Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Groaning, Tommy pulls his blanket over his head to stop the sunlight from shining in his eyes.

. . .

Wait...

Tommy throws off his blanket and scrambles off the couch -lets be honest, he falls onto the floor- and grabs his phone off the coffee table to check the time. 7:30am. Shit, he slept through his alarms. Tommy curses under his breath as he quickly throws on his red sweater with two white stripes on the sleeves and grabs his shoes before rushing out the door. Only to come right back in because he forgot his keys.

He sprints down the street and practically throws himself down the stairs to the subway station, almost tripping and falling flat on his face but he manages to catch himself on the railing. Tommy, luckily, makes it onto the metro before the doors close, which is very lucky for him because if he didn’t then he would have had to wait another hour for the next one to arrive. He flops down onto one of the empty seats with a huff as he finally gets a moment to relax.

“Rough morning?”

Of course. He can’t get even one minute of peace, can he?

Tommy looks over to see a boy probably his own age. He has light brown hair poking out from under the hood of his neutral purple hoodie which his hands are stuffed in the pocket of, the bottom half of his face is hidden by a black neck gaiter mask but his eyes are visible, and are this unique piercing purple colour. Though, they look tired, worn out. He’s wearing black pants, which are accompanied by white shoes.

Tommy stares at the stranger for a moment before hesitantly responding, “Uh, hi?”

The boy tilts his head at Tommy’s hesitant response, and if Tommy looks close enough, he can see a hint of amusement or maybe intrigue in those tired purple eyes. “I’m Purpled, what’s your name? You do have one, yeah?” He asks bluntly.

Tommy scoffs at the bluntness. Where does this guy get off on blatantly insulting strangers? Especially with a name from the literal rainbow. “Yes I have a name. It’s Tommy, asshat-” The metro comes to a sudden stop with a loud hiss as the doors screeching as they slide open. “Oh, this is my stop. See ya ‘round, ‘Purpled’.” Tommy stands up, haphazardly waving goodbye over his shoulder as he steps off.

Tommy bursts through the door of the cafe, giving a quick sorry to Foolish as the man slips his apron off and hands it to Tommy. “It’s fine Tom, you know I don’t mind covering for you if you need me to.”

He nods as he accepts the apron and slips it on, his face heating up in embarrassment as his hair gets ruffled by Foolish. Tommy glares at the man before swatting his hand away, “Yeah, yeah. Go home Foolish, I don’t need you to cover for me, just slept through my alarms.” he quips as he slips behind the counter and waves the man off. Foolish chuckles fondly at Tommy’s antics as he heads out the cafe, waving to Tom before he closes the door.

Tommy sighs, taking a deep breath and putting on his best ‘I want to be here’ smile and his customer service voice before starting to take orders, slipping into his numb routine of; take order, make order, repeat. For seven hours straight. Yaayyy, he loves his life… 

The morning rush calms down after a few hours, as most people are at work now, so he settles down on the stool behind the counter and pulls out his phone. He opens up tetris to kill some time, turning the radio up a bit so that he can actually hear the music playing.

Tommy doesn’t notice when the bell on the door rings, or when someone walks up to the counter, or even when the person clears their throat to try and get his attention. He only realises someone’s there when they finally speak up, “Are you just gonna sit there all day or are you gonna do your job?”

Tommy almost drops his phone as he scrambles to put it away and stand up, caught off guard by the comment. He had half the mind to cuss the guy out, but he doesn’t want Sam to have to deal with the repercussions.. again, so he just puts on his customer service voice and picks up his notepad. “Sorry sir, what can I get you?” he practically grits through his teeth, trying his best to sound ‘friendly’ and not like he’s two seconds away from ripping the guy's head off.

Finally looking up at the man, Tommy gets a hit with a bit of deja vu. The man looks vaguely familiar, but he doesn’t know why. Just something about his appearance and voice together seem to just slot in place. Maybe he saw the guy on the news? Or maybe in the newspaper- no, the only thing in the paper nowadays is just shit about the Syndicate, and this guy is way too ugly to be a world renowned villain. Just how that works.

