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" The kings speak of birds as prizes, the poets speak of the birds as freedom, the peasants speak of the birds as pests but the mother's speak of the birds as love, what do you think little birdie."
The cold fall air bit at Tommys face, the wood damp with frost as the winter creeps closer, the bench always looked so dead around this year with the grass colour melting away and the full emerald trees become nothing more than claws reaching for the sky.
Tubbo sat beside Tommy looking at the old jukebox, the box had sat in the same spot since the beginning of time, it felt older then it really was.
Tubbo was the first to speak, not taking his eyes off the jukebox,
" I heard you and Wilbur are back on speaking terms." His voice quietly stated his eyes now slowly looking out onto the vast SMP.
Tommy looked at Tubbo curiously wondering why that's what he decided to come to talk about.
" Yeah we are." Tommy spoke quietly, truly he did know why Tubbo was talking about it; he just didn't want to talk about it.
" Ranboo saw you and him yesterday." Tubbo slowly said in a voice hesitating as he looked at the younger boy.
The sandy fields filled his old sneakers as he walked across the desert, the sweltering heat itching at his wet skin lingering under his bones like a worm about to crawl out of a hole, Tommy hated the desert.
Quackity stood in front of Tommy looking at the young boy up and down before motioning for the boy to follow him.
The building was cool and crisp, the white walls shining in the golden chandelier light creating a classy atmosphere that Tommy could not sit still in, it felt upper class like lavish meals and nice clothes that weren't stained with blood and didn't hide scars of untold battles.
Quackity came into the room with a bundle of clothes and a towel in his arms, "go take a shower in the next room and change into these then we can talk." His usual light hearted voice he always wore around Tommy seeming to be pinched and less warm then normal.
Tommy knew Quackity had heard what Wilbur had said.
The shower was cold on his overheated skin soothing the sunburns bond to his usually pale skin.
When he returned to Quackity without the clinging of sweat from the dessert he saw how tired and frustrated the man was, hands balled into tight white knuckle fist brows furrowed so deep it almost aged the man by years slouched over the red velvet couch.
"You can't let him keep getting away with how he treats you Tommy." Quackity strong voice cracked out and his tone clipped.
Quackity was always worrying himself over Tommy when he could. They had been good friends since the man joined the SMP but always going through different lives never really seeing each other much but always caring for the other.
Quackity was always worried with how Wilbur talked to Tommy now once they had respected each other and been friends now something poisonous sat between the two older men.
"It's fine Quackity wilbur was just in one of his moods."
Quackity didn't look relieved.
"Do you trust me Tommy Cause right now I don't feel like you trust me!"
Tommy knew in his heart Tubbo could never understand why he stood by Wilbur's side to this day, Tommy looked at Wilbur the man who built a whole nation for him and burned it to the ground, who pluck the heartstrings of everyone around them but never let them close, the man who sang songs into the night air hoping they would reach an ear to hear and understand. No one knew Wilbur better then Tommy no one saw into his mind and heart as closely as Tommy, no one heard the songs and listened to every word hanging on as if it was his air except Tommy, no one's heart was as tied to Wilbur's cold heart as Tommys was and no one watch himself burn with Wilbur as Tommy did. Yet even Tommy couldn't understand the man at points.
Wilbur's brain ran like a symphony at its highest peak, all the instruments playing at once in a seamless chorus, every instrument melting together till they all became one noise so loud you can't hear yourself breathe you can't tell what's your thoughts from the music.
Tommy sat in the warm office, the grey blue walls soothing a part of his brain he didn't know needed to be soothed.
Puffy just looked at him gently, nothing malice or deceitful or even angry behind her eyes.
"Wilbur apologised but it wasn't to me. I don't think he knew how to apologise for what he's done. I think he was scared of me leaving but also scared to face what he really did."
Puffy looked at Tommy watching quietly waiting for the perfect question to find its place on her tongue.
" Who was he apologising to?"
Tommy sat for a long moment staring at the floor the words were on his tongue and if he spoke it will finally be real and that scared Tommy more than anything
"Himself for doing this to me he was apologising for letting himself be selfish enough to let me drown with him."
Tommy paused and looked at Puffy
" Wilbur said he apologised in his own way but he knows that's not how apologises work he knows it's not for him to decide what will heal me, it wasn't the apology I needed it wasn't the one I deserved but it was the best I was going to get because he knew he was leaving me behind again and he knew he wasn't coming back.
It's funny he was scared of me rejecting him and leaving him but he left first he always did.
Puffys soft eyes looked into tommys with a care only a mother could have. It was when her eyes locked onto his did he only remember she was once a mother and she understood the loose he was feeling to a point.
"Me and Wilbur were drowning from the start but we didn't care cause we were drowning together letting the void suck us further in, but it was ok cause I at least had him but at some point he couldn't stand to see me drowning with him because he knew I was down there because of him and maybe in a sick way he thought if he could escape the void and left again maybe I'd stop drowning or maybe that's just what he was hoping cause we both know I'm still drowning just desperately alone."
Tommys hands clammed up in his kap sweat like the dessert eating at his flesh fusing his two palms together.
Puffy sat with a type of calm that only sorrow could bring. Escaping sorrow for the calm.
Tommy wished he could understand.
"There's this feeling of comfort of knowing you're dying together and maybe I grew dependent on that feeling of his sorrow sitting with mine. It was just us pushing each other more and more in the void but more and more together even when Will kept leaving me behind he was pushing our sorrow together like this broken desperate poem he was writing. Waiting with baited breath for the perfect crack in me to start his next line, like how he tied me to a country new and innocent full of love and life only to blow it up and leave me in its wreckage.
A sorrowful hole that kept being beaten down and maybe he was right To put us together painting my life in the dirt and soot,but it was still us together in the youth of that painting of singing songs to flowers and chasing me in the grass to the nights I sat in that hole and his ghost sat behind my back. He left me many times but he always came back to us together again but this time he cut all our strings and left our void and gave me the blackened goo of his soul one last time in a book of love and sunrises, while I was stuck in a eternal night it's a cruel thing to do to someone you love but that's the only way he can love at this point maybe that's the only way we loved each other. Tommy finished gasping for air,a tightness in his chest as the angry tears stung in his eyes looking at the fused palms with their litter scars waiting for Puffy to speak.
Puffy and Tommy sat not saying a word cause Puffy knew the boy was right about his brother's love, Tommy knew better than anyone about his brother there souls were connected in a way no one could compare so Puffy asked one thing.
"Did your brother love you? Could you tell me if he did?"
Tommy didn't even wait a beat.
"Wilbur loved me like no one else could. He loved me more than anyone else. No one can deny he loved me, not even me."
Tommy stopped and took a breathe
"He just didn't love me enough to take me with him, and maybe that was his way of loving me letting me go."
"Wilbur could only love through hurting others; he lost the soft way of love during the wars and deaths and blood but he never forgot how to feel love." Tommy paused.
"He loved me but he loved feeling himself break more"
"Little bird you've been freed from your cage but you wont open the door."