Softer, like this. More human. Broad-faces, with a big, definitely at least twice-broken, nose. His ears are still pig-like, but he can make out the glinting of golden jewelry dangling from them, now. His tusks seem smaller, too, more blunt and less terrifying, the scars across his nose and up the side of his face less deep and jarring. Even his ruby red eyes look gentler.

Though, that might have something to do with his hair, which was bubble-gum pink and pulled back in a complicated braid down one side. The delicate gold strands twisted in made all of him look softer. Or his shirt, which was white and flowy, tucked into brown trousers and belted around his hips. Not exactly the most intimidating of outfits. He’d looked a lot bigger and more threatening with the coat and hood. 

His hooves clip softly across the metal floor as he brings him a silver tray, tufted tail swaying at his ankles. Since when did he have a tail? Fucking weirdo, how had he not noticed that? Had he tucked it up under his coat? 

Tommy glances at the tray, but shrugs half-heartedly and looks away, suddenly not hungry. He brings his knees up to his chin on the bed, folding his arms around them. “I’m not hungry, big man. Can't you see I’m moping?”

The Pig Man considers him for a moment. His ear flicks again. Then, he sets the tray down on a dinky little bedside table he hadn’t noticed before. 

He sits down next to him on the bed. Then just. Looks at him. 

He’s doing that thing again. Looking at him with those wise red eyes, thinking. He opens his mouth just a little. Then he shuts it. His eyebrows furrow together in frustration, and he opens his mouth again. Then he shuts it. This goes on for a lot longer than he has the patience for. 

Tommy rolls his eyes, shifting so he’s facing the opposite direction and doesn’t have to look at his stupid face. “Look, either spit it out already or leave me the fuck alone.” He growls. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Sad.” Pig Man offers, simply. “Sad, you? You. Sad.”

He scoffs, ignoring the way his heart jumps at the broken English. Pathetic. “Gee, how’dja figure that one out?”

“No Sad.” He insists. “Stop.”

That takes him by surprise, and he can’t stop the half-laugh, half-sob that bubbles out of his chest. “You’re shit at comforting people, piggy.”

“Stop.”

He snorts again, wiping at his face as his lip trembles, fucking traitor . He’s not gonna fucking cry, “I’m doin’ my best here, man.”

“No.” He insists, with enough force behind it that Tommy looks over at him, swallowing another sob. 

He looks… Well, he looks kind of constipated, actually. Eyebrows scrunched together as he grinds his teeth in frustration, tusks jutting out. Watching him struggle to find the word he’s looking for is a little painful, actually. 

His eyes light up the minute he gets it, “Home.”

And Tommy freezes.

“W-what?”

“You, Home.” He repeats confidently, ruby red eyes burrowing into his own red-rimmed ones. “No sad. You, Home. Soon.”

“H-home.” He repeats, voice starting soft but gaining in volume. “Home… Like, Earth? We’re going back to Earth? You’re taking me home?”

Home. He’s taking him home, if that’s what he means. That same flare of hope comes back, filling up his chest like a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Tentatively at first, but stronger with every passing second, the thrum of it spreading through his limbs and making his heart jump in his chest. 

“Yes.” Pig Man confirms. “Earth. Soon.”

Soon? 

“How soon?!” His voice breaks, and he lunges forwards, clutching at the lapels of Pig Man’s flowy white shirt. “Today? Tomorrow?”

Pig Man looks overwhelmed. “Uh, Soon? Far.”

“Far.” He deflates. “So… Not today. That’s okay, totally fine! As long as we’re, heh, going there…”

He melts back into his own personal space, and Pig Man makes a quick exit once Tommy’s no longer holding him hostage, looking more than a little frazzled. He can’t find it in him to care, head still spinning from the emotional whiplash. 

He wipes tear tracks off of his cheeks, when had he started crying? He has no fucking idea. It doesn’t matter now though, he’s grinning so hard it feels like his face is gonna split in two. 

Home… he’s actually going back home. 

Not today, no, but soon! 

He’ll get to breathe in air that doesn’t smell awful or recycled. He’ll get to walk down the sidewalk again. Waste quarters in the shitty arcade up by Clem and Clara’s, oh god, Clem and Clara’s.

He misses that shitty gas station so much it hurts. The shitty coffee that tastes like dust and gasoline, the candy they sold that was always stale. Would they be happy to see him? He has to be at least sixteen now, would Clara finally let him drive her truck like she promised? Would Clem still side him Twinkies under the counter when Clara wasn’t paying attention? 

God, he fucking misses earth food. He’d cut off his left pinky for some pizza, right now. Or a coke. Or ice cream. Or anything from earth, really. He’d lick the awful, barely edible baloney sandwiches the public school serves off the fucking floor. 

That reminds him.

He casts a curious glance towards the bedside table.

There’s a glass of water, sitting innocently on a metal tray with a bowl of something in the center. He moves a little closer to inspect it. 

It doesn’t look… awful, sitting there innocently in a metal dish. It’s Some kind of… Mush. Around the texture of applesauce, actually, with little hunks of red, uh, fruit? He’s gonna just. Hope it’s fruit. He’d rather not think about the alternative. 

They gave him a spoon, which he appreciates, but he hasn’t quite built up the nerve to try it yet.

He downs the glass of water in one go, and it’s cool and fresh on his tongue. He licks his lips afterwards, not even blinking at the slightly metallic aftertaste. Spaceship water always leaves you’re tasting a little bit like blood, he’s well used to it by now. 

He looks at the bowl of mush over again, still not quite sure. Aw, fuck it. He’ll need the strength for the trip back home.

Just the thought of it makes him giddy. 

His stomach growls, and he winces. When was the last time he ate? Four-arms had fed him something that was remarkably similar to dog food, which he had eaten only two bites of because he has fucking standards, thank you very much. After he bit his hand, though, he hadn’t fed him anything, just slid water in through a gap in the door with tongs. The aliens that pulled him from the escape pod hadn’t fed him at all before passing him off to four-arms, And before that-

He’s not going to think about that. Nope. Unimportant. Fuck. That. Not happening. He’s going home now, the less he thinks about Him, the better.

...Point is, he’s hungry. Really fucking hungry, and more than a little desperate. He pokes at the mush with his spoon, wincing when it jiggles. 

Well, at least it wasn’t dog food. 

He scoops up a spoonful and looks it over distrustfully up close. He brings it to his nose, to no avail, and decides to just bite the bullet. If it’s shit, it’s shit, he can’t afford to be picky. Reluctantly, he takes the smallest possible bite.

Huh. Huh. Okay. 

It…Tastes like applesauce. Like… Really, really weird, slightly warm applesauce. Like slightly-expired Apple flavored Jello someone left out in the sun for too long. It’s not half-bad, actually. He winces when he bites down on one of the little fruit hunks, the flavor exploding in his mouth, but he didn’t have to worry. Those aren’t that bad either, and are actually fruit and not like, fish eggs, or something. They taste a bit like cherries, actually. Not bad at all, and vaguely sweet. 

It’s not bad. He might go as far as to say it’s good.

He eats the entire thing in seconds. 

He probably shouldn’t have, but sue him. If Pig Man and his friends wanted him dead, they had plenty of chances to stick a laser gun between his eyes. They wouldn’t waste food poisoning him. 

It’s the first time his stomach has felt full in months, and he could cry with the relief. Finally, finally, things were looking up. Look at him now! He’s living the life! He’s eating food that’s not shit, he’s not thirsty or hungry, he doesn’t feel like he’s about to pass out. He’s not running from anyone, he’s not struggling to survive in a prison cell or behind glass, barely able to keep himself conscious and dizzy from starvation and dehydration. 

His shoulders slump, the electric buzz of adrenaline and fear long gone from his veins, leaving him steady and a little lightheaded. 

For the first time in months, he’s not running off of pure spite and adrenaline. For the first time in a year and a half, he can finally relax.

He’s out before he even hits the floor.

-

“-the ground! 

“Was it the food?”

“What, it can’t be allergic-“

“Techno, take a look at this.”

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Show me!”

“Watch it, Wil!”

“Yeesh, with stats like these i'm surprised it’s not dead already- ow!”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“We’ll move it to the med bay, get an iv started. It’s ridiculously dehydrated.”

“It’s not going to like that.”

“We’ve already got it hooked up to Wil’s old comn. It’ll translate, we’ll just explain.”

“Look at the fuckin’ thing! It’s all busted, it barely even works. There’s a reason I got rid of it. What makes you think it’ll translate anything?”

“It’s worth a shot.”

“Anything is better than the other translators. ‘Authentic earth translators’ my ass. Your comn has the best chance.”

“If it short circuits and fries it’s brain, don’t come crying to me-“

-

The first time he wakes, it’s to a beeping sound.

He frowns, shifting away from the noise. It’s irritating as shit, he’s trying to sleep, here.

A warm hand combs through his hair, and he leans into the touch. God, that feels nice. His hair is greasy and tangled as shit, he needed a shower months ago, now he’s just plain nasty. The faintly clawed nails scratch at his scalp in just the right way. He sighs sleepily when a thumb brushes across his hairline. 

“It’s alright, mate.” A soft voice murmurs from somewhere behind him. “It’s just the monitor.”

“There’s no way it's working.” A sharper voice complains from somewhere to his left. It’s irritating, and he leans away from the source of it. “I mean, what are the chances?”

“It seems to be working.” Rumbles a third voice, low and growly, vaguely familiar. 

There’s movement from behind him, the shifting of… Fabric? No, that’s not quite right. The hand scratches at his scalp again, ohh that’s nice, and the thought slips away. “That’s enough, you two. You’ll wake him up.”

“Oh, so it’s a him now?”

“Hush.”

He blinks open his eyes, and immediately regrets it.

He hisses, rubbing at his face. Fucking ow, is someone shining a flashlight in his eyes or something? Jesus Christ that’s bright.

There’s a rustle of frantic movement as the hand in his hair is snatched away, and quick, hushed conversation. He shakes his head, rubbing at his eyes to get them to adjust to the light faster so he can see what the fuck was going on. Where was he? Right, space. Pig Man, biker guy, Mothman. It all comes back to him pretty quick the second time.

The room he was in before wasn’t nearly this fucking bright, did they move him to another part of the ship. God, his head hurts. The bright light definitely wasn’t helping, either. Fuck.

Still. He needs to know where he is. He opens his eyes again with a wince, squinting as he looks around.

Everything is white. White sheets, white bed, white floors. The only things that aren’t white are the monitors set up next to him, each made of some kind of grey metal, and the screens flash all sorts of colors. If he tilts his head and squints, it kind of looks like a heart monitor, like the thing they have in hospitals ‘n shit. 

Hospitals . He’d recognize that sharp, clinical smell anywhere, and his shoulders tense sharply. He was in a hospital, or something like it. A med bay?

He finds the IV soon after, needle sticking out of his left arm. How the hell did he not notice that? He scowls at it, resisting the urge to yank it out. He fucking hates hospitals. He hates the smell, the sounds, the obnoxious shade of white, the patronizing doctors and nurses hovering around every corner. Every time he goes to a hospital, he ends up stuck full of needles. 

Ugh. He fucking hate hate hates needles. 

He brings a careful hand up to his head, wincing when his fingers brush over a bandage across his aching temple. Did he black out or some shit? He remembers the apple sauce, but after that it gets a little fuzzy. What the hell happened? 

Movement, from behind him, a rustle of footsteps and a warm, lightly scolding voice. “You might not want to touch that, mate.”  

Doctors . He scowls. God, he fucking hates doctors. They’re either stuck up as all hell, or patronizing as shit. All the kids who teased him in highschool are probably going to grow up and be doctors, or even worse, nurses. Awful, the lot of them. 

He snorts, waving him off. “Yeah, yeah. S’not my first time in a hospital bed, doc , I’m not gonna rip it off or some-“

Wait a fucking minute. 

He whips his head around so fast he hears his neck crack.

There’s Mothman, standing awkwardly by the other side of the bed, a nervous smile plastered across his feather-speckled face. Biker guy is half hidden by his shoulder, and looks at him distrustfully from across the room, looking a lot less intimidating in a sunny yellow sweater and the space equivalent of skinny jeans. Finally, there’s Pig Man, looming over them, looking the same as he did earlier, and already seeming pretty bored with the whole situation.

It’s silent for a whole minute as Tommy stares, slack-jawed, as his brain tries begins to process  what the fuck he had just heard. 

Finally, Pig Man leans down and says plainly in Mothman’s ear, “So, do you think the comn’s working, or…”

“What the fUCK-“ Tommy screeches, back pedaling off the bed and ripping his IV out in the process. 

The monitor starts screeching, and all three of them rush forwards to try and break his fall, to no avail. There’s a shriek of wheels as the monitor is pushed out of the way, the squeak of shoes on tile flooring, all set to the blaring of the heart monitor and Tommy’s lovely screaming, “What the fuck?! You can fucking talk?!?”

“Easy, easy.“ Mothman tries to calm him down, feathers fluttering every which way as he crouches by his side, “You’re just going to hurt yourself-“

“-Stay the fuck away from me you overgrown chicken-“ He snarls, heart pounding out of his chest. “I swear to fucking god, if you touch me-“

He tries to backpedal away from the hands hovering over him, only for his back to hit the metal frame of the bed. He’s trapped. He can’t move backwards anymore, and all three of them are leaning over him, now, Mothman still reaching for his hands, panic clear in his bright blue eyes. He snaps his teeth, and the fingers are pulled back, but only a little. 

He’s trapped. They’ve pinned him back against the bed, he’s still trying to touch him-

A smudge of yellow lurks at the edge of his vision, just over Mothman’s shoulder. “What’s wrong with it? Has it gone fuckin’ rabid?”

“He’s just overwhelmed,” Pig Man cuts in. He’s closer, crouching down at Mothman’ shoulder to be at his level. “You might want to move back, his teeth are sharp.”

Mothman gives in when Pig Man presses at his shoulder. He moves back just a little, and finally, finally, Tommy can finally force air back into his chest. He forces himself to breathe slow, in through the nose, out through the mouth, and the panicked trembling in his limbs eases off.

They can talk. They can fucking speak English. And not the broken shit Pig Man was spouting at him earlier, actual fucking English. With fuckin’ swears ‘n shit. What the hell?!

“You can talk.” He gasps out, still trying to force himself to just breathe, goddamn it. “You can speak fucking English?!”

The smile on Mothman’s face flickers. “Um-“

“You should have just told us you had the implant.” Pig Man interrupts from his other side, voice plain and ruby gaze even. “Would’ve made things easier.”

“ W-what?” Implant? What the fuck are they talking about?!

Phil and Pig Man glance uncertainly at one another, before Pig Man reaches up slowly and messes with his hairline, Phil copying the motion on his own head. There, hidden a little ways behind their right temple, was a scar. The exact same on both, a neat little scar, a quarter inch of slightly raised skin just a little larger than a quarter. 

“The implant?” Mothman explains, giving it a little tap. “Connects to your comn? You must have had one, didn’t you?”

He stares at Phil, blinking wordlessly as his brain scrambles to catch up. Pig Man brushes his hair back into place with his fingers, and Tommy tracks the motion with his eyes.

Then, slowly, ever so slowly, he lifts a shaking hand to his temple. It’s not the bandaged one, thankfully, and as soon as he brushes his long, greasy hair out the way he finds the familiar scar easily. He knows this one, how it sticks out sharply against his skin, hidden by greasy hair. It’s not nearly as neat and small as it is on the others, and his trembling fingers trace it carefully as it branches out, nearly twice as large and a lot more jagged. 

To his absolute horror, he can feel something underneath it. 

It hits him all at once, slamming into his chest with the force of a freight train, stealing all the air from his lungs in a moment of horrified realization. “They put something in my fucking head?!” 

He’s panicking, all thoughts of breathing slowly and calmly going out the fucking window. His fingers scratch desperately against the scar, he needs to get it out, get it out, but warm hands close around his own, pulling them away. His vision blurs, filling with green as his chest closes up again, sharp claws of panic tightening around his chest, bruising his ribs and crushing down on his sternum. He feels like he’s been dipped in a fucking tank of ice water. 

He remembers that. He remembers.

He remembers being strapped down to that cruel metal table, with Him hovering overhead. He remembers the ice-cold sting of the metal blade digging into his temple, of thrashing against his restraints until his wrists were rubbed raw. 

He remembers screaming, screaming and screaming and screaming, shouting and pleading until his throat aches, and then dissolving into sobs. They hadn’t stopped, hadn’t even hesitated.

They’d only given him painkillers when his sobbing threatened to knock the blade off course, and even then, it was only to shut him up-

Arms clasp tight around him, holding him firmly. He thrashes like a wild animal in the hold, snarling and snapping his teeth, angry shouts mixing with his panicked sobs as he struggles, but it’s no use. The thin arms holding him are a lot stronger than they seem, caging him in, pinning down his arms. 

There are voices around him, talking at him, but they mix with the blaring of the monitor, all blurring together into one big mix of awful , loud and jarring as car alarms. He squeezes his eyes shut when his vision goes spotty, and kicks out with his feet. He makes contact with something, and he relishes in the wheeze of pain he hears before the arms bracketing his own change from slim and bony to thicker than he was. 

He’s trapped, he’s fucking trapped he was going to die-

“Just calm down-“

Something brushes against the side of his face, and he feels nothing but terror. He doesn’t even hesitate before whipping his head around, snapping his teeth around skin and biting down.

“-cking bit me!”

“-ld still, Wil-“

It wrenches itself out of his teeth, and his mouth fills with the iron taste of blood. The scent of it makes things worse, making his head spin and the terror clawing its way up his throat only tightens its iron-clad grip on his chest. He spits, whipping his head around and baring his teeth again in threat at blurs of motion he can’t even see , but the arms around him hold firm.

He’s panting, now, every inch of him trembling with exhaustion but still, still. He thrashes and kicks, lashing out with every bit of strength he has as he screams. 

He doesn’t want to die. He won’t be turned into some fucking experiment, he won’t let them dig around in his head again. He doesn’t want to die. 

“-easy, easy, mate!””

He opens his mouth to snarl, but all that comes out is a loud, desperate sob.

“-Panicking, I’ll hold him-“

The arms around him tighten and he whines, scratching at them desperately with hands curled into claws. It doesn’t even work, arms pinned too tightly to his sides, but still, still.

He tries again, and again, lashing out blindly, vision blurry with tears and clouded with terror.

He doesn’t want to die!

“-sedative!”

There’s a pinch in his neck, and everything stops.

-

“-reaction?”

“-too much, he’s too small-“

“-watch him, I’ll call-“

“-eep him cool, here, take this-“

“-y do I have to-“

“-st take him!-“

-

His head is spinning.

His mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, tongue heavy and lips chapped. He tries to open his eyes, but all he can see is a mess of colors and blurred shapes, and all that does is make it worse. 

He screws them shut, instead.

He curls his trembling body into a ball on his side, trying to fight off the awful dizzy feeling. He feels too hot and too cold at the same time, dizzy and lightheaded, but every one of his limbs is too numb and heavy to move. He’s exhausted, just the effort of breathing seems like too much. 

His tongue is thick and heavy, swollen in his mouth, throat dry. Every part of him aches, the low, bone-deep kind of pain you get from true exhaustion. The dizziness ebbs and rolls over him every once in a while in waves, ebbing in and out like the tide.

He tries to claw his way into consciousness, but the minute he gets a handle, the world tips, and he’s floating again. 

His head is spinning, aching and hot. He feels like he’s moving, tipping this way and that, like he’s riding the world's worst roller coaster. It feels like someone is trying to unspool his brain out through his ears and it hurts. He can’t tell up from down, he can’t even tell if his eyes are open, he’s so tired, but he’s so dizzy and disoriented, he aches too much to even try to sleep. He can’t move. 

What is happening to him?!

A whimper forces itself past his lips, and he curls up tighter, arms tight around his chest. Is he dying? Is this what dying feels like? He’s too young to die, he doesn’t want to die-

Something cool and damp presses against his fire-hot forehead, and he almost cries with relief. He leans into it, trying to press himself as close as possible to the source of the cold. It’s nice, god, that’s nice. 

Then, a voice. Smooth, Vaguely masculine, rising and dipping as it mutters overhead, too soft for him to pick out any words. He cracks open an eye, looking for the source. 

His vision swims, just making him dizzier, like before. He blinks it back, swallowing the nausea rising in his throat. Colors and shapes spin in front of his eyes like a veil of static, and he blinks hard to try and clear them away the best he can and pick out the shape of the person leaning over him. 

A yellow blur looks down at him, close enough to touch, and there’s the voice again, sounding as if it’s coming from underwater. “-ou awake?”

“W-who?” He slurs, squinting to try and get his blurry vision to focus.

The voice hums, and the source finally comes into some sort of focus.

It’s a person. His features all blur together in Tommy’s drug-induced haze, his glazed over eyes looking right past the silver streak in his brown hair, or the pointed ears and teeth, the subtle shift to his skin. He’s little more than a yellow and brown blob, warm brown eyes studying him as he leans closer. They narrow down at him, looking at him with some unreadable emotion. 

His face looks kind , Tommy thinks dreamily, too out of his mind to recognize the scowl. When he presses the cloth to his forehead, he leans eagerly into the touch without a touch of fear. He must be nice, if he’s cold. Nice person.

“I’m Wilbur.” The voice finally says, a sharpness to its tone. Tommy doesn’t even notice. 

Wilbur . That’s a nice name, he thinks dazedly, a real British sounding name. Wilbur. It’s been a while since he’s heard a good British name, American names are awful. It really rolls off the tongue. 

He blinks at him, dazedly. “Wilby.”

The voice, Wilby, Tommy stubbornly decides, chokes, and he whines when the cloth suddenly disappears. 

He feels fine for a moment or two, but then the dizziness he was feeling earlier slams into him again, and he wheezes, squeezing his eyes shut as he feels his stomach roll. His face heats up, both too hot and too cold as another wave of nausea rolls over him.he tries to reach out for the cold thing, to bring it back, but it hurts. It hurts to much to move, to breathe- 

The voice is still talking, voice strained, “-id you just call me Wilby-“

“W-Wilby.” He interrupts, voice wobbly. 

A pained sound slips past his trembling lips as he curls tighter into himself. He tries to reach out again, and finally, his limbs obey. He lashes out desperately with one of his hands, grabbing a fistful of yellow sweater in a white-knuckled grip and pulling it close. “I-I don’t feel so good.”

The cloth comes back, and this time, he does cry with relief, hot tears dripping down his face no matter how hard he squeezes his eyes shut.

 “It’s just the sedative,” Wilby mumbles somewhere above him. “We gave you too much. It’ll wear off soon.”

He doesn’t know what that means, but Wilby looks kind. He trusts him. He’s cold. Cold ‘n nice.

“‘M dizzy.” He complains, voice shaking and pathetically small.

The cool cloth wipes down his sweaty forehead again, taking a quick detour to clean the tears off his face. He sniffs, still clenching the handful of yellow sweater close. He yanks it closer to bury his face into the soft fabric. He takes a deep breath, willing the awful ache in his body to just go away, and breathes in the familiar scent of gasoline. It’s a little bit off, and tinged with something else, smokey and faintly sweet, but he’d recognize that motor-oil smell anywhere. It smells like home. 

It’s a sleeve, he soon realizes, when it moves and turns in his grip so warm, slender fingers can brush against his face. Tears burn in his eyes again at the gesture, and he chokes out another sob. 

“I know.” The voice murmurs, brushing a thumb over his cheek. “Just close your eyes, yeah? You’ll feel just fine when you wake up.”

He nods shakily, it must be true, if he says it, and wraps both arms tight around the arm in his grip so it can’t be pulled away. The voice, Wilby, catches his breath and Tommy stiffens, did he do something wrong? But all he does is sigh. The hand in his grip opens, and Tommy wastes no time pressing his face against his cool, open palm.

The damp cloth on his forehead is adjusted again, and his shoulders slump with relief. God, that feels nice. Nice and cool. Nice. 

Then, the voice starts humming.

Quietly at first, Tommy can barely even hear it between the dizziness and the aching limbs, but it soon gets louder. He doesn’t recognize the song, but the tune ebbs and flows soothingly, washing over him in waves. 

He squeezes his eyes shut tighter and latches on to the song, desperate for a distraction. For something to ground him. 

A finger brushes over his face again, and the voice starts to sing.

He’s singing about… A city? Something like that. 

It’s a sad song. Low, and faintly mournful. The voice is a little rusty, rising and dipping with the words. It’s the kind of voice that belongs on an old vinyl record, to some up and coming star crooning about their first love, he thinks. He’d used to listen to a lot of songs like that.

He had a collection of vinyls in his room at the foster home. He misses them, in their little box, hidden safely in the floorboards. They were a gift from his mother, before she died. He misses them. They better be safe, he thinks crossly, already half asleep. If his foster siblings ruin them while he’s sick, he’s gonna be mad.

Gentle fingers run over his face again, and he melts into the touch, anger forgotten. 

This is better, though, Tommy decides, mostly asleep and delirious. The cracks in the voice as it sings, the tune gentle and soft, the rumble of creaking pipes and machinery faint in the background. 

He’s out in seconds.

-

The Piglin leans in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He watches the Phantling brush the hair out of the child’s face the same way the Elytran had earlier with a knowing look in his eyes. 

The latter doesn’t even notice, too preoccupied trying to extract the sleeve of his favorite yellow sweater from the child’s grip without waking him up. Every time he’s just about to get his hand loose, the child’s face screws up in his sleep, and he drags his arm back into place. He doesn’t seem to care too much, though, fondness and worry written all over his face as the child trembles faintly in his sleep.

“Why did we have to let him on my hoverbike, Techno?” The Piglin mocks. “ Humans have fleas, Techno-“

The Phantling turns to him with a snarl, “Shut up!”

-

The second time he wakes, it’s to someone reading.

Their voice is low and rusty, a rumbling baritone that pulls in and out like ocean waves across a beach. The words are vaguely familiar, but any meaning they might have is lost in the rising and dipping of the voice. It's easy to get lost in. Nice.

He blinks slowly. What had he been thinking about? Whatever, it’s not important. He’s comfortable, floating off in space like this, shapes spinning across his vision. It’s vaguely familiar. 

He’d gotten a cavity filled, but just once.

The memory comes to him in glimpses, swatches of color and muffled sound. 

It was at one of the older houses, right after he had gotten to the good old U S of A but before the foster homes got real shitty. The cheery  middle-aged couple with their plastic smiles and huge St. Bernard. It was a pretty bad cavity, or so he’d been told, so they'd put a mask over his face, and asked him if he’d rather have mint or bubblegum. He’d said bubblegum, of course, and the next thing he knows he’s breathing in bubble-gum scented air that made him feel funny for the rest of the day.

He remembers that feeling. Like all his limbs are too heavy to move, but his head is all drifty and spinny. Like that feeling you get when you stand up too fast, except while laying down.

He remembers that feeling, because it’s exactly how he feels right now.

His limbs are all heavy, and his mouth feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, but his head swims. The voice rumbles in one ear and out the other, fading in and out of earshot as he drifts in and out of consciousness. He tries to bring himself back, to focus, but the memories and thoughts slip through his fingers. He can’t find it in him to care. 

He feels like he’s floating. Drifting through space. He’s already in space, isn’t he? On a spaceship? That sounds right. Floating in space, in space. Ha. Weird.

The voice continues on. It’s familiar, he thinks. In a good way. Where does he recognize it from? It’s on the tip of his tongue...

He opens his eyes.

It’s a struggle. His eyelids are heavy, and just that small movement takes a serious amount of effort, but he’s curious, now. He wants to find the source of the familiar voice droning on in his ear. 

His vision is still swimming once he finally blinks them open, stars and colors swirling in and around like a thin layer of static. He blinks lazily a few times, and the ceiling comes into a blurry focus above his head. 

He’s back in the grey room, he realizes first, and sighs with relief. That’s good. He hadn’t liked the white room, or the sharp, clinical smell of the stiff bedsheets. This room was a lot more comfortable, and looking around didn’t give him a headache. The comforter tucked in around him is heavy and soft, the pillow under his head just the right amount of firm. Maybe he should close his eyes again, he’s so comfortable, it’d be so easy to fall back asleep…

No! The voice! He was trying to find the source of the voice. Wasn’t he? Yeah, he thinks he was. 

He tilts his head to the side, blinking a few more times until the pink blur sitting at his bedside comes into focus. Oh, hey! It’s Pig Man!

“Piggy.” He slurs. “Oink.”

Pig Man looks up from his book sharply, glasses nearly falling off his nose. Ha, he’s got a pig nose, too. Oink oink, motherfucker.

Ruby red eyes consider him for a moment. He closes the thick book in his lap, running a hand absentmindedly over the cover. Tommy tracks the movement lazily, eyes catching on the glint of gold on his fingers. Shiny. 

“-okay?” 

He looks back up, and squints. Pig Man looks back at him, head tilted as he waits for a response. Oh, had 

he said something? “...Yah talkin’ to me, big man?”

Pig Man just stares for a moment, before sighing and pressing a hand to his temple. He mumbles something Tommy can’t quite catch about sedatives and humans, blah blah blah, unimportant stuff. For being so cool looking, he sure isn’t that interesting. 

“You’re boring.” He informs him. “So not poggers.”

He’s ignored in favor of Pig Man picking the book back up and flipping through the pages. It’s an old, dusty thing, with big gossy pages. Heh, that’s funny. It kind of looks like a school textbook, if he squints. Complete with the tacky green cover and broken spine. Tommy would probably think it was a lot funnier if he wasn’t being ignored.

He frowns. “Hey Pig. Piggy. Pig man.”

An ear flicks towards him, but he doesn’t even glance up. He licks the tip of a non-ringed finger, and flips the page. He’s not even reading out loud anymore, and he’s ignoring him! Rude!

Tommy growls, trying to shake off the heavy feeling in his limbs so he could sit up more, to no avail. He glares at him, huffing, and wishing he was able to cross his arms. He was fuckin’ Tommy Danger Careful Kraken innit! He wasn’t going to let this stupid pig ignore him! Especially not for some dumb looking book- ooh, shiny.

He’d moved his hand again, shiny gold rings on full display. Some of them even had tiny little jewels that sparkled and shimmered when they caught the light. Pretty-

No, Tommy! Focus! You’re mad at him!

He scowls. “Hey! Don’t, don’t ignore me, Pig Man!”

That gets his attention, finally. He doesn’t look up, but his ear flicks again in irritation as he flips another page in his book. “My name is Technoblade.”

“T-tech,” he tries to say, tongue still heavy in his mouth. “Techno.”

“Techno blade.”

He laughs at the disgruntled look on his face, lips curling into an evil smile. “Techie.”

Pig Man, Techie’s, face goes from slightly irritated to absolutely horrified, ramrod stiff and looking wide-eyed at Tommy with nothing but pure panic in his eyes. “No. No. My name is Technoblade-“

“Techie.” He slurs again. 

He manages to hold a straight face for all of three seconds before he breaks down, and soon enough he’s laughing so hard his chest hurts and he’s gone all light headed again, world spinning around him. Worth it. God, that expression is absolutely priceless! 

The expression sours once he realizes Tommy is getting a kick out of riling him up, huffing out his nose and letting his shoulders slump. He glares at him over the rim of his glasses. 

“You’re a menace,” Techie informs him, but there's a bit of warmth in his voice. “Runt.”

He sticks out his tongue, grinning drunkenly. “ Techie.”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response, shaking his head as he turns back to his book. He does, however, start reading aloud again. Now that he’s awake, the words start to make sense. Vaguely.

He knows this story. Read it once in some English class years ago, he thinks. Theseus and the Minotaur. It’s all old English and words he doesn’t understand, but it’s nice to listen too. The low rumbles of Technoblade’s diesel-engine voice does it a lot more justice than the nasally whining of his English teacher. 

He’s asleep before he finishes the page. 

-

The third time he wakes, he’s actually conscious.

He’s only a little lightheaded, and when he blinks open his eyes, the grey ceiling above him is only a reasonable amount of blurry. When he wills his fingers to move, they curl into the sheets without a fight, the heaviness gone from his limbs.

He’s tried. His head hurts. He’s hungry and thirsty, mouth dry, tongue swollen and sticky. He’s craving applesauce, of all things, like you wouldn’t believe. 

What the fuck happened?

He sits up slowly, limbs creaking in protest as he pulls on them. He gives his head a shake, but the memories slip off of his grasp. They linger on the edge of his mind, just close enough to glimpse, but the minute he tries to recall any details they dart away like silver minnows up a stream.

He remembers Pig Man. He remembers the other two, the police chase, the hoverbike, but after that they just get… Blurry. All shifty and strange, like trying to remember a dream you had the next morning. Something about… A hospital? Maybe, that sounds right. He remembers a song… Had someone been singing, or had he dreamt that? There had been someone reading, that he knows. Had they really been reading from a Greek mythology textbook, or had he imagined it?

...Had they talked to him?

He remembers something like that, a smudge of pink, a blur of green, a hint of yellow. Voices, unfamiliar, but a language he recognized. No, no he must have dreamed that. There’s no way. 

Wait a minute.

Before that, way before. He had spoken to Pig Man, hadn’t he? His English had been broken and choppy, but they had spoken. He had pink braided hair, dressed like a fucking pirate. He’d given him some apple-sauce thing, so that’s why he had been craving it earlier, and they had talked about… about…

Home.

Pig Man had told him they were going home.

Hadn’t he?

The memories are fuzzy, but he’d swear that’s what they’d talked about. He’d said it was far, but that they were going home. It’s too vivid in his memory to be a dream.

He’d give anything for it not to be a dream. 

He licks his chapped lips. Why the fuck does his mouth taste like bubblegum? 

He gives his head another shake. He’s tired, he’s so tired, and still a little bit dizzy. Everything feels so far away, it takes effort to drag himself back into the present. What the hell? Had he… Had someone fucking drugged him? 

He tenses, a familiar panic beginning to sizzle in his chest as his heart speeds up. Why? Can he remember? Had they done something to him while he was out?

The blood in his veins goes electric, ah, adrenaline, my old friend, and he whips his head around, gaze darting around the room for clues. 

It’s sparse. There’s a monitor set up next to the bed, and it’s about the most interesting thing in the room. The screen flashes all sorts of interesting colors, and he frowns at it. He rubs up and down both his arms, inspecting his limbs for any sort of IV, finding none. So how the fuck-

Whatever. Weird alien shit. He’ll come back to it.

 He looks around the rear of the room, but it’s not much use. There’s nothing, just the bed he’s on and familiar, dinky little nightstand with a drawer, sporting a simple lamp. No windows, no carpet over the metal floors. It’s too big to be a prison cell, though, and the thought settles him a little. The one door doesn’t have any bars, just the usual window at the top, a control panel on the left side. It’s not locked, he doesn’t think, he could leave if he needed too.

He runs a hand over the bedsheets. They’re soft, a neutral, unassuming grey, and thick. The mattress is springy and comfortable on a simple metal bed frame. He snorts, he’s never been in a prison cell with such nice bed sheets, that’s for sure. 

He buries his fingers in the soft fabric, leaning back against the pillows. A laugh bubbles in his throat, it’s like sleeping on a fucking cloud! 

If this is the alien’s idea of a prison cell, they must be living like fuckin’ kings. If the kids at the foster home could see him now-

The laugh dies abruptly in his throat.

Pig Man had told him they were going home, he had promised, but then, they’d turned around and drugged him. Why? Were they still taking him home? Had it been a lie? Is he ever going home?

Footsteps. 