The guy is about 6’6”probably? Tall motherfucker. The blue tips in his hair are faded, blending in with his dark brown curls and highlighting his amber eyes. He’s wearing a coffee brown sweater, an umber brown duffle coat with different shades of blue patches on it and black jeans. He has bandages on his fingers and his left palm, and he doesn’t have a beanie on. He also has on circular glasses, kinda like the ones from Harry Potter.

The guy smirks, tilting his head slightly, “Just a black coffee please.”

Tommy grimaces as he writes it down. Like, ew, who orders black coffee? Gross. What a wrongun. He sighs, “Okay, that’ll be-”

“Oh!” The guy cuts him off, rude, “And a Latte, please.”

“Right,” Tommy scoffs, rolling his eyes and writing that down as well, quickly doing the maths in his head before typing it into the cash register. “That’ll be $10.38, can I have a name for the order?” he questions, pulling out two cups and a sharpie.

The man smiles, “Wilbur.” He says his name like he’s proud of it, which he shouldn’t be, It’s shit. Who names their kid ‘Wilbur’, that’s so stupid. Tommy sneers as he writes down something onto one of the cups. Wilbur gives him a questioning look but he ignores it and just turns away to start making the order.

A few minutes later Tommy all but slams the cups down in front of Wilbur, startling the man and causing him to drop his phone. Tommy laughs as the man glares at him, scrambling to pick up his phone and grab the cups. “‘Bitch boy’ really?” Wilbur deadpans, reading out the name Tommy had written on the cup of coffee.

Tommy snickers, proudly putting his hands on his hips as he grins. “It’s a much more fitting name for you, don’t ya think?” He doesn’t notice when Wilbur’s expression softens from annoyance to something closer to fondness as Tommy snickers. “Now, shoo- I have other customers to serve and you’re holding up the line.” Tommy announces, waving the man off dismissively as he turns his back to him. Wilbur chuckles and debates throwing a witty comment at Tom before he leaves, but he decides that, since he is actually holding up the line now, to just leave. He gives a wave to the raccoon boy as he leaves the cafe.

Once Tommy’s shift at the cafe was over he got a message from Niki saying that the Library would be closed today, so he decided to take on some extra hours at Bad’s dinner since he doesn’t exactly have anything else to do for the next six hours till his shift there starts anyways. So now he’s stuck taking orders, bridging out orders, then wiping down the tables for ten hours instead of his usual four. Great, he just makes the best decisions ever doesn’t he? Around 11pm Bad heads out with Skeppy, leaving Tommy alone for the last hour and to close up the diner on his own, which has become the normal routine starting a few weeks ago when Skeppy moved here to be closer to Bad.

Tommy was wiping down a table when he hears the bell jingle. Great. Why is someone even out this late? Don’t they got shit to do in the morning, places to be, bitches to see? Turning around he now understands why the person is out so late. It’s the Angel of Death. Holy shit the Angel of Death is standing right infront of him, oh my god- what does he even say??

Angel of Death has short blonde hair just barely visible beneath the large kasa hat he wears, the black veil wrapped around the edge hiding his face from view. He’s wearing a green and black tang suit jacket, black harem pants, white knee length tabi socks and green striped japanese clogs. And of course, large black crow wings folded beautifully behind his back, and to pull the outfit all together? A mother fucking crow just chilling on his shoulder.

Tommy stares at the pair for a moment before slowly setting his rag onto the table he was cleaning and pulling out his little notebook and a pen, “Uh- do you.. would you like to order something? The uh- the cooks already went home for the night, but I’m sure I could probably manage.”

Death tilts his head slightly, and Tommy can just barely see a soft smile through his veil. “Yes, I would like a basket of chips please. And three waters.” Tommy nods, quickly writing that down before ducking behind the counter and back into the kitchen. Now, has Tommy ever made chips before? No. Has Tommy ever even used a deep fryer before? Definitely not. But he'll figure it out, hopefully.

After quite a bit of trial and error, Tommy finally manages to make some chips, which at least look mostly edible. He dumps the chips into one of the red and white baskets then slips it into a to-go bag, grabbing three water bottles from the big fridge before going back out to the counter, setting the bags and waters down on the surface as Death walks over. “Here you go, sorry that took so long, the deep fryer was being a bitch.” He mutters.

Death chuckles lightly as he picks up the brown paper bag. “I don’t have any money on me, but here.” He turns his head to look at the crow resting on his shoulder, “Kristen?” On cue, the bird ruffles her feathers, letting a feather float down and be caught by Death. Turning back to Tommy, he holds out the feather, an offer. A gift from the bloody Angel of Death of all people. Absolutely he’s accepting the feather as payment.

“Yes- yeah, this is fine.” Tommy stutters out, happily accepting the feather. And oh my god it's so soft, and very pretty, aside from just being black it has an almost purplish shins in the lighting of the diner. This is officially the best day of Tommy's entire life, which honestly isn't that high of a bar to achieve.

“Great. Well, I best be off. Thanks for the stuff, mate.” Death hums, grabbing the water bottles and turns to leave. The crow, Kristen, flaps a wing at Tommy before Death walks out, almost like she's waving goodbye to him- which is absolutely adorable.

Tommy finds himself just admiring the feather for a long while, trying to process the fact that he just had a very pleasant interaction with the literal Angel of Death, who Tommy has only ever heard bad things about. Which, to be fair, the news is shit and not to be trusted to give the real story on “villains” and “heroes”.

Slipping a twenty into the register for the chips and waters, Tommy has never been more relieved that there's no security cameras in the diner, because how the hell would he ever explain tonight to Bad- or anyone for that matter. He wouldn't, there would be no explaining because anyone who were to find out would immediately deem it as he's “working with the villains” and then he'd simply be thrown into Pandora's Vault. No thanks, he'll keep this interaction to himself actually.

Once Tommy calms down and regains his bearing he checks what time it is and is relieved to see that it's 12am. He quickly cleans off the last table and grabs his stuff before turning off the lights and locking up the diner. Tommy trudges over to the subway, only realising just how tired he is when he almost trips down the stairs. He steps onto the metro and settles on standing so that he doesn’t fall asleep and miss his stop, for the fifth time this month.

He finally gets home around thirty minutes later, and once he gets inside the apartment he slips his shoes off and tosses his sweater onto a chair, checking his alarms before collapsing onto the couch. Tommy yawns as he tugs his blanket over himself and drifts off to sleep.

Chapter Text

“Alright Tom, I’m off to take Fran to the groomers,” Sam says as he walks out from the back room. “Are you sure you’ll be fine here on your own? I can always call Foolish back in, you know he wouldn’t mind-”

“I’ll be fine, Sam.” Tommy cuts him off, “I’m not a child, I can handle running the cafe on my own for a few hours. Not like I’ll be doin’ anything different.” Sam smiles at him, ruffling Tommy’s hair as he walks out to the door.

“Okay then, I’ll see you later Tommy.” Sam waves goodbye to Tommy as he closes the door behind him.

For the first hour everything was fine, he’d take orders, make orders, and repeat. That was until a certain brunette had to show up, and with a new person as well.

Tommy scowls as he watches Wilbur walk through the doors, all happy and cheerful. Weirdo, It’s way too early for that kinda energy, the person he brought with him already seems way more pleasant.

“Tommy!” Wilbur says cheerfully as he walks up to the counter, all but dragging along the person he brought, “This is my twin brother, Techno.” Again, what is with this family and their names?

Techno has long, light pink hair pulled back in a loose braid. He’s wearing a white button up, a cardinal red jacket, and ripped jeans. He has dark brown eyes, but in the right lighting they almost look like blood red, he also has glasses but they’re rectangular instead of Harry Potter style.

Tommy fully ignores Wilbur and turns to his twin instead, “I am genuinely sorry you have to live with this,” he gestures to Wilbur, who lets out an offended gasp. “I’ve only met him once and I’m already ready to kill him, how have you dealt with him for so long?”

Techno makes a low huff sound, which Tommy’s gonna guess was supposed to be a laugh, “Lots and lots of patients.”