He whips his head back towards the door, muscles coiled tight and ready to spring. They’re light, too light to be Pig Man, Mothman, maybe? An uncertain frown twists on his face at the thought. He’d seemed nice enough on the bike, careful not to touch him, bracketing him from the wind with soft wings. Now, though, the memory tastes sour on his tongue. He scowls, You never really know with aliens. 

He can’t afford to let his guard down. Not after they fucking drugged him. 

The door opens.

It’s Mothman, like he thought. He looks different than he did in the city. Dressed simply in a green shirt and black trousers, a thin grey coat that sweeps down at his ankles and flares open around his wrists draped overtop. The hat is the same, green and white striped and awful, his honey-blonde hair limp around his feather-speckled face. 

His wings are even more beautiful in the light, and he finds himself catching his breath at the sight. They’re fucking huge, which is even more obvious now that he’s getting a good look at them, the longest flight feathers nearly as tall as he was. The colors were stunning, gunmetal grey on the broad outer feathers, the downier ones underneath an ink back. When the light catches them just the right way, though, they shift into a hundred different colors, like an oil slick. Beautiful.

He seems surprised to see Tommy awake, blue eyes going wide and feathers bristling in shock. He schools his expression quickly, plastering a comforting smile across his face as he steps lightly into the room. He moves slowly, palms up in the universal gesture of, ‘I mean you know harm.’

Tommy is tense on the bed, ready to shove past him and escape into the rest of the ship, just in case. He’s not naive enough to fall for that. Not anymore.

Then, something unexpected happens. 

“Hey, mate.” Mothman says in a low, soothing kind of voice, with a fucking Accent, of all things. “Can you understand me?”

It takes him a moment to realize he’s supposed to respond, and not just stare at him. He swallows hard, mouth suddenly dry, and tries to silence his internal mantra of what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck, to think of an actual response. 

“Y-yeah. I can.” He eventually stammers back.

He relaxes at that, shoulders slumping. He really doesn’t hold anything back, every emotion playing out clearly in his face, mirrored in the shifting of his feathers. The pity in his eyes makes bile rise in the back of his throat.

He's still tense, ready to run or fight if he needs to, but there’s nothing hidden in that expression. Slowly, ever so slowly, he finds himself relaxing. 

“Good.” He says, and there’s relief in his voice. “I’m glad it works.”

Then, He raises his hands up higher, palms still up, and there’s something warm glittering in his eyes. “I’m just here to check your vitals, mate. I’m not going to touch you.”

A frown twists across his face, and he narrows his eyes. Yeah, like he hasn’t heard that one before. Fuckin’ prick. 

He doesn’t pay him any mind, sweeping over to the monitor and pressing buttons, humming absentmindedly as he works. Tommy watches him closely, but there are no needles hidden in his hands, his fingers don’t twitch towards his pockets.

He catches Tommy’s gaze, and he smiles. “My name is Phil, it’s nice to officially meet you.”

The name Phil slaps him across the face, and he doesn’t even respond when he gets closer, still blinking in shock. In front if him is an alien, from a galaxy hundred upon hundreds of thousands of miles away from Earth, and not only does he have a fucking accent, but his name is fucking Phil.

He continues on, waving a hand as he talks. “I’m really sorry about all of that, by the way. If I’d known that the sedative would have that effect on you, I wouldn’t have used it. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

He blinks.

...He has so many questions. He was so many fucking questions, he doesn’t even know where to start. Phil breezes past him to the… IV? Heart monitor? Whatever the fuck it’s called, fussing with the buttons on the screen. His wings twitch and flex as he works, feathers shifting in the light. 

His name is Phil. Fucking, Phil-

“Ah, not quite.” He winces, fuck, had he said that outloud? But Phil doesn’t seem offended, absentmindedly turning a dial. 

“My actual name is-“ He then makes a sound in the back of throat, somewhere between the coo of a morning dove, and the shriek of a crow, just loud enough to make him wince.  “-But Tubbo said that would be hard for you to pronounce. He gave all of us human names, instead.”

Huh. Okay.

He’s. He’s not quite sure how to feel about that.

He has. So many questions. 

“...Right.” He finally croaks.

It’s quiet, for a moment. He tenses when Phil pulls something out of his pocket, but the tension drains away when he catches a glimpse of the screen. It’s one of those iPhone looking things, all the aliens seem to have them. It looks pretty fucking busted, screen all cracked and taped back together in spots, and Phil taps hard on the side a few times to get it to work properly.

Phil doesn’t seem to notice, but to Tommy, the silence between them is suffocating. He just works at… Whatever he’s doing. Pressing buttons, turning dials, every once in a while looking at the iPhone-thing and frowning.

The questions burn on his tongue. 

Why did you drug me? Who is Tubbo? Was Pig Man just lying when he said I was going home? How long have I been out? How the fuck are we talking? Why are you not experimenting on me? What did you do to me while I was drugged? Why haven’t you hurt me? Don’t you have questions? Why are you just fiddling with buttons? How does any of this work? 

He decides to start with the least offensive.

“How long have I…” He asks, voice ragged and weak. 

Phil tilts his head, the gesture decidedly bird-like as he looks up. His gaze is soft. “Not long, just a few sleep cycles. Ah, Around a humans ‘week’.”

“...Right.”

Another beat. He can’t stop the questions, now that he’s started, though, and they build up in his throat like he’s a shaken can of Coke about to explode. 

“How are we talking?” He blurts out, before he can choke it back.

Phil blinks at him. “I’m sorry?”

“How do you speak English.” He stresses, hands flying as the words tumble out him. “We’re in the middle of fucking space, how do you speak the same language as me?!”

He stops himself, smothering his frustration and drawing back into himself all at once. Stupid!

He watches Phil warily. He yelled at him. He hadn’t meant to, but he’s fucking Tommy innit, yelling is just how he talks, goddamn it. The other aliens had never been much of a fan of that particular habit, they’d made that pretty clear.

He doesn’t look upset, though. He sets the comn down and turns to him, and there’s not the faintest hint of anger in his eyes or body language. 

“Ah.” He says. “I don’t.”

At Tommy’s bewildered expression, he continues.

“It’s the implant.” He explains, voice perfectly cheery, not at all irritated or condescending. “We all have them, they’re council-mandated across the Galaxy. Can translate just about anything.”

“The implant?” Phil explains, giving it a little tap. “Connects to your comn? You had one, didn’t you?”

Ah. 

He remembers, now.

It comes back to him in flashes. Shaking hands reaching up to his temple, fingers digging into the soft skin to pull something out. He remembers panic, screaming, alarms going off. He remembers the hot metallic taste of blood in his mouth, a prick against the side of his neck. 

A sedative. Phil had said earlier, and he’d glossed right over it. They hadn’t drugged him, he’d had a fucking… freak out, or something, and they’d sedated him.

He feels a lot of things. He’s relieved, they hadn’t drugged him out of nowhere, he had freaked the hell out and they needed him to calm down. On the other hand, they still did kind of drug him, so maybe they’re not one hundred percent forgiven.

And on another, other hand...

He raises a hand to his temple, prodding at the skin. He knows this scar, roughly an inch long, raised and jagged from where he had tossed his head and refused to stay still. His stomach rolls at the memory, and he swallows hard.  “And I have the…”

Phil’s watching him carefully, something he can’t quite place in his eyes. “Yes.”

He drops his hand like the scar burned him. 

An ugly laugh threatens to burst out of his chest, and he swallows it back with a shake of his head. He really shouldn’t be so suprised, He was more than a little fucked up in the head, it’s no shock He decided to fuck around and give him some kind of sci-fi brain implant. He had no problem fucking up the rest of him, what’s one more on the list.

So, he has a brain implant. Okay. 

That’s not good, obviously, and he’ll have to get it removed the second he gets back home, but he can live with it. He forces his hands to unclench around the sheets balled in his fists, forcing his breathing to steady. He swallows the idea like a huge, nasty pill, and moves on.

“...Why is it only working now?” He murmurs, wondering aloud. He had given him a translator, and he hadn’t even bothered to use it? 

...Does it do something else?

Phil interrupts his thinking, cutting him off before he can go down that rabbithole. “It needs to be connected with a comn first, I set it up for you already. Here, catch.”

He’s flinching before he can finish, hands flying up in front of his face. His fingers snatch the thrown object out of the air before it can anywhere near hitting him, though, and he uncurls to turn it over curiously in his hands.

It’s the IPhone-thing he’d been messing with. 

It’s definitely seen better days, screen cracked and chipping, one corner being held together with the space equivalent of duck-tape. 

He turns it over in his hands. Up close, it looks a bit more like a futuristic version of his old Game Boy. There's a camera at the very top, and then a touch screen with a bunch of different buttons, all labeled in a language he can’t read. He huffs. Apparently, the translator in his skull doesn’t cover written words.

Below that, there’s a keyboard, and a little circle with arrow buttons. There are a few more raised buttons in the middle, and a smaller screen to the right with what looks like a fucking heart beat monitor. Fuckin’ Cool, but also, why?

There are three big buttons at the bottom, all in different colors, and what looks to be some kind of speaker on the bottom side. He feels over the sides too, feeling more buttons along both sides. Power and volume buttons, he guesses off the top of his head. Same spot on normal earth phones. 

“What does it do?” He can’t help but ask, resisting the urge to press all the buttons just to see what happens. “Is it connected to the… Implant?”

“Yes,” is Phil’s response. Tommy doesn’t bother looking up to see his expression, the warmth is clear in his voice. “It can do just about anything. Record things, take pictures, send messages.”

He keeps moving, turning the monitor screen around so it faces Tommy. “I was hooking it up to the monitor earlier to make sure it was working properly, and it is, don’t worry. See?”

And Tommy looks. It’s the same kind of heart monitor they have in hospitals back on earth he realizes, how that he’s really looking at it. Just a little bit fancier, the screen sleek and slimmer, a few more flashing lights and more neon lettering than he remembers. He’s been in enough hospitals to know how to read them a little bit. He glances back and forth between the comn in his hands and the monitor, and finds that the heart beats are completely in sync. Huh.

He’ll have his vitals in his pocket. That’ll definitely come in handy, once he learns how to actually read them. Hell, it’s like having a fucking phone again! When was the last time he had a phone? Even if he doesn't have internet, just the idea of having something similar makes him a bit giddy.

Fuck it, he’s a teenager. Sue him. 

“Of course, It’s Wil’s old one,” Phil finishes. “So you might find it’s a bit slow. Just tap on the side if it freezes.”

His fingers tighten around it. “And it’s… Mine?”

He does look at Phil, this time, watching him carefully just to be sure. He just tilts his head, something warm in his eyes, “Until we can get you one that isn’t busted, yes.” 

He searches his face for a moment, but all he finds is the same warm look, the same disarming smile. He lets himself relax, just a little, and slides the comn in the pocket of his ratty sweatpants. He’ll look it over later. “...Thank you.”

He nods. “You’re welcome.”

And that’s that.

It’s quiet, again. Phil is still tinkering with the heart monitor, but he looks like he’s just trying to keep his hands busy. There’s something on his mind, clearly, but whatever it is, he’s not sharing. Every once in a while he’ll look over like he’s about to ask a question, but then he’ll just shake his head and go back to fiddling with buttons and dials. 

That’s fine with him. Tommy still has his own questions, but he too smothers them for now. His fingers itch to mess with the comn, but he wants to wait until Phil finishes with whatever he’s doing, first. He’d rather do it without the overgrown chicken looking over his shoulder. 

It’s quiet, and a little awkward, but not nearly as tense. He lets the tension ease out of his shoulders just a little more, settling back into the pillows. God, they’re fucking soft. Fantastic.

There’s a buzz, and both of them jump.

Phil pats down his pockets, pulling out another comn and flicking at the screen. He grins, laughing quietly at whatever he reads, before pocketing it again. 

“Techno’s made dinner.” He explains, “Do you want to join us?”

He hesitates.

Part of him says it’s a bad idea. Sitting at a table with a bunch of aliens he doesn’t know sounds a bit like a recipe for disaster. Besides, once he’s gone he’ll get the chance to finally look over the comn. He’d be better off eating alone. Like always.

Another part of him, though, jumps at the opportunity. A part of him that aches to talk to people, that doesn’t want Phil to leave, not yet. 

It’s stupid. It’s childish. But still, still.

...He might get some answers. Maybe they’ll let something slip. He can drill them about going back to Earth, he can find out what happens next.

It doesn’t help that Phil is still looking at him, eyes ocean blue, warm and friendly. 

It’s so strange, it’s so alien to have someone look at him like that.

These aliens don’t know him, they know as much about him as he does about them, which is to say, Jack shit. And yet, and yet, they seem to trust him, at least a little. 

He could turn on them, for as much as they know. He could hurt them, steal a laser gun and shoot them where they stand. The other aliens before treated him like he was something dangerous, and for good reason.

Not these ones, though. They were nice. Cordial, at the very least, with Phil bordering on kind. It was fucking weird, how gentle he was. Not prodding, not grilling him for answers. Hovering nearby, instead, making himself look busy, waiting for him to ask first. Techno had done something similar, before. Approaching gently, never hurting him. It was so fucking strange, going against everything he’d learned out in space.

He’d been saved. They had been nice with him, gentle, even. Keeping him safe from the police, taking him back with them. They gave him a room, fed him, apologized when they hurt him, actually bothering speaking to him, promising him he’d be going home. Hell, they just gave him a fucking phone.

And now Phil wants him to eat with them, like a person. Not an experiment, not a pet, not a caged animal. An equal.

“Foods getting cold, mate.” Phil interrupts gently, offering him an outstretched hand and a smile. “You comin’ or not?”

Oh, what the hell.

He doesn’t hesitate a second time. He takes it.

Chapter Text

There’s an air vent under his bed.

There are two air vents in his room, actually. One on the far corner of the ceiling that just works just fine, blowing cool, recycled air like it’s going out of style, and the one under his bed that… Doesn’t. The breeze that comes out is weak, if any, and the screws come out easy enough with a little help from a stolen kitchen fork. 

He used to do this all the time in foster homes. 

Not all of them, just the ones that wouldn’t notice the lack of a breeze or an out of place screw. The one under his bed is perfect for it, set into the wall instead of the floor, and the bed frame is metal and bolted down. He’s the only one scrawny enough to fit under there to get to it, making it a perfect spot to stash things. Unless they pry up the whole bed. Which they wouldn’t. Probably. 

It’s been a week or so, since. 

The trust between them was a fragile thing, sturdy as glass and standing on new, wobbling legs. A sharp intake of breath from either side is enough to make it shake and tremble, but somehow, it holds

There’s nothing quite like the bond you make when you run from the cops together, apparently.

It helps that the ship, (the Argo II , named after Technoblade’s Greek Mythology obsession), is fucking massive. 

He hasn’t been able to roam freely on a spaceship ever, and he takes full advantage of the chance.  It has all the usual things you would assume a spaceship would have, a kitchen, a table to eat at, a pretty big bathroom with a bath and a shower, a living room-type place with couches for relaxing. The rooms are located near the back of the ship, six, in total, with one being used for storage, and the other working as Phil’s office. There’s a hatch somewhere that leads down to a training deck, and a cargo hold for Wilbur’s bike. He spends most of his time on the bridge in the very back, when it’s empty, staring out into the stars. 

He spent an embarrassing amount of time in the bathroom, for the first few days. The first time he filled up the bathtub he had held his breath, waiting for one of them to pound on the door and demand for him to quit wasting water, but that hadn’t happened. It still hasn’t happened. 

He ended up having to fill it up twice, that very first time, just so he wasn’t sitting in a pool of his own filth. He had scrubbed his skin raw, untangling his hair with his fingers and using a little bit of every single one of the fancy soaps and creams that lined the edge. They smelled fantastic, like some weird mix of tea and vanilla, and the feeling of actually being clean made him want to cry. 

He didn’t, though. Because he’s a man.

It’s not two different from a small house, really. He’s had a lifetime of practice avoiding foster parents and sneaking around unseen, so avoiding his new roommates came naturally. A very strange small house, where everything is made out of patchwork metal and bolted to the floor. Real cozy.

It’s just big enough to make avoiding the others laughably easy. Phil spends most of his time drifting from his office to the bridge, tapping away at his comn, and the rustle of his wings makes him pretty easy to identify ahead of time and work around. Wilbur spends nearly all of his time in his room, twanging out notes on his guitar-thing that Tommy can just barely hear through the wall. Every once in a while he’ll catch him on the bridge, staring out into space and scribbling furiously into a notebook. He’s pretty fucking loud when he walks around, so he’s easy to avoid, too.

It’s Technoblade he has to watch out for.

He moves around like a fucking ghost. Tommy swears he can teleport or something, showing up on one side of the ship when he’d just been on the other a second ago. He has to listen real close to hear the clipping of his hooves when he’s walking, but even then he’s almost silent.

It’s even worse when Tommy walks into a room without seeing him first. He doesn’t get how, the guy’s fucking massive, and the pink hair makes him stick out against the grey and brown walls like a clown at a funeral, but it keeps happening. He won’t say anything, just stand there completely still and silent until Tommy realizes he’s there and jumps out of his skin. 

The worst part is, he doesn’t even do it on purpose.

He doesn’t laugh at him when he jumps, or give him one of those smug looks. He just looks up at him briefly before going back to what he’s doing. He’ll get an ear flick, if he’s lucky, but nothing else. No laughter, no snide remarks, nothing. 

He’s caught him doing some pretty weird shit, too. Scaling the kitchen cabinets to see if he could fit in the larger air vents above them (he can’t), ferreting pillows from the living room couches for his room (they’re soft, damn it), spinning himself in circles on the chairs in the bridge (it’s fucking fun, alright). Among other things. 

He doesn’t say a word, going back to whatever he’s doing without so much as a glance. Normally, this is leafing through what is, in fact, a High School textbook on Greek Mythology. Complete with a slightly torn, tacky green cover, and the library label still on the spine.

...Yeah, he’d never gotten an explanation on that.

He hadn’t gotten much of an explanation on anything, really. To be fair, he hasn’t given them much of a chance. He’s allowed to lock his door as he likes, and between scoping out the ship and trying to figure out what all the buttons on his comn does, he keeps himself pretty busy. Busy, and as far away as the rest of the crew as physically possible. 

They don’t seem to mind too much. He’ll join them for meals, sometimes, trade insults with Techno and swear back at Wilbur when he starts being a little bitch. Most of the time, though, he keeps to himself. He’s too used to being alone, he guesses. He can tolerate them for a while, sure, but for too long, it just gets suffocating. Makes him ansty. 

He locks his door every chance he gets. After spending a week and half awake and conscious, he still hasn’t worked up the courage to sleep with the lights fully off and the door unlocked.

It’s stupid. He knows it’s stupid. 

They aren’t going to bust into his room in the middle of the night and try to steal his eyes, or something. It was long past the point of him worried about getting stabbed in his sleep. Besides, if they really wanted too, something as simple as a door lock and a bedside lamp wouldn’t be able to stop them. He knows that.

Still, still, the thought of sleeping alone in a metal room, completely by himself in the pitch black…

He just. He just can’t do it.

So, the door stays locked, and the bedside lamp stays on. The others don’t say a word to him about it, if they even notice. 

They don’t say anything about any of his weird habits, actually. 

 They don’t mention how he peers out doors and around corners carefully before turning them. They don’t bring up how often he flinches at loud noises or sudden movements. They don’t yell at him for ferreting away food, or taking hour-long baths. They don’t talk about how much time he spends avoiding them, even though he’s made it pretty obvious. 

...He only really leaves his room when he has too. 

They don’t push him, thank god , but every once in a while he’ll catch Phil hovering by his door, or opening his mouth like he’s about to say something else before closing it again with a shake of his head. He ignores it. If he has something to say, he can either spit it out or move on. 

...Look, a few good deeds aren’t enough to fix a lifetime of trauma. If they think he’s going to trust some random adults that easily  after all the shit he’s been through, they’ve got another thing coming. 

He’s gotten some explanations, atleast, after all of this time. 

Not many, but enough to keep him from car-jacking the ship and getting back home on his own. Apparently, getting him back to Earth wasn’t as easy as pressing a button and flying through a wormhole like it is in the movies. 

“-To get you home.” Phil was saying, “We’ll have to talk to the Council, first.”

The dinner table they’re seated around is cramped, just big enough for three, but with the inclusion of Tommy, every time Technoblade went to scoop up another bite of mystery space meat, they brushed elbows. Wilbur was doing his absolute best not to touch him, which he kind of appreciated, honestly, but kept accidentally kicking him under the table. He scrunches himself up to take as little space as possible, but it doesn’t really help. He’s too tall. 

Phil is seated across from him, wings spread out on either side of his special, low-backed chair. The expression on his face was some strange mix of pleased and paternal, and it makes Tommy’s skin itch.

“The Council?” He parrots back.

Phil nods, swirling his fork. “Each planet has their own Government, of course, but the Council handles inter-planet affairs, as well as outer-galaxy ones.”

“Like humans?”

“Yes,” he nods, “Like humans. Besides, they’re the only ones with a ship that has a warp drive. It would take us centuries to reach Earth with this ship.”

Tommy sits back in the chair, processing the information. Jesus Christ, Warp drive? He’d only heard about that kind of technology in bad sci-fi movies from the 80’s. Technoblade takes another bite of his mystery meat, which looks kind of like a weird chicken leg, and the resulting crunch is a little more than unsettling.

“It’s far.” He rumbles. “We’ll need to stop on Bezzar to get supplies. Repairs, too. The Argo II isn’t ready for a long-distance trip.”

He blinks, the name sounding familiar. “...The Argo II?”

“From Greek mythology.” Technoblade explains, only making Tommy more confused. “The Argo was the ship the human Jason and his crew used to travel to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece.”

...Right. 

He casts a glance around the table, but both Phil and Wilbur look perfectly calm, though Wilbur does roll his eyes. Apparently, Technoblade randomly spouting Greek myths off of the top of his head was a regular occurrence. 

...So, the giant pig has an interest in Greek mythology. Makes as much sense as everything else does, in space. Moving on.

“We need to talk to Niki and Tubbo, too.” Wilbur butts in. 

He’s barely touched his meal, which looks like some sort of fish, or maybe weird sushi? He’s seen salmon before at some of the fancier houses, and it looks a bit like that, but he’s pretty confident salmon isn’t supposed to be blue. He plays with it absentmindedly, tearing off chunks and chasing them around his plate with a fork, frowning all the while like it’s personally offended him.

“To tell her the bad news.” He finishes. “About Ranboo.”

All at once, everyone goes still as something heavy falls over the table, settling over their shoulders like a lead blanket. He feels his shoulders go tense.

A solemn look falls over Phil’s face, and he lowers his fork. “Right. Of course.”

The rest of the meal is eaten in silence.

Anyways.

They talk about it a little more later, but the names of the planets they’re going to pass and the things they need for the trip all go completely over his head. Somewhere along the line, he stumbled out of a horror movie and into the world's shittiest rendition of Star Trek, and every other word sounds like nonsense. 

The names Niki and Tubbo come up a few more times, without any explanation, but they don’t mention a Ranboo again. He gets the sense it’s a sore subject, and hasn’t quite mustered up the nerve to poke that particular bear quite yet. 

Back to the point. The air vent.

It’s a bit of a squeeze to get under the bed in a comfortable way, but he hasn't gained too much weight in the two weeks(?) He's been out of captivity, so he manages just fine. The metal screen pushes aside with only a little bit of complaint when he presses on it, revealing a rectangular hole a little more than a foot wide and about half a foot tall. 

His stash isn’t much, so far, but he’s been working on it. A few prepackaged bars of what looks like normal breakfast bars, complete with bright, tacky lettering he can’t read. A full water bottle he stole from Techno, a roll of what looks like ducktape, a handful of bandages he nicked from the ship's first-aid kit in the bathroom. A few sheets of paper and a pen he’d stolen from Wilbur’s room. The stolen fork he had bent trying to get the screws of the air vent off.

It’s not much, but he’d tried to stick to the stuff that wouldn’t be missed, and that looked familiar. It’d be obvious if he took one of the bigger things of food, and most of the first aid kit was filled with things he didn’t recognize with labels he couldn’t read. 

Baby steps. A go bag, in essence. Just something to tide him over if things ever went south. 

Now, though. He was left with a bit of a dilemma. 

They were landing today. A small trade planet named Bezzar, Phil told them all over breakfast this morning. They needed to get supplies before they started their trip to meet up with the Council. 

They weren’t staying long, just a day or two, but that left him with the problem of how much of his emergency supplies he should take with him.

Phil had given him a bag, a brown, well-worn messenger bag that was bigger than what he needed it for. Wilbur had loaned him some clothes after they’d been properly introduced, and the three shirts and two pairs of trousers fit neatly at the bottom, leaving plenty of extra space. 

He hadn’t exactly come with a lot of belongings.

With the comn tucked safely in the deep pockets of Wilburs trousers, (Belted tightly around his waist because even though Wilbur was closest to his size, Tommy was still a fucking stick figure), and the loaned boots laced up tight, he was holding just about everything he owned. 

He squints at his emergency stash. He was planning on coming back, anyways. He had the best chance of getting home sticking with the Argo II crew. No use in taking everything. 

He settles on grabbing the water bottle, one space bar, a few bandages, and the bent fork. It’s always good to keep some food on you, and basic first-aid supplies are an absolute must in a new place. Besides, You never know when you’re going to have to undo some screws, and if he bends the fork a little more, it’ll make a decent lock-pick. He’s done better with worse.

He pockets the fork, shoving the rest in the bag. Even then, it’s not even halfway full. Damn , that’s kinda sad.

A knock on the door startles him out of his thoughts, “Tommy? It’s time to go.”

Times up. He fastens the latch on the bag, and runs a hand through freshly-washed hair. He takes a deep breath, steeling his nerves one last time, before opening the door and following Phil to the bridge.

The bridge is his favorite spot on the ship, by far.

It’s huge, for one. The biggest part on the ship, though that isn’t saying too much. He can still touch the roof easily standing with his feet flat on the floor. The back part has seats lining the sides, complete with bars you can pull down to strap yourself in in case of turbulence, like a rollercoaster. There’s a control center in the middle, as well as what looks like a weird joystick with handles. It reminds him of the captain's wheel on an old pirate ship, and it’s no surprise to him when Phil steps right up to it. 

It dips down slightly from there, with two more seats up in the front absolutely surrounded by screens that blink and glow, displaying a hundred different symbols in shades of green, blue, and purple. Belonging to Technoblade and Wilbur, respectively, who are already seated and pressing away at buttons, but they look over at him when he enters. 

Phil turns to look at him too, wings fluttering as he grins. “Well, what do you think?”

He looks up, and the breath is stolen out of his lungs. 

He’s looked out these windows before. They’re fucking huge, floor-to-ceiling on all three sides of the very front of the ship. On a good day, the void of space is pitch-black, the silver stars looking close enough to touch, glimmering like fireflies just out of reach. Every once in a while, he’ll find the small colored dot of a distant planet, or the grey sheen of another out of reach spaceship. 

When they’re in just the right direction, the entire galaxy glimmers almost at his fingertips. Blues and greens, reds and pinks, a sharp slice of yellow, a dash of orange, all overlaid with a dusting of stars.

This, however, beats everything he's ever seen.

The planet fills up the entire fucking window. A huge, massive thing, a rust orange with bands of crimson red and soot grey. They seem to swirl, mixing with one another, bands twisting and spiraling like clouds. A lightning scar of yellow and white is just visible underneath, criss crossing and glimmering, like blood veins made of gold. Lights. Cities.

That’s not the main focus, however. It’s what’s floating just in front of the planet.

It’s a moon, that much is clear. He’s seen pictures of Earth's moon, and it’s close enough to make the comparison. 

A tan, dusty ball with darker, ash-grey craters, and lighter, orange and lemon-yellow ridges that rise out from the moon’s surface. It’s surrounded by meteorites, little grey rocks that dive in and out like honey bees around a hive. 

He squints. Wait a minute, meteorites don’t…

The realization hits him like a kick to the stomach.

Holy shit!

What he had pegged for craters and ridges weren’t that at all , they were fucking sky scrapers. The yellow and orange planet behind them glinting off of polished glass. The dark “craters' were breaks in the giant towers, lower buildings and landing docks cast in shadow. He can see it, now, the lines and crevices that outline the city's buildings, the bustling streets and bright-colored flags, the rainbow of tents, markets, set up in squares. 

He’s not looking at just a moon, he’s looking at a city. A huge fucking city that spans the entire surface, living and breathing like some giant animal. Buzzing, breathing, alive. 

The meteorites weren’t meteorites at all, they were ships. Glinting gold in the light of a nearby star, darting in and out of the city, resting in ports and firing away from the surface to who knows where.

He’s not normally so sappy, but holy fucking shit.

It’s beautiful.

A wing rests around his shoulder, and he jumps half a foot in the air. Phil just chuckles, grin warm and eyes bright. “Welcome to Bezzar.”

He can’t find it in him to shrug him off, still staring slack jawed at the great city beneath him. He can tell the others are getting a kick out of his expression, but he just can’t tear his eyes away. He doesn’t think he’s seen so many people ever, and the excitement of the city is already getting to him, thrumming under his skin. They’re going down there, down there! 

Finally, Phil leads him away from the window. He’s hesitant to follow him, but he gets the feeling it’s probably for the best. “Strap yourself in, we’ll be  entering the atmosphere soon.”

The look he gives him is sympathetic enough to make him instantly suspicious. “It’s a bit rough for first timers. Make sure you hold on tight, yeah?”

He lets himself be directed towards the seats along a side wall, and chooses one closest to the windows. He lowers himself into it, messing with the straps.  They’re clearly meant for someone a couple sizes bigger, and he has to pull at the stupid things for ages to get them to adjust. Phil doesn’t turn back to his own screens until Tommy’s pulled down the bar that keeps him securely held in place, and gives him one more reassuring smile before going back to work.

His face hardens, but just a little. “Techno, Wil, are we ready for landing?”

“Ready.” Wilbur says back, Technoblade just waves a hand. Phil takes it as confirmation, and grabs the joystick.

All at once, the ship begins to rumble. Tommy stiffens, grabbing on tight to the seat handles as the metal groans and shakes beneath him. There’s a click! As the others fix their own seat belts, but all Phil does is spread his wings and grin. What the hell-

He watches with wide eyes as the moon, Bezzar, gets closer and closer, before disappearing when the windows go foggy with orange and grey clouds. He squints, but he can’t make out anything through the clouds, and grits his teeth as the shaking gets worse. Phil doesn’t even stumble, despite the fact that he’s fucking standing, the smile on his face only growing wider. 

“Brace yourselves!” He shouts, sounding way to fucking happy about it. 

Tommy braces, knuckles going white as the shaking gets even fucking worse, and Wilbur and Techno do the same. Their screens flash as they press buttons and turn dials, the screens filling with symbols and painting the entire bridge in shades of green and blue. Wilbur hikes his shoulders up around his neck, but Technoblade barely even moves. 

Phil just fucking stands there, like a goddamn madman, even as the ship shudders so hard Tommy can feel his teeth rattling in his fucking skull. He doesn’t even stumble, just widening his stance and spreading out his great wings. 

Finally, when Tommy feels like the ship is actually going to fall apart beneath him, the shuddering stops all at once and grey and orange fog in the windows clears.

For the second time today, the breath is snatched from his lungs, and all he can do is stare .

He hasn’t been to many cities. London once, when he was very young, and he’d driven by Vegas with one of the earlier foster families, but they hadn’t stayed long. He remembers it vaguely, a shimmer of lights on the desert horizon. London is even vaguer, a faint memory of crowded streets and dreary weather.

Bezzar makes them all look pathetic.

It’s spread out before them in all its chaotic glory, buildings rising and falling, cutting into the orange skies like the spine of some long-dead animal. Most of the taller buildings are grey steel and glass, but the lower ones are all made of some strange orange-yellow brick. Most of it’s tan, accented with a rainbow of colors in smaller buildings, in flowers and market stalls. It’s a patchwork of a hundred different building styles, from glossy sky scrapers to low, stand-stone brick buildings. From sparkling white columns, to intricate lace paneling. If he was an architect, he’d be drooling. 

The Argo II maneuvers carefully above, and Tommy cranes his neck to stare down at the streets below. The people look like ants from this distance, bustling in lines and groups. There are tents set up between buildings in all different colors, coral pinks, sapphire blues, lavender purples, and everything in between. The markets, he assumes, are absolutely buzzing with people.

There are so many colors, so many, on flags, in tents, some of the buildings covered in murals or painted with accent colors that pop out against the other dusty tan buildings. It’s chaotic, a hundred different styles of buildings, the new piled on top of the old.

The ship tilts to avoid a different space ship, and he stares at it as it passes. It’s nearly twice the Argo II’s size, a gunmetal grey with black windows.

Technoblade grunts in annoyance from the front of the ship, glaring at the other ship. “I hate this place. It’s always so crowded.”

“We parking in the usual spot, Phil?” Wilbur calls back, looping an arm over the back of his chair.

Phil nods. “It’s closest.”

Wilbur turns back to his screens, typing away at a keyboard. Technoblade fiddles with his own controls, whirling his own joysticks and huffing as they turn to avoid another ship, this one painted an irritating, blinding white.

He looks down again as they turn, resisting the urge to unbuckle and dart over to the glass for a better look. The buildings and people whizz by below in a blur of rainbow and tan, ships darting between buildings like strange silver birds. 

They get even lower to the ground, and a landing dock comes into view. It’s filled with ships of every shape and size, most of them being the same dark grey, with a few exceptions. He spots a few silver and white ones in the mix, as well as one or two painted gold. Some of them are large enough to make their ship look tiny, others as small as a minivan. 

The way they’re hooked up reminds him of boats docked into port, but he doesn’t get too long to think about it before they’re pulling into a spot of their own.

The ship shudders to a halt, the familiar humming of machinery going eerily quiet as the ship goes completely still for the first time in weeks. Wilbur is the first to move, unbuckling his seat belt and shaking out his limbs as he rises to his feet. Technoblade mirrors him on the other side, tossing his braid and rolling his shoulders. 

He’s wearing his coat, Tommy notices, now that he’s standing. The same one he wore when they met. Wilbur’s in the same black jacket, too.

He struggles with his own seatbelt, feeling for a long, irritating moment like a child trapped in a fucking highchair before he gets the stupid latch to work, and pushes up on the bar over his head. He all but jumps out of his seat, shifting his weight from foot to foot excitedly and fiddling with the strap of the messenger bag over his shoulder. Holy fucking shit! 

It’s been forever since he wasn’t stuck of some stupid hunk of metal. He misses breathing in air that wasn’t recycled, drinking water that didn’t taste like metal. The wind in his hair, the sun on his skin. He’s already moving to the entrance of the bridge, he can’t fucking wait-

“Hold it.” 

A heavy hand falls on his shoulder, and he immediately flinches back, whirling around with a snarl on his lips.

It dies quickly when his eyes meet Technoblade’s. 

He prepares himself for something, a hurt expression, anger, but in typical Technoblade fashion, he doesn’t react at all. His face is perfectly calm, like it normally is, though his gaze is a bit critical as it sweeps up and down over him. 

“We need to get you a better disguise.” He finally grumbles, almost to himself, before turning around and calling over to Wilbur, “Do you have a coat that might fit him?”

Wilbur looks up. His brown eyes latch on to Tommy in an instant, and he does not like the grin that splits across his face, eyes sparkling. “We can do better than that.”

-

“Look up, up.”

“I am looking up!”

“Stay still!”

He huffs, but tilts his head the right way when Wilbur presses on the side of his face, holding his chin firmly between his forefinger and thumb. 

He hates it. He hates every single moment of this.

He hates how close Wilbur is to him, he hates the way his skin itches were Wilbur is gripping his face, and he hates, hates, hates being told he has to sit still. 

He leans in even fucking closer, way closer than Tommy is comfortable with, thank you very much. Has anyone taught him the concept of personal space? He sticks his tongue out slightly in concentration, looking him over. He looks even more fucking weird up close, skin shimmering faintly in the dim cargo hold lights, reflecting off his eyes in just the right way to make the pupils turn green.

He brushes something cold and sticky underneath his left eye with his finger, and Tommy has to repress a shiver. He glares at him, instead, and considers if it’s worth it to bite his hand. 

“Almost done…” He mutters, dipping a few fingers back in the tub of motor grease. “Just a few more touches.”

He growls under his breath, fucking prick, but doesn’t fight when his face is tilted in the other direction to get his other eye. It takes every ounce of control in his body not to wince when he swipes just a little too close to his eye. He doesn’t even apologize, the fucking dickhead. 

Finally, finally, he pulls back with a satisfied grin, and screws the tub of grease closed. “Phil! Techno! Come look.”

Technoblade leans in over his shoulder, considering him with ruby eyes.  “It looks like you gave him two black eyes.”

“Ignore him.” Phil joins in from his other side. “With his jacket on and the hood up, you’ll look just like a Merling. They won’t notice the difference.” 

He scrunches up his nose, trying to get used to the feeling of grease on his face. It’s sticky, and awful, and he hates it. He doesn’t know what the fuck a Merling is, but having to sit still and let tall-ass paint on his face for twenty minutes better have been fucking worth it. If he even thinks about getting that close to his face ever again, he’s gonna punch him right in the nose. 

Wilbur pulls over a sheet of polished scrap metal from on top of the one of the storage boxes, tilting it in his direction so he can get a better look at his reflection. “What do you think?”

 He stares. His reflection stares back.

The coat over his shoulders is Wilbur’s, a deep brown and several sizes too big, dwarfing his scrawny frame. It’d be more comfortable if he wasn’t currently pissed at its owner. The grey, and faintly shimmering, grease across his face looks a little bit like a shitty attempt at fish scales, dotting across his cheeks and swiping under his eyes. He pulls up the hood to see if it makes any difference, and it casts enough of his face in shadow to be convincing from a distance. As long as he doesn’t smear it, it looks fine. 

He scrunches up his nose again. “You’re a shit artist.”

Behind him, Phil cackles, nearly knocking Wilbur over with a wing. Technoblade makes a chuf-chuf-chuf sound low in his chest, which is about as close to laughter as Technoblade gets.

Wilbur just rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’d like to see you try it! Painting with your fingers is hard!”

“Maybe you should just punch him next time.” Technoblade adds, sending Phil into another round of laughter. “It would look the same.”

He scowls back, holding up the tub of grease in threat. “Do you want me to get this all over your expensive white shirt? Because I will-“

-

Finally, after what feels like years of unpacking and loading up the hoverbike, they’re ready to go.

He pulls the hood as far over his head as it’ll go, rolling up the sleeves of the jacket so he can actually use his hands. The buckle on the messenger bag strap is slightly uneven, and his fingers keep fiddling with it as he glances around uncertainly.

He’s never actually been in the cargo hold before.

It’s not like it wasn’t allowed or anything, it just required opening the huge metal hatch near the front of the ship, and even though he was the biggest man, fuck you, he was also still recovering from months of near starvation. So, hefting open a solid metal trap door that weighs twice as much as he does just didn’t seem like a good idea. For his health, you know. Not because he was weak, or he couldn’t. Just. For his health. It’d make too much noise, anyways. 

Technoblade had thrown it open easily, though, and down the hatch they had gone.

After they were done playing dress up, the packing had begun, and he’d help carry boxes from one end to the other for Wilbur, Phil, and Technoblade to pack away on the bike.

He hadn’t gotten the best look at the bike the first time he’d seen it, so he takes the time to run his fingers over the glossy black metal every chance he gets. It’s fucking huge, easily the size of a small car, maybe even bigger, any biker guy’s wet dream. The body is pitch black metal, with silver exhaust pipes and red accents. The seats were some kind of leather, a little worn from use, but still shiny, the handle bars wrapped in the same stuff.

It wasn’t floating, propped up carefully on a kickstand like any other motorcycle he’d seen. The seats were lifted up, revealing storage compartments underneath that the others had no problems filling.

They hadn’t really needed his help, having done this hundreds of times before, probably, but every once in a while Phil would send him out to grab something off of a shelf, or bring him a box from the other side of the cargo hold. 

He gets the sense he’s just doing it to keep him busy, but can’t find it in him to throw away the chance to explore. 

It’s a relatively crowded space, located at the lower front of the ship. It’s absolutely filled with boxes and shelves, only some of which were labeled, and was pretty hard to maneuver through. Or, it would be, if Tommy wasn’t basically a stick and couldn’t fold himself through small openings like a cat following its whiskers. It’s pretty cramped, even for him, all except for a large space at the very, very front, which houses the bike. If the sci-fi movies he used to watch as a kid were right, it would open down when it was time for them to leave. Which should be soon, now that everything is packed.

He hops a little from foot to foot, all geared up and ready to go. He’s absolutely dying to get off this fucking ship, and to just go, already. 

Wilbur grins, the look on his face taking on a feral edge as he balances his black. helmet on his hip. “That’s everything, yeah?”

“Should be.” Phil agrees, pulling down the leather seats over the storage compartment.

He rests a hand on Tommy’s shoulder, and he’s proud to admit that he only flinches a little . He’s too busy cheering on the inside. Fucking finally, he’s been ready to go for ages . He leans a little closer towards the bike, eyeing the handlebars. Maybe if he sucks up to Wilbur a little more, he’ll let him drive. He’s driven Clara’s old truck once, surely a bike can’t be too difficult-

 “Why don’t you go ahead, mate.” Phil interrupts his train of thought. “We’ll show Tommy around. We need to stop by the market, anyways.”

Technoblade nods in agreement and doesn’t elaborate, in his usual fashion. Tommy ignores the stab of disappointment, still mournfully eyeing the handlebars. He was really looking forward to another bike ride, now that he’s actually conscious. Sue him. 

...He will admit, though, he’s still bitter about the face-painting. The thought of getting tall-ass out of the way is a nice one. 

The grin on Wilbur’s face only widens, sharp canines poking out of his lips, and he wastes no time hopping on the bike. Tommy watches with poorly disguised jealousy as he brushes a leather-gloved hand across the side, like he’s stroking a horse, before turning the key.

The bike roars to life, and Tommy does not flinch, thank you very much, and if he finds himself standing slightly closer to Technoblade than he was before it’s a coincidence, fuck you. 

The noise is loud, even more so now that they’re in a confined metal space, and not on an empty street. It’s a rumbling, vibrating sort of noise, unlike any engine Tommy’s ever heard, and slowly, the bike begins to hover off the floor. The red headlights flicker to life, filling the entire cargo hold with crimson light, and the exhaust pipes start to shudder.

Then, there’s an even louder, grating noise, as the front of the ship begins to open up, like a mouth yawning wide. He blinks in the brightness of it, vision going all spotty. 

“I’ll meet you at Niki’s!” Wilbur yells over the noise, voice nearly drowned out as he revs the engine.

The hatch hasn’t even opened all of the way before he’s gone, laughter lost to the roaring of the engine and the wind as whe bike takes off out the front of the ship and disappears, leaving only the faintest hint of crimson light, and the scent of strange gasoline in the air. 

The opening out the front of the ship is nearly blinding, after spending so long in the dark.

He’s being tugged along before the air has even settled, Phil urging gently at his back, just close enough to make his skin prickle. “We should hurry. It’s nearly midday, the market will be overcrowded soon.”

“Market?” He repeats weakly, heart still jumping in his chest from all the noise, but allows himself to be guided out the front of the ship.

-

The second his boots touch pavement, he feels like he’s in a different world. 

They’ve left the docks behind, following the twisting streets of the city to the main roads. It’s absolutely packed, aliens of every color and size walking the streets in both directions, dressed in every kind of clothing under the sun, from thick winter coats to dazzling skin-tight outfits dripping with chains and gems. It takes everything in him to keep from openly gawking at everyone they walk past. 

He normally wouldn’t appreciate being boxed in between Phil and Technoblade, on top of being led around like a lost puppy, but now he doesn’t even care. He’s too busy staring slack-jawed at his surroundings to even notice the gentle presses and pulls at his sleeve or shoulders. 

The buildings loom over them, the foundations being built from something like sandstone, the material changing to metal and glass the higher the building goes. Balconies and clothesline’s hang overhead, planter boxes overflowing with colorful flowers pouring out of them. He has to crane his head back to catch a glimpse of the orange sky, which is cut through with streaks of silver and grey every few seconds as ships soar overhead, a few of the smaller, more daring ones weaving through the very tips of the buildings.

And the noise.

Merchants shout from storefronts, people hang out off balconies and out windows to chat with neighbors and yell down to the streets below. The chatter is deafening, a white noise he can feel in his bones, so loud he can barely think. Shouting, bargaining, laughter, children screaming and darting between legs, an angry store owner shouting at teenagers, a couple laughing as they hang on each other’s arms.. 

If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s on Earth. Maybe he's visiting a city like London, or somewhere he’s never been, like Brighton or New York. The sound of people is so familiar, yet so strange.

“We’re nearly at the market!” Phil says in his ear, having to shout to be heard over the crowd, and the illusion shatters. “Stay close! And keep your hood up!”

He blinks his eyes open, and nods. Phil grins, and leans closer to speak to Technoblade over his head. “I’m going to find stuff for Wil’s bike, you keep a close eye on him, alright?”

Normally, he’d bristle and snap at him for speaking over him like he isn’t there, and telling Technoblade to babysit him, on top of that, but he’s too busy looking around to even notice. His eye catches on the colorful tents of the market stalls they’re approaching, and he barely even notices when Phil brushes a wing over the back of his shoulders before slipping away in the crowd. 

He stands on his tip-toes to try and see over the crowd, craning his neck. There’s a man with broad shoulders, and fucking purple skin, of all things, right where he’s trying to look. If he would just fucking move-

A hand grabs the strap of the messanger bag over his shoulder, wrenching him closer to someone’s chest. He stiffens, before realizing it’s just Technoblade, and turns on him with a scowl.

“Phil said stay close.” Technoblade growls in his ear. “You’re going to get lost.”

“I’m not going to get lost!” He snaps back, yanking his bag free from the man’s grip. The unimpressed ruby stare he gets in response speaks volumes.

He huffs. “...I just wanted to see what that stall was selling.” 

Technoblade considers him for a moment before snorting, the sound decidedly pig-like, and lumbering off in the opposite direction. Fucking, dickhead.

He still follows behind him, though. Out of convenience.

He makes a pretty good shield, all things considered, but he makes an even better battering ram. He’s nearly a head taller than pretty much everyone else, and twice as broad in the shoulders. It helps that anyone seeing him coming, marching towards whatever stall he was heading towards like a hit man on a mission, very quickly moves out of his way. All Tommy has to do is stay right behind him and he’s in the clear.

The market is set up in one big square, each side lined with stalls, with a few set up sparingly in the center. It’s absolutely packed, with aliens everywhere he looked, the air split with laughter and the shouts of merchants from their own separate stalls. Each tent and stall is a different jewel-toned color, from bright ruby to shimmering golds and emerald greens, and every color and shade in between. There’s music coming from somewhere, the world's strangest violin playing an upbeat tune that stutters and dips.

A few people in the center dance, and he almost loses Technoblade in the crowd when he pauses to watch. The swirling of longer dresses, the clipping of polished heels and swishing of brightly colored skirts is mesmerizing. The pattering of drums and other strange-looking instruments straight out of a dream. 

People press in from all sides, but once they see Technoblade, they give him a pretty wide berth. He doesn’t really blame them, the guy can pull off a pretty mean scowl when he feels like it. 

He watches them, though. 

Some of them have wings. Not feathered like Phil’s, but shimmery, delicate-looking insect wings. Some are clear, more like a dragonfly’s, while others have colors and patterns like a butterfly or a moth. A few even sport beetle-like wings.

The winged aliens aren’t the only strange ones. More than a few walk on extra legs, or swing another set of arms. Nearly everyone has some sort of tail, either whip-thin and tufted at the end, thick and scaly, or fluffy and curled above the ground. The colors of their skin are just as varied, ranging from the normal ones you would find on earth, dark, tanned, pale, to bright fuschia and neon greens. 

Some are normal except for the scales on their face, not unlike the ones Wilbur drew on Tommy’s with grease. Others have skin that drips like slime, or shifts and breaks like rock. More than a few have crazy colored hair, braided intricately around horns dripping with jewelry. 

It’s. It’s a lot. He can’t tear his eyes away.

Technoblade drifts from stall to stall, shoving things in his own pockets and bag as he goes, but Tommy doesn’t even spare him a glance. The people are just too interesting! 

It doesn’t help that they stop at literally the most boring stalls in the whole market. 

Technoblade lingers at a stall selling dried fruits for a bit longer than normal, giving Tommy plenty of time to look around. They’ve drifted back over towards the dancers again, and he can’t bear to tear his eyes away. He watches as a woman(?) with dragonfly wings and a blue and white skirt swirls her partner, another woman(?) with golden horns, around in a circle, laughing all the while. Their feet move to the beat of the drums, skirts swishing in time to the strange violin. She catches her partner around the waist, lifting her into the air effortlessly. He’s never been a dancer, but his feet itch to join them.

There’s a heavy hand on his shoulder, firmly guiding him away, and voice on his ear. “We’re almost done. Just a few more stalls. Stay close.”

He blinks a few times, trance broken, and follows Technoblade as they head to another stall. He glances over his shoulder, but the two women are swallowed by the crowd, and the music keeps on.

...It takes a few more moments to realize he hadn’t even blinked when Technoblade had grabbed his shoulder. Something about that thought feels strange, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. 

The next stall isn’t very interesting either. 

Hefty looking boots of all sizes line the shelves, ranging from light, tight-fitting tan boots to large brown leather ones with fluffy lining. A few are more decorative, clearly, with gold or silver stitches and fancy embroidery, while the rest are clearly meant to be more practical. Some are lace-up, others have buckles or straps, and more than a few sport metal toes or spiked heels.

It’s more interesting than a few of the others he’s been dragged to, but still. It’s shoes.

Technoblade steps right up to the counter and jabs and thumb in his direction. “Got any small enough for him?”

Immediately he bristles, but the merchant just considers him with heavy black eyes. They look a bit like a sheep, with horns curling away from their face, fluffy black hair and mournful eyes. They’re wearing a name tag, but it all just looks like gibberish to him.

“Maybe.” They eventually say, blinking slowly at Technoblade. “What are you looking for?”

“Leather. Durable.” He says gruffly, getting his point across in as few words and possible. Typical.

They nod. “I’ll look in the back. Wait here.”

He dips his head back to them politely, and they disappear behind hastily built shelves in a swish of black hair and skirts. Technoblade doesn’t seem to mind waiting, giving a larger pair of metal-toed boots near the front a curious once over, but Tommy doesn’t really do waiting.

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, looking around.

He can’t see the dancers anymore, and no one from the crowd around him sticks around long enough to really catch his eye. He watches a happy child clutch to their mothers skirts, the scales around their face a cheery yellow. Their mother isn't paying much attention, busy craning her neck and standing on her toes to look over the crowd. 

“Look!” The child squeals, pointing off at another stall. “Oh please can I get one!”

“Hush.” The mother says, still trying her best to see over the crowd, and the child deflates with a frown. They give a mournful look to whatever they were pointing at before they’re tugged back into the crowd, and they both vanish. 

Curiously, he looks around Technoblade’s back to see what the child had been pointing at.

Holy. Fucking. Shit!

It’s a royal blue tent, just one stall over. He can’t read the banner across the top, but he does see a painting of a familiar planet, and a word he recognizes, his heart leaping at the sight. “Earth.”

There’s a crowd of aliens around it, picking up things from the table and cooing over them. A man(?) with butterfly wings holds up a tiny earth on a keychain and laughs, a child clutches a doll to their chest and squeals happily. He can’t get a good look at some of the other things they’re holding, but everyone seems pleased. 

Earth things. It’s a stall selling Earth things, familiar things, things from home! 

And there, sitting at the very end of the table, something in particular catches his eye. 

It’s a cow. A stuffed, black and brown cow, set almost haphazardly to the side. It’s clearly hand-sewn, and done so a little sloppily. Crooked horns poke out from its head, and it’s michmatched button eyes stare mournfully into Tommy’s. Something in his chest nearly swoons at the sight. 

...He’d had a stuffed cow, once.

A cheap, black and white toy he’d won at an arcade ages ago, when he’d still been young enough to care about stuffed animals. It’s name was Henry, and he’d loved it to bits, right up until one of his foster brothers found him with it, and ripped its leg off just to make him cry. He hadn’t had the skill to fix the rip, and his foster mother had barely given the ragged, dirty thing a glance before demanding he throw it away. 

He’d been moved to a different home for punching the kid in the face, but the black eye had been well- worth it. He’d had it coming. 

Just. Just look at it! Sitting over there, all dejected and sad. Lonely. All of the other stuffed animals had been chosen already, children clearly having pushed it to the side. None of the other aliens are sparing it a glance, too busy fussing over the other things for sale. The merchant already looks frazzled, darting back and forth to deal with everyone trying to get their attention at once, big fluffy ears swiveling in panic.

...He has plenty of space in his bag, and Technoblade wouldn’t even notice! He’d be super quick, just right over there and back. The shopkeeper probably wouldn’t even realize it was missing. 

He spares a glance at his companion, who’s still looking over shoes and waiting for the merchant to get back. He looks preoccupied enough.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he inches away from his side. When he doesn’t even twitch an ear in his direction, he slips away a little more. Finally, once he’s sure he’s out of sight, he steps back and blends right into the crowd. Easy peasy.

He follows the flow of people to the Earth stall.

It’s easy to get lost in the crowd surrounding it, no one even blinks in his direction. Most of the signs are written in the same gibberish the translator doesn’t cover, but a few are written in words he does recognize. “Authentic Earth!” “Very real!”

He snorts, yeah. That sounds about right.

Unable to choke down the curiosity, he eagerily leans in to get a better look at the table, and the shelves behind it.

There are some books, which he glazes right over. A few more familiar toys, a Yo-Yo and some wind-up robots and dinosaurs. Novelty keychains, too, and a bunch of nick-nacks that would look right at home at some shitty gas station. The sight of something so familiar makes something sharp tighten in his chest. There’s a rack of clothes on the other side, and few aliens with purple skin are fawning over jewelry and shirts with random words written across the middle. Most are written in languages he doesn’t know, but one or two are written in English.

He has to choke back a laugh when one of the aliens proudly holds up a shirt to their chest that has, “I Eat Bread!” Written across the middle.

Apparently, nobody’s translator’s work on written language. Good to know.

Focus, Tommy. Focus.

He inches over to the cow, heart pounding in his chest. The familiar buzz of adrenaline has already started thrumming under his skin as his fingers itch towards the plush. 

He’s shoplifted before, back on Earth. Not often, people always kept a close eye on the scruffy foster kid, but when he got the chance. Mostly just cheap candy, the occasional snack or water bottle. Most of the shops in the US seriously over-charge, who the hell is gonna pay five dollars for a water bottle? It’s highway robbery, is what it is. You wouldn’t pay nearly that much in the UK.

Focus, Tommy. The cow.

He risks a glance towards the shopkeeper, who seems preoccupied chatting with the “I Eat Bread!” Alien, and bagging up the shirt. They look stressed already, definitely not paying attention.

Quick as a snake, he grabs the cow and shoves it in his bag. Gotcha, bitch!

He celebrates silently, heart in his throat as he turns on his heel and makes his exit. All he has to do is make it back to the crowd of people. Once he’s put Technoblade firmly in between him and the scene of the crime, he’s home free-

“Hey!”

Aw fuck.

He breaks into a run, but a hand snatches him by the back of the coat, scruffing him like a kitten.

He panics as the fabric closes tight around his throat, thrashing all the while, but the hand holds firm. The panic only grows when he can’t escape their grip, his internal mantra of ohfuckohfuckohfuck only growing. The hand fisted in his shirt turns him around roughly, and suddenly he’s nose-to-nose with an angry shop owner. They fucking growl at him, fox-like ears pinned back, sharp canines poking through their lips.

“I saw that!” They snap, “Either pay for it, or give it back!”

He wheezes, the collar of his shirt still digging into his neck. The lack of air only makes the sharp claws of panic in his chest tighten. He looks around desperately for an escape, and though they’d already started to draw in a curious crowd of onlookers, none of them look particularly helpful. God fucking dammit!

The fox-guy shakes him hard , making his teeth rattle in his skull. “Well?”

He snarls, bristling up like an angry cat. Yeah, fuck that. He’d rather die before he gets caught by a fucking furry. He swallows the panic clawing up his throat and spits. 

He kicks out, his long legs striking the shopkeeper right in the stomach and leaving him reeling back with a wheeze. The grip on the scruff of his shirt loosens, and he wrenches himself free, breaking into a run the minute his boots hit the ground.

“Get back here!” The shopkeeper yells after him,   “Somebody grab him!”

A few of the onlookers make a half-start towards him, but he barrels right through all of them, taking off towards the bigger crowd. A larger hand grabs at him from the side, but it retreats quickly when he snaps his teeth at it.

He can hear the pounding of feet behind him, and clutches his bag close as he sprints. Jesus fucking Christ! It’s just a fucking cow! Why the hell do they care so much?! 

He barrels right into the crowd, and breathes out a sigh of relief. There are so many people, all moving in different directions, it’s child’s play to get his head low and let himself get swept up in the flow. The shopkeeper yells angrily from somewhere behind him, and a laugh bursts from his chest at the sound. Seriously, that guy needs to get a life. Chasing some random kid over a cow? What a loser. The panicked thumping of his heart slows once he gets far enough away from the scene of the crime. 

He goes a little further, just to be safe. Once he’s sure he isn’t being followed, he doubles back, a skip in his step and a grin on his lips. 

He lets a hand dip into his bag, brushing fondly over the cows horns. The stitching is a little odd, lumpy and uneven, in places, but it just gives him character. His name is Henry II, he’s already decided, and the thought makes his chest feel warm. 

The shoe stall isn’t too hard to find again. It helps that the market is just one big square, all he has to do is walk in a circle around the center, and he’s right back where he started.  It helps that Technoblade is so fucking huge, even in a crowd of rainbow colors it’s not to hard to pick out his broad shoulders, and the brown color of his hood. 

He passes by the dancers again, too. He looks for the two women he saw earlier, but he can’t spot them again. Just like last time, he can practically feel the music thrumming along with his heart under his skin, and it tastes like victory. 

Atleast, it does, until he gets back to the shoe stall.

And sees Technoblade chatting with the fox shopkeeper.

Just fucking chatting! Like they’re old friends, or some shit! Technoblade is nodding along to whatever he’s saying, the fox gesturing wildly and yowling like an angry cat, still sounding pretty pissed off. Technoblade is just standing there, making friends, Like the fox guy didn’t grab him by the back of the shirt, and nearly choke him out. 

Over a fucking. Cow! Like a goddamn psycho! 

Then, the fox guy’s ear twitches in his direction, because of fucking course it does, and the look on his face turns murderous.

Technoblade follows his gaze to Tommy, standing a little ways away like a deer in headlights. The expression on his face cycles through all seven stages of grief before finally settling on grim acceptance. When the fox guy takes off towards him with a snarl on his face, he lumbers behind. 

So, Tommy does the logical thing. He turns on his heel, and immediately sprints in the opposite direction.

Fuck, fuck FUCK FUCK-

Ice-cold terror slams into his chest, like he’s been thrown in an electrified ice-bath. His heart is pounding so hard he can hear the blood rushing in his ears, drowning out everything else. He pumps his arms, shoving past aliens and dancers alike as he barrels through the crowd, politeness be damned. 

He fucked up. He fucked up big time. Apparently, Technoblade and the fucking fox guy are friends, or some shit. He made the first real allies he’s had in months and he went out and fucked it all up! Over a fucking cow! 

He needs to think, he needs to think fast!

Circling around won’t work twice, and if Technoblade’s on his side, he can’t use him as a shield anymore, which fucking sucks. 

Maybe he can find Phil? 

He tries to look over the crowd for broad, feathered wings, but it’s no use. Phil is a few inches shorter than he is, there’s no fucking way he’ll be able to find him in this crowd. He’ll be caught way before then. Besides, who says Phil would be on his side anyways? 

He’s on his own. Like always. 

He needs to get away. Maybe he can stash the cow somewhere and say he lost it, and then get it later? Maybe if he gives Technoblade time to cool off he’ll be able to talk him into keeping it? 

He can’t find it in him to stop running. Something hot and animalistic burning under his skin, the instinct to run, run, run too loud to do anything but obey. He can’t get caught, not again. He scans the crowd desperately, grasping for a way out, an actual plan-

He doesn’t notice the smaller alien in his path until he bowls them over.

They both hit the ground hard, him landing on their chest and sending them both sprawling in a mess of limbs. They crash into each other with enough force to make his head spin , brain knocking around in his skull . He pushes up onto his hands, looking down in shock at whoever the fuck he just knocked over. 

The alien blinks up at him, looking just as shocked.

They stare at him with wide eyes, one a honey brown, the other a vivid green. Both are framed by thick, fluffy-looking dark hair. Two antennas poke through, both black and decidedly moth-like. The yellow and brown stripes on his jacket and fluff on the collar are a bit more bee-like, though. 

“Um.” They say, at the same time he says, “ Oh.”

...He forgets he’s being chased for a moment, until he hears the sound of pounding footsteps and the angry shouts of the fox shopkeeper. 

Oh yeah, he was kind of in the middle of something. Fuck. He needs to get the fuck out of here and fast-

The alien blinks at him. “Are they after you?”

“Uh-“ He says dumbly. 

They don’t look mad, though. They just tilt their head and smile, eyes gleaming. “I know a place to hide. Help me up?”

He jumps back, realizing that he’s still on to of them, and actively being chased, scrambling upright on limbs still trembling with adrenaline. He offers them a hand and a shaky grin as the angry shouts get closer. “I’m Tommy.”

“I’m Tubbo, he/him!” They, uh, he, chirps back, accepting the hand. 

It slots into his like a puzzle piece, and he pulls him easily to his feet like he weighs nothing at all. Tubbo wastes no time in wrapping his hand around his wrist, already tugging him off to the left, more firmly than you’d expect from someone so light.

He grins, the gleam in his eyes more than a little maniacal. “I steal from Fundy at least once a week, and he hasn’t caught me yet. This way!”

And the fuck is he supposed to say no to that?

The shouts are getting closer, the shopkeeper, Fundy, apparently, right on their heels. The thundering of footsteps is just getting louder. It’s either follow the stranger, Tubbo, or give up Henry II, and he’d already decided that he’d rather die.

He grins back, sharp and feral, and tightens his grip on Tubbo’s hand. When the alien darts through the crowd, he follows on his heels.

-

A few hours later, a Piglin, an Elytran, and Vulpian stand at an abandoned market stall.

The sun has begun to set, painting the normally orange sky of the trade moon Bezzar a soft lilac. The marketplace is mostly closed for the evening, the shopkeepers and dancers having already turned in for the night. A few stalls are still open, a handful of patrons drifting here and there, but compared to earlier, it’s pretty much a ghost town. 

Any lingering patron that drifts close to the stall selling “Authentic Earth Artifacts!” turns around very quickly once they catch a glimpse of the expression on the Elytran’s face.

The Piglin has a firm hand on the back of the Vulpian’s neck, like it’s the only thing keeping him from running away. His big red ears are pinned guiltily to the sides of his head, tail curled around his leg. He keeps his gaze firmly on his shoes. 

Said Piglin looks equally cowed, also unable to meet the Elytran’s eye. His ears are hidden by his hood, but to anyone paying close enough attention to spot them, they’re folded closely against his skull. He, too, shuffles guiltily in place. 

The Elytran paces, great wings spread and bristling in irritation. He looks down at his comn, tapping at the screen much harder than necessary, and both of the others flinch at the sound. He rubs at his temple with the other hand, fingers coming to rest on the angry scrunch between his eyebrows as he sighs out his nose. 

“You lost him.” He says, for the hundredth time this evening. The defeat and disappointment in his voice is much worse than the angry, frantic shouting from before. Both of them wince. 

The Piglin shuffles awkwardly. “...It was Fundy’s fault.”

“It was not!” The Vulpian, Fundy, snaps, turning on the Piglin with his sharp teeth bared. “He stole from me! I was just trying to get it back!”

“He stole a cow.” The Piglin deadpans back. “You didn’t need to chase him like that.”

The Vulpian makes a growling sound low in the back of his throat, the Piglin responding with a similar noise deep in his chest. They glare at each other, nerves already frayed from spending most of the afternoon at each other’s throats.

The Elytran cuts them both off with a shout. “ I don’t care who’s fault it was!”

Immediately, they both go quiet, but the Elytran isn’t finished.

He flashes his wings angrily, instinctively spreading them wide to make himself look bigger. The look in his eyes is ice-cold, with a distinctly disappointed edge that has them both bowing their heads. The “I’m not angry, just disappointed,” look is hard to master, but the Elytran has it down to a T. 

“As far as I’m concerned,” He says stormily. “You’re both at fault. It’s already dark, and we still haven’t found him. He could have been hurt, or kidnapped, and is probably scared out of his mind because he’s never been to this city before!”

Both of them keep their heads bowed, the Vulpian flinching back at the harshness in his tone, and the Piglin’s gaze still firmly on his boots. 

The Elytran looks for a moment like he’s about to continue, but he’s interrupted by a quiet buzz from his comn. He wastes no time in pulling up the message and scanning it, but whatever he reads just makes him deflate.

“Wilbur and Niki haven’t seen him.” He says in a flat voice, shoving the comn in his pocket. “He might’ve gone back to the ship, so I’m going to check there. I want you two to keep looking.”

They both nod, the Vulpian frantically, the Piglin solemnly, and the Elytran takes off into the sky in a solid flap of his great wings. A few more flaps, and he’s disappeared over their heads, weaving expertly in between rooftops and out of sight. 

As soon as he’s gone, the Piglin releases his hold on the scruff of the Vulpian’s neck.

Said Vulpian wastes no time darting out of reach, shooting him one last glare before slinking off into the dark to search on his own.

The Piglin watches him go, ruby gaze piercing in the dark. He sighs heavily,  giving his head a shake and shoving his hands in his coat pockets before turning and lumbering off to search in the opposite direction.

Neither of them spot the two teens sharing fruit on a nearby rooftop. 

They don’t notice the others below, in turn, the taller of the two happily biting into his share and smearing juice all over his face. The shorter one laughs at his expression once he notices the taste, and the taller one nearly knocks them both off of the roof tackling him. Why would they? Tucked up there out of sight, laughing quietly to one another. Even the Elytran who flew right over their spot wouldn’t have been able to see them.

That’s fine with the two teens. They didn’t want to be seen, anyways. 

Chapter Text

So, it turns out Tubbo is a fucking maniac.

Tommy’s not complaining too much, though, considering he’s a maniac and the only thing keeping him from getting caught, so. 

Beggars can’t be choosers. 

Tubbo tugs him down a side alley, just off of the main market square. And look, he’s not stupid, alright. He’s well aware that following strangers down dark alleys is probably not the best decision, but the alternatives aren’t much better. He can still hear fox guy’s shouts of frustration, and the slapping of boots against stone is still right on their heels.

So, when Tubbo yanks him down a dark alley and shoves him towards a shittily made fire escape, he does the logical thing and starts fucking climbing.

“Go, go, go!” Tubbo hisses from behind him, urging him up the metal stairs. “Hurry!”

“I’m going!” He hisses back, as loud as he dares with the shopkeeper and Technoblade still so close.

His hands grab on to the cold metal railing, and he practically throws himself up the stairs. Oh god, he does not like the way the whole thing shifts and groans underneath them both. His stomach gives an awful lurch when he nearly misses a stair, and if it wasn’t for Tubbo grabbing him by the back of the coat and pushing him onwards, he probably would have tipped over the railing.

He swallows hard and keeps going.

He’s never had a problem with heights, but with the way the fire escape is shuddering, he’s very careful to only look ahead and not over the edge. He looks up the stairs to the next landing, and freezes, hands scrabbling for a tighter hold on the rails. His outstretched foot dangles into thin air, and he’s quick to yank it back to solid ground. The stairs just fucking stop .

It’s a long, long way down to the bottom. If he hadn’t looked he’d be nothing more than a smudge on the pavement. 

“Curses.” Tubbo mutters from behind him. “I always forget that this one ends here.”

Tommy opens his mouth to reply, but he’s cut off when the fire escape gives another awful shudder. He grips the railings so hard his knuckles turn white, looking back at Tubbo with wide eyes. “ What the fuck was that?!”

They both freeze when it shakes again, a loud voice screeching up at them from the bottom of the stairs as the fox guy starts to fucking climb. “I see you! Get down here!”

Tubbo curses under his breath, shoving past Tommy so they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder on the very lip of the landing. He’s always been a big fan of this little thing called personal space, but Tubbo apparently never got the memo. He clings to Tommy’s arm, looking around wildly for a way out. 

“Fuck fuck fuck.” Tommy curses under his breath, his heart pounding loud on his ears. “What the fuck do we do?!”

Tubbo looks straight ahead, mouth set in a determined line. “We’re going to have to jump.”

“Jump?!”

“That balcony!” He points. Tommy cranes his neck to follow his hand. 

It’s in front of them, a little ways down. He wouldn’t have noticed it if Tubbo hadn’t pointed it out. A half-moon structure jutting out from the side of a crumbling building, railings already broken. He might’ve suggested the same thing if wasn’t six feet below them, and on the other side of the fucking alley. That’s at least a ten foot gap, and he’s low balling it. 

“I’ve done it loads of times,” he continues, “We jump to that balcony, and from there we can get to that roof up there.”

“Are you fucking insane?!” He demands, clutching tight to his arm when the fire escape gives another shudder, personal space can get fucked . “There’s no way we can make that!”

There’s wind in his hair, the alleyway below disappearing into shadow like it’s the fucking void. The fox guy is just getting closer, making the fire escape shake and tremble as he slips on the stairs, shouting and growling all the while. Tubbo has one arm wrapped tight around his, and he can feel the rabbiting of his heart through his jacket. He looks up, the roaring of his own heartbeat and frantic breathing in his ears blocking out everything else. He can see other rooftops from here, all gilded in the orange and gold of the midday sun. It’d be a lot prettier if he wasn’t about to fucking die. 

Then, Tubbo does the wierdest fucking thing.

He grabs Tommy by the shoulders and whirls him around, pulling him down so they’re nearly nose-to-nose. His duel-toned eyes, one emerald green, one honey brown, bore into his. 

He says, “Do you trust me?”

Tommy gapes at him. “ I just met you!?”

“Not important,” he insists, as the fox guy reaches the landing just beneath him. The hands grabbing tight to the collar of his coat are shaking slightly, antennae drooping into his hair. “Do you trust me?”

“Y-yeah,” he stammers out. For some weird reason, he does. “Yeah, big man, I trust you.”

Tubbo grins, blinding as the sun. “Great. On three.”