Tommy hums, he personally is not one for patience. Wilbur just stands there, looking between the two with a flabbergasted look. “Wh- Techno! What the hell?! You’re meant to be on my side!” He practically whines.

“I’m only on your side when you're right, and in this case, the kid’s right.” Techno corrects. Tommy would complain that he's not a kid, but he’s busy laughing his ass off, to care all that much.

Wilbur whines, but gives up. “Fine, whatever” he scoffs, “I’ll just have a black coffee.” Wilbur then walks away with a huff and sits down at one of the tables next to the window.

Techno sighs, “Latte please.”

“Okay, that’ll be-” Tommy quickly writes down the numbers and does the maths, it's good practice. After all, gotta keep those brain cells working, y'know? “$10.30 please.” 

Techno hums and pulls out a twenty, “Here, keep the change.” He then walks over and slides into the booth, sitting right next to Wilbur. They start talking but Tommy doesn’t try to listen in, honestly not caring at all.

A few minutes later Tommy brings over their drinks, setting them down on the table, “Here ya go.”

“Thank you,” Wilbur smiles, grabbing his drink. Tommy stays as he takes the first sip, watching as his face morphs into one of surprise then disgust as he spits it out, receiving a questioning look from Techno. “What the fuck is this?!”

Tommy bursts out laughing, doubling over as Wilbur wipes his mouth, leaning against the table so that he doesn’t fall over. Techno rolls his eyes as he grabs the cup from Wilbur and takes a sip, he tilts his head for a moment then hums.

“Oh, it’s just tea.” He sighs as he sits the cup back down, taking a sip of his own drink, which is actually the latte he ordered, “Quit overreacting, Wilbur.”

Wilbur scowls at Techno before turning to Tommy, “What if I was allergic?! I could’ve died, you child!”

He smirks. “That would’ve been the cherry on top Wilby-” Tommy cuts himself off, slapping a hand over his mouth.

Tommy cringes as Wilbur’s expression turns into one of pride as he gasps, “Did you just call me Wilby?”

“Wha- NO! I did no such thing. I said Wilbur, obviously.” Tommy quickly gets all defensive about it, which Wilbur promptly ignores as the man gets up from the booth and jokingly hugs Tommy, patting the boy's head.

“Awe, It’s okay Tommy. You can call me Wilby-” Wilbur gets cut off with a yelp as he recoils back, holding his hand. He stares at Tommy for a second, a repulsed look on his face. “Did you just fucking bite me?!”

Tommy smirks as Wilbur starts going off about getting rabies from him and stuff, calling him a ‘feral animal’ and a ‘gremlin’, to which Techno just watches them in amusement. “You two look like brothers,” he comments nonchalantly.

Wilbur pauses, whipping his head around to face Techno. “Don’t say that. I will cry-” 

"Please do." Tommy quickly throws in.

"-if you say that again." Wilbur finishes with a quick glare at Tom.

Tommy gets a mischievous look on his face as he turns to Techno, "Say it again- please, I want to see him cry like the baby he oh so is." He jokes, urging Techno to call them brothers again, despite even him not appreciating the association. 

A few hours later Tommy's shift ends and it's time to go home- the library is still closed and he doesn't have work at the Diner on Fridays- only issue is, it's raining. Typically Tommy would just catch a ride home with Sam, but seeing as Sam isn't here right now, it's seeming like he's just gonna have to book it to the subway station through the rain.

Tommy sighs, glaring at the rain through the door as he pulls his hood over his head. Having not been paying attention he lets out a startled yelp when a hand gets placed on his shoulder. Wilbur laughs as he watches Tommy jump away from the touch, his shoulders hitching up to his ears. As soon as Tommy hears Wilbur's laugh he whips around and shoves him. "You almost gave me a bloody heart attack. Warn a man next time would ya?" he growls, causing Wilbur to laugh harder.

"I absolutely will not be doing that, your reaction was priceless-" Wilbur says in-between gasps. Techno snorts as Tommy smacks Wilbur's arm.

"Alright, alright." Techno muses, "Can y'all stop fighting already? I'd like to actually get home before it's time to get up again."