“What-“

Tubbo turns him around again so they’re both facing the gap, still holding his hand in an iron-clad grip so he can’t back out,  “One…”

The pounding of feet just gets louder, the fox guy only a few steps away from their landing. His heart is in his throat, adrenaline filling his veins with pure electricity as Tubbo shifts back into a better stance. “Two…”

He takes a breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and bends his knees, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. He can practically feel fox guy’s hot breath on the back of his neck, clawed hands closing around his collar-

“Three!”

He jumps.

For a minute he’s weightless, the wind in his face, Tubbo’s sweaty hand tight in his. He feels like he’s flying. 

Then, they hit the balcony. 

The rough terracotta is harsh against his palms, and they collapse in a tangled mess of legs and sharp elbows. Tubbo managed to roll with the impact, nearly breaking Tommy’s arm in the process, but he wasn’t as lucky. His shoulder and the side of his leg are scraped to bits where he had slid, palms already bleeding as he tries to push himself to his feet. 

There’s an angry howl from behind him, and he whips back around. 

The fox man is standing on the edge of the fire escape, gripping the iron railings and snarling. His tail lashes angrily from side to side, but Tommy can’t hear whatever he’s shouting over the rushing in his ears. They’d made it.

He stares wide-eyed at the gap they had just cleared, heart still pounding in his chest. 

They had made it. Holy fucking shit, they made it!

Tubbo grabs his hand, yanking him roughly to his feet and hissing in his ear, “Don’t just sit there, c’mon!”

He lets himself be yanked along, stumbling upright on shaking legs. He pauses for a half second, just long enough to give the fox guy a feral grin and a jaunty two fingered salute. He’s fucking Tommyinnit! As if he’d ever get caught by a fucking furry! 

Tubbo scales the half-broken railing with ease, jumping down onto the next roof in a practiced sweep of his legs. The familiar rush of adrenaline keeps him from even feeling his scraped hands as he’s dragged along. He makes the same jump, though it’s a lot less graceful. He’s had plenty of practice running from the cops back on earth, and jumping over fences isn’t too different from this, really. 

Tubbo moves across rooftops and balconies like an alley cat, balancing on railings and jumping from roof to roof with ease. He’s a bit more careful, but follows as close as he’s able, free arm pumping at his side. The howls fade quickly, but the thrill of a close call hasn’t quite worn off, leaving him breathless and shaky.

Holy fucking shit! He can’t believe he made that jump, that was fucking ridiculous! 

“Watch your step.” Tubbo warns, jumping down from the roof they're on to a lower one. He offers Tommy a hand and a grin, “I think we’re safe now.”

He doesn’t step down as much as he pounces, bowling Tubbo over in the process.

He’s breathless, a rough laugh bursting out of his throat all the while, the pounding in his chest sounding more and more like victory. They collapse in a pile, just like before, Tubbo’s elbow digging into his ribs, his arm around his shoulders. He hasn’t let go of his hand, and it’s hot and sweaty in his, the late afternoon sun painting their silhouettes in gold. His friend has to squint to look at him, antennae twitching, and he can’t help it. He throws his head back against the concrete and just laughs. 

“Holy fuck. ” He gasps out between breaths, “Tubbo, you’re a fucking mad man.”

Tubbo just grins at him, laughing in the same breathless way, hair a mess and cheeks ruddy. There’s a familiar glint in his eyes when he meets his gaze. “Wanna know a secret?”

He lays his head back against the roof, concrete cool on his skin. “Sure.”

“I’ve never made that jump before.” He giggles, flopping down on his back. “I just said that so you would do it.”

Tommy gapes. “You dickhead!”

Tubbo just throws his head back again, the same wheezing laugh pouring out of him like music, and he can’t quite find it in him to be mad. They had made it, after all. Perfectly intact too, other than a matching set of scraped knees. 

He bats at him anyways, elbowing him in the ribs just to make him squawk. The gesture comes easy, the lazy, half-hearted play fighting as natural as breathing. His hand doesn’t burn where Tubbo had touched it, the close proximity doesn’t make his skin itch the way it normally would. It’s comfortable.

...When was the last time he’d let someone touch him like this? The last time he held hands with someone just for the hell of it? Hell, he’s only just met the guy, but there’s something about him that puts Tommy at ease. 

Maybe it’s the fact he hasn’t spoken to anyone his age in months. Maybe it’s how soft his face looks, he doesn’t exactly look like a threat, with soft hair and big, round eyes. 

Maybe it’s just the fact that he was willing to help him before he even knew his name. 

They’re both still coming down off the adrenaline rush, that close call thrill just barely wearing off. the exhaustion of running across the market square and across buildings is finally catching up. It’s not too long before they’re both laying flat on their backs, still breathing heavily. He doesn’t mind laying there at all, the rooftop is cool, the late afternoon sky a deep orange, lavender at the corners. The wind is still warm, buffeting his face and combing through his hair. It’s nice. Relaxing, even. 

Then, Tubbo jolts, going stiff like he’d been electrocuted. He turns over to face him quick, realization written all over his face. “Wait a minute, you know earth slang!”

He freezes. 

Aw, fuck. Well, it was good while it lasted. “Uh. Yeah.” 

Tubbo brushes right over the dumb response, his two-toned eyes lighting up. “That’s so cool. Have you been learning English too?”

He winces, hoping it’s not too obvious. “...Something like that.”

“ So cool!.” Tubbo breathes out, moving right along, and Tommy feels himself relax just a little more.

It’s fine. This is fine. They’re in the middle of space, and he’s still got the grease scales drawn on his face, even if his hood is down. There’s no way he’d just assume he was human. 

The other boy doesn’t even seem to notice how stiff he’s gotten, looking at him with stars in his eyes as he rambles on. “Fundy keeps making fun of me for it, but I keep telling him he should learn it too.”

He blinks. “Fundy?”

“The one who was chasing us.” 

“You know him?”

“You don’t?” He tilts his head, and something about that look is just a little too clever for comfort, and he feels himself stiffen. “He sets up the same Earth stall on market days.”

“I-I’ never been here before.” He stammers out, quick, think of a explanation-

“Oh, that’s cool.” The look is gone a second later, that same trusting smile back in place like it had never left. He gestures to the poorly drawn scales on his face, “You're a Merling, right? Are you from Viona? I have a friend from there.”

“No.” He blurts. “I’m from, uh.”

Think of a place, you idiot! 

“...Pogtopia.”

Tubbo blinks, tilting his head like a confused dog. “Where’s that?”

“You wouldn’t know,” He blurts out again. Fucking, Pogtopia? Really? He couldn’t have thought of something better? “...it’s really far from here.”

“Oh. Okay!”

He just. Accepts it. Tubbo takes his awkward replies in stride, and he nearly collapses with relief when he doesn’t press him further, thank god. 

He stands, then, turning back to Tommy with an outstretched hand and a smile. “Well, if you’ve never been to Bezzar before, how about I give you the grand tour?”

“You don’t have to-“ he starts, but then Tubbo’s hand grabs his, tugging him easily to his feet. If it had been anyone else, he’d yank his hand back with a snarl, but the hand in his is small and firm. He can’t find it in him to break the grip. 

“Of course I do!” He beams, grin nearly blinding. “We’re friends now, aren’t we?”

“...Yeah.” He finds himself saying. To his own surprise, he realizes he’s grinning back. 

“Yeah, big man. I guess we are.” 

-

Tubbo walks along rooftops and railings with more confidence and grace than Tommy will ever have.

He’s not careful about it, either. He jogs and hops right up against the edge with no problem at all. For most of the roofs, this works just fine. The rooftops at this height are old, square things, flat except for a sandstone railing along the edge. It’s about a foot wide, so walking along it doesn’t give exactly Tommy vertigo. 

The others, though, are a different story.

There are a hundred different rooftops in Bezzar, in a hundred different styles. Some are a bit more familiar, triangle-shaped with tiles or shingles, while others are a bit more out there. Domes, pyramids, and rooftop gardens seem to be especially popular, and more than a few have fucking foundations. 

You can’t tell from the ground, but from where they walk, it’s easy to pick out the different layers. Like the world's strangest triple-layer cake. 

The sandstone buildings are the oldest, clearly, the ones with flat roofs. The brick and wood buildings are a bit newer, the shining steel and glass ones the newest. They’re built on top of one another for the most part, and not neatly. There’s just enough of a gap where one layer ends and the next layer starts to walk along, if you’re careful. The buildings are so close together that getting from one to the other is easy, most of the time you don’t even have to jump.

It’s incredible . Like a whole secret highway. He’d bet anything that Tubbo could get from one end of the city to the other without ever touching the ground. 

He leads him along the edge of the sandstone roofs. It’s the very bottom layer, only two or three stories from the streets below, but it feels so much higher. The aliens below look like ants, trotting along in colorful lines and groups.

The noise filters up, but it’s faint. Just white noise, distant laughter and chatter, comforting, and easy to block out.

They’re clearly not the only ones using the rooftops to get around. Boards of wood have been laid across gaps in certain places to make makeshift bridges, the railings of balconies sanded down or broken off to make getting from roof to roof easier. 

The wind is warm on his face, late afternoon sun hot on his back. He walks along the edge of a building with confidence, he’s no coward, even if he has to avoid looking down, but Tubbo takes it to a whole different level. 

“I grew up here.” He explains, tip-toeing along the edge of a thin metal balcony railing, arms spread for balance. His tone is casual, like he’s not seconds away from going splat on the streets below. “Most people don’t stay on Bezzar for more than a season, but I’ve been here my whole life.” 

He turns to Tommy, then, who’s standing a few feet away on a broad, flat surface , thank you very much. His grin is a little more than just feral. “I know these rooftops better than anyone.”

And Tommy believes him. 

He leads the way, having long-since let go of his hand in favor of pointing things out on the streets below. They’re a good ways from the market square, now, but the amount of street-side vendors and people walking the streets below hasn’t changed much. He gestures happily to shops and restaurants, talking all the while about his favorite places. He’s long since given up on trying to follow his hand to see what he’s pointing out, everything just sort of blends together, from this far up. 

Tubbo leans over the edge, and Tommy has to cross his arms to keep from grabbing him by the back of the jacket and hauling him back. 

He doesn’t even notice, laughing all the while as he points. “And that restaurants great! The owners real nice, I’d avoid that one, though.”

His whole face is lit up, the sun catching in his hair and his duel-toned eyes. He looks. Right. Like he belongs in this place, along these rooftops. He fits right into the colorful chaos of the city, and it suits him. 

“That shop sells Earth streams, ah, Movies. That’s the English word for it, you know.” He puffs out his chest a little grinning all the while. “I’m a bit of an Earth expert.”

Tommy can’t help but snort. “An expert, huh?”

“Yep!” He balances on one foot, just to make Tommy wince. “The council releases new Earth Movies every month, that’s what humans call cycles, by the way. And I’ve seen-“ 

Then, he goes stiff, and the image shatters. 

“Shit.” He hisses under his breath, ducking down behind the railing. “Get down!”

He blinks, squinting at the crowd below, but all he sees is just. People. Walking, chatting, drifting in pairs or groups. He can’t see anything amiss, The fuck, what the hell does he see-

A hand goes tight around the back of his coat, forcing his head down. “I said down!”

“Okay, okay!” He gives in, letting himself be manhandled so he’s crouching next to his new best friend, apparently. Said best friend looks a lot paler than he did before, wide-eyed and tense. He peers carefully over the ledge again, cursing under his breath. “He’s never followed me this far, what the hell did you take?”

“He’s still following us?!” Tommy hisses, lifting his head to try and get a better look before Tubbo drags him back down again.

“What part of stay down do you not understand?!”

“Why the hell is he still after us?!” He snarls back. He’d gotten a better look that time, able to catch a glimpse of ears and a red tail in the throng of people, and his blood turns to ice. “What is his problem?”

“What. Did. You. Take?”

He whips his head around to glare at Tubbo, who glares right back, the air between them suddenly frosty. Hesitantly, he reaches his hand into his bag.

Henry the Second looks just as magnificent as he did the first time Tommy laid eyes on him. He sits neatly in his palm, roughly the size of his hand. He looks up at the both of them, his mismatched button eyes and the sloppy stitching of his face giving him a sad, mournful expression. He looks a bit like he’d been made by a half-blind grandmother with horrible arthritis who’s never actually seen a cow in person, but none of that matters because to Tommy, he’s absolutely perfect. 

Tubbo doesn’t seem to share the same opinion, staring at Henry the Second with his mouth hanging open. “He chased us halfway across Bezzar for a horse?”

Tommy bristles. “He’s a cow!”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” He rambles on, completely ignoring him and tugging on his hair as he peers over the ledge again. “Fundy’s a bit of a bastard, sure, but that’s- shit!”

“What?”

“I think he saw me. We’ve gotta go!”

Tubbo’s on his feet in an instant, taking off across the roof and leaving Tommy in the dust. He scrambles upright a half-second after he does, shoving Henry in his bag and lunging after his friend.

Said friend disappears over the side of the roof in a sweep of legs, only to pop his head back up and furiously wave Tommy over. “This way!”

He follows, arms pumping furiously at his sides as he clears the edge of the roof, dropping down onto the fire escape below. Tubbo doesn’t give him any time to regain his footing before he’s taking off again, thundering down the stairs and jumping over the iron railing to a different rooftop like it’s nothing. 

He takes a deep breath, the air thick and smelling of strange spices, smoke, and something else, sharp, fresh and clean. Like wildflowers. He makes a quick prayer to whatever gods are out there, and follows his friend over the railing.

-

“You lost him?”

“He’s fast!”

The Merling puts her fingers to her temples like she’s fighting off a migraine, and sighs through her nose. 

The pink comn sitting in front of her on the kitchen table goes silent on the other end, as the alien she’s talking to senses that it’s probably a good idea to be quiet.

“He’s with Tubbo.” She says, slowly. “You know Tubbo. Can you think of anywhere he would have taken him?”

It’s silent, for a moment, then, “I have an idea, it’s all the way across town, though.”

She glares at the comn. “Then you better start moving. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Phil so worried, once he hears that it was you that started this whole mess…”

She trails off. It’s quiet as the other alien swallows. Hard. “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Good.” She nods to herself, satisfied. “I’ll be at the bakery in case they come back, and everyone else is out looking all over Bezzar. This city is only so big, they’ll turn up soon.”

“...Unless they get kidnapped.”

“They weren’t kidnapped.” She huffs. “Tubbo’s been running around this city since he could walk. Phil’s kid couldn’t be with anyone better.”

She’s certain of it, that much is clear in her voice. 

“Bezzar isn’t safe anymore, Niki! ” The other alien snaps, a slight growl in his voice as it takes on a more panicked edge. “You know what happened to Ranboo, there’s no telling-“

“Enough.”

The voice goes quiet. When the Merling looks back at the comn, her eyes are cold as ice, as if she could glare it into submission.

“Just focus on finding the kids.” Her voice is clipped, stern. Leaving no room for argument.

The voice doesn’t reply, and the feed cuts out. 

-

They run for what feels like hours.

This fox guy is nothing if not persistent. It feels like everytime they stop to catch their breath, there he is. He’s caught glimpses of the others, too, a flash of wings, pink hair, or a black leather jacket out of the corner of his eye.

Tubbo doesn’t give him time to dwell on it.

He’s watched videos of people doing stupid parkour stunts online. They always made it look so easy, scaling brick buildings and doing effortless back flips from rooftop to rooftop like they’re fucking Spider-Man. The reality of jumping from building to building is a lot less glamorous. 

He’s hot, panting like he’s been running a marathon and sweating like a pig in the heavy coat, both hands and knees scraped bloody. The boots he’s wearing are a size too big, and make keeping up with Tubbo a lot harder than it needs to be, his bag swinging against his side. 

The good thing about running for your life is that it doesn’t leave you with a lot of time to think about things. He has to stay focused, watch carefully where he puts his hands and feet. Every footstep he takes puts more and more distance from the people who saved him, the ones who promised they’d take him home, but the moment he stops to think about it for more than a second, Tubbo is right there dragging him along again. 

“Up here!”

Speaking of Tubbo.

It’s darker now, the sky painted a soft lavender, the city lights blinking on and the stars just starting to appear in the dusty skies. 

His friend looks no worse for wear. He’s not panting nearly as hard as Tommy, dark brown hair a tousled mess, both antennae twitching happily. He grins like a madman as he hangs out an open window, offering him a hand. Hell, he’s already getting chased by a fox, might as well add on the BNE charge while they’re at it.

He takes the hand, wincing as it puts pressure on his scraped palms, and lets himself be yanked through the window. 

“And you’re sure we lost him?” He pants, once both of his doors are planted firmly on the floor. 

Tubbo nods, his grin a flash of white in the dark. He tugs him along, still, looking far to cheerful about it, and barely even sweating. Prick . “Positive. Nobody knows about this place but me. This way!”

What else is he gonna do? He follows. 

It’s a pretty good sized room. It’s clearly been abandoned for a long, long time, with cobwebs in the higher corners and the general coating of grime and dust that comes from disuse. He can make out the dark shapes of furniture along the walls, light creeping in through cracks in the boarded up windows. 

He spins around, looking up. 

The ceiling yawns far, far above his head, cracked and pocketed with holes. There’s a mildew smell to the air, a smell he’s pretty familiar with, making him wrinkle his nose. The breeze flowing in through the open window smells sharp and fresh in comparison. 

Tubbo drifts over to one wall, fiddles with something, and the lights come on. 

They’re fairy lights. Well, not exactly, but close enough. The alien version, he guesses, strung a few feet above Tommy’s head. He blinks a few times, forcing his eyes to adjust. 

It looks… Smaller, with the lights on. More lived in. There’s a collection of blankets and pillows in one corner, two sleeping bags on top, only one of them unzipped. A few nearby storage crates are filled with books, trinkets and half-finished projects. A stack of what looks like game cartridges balances precariously on a three-legged table, A few clothes haphazardly piled up over to the side.

Tubbo gestures with an offhand, grinning all the while. “Pretty cool, huh?” 

It’s a room. It’s Tubbo’s room.

He follows dumbly when Tubbo leads him in further, trying to resist the urge to snoop through his stuff. He’d hate it if someone came into his room and started putting their hands all over his shit, so he keeps both of his own firmly in his pockets, and keeps to just looking around. 

It’s not too bad, all things considered. He’s definitely stayed in worse houses when he was in the system, and Tubbo’s done a good job of clearing out most of the grime from the places he can reach. The fairy lights are a warm yellow, that paired with the blankets giving everything a cozy feel. If you squint, it almost looks just like any normal teenage boys room, complete with dirty laundry on the floor and empty water bottles near the bed. Still, though, no amount of posters and hanging lights can disguise the fact that it’s very clearly an abandoned building. 

And, look.

Tubbo’s nice. Tommy’s met his fair share of jaded foster kids and runaways, he knows the type. Kids like that don’t trust as easily as Tubbo does. They sure as hell wouldn’t help a random stranger, and they definitely wouldn’t bring them back to where they keep all of their stuff.

He watches Tubbo as he walks around his room, the fairy lights lighting up his soft face and big, round eyes. He’s bouncing on his feet with excitement, constantly looking back to judge Tommy’s reaction to the things in his room.

He’s the poster child for sad orphans everywhere, the kind of kid who’d get adopted by a millionaire, or at the very least a nice couple. And yet. 

He’s… Alone. Cheery as all hell, with a smile like the sun coming out, and willing to help a person he just met just. Because.

And he’s. Alone. 

He’s. Confusing. 

...There’s something else that’s bothering him about it, too, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. 

His gaze catches on the second sleeping bag.

He can’t quite muster up the nerve to ask before Tubbo’s already tugging him over to the shelves that line one of the walls, pointing excitedly at one of the posters. It’s a tacky thing, for some movie he’s never heard of. It’s probably an alien thing, judging by the looks of the main cast, almost all of which are sporting scales or fluffy ears. 

“I stole that one from Fundy!” He laughs, eyes lighting up at the memory. Then, he points to a different one closer to a pile of books, he has to squint to make it out. “And that other one’s from a different merchant, I got it half off.”

He reads the title of the half off poster, and he freezes. 

It’s… embarrassingly cheesy. The main characters driving their red mustang into the camera, an explosion in the background. 

But he. He recognizes that poster.

The movie had come out years ago, one of those straight to dvd, bottom of the barrel kind of movies. He’d watched it at one of the foster homes, and swiped it when they weren’t paying attention. 

It was your generic bad 80’s movie, taking place in some shitty little desert town that bore an eerie resemblance to the one he’d lived in. Lots of bad rock and roll music and awful special effects, with some half-assed plot about an alien invasion. The main character was irritatingly stupid, and the actress that played the blonde-haired, blue-eyed love interest spent a lot of time looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. Not to mention how stupid the ‘aliens’ looked.

Still, it’s just corny enough to be entertaining. The kind of movie you watch just to make fun of. 

It was Clara’s favorite movie, not that she’d ever admit it. 

...And that same feeling creeps back up on him again, the one that lead him to taking the stupid cow. That pit in his stomach, that ugly, lonely feeling. 

He doesn’t get long to wallow in it before Tubbo’s tugging at him again, grin as blinding as ever, and his antennae brush his cheek as he gets right up close to his face to look at the same poster. “Human Movies are so cool, huh? That one's super underground, I dunno if you’ve heard of it. But wait, I haven’t even shown you the best part yet!”

And he’s already moving, stepping up to one of the boarded up windows and shoving aside curtains, a bounce in his step. There’s a Tubbo-sized hole in the bottom corner, and he disappears through it, leaving Tommy scrambling to catch up, again. 

He gives the poster one last look, before. 

Then, he swallows the gross feeling back like he’s taking cough medicine, shakes his head to get rid of the aftertaste, and follows his friend through the opening.

No use wallowing in shit you can’t change. He’s gotta just. Keep moving. 

He has to duck a lot more than Tubbo to get through the stupid opening, and has watch his feet carefully to keep from falling flat on his face as he steps out onto the small metal balcony. Tubbo is right there to steady him, though, putting a hand on his arm and nearly vibrating with excitement. “What do you think?”

He looks up.

“Holy shit.”

The entire market is spread out underneath them, that and more. The entire city as far as the eye can see, straight off into the sky. It’s darker now, twilight fading into night, and the city of Bezzar underneath them absolutely glows.

There are lights set up in the square, glimmering over the people below like golden fireflies. Some vendors are packing up for the evening, but not all of them, and the market is still buzzing with aliens, shopping and chatting. A few are even still dancing, the musicians still set up in the center, and when the cool evening air blows against his face, he can hear it. That strange, violin-like music, the low rumbling of drums. He can just barely hear the laughter, too. The swirling of skirts is even more mesmerizing by starlight, and the swirl of colors and lights is something straight out of a dream. 

He looks up at the buildings framing the square, and to the rooftops he can just make out beyond. Some windows are lit, others black and gaping wide. A few aliens have stepped out onto their own balconies, lovers holding each other, neighbors wishing each other goodnight. 

Then, distant city, only just visible over and between buildings. It glimmers like a golden mirage in the distance, the dock where the Argo II is parked just a hint of metal between buildings. Stars shine brightly overhead in constellations he doesn’t know, ships passing in silver streaks like a meteor shower.

It's beautiful. 

Tubbo elbows his side. “Cool, huh?”

“Fucking pogchamp!” He bursts out, draping himself farther over the railing to get a better look, grinning like a madman all the while. 

Their balcony is a hidden one, tucked away in a corner where two buildings meet. Completely invisible to anyone below and above, yet they can see absolutely everything. It’s perfect. 

“Pogchamp?”

“Uh.” He stammers, the image abruptly broken. Shit . “ It means really cool, where I’m from.”

“Oh,” Tubbo blinks. “Pogchamp!”

Jesus Christ. He’s created a monster. 

A hand tightens on the back of his coat when he leans just a little too far, keeping him from toppling over into the market below. He can’t find it in him to care, too busy staring with his mouth open. “You can see the whole market from here!”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s the best spot.” Tubbo drifts from his side, rummaging over in a different corner of the balcony. He points, and this time he does try and follow his hand, “The docks are back that way, the upper city is behind us. It’s the second best view in all of Bezzar.”

He blinks. “The second?”

“I’d take you to the first, but I’m not allowed up there anymore.” He elbows him in the side, smiling like he’s sharing a secret. “The glass buildings are the only ones with security cameras.”

He brushes against his shoulder when he says it, and the touch doesn’t make him flinch like it would with anyone else. Then, In one swift move, he hoists himself up on the railing, sitting on the edge and letting his feet dangle on the other side, nearly giving Tommy a fucking heart attack.

“Jesus Christ!” He hisses through gritted teeth, grabbing a fistful of the back of his jacket. “Are you trying to die?!”

Tubbo just laughs, the sound filling the air like windchimes. “Relax, I do this all the time! You sound just like-“

Silence. 

Tubbo goes stiff all of a sudden, and his hands tighten around the railing as the name of whoever he was remembering dies on his lips. 

He’s quiet for a long moment, and the cold creeps in.

Tommy gives his jacket another firm tug. “...How about you come back down, yeah?”

He huffs, but he swings his legs back over and hops back down. His smile is back, but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes the same way it had before. There’s something new there, taking up the same space. Something sad, something distant. He looks at Tommy, but it’s more through him than at him. 

“You sound like an old friend of mine, s’all.” He says, eventually. “They, um. They went missing a while ago.”

“...I’m sorry.” 

Tubbo huffs again. “Don’t be. They’d like you.” 

He gives his shoulder another brush, and looks off into the city again. His eyes don’t light up the same way, though, and he drifts from Tommy’s side back over to the window they’d come through. 

Tommy looks back at the market square below. It’s just as pretty as before, sure, but it looked a lot better when Tubbo was pointing things out with a smile on his face. The wind brushing through his hair feels a lot colder, all of a sudden. The stars a lot more far away. 

He wonders what happened to the two women he saw dancing, before. He hopes they’re someone warm on a night like this. 

...He hopes Tubbo’s friend is safe, too. Wherever they are.

“Here, catch!”

His hands fly up instinctively over his face before Tubbo’s even finished his sentence. He plucks the ball out of the air easily before it gets anywhere close to his nose, and turns it over distrustfully in his hands. It’s a little smaller than the palm of his hand, a deep purple and fuzzy, like a peach. 

He frowns. “What the hell is this?”

“Fruit.” Tubbo shrugs, not elaborating. His grin is back, and Tommy does not trust that smile. Not one bit. “Try it!”

He looks it over again, feeling it out. It’s about as heavy as a tennis ball, sitting neatly in his palm. As much as he doesn’t trust the mischievous look on his face, he hasn’t eaten since breakfast. 

He wouldn’t just outright poison him, not after going through all of that trouble. And, besides. It might make him feel better.

 Or something. 

He takes a bite, immediately spitting it out. 

“ What the fuck?!”

“Ahaha- you’re face!”

“You bitch!”

“ Watch the - ow!”

It’s a nice night, all things considered.

-

“-still haven’t found them?”

“No,” a deep voice says, the comns speaker making it even more growly than it is. “Fundy is checking the market again. I’m heading towards the upper city.”

The Merling frowns. She’s tapping her fingers nervously on the kitchen table, gaze darting to the clock on the wall.

“He’s never out this late.” She mutters under her breath, before turning back to the comn and speaking. “Phil and Wilbur?”

“Phil’s still at the docks in case they go back to the ship. Wilbur’s coming back to the bakery.”

She narrows her eyes. “Why?”

“I think he’s worried you’re going to dry out from stress.”

It’s not said like a joke, but she finds herself smiling anyways. One of her hands drifts to her necklace, a small, pretty shell on a gold chain. 

“I’ll be fine.” She says to whoever’s on the other line. “Just keep looking.”

The feed cuts out.

-

Midnight finds both boys still on the balcony, sprawled on their backs, stomachs full of the non-gross fruits Tubbo’s fond of. 

“-And apparently, humans used to worship giant cats.” 

“Uh huh.”

“Then they built giant cat robots!”

“Cool.”

...They’ve been talking for a while.

Tommy doesn’t mind, though. He’s tired, hot, and sore, he just lets Tubbo’s voice wash right over him as he stares up at the black balcony roof. 

Tubbo talks a lot, and most of what he says is about humans. Now, he’s never been a big fan of history class, so this would be a lot more boring. If Tubbo wasn’t completely and utterly wrong about roughly half of it. The rest isn’t exactly wrong, per say, but it’s. Not quite right either. Like he’s describing the plot of a bad movie he’s only ever seen the posters for.

...Which might not be too far from the truth, actually.

Anyways, the so called human expert is more than happy to ramble on about “Earth History”, and Tommy’s happy enough to sit back and let him. 

“They all have blue blood too. Isn’t that cool?”

He yawns. “Super.”

He stretches lazily. The balcony is small, but the metal is nice and cool against his back, and there’s just enough room for him to lay down flat. It’s cooling off now that it’s dark, and now he’s actually pretty thankful for the heavy coat he’s wearing. He has Henry the Second propped up on his stomach, and he’s been toying with his little front legs for the past while to keep his fingers busy.

It’s a nice night. The city sparkles below them, chatter still audible in the distance, the rumbling of spaceships passing overhead sounds eerily like cars. 

He’s tired, but he’s content.

Which should have been his sign that everything was about to go to shit, really. 

Tubbo falls quiet for a moment. He’s laying on the balcony railing, all sprawled out on his back like a content house cat. He’s been tossing one of those little round fruits back and forth in his hands as he thinks, rambling sleepily about humans all the while. He keeps looking over at Tommy after everything he says to judge his reaction, to see how impressed he is with his vast human knowledge, probably. 

He’s been pretty good about not outright laughing, though he’d cut it pretty close once or twice. He’s been trying to teach him how to cuss for the past hour, under the excuse of the words being “cool human slang”, and he was more than happy to learn. Hearing him say “ cocksucker!” In that cheery voice of his is fucking hilarious. 

Besides, he’s smiling again, the moment on the balcony railing already forgotten. It’s nice. 

Then, he goes very, very still.

There’s a knock from somewhere inside Tubbo’s hideout, the sound of light footsteps across creaking floors as loud as gunshots in the stillness. “Tubbo? Are you up here?”

Fox guy. Shit. 

Tubbo’s on his feet in an instant, swinging off the railing and landing in a crouch near Tommy. His eyes are wide in the dark, face going pale and both antennae standing on end. He barely has time to shove Henry back in his bag before he’s yanked to his feet and ushered away from the window. 

“Who the hell is that?!” Tommy hisses. 

He gets a glare in response. “Shush! we’ve gotta hide! Quick!”

He whirls around, heart in his throat as he tries to find a way off the balcony that doesn’t involve breaking his neck. The darkness doesn’t help, most of the city's lights being off at this time of night, and he can barely make out his own hand in front of his face, Tubbo’s silhouette only barely visible in the starlight.

There’s a yank on his sleeve, “This way!”

Tubbo leads him to the edge of the balcony, hopping up on the railing and dropping down to the other side. Slowly, far too slowly, he toes his way down to the ledge of a stray brick sticking out below.

“What are you waiting for?!” He hisses up at Tommy. “Are you coming or not?”

The footsteps behind him only get louder.

He swallows, forcing himself to look ahead and not down, and follows his friend over the railing. The iron is ice-cold in his hands, and the ledge Tubbo’s standing on is only a few inches wide, the market square far, far below. He’d never survive a drop like that if he lost his footing. 

They both duck under the balcony. He grabs Tubbo by the arm for balance, ignoring the surprised squawk he gets in response. He slaps a hand over his mouth for good measure.

There’s a creak from above them as whoever was on their tail steps out onto the balcony, and a small shower of dust. They both stare up at it, not daring to move a muscle as the person looks around, each footstep impossibly loud on the cold metal.

After what feels like ages, The footsteps vanish, and they both nearly collapse in relief.

Tubbo tugs at him again, still keeping his voice low as he whispers in his ear, “I have a friend who lives near here. She’ll be asleep by now, she won’t even notice we’re there.”

He stares at him. “So you’re just gonna break in?!”

“Just come on-“

-

“-No sign of either of them.”

“Just keep looking.” The Merling says softly into the comn. The other alien pacing back and forth in the kitchen, a Phantling, looks over when she speaks. “Just. Just keep looking.”

The voice on the other side is quiet for a long moment. Then, “Have you heard back from Fundy?”

“Not yet.” Is her quiet reply. 

Another pause.

“You should get some sleep.”

“Not until I know he’s safe.” Is said more sternly than anything else so far, but the confidence peters off quickly. “...Its cold, tonight.”

The voice on the other side is silent, again, but it’s a warm kind of silence. “I’m circling back around again.”

She sighs. “Thank you, Techno.”

The Phantling wanders back over to her side, resting a hand on her shoulder. He tries to be comforting, but his hands are ice-cold. He looks just as nervous as she does. 

“I’m sure they’re fine.” He mutters, but the reassurance in his voice is clearly faked. “Tubbo’s a tough kid! They’ll be alright.”

She sighs again. “It’s not Tubbo I’m worried about.”

It’s quiet again, for a beat, before she continues.

“With him being… New, and all. Fundy’s right about Bezzar not being as safe as it used to be.”

Silence. 

“Tommy’s tougher than he looks.” The voice, Techno, speaks up gruffly. “He wouldn’t go down without a fight. We’d know.”

The feed cuts out.

-

It’s a long walk to Tubbo’s friend's place.

Well, not really. It’s only a few blocks away. It’s a long walk because most of it is down. 

Tubbo has no problem scaling down the sides of buildings like he’s a fucking mountian goat, but Tommy’s a lot less thrilled about the whole thing. The warm wind buffeting his face turned chilly hours ago, and trying to carefully step from ledge to ledge while freezing your ass off is not exactly a walk in the park. Especially since Tubbo has gloves to keep his fingers from freezing off, and he doesn’t. 

They’re avoiding the routes they took before, staying lower to the ground and climbing on the buildings themselves rather than across rooftops. It’s a hell of a lot harder, but with the way Tubbo’s glancing over his shoulder every ten seconds, he’s not about to ask why.

He… Trusts Tubbo. He probably trusts Tubbo more than he trusted the others. Tubbo’s never drugged him, for one, and he’s just. He’s got one of those faces, you know? He’s just a kid like him.

Besides, he’s risking his own skin to keep Tommy from getting caught, and trust is a two way street. Tubbo trusts him enough to give him a tour of his house and not to shove him off a building when he’s been irritating, Tommy trusts him enough not to ask questions. 

Some things are just better left to the imagination, anyways. He’s shaky enough as it is.

They’re still on the lower level, and the sandstone bricks are big and ugly enough to make good footholds if you watch your step. It’s a good workout, hauling yourself up and down the side of a fuckimg building. Like rockclimbing, except if you step in the wrong place, you go splat. Super fun. 

Tubbo’s ahead of him, which makes things a little easier. He just has to step where he does, and not look down, which is harder than it sounds.

The city Bezzar doesn’t sleep. Even at this time of night, the hanging lights between buildings still burn just as bright, the streets still filled with wandering aliens laughing and chatting with one another. A few shops and restaurants are even still open, patrons wandering around outside and through open, welcoming doors. 

More than a few of them sway on their feet. 

None of them look up. 

Finally, after what feels like fucking years of climbing, Tubbo leads him to a small window on the upper floor of a low brick building. 

It looks… Cute, for lack of a better word. It’s some kind of shop, judging by the big, broad windows out front and a sign he can’t read hanging over the door. There are flower boxes, too, pastel pink and blue blossoms and healthy green vines pouring out of them. It’s a little haphazard, but in a good way. It looks welcoming. 

The lowest windows have their curtains drawn, with a thin film of cheery yellow light leaking through, but the upper windows are pitch black. Somebody’s home, Tubbo’s friend, probably. 

He frowns. Tubbo better know what the fuck he’s doing.

He fidgets with the locked window for what feels like years, cursing under his breath. Just when Tommy’s about to shove him out the way and smash the dumb thing, he gets it open. He pushes it up, and it relents with a loud creak. He turns to Tommy then, gesturing with a hand and grinning. “Well?”

Fuck Tubbo, actually. 

Fuck this stupid city on this stupid trade moon. Fuck space in general. Fuck the stupid fox guy and his anger management issues. Fuck every decision that’s lead him to this current moment, actually, except for stealing Henry the Second, because Henry the Second is perfect. 

Anyways .

He has to physically swallow the urge to call Tubbo every insult he knows, and goes in through the window first. Like a man. 

His boots hit carpet.

He stays low and poised to run, ears pricked for any sound of movement, other than Tubbo fucking around on the roof outside. It’s silent, and he lets himself relax, but only a little.

It’s dark, darker than it was outside, and he blinks furiously to try and get his eyes to adjust quickly. 

It’s... A bedroom. Incredibly plain, with just a bed, dresser, and a closet. They’re all nondescript colors, even in the dark he can tell they’re all in shades of inoffensive pastels, the carpet under his boots covering a simple wood floor. A spare bedroom, if he had to guess, judging by the musty smell in the air and lack of knickknacks and posters. 

It looks like a hotel room, and smells faintly like cinnamon rolls. 

It’s completely empty, though. He listens real close for a few more seconds, just in case, but there’s nothing. No movement from anywhere in the building. None that he can hear, anyways. 

He turns back to Tubbo, waving him in, “I think we’re in the clear-“

The lights come on.

Standing there in the doorway is a woman.

She’s pretty, with an apron over a blue dress, bubble-gum pink hair half-up, the rest cascading down her shoulders. There’s a seashell hanging from a golden chain around her neck, and when he meets her shocked gaze, the first thought he has is, oh, so that’s what Wilbur was going for. The grayish-pink scales freckling her face make the ones badly drawn on his look pathetic. 

“Uh,” He swallows. “‘ow do?”

She blinks. Once, twice, eyes swiveling between him and Tubbo like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing. Then, she says in disbelief, “...Tommy?”

He doesn’t get the chance to respond.

There’s a loud crash from somewhere below them, and the pounding of footsteps as someone races up the stairs. A dishelived Wilbur skids into the room like all of hell is on his tail, eyes wild when they finally land on Tommy. 

 Everyone moves at once. 

-

Twenty minutes later, they’re seated around Niki’s kitchen table. 

Wilbur’s nursing a bruise on the side of his face where Tommy got a solid kick in, and a rather impressive scratch over the bridge of his nose. Tubbo’s rubbing a tender spot on his left side where he’d been caught in the crossfire, and Niki’s sitting at the head of the table with a pink comn in one hand, and an ice pack for Wilbur in the other.

Tommy himself sits next to Tubbo, arms crossed firmly over his chest. His throat‘s raw from screaming, and his wrists are tender where he’d been dragged back in through the window, and then manhandled down the stairs. 

Wilbur glares at him from across the table, he glares back.

Niki looks absolutely exhausted.

She types something out on her comn, expression shifting into something a little more relieved, before setting it face-down on the table. “The others will be here in a moment.”

Then, she looks at Tommy, face softening. “We’ll get this sorted out. You’re not in any trouble.

“Like hell he isn’t.” Wilbur huffs through gritted teeth. “He kicked me in the face.”

And he deserved it.

Tommy just huffs, shrinking down lower in his seat, arms still tightly crossed over his chest. He’s fucking exhausted, and sore, he’s covered in new bruises and his hands and his knees both hurt from where they’d been scraped to hell and back. The pitying looks Tubbo keeps giving him aren’t making anything better, either. 

Most importantly, Phil and Techno will be back soon.

He’s not scared. He’s not a fucking little kid who needs someone to hold his hand and patch up his scraped knees. He’s just. Concerned. The slightest bit worried. About what’s happening next.

You see, the foster homes had rules. 

You fucked up too badly, you got tossed to the curb, if you were lucky. Even his ship had rules, if you did insert dumb thing here, you’d get insert punishment here. They weren’t the same every time, but close enough for him to judge risk versus reward. 

Was sneaking out to go for a bike ride in the middle of the night worth getting the shit beat out of him the next morning? Probably not. Was risking his life to steal an escape pod and get the hell out of dodge worth it? Definitely. Little things like that.

He stole a cow. He ran around all of Bezzar with Tubbo, running away from both Technoblade and the fox guy when they tried to catch him. He’s pretty sure he’s broken into at least three different buildings over the course of a few hours, and to top it all off, when Wilbur tried to get him back downstairs to talk things out, he jumped out a window and then kicked him in the face, screaming all the while. 

...It was self defense, maybe, but still. He doesn’t know what’s happening to him next. 

He doesn’t know what the punishment for him running away will be, he doesn’t know what Phil or Techno will do to him. Maybe he’ll get lucky, maybe they’re the Good Samaritan types and won’t care that the kid they stole is a bit of a flight risk. Maybe he’ll get a slap on the wrist and a don’t do it again, and off to Earth they’ll go.

Or, maybe, it’ll be worse.

What if they decide he’s not worth the trouble, what then? What if they hurt him? He’s not too worried about Phil, the guy looks brittle as shit, but he’s seen Technoblade bend metal with his bare hands. 

He just. Doesn't know. He has no frame of reference for how this kind of shit works in space, and that’s terrifying.

Tubbo kicks him under the table.

He jolts, whipping around to face him. He just smiles, though, and between the way his antennae droop down over his face and his big, sad eyes, he looks a bit like a scolded dog.

He doesn’t look worried, though. A bit guilty, maybe, but not worried. Not for himself, or for Tommy. If anything, he looks like he’s doing his best to look reassuring, and he won’t lie and say it’s not just a little comforting. He relaxes, but only a little.

Then, the front door opens. 

Well, not quite. A more accurate description would be, Phil practically breaks the door down.

Said alien bursts into the room in a whirlwind of flapping wings and feathers, Technoblade right on his heels. He barely has time to flinch before there are arms around his shoulders, wings wrapping around his back, and blonde hair in his mouth. 

He goes very, very still. What the fuck-

The hug only lasts for a second, just long enough to stun him into silence. Then, Phil’s pulling back, both hands still firmly on his shoulders as he looks over his face, blue eyes wide and worried. “You’re not hurt, are you? Bleeding anywhere?” 

Completely stunned, he slowly shakes his head no.

He sags a little, relief written all over his face as the grip on his shoulders loosens. “Thank the gods, we’ve been looking all over Bezzar for you two. You’re lucky Tubbo found you when he did.”

...He doesn’t look angry.

 There’s nothing written on his face but concern, and even that’s fading as he realizes Tommy’s not in any danger. He just looks… Frazzled, if anything. His hair’s mess under his hat, feathers all ruffled and sticking out in places. He gives his shoulders one last squeeze before he steps back out of his personal space, standing back up to his full height and tucking his wings back behind him. 

Only then does he let his gaze slip off of him to Technoblade. 

He’s leaning against one of the walls of the kitchen, arms crossed loosely over his chest. He still has his coat on, but now that they’re inside, the hoods down, tusks and messy braid on full display. His ruby gaze is even when it meets Tommy’s. He might just be projecting, but he swears he looks almost just as relieved to see him as Phil. 

“Fundy says he’s sorry.” He grunts. “Next time when I tell you to stay close, I’d appreciate it if you listened.”

He nods quickly, still not quite trusting himself enough to speak. His gaze flickers back and forth between the three of them warily, and he doesn’t move an inch from where he’s scrunched up on the chair, barely even letting himself breathe. 

There’s gonna be a catch. A punishment. Somewhere.

After a beat, Phil looks past him to Wilbur, and he blinks like he’s seeing him for the first time, eyebrows scrunching up again. “Wil, mate, what happened to your face?”

He winces. There it is. 

“Ask the fucking gremlin.” He huffs in response, holding Niki’s ice pack to his cheek and glaring at him again, eyes flashing. 

Immediately, Tommy bristles, rising to the bait. “You grabbed me first, it was self defense!”

“You were trying to jump out of a window!”

“I would’ve been fine!”

“Alright! That’s enough.” Phil interrupts, snapping out his wings for emphasis. Wilbur huffs again, still glaring, and Tommy shrinks back when Phil looks in his direction, going still again.

He waits for the catch. The slap. The punishment. Something. 

An uneasy silence settles over the table.

Everyone looks as exhausted as Niki. Tubbo looks especially uncomfortable, glancing worriedly between Wilbur, who looks like a disgruntled cat with its ears pinned back, and Tommy, who’s still trying to make himself look as small as possible in his seat. Phil has that gross concerned look on his face again, and Technoblade looks like he’d much rather be in bed by now. 

“It’s late.” Niki eventually says, her soft voice taking a knife to the tense silence. “We’ll discuss things in the morning. Tubbo, why don’t you show Tommy to your room? 

She gives him a look, her blue eyes the color of seaglass, “He has a long trip ahead of him tomorrow.”

He knows in an instant that the fake scales on his face haven’t fooled her for a second. He swallows. 

Tubbo doesn’t even notice, happy for the excuse to leave. He jumps up, tugging on Tommy’s sleeve. “This way.”

He goes without a fight, slinking out of the room with one last wary look at Phil. 

...They’ll be a punishment in the morning, he’s sure. Or maybe he’ll get lucky and they’ll just. Forget about it. Or something. If he’s careful to put himself between his friend and the adults at the table just in case, it’s no one's business but his. 

What he doesn’t notice is the way that the adults in the room glance at each other over his head the minute he turns the corner, or the way Wilbur shuffles guiltily in his seat.

-

Tubbo’s room is small.

It’s nice, but it’s not like his hideout. It’s impersonal, just like the spare room. A few belongings here and there, sure, but they’re all things that can be tossed in a bag and packed away at a moment's notice. There aren’t any posters on the walls or fairy lights dangling from the ceiling, there’s no laundry on the floor or books strewn about, and the dark blue curtains are drawn. 

It’s familiar in a way that makes him swallow hard and look down at his shoes. 

The bed takes up half of the room. It’s the messiest part, a nest of cozy looking blankets and pillows all piled up in the corner. It’s the only part that looks like Tubbo, and it’s huge. Both Technoblade and Phil could sleep on it comfortably without touching, wings included. 

“You can take the bed,” Tubbo says with a yawn, shuffling over to it. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Goes unsaid, but Tommy hears it just fine. 

“No it’s okay,” he responds, a little too quickly, “We’ll both fit.”

“You haven’t.” Also goes unsaid, but he takes the hint.

He turns when Tubbo shrugs off his sweaty jacket and undershirt in favor of something clean to sleep in, and does the same for Tommy when he changes. The thought of sleeping in one of Wilbur’s shirts makes him wince, and Tubbo offers one of his shirts instead without a word. It’s a little small, but it’s soft and smells good, like honey and sweetbread. He pulls it over his head without hesitation.

Tubbo turns off the light with the press of a button, and they collapse onto the bed in a heap. They’re both sore and exhausted, yawning sleepily as they burrow into pillows and blankets. Tubbo doesn’t even blink when Tommy climbs over him to sleep closest to the wall.

...He doesn’t move away when their shoulders brush, either, even though he’s got all the room in the world. 

They settle easily into each other’s space, just as they did before. It’s not nearly as stifling as he thought it would be, sleeping next to someone.

It’s… Nice. Warm. 

The room is dark with the curtains drawn, but once his eyes adjust, there’s just enough light creeping in to make out the outline of his face. Tubbo looks back at him sleepily, his antennae twitching. 

Then he blinks, once, twice, and frowns. 

“...Aren’t you gonna wash the grease off your face?” He mutters into the pillow.

And Tommy freezes. 

Wait a fucking minute. 

“You knew?”

Tubbo just rolls his eyes, “Well obviously.”

He sits up in a flash, suddenly very awake, and starts batting angrily at his shoulder. There’s no real force behind it, but it’s enough to shake him awake. “You didn’t say anything! You knew the whole time?!”

“Well not the whole time.” He just giggles. “You made it pretty obvious, though. It was funny!” 

Oh that is it!

He shoves him off the bed with one solid push. “My bed now, bitch.”

“Awww, c’mon!” Tubbo whines, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes from where he’s sprawled in a pile on the ground. “The floor is cold.”

He sticks out his tongue. “No, you suck- ow!”

Tubbo whacks him again with the pillow. “Take that! Oh wait no- ow!”

“Don’t shove me!”

“You shoved me first!”

Yeah, neither of them get much sleep that night. It’s alright, though. They’ll have plenty of time to sleep on the way. 

-

(And, later the next morning when Niki wakes them both up for breakfast, she pretends not to notice how they’ve fallen asleep together in a pile in the corner, Tommy hugging Tubbo to his chest like a teddy bear.

Tommy, in turn, leaves her a stolen flower from the neighbors balcony when she also pretends not to notice how suspiciously clean Tubbo has left his room, all his belongings packed neatly into bags. She doesn’t say a word to the others when Tubbo doesn’t come home for dinner that night. She doesn’t worry, either. 

She reads the letter he left her with a smile on her face. If there’s anyone in the galaxy who can find Ranboo, it’s Tubbo. 

She plays along for a while, too. Longer than he’d been expecting, actually. She only messages Phil about Tubbo’s mysterious disappearance well after they’ve left Bezzar, and can’t possibly turn back.

Her timing is perfect. Tommy could only keep him hidden in the kitchen air vents for so long. 

...The punishment never comes, by the way. Phil just tells him to go get him or Technoblade next time with a wink and a grin. Wilbur patches up the holes in his pants without a word, and that’s a good enough apology.

He still locks his door at night, but it’s. Progress. It’s progress. 

So, yeah, Tubbo is kind of a maniac. 

At the end of the day, though, Tubbo is his maniac now, and that’s all that really matters.)

Chapter Text

Tubbo makes a pretty good roommate, all things considered.

He’s had his fair share of shitty ones. Foster siblings who had no problem putting their greasy hands all over his shit when he wasn’t paying attention. Waking up to a foot in his face or a kick in the ribs was commonplace at a few of the group homes, and that’s just the other kids. The parents were just as bad, if not worse, with respecting his space, so having a door he could lock and a roommate who actually kind of liked him was just fucking weird. 

He doesn’t touch his things, he doesn't ask why he keeps most of his stuff safely hidden under his bed. He was just freed from the kitchen vents a few hours ago, and he’s already making himself at home on the floor, pulling shit out of his bags and spreading clothes everywhere like he owns the place.

...Tommy can’t quite find it in him to be mad. He’s still fucking exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster that was breakfast on the Argo II. 

They hadn’t gotten into as much trouble as he thought they would, really. He was expecting some kind of punishment and probably some sort of screaming match in there, too. Wilbur really had to pick the worst possible time to notice the dark shape looming in the large vent over the cabinets, in typical Wilbur fashion. Fucking dickhead. He probably did it on purpose, too. 

Anyways, he was on his feet in an instant to defend his new friend. Tubbo had risked his life to keep Tommy from being caught on Bezzar, the least he could do was try and return the favor. He was prepared to argue, at the very least, all wired up and ready to go. They’re fucking bonded , now, whether Phil likes it or not. Tommy-and-Tubbo, a package deal. He’d let them sell him back to the pet shop before he lets Tubbo go back to that abandoned building alone and empty-handed. 

It turns out, he didn’t need to. 

Wilbur had thought the entire thing was hilarious, and spent most of breakfast laughing his ass off. Technoblade had been making that chuff-chuff-chuff sound again, and he figures that probably as close to laughter as he gets, giving them both a disapproving look too fond to mean anything. All Phil had done once he got over the shock was sigh sharply through his nose before excusing himself from the table and going to call Niki.

(She’d known, obviously. She’s been in on the plan since they left. A crucial part, if you will.)

((Tubbo didn’t want to make her worry again.))

He’d come back a few minutes later and given them all a brief lecture on responsibility, and ship safety, and, I know you’ve become close friends, Tommy, but hiding him in the vents was incredibly unsafe. Blah blah blah, all boring stuff. The point was, Tubbo was allowed to stay.

Thank god. Sneaking him back on the ship a second time would have been a lot harder.

Like he said, they’d bonded. It was destiny, or some shit. They were already going on a fucking space roadtrip anyways, bringing him along to look for his missing friend just made sense. 

Now, after breakfast, he’d brought him back to his room. Locking the door, just in case.

They’d rescued all of Tubbo’s bags from the vents, leaving them haphazardly strewn across Tommy’s floor. He couldn’t find it in him to care, really, still buzzing with the aftershocks of the adrenaline rush. Besides, it’s not like they made his room look any worse. At Least it looks like someone actually lives here, now. 

His room is pretty sparse. A bed with a steel bed frame, a small bedside table and lamp, and a closet inset into the far wall. And that’s. About it.

Everything he owns fits neatly either in the borrowed bag over his shoulder or in the air vent under the bed, leaving the closet and bedside table drawer empty. It hadn’t really bothered him before, the emptiness was familiar enough, but he won’t lie and say that it doesn’t make the room feel… Cold. 

The fact that it’s made almost entirely out of metal probably doesn’t help. 

Then, Tubbo had descended upon his room in a whirlwind of sweatshirts and random junk thrown all over the place, and he’s more than content to sit back and let him do what he wants. 

He lays on his back on the bed, letting his head dangle off the end and his bandaged fingers fiddle with his comn. It’s been roughly three days since they’d left Bezzar, and between recovering from running across the entire moon in one night, dealing the emotional whiplash that came with it, and keeping Tubbo from being caught in the vents, he’d been busy. Too busy to mess with the stupid thing like he’d planned on doing the minute he laid eyes on it.

He’s got some of the buttons figured out. The on/off buttons and volume controls are obvious, and there’s definitely some kind of keypad and arrow buttons, but the rest is all labeled with a bunch of squiggles he can’t read. So, discovery through trial and error it is. He’s figured out the recording buttons this way already. 

It would be a lot easier if the stupid thing wasn’t busted to hell and back. The cracked screen is hard to read, and the clumpy tape holding together the bottom corner makes it awkward to hold. Figures that this was Wilbur’s old comn. He’d probably broken it on purpose, just to spite him.

...So, he might still be holding just the tiniest grudge against him from manhandling him back through a window. Whatever. The stupid fuck should know better than to just go around grabbing people. Those bruises on his wrists were just starting to heal, goddamn it, and then he had to go and make them worse. 

Tubbo shoves a bunch of wires under his nose. The clear bulbs attached make a concerning swishing sound when he shakes them for emphasis. “Yellow or purple?”

“The fuck are those?” He squints, nearly going cross-eyed trying to get a better look. “...You brought fairy lights?”

Tubbo blinks. “These are glow pearls. From Viona?”

“ Whatever. Glowy things on strings. Same thing.”

“...Right. So, yellow or purple?”

He swats at the hand in front of his face until Tubbo backs out of his personal space long enough for him to turn around and get a better look at the dumb things.

He holds them up like they’re Christmas lights, grinning all the while. “I dunno if they still work, they’re kind of old. Worth a shot, right? Which color do you like better?”

He squints again. “They’re the same color?”

“Well they are now. They won’t be when I turn them on.” He shakes them again, and they make that same swish swish noise as the shimmery liquid in each bulb swirls around. “So… Yellow or purple?”

He frowns. “Don’t you have any better colors?”

Tubbo just tilts his head, giving him a look as one of his antennas twitches. “I didn’t exactly get a lot of time to plan ahead.”

“...Point taken. Just,” he waves a hand towards the lights. “Do whichever color you like better, then.”

At that, he frowns harder. “But I wanna know what color you like better!”

“Why?”

“It’s your room too, isn’t it?”

Right. 

He shoots him a half-glare, but Tubbo isn’t fazed in the slightest. He holds both sets of lights in either hand, rocking on his heels as he waits for Tommy to make up his mind. Fuckimg. Fine. 

“...Do yellow.”

“Right!” Tubbo’s whole face lights up, before the beaming grin is replaced by something a little more sheepish. “...Mind helping me hang them up?”

He knew there was a catch somewhere. He knew it. Behind those big, duel-toned eyes and dopey grin there’s nothing but pure evil. 

He’s been manipulated from the very start. 

“Fine.”

-

Their room turns out pretty cool, actually. 

True to his word, Tubbo hadn’t packed too much in his rush to get onboard while Tommy distracted the rest of the crew. Apparently, he just happened to have fairy lights on hand, like the fucking maniac he is, and just enough stupid trinkets to make navigating their shared room a bit like crossing a mine field. Half of the stuff he’s brought is mostly just random sentimental junk, bottle caps, books, game cartridges, a few very obviously hand-made gifts, and a handful of “Authentic Earth Artifacts!” That he doesn’t have the heart to tell him definitely never actually came from Earth, and are clearly just. Junk. 

By about lunch time, though, everything’s pretty sorted out. There are a few shirts hung up in the closet, now, and the bed sports one or two more blankets than it did before. All of Tubbo’s little bits and bobs are picked off the floor, for the most part, and shoved in the bedside drawer, or littered across both the bed and the table instead of the floor. 

Finally, the lights.

Tubbo gives each of the little bulbs a violent shake, and they’re glowing a warm, buttery yellow in no time. They were probably made to mimic fairy lights, sure, but the end result is way cooler once they’re hung around the corners of the room.

The end result is a room that looks at least gently lived in, instead of completely barren, like before. The warm yellow glow of the lights is much better than the sharp blue overheads, or the shitty lamp. They glint nicely off of the metal walls, bringing out the little dents and imperfections, the stray screws and ridges where the panels weren't quite welded together the right way, done either by an idiot or someone in a hurry. 

The blankets help, too. And the books and game cartridges piled on the nightstand, and the little bits of junk that hadn’t quite made it to the drawer. The empty bags sitting by the door. 

They make the room feel almost. Cozy.

It’s.

 Nice.

It’s nice.

He and Tubbo both step back to admire their handy work, the latter sporting that same sunbeam smile, both eyes glowing. 

He’s got one of those smiles that can light up a whole room all by itself, no fairy lights needed. It only grows when he races to his nearly-empty bags, rummaging around furiously. “One last thing…”

“Tada!”, he holds up something clutched victoriously in one fist.

He leans in over his shoulder. “...What is that?”

It’s a rolled up poster, slightly crumpled from being shoved in the bottom of his bag, but mostly holding its shape. Tubbo wastes no time in falling to his knees and lovingly smoothing it out to its full size over the floor, getting rid of the folds and the wrinkles. 

“It’s a map!”

It’s not a map.

Or atleast, it’s not like any map he’s ever seen.

It’s fucking huge, for one, and not labeled. Instead of countries and continents, it depicts a bunch of different colored balls all floating in a black, star-speckled background. Planets. Eight in total, colors ranging from a vivid red to a dark, ashen gray, one of them, the largest, being fucking purple. There’s half of a star on the far end of the poster, like you’d see the sun on all those cheesy posters you’d find on science classroom doors of the planets in the solar system. 

“...Have you never seen a map of the Galaxy before?” Tubbo asks, eyes all big and curious. 

He huffs. “Not this galaxy.”

Tubbo blinks, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh. Right. Well.”

Then, he points to a large orange planet near the far end of the map. It’s got some weird clouds floating around it, reddish brown spots swirling artistically. He’s not pointing to the planet itself, but rather the tiny beige dot floating just outside of it, on the very, very edge of the map. “That’s Bezzar. It’s just about as close to the edge of the galaxy as you can get, unless you go to Lestea.”

Then, he adds in a comical stage whisper. “Lestea is awful. I wouldn’t go there, if I were you.”

He blinks. “Right. Obviously”

Tubbo moves on, pointing to the giant orange planet near Bezzar. “That’s Ihiri. It’s the closest to our galaxy's star, so it’s inhabited. Just a bunch of gas.”

He keeps on, pointing to the next three planets in rapid succession, each one only a little smaller than his fist. The first two are kind of clumped together near the top of the poster, one of them being a dusty rose color, the other a faded orange, and then to a lush green one towards the bottom. He starts with the one closest to Bezzar.

“That’s Netheria.” He explains. “It’s where Techno’s from, and the one right up by it is Nevodis. I’ve never been, obviously, but I’ve heard it’s super nice!” 

Then, to the bottom green planet. “That's T’aria! It’s mostly jungle, it’s supposed to be really pretty. Most of it’s empty, though.”

He moves on to the largest planet, depicted in an ugly grey and blue. “And There’s Viona! It’s the busiest planet, both Wilbur and Niki are from there!”

There’s another grey planet next to it, smaller, with hints of green. If it were any darker, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it, but something about it catches his eye. It might be the smallest planet, actually, somewhere between the bright purple one and Viona. Tubbo skips right over it on to the purple planet, pointing it out with a grin. 

“Finally, Enderion!” He finishes with a flourish. 

...He doesn’t seem to realize the mistake. Tommy frowns. 

“What about that one?”

The grin on his face slips, just a little, before he fixes it back in place. He turns back to the poster, but the same flourish he had before is gone. “That’s Aether. No one lives there anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything else, and the silence settles over them, cold and heavy as a lead blanket. 

“ anyways!” He bursts out all of a sudden, and the moment shatters. “The big council ship should be over here” he points, “for the meeting on Enderion, by the time we get there.”

He blinks and shakes it off. Weird. Okay. Touchy subject, apparently. Moving on. 

“What’s the meeting about?”

“All sorts of stuff! They have them once a year, great timing, huh? We should be there when it happens, with plenty of time to spare.”

At that, he relaxes. Plenty of time to spare. They’ll be there soon, then. Within the next year definitely.

He’s already spent more than a year in space? What’s a little more time? He’ll be fine.

He’ be fine. 

He settles criss-cross on the floor, looking over the map again. “Where do you wanna go the most?”

At that, Tubbo lights up even more, if it’s even physically possible. He presses up against Tommy’s shoulder as he leans over the map, pointing to the purple planet. “Enderion, definitely.”

“Enderion?” He parrots back, testing out the name on his tounge. 

“It’s where Ranboo’s from. Where they're originally from, I mean.” He continues, a fire in his eyes. “The others have looked just about everywhere else, except for Netheria. They always talked about going to Enderion anyways, so…”

He trails off, still staring at the map.

Right. Ranboo.

He didn’t know very much about Tubbo’s friend. They're tall, apparently, and ‘half endborn,’ whatever the fuck that means. Tubbo keeps saying that they’d like each other, once they meet.

Once being the keyword. Tubbo gets more determined to find them every passing day.

...He wants to ask what happened. From context clues, it sounds like one day they just up and vanished. Everyone seems pretty convinced they were kidnapped, though, and that makes sense from what he’s heard. Tubbo and them were close, and they don't seem the type to just leave one day without saying goodbye.

He’s heard whispers of an ‘exotic market’, from Technoblade and Phil. He hadn’t been meaning to eavesdrop, really, but it just. Happened.

...He really, really hopes Tubbo’s friend isn’t sitting in the back of a petshop somewhere. That shit sucks.

He points to the planet, Enderion, on the map. “Is it really purple?”

Tubbo laughs. “No, this is an old map. I’m pretty sure the planet’s volcanic, but I don’t know what it actually looks… Like…” 

He trails off as his eyes get big, some sort of realization hitting him all at once. He stiffens for just a second, before hopping up to his feet like he’s been struck by lightning. When he looks back at Tommy, there’s a familiar grin across his face, that same mischievous glint in his eye he’s come to both love and despise. When he reaches for Tommy’s hand, he knows better than to pull away. 

I want to show you something!” He tugs him to his feet, already heading towards the door. Here we go again. “ Follow me!”

-

“Aren’t we going to get in trouble?”

Tubbo just huffs, tugging him further into the bridge. “Phil’s a big pushover, I doubt he’ll care. Besides, we’re not messing with anything! We’re just looking at the map.”

He gives Tubbo a doubtful look, but gives in.

The bridge is his favorite part of the ship. The windows that cover the front of it are huge, proudly displaying the pitch black of space, mostly void, partially stars, occasionally galaxy. It’s breathtaking still, even after he’s already seen it a dozen times. Just the pure blackness, darker than anything he’s ever seen before, the deadly void of space greedily pressing right up against the glass, all too happy to swallow all of them whole if it gets the chance.

Tubbo isn’t looking out the windows, though. He’s dragging Tommy up to the control panel that Phil usually steps up too, already pressing buttons and typing on the keypad, quick fingers gliding skillfully over the keys. 

Christ. They might be friends, sure, but he’s not taking the fall if they get in trouble over this. 

It’s lunch time, so the rest of the crew should be busy in the kitchen. He hardly ever leaves his room for lunch, so they probably won’t blink twice at his absence, much less come looking for them. He looks over his shoulder every few seconds, anyways. 

Just in case.

“Here we go!”

He looks back, and his breath catches in his throat.

Hovering in the center of the bridge is a planet . Its a dusty orange hologram, about four times the size of a beach ball. It spins slowly, the projection flickering every few seconds.

It’s incredibly detailed. He can make out everything, the clouds of dust floating off of the surface, the faint glint of steel on the planet's buildings. No, the moon's buildings. He’d recognize that city anywhere after having spent all day running from one end to the other. The sharp, chaotic ridges and dips that make up the mis-matched skyline, the silver ships darting in and out like bees around a hive. The lights that stretch across it, glimmering like golden blood veins. Bezzar.

“Woah.” He breathes out.

Tubbo just laughs. “Cool, huh?” 

‘Cool’, didn’t even begin to cover it. This shit was fucking pogchamp! He has to ball his hands into fists by his sides to keep from reaching out and touching it, the urge to try and trace the tops of the buildings ridiculously strong. It looks so real, even though it’s a little see-through. Like he could just reach out and grab the little space ships in his hands. 

Tubbo wasn’t done yet, though. He keeps messing with the buttons and the keypad, his tongue poking out of his lips as he focuses. He explains as he types. “This is the ship's navigator, it’s super advanced! One of the best out there. It can show you just about any planet you can think of, and how to get there!”

Wait a minute.

“ Any planet?” He parrots, and the hologram flickers once before disappearing.

It’s replaced by something dark purple. 

“ Any planet!” Tubbo confirms, turning to him with a beaming smile. “Or just about, anyways. This is Enderion.”

For a moment, he just stares. 

It’s fucking huge, for one thing, nearly three times the size the Bezzar projection had been. It’s more of a perfect sphere than the small moon had been, so rough skyline poking out from the edges.

He can make out darke shapes and ridges, when he leans close. Some parts of the planet a light lavender, others almost pitch black, blending into the rest of the bridge behind it. While Bezzar had seemed alive, buzzing with light and activity, Enderion just seems… Cold. Cold and still, gently rotating in front of them. There’s no light sparkling on the surface, no signs of activity at all, actually. It’s almost eerie. 

Tubbo grins at it, though, that same fire in his eyes. “Cool, huh? Apparently it was a volcano a really long time ago, so that’s why parts of it are black. The rest is just sand. It's a shame the hologram is just all purple.”

“Huh.” He breathes out. 

It flickers once, and then it’s gone.

Tubbo is on a roll, now, typing up a storm on the keypad. His tongue pokes out a little from his teeth while he works, both antenna twitching gleefully. 

“Wanna see something really cool?” He says, with one final press of a button. “Check this out!”

It’s replaced by something blue.

The grin on his face shatters into a million pieces. His breath stutters in his chest, the blood in his veins going cold. 

Suddenly, he can’t move. 

It’s Earth.

The hologram paints it in a hundred different shades of dusty blues, from cobalt to arctic. He can see everything, the oceans, the continents. The wispy clouds that float and swirl across its surface as it rotates in front of him, close enough to reach out and touch. 

Everything is in perfect detail, the ridges of the mountains, the glimmer of its own white lights, stretching across the surface like a crystallized spiderweb. There’s even the moon, spinning slowly around it in time, and he can catch the faint sheen of the smaller satellites that hover closer to the surface.

The color might be off, sure, but still. It’s Earth.

Home.

...The shitty public school he’d gone to is on there, somewhere. The even shitter small town he’d lived in. Every foster home he’s ever been to, every kid who’s ever pushed him around. Clem and Clara’s gas station on the edge of town, that awful little arcade he’d spent every quarter in. The hospital he knows like the back of his hand. His uncle's grave that he’d only visited once. 

Every movie he’s ever watched. Every sunset he’s ever seen. Every bus he’s ever ridden, everyone he’s ever bumped into on the street. His own parents' graves, all the way across the ocean.

All of it. The entirety of the first sixteen years of his life, all wrapped up in one neat little blue ball. A little blue ball he’s currently thousands upon thousands of miles from. 

Isn't that a funny thought? 

Tubbo brushes against his arm, and the memories all scatter. “Tommy? Are you alright?”

He’s not laughing. 

“I’m fine.” He snaps instinctively, flinching away from the hand that had hesitantly touched his arm. He tries to ignore the flash of surprise that crosses his friends’ face, but he feels it like a kick to the stomach. 

“I think I’m gonna.” He swallows. “I think I’m gonna go. Take a nap.”

“Oh.” Tubbo just blinks. “Oh, okay! I’ll just…”

He’s out of the room and down the hall before he hears the rest of the sentence. 

-

“-find him anywhere!”

The Bezzarian standing in the office doorway looks frazzled. Eyes wide and panicked, both antennae standing on end. Both of his hands are nervously fidgeting the sleeves of his jacket. 

The Elytran standing on the other side of the doorway just blinks. “I’m sorry?”

“Tommy!” The Bezzarian bursts out, looking like he’s about to cry. “I can’t find him anywhere! I was showing him the map in my room and he thought it was cool so I showed him the navigation system on the bridge but then I think I did something wrong and now he’s upset and he said he was going to go take a nap but he’s not in our room and now I can’t find him anywhere!”

Elytran blinks again, processing. “You can’t find him?”

“No!”

“...Right.” He sighs, looking a little relieved that it’s not a bigger emergency. “The ship’s only so big, mate, and he didn’t eat lunch. He’ll turn up when he gets hungry.”

“B-but,” the Bezzarian blubbers. “I think I hurt his feelings. What if I did something super offensive to humans but I didn’t know! What if he hates me now?!”

“Mate, I’m sure he doesn’t hate you-“

“But you don’t know-“

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you.” A pause. “You’re the only one he let’s touch him, you know. He’s really bonded to you. It’ll be fine.”

Another pause as the Bezzarian considers this. He seems to come to some sort of realization, and his antenna droop with relief. “...You’re right. Thanks Phil.”

The Elytran grins, “Sure, mate. In the meantime why don’t you go tell the others to keep an eye out-“

-

Tommy’s hungry.

His stomach complains loudly, but he ignores it, scrunching himself up into an even smaller ball.

The cargo hold is a great place for sulking.

First of all, it’s cramped as shit. The front space had to be cleared away to make room for Wilbur’s bike, leaving everything else all piled up in the back. Giant boxes and shelves full of who knows what fill just about every available space, making navigating through it a fucking nightmare. Not only is it a maze, but he’d left the lights off when he decided to come down here, leaving him in almost pitch-black darkness. He can barely see his hand in front of his face, and that’s after he’s been down here long enough for his eyes to adjust.

It's better this way, though. If he can barely see anything, it means no one will be able to see him either. Camouflage, and shit. 

He’s crammed himself between two boxes in the back corner. He’s still scrawny as shit, so it’s pretty easy to move through all the mess. All he has to do is feel the distance with his hands first, then squeeze himself through. What’s that one saying about cats? That they can only go into spaces as wide as their whiskers? Like that but better. 

Through feeling around in the dark, he found the perfect little corner for sulking in.

Wonderful.

…

...He’s fine . He just.