Wilbur rolls his eyes, waving off Techno, "Yeah yeah, whatever you say. Go wait in the car then, I'll be out in a second." Techno narrows his eyes at Wilbur but sighs as he walks out of the cafe to go wait in the car. Wilbur smirks the looks back at Tommy, "So, you got a ride home?"

Tommy narrows his eyes, "What, you tryna' kidnap me? Yes I have a ride home, I'ma take the subway."

"Subway?" Wilbur frowns, "That's a few blocks away though, you'll have to walk through the rain."

Tommy was mid shrug and opening his mouth to say something as he was cut off by Wilbur wrapping his arm around Tommy's shoulders. "Nonsense! We'll drive you home." He announces, pushing the doors open as he walks forward, practically dragging Tom with.

Sat in the back of the, seemingly very expensive, car, Tommy stays very quiet. He doesn't want to interrupt Wilbur and Techno's conversation, so he just awkwardly sits there listening.

Something he's realized is that both of their voices sound painfully familiar, like he's heard them somewhere else. Thinking that he's just hearing things since he's tired, he shrugs it off and turns his attention to watching out the window.

A few painstakingly long minutes later they pull into the parking lot of his apartment building. "Do you want me to walk you up to your-" Wilbur tries to ask, turning back to look at Tommy, before being interrupted.

"I'm fine. Thanks for the ride, Techno." Tommy quickly cuts Wilbur off, opening the car door and getting out. He pulls his hood up as he runs off to the entrance of the apartment. After all, he would like to go up and get some sleep, not spend the next hour getting his ear chat off by Wilbur.

Wilbur pouts as Tommy quickly leaves after cutting him off, not giving him a chance to protest, "Boo, I was hoping to see which floor he lived on." He whines, leaning back against his seat with a huff.

"I'm sure you were." Techno scoffs, shaking his head as he puts the car in reverse and pulls out of the parking lot. "Clearly he doesn't consider y'all as close of friends as you do." Wilbur rolls his eyes but doesn't disagree.

Once he gets inside his apartment Tommy locks the door with a sigh and kicks his shoes off. He actually feels a bit hungry so he walks over to his small kitchen and grabs out his last piece of bread. "I'll have to go shopping soon," Tommy thinks.

Before he can eat his bread though he hears tapping coming from his window. Being the stupidly curious child he is, he sets his bread down on the counter and walks over to open the window.

A crow swoops inside, landing on the kitchen counter, tilting its head at the piece of bread. Tommy slowly walks over and grabs the bread, the crows head following his movements curiously.

He looks between the bird and the bread a few times before sighing and crumbling the bread up into little crumbs, setting the handful of bread crumbs down next to the crow, which immediately starts to eat them.

Tommy chuckles, “I’m gonna name you Clementine.” The crow, Clementine, ruffles her wings so she must like it.

Tommy smiles, satisfied with his new found companion and walks over to the couch, not bothering to pull off his sweater before flopping down on it and curling up under his blanket. Almost immediately, he falls asleep.

Chapter Text

Now, just because it’s Saturday, doesn’t mean Tommy can’t still go to his favorite cafe. So, here Tommy is standing in line to get a coffee. After what feels like an hour, he finally gets up to the counter to order. “Aup Foolish, how’s the shift going?”

“Going well, going well. Surprised to see you here on your day off.” Foolish smiles, taking a chance to lean against the counter while talking to Tommy, it’s been pretty hectic this morning, so he hasn’t gotten much of a break since he got here.

Tommy shrugs, stuffing his hands in his pockets,, “I figured it’d be cruel of me not to grace you with my presence.”

Foolish chuckles, “Of course, I don't know what I would’ve done without my daily dose of Tommyinnit.” They end up talking for a few minutes, the cafe has calmed down some so Tommy doesn’t have to worry about holding up the line, so they take a chance just to chat and catch up on events happening in each other’s lives. Apparently Foolish got this new part time job as a security guard at some place called ‘Las Nevadas’, whatever that is. Eventually though they run out of things to talk about, and Tommy was about to finally order when he suddenly gets shoved past.