He just needs  a minute, s’all. He’ll be back up there with Tubbo in no time.

No time at all.

…

...It’s stupid.

He knows it’s stupid.

It’s not that he doesn’t want to be with Tubbo, he does! He likes the guy, and all of his weird alien-ness, and the new room set up is awesome . 

He hasn’t felt this comfortable with someone else in a long, long time. It’s great! 

Hell, he’s even starting to warm up a little more to the other members of the crew, including Wilbur, no matter how much of a dick he is.

But still. Still.

He misses Earth.

He misses pizza, and cheap arcade candy. He misses the rush of sneaking out of his foster home at night to climb on the roof and count constellations he actually recognizes. He misses cheesy action movies and thunderstorms, riding his bike to clear his mind, hot chocolate with whip cream and cinnamon. He misses hopping the neighbors fence, and carving his name into the awful detention desks just to piss the teachers off. 

He misses the gas station, more than anything. He misses the smell of grease and gasoline that always seemed to stick to Clara’s faded overalls, he misses Clem’s bubbly laugh and the hair clips she’d let him borrow. 

He misses familiarity.

That’s it, right there. The root of the problem. 

It’s not that he doesn’t like space, he does! Bezzar was awesome, Tubbo is great, hell, even the others aren’t that bad. but it’s all just. It's a lot. 

He has a door he can lock, sure, and a cargo hold to hide in maybe, but he still can’t get away from it all. 

Not really. 

The reality of the situation. The new scars that mar his skin, the still-fading bruises and the nightmares that won’t go away. No matter what, he’s still stuck with those. He has a fucking brain implant, for fucks sake! The new scars might as well be fucking brands, for how much they serve as an unpleasant reminder of just how far he is from being just. 

Just Tommy. 

Tommy, the foster kid. Tommy, the kid with the crooked, thrice-broken nose and a loud mouth. Tommy, the kid who spends more of his time at a shitty gas station than at the newest foster home. Tommy, who’s used to angry words and bruises, sure, maybe the occasional broken rib or nose, maybe. But nothing worse. 

Now, though? 

Now he's Tommy, the first human ever to be in this galaxy. 

He’s experienced literal torture. He still sees his mask in his dreams, most nights. Hears his voice in the back of his head. He’s been through shit so awful most of it he doesn’t even remember , but he knows it happened because of all the fucking scars! He’d almost been sold at a fucking pet shop!

He just. 

He wants to go home. 

Even if there’s nothing waiting for him there. He just wants to go back to when things made sense .

He curls up even tighter, pressing his knees to his chest and hissing his face in his arms. His stomach rumbles again, and he just shoves the feeling down. He’ll go up soon. In a little while.

He just. Needs a minute. That’s all.

Just a minute.

Then, a loud bang! Shakes the wall behind him.

Whelp, minutes over.

Immediately he flinches, whipping around as his breathing picks up. What the fuck? What was that?!

It doesn’t happen again, and slowly, he lowers himself back against the wall. He presses an ear against it to try and hear anything else, and is met with the faint sounds of hooves clipping against the steel floor, the ringing shink of metal-on-metal. 

Right. He’s in the back of the cargo hold, pressed against the far wall. That must mean Technoblade’s training… Deck? Room? Whatever, is behind him.

...He’s never actually been there, now that he thinks about it.

In fact, he doesn’t think he’s ever even seen a way to get there. The latch to the cargo hold is easy enough to find, but he doesn’t remember seeing anything else like it.

Is it hidden somewhere? 

Why the fuck would he do that? This ship has just him, Phil, and Wilbur on it before they picked him and Tubbo up, and he seems to trust both of them. Why go through all the trouble of hiding something like that?

...Maybe he’s got some super secret fighting moves he doesn’t want the others to steal, or something. Or cool laser guns.

Now that has him scrambling to his feet.

He needs a distraction, and the thought of getting his hands on cool laser guns definitely counts. Finding the stupid training room should help keep his mind off it, anyways. If nothing else. 

There has to be an entrance to it around here somewhere. It would make the most sense, right? If he can hear him through the wall, he must be super close. Besides, Technoblade is fucking huge, he’d have to clear a whole path from the latch to the door if he wanted to get to it this way. All he has to do is feel around for a clearing, and then follow it all the way up to the door. Easy peasy.

The thought of finding his cool hidden training deck beats moping around any day. 

Awesome laser guns, here he comes.

-

“-do you want?”

The Phantling leans in his doorway, arms crossed. He’s got his glasses on, pushed up his nose, and his hair flops over half of his face. He takes one look at the Bezzarian in front of him, and frowns. 

The Bezzarian just grins up at him, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet. “I need your help.”

He gives him a look . “What do you need me for? Can't you just go bother Phil?”

“No, I need your help.”

“What do you need my help for?”

At that, the Bezzarian deflates, but only a little. The look in his eyes is sincere. “I think I upset Tommy, so I wanna make it up to him.”

The Phantling just looks at him again, taken aback. He blinks. “And you need me for this, why?”

“Well, you have to apologize to him too, so…” The Bezzarian says, rocking on his heels. 

A sneer splits the Phantlings face. “I already apologized.”

The Bezzarian blinks. “No you didn’t.”

“Yes I did!” He snaps. “I fixed the rips he made in the pants I lent him, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but then you threw them at him.”

“It counts!”

“Well, he’s still mad at you.” The Bezzarian rocks on his heels again. “So, if you help me, he’ll be less mad at both of us.”

The Phantling just stares at him for a second, deliberating. Finally, he comes to some sort of conclusion, and sighs deeply out through his nose. 

“...Fine.”

The Bezzarians' satisfied grin is blinding. “Great! So I was thinking-“

-

It takes him a lot longer than he thought it would to find the latch.

First, he checks the rest of the cargo hold. He doesn’t find any hidden doors or latches down there, and nothing to suggest any sort of path from the opening of the cargo hold to that wall. So, he climbs back up the ladder and sneaks on over to Technoblade’s room, instead.

He’s careful. He steps lightly and quickly, peering around every corner beforehand. He doesn’t see any sign of Tubbo, and the lights in both Wilbur’s room and Phil’s office are on, so he takes it as an ‘all clear’ and slips down the hall.

...He hesitates in front of his door for a little longer than he’d like before moving on. 

He’ll apologize to Tubbo later, he decides. After he finds Technoblade’s cool secret room. Hell, he’ll even take him down and show him if it makes him feel better. He’ll make it up to him for running out like that. 

He keeps on.

Technoblade’s door is unlocked, thank god, and he slips inside the room, quickly closing it behind him.

...He’s never actually been in here before, now that he thinks about it.

He made sure that he was still in the secret room before coming up here, so surely there was no harm in getting a quick look around while he was here. 

He switches on the lights.

Holy shit.

It’s… Not what he expected.

He doesn’t really know what he was expecting, actually. Probably something bland, maybe a skull or two hanging from the wall. He didn’t really pin him as the type to hoard shit like Tubbo. Maybe a bookshelf for his Greek Mythology obsession? Something weird and nerdy like that. 

What he finds is something. Cozy.

The bed is in the corner of the room, and it’s piled so high with furs and blankets that he can barely tell it’s a bed at all. There are bookshelves, like he thought, but a dresser too, complete with a floor length mirror. 

There is so much shit. 

The bookshelves are absolutely packed with books of all sizes, some small enough to fit in his pocket, some longer than his arm. There are trinkets filing every available surface, pins, jewelry, small figurines, fucking crowns, what the hell?

The dresser is lined with tons and tons of colorful bottles, all shapes and sizes. Some of them look more like perfume bottles, while others fizzle and bubble in their glass containers. He gives them a wide berth has he scopes out the room, swallowing the urge to open one and sniff it. The absolute last thing he needs is to break one and spill shit all over the expensive-looking furs at his feet. No thank you.

He steps deeper into the slowly, investigating. He has the same inset closet as Tommy does, the only difference being his is absolutely packed with clothes. There’s even a fucking cape hanging off of the mirror. Jesus Christ.

He steps on the fluffy pelt of something as he goes further into the room, and tries not to wince. He doesn’t touch anything, he doesn’t! He won’t lie and say the urge isn’t there, though. If he wasn’t so sure Technoblade would strange him, he’d be filling his pockets. The man is loaded! There’s golden jewelry on his nightstand, and glimmering green emeralds just sitting there! Hundreds upon thousands of dollars of jewelry, just chilling on his dresser-

No , Tommy. Focus. Secret room. Cool laser guns.

He does a slow circle in the middle of the room. If he was a giant pig, where would he hide a trapdoor? 

It’s not around the bed or hidden under the dresser, he even pulls a few of the books out of his bookshelf to see if they trigger anything, to no avail. Technoblade doesn’t really seem like the type of guy to hide a trap door like a Scooby-Doo villain. 

He doesn’t exactly look like the kind of guy to wear perfume and sparkling earrings, either. So, it was worth a shot.

In the end, the answer is hilariously simple.

He finds it under the fur he had stepped on when he first walked into the room.

He shoves it aside on a whim and snorts. Really, Techno? He couldn’t have thought to be a little more creative in hiding the trapdoor to his cool secret room? For shame .

It takes a little bit to open. He doesn’t struggle too much, because he’s a big man, goddamn it, but it’s pretty obviously meant for someone a bit more like Technoblade, and a bit less like Tommy. He really has to put his back into it, but eventually, he gets the stupid thing open, hefting it up on creaking hinges. 

There’s a ladder, because of course there is. He takes a deep breath, and down he climbs.

-

He hears him before he sees him.

The clanging of metal is a lot louder down here, echoing off the close walls. There’s panting too, the clipping of hooves and the occasional grunt as Technoblade does something. 

He lowers himself to the ground slowly.

It’s bigger than he thought it would be. Maybe that’s just because of how empty it is.

The walls are bare, crude metal, just as badly else’s together as his room is. There are a few leather bags stuffed with something that looks a little bit like hay, training dummies, he assumes, slumped against the back wall, a handful closer to the ladder. There are a few targets laid haphazardly with them, big blue bulls-eyes painted in the center, and shelves along the far wall. There are keypads, too, which obviously open something, but he’s not going to risk opening them up to find out. 

In the middle of it all is Technoblade, absolutely gutting  a training dummy.

His back is to Tommy, and he takes the opportunity to scramble over to the rest of the training dummies slumped against one wall, practically throwing himself behind them. 

He doesn’t seem to notice, not a glance or an ear flicking in his direction as he attacks the dummy again, braided pink hair whipping behind him as he lunges. He makes it almost a dance , darting in and out around the dummy like it’s a real opponent, hooves clipping against the floor. It’s mesmerizing to watch, the way he holds and moves the blade like it’s nothing more than an extension of his arm, effortlessly slicing and stabbing into the cloth and straw. 

He’d been expecting laser guns, sure. Or some other cool, futuristic weapon, something that glows neon colors or shoots sparks. Now that he’s watching him, though, he can’t tear his eyes away. 

The sword he’s holding is absolutely beautiful. Nearly as long as Tommy’s arm, over a foot of pure, gleaming metal with a gilded handle. It cuts through the training dummy's cloth body like it’s made of butter, the straw and sand that fill up its insides pouring out into the floor. He’s not done yet, though, and barely pauses to wipe the sweat from his brow as he stabs into it again and again, blocking its imaginary advances as he goes in for the kill.

The ruthlessness makes him shiver. He does not want to find himself on the other end of that blade, no thank you- 

“I know you’re there.” Technoblade grunts, effortlessly tugging the sword from the dummy’s chest. “You can come out now.”

Aw, fuck.

He glances at the ladder, but it’s no use. Technoblade has turned in his direction, now, resting the sword on his shoulder as he raises an eyebrow at the dummy Tommy’s crouching behind. 

He’s cornered. Caught red handed. He might as well come out with his hands up now, while they’re still attached to his body.

He creeps out from behind the dummy slowly, still keeping the ladder in the corner of his eye, just in case. He watches the sword Technoblade is holding carefully, “Uh. ‘Ow do?”

He gets an unimpressed stare in return. “Tubbo’s looking for you.”

Of fucking course he is. He winces. “I figured.”

He hums. “Are you two fighting or somethin’?”

“What? No!”

“He thinks you’re mad at him.” Technoblade deadpans, and Tommy blanches.

Mad at Tubbo? He wasn’t mad at Tubbo! He just. Needed a minute to collect himself, s’all. A little bit of alone time. In the cargo hold. By himself. Alone. 

“Well I’m not.” He finally stammers out.

Technoblade doesn’t look convinced. He doesn’t look unconvinced, either, which just makes things even more difficult. The deadpan resting expression he has is so fucking hard to get a good read on. He doesn’t look mad about him being in his secret training room, though, even though he had to fumble around in his room to find it. Well, he doesn’t yell at him or demand for him to leave, which he takes as him being ‘not mad’. 

Instead he just shifts, his tufted tail swishing around his ankles as he moves the sword from his shoulder. In one swift move he twirls it in his hand until the grip is facing Tommy. “Take it.”

For a solid five seconds, he just gapes. “What?”

“Practice.” Technoblade just grunts. “If you’re gonna be mopin’ down here anyways, you might as well help me train.”

He hesitates, and then, he looks him in the eyes. Really looks at him. 

...Technoblade wouldn’t offer to train with him as an excuse to just beat the shit out of him, right? He used to this kind of bait, the older kids in the foster home offering to play something dumb like kickball with him just to sock him in the face at the earliest opportunity. Surely Phil wouldn’t let him actually hurt him, right? Besides, Technoblade isn’t some snot-nosed brat with nothing better to do, surely he wouldn’t pull something like that.

Surely . 

That stupid deadpan look on his face doesn’t give up any insight to what he’s thinking, so it’s hard to tell for sure. He hesitates. 

“It’s blunt.”

His rough voice brings him out his thoughts, and memories of cruel laughter and the taste of blood and rubber in his mouth fade. He blinks, “What?”

“I don’t train with real swords.” He explains gruffly, and the knowing look in his ruby red eyes makes him bristle. “These are all blunt. Take it.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” is left unsaid, but Tommy hears it clear enough. He nods. 

He takes the sword.

-

“-Check on Techno and Tommy for me? They didn’t come up for dinner- oh.”

The Elytran stops abruptly in the hallway, just before he turns the corner. The Phantling and the Bezzarian sitting cross-legged on the floor of the bridge don’t even notice his presence.

The Phantling holds an instrument in his hands. It’s remarkably similar to a guitar in both shape and tan color, with a sprawling flower decal up and down one of the sides. He frowns as he plucks out a tune, repeating notes until he gets it just right.

The Bezzarian on his other side clasps his hands together with a cheer. “It sounds great Wil!”

“You think so?” He says back, a little sheepish. “You don’t think it sounds rushed?”

“I think it sounds great! Really pogchamp!”

The Phantling blinks, mystified. “Pogchamp?”

“It’s human slang.” The Bezzarian proudly explains. “It means really, really cool.”

“Oh. Pogchamp.” He repeats slowly, feeling out the shape of the words in his mouth. He flushes, just a little, ducking his head. “Thanks.”

The Bezzarian leans up against his shoulder. “...Could you play it again?”

He laughs, but his fingers start strumming.

The Elytran watches, quietly for a few moments, the grin on his face only growing, before quietly turning on his heel and leaving them to it.

When he comes back a few moments later, arms laden with all of the pillows and blankets he can carry, the music is still playing. Only now, two voices have joined in, happily singing along.

-

It turns out Technoblade is a big fan of learning on the job. 

He barely gave him any explanation before he lunged, leaving Tommy scrambling to get out his way. They’ve been at this for what feels like ages, now, leaving him grinning and breathless as he faces down his opponent from the other side of the room. Technoblade doesn’t seem nearly as winded, the prick, but there’s a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth. He bares tusks without any real heat behind it, and he twirls his own sword with more of a flourish than necessary. Show off. 

“That’s, what?” Tommy pants out, “Two to three? I’ve got you on the ropes, big man!”

“One to three.” He corrects with another twirl. Cocky bastard.

He levels his sword at his broader chest in challenge. “Oh it is on-“

“Techno?”

They both pause.

From up the ladder, Phil’s voice rings out again. “Your foods getting cold, mate!”

Tommy grimaces. He knew he’d forgotten something, he didn’t realize how much he was fucking starving until Phil mentioned food. Damn, had he really missed both lunch and dinner? Had they really been down here for that long? 

He’s sweaty and sore, and he just knows there’s a new bruise or two forming on his ribs. He doesn’t care, though. What’s one more to the collection? He can barely even feel them, the rush of adrenaline still thrumming in his veins. They hurt, sure. Hell, all of him hurts, but it’s a good kind of pain. That bone-deep ache of exhaustion you only get after a really good work out. He needs a shower and a nap, but by the way his stomach’s growling, he should probably eat before he does either. 

Technoblade seems to come to the same conclusion. Tommy tosses him the training sword when he reaches out for it, and he catches it easily. He gives both of them one last twirl before setting them both in their hooks on the wall. 

“Go on up.” He gestures to the ladder with a toss of his head. “I’ll finish cleaning up down here.”

Oh. Right. The straw and sand guts of the training dummies they’d obliterated litter the floor, it looks like a goddamn massacre. Technoblade still has bits of hay still stuck in his braid, the beginnings of a bruise forming under his eye where Tommy had been a little careless. Once he starts going for the broom, though, Tommy knows it’s time to get out of there.

He pauses, though. Once he’s about half way up the ladder. He. He really needed that. The distraction, the exercise. 

 “...Thanks.”

Technoblade looks up from where he’s just started to attack the mess they’d made with the broom, looking almost startled. He ducks his head, but Tommy catches the fond look in his eyes, anyways. “Don’t mention it.”

Up the ladder he goes.

-

The kitchen is empty when he arrives, stomach growling.

He still creeps into it slowly, anyways. He didn’t pass anyone in the hall on the way over, and the sudden silence is a little bit eerie. He’d expected to find at least Phil sitting at the table, but no. Empty. 

...He hadn’t stopped by his room to check if Tubbo had been there.

He’s not avoiding him, he’s not. The sooner he tells him he’s not mad, the better, really. He’s just hungry , goddamn it. That conversation can wait until he has a full stomach. 

There are two plates waiting on the table. One with the meaty leg of some kind of animal with a side dish of what he swears looks and smells just like a baked potato, and the other with a bowl of warm apple sauce-mush and a side of fruit. He leaves the meat and the baked potato for Technoblade, and wastes no time in taking his seat and digging in.

The mush never disappoints, and the fruit looks harmless enough. It’s bright red with about the size and texture of an apple, and he bites right into it without hesitation. It tastes a little bit like a weird mix of strawberries and watermelon. Not bad.

He’s long-since decided that the crew isn’t going to poison him. Except for maybe Tubbo. He swears, the aftertaste of that awful fruit he’d been given back on Bezzar is still lingering in the back of his mouth. Blegh. He eats fast. 

...Eating alone feels a little weird, though. And it’s so quiet.

Where the hell is everyone?

Once he’s finished, he decides he should probably go find them. Or atleast Tubbo. He needs to… Apologize? Or something? To tell him that he doesn’t hate him, at the very least, that’s probably a good start. Even though it should be obvious. He’s seen the scar on Wilbur’s hand from their first meeting, right? If he didn’t like him, he’d make sure Tubbo knew . 

Geez, friendships are a lot of work.

He slips out of the kitchen and back towards the rooms. Then, approaches his room like it’s a wild animal about to jump out and bite him. 

What should he even say? “Hey, Tubbo, I don’t hate you. I just got a little bit freaked out thinking about how far away I am from everyone I used to know and the life I used to have, and how it’ll never be that way again. Please don’t be mad at me, I don’t have any other friends. Except for maybe Technoblade, who might be my friend now that we’ve beaten each other up with swords. It’s still a little unclear.” 

No, that’s stupid. Scratch that.

He’ll just… Say that he doesn’t hate him. Maybe he can make up an excuse or something for why he left? Probably . 

No use beating around the bush. He needs to get it over with, to face his problems like a man.

He takes a deep breath and knocks.

...There's no answer.

“Tubbo?” He calls out hesitantly, knocking again. “You in there, big man?”

Nothing.

Then.

“I’m in here!”

Tubbo’s voice hadn’t been coming from within the room, though, it’d come from down the hall, from the bridge. 

He hesitates, again. Man, he really doesn’t want to look at that stupid Earth hologram again. On the other hand, though, he’d been avoiding Tubbo for long enough. A voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Clara’s tells him to just get it over with! Rip off the band-aid.

He slinks down the hall.

He drags his feet all the way down the hall, turning the corner slowly and scuffing his boots on the ground the whole way. The moment he looks up from his feet, though, he freezes .

There’s Tubbo, alright. There’s also Wilbur, Phil and Technoblade.

The bridge had been completely transformed. 

Just about every goddamn blanket and pillow he thinks he’s ever seen on the ship has been dragged up here. The shitty couch from the “break room,” as Phil stubbornly calls it, has been dragged to one side, as well as a few extra chairs from god knows where. There are blankets and pillows over absolutely everything, the couch, the floor, the seats near the control panels at the front. Tubbo had even brought out the fucking fairy lights, the yellow ones, making everything look like something straight out of a hallmark movie.

And he’s not even mentioning the rest of the ship's crew.

Technoblade is sitting on the floor in new, non-sweaty clothes, pajamas, most likely. He’s leaning with his back against the couch, head tilted back and eyes shut. Tubbo is sitting right behind him, happily messing with his long, unbound pink hair without a care in the world. He seems to be trying to go for some sort of complicated braid, complete with little golden hair clips. 

Phil is on his other side, one wing wrapped around Tubbo’s shoulders as he dozes against the side of the couch, sleepily grinning at whatever he was happily chatting about.

Then, finally, Wilbur.

He’s sitting criss-cross on the floor, not far from Technoblade. In his lap, though, is a guitar.

Well, not really. It looks like what you would get if someone saw a guitar once and tried to create it from memory. It has the same general shape, the body is made from some sort of dark tan wood, with dark, glossy accents. And, along one side, is a sprawling flower decal, glittering in the fairy lights.

He didn’t hear it, at first, but now that he’s looking he can make it out. Strumming, melodical and faint. Music.

They look happy. Comfortable in each other’s presence, brushing elbows and casually touching one another like it means nothing at all. He knew that Tubbo had known them for a while, it’d been obvious, but seeing him so at ease with the rest of the crew is. Different. 

With warm, yellow fairy lights strung up over their heads, purple blankets and stray pillows over everything, and the entirety of space spread out behind them in the windows. All set to the gentle strumming of Wilbur’s guitar.

It’s like something from a dream. 

Then, Tubbo looks up, and their eyes lock. The grin he gets in response is brighter than any star he’s ever seen.

“Tommy!” He calls, waving him over excitedly. He pats the seat next to him on the couch with vigor. “Come sit!”

Everyone else looks up when he speaks, even Technoblade cracking open an eye to glance in his direction. Phil grins invitingly, moving his wing slightly off of Tubbo’s shoulder so he could slide in next to him on the couch. Even Wilbur looks up for a moment, though he quickly goes back to fidgeting with the instrument in his lap.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he creeps over. Tubbo’s expression doesn’t change, he doesn’t look angry or upset with him. He just looks… Happy. Even happier once Tommy settles down next to him on the couch.

“Wilbur’s gonna play us a song!” He whispers excitedly right in his ear, twirling a lock of bubblegum pink hair around his finger. 

“A full audience.” Phil jokes from Tubbo’s other side. He gives Tommy a soft smile from over the top of Tubbo’s head, and he doesn’t flinch when he feels warm feathers brushing against the backs of his shoulders. “We’re ready when you are, mate.”

Wilbur hums in acknowledgment, not looking up. He looks… Soft, in this lighting. With the big yellow sweater and the beanie, hair flopping over the side of his face, big round glasses perched on his nose. His skin shifts ever so slightly in the light, and his fingers are long and graceful where they rest on the guitar. A lot less like a dickheadish than normal.

Then, he starts to play.

His fingers move expertly along the neck of the guitar, plucking out a tune that rises and falls, each individual string ringing out. Tommy finds himself relaxing at the sound of it, the instrument sounding just enough like a guitar to be familiar. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s just another song he’s hearing on the radio, or from a record. 

His voice is soft when he starts to sing.

“That cute bomber jacket you’ve had since sixth form, adorned with patches of places you’ve been…”

It’s a rusty, lyrical sort of voice, fitting to the instrument he plays. It rises and dips along with the song, with just enough imperfection to be comforting. 

“ ...Has nothing on my khaki coat that I got from a roadside, when I was sixteen…” 

It’s… Sad. Sadder than he thought it would be. A lonely sort of song.

When he finds himself leaning slightly against Tubbo’s shoulder, he doesn’t bother moving away. When he feels the press of the backs of Technoblades shoulders against his legs, he doesn’t bother kicking him off. Tubbo offers him a blanket somewhere between the second song and the third, and he takes it without hesitation. 

He’s tired and sore, and the wing that presses comfortably against his back is warm, the blanket he’s sharing with Tubbo thick and soft. His friend is warm, too, where they’re pressed up against each other’s shoulders, and the contact doesn’t make him itch or squirm. It feels. Nice.

Somewhere in the middle of the fourth song, Tubbo whispers in his ear. “I’m sorry.”

He’s half asleep when he says it, and muzzily blinks himself awake. “Huh?”

His friend isn’t looking at him. He’s still finishing up the complicated braid he’s made in Technoblade’s hair, the man himself completely passed out against both of their legs. He’s making some sort of rumbling noise in his sleep, snoring? Purring? Whatever, it’s soothing.

“I upset you.” He mutters, adding another golden clasp. “I didn’t mean to make you run off. ‘M sorry.”

Oh. Oh.

He’s fully awake in an instant, sitting up and shaking his head slightly to clear the last of sleepiness away. The lights have dimmed, at this point, the side of his friend's face is only just visible with the help of the fairy lights. Wilbur doesn’t even notice them, still softly singing along as he plucks out another song.

“You didn’t- I wasn’t-“ He stammers back, fighting to keep his voice soft. “It wasn’t you I was just…”

It takes him a moment to find the right word. He takes a deep breath, fingers playing with the soft fabric of the blanket around him. Finally, he admits it in a soft whisper. “I was just homesick.”

“Oh. Oh.” Realization flutters across his face, and when he slumps back against Tommy’s side with relief, he welcomes the contact. “Tha’ makes more sense.” He slurs against his shoulder. 

Tommy snorts, but settles back down into the mess of pillows and blankets, too. He risks a glance over at Phil, only to find him already passed out on the other side of the couch, wrapped up in his own cocoon of wings and blankets. He’s whistling faintly in his sleep, the sort not nearly as annoying as it should be.

He’s warm and comfortable, the bridge dark. Wilbur’s playing something soft and rhythmical, now, and it’s so easy to just lay back and get lost in the rising and dipping of the music, his voice washing in and out like the tide. Maybe he’s not too bad, after all. He’ll have to get him to play more often, he decides with a yawn, leaning back against Tubbo’s shoulder. He has a nice voice. 

He still misses Earth, maybe, but it’s easy to forget that on a night like this. The lights dim, the blanket around him heavy, the cold voice of space held off for another night. The shoulder under his head warm, the faint whooshing of breath slow and steady in his ear. A reminder.

He’s not alone.

He has Tubbo, at the very least, the best roommate in the world, his right hand man. Technoblade, who’s officially the f ucking coolest, and Phil, who’s actually not that bad. Even Wilbur, who he’s decided to forgive. For now. The trust between them all just a little stronger than it had been yesterday. 

He didn’t lock his door tonight, after all, even though he probably will tomorrow. Baby steps.

Baby steps. 

Chapter Text

You see, it all actually started like this.

Technoblade swings again, his sword slicing neatly through the air. He dodges just in time, ducking out of the way and countering with another clumsy slash of his own. Technoblade is moving before he even raises his sword, stepping neatly to one side and slashing down. He dodges, but only just.

“Don’t turn to look when you dodge.” He corrects, spinning his sword effortlessly in his hands as he slashes again. “It slows you down. Look beforehand.”

He gives him a curt nod, already correcting his stance.

Technoblade might be big, but he’s a hell of a lot more graceful than he looks. His braid dances behind him as he moves, both ruby eyes narrowed in concentration. His hooves clip against the floor as he lunges again, and Tommy meets him with a swing of his own. The resulting shing! Of metal-on-metal is music to his ears. 

“Good.” He rewards, and Tommy glows from the praise. “Now, again. Faster this time.”

Another eager nod. “Gotcha.”

And off they go again.

He lunges forwards, and Tommy barely has any time to dodge the blow before the blade is coming down. There’s no real strength behind it, sure, he’d definitely be dead by now if there was, but still. Getting hit with a metal sword doesn’t exactly tickle, even if it is blunt. He strikes again, leaving Tommy plenty of time to swing his blade up in a block. He grins, all teeth, and jumps out of the way when Technoblade swings down again in an exaggerated motion. 

“Eyes on me.” He grunts, already moving forwards. It’s easy to deflect his blow when he swings again. 

He nods, still focused on the sword in his hands, watching his center of gravity instead of his face, like he’d been taught. Technoblade is moving slow on purpose, giving him more than enough time to dodge or block. It’s just practice, after all, so Tommy can get used to the weight of the sword in his hand and the right movements. They’ve been practicing how to defend with a sword all afternoon, and it’s easy to fall into the same pattern, block and dodge, deflect, block and dodge, deflect, gradually getting faster and faster, the blade getting closer and closer. 

He’s improving. Slowly, maybe, but still. Every swing, every dodge, he’s getting better. Building up muscle, reacting quicker. Stronger, faster, better.

“ Use the momentum from when you defect to strike.” He corrects, tapping Tommy’s boot with the tip of his blade. “Watch your feet.”

“Right.” He nods sharply, bending his knees.

Crouching down like this feels a bit funny, but he knows from experience that if he bounces around on his toes like he’s used too, Technoblade will knock him flat on his ass. When he strikes at him again, he’s more than ready to meet him. The clanging of metal-on-metal is satisfying, the rhythm of blocking and dodging almost like a dance. He follows his advice this time when he deflects, using the momentum to slash forwards with a strike of his own, only to have it deflected off easily. He lunges again, and the dance continues. 

It’s been about two weeks since that night on the bridge, nearly three since they left Bezzar. Just over a month since his first (conscious) day on the Argo II. 

He’s gotten used to life on the ship. Breakfast and dinner with the crew, lunch with Tubbo in his room, training with Technoblade every other afternoon. Some nights, Wilbur will play for them on the bridge, on others, they’ll just sit around and talk. Wilbur and Phil are both great at telling stories, and Technoblade has no problem with leaning back and letting Tommy and Tubbo try and braid his hair. 

It’s… it’s nice. Comfortable. 

He finds himself laughing with Wilbur in the mornings, eating fruit and getting juice all over his face. He’s pretty fucking hilarious, actually, when he stops being a dick, and the playful shoulder punches and teasing comes naturally. He doesn’t flinch away when Phil brushes by him in the hall, or messes with his hair. He wakes up most mornings with Tubbo snoring in his ear, and spending afternoons sparring with Technoblade has become pretty routine. 

...He still locks his door at night, sometimes. 

Not every night, not when he falls asleep with Tubbo on the bridge, or when he’s too exhausted to from training. Just, sometimes. When he wakes up from a nightmare, or just. Has one of those days. He still keeps his knife under his pillow, too. 

He finds himself forgetting too a lot more often.

Look, there's some shit you just can’t fix in a month. Just because he’s making progress doesn’t mean he’s magically fixed. The scars are a little more faded, sure, the bruises a hell of a lot less fresh, but still. Some scars still hurt when you pull on them the wrong way, no matter how old they are. An ankle you might’ve broken three years ago is still going to be stiff on a cold day. A thrice-broken nose like his isn’t ever going to magically straighten. 

Still. He’s getting better, little by little. Building up muscle and putting on more weight so he’s not just a walking skeleton anymore. He doesn't struggle to open the cargo hold hatch, and he doesn’t get lightheaded nearly as easily as before. 

He doesn’t flinch as often as he used to. Weirdly enough, he trusts the crew. No matter how fucking weird they might be sometimes. 

It’s still a new thing, that kind of confidence, but he’s growing into it again. He feels a bit clumsy, on some days, stumbling through conversations and casual touches like a newborn calf walking around on new, knobby legs. He still has bad days, but still. 

It’s progress.

Technoblade swings again, faster than he was prepared for. He cuts just a little too close to his nose for comfort, and he falls back on his ass with a yelp. “Watch it!”

He snorts, but lowers the sword from where it was held at his throat. His ruby eyes are unimpressed when they meet his, but there’s a grin tugging at the corners of his lips. He snorts and leans down, offering him a hand. “I told you to stay focused.”

“I was focused!” He complains, taking the hand and letting himself be hefted to his feet. “I’ve been dodging and blocking for ages.” 

“It’s been half an’ hour.”

“Ages.”

He just shakes his head, tossing his braid. The long suffering look on his face is ruined by the grin still tugging on the corners of his lips. He levels his sword at Tommy’s chest. “Again. Watch carefully this time, we’re landing today.”

He groans, but picks up his sword. The minute he’s ready, Technoblade is lunging, and off they go again.

Training with Technoblade helps, in a lot of ways.

He’s a bit of a prick some of the time, but still. He’s a good enough guy now that Tommy knows how to read him properly. He doesn’t baby him, the bruises dotting his arms and ribs can attest to that, but he doesn’t use training as an excuse to beat the shit out of him, either. He actually feels like he’s learning something.

And, they’re landing today.

They’ve been talking about nothing but Netheria for a week, now. Apparently it’s supposed to be incredibly dangerous, hince the training, but considering he and Tubbo aren’t supposed to even leave the ship, it feels a bit like overkill.

Well, actually, correction; They weren’t supposed to be leaving the ship, but after some good old fashioned begging (Tommy), and some thinly veiled threats of blackmail (Tubbo), they were letting them tag along. It didn’t take as much groveling as he was prepared for, really, all it took in the end was one louder-than-necessary planning session about how he and Tubbo would sneak off when they were out and follow them for Phil to give in.

Yeah, as if he needed anymore reminders to not get on Tubbo’s bad side. He may look innocent, sure, but that’s just how he gets you. It’s a lie. There’s nothing but deception behind those brown and green eyes. 

Anyways. 

You see, there are still a lot of things about space that Tommy doesn’t understand.

He doesn’t understand why Phil, Tubbo and Wilbur have European accents while Technoblade has an American one. He has no idea what hell he’s eating ninety percent of the time, and he still hasn’t mustered up the courage to ask. He still can’t figure out how to work his stupid comn, and the language all the buttons are labeled with, (Common Galatic, thanks Tubbo), still just looks like scribbles. He doesn’t know why Technoblade spends hours in the bath every few days, or why Wilbur avoids direct sunlight like he’s a fucking vampire. Tubbo makes absolutely no sense to him most of the time, and Phil is still another goddamn mystery, no matter how nice he is or how soft his wings might be. 

Finally, and most importantly, he doesn’t know why they all talk about Netheria the way they do.

Technoblade has him training like they're about to walk into a war zone. He gave him and Tubbo a big, leather-bound book to fumble through together, and he only really glanced at the first few pages before letting his friend take over. He’s never been one for reading, much less in a language he can’t even understand. 

He’s never been one for following rules, either, and if there’s one thing Piglins like more than gold it’s rules.  Certain things you can say, certain things you can’t, the proper way to greet one another, how to show respect. There’s a whole fucking chapter in the book Tubbo’s reading about eye contact, and that just sounds like a lot of work. He’ll just do his usual thing of keeping his head low and big mouth shut, and the others will do the talking for him.