“Hey! What the hell man?! I was here first-” Tommy’s words die in his throat as a porcelain mask turns to look at him, a smiley face painted on the front. Dream, the number one hero. What the hell is he doing in this cafe??

Dream, being the prick he is, doesn’t say anything to Tommy and just turns back to Foolish, who had since straightened up off the counter. “Three latte’s, make it snappy.” Tommy has to restrain himself from scoffing at the man’s snappiness. Dream’s lucky he’s wearing that stupid smiley mask, or he’d have clawed the man's eyes out for speaking to Foolish like that.

“Coming right up, sir.” Foolish quickly scurries away to make the order. Tommy doesn’t blame him, dude’s just got this creepy ass vibe about him. It’s unsettling.

A few minutes later Foolish comes back with the three drinks in a drink carrier and hands it to Dream, who doesn’t even say a simple thank you before leaving. Tommy knows that hero’s don’t have to pay for shit when they’re on shift, but most of them usually have the decency to at least offer to still pay.

Tommy scoffs as the man walks out the doors and moves back up to the counter, glaring at the man through the windows in irritation as he disappears into the crowded sidewalk, “Well that guy’s a right bastard, ain't he?”

“Tell me about it,” Foolish sighs, crossing his arms on the counter. “What’s his problem? He seems to always be in a bad mood.”

“I think his problem is that he’s got a stick shoved up his ass.” Tommy huffs, which manages to pull a chuckle from Foolish. “Whatever, shitty ‘heros’ aside, I’ll just have an Espresso.” 

Foolish hands him the drink, apparently he made it when he was making Dream’s order. Hah, Tommy gets priority here, take that prick. Tommy says his thanks, pays for his drink -unlike a certain someone- and nods his goodbye to the Totem hybrid before slipping out the glass doors of the cafe.

Tommy opts for just strolling around the city for a while, not like he’s got anything better to do, it’s his day off and it’s not like he has friends to hang out with. It’s a pretty nice day out, the sky is bright blue and the breeze is keeping it from being too hot, it’s nice. A very pleasant change from the constant cloudy days full of rain recently.

After about an hour or two he stumbles across the park, he can’t remember the last time he sat by the pod and watched the ducks, so that’s what he decides to do. Much to his surprise, he finds that his usual bench already has someone sitting in it. Getting a bit closer, he recognizes that pink hair, it’s Techno!

With a smirk tugging at his lips, Tommy runs over and plops down next to the man, who doesn’t even jolt in surprise. “Hey big man! Whatcha doing out here by yourself? I would have assumed you’d have Wilbur sewed to your side 24/7.”

Techno glances up from his book to spare Tommy an unamused look, “He’s working.”

Tommy hums, pulling his legs up onto the bench with him to be sitting criss-crossed. “Working? He didn’t ring me as the type to, well, work. Not an actual job at least, he gives me starving artist vibes.” Much to Tommy’s delight, that comment pulls a huff from Techno, which he assumes is the man’s equivalent of a laugh.

“You’re not wrong there, he does write music. But much to most people’s surprise, he does have an actual job, pays pretty well too.” Techno muses, looking back down to his book.

Tommy tilts his head, leaning over to try and read the pages. “Whatcha readin?” Techno closes the book over so Tommy can see the title, which reads Greek Mythology. Huh, didn’t take him for a mythology type guy, looked more like a shakespeare guy. He hums, “Who are you reading about?”

“A man called Theseus.” Techno opens the book back up, Tommy leaning over his shoulder to try and read along. A few minutes of Tommy complaining every time he turns the page, saying hey I wasn’t done reading or turn the page back bitch, Techno ends up just reading out loud to Tommy. Now, if Tommy fell asleep while Techno was reading, nobody said anything about it.

As the sun starts to set over the horizon, Tommy stirs awake with a yawn, sitting up -Shut up, he wasn’t leaning against Techo while he slept. He’s a big man, not some clingy child, and big men don't need comfort- and stretching his arms out above his head. “It’s starting to get late.” Techno speaks up, closing his book as he stands up from the bench.