 No big deal. It’ll be fine.

He will admit, he’s curious. 

The ship is great and all, but now that he’s explored all of it, it’s starting to feel a bit small. He needs room to run, now that he’s stronger. Space to stretch his legs out, you know? Training with Technoblade helps, but that itch is still there, just underneath his skin.

He’s never been a big fan of staying in one place for too long. Getting too comfortable with his surroundings has always been dangerous, something he needed to avoid. Now, though, it’s inevitable. 

It’s a strange feeling. 

By the way everyone was talking about Netheria, Tommy was expecting something out of Mad Max. Deserts, biker gangs, excessive amounts of spikes and black leather jackets. Finally, a new adventure. 

He’s curious, sure, but not quite curious enough to try and stumble us way through the book he and Tubbo were given. He tried asking instead, but quickly learned that it probably wasn’t a good idea. 

Technoblade gets this look on his face whenever he mentions it, though. His eyebrows scrunch together, his eyes go dark, the thick scar over his nose twitches. Apparently it’s a bit of a sore spot, so he tries his best not to bring it up. Nothing good ever comes from poking at someone else’s bruises.

So, he trains. He listens when the others lecture him on Piglin behavior, on what’s considered polite and what he should never do under any circumstances. The ship just needs some minor maintenance work, and they’re running a bit low on water, so they’re going straight to the market and back. It shouldn’t take longer than a few hours. He’ll be fine, he can suck it up and play nice for that long. Besides, after last time, he doubts Technoblade will let him out of his sight. 

All the preparation they’re doing still sounds a bit like overkill to him for such a short trip, but he knows what poorly disguised worry looks like on Technoblade’s face, now, and he keeps his mouth shut. 

Worry. Huh. 

The thought of having someone actually worry about him again is just. Weird. It’s not as unpleasant of an idea as he thought it would be. 

When Technoblade’s sword slashes his sword just a little too close to his nose a second time, he doesn’t even blink. He deflects it back without a problem, using the momentum to get in a swing of his own at his ribs. He misses, but it was only by a hairs-width. 

He grins, progress. 

-

Technoblade doesn’t come back out of his training room until they’re about to land. 

Tommy doesn’t really blame him. The flight so far hadn’t exactly been pleasant, the fact that they were running low on food and water by now definitely not helping. He’s gotten too used to eating three meals a day again, a few weeks ago he wouldn’t blink an eye at missing breakfast. Now though, it’s just left him hungry and irritated, ready to be over with this whole thing already.

His friend doesn’t exactly share the same enthusiasm. 

Tubbo makes a happy trill next to him, squirming in his seat. “You can see Bastion city from here! All the way from the ‘Wastes to the Crimson Forest, that’s so cool-“

He looks up from his feet and opens his mouth, a snarky reply ready on his tongue, but the minute he catches a glimpse of the planet in the window, it’s gone. For a long minute he just stares, letting his voice wash right over him.

It was huge, for one, filling up the entire front windows of the ship with a hundred different shades of red. Everything from mauve to a bloody crimson, dark red clouds swirling in angry patterns. There were hints of other colors, too, a smudge of teal and indigo in the top window, suaves of charcoal grey like burn scars. The ridges and mountains that cut through and jar out from the planet's surface are a lighter color than the rest, giving the appearance of pink scars on burned flesh. Even the pools of glowing orange and burnt sienna look like wounds. 

It looms in front of them like the gaping red mouth of some giant beast, ready to swallow the ship whole.The part he can’t look away from, though, is the lights.

It’s the same golden spiderweb of color he’s seen before on Bezzar, or in holograms. City lights, far, far below on the planet's surface. A sparkling gold color, shimmering like copper wire, only a few shades lighter than the rivers of and pools of orange, glittering delicately. There’s a giant web of them right in the middle, barely any anywhere else. What had Tubbo called it? Bastion city? Whatever it is, it glows. 

It’s breathtaking.

“-so cool!” Tubbo finishes, right in his ear.

He’s grinning when Tommy looks back over at him, both dual-colored eyes bright. They’re all buckled in and ready for landing, and he’s fidgeting with the strap over his chest, still staring past Tommy to look at the planet in the window, antenna twitching. 

“It’s cool.” He agrees, watching Phil as he presses buttons on his control pad. He’s smiling, he always seems to be when he’s at the ship's helm, but his hands are tight on the controls, knuckles white. He rips his gaze away before he can catch him staring. “Bezzar was cooler, though.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah.” He lets his gaze slip over to Technoblade, who’s sitting upfront with Wilbur. The backs of his shoulders are more tense than they should be. “ Way cooler.”

“Are we ready?” Phil asks with that same wild grin of his.

“Ready.” Wilbur answers, Technoblade just grunts. He gives Phil a sharp nod of his own, and Tubbo follows with a much more eager one.

Tubbo leans against Tommy as much as he’s able when the ship starts to shudder. Tommy just takes a deep breath, his hands white knuckling the handles on either side of his seat. Space travel is fucking cool, sure, but the landing part? A lot less fun. It starts to feel like someone’s holding the ship upright and shaking it like a goddamn maraca. 

“Is it supposed to shake this much?!” Tubbo shouts loudly, right in his ear. 

Oh. Right. He’s never been on a spaceship before, has he? He can feel the smile spreading across his face. 

“No.” He lies, right as Phil grabs the controls, and the ship really starts to shake. “It isn’t.”

The floor underneath his feet starts to tremble even more, that god awful shaking he can feel in his teeth. Bezzar’s artificial atmosphere has a relatively low escape velocity, meaning you don’t have to go nearly as fast to land on Bezzar, or to leave it. (Thanks, Tubbo, for being an endless supply of useless information.) A planet like this, though? Four or five times its size? This is gonna be fun.

They’re pressed back against their seats as Phil presses on the throttle. The absolutely terrified look on Tubbo’s face once the rattling of the ship reaches an all time high is something he will treasure for years.

They get closer and closer, the thrumming getting more and more intense. He really hopes Tubbo taped down those fairy lights well, if he has to clean up whatever that weird liquid is from off his bed, he’s going to be pissed-

Red clouds fill the windows, and everything goes dark.

Tubbo catches his breath next to him, he seems to have caught on by this point, if the glare he gives Tommy is anything to go by. He still links their hands together, though, as the trembling starts to subside. His hands are sweaty. 

The monitors at the front of the ship blink, the neon colors of the buttons and screens the only light in the bridge. They glint eeeily off of the faces of Wilbur and Technoblade, catching on Wilbur’s strange shifting skin and in the Piglins narrowed eyes. Phil has his wings spread, like normal, his face thrown almost entirely in shadow by his hat. The silence is deafening. 

Then, all at once, the darkness lifts.

There’s a desert underneath them. 

Atleast, he thinks it’s a desert. It goes on forever underneath them, the ground a bloody red. The shadows of taller rocks and deep chasms cut through the ground like someone’s attacked it with a knife, taking out chunks and exposing flowing bloodstreams of something orange and glowing, the same rivers he’d seen from above. Lava. They’re flying over a stream of fucking lava! 

“We’re not parking in the city.” Technoblade grunts from his seat. “Over here’s fine.”

“Gotcha mate.” Is Phil’s easy reply, and the ship slowly starts to lower down into the desert.

Technoblade is up and gone the moment the ship stops, disappearing down the hall in a swoosh of his coat. 

-

Technoblade looks worried.

Well, no, not exactly. He actually looks kind of constipated, really. His eyebrows are all scrunched together, jaw tense. If he didn’t know any better, he would think that he was mad. A few months ago, he’d mistake his anxious hovering for something more sinister, but the illusion shatters once he loops another golden necklace over Wilbur’s head. 

Fortunately for Tommy, he’s finally capable of putting together context clues. 

Wilbur looks the opposite of worried. He’s sitting on one of the boxes, already dressed in his thick black jacket and ready to go. He’s covered up just about every inch of skin from head to toe, leaving only his shimmering face and brown eyes exposed. The golden rings in his fingers look a bit stupid sitting over his black biking gloves. He tilts his head back and tolerates the fussing with a huff, letting him drape another necklace around his neck. 

Phil, sitting on his other side, doesn’t look too worried either, though he doesn’t look quite as relaxed. There’s something he can’t read written across his face, eyes dark and jaw set with something like… Determination? Maybe? Stress? 

The golden earrings dripping from his ears look kind of ridiculous. 

Technoblade himself is dressed in a similar manner. He’s got his usual white flowy shirt and specially made boots laced tight over his hooves. There’s a sword tucked into a scabbard at his hip, and the hilt of some sort of gun is barely hidden by the big, ugly jacket over his shoulders. He hasn’t bothered with putting the hood up, though, and his hair is down, which is a little strange. Well, mostly, there’s a small side braid keeping it out of his face, interlaced with golden ribbons and little clasps. 

He’s also wearing a ridiculous amount of gaudy golden jewelry, both around his neck and hanging from his tattered ears. The rings on his knuckles flash when he puts another necklace on Phil.

Tubbo bumps his shoulder, sitting next to him on the same box and kicking his legs where they dangle off. “I think Techno’s worried.”

He snorts. “You think?”

“Yeah.” He kicks his legs again. “We’re less likely to have trouble if we wear gold, sure, but he’s going a bit overboard.”

He watches as Technoblade carefully puts golden earrings in Wilbur’s ears, and would have to agree.

He leans back on his hands. “They won’t get robbed, at least. You’d have to be pretty dumb to fuck with Technoblade.” 

“Robbed?”

“Well, yeah .” He shrugs. “Wearing a bunch of expensive shit and walking around a city is just asking to get mugged.”

To be fair, the only city he’s ever really been to was Bezzar, but still. You shouldn’t wear expensive shit in a place with a lot of people unless you’re prepared to defend it. That’s just common sense. Apparently it wasn’t to Tubbo, though, who was looking at him like he’d just suggested they go drown some puppies in a river.

 “No one would dare.” He all but hisses, and Tommy’s more than a little taken aback by the intensity in his voice. 

He blinks. “Huh?”

“It’s a Piglin thing, the jewelry. It’s like…” He pauses, waving his hands around as he thinks of a good way to explain it. He looks horrified by the mere suggestion of someone trying to pickpocket the jewelry, antenna standing on end. 

 “A cultural thing?” He tries again. “He’s basically telling everyone that we’re… With him. No one would just, they wouldn’t just take it.”

He blinks again. “Huh.”

...Maybe he should have tried to read that book on Piglin behavior, now that he thinks about it. 

He looks back at the others. They aren’t paying any attention to his and Tubbo’s conversation, chatting lowly amongst themselves. Wilbur is already fidgeting with the rings on his fingers, turning them around and around, and Phil just rolls his eyes when Technoblade fastens another bracelet to his wrist. 

“...It does look pretty dumb though.” Tubbo admits.

Tommy just snorts again. Dumb is an understatement. They look ridiculous wearing that much jewelry. “Not to mention heavy.”

One of Technoblade’s ears flicks in his direction, and he shuts up real quick. If the jewelry is some sort of cultural thing, he probably doesn’t want to get caught talking about how stupid it looks. Especially since there’s plenty left in the pile, and he'd rather make it out with the least amount of ugly jewelry on him as possible, thanks. 

He watches his face.

Technoblade doesn’t have many expressions. Most of the time he walks around completely blank-faced, or glaring off into thin air as he thinks. The complete opposite of Phil, who shows every emotion clearly. After all these weeks, though, he likes to think he’s gotten better at reading him.

He leans closer than necessary to others while he covers them in jewelry, pupils blown wide and jaw set. His tail curls around his heels, ears pinned ever so slightly back. He never would have noticed any of those things a few weeks ago, but know? He has a pretty good idea what they mean.

He’s worried. Anxious, even. Worried for them. 

“Stay close.” He grunts, loud enough for them all to hear.

“I know, Technoblade.” Is Phil’s exasperated reply. “It’s going to be fine.” 

“And don’t talk to anyone.” He stresses, looking over at Tommy when he says it, giving him The Look. “ Especially you two. Don’t even think about it.”

Tubbo just blinks, immune to The Look, because of course he is. “Not even to you guys?” 

He growls, and Tommy immediately goes still. For a moment he’s sure that he’s about to smack him upside the head for talking back, he definitely looks like he’s considering it. Thankfully, Phil interrupts before anything can escalate, standing and giving his wings a shake for emphasis. “ Enough. We should leave, we need to get back before dark.”

It works like a charm, and the two settle. 

Then, Technoblade looks over at him and Tubbo, a handful of necklaces in his hand. 

Aw, shit. 

-

He looks fucking ridiculous.

Phil fidgets with his hood, tugging it low over Tommy’s head to help disguise his lack of Piglin ears. They have him dressed up like he’s about to go marching into a war zone, with big, thick boots and heavy cloth pants. The coat is Wilbur’s, and absolutely dwarfs him, even though he’s only a few inches taller. Gloves had been shoved on his hands, and, as one final touch, Phil’s red goggles strapped in his face to help disguise his lack of red eyes.

“I don’t know why we never thought of this before.” Phil steps back, admiring his handiwork. “Now he’s practically a Piglin shoat. No one will get close enough to tell the difference.”

He blinks. Shoat? Was that an insult or a compliment? He’s not sure if he should be offended or not, so screws his face up into a scowl just in case.

The only good thing about the outfit was the dagger strapped to his hip. Technoblade didn't trust him enough to give up one of his blasters, so the dagger had been a compromise. The blade looked wicked sharp, and even though he still had to promise to only use it in emergencies, he still finds himself fidgeting with the handle. Worth it. 

Technoblade hums, looking him over critically. He resists the urge to bite his fingers when a golden necklace is looped carefully around his neck. Whatever, as long as he doesn’t get any bright ideas about adding earrings. Phil looks ridiculous enough for the both of them. 

“A squeaker, more like.” He grumbles, fastening a bracelet around his wrist. “That’ll do it.”

Tommy decides to just ignore him, yanking his wrist out of his hands the minute he’s able. Weird ass alien slang. Stupid translators. 

Tubbo didn’t get fussed over nearly as much, and seems to be getting a kick out of watching Tommy suffer. He dips his head happily when Technoblade lumbers over to the box he’s sitting on, letting him loop another necklace over his head. He doesn’t look nearly as ridiculous as the rest of them, which is just not fair. He and the others are practically dripping with the stupid jewelry, and the rustling noise it makes when he so much as blinks too hard is really getting on his nerves. 

Whatever. As long as they get to leave soon, he’ll put up with it. He fiddles with one of the necklaces, the least-ugly one with the little red charm, and sulks on his own until Technoblade’s finished. 

After what feels like years, it's finally over.

Wilbur loops his bag over his shoulder, Technoblade finishes adjusting both the sword and the gun strapped to his hip. Phil tightens the strap of his own bag. The minute Wilbur gets the all clear nod from Technoblade, he’s sprinting over to the bike. 

Phil laughs, already following Wilbur. The man himself wastes no time in putting on his black helmet, already grinning like a madman as he hops on the bike, Technoblade right behind him. Phil stands nearby and waves him and Tubbo over with a wing.

And just like that, he’s grinning again, all the jewelry and the ridiculous outfit forgotten. 

He’ll never stop being impressed by Wilbur’s bike. Nothing but pure speed and black metal, red accents in all of the right places. The leather seats are slightly worn under his fingers, and there’s a scratch in the paint right behind Wilbur’s leg. There’s a dent in one side, too, about the size of a golf ball, and one of the exhaust pipes is just a little more crooked than the other. He runs his gloved fingers down the bike's side, brushing over the smooth black metal. He wouldn’t trade her for anything.

“Up you go,” Phil offers Tommy a hand, and he jumps up on the bike right behind Wilbur, adrenaline already thrumming in his veins. Phil brushes a hand over the backs of his shoulders, and he doesn’t even blink “There you are. Tubbo, you're up next.”

He runs his gloved fingers over the leather seat again and again, playing with the seam trying not to squirm. Finally, finally! It’s been forever since he’s ridden the bike. He barely even notices Tubbo getting in right behind him, or Technoblade following soon after. It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but he doesn’t even care because just then, the bike starts to come alive under his fingers, thrumming as the engine turns over.

“C’mon, Sally, don’t be like that.” Wilbur complains from in front of him, giving the side of the bike a light kick with the back of heel. 

It does the trick, and the engine roars to life.

He doesn’t even care that he has to throw his arms around Wilbur’s waist for balance, or that Tubbo is breathing right in his ear. The blood in his veins thrums right along with the engine, making all of him buzz and him to life like a live wire. The hoverbike rises off the floor slowly, the red headlights flickering on, and the rumble it makes underneath him is music to his ears. He breathes in the smell of not quite gasoline, and grins, sharp and feral. 

Phil is standing off the side, and with a hand motion from Wilbur, the front of the ship starts to open wide.

For a moment, all he does is watch, craning his neck to look over Wilbur’s shoulder. 

A dry, hot wind blows in from the opening at the front of the ship, the ramp yawning wide. He squints to try and see outside, but all he can make out is red, red, red. It must just be the goggles, right?

The blood red desert in front of them seems to stretch off into infinity, disappearing into an orange sky laced with black thunderclouds that loom ominously in the distance. The hot, rancid smell of burnt leather and sulfur fills the cargo hold, drowning out the familiar scent of almost-gasoline and making his nose wrinkle. 

Then, with a roar he can feel in his bones, the bike takes off, and the ramp closes back up behind them. 

-

Wilbur’s bike is one of the best things that’s ever happened to him, in space.

They don’t ride, they fucking fly. Soaring over the red desert, kicking up clouds of dust in their wake as they go. The hot, dry wind rips at him, tossing his hair and whipping across his face. The goggles are a welcome improvement, letting him stare out over the desert as much as he’d like. There’s no turbulence, no bouncing over rocks or skidding on sand, just pure speed. Wilbur drives like a goddamn maniac, turning corners around rocks and caverns in the sand sharply enough to make him feel like he’s about to go flying off.

He presses close to his back, cheek flush against his black leather jacket. He smells like leather and motor oil, but the sweet vanilla-ish scent of his body wash still clings to his skin and his  wild brown hair. Tubbo’s nose is buried between his shoulder blades, thin arms holding in a death grip around his ribs. He’s shouting something in his ear, or at least trying to. All Tommy can make out over the one is the tone of his voice, somewhere between excited and terrified. 

The desert around them is nothing more than a blur of red and black, the sun hot on the back of his neck. If they go any faster, they’ll take off into orbit. 

He wouldn’t trade it for anything .

He feels free, he feels alive. The rest of the universe narrowed down to nothing more than the wind on his face and the feel of the leather jacket against his cheek. Nothing but speed and adrenaline. 

Wilbur laughs as he turns another sharp corner, and it has that familiar, maniacal edge. He feels it more than he hears it, really, and tightens his grip. Tubbo makes a noise in his ear like a mouse getting strangled, arms tightening around Tommy’s stomach enough to make him wheeze. Even Techno makes a noise as the bike nearly goes fucking sideways, the sound somehwere between a pig’s squeal and a foghorn.

All Tommy does is toss his head back and laugh, the wind stealing his voice right out of his chest.

-

Eventually, though, all good things come to an end.

The bike slows to a crawl.

Immediately he pops his head up, whipping his head around. Are they in Bastion city already? No, that doesn’t sound right…

He scans the horizon on both sides, but all he sees is that same red desert, a sea of crimson as far as the eye can see, stretching right into the soot-stained horizon. Thunderheads lurk in the corners of his vision, black storm clouds creeping in over the desert way off in the distance.

No city. Just desert. Than why-

Oh.

A few yards in front of the bike is a hole.

Or, more accurately, a tunnel. It yawns wide like the red, gaping mouth of some toothless animal, ready to swallow them whole. It disappears into shadow only a few feet in, making it look a little like the path ahead dips off straight into the fucking void.

“This is it!” Wilbur calls back to the rest of them. “Everyone, hold on!”

They weren’t seriously going into that thing, we’re they? No, there’s no possible way-

Wilbur tosses his head back as he revs the engine, the bike once again coming to life beneath them, rumbling in anticipation. He points the bloody headlights into the fucking abyss and slams on the gas.

They take off like a fucking rocket, fast enough to make him immediately duck back down into the safety of Wilbur’s shadow. His hands scramble for purchase around his waist, white-knuckling his jacket with both fists. His teeth fucking rattle in his skull as the bike roars down the path, going fast as hell and only picking up speed. Tubbo is trying his best to bruise both of his ribs, face buried in the backs of his shoulders, and every inch of him is vibrating as the bike trembles with the force of its own speed.

He barely gets a second to flinch before the bike shoots off down the tunnel, and darkness slams over his vision.

It’s pitch black, nothing but void on both sides. His own harsh breathing echoes loudly in his ears. He turns his head to the side and squints, doing his best to make out the walls that close them in, but all he sees is a blur of red and black, too dark to mean anything. 

The roaring of the bike echoes off of the tunnel walls, making them seem even smaller. Wilbur’s headlights don’t do shit to light up the road in front of them, and they’re still going a million miles an hour. His heartbeat picks up, hands going clammy where they’re burrowed in black leather. Goddamn it, he fucking hates caves-

Then, all at once, it opens.

He blinks furiously in the light, whipping his head around as the bike slows, but only just. Immediately he fuckimg regrets it, now unable to do anything but stare.

They’re driving on the side of a fucking cliff!

Wilbur’s slowed a little, but not nearly enough for how narrow the road is, and for the fact that they’re going down. Tubbo’s hands scramble over his wrist, tugging to get his attention as he yells in his ear. “Tommy! Tommy look!”

Tommy doesn’t want to look. Tommy very much does not want to look down, and is currently doing his best to look anywhere but. He presses himself as tight to Wilbur as he can get, personal space can get fucked, and does absolutely everything he can to keep from looking down.

It works for about a minute. He looks down. 

And there it was.

He remembers how Bezzar had looked, sitting on Tubbo’s balcony. The laughter and music that still hung in the cooling evening air, the warm lights strung between buildings. The rest of the city had glimmered like starlight off in the distance, full of life and bright, shimmering lights. Bezzar had seemed warm, a patchwork quit of a city, sure, but one filled with love nonetheless.

Bastion City looks nothing like Bezzar.

The red cliff gives away sharply beneath them, 

Far sharper than he’d ever be comfortable with, and it’s lined with sharp, blood red rocks all the way down. Flowing rivers of magma criss-cross the surface like ugly lightning scars, dripping down, below into the larger rivers that frame the city's edges. Then, far below them, it veers even more down. Down, down, down , like someone had tried to break through the planet's surface with an axe.

 In the very center, far, far beneath them, is Bastion City.

It looms out of the cliff’s shadow, black skyscrapers rising from the blood red cliff sides it’s perched in. All the buildings are the same shade of charcoal black and grey, the surrounding lava falls glinting harshly off of black glass. He's far away, sure, but even now he can smell it, air thick with smoke and city smog. The strong, awful smell of sulfur and burning leather that makes his nose itch. It sprawls like the charred, broken ribcage of some long-dead animal, the city lights cutting sharply through the mist. The longer he stares at the black buildings, the more he feels like the buildings are staring back at him. He looks away sharply the minute he can tear his eyes away. 

It might be surrounded by lava flow, maybe, but there’s nothing about this city that’s warm. 

Wilbur is warm in front of him, though, and Tubbo’s warm at his back, still breathing right in his ear. He can feel both of their heartbeats, pressed so close, and he lets himself take comfort from it, just for a moment.

The city disappears from view as they go behind another rock, but he doesn’t notice. Those black spires and charcoal grey buildings are burned into the backs of his eyes. That’s where Technoblade grew up? That’s where they’re going? Into the depths of fucking hell? 

Apparently so. Fun.

And down, down, down they go. 

-

They met up with Phil again at the city gates.

Tommy’s still shaky from the bike ride, but not nearly as much as Tubbo, who’s stumbling around like a baby deer. Considering the fact that they walk along the edge of a fucking cliff, he keeps a hand tight on the back of his jacket, just in case. 

Technoblade keeps him and Tubbo both close as they walk. He’s not as annoyed by it as he should be, really, more than happy to stay close by his side in a place like this. A nice, big barrier between him and the side of a sheer cliff face. Or, now, a barrier between him and the crowd they’ve stumbled into. 

He doesn’t like the look of the guards. Or of any of this, really, so he sticks close and keeps his head down.

They’ve parked the bike a little ways back, hidden by rocks and weird red shrubbery. To keep it from being stolen, Wilbur had said, before ushering them along the path. He hasn’t taken the goggles off yet, so he’s not sure if it’s the red tint or the lenses or not, but absolutely everything is the same violent shade of crimson. The cavern walls, the stones and grass underneath their feet, the cavern ceiling above their heads. Everything. 

There’s a light crowd around the gates, once they get close to them, Piglin’s and other aliens alike speaking in rushed, hurried voices. Every once in a while a group will approach the gates and the guards, only some of them are allowed through. 

The city gates are huge, made of some strange dark wood and lined with gold. They’re set heavily into the dark city walls, and two armed guards stand at either side, axes in hand. They look a bit like Technoblade’s older, more grizzled cousins, with mean, boar-like faces and scarred chests. Piglin Brutes, he remembers from one of Technoblade’s lectures. Protectors, guardians. 

They grunt disapprovingly at Phil, who waits only a little ways away, waving like an idiot to be seen over the crowd. 

Technoblade makes a beeline towards him, with Tommy, Wilbur and Tubbo hot on his heels.

“There you are!” He exclaims, a little breathless. His wings flutter behind him, feathers all out of place from the flight. “How was the ride?”

“Great!” Wilbur says, teeth sharp as he grins. “Parked the bike out of the way. Time to go?”

Phil nods, and Technoblade leads them up to the gate.

Tommy has no problem letting him take charge on this one, resting comfortably in his shadow. He fidgets with his hood, keeping it low over his face, and fixes his goggles. He glares at the guards for good measure, stepping a little closer to Tubbo’s side, but if they can see it through the googles, they don’t say anything. It’s probably for the best. 

Besides, Technoblade’s also a Piglin, isn’t he? This should go pretty smoothly. 

“State your business.” The one on the left growls, pulling his lips back over razor-sharp tusks.

... or maybe not .

Technoblade doesn’t falter, ruby red eyes meeting golden ones head on. “Resupply.”

The Piglin looks them all over critically, hand never drifting from his axe. His gaze rests heavily on the jewelry they all wear, curling his lip at Phil’s wings and Wilbur’s sparkling skin. Tommy can feel the weight of that look, settling over his shoulders like a lead blanket when it’s his turn to be considered. He bites back the urge to snarl, shifting just a little bit more in front of Tubbo. He rests his hand on the dagger strapped to his hip, just in case. Thankfully, the Piglin sweeps right over him and back to Technoblade.

Then, finally, the Piglin dips his head, and they both step aside. The doors swing open slowly on rusted hinges. 

“Get what you want, then leave.” The Piglin grunts, curling his lips back over his tusks. “Outsiders are not welcome here.”

Tommy blinks. Outsiders? But wasn’t Technoblade from Netheria? He’s definitely an outsider, sure, but the guard was definitely looking at Technoblade when he said it. 

“Understood.” Is Technoblade’s even reply, and into the city they go.

-

If Bezzar is a patchwork quilt, Netheria is the world's most confusing haunted corn maze.

It’s dirty and claustrophobic, red stone walls pressing in on all sides, and incredibly confusing. The red wash over everything definitely not helping. The roads twist and turn sharply, some of them branching off into side streets, the others just dead ends. It’s loud, every little noise of the crowd echoing off of the walls, and crowded enough to make navigating through it a nightmare. Nobody looks like they want to be there, either, and if you get too close to someone, they growl at you. 

...He’s never actually been in a haunted corn maze, but if what he’s seen on TV is correct, it’s close enough. He keeps waiting for someone in a Jason mask to jump out at them, waving a knife or a chainsaw. 

Wilbur is a little ahead of them, weaving through the crowd like a fish in water. He grins every once in a while at the aliens he passes, but it’s more of a flash of teeth than a smile. He never wanders too far ahead before drifting back to them. Technoblade is just in front of him and Tubbo, marching through the crowd with his shoulders squared. Finally, Phil brings up the rear, both wings pressed firmly against his back. He doesn’t have to turn around to know that he’s hovering right over their shoulder, keeping him and Tubbo penned in the center of their little group.

He feels a bit like a lamb being herded along by sheepdogs. Whatever, the others make a nice barrier between him and Tubbo and the rest of the city's inhabitants. He’s able to look around in peace. 

This is the edge of Bastion City, apparently. No sleek black buildings or flowing lava streams here. Most of the buildings are made of this weird dark brick, set into the cavern's walls. There’s a red stone ceiling far above his head, but it’s still too close for comfort. Just claustrophobic enough to keep him on edge. 

They pass a few market stalls, none of them selling anything particularly interesting. The shopkeepers watch them pass with beady gold eyes, lips curled back over their tusks. Most of the buildings seem empty, run down with black windows, but he’s not stupid enough to get close and check.

The crowd around them is a mix of strange aliens, some Piglins, others kinds that he’s never seen before.

There are some with skin as red and crumbling as the rocks around them, like the pet store owner’s ugly cousins. Some that look almost like Piglins at first glance, but then they turn he can make out the sparks that shimmer on gilded skin, and hair that licks with flames underneath their hoods. There are even some that look almost skeletal, looming over the crowd with large, distorted limbs and black, leathered skin. He stays as far away from them as possible.

Others are a bit less terrifying. There’s an alien a little bit in front of them with orange, slimy skin. They approach one of the market stalls and trade a bar of gold for a small pouch. Huh. 

They’re all different, but they look mostly the same, as a group. All dressed in muted reds and leathers, a hint of golden jewelry flashing as they move. He breathes a sigh of relief once he realizes everyone is dressed in the same gaudy jewelry as he is, but that’s about where the similarities end. None of them have Wilbur’s faintly sparkling skin, Technoblade’s vibrant pink hair or Tubbo’s antenna. No one even comes close to having Phil’s wings. 

Which means, of course, their little group is attracting a bit of attention. 

He can feel the weight of eyes on the back of his neck, boring into his skin. The tension in the air is almost palpable, like the moment before a lightning strike. That hum of static electricity prickling along his skin. 

He hates it, he hates it more than anything. 

Trusting his instincts has got him out of some pretty rough spots before, and now everything in him is yelling, run! Run away as fast as possible!

He keeps one hand fisted in the back of Tubbo’s coat, the other resting on the handle of his dagger. He glares at everyone they pass, regardless of whether or not they can tell through his goggles, resisting the urge to bare his teeth back. 

If Technoblade notices, he doesn’t pay them any mind. He looks straight ahead, not so much as flicking an ear at the Piglins and other aliens they pass. He doesn’t blink when he gets snarls or warning growls from drifting too close to a different group. 

...He’d always looked so big, before. The tallest and broadest of the crew, by far. Now, though? Surrounded by other Piglins and aliens his size and much, much larger? He looks almost… small . He doesn’t seem to be letting it affect him on the outside. Only Tommy notices how his hand fidgets with one of his rings, or how his tail curls around his hooves as he walks.

He’s nervous .

Tommy doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that at all. 

So, he keeps close. He keeps his head down and pulls Tubbo closer to his side. He doesn’t shove away from Phil when he looks just a little to close over his shoulder, or wander away from their group. The excitement of the hoverbike ride was fading fast, leaving behind nothing but anxiety and ugly, twisting uncertainty in his gut. The faster they get out of here, the better. 

The others seem to feel it, too. He doesn’t blame them for hovering. 

Finally, after what feels like hours of wandering around in the stupid maze, finally, the roads open back up into a little market square.

Emphasis on little, it’s nothing compared to the market square on Bezzar, but still. At Least now he feels like he can actually breathe.

It’s set up in a similar way. Market stalls line the sides of the square, shoppers wandering in the center and from stall to stall. There aren’t any vibrant colors. Well, none besides red and gold, and the air is filled with grunts and shouts instead of music. There are no dancers, here, no laughter or warmth. Nothing but that hot, dry heat and the thick smell of sulfur, blood and sweat. Shoppers trade uncertain glances and growls, flashing teeth and tusks at anyone who gets too close. 

“We need water.” Technoblade grunts at them, sounding as eager to get out of here as Tommy is. “Everythin’ else we can get at our next stop.”

“We need a mechanic .” Wilbur snaps back. “The Argo II needs repairs, remember?”

“Fine. You find a mechanic, I’ll get-“

Phil grabs him by the arm before he can wander off, “ Nope, not happening. Remember what happened last time we split up? We go together.”

He hesitates, looking at Phil’s grip on his arm for a moment like he’s considering throwing it off and marching away anyways, but relents. He looks over Tommy and Tubbo for a moment, and the weight of his gaze lingers on Tommy’s goggles for a second or two longer than necessary. “Remember what I said about staying close.”

He and Tubbo both nod, and he turns back around, satisfied. “This way.”

Wilbur lingers back, hovering by Tommy’s side. Phil takes up the space right over Tubbo’s shoulder, and with Technoblade in front, they’re once again penned in the middle. 

He watches the groups they pass as they wander over to a market stall.

There are a few huddled around the marketplace, lingering by stalls. Most of them are Piglins, with a few other aliens he doesn’t recognize mixed in. They watch Technoblade pass with narrowed eyes, whispering amongst themselves. He glares them down when his crew mate doesn’t. 

The merchant glares at them, too, once they walk up to his stall.

It’s simple. A small wooden set up draped in furs and leathers, clay pots and jugs hanging from support beams. The Piglin behind the counter his fucking huge, burly and ugly. His snout twists into a sneer when Technoblade approaches, golden eyes narrowed in suspicion. There’s a thick, ugly scar across his left cheek, cutting through his eyebrow and missing his eye by a hair's-width. It bulges when he scowls. 

Technoblade isn’t intimated in the slightest. He pulls something out of his bag, placing it on the counter with a quiet clink. 

Tommy leans over his shoulder to try and get a better look, and his mouth drops.

Gold.

Just, straight up two bars of pure gold . They shine, the harsh red lights glinting off of the pure, smooth surface. The younger, more desperate side of him screams to grab both and run. God knows how much they would be worth back home. 

“Two jugs.” Technoblade grunts. 

The merchant considers the golden bars, an ear flicking as he thinks. “...Six bars.”

Technoblade snorts, a slight growl to his voice as his tail lashes at his ankles. “That’s ridiculous. Water’s never been that expensive.”

“It is now.” The Piglin growls back. “If you can’t pay, then get out.”

He thinks about it, for a moment, and they glare each other down. Or, Tommy thinks they do, he’s standing too far behind Technoblade to see his face, too focused on the gold. Finally, after a moment, he pulls four more golden bars from his bag, four more! and slams them down. 

The other Piglin takes them, sweeping them off of the counter with one big, ugly paw, lip curled in satisfaction. He pulls two big clay jugs out from under the counter, handing them off. Technoblade takes one, Phil takes the other. They swish when they’re hefted up. 

Tommy’s gaze catches on the Piglins hands, and the lack of two fingers on his right hand, cut off at the knuckle. The scars are brutal , and he shivers, looking away. 

“Do you know a good mechanic?” Phil asks, giving the Piglin a polite smile as he lifts the jug up with ease. Or, well, a polite smile to anyone who doesn’t know Phil. Tommy knows a thinly-veiled threat when he hears one. 

The Piglin tilts his head, pretending to think. His hungry gaze never leaves Technoblade’s satchel. “Well, I don’t know…”

Technoblade growls again, loud enough for Tommy to feel it, and slams another golden bar down on the counter. 

The Piglin grins, all teeth, and sweeps the bar off into his hands before Tommy gets more than the faintest glimpse of the shining gold metal. “Walk back the way you came, take a right instead of a left. It’s on the corner by the-“

Tommy feels the moment that the tension breaks.

Like the first lightning strike of a hurricane, the first few drops of rain before a flood. The rumble you feel in your bones right before the ground splits open and swallows you whole.

It starts slowly, a shift in the crowd. 

The whispering around them gets a little bit louder, all the standing around becomes an anxious shuffle of feet. Then, Somebody screams, and the call is picked up by everyone in the square. 

Suddenly, it’s chaos, the low bellowing of an angry animal just audible over the screams of pain and panic. Phil grabs Tommy by the shoulder, pulling him back just in time for another alien to come barreling past, trampling over where he’d been standing just seconds ago. What the hell? 

Technoblade goes stiff, Whipping his head around to the source of the noise a few streets over. The ground is rumbling, now, the pounding footsteps of panicked aliens kicking up dust and echoing off the walls. It’s loud, it’s so loud. 

Tommy pulls his dagger from its sheath in one swift movement. If this didn’t count as an emergency, he doesn’t know what does. 

“Don’t even think about it,” Technoblade growls back at him pulling his lips back in a snarl. He all but shoves him and Tubbo back towards Wilbur and Phil, already moving before they could say anything. “Stay here, and stay out of the way. I’ll handle this.”

He’s gone before anyone can protest, tail lashing at his ankles as he goes charging back into the crowd, following the source of the screaming.

Wilbur’s arms close protectively around his shoulders, pulling him back against his chest. He can feel his heart pounding, pulled this close, his leather jacket hot and slick with sweat. Phil gives Tubbo a similar treatment with his wings to his other side, trading a sharp nod with Wilbur over their heads. He only catches a glimpse of his friends wide, frightened eyes before Wilbur and Phil are ushering them away with wings and fluttering hands.

“So stupid!” Wilbur hisses in his ear. “Going off like that on his own, he’ll get himself killed-“

There’s a scream from behind them, loud and blood-curdling. He feels himself freeze, heart jumping to his throat as his feet trip over themselves in the dirt. Wilbur doesn’t let him turn to look, all but carrying him away from the scene.

He curses under his breath. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

There’s a gust of wind on the back of his neck, feathers resting gently on his shoulders. “Go find Techno, Wilbur. I’ll get these two back to the ship.”

He lets himself be manhandled, passed off to Phil without a second to waste. He keeps his mouth firmly shut, watching with wide eyes as Wilbur hands him off. He looks more scared than he’s ever seen him before, eyes wide and jaw set. His hair is in his eyes, lips pulled back to display his sharp, sharp teeth. He gives Tommy one last look before he turns sharply on his heel, and the panicked crowd swallows him whole.

He doesn’t know what the fuck is going on, he doesn’t fucking understand. All he knows is that Technoblade is in trouble and Wilbur is gone. Tubbo’s latched on to his side now that he’s close enough, both of them tucked close to Phil under the safety of his wings as he hurries them along. 

He can feel Tubbo’s breathing, sharp and panicked. Phil is staring determinedly ahead, sharp blue eyes scanning the crowd for the best way through. He pulls them along close to the sides of buildings, but even then it’s slow-going.

There’s just too many people , all of them panicked. The air is thick with screams and the scent of blood, the howling, strange cries of aliens he doesn’t recognize. The streets of Netheria are just too small, too cramped to handle the rioting crowd within them, only feeding into the hysteria as people get trapped against buildings or caught underfoot.

They’re caught in the middle of a riot, and there’s no way out. 

Phil keeps them both as protected as he can, trying to both hide their eyes and tug them along the best he can. He squeezes his eyes shut, doing his best to block out the screams. He steps in something wet and squishy, and does everything in his power to ignore the smell of blood and sweat in the air.

There’s an angry roar from somewhere behind them, and Phil curses under his breath. “Just a little further, boys. Just a little more.”

He tugs them out of the market square, down one of the side streets to try and get away from the source of the noise. Apparently everyone else had the same idea, boxing them in and forcing them along like cows to slaughter. There’s nowhere to go but forwards-

Someone crashes into Phil’s shoulder, and all three of them are sent sprawling. 

Tommy recovers first, clawing at the bloodied dirt as he scrambles to his feet. Tubbo is right next to him, and he doesn’t even think before he’s lunging, throwing his arms around his friend and doing his best to shield him. 

The Piglin that rammed into them snorts, eyes wild, the whites of them showing. He’s big, a lot bigger than Technoblade, and twice as broad in the chest. It doesn’t look anything like Technoblade, sporting more hair and piggish features, and a hell of a lot more scars. The axe it holds in its hands is taller than Tommy is, the blade already stained with blood. 

It doesn’t look at them as much as it looks through them.

A Piglin Brute. Technoblade has mentioned them, once. They’re supposed to be protectors. 

Tommy stays still, he stays perfectly still. He glares it down the best he can from where he’s crouched against a building, shielding Tubbo behind him with his arms, keeping himself in front. One hand holds his dagger in a white-knuckled grip, like that’ll do any good.

It considers them with unseeing eyes for a moment. Then, the desperate, keening cry of a hurt alien catches its attention, and it’s gone. 

He doesn’t get a moment to breathe. The crowd around them shrieks. Mothers cry out desperately for children, aliens howl in fear and pain. The stomping of feet drowns out everything but the blood rushing in his ears. Every inch of him is trembling, whole body thrumming with fear and adrenaline.

Technoblade has said that they were protectors. They guarded the city from raiders and bandits, patrolling the walls of Bastion City. What the hell was it doing?

Something isn’t right. 

Tubbo has to yank on him to get his attention.

“Tommy, Tommy!”

He turns, and his friends wide eyes and pale face snap him out of whatever trance he’d been caught in. He gives his head a firm shake, the freaking out can wait until later, and him and Tubbo cling to each other as they stumble to their feet.

The crowd pulls around them, boxing them in on both sides, pushing and pulling in all directions like a sea caught in a storm. He clings to Tubbo as hard as he can, a white knuckled grip on both arms.

He’d already lost the rest of the crew, he’d be dammned before he loses Tubbo, too.

“What’s happening!?” He screams to be heard over the panicked screeching of the crowd. “Where’s Phil?!”

“I don’t see him!” Tubbo yells back in his ear, and he winces.

There’s someone stepping on his foot on his right, a Piglin mother on his other side jamming her elbow into his ribs as she clutches her child close to her chest. She looks terrified , the whites of her eyes showing as she stumbles, trying her best to backpedal backwards to no avail.

She stumbles again, and he catches her arm to steady her. Her ruby eyes meet his, and he feels himself freeze.

“Run!” She says, voice shrill with panic, trembling hand gripping his arm in a bruising grip. “Find your sounder! Quickly! Schlatt’s men are out for blood, they’ll kill you if you get in their way!”

Then, she does something strange. For just a moment, just a second , she presses her forehead against his. She gives him and Tubbo one last pitying look. “May the gods be with you. Go!”

The child in her arms wails, hidden completely by blankets and tucked firmly against her chest. She takes a step backwards, and both her and the child are swallowed by the crowd.

He doesn’t have a second to process what happened when someone nearby gives a hideous shriek, and the whole crowd starts screaming .

They all run, this time, all going the same direction. A flood of desperate people down the same narrow bottleneck street, all crying and wailing in fear and pain. He and Tubbo are swept along, clinging furiously to each other to keep from being separated as they run the best they’re able, still penned in on all sides. The alien to his right shoulder checks him as he shoves ahead, sharp teeth flashing. The one to his left cowers, standing on their toes to try and see over the crowd.

It’s no use. Not while everyone’s moving like this. All anyone can do is keep moving.

Just keep moving. That’s all he has to do, keep fucking moving, Tommy. Don’t look down at the blood-stained dirt, ignore the shrieking in his ears and the smell of iron in the air. All he can do is cling to Tubbo with everything he has, and keep moving.

He isn’t sure why the kid catches his eye.

Maybe it’s because they look about the same age, maybe it’s the purple hoodie he’s wearing, standing out starkly from the muted red and leather clothes of everyone else. Maybe it’s the look on his face, jaw set and eyes narrowed in determination as he weaves through the crowd.

It’s a fluke, really. In the end, that’s all it is. 

The crowd around them jostles him in every direction, the aliens behind him shoving him forwards. It’s by chance that the kid in purple catches his eye, that he happens to be looking in his direction when a Piglin Brute  grabs the kid by the back of his hoodie and drags him backwards.

The screaming around him becomes ear piercing , everyone shoving each other to get out of the Piglins way. He holds the kid by the scruff of the neck like a kitten, shaking him violently and snarling in his face. The kid snarls right back, spitting something that only makes him madder, reaching for the axe strapped at his hip.

He’s moving before he realizes what he’s doing.

He doesn’t know why. He’ll think back to this moment in the future and still not have an answer. All he knows is that his feet start moving underneath him, and then he’s running before he knows what he’s doing. 

Tubbo screams from somewhere behind him as he tugs out his grip, but he barely even notices. All he sees is the axe, already in the Piglins hand and aiming for the kid's throat. All he sees is the kid's eyes, wide with terror as he braces for the impact.

He collides with the Piglins' side hard enough to send all three of them sprawling like bowling pins.

The kid looks at him, shock written across his face. There’s something so human in those purple eyes, pupils blown wide. The kid opens his mouth, but whatever he says is lost the minute he hits the floor, the breath knocked out of his lungs. 

Tommy scrambles to his feet, every inch of him trembling as he holds his dagger out in front of him like a sword. He bites his lip so hard he tastes blood, eyes locked on the body of Piglin in front of him, shaking its great head as it rises to its hooves. 

Those white eyes zero in on him, and he freezes.

He’s been training for weeks. He’s practiced with Technoblade over and over, just in case he gets in a situation just like this one . He knows what to do, how to use the dagger he holds, how to dodge and slash in the right places. He knows.

But the moment they lock eyes, he can’t move.

It gets to its hooves, breathing heavily out of its snout as it raises its axe. The purple kid is gone, Tubbo is gone. It’s just him, the panicked crowd, and certain death in front of him. His heart is beating out of his chest, legs trembling and threatening to drop him. His throat closes up, and he knows this is it, it’s the end. Those who eyes are filled with nothing but rage, and then it’s bearing down on him. He only manages to throw his hands in front of his face at the last second, flinching backwards on instinct. 

There’s a glint of golden metal, and he’s no longer alone.

Technoblade looks like something out of a myth.

He’s stained with blood from head to hoof, dripping from a slash on his cheek and splattering across his shirt. His lips are curled back in a fierce snarl, tusks and sharp, sharp teeth on full display as he moves with the kind of grace Tommy can only dream of. His braid is completely undone, strawberry hair in his eyes and bouncing behind him as he lunges, protecting him from the axe that had been aimed for his head. 

He steps in front of Tommy, turning to look at him over his shoulder for just a second, and his ruby eyes almost glow. “Run!”

Just like that, he can move.

He turns on his heel, boots skidding on the bloodstained dirt as he scrambles away. The Brute behind him howls, a blood curdling noise that makes him stumble over his feet. 

He needs to go, he needs to move. 

But still, still. Something in him is screaming to turn back around, to make sure Technoblade’s okay. To stand up beside him like a man instead of running like the coward he knows he is. He swallows it down, forcing himself to stumble forwards again on shaking legs. He needs to get out, to get away. 

There’s a screech of pain, and the loud shing! Of metal on metal. There’s a flash of gold in the corner of his eye as Technoblade’s golden sword hits the dirt. 

Fuck. 

He doesn’t hesitate. 

He lunges for it, fingers closing around the leather-wrapped handle. It’s too big for him, heavy and obviously weighted for someone like Technoblade in mind. Still, still, he won’t hesitate a second time. His crew mate, his friend, is in trouble because of him. He needs to get this back to Technoblade, he needs to fight. 

He turns back around, a snarl on his lips. He brandished the sword like it’s a part of him, holding it as steady as he’s able. He won’t run a second time.

Something heavy collides with his temple, and everything goes black. 

-

Twenty minutes later, the outskirts of Netheria are still in a frenzy.

The Piglin brutes are gone, leaving behind nothing but blood and chaos. The marketplace is in ruins, stalls having been kicked over and destroyed, some items stolen. The shopkeepers do what they can to repair what’s left.

The more seasoned residents have fled to the inner city, where it’s safe. The ones that can’t afford to leave stay behind. Parents call out for children, Piglins, Blazeborns and Magma’s walking the streets and huddling in groups. Some parents find what they’re looking for, pulling their children into their arms and hurrying away to safety. Other parents don’t find what they want to find, and collapse sobbing to the ground. Most keep searching, calling out for the pack members they've lost in the rioting as they walk the streets. 

There’s a boy here, too.

 No, not quite. A teenager. He’s dressed in all purple, hood drawn down over his face. If you look closer you can make out his eyes, both a striking violet, and the look on his face is conflicted. 

There’s a flyer in his hand, crumbled into a ball.

He slinks along like an alley cat, sticking close to the city walls and hiding in shadows. He’s looking for something, eyes darting as he whips his head this way and that. 

He finds what he’s looking for in the form of a group, huddled just outside of the marketplace. 

They stick out like a sore thumb, pale faces grim. The smallest one is sobbing, the one with wings, and Elytran, holding him close. The one with the leather jacket, a Phantling, forces his friend to sit on the edge of a step, fussing over the cut on his face. The Piglin throws him off, trying again to stand, only to be forced back down again. 

The teenager's eyes lock on to the Piglin.

He doesn’t look like the other Piglins, here. He’s shorter, more lean muscle in place of the normal bulk, face a little less boarish behind the thick scars. His braid is an absolute mess, the golden clasps falling out, but he doesn’t bother trying to fix it. His ruby red eyes sweep over the crowd, face twisted into a scowl. There’s a nasty bruise under one eye, and cut along his temple the Phantling is dabbing at with a cloth. He grimaces, but doesn’t pull away. 

The teenager freezes when he turns in his direction, but he looks right over him. He’s not looking for a teenager in purple, after all. 

The teenager slinks closer, listening.

“-Still around.” The Elytran is saying. “They won’t have gone far. We’ll find him.”

“I’ll kill them.” The Piglin growls, the pure venom in his voice making the teenager stumble. 

He fights the urge to freeze, moving closer and closer, instead. He keeps his gaze determinedly down. He’s heard stories of this Piglin, of the Blood God, and knows to be wary, after all. Every instinct tells him to run, but he forces himself to approach, instead. 

He pauses, just out of their sight. He unfolds the crumpled flyer in his hands, reading it for the hundredth time.

Wanted. It says, in Common Galactic. Must be returned alive and mostly intact. Reward, twenty Netherite ingots, and a front row seat. 

It doesn’t need to specify what the front row seats are too. Anyone who reads it recognizes the insignia stamped on blood red at the bottom corner. Ram horns, and a twisting grin. The picture in the center is of him, with every detail accounted for, down the shade of his purple hoodie. He’d change it, if he wasn’t so confident he wouldn’t be caught.

Not anymore.

He grimaces. He hates owing people. One life long debt is enough.

He slips the flyer into the Piglins bag when he has his back turned. He’ll know what to do with it.

Chapter Text

He dodges the swing of a meaty fist by a hairs-width. 

He jumps back just in time, and the punch swings wide. The Piglin rights herself just before she lunges again, and he barely has time to blink before he’s dodging out of the way. He slices his sword at her ribs as he goes. He misses, but only just. 

She roars, spitting something at him, but whatever she says is drowned out by the audience. The crowd that circles the pit is loud, a tidal wave of sound closing in on him from every side. Feet stomp, aliens shriek, the ground underneath his feet trembles from the force of it all. The air is hot and thick with the scent of sweat of blood, and his hands tremble with adrenaline where they grasp the sword he holds in front of him.

The Piglin he’s facing snarls, baring her tusks. Her red eyes glitter dangerously, and he doesn’t have a moment to rest before she’s lunging again.

Again, he steps back, moving out of the way just in time for the punch to miss. It’s a dance, almost, him darting out of the way just in time for swing to miss him. He falls into step with her, the rhythm familiar, grinning sharply as he does. He’s small and nimble where she’s strong and lumbering. A match of speed against strength that evens out in a tie. The crowd eats it up, pounding their feet in approval as they go back and forth, each miss closer than the last as his sword cuts through the air. 

Use your size to your advantage, Technoblade’s advice echoes in the back of his mind. Even without the tail, you’re more balanced than any Piglin. Use that.

The Piglin lunges again, and instead of backing away, this time he ducks under, catching her off guard just enough to make her stumble. She shrieks when he slashes at her stomach, grazing the side of her ribs. It’s not a bad cut by any means, but it’s enough to send her reeling for a second or two. 

Then, the crowd screams. They’ve tasted blood, now, and the resulting thunder of footsteps and bloodthirsty shrieks knocks him off guard. He hesitates for just a moment too long, grip on his sword weakening for a moment as he tries to shake off the noise, and It’s just what the Piglin needs. She kicks out against his chest with one of her hooves, sending him sprawling in the dirt. 

His sword goes flying -

Freeze frame, record scratch. 

You’re probably wondering how Tommy got himself into this situation. Well, you see…

Several hours earlier...

Tommy was no stranger to being kidnapped. 

As sad as it sounds, it’s true. He had woken up on a dirt floor with a splitting headache and a mouth full of grit, and the very first thing that came to mind was aw, fuck. Not again . The second thing he’d done after spitting and wiping the dirt off of his lips was try to stand up, which his body did not approve of, leaving him where he is now. Crumpled up in a pile on the floor, breathing heavily and cursing every decision he’s made thus far to get him to this point. 

He tries again, gritting his teeth and pushing himself upright to a sitting position. If he can’t stand, he can at least sit up. How long had he been out? He needs to look around, he needs to find out where the fuck he is and how to get out of here.

His hands aren’t bound, thank god, and the gloves are still on. The goggles are gone, though, and so is the thick jacket he’d been wearing, leaving him in Wilbur’s baggy pants and one of Phil’s spare shirts. Shit. So much for that disguise. His fingers scramble to his hip, but no dice. He’d lost his dagger in the fight, and the battered comn he’d shoved in his pocket was missing too. Fuck. 

He takes a deep, rattling breath, running his hands up and down his exposed arms. The slits in the back of the shirt for Phil’s wings weren’t helping in the slightest. His temple still throbs where he’d been clocked over the head, and he winces when he presses down on a bruise on his arm a bit too hard. He was intact, which was a good thing, and he didn’t see any blood. His ribs hurt when he breathes a little too hard, but not enough for him to be concerned about broken ribs. No injuries worse than bruises. Alright. He can work with that.

Now for step two, getting the fuck out of here. Easier said than done. 

He looks around.

The cell he’s been thrown into is little more than a glorified dog kennel, with bars on all sides and a locked door in the front. Past the bars is a pretty big room, he can just barely see the walls in the dark. There are a few other cages packed in here too, but no matter how much he squints he can’t make out anything more than just shadow. 

There’s a door along one wall, a big, hefty metal thing. He might’ve gotten stronger, sure, but not strong enough to break down a metal door. He takes a deep breath, in through his nose, out through his mouth. It smells damp and thick, like dust, blood, and mildew. He shivers. 

This place reminds him of somewhere else.

Somewhere he doesn’t ever want to think about again.

He shakes his head, hard. Once, twice, three times, shaking off the memories of a small, cold metal room like a dog shakes off water. There'll be plenty of time for a mental breakdown once he’s back on the ship with Tubbo. He needs to stay focused. 

Oh, Tubbo.

The memory of his best friend makes him jolt. He’d just fucking left him! Had he found Phil? Had he gotten captured too? He better have gotten away, he must have gotten away. He doesn’t want to think about the alternative. 

They’re probably looking for him right now.

...He’d never been able to say that, before. All of the other times he’d been in this situation, sitting on the floor of a cage and wondering what would happen to him next. He was never able to trick himself into thinking that there were people actually looking for him. Even Clem and Clara had probably given up after the first month. 

Now, though...

He squeezes his eyes shut, letting himself imagine it for just a moment. Technoblade could break down that big, metal door in a heartbeat, crumbling it like playdoh. Phil would come swooping in next, with Wilbur and Tubbo hot on his heels. Those Piglins wouldn’t stand a chance. 

He’d be back on the ship in a heartbeat. He’d sit on that lumpy couch with Tubbo on one side and Wilbur on the other, Technoblade purring somewhere nearby and Phil’s wings heavy and warm over his shoulders. He’d be fine, he’d be safe. 

He just needs to stick it out, maybe try and make it easier for them. It wasn’t like last time, he had people coming for him, now. People that would miss him, people that would fight for him. He’d be fine.

Alright, that’s enough of that.  Baby steps. First, trying to find a way out of the dog kennel. The lock looks flimsy enough, maybe if he had his fork-

Shit. Fuck. His bag!

His hands fly to his side, patting his chest where the strap should be, only to find air. It's not there. He’d left it on the ship, he remembers with a groan. Why had he left it on the ship? It had been right there when he was about to leave, sitting on one of those stupid boxes, and he had just forgotten it. Now he has nothing, just a pair of gloves and the clothes he’s wearing. 

...And Technoblade’s, jewelry. Apparently. 

They hadn’t taken it, he realizes, twisting his wrist this way and that to hear the jingle. The necklace was still there too, he could feel the cool weight of the chain resting just above his heart. Why? That’s like, bad guy 101, isn’t it? This shit looks expensive as hell, they should have pawned it off by now. It’s what he would have done. 

What had Tubbo said? Something about it being a cultural thing? Maybe that's why. Still. Weird .

He twists the bracelet around and around his wrist, fiddling with it. Technoblade did the same thing when he was thinking about something hard, fiddling with his bracelets and rings absentmindedly. It had taken him a while to notice, even longer to make the connection. He does it even more when he’s nervous.

Focus, Tommy. He needs to get the hell out of here.

He looks around again, pushing himself to his feet and doing a slow circle of his kennel. He’s shaky and a little lightheaded, but he manages. The lights are all off in the room, meaning he does most of his exploring by putting his hands out in front of him and feeling around. All he feels are the cool bars of the kennel, trapping him in on all sides. There’s enough room for him to pace in a decent circle, the ceiling just brushing his hair. He could lay down on his back with a few inches to spare, probably. No cot or blanket, though. Not even a bucket, which was just rude. 

He has to choke back a scream when he kicks something metal.

He springs back, Almost falling on his ass in surprise. The fuck? What the hell? 

Slowly, so slowly, he creeps back over again, heart pounding in his throat. He reaches out carefully into the dark like it’s about to bite him. His fingers graze against something smooth and metal as he drags them along the surface, all the way down to the leather-wrapped handle.

A sword. Technoblade’s sword.

He must have grabbed it when he’d been knocked out, and the thought leaves him giddy. He wastes no time pulling it into his hands, wrapping his fingers around the handle with vigor. He grins to himself, giving the sword an experimental slash. It’s a bit big for him, clearly weighted with someone like Technoblade in mind, but still. They made a big mistake by letting him keep this thing. He’d be out of here in no-

There’s an ear splitting creak as the metal door opens behind him. 

Immediately he rushes back to the darkest part of the kennel, sword tight in his hand as his heart jumps to his throat. He shoves it behind his back, like that would do him any good, and watches with narrowed eyes. Every muscle in his body is coiled taunt, ready to spring in an instant. 

Sickly yellow light pours out of the open door, and he blinks harshly to get his eyes to adjust faster. It doesn’t do much to illuminate most of the room, but it outlines the two figures that just walked in perfectly. 

The one on the right he somewhat recognizes. It’s obviously a Piglin, and probably a brute, too, judging by the size and the axe strapped to its back. It’s the one on the left that his eyes catch on. Most of its features are shadowed, but the can make out the unnatural bend to its legs, the soft clipping of hooves on the ground. The shape of two cruel-looking horns curling away from its face and the glint of golden jewelry hanging from long, goat-like ears. 

“-Don't care what you say. A human? It’s impossible, just forget about it.” It, (he?), is saying. His voice is gruff, with an American accent too. Figures. 

“Sir-“

“What part of forget about it do you not understand-“

Then, he turns. In one horrible instant, their eyes lock. 

“Oh.”

He creeps closer. Tommy wants to scramble backwards even more, but there’s something in those yellow eyes that’s keeping him frozen in place, hand tight in the sword he’s hiding behind him. 

He looks almost human, in the way that a lot of aliens do, but there’s something about him that’s just so clearly wrong. The way his legs are twisted into hooves, his rectangular pupil and floppy goat ears. His horns are wicked sharp, and curl back away from his face. The suit he’s wearing is perfectly pressed, black, with a blood-red tie over a crisp white shirt. Maybe it’s just the smile that grows across his lips when he gets closer, the slightly maniac glint in his eyes as he shows off just a few too many shining white teeth. There’s a wobble to his weird, lurching gait, leaving him shaky on his feet like he’s drunk and immediately setting off warning bells in Tommy’s head. 

“There’s no way.” He laughs, almost giddy. “How did you get your hands on that!”

The Piglin next to him shuffles, almost uncomfortably. The weight of his golden eyes settles heavily over Tommy’s shoulders. He’s not the one he was fighting, a little bit smaller than he had been with longer hair, but most of his features, the snout, the tusks, the scars, are the same. He grimaces. “We just found him, sir. We were collecting Purpled, he intervened.”

“Alone? He fought off the two of you alone?”

He did not like the look in the goat man’s eyes, and he especially doesn’t like the way he’s looking him up and down like he’s an item for sale, not one bit. He pulls his teeth back in a warning, but he doesn’t even seem to notice. 

The Piglin shifts again. “He had a friend.”

No. No, no, no, no. 

They can do whatever the fuck they want with him. They can lock him up, do whatever twisted experiments they want. He doesn’t care, he’s been through it all already and he knows he can handle it. The thought of someone else, Phil, Techno, Wilbur, Tubbo, sitting in the cage he’s in is enough to make him feel sick. He swallows, hard. 

His eyes light up, looking him over greedily. “Is it human too?”

The Piglin shuffles again, tail swishing at his hooves. He looks away. “We don’t know. He ran, and another Piglin intervened. We can track him down, if you’d like.”

“Go, then. Find it-“

“If you touch a single hair on his head. No one will find your body.” 

The words burst out of him all at once, erupting from his mouth before he could choke them back. He’d rather die before he lets this creepy fuck get his hands on the rest of his crew. On Tubbo. 

Silence. Then. 

Then, the goat man laughs, and the sound makes goosebumps rise on his skin. It’s a horrible sound, straight out of a goddamn horror movie. It seems to freeze the air around them, making even the Piglin next to him go still. The utter glee in his eyes makes the blood in his veins freeze over. 

“It talks!” He laughs, clasping his hands together. “That makes things easier. Welcome to the Pit, human. I saved your pathetic life, which means you’re indebted to me.”

“Saved my life? ” He hissed, unable to bite it back in time. “You fucking kidnapped-“

There’s a loud boom! And a flash of blue light. Both he and the Piglin jump.

The goat man grins, holding the pistol in one hand. It’s not like any gun he’s ever seen, though to be fair, he hadn’t seen many. It looks like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, made of a clean black metal with electric blue accents. It hums faintly in his hand, charging up again, no doubt. 

There’s a burn mark on the floor a few feet away, still smoking faintly. 

“I think you could afford to lose a few fingers.” He says cheerily, a finger tightening around the trigger. “It would cauterize instantly, anyways. Or, we could just go and find your other friend. Hmm?”

His eyes are still locked on the scorch mark. Laser gun. Technoblade and Phil both have one, but they’ve never used it. He’s only ever seen glimpses of the handles, tucked away in coat pockets or dangling from belts. They always seemed to reach for something else, first. A knife, or in Technoblade’s case, a sword. He’s never seen one up close.

The thought of that, of leaving this place with less fingers than he had when he was dragged here. Of Tubbo sitting here instead. It’s enough. His jaw clicks shut. 

The goat man smiles thinly in approval, tucking the gun back into its holster. “That’s better. Looks like I just saved you again! Funny how that works.

You didn’t save shit, he wants to snarl. He tightens his fingers around the handle of the sword instead, biting his tongue and imagining how much better the goat man would look with a blade through his neck. He knows this game, this push and pull. He’ll get bored of it eventually once Tommy stops giving him a reaction.

It’s familiar in a way that makes him feel sick. How easy he slips into it again, not meeting the man’s gaze and dipping his head ever so slightly. Whatever. It’s for Tubbo, for the rest of the crew, he can put up with this dickhead until they come for him. He’ll be fine. He’ll be okay. 

The man keeps talking, pacing back and forth in front of the cell. His voice is really starting to grate on Tommy's nerves, the slight slur to it even more irritating. The smell of alcohol clings to him, definitely drunk then. Wonderful. 

“Here’s the deal. You fight, you live. You lose, you die. If you win all three fights in a row, you’re free.” He pauses. “That is, if you want to be. Most people don’t.”

Three fights.

It sounds too easy. It’s some sort of trick, he knows it is, but what other choice does he have? He can win three fights in a row, easy peasy. 

He’ll be out of here in no time. 

His hand twitches around the sword before he realizes what he’s doing, and the goat man follows the movement down the leather. The smile

 on his face flickers, and for one heart stopping moment he’s sure that the Piglin is going to be ordered to come in the cage and rip it from him, but instead, he just smiles wider. “You’ll be up soon. Good thing you brought a weapon, I’ll even let you… Keep it…”

Then his eyes widen as he catches sight of the gilded handle. Tommy swallows hard. 

He throws his head back and laughs . 

It’s worse than the laugh from earlier, a full on crazy-person laugh that has even the Piglin shifting away from him. The look in his eyes is nothing short of manic, freezing Tommy in place as he rips his own gaze away. Oh, what the absolute fuck. 

“You’re one of his crew? Technoblade? ” He laughs, tossing his head back. “Well that’s just rich.”

He wipes a tear from his eye, already spinning on his heel and going to the door. He looks sharply at his Piglin, the laughter still ringing in the air and amusement still clear in his voice. “Go and find the blood god, then! Tell him we’re putting his little trainee to the test!”

The door slams shut behind the both of them, leaving him in darkness once again.

For a moment, all he can do is stand there. His legs tremble ever so slightly, hands sweaty underneath the gloves. He takes one rattling breath, then another. 

Yeah, fuck that. Fuck all of this, actually. 

He needs to get out of here, and he needs to get out of here now. He’s not going to be forced to fight like he’s some dog , and there’s no way in hell he was telling the truth about letting him go after winning three in a row. The guy sounds like a goddamn psychopath, and he’s not just going to sit around and wait to see what happens to him next, no thank you. 

He’ll get the fuck out of this cage, first, and then he’ll work on the door when he gets to it. Maybe he’ll get lucky, and they left it unlocked. He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it. First, the cage. 

He lifts the sword. Fucking idiots. This’ll be a piece of cake.

He steps into the slice, whacking at the lock the best he can through the bars. It’s positioned in a way that makes it difficult, but he’s nothing but persistent. All he has to do is think about his f- his crew, and he’s moving again. It’s a weird lock, unlike anything he’s ever seen before, but he’s got a huge fucking sword and the pent up rage to spare. 

He needs to get out.

He hits it once, then again. Then again. Then again. When it’s clear the lock itself isn’t budging, he aims for the bars holding it in place. Again, and again, and again-

“That won’t work.”

“Fuck you!” He shouts back, not even turning. He wipes the sweat off of his brow and goes at it again. “ It’ll fucking give! I’ve just gotta-“

Hold the fuck up.

He spins on his heel, brandishing the sword. If Technoblade were here, he’d be criticizing his stance, telling him to fix his footwork and to hold the sword more upright. But Technoblade isn’t here and he’s exhuasted so fuck you! 

“Who said that?!” He shouts, waving the sword at nothing as his legs tremble. “Why don’t you come out here and face me like a man!”

“It won’t work.” The voice says back simply. “You need a key.”

There.

In a different cage, there’s a figure. It’s sitting down against the far wall, just barely visible in the shadows. The voice is low and soft, strained. Not exactly threatening. 

He lowers the sword. “...Who the fuck are you?”

It shifts, ever so slightly. Two eyes peer at him in the dark, one red, one green. They tilt as the figure moves its head, moving just a little bit closer as it looks him over. It seems to realize Tommy’s not a threat the same moment Tommy does.

“My name’s Ranboo.” It, he, they, say back. They squint. “Who are you?”

-

On the other side of the city, a Piglin walks through the streets of Netheria. 

This in of itself isn’t unusual, but this particular Piglin is a bit odd. He’s not as tall and broad as the others, he lacks more of the boar-ish features. His hair is a vibrant bubble-gum pink, and he wears it long and braided back away from his face. His eyes are blood red instead of the usual gold. 

The other Piglin’s know he’s not one of them, not really. They watch him, golden eyes narrowed in suspicion. Outsider! A few of the braver ones snort at him as he passes. The ones who know him by name pull their sounder closer and leave quickly. He doesn’t even glance up. He’s gotten pretty used to the sound of unwanted voices in his ear. 

There’s a wanted poster in his hand. He knows what it says, and what it means. He told the others that he’s going to do this himself, and he pretends to not notice when he realizes he’s being followed anyways. For a while, atleast, just until it becomes unavoidable. 

“You can come out now, Tubbo.” He says over his shoulder. He gets a weird look from a nearby Blazeborn, but he doesn’t pay it any mind.

The Bezzarian creeps out from an alleyway, sulking closer like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. “...Hi Techno.”

He flicks an ear. “Where are the others?” 

He’s blunt. He’s always been blunt, most Piglin’s are. The language of grunts and snorts they speak doesn’t leave a lot of room for nuance or subtly. Anyone unfamiliar with him would be intimidated, but the ones close to him know better. 

Pack. Sounder. The voices whisper in his ear. Missing. Taken! Find him, find him! Technoprotect! 

I’m workin’ on it. He thinks back. They hiss, but quiet. 

“Around.” The Bezzarian shrugs, still looking guilty. “They followed me, I snuck out first.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You walked all the way here from the ship?”

“No. I stole Wil’s bike.” Then, he grins, the manic look in his eyes enough to make a grown man shiver. “I didn’t even crash! It was fun!”

Internally, he winces. He makes a mental reminder to never let the Bezzarian around his sword or guns, and to yell at the Phantling later for not locking his bike up properly. Though, to be fair, he’d probably gotten an earful from the Elytran while they flew over. The image of both of them, the Phantling clinging desperately to the Elytrans arms as he flies them over the desert, screaming all the while, is hilarious. 

“They’ll catch up.” He grunts, after a moment. “It’s a long walk from here, we need to get goin’.”

The Bezzarian smiles again, falling in step beside him. He slows down just a little once he notices him lagging behind, but not enough for him to realize. The golden jewelry still on his wrists and around his neck is enough to make the Piglins they pass look away quickly, especially once they recognize who the Bezzarian is walking next to.

Sounder! The voices in his ear cheer. So cute. Baby. Evil. Keep close, don’t lose this one. E! Where are the others? Technosoft! 

“...So, where are we going? Exactly?” He pipes up, after a beat. “You didn’t say.”

No. He wants to correct. I just didn’t tell you. If I told you that another one of your closest friends was not only kidnapped, but put into one of the most bloodthirsty fighting rings on this planet, you would lose your mind. I have enough to deal with on my own at the moment and didn’t want to add to it. The others know, and they agreed to let me handle this on my own. I should have known they’d follow anyways, because they’re idiots. 

Idiots! The voices agree. But we love them. Pack. Sounder! Family. Ours, ours, ours. E! 

He doesn’t say any of that. What he does say is. “The inner city.” 

“...Right.”

Neither of them say anything more than that.

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