Tommy hums in acknowledgement, stretching his legs out and standing up as well. “That it is, best be heading home.” The two walk out of the park together and down the street, parting ways when they reach the entrance to the stairs leading down to the subway station.

As soon as Tommy gets home he kicks his shoes off and goes over to his window, opening it and smiling as Clementine swoops inside and settles down on the arm of the couch. Tommy closes the window over, leaving it only open enough for Clementine to leave if she wants, and plops down onto the couch next to her.

“Have a good day, Clementine?” The crow ruffles her feathers and tilts her head at him, he smiles in return. “I’m glad, I had a very nice day as well. Spent most of it hanging out by the pond with a friend. It was fun. Not as fun as hanging out with you though of course, nobody’s as fun as you Clementine.”

The crow hops up onto Tommy’s shoulder and snuggles up into his neck. Tommy chuckles and pets the bird's head before pulling his phone out from his pocket. He hums as he scrolls through the different nature documentaries on Netflix before settling on one about bats and pulling the thin blanket over his lab.

Time passes and Tommy’s eyelids start to feel heavy. As he starts to doze off, he can’t help but feel like he’s being watched, but it’s probably just Clementine.. Right? Tommy falls asleep without any worries, the soft sound of some guy with a deep voice talking about bats in the background, he doesn’t hear the subtle creek of his window opening.

Chapter Text

As Tommy stirs awake to his alarm, he can’t help but feel something’s.. off. He sits up and grabs his phone from the ground, shutting his alarm off and looking around the room, trying to see if there’s any distinct changes. The first thing he notices is that Clementine is gone, he looks over to the window and- wait, did he leave it that far open?

Tommy stands up from the couch and walks over to the window, which he could have sworn he only left a couple of inches open. He sticks his head out and looks around, he’s not exactly sure what he was expecting to see, so he’s not surprised when he pulls his head back in after seeing nothing.

He decides he’s probably just remembering things wrong so he closes the window and chooses to just move on. Walking past the kitchen, he has to do a double take at the counter. On it, is a blue wool blanket. Okay, he knows for a fact he didn’t put that there. Tommy quickly puts his sneakers on and leaves the apartment. Yeah, that’s future Tommy’s problem.

Walking through the doors of the cafe, Tommy’s immediately greeted by Fran, a very friendly white swiss shepherd dog with a red collar. “Aww, hey Fran. How are you this morning?” He coos, petting her as he walks over to the counter. Fran wags her tail, following closely behind Tommy.

Tommy slips on his apron and sits down on the stool behind the counter, petting Fran some more, who happily sits down in front of him. “Actually woke up to your alarms and got here on time, huh?” Tommy turns around to see Sam standing in the doorway of the backroom.

“You know me Sam, always on time for my shift.” Sam rolls his eyes, walking over and ruffling Tommy’s hair.

“Sure, if ‘on time’ is fifteen minutes late, then you are always on time.” The creeper hybrid muse, earning a gasp of mock-offence from Tommy. “Y’know Tommy, you could always just ask for a later shift if you have trouble getting up so early, you don’t have to have the earliest shift possible.”

Tommy rolls his eyes, swatting away Sam’s hand. “I do have to have the earliest shift, if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to make it to Niki’s in time for my shift so I’d have to take a later shift there, then I wouldn’t be able to make it to Bad’s in time for my shift there and there isn’t a later shift than the closing shift.”

Sam gives a thoughtful hum, his expression softening. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Sam doesn’t like that Tommy is juggling three jobs at once, but he knows there’s nothing he can really do to change it unfortunately. If he could, he would.

“I’m always right.” Tommy nods, patting Fran’s head as she rests it on his knee before standing up. “Right, people are gonna start pouring in here any minute so I’ve gotta start doing prep work, and you have paperwork to be filing. You and I both know you’re not done yet, Sam.”

Sam dramatically sighs as Tommy ushers him away into the backroom, closing the door behind him. Tommy rolls his eyes, patting Fran’s head as he walks back over to the counter, grabbing a cloth and wiping down the surface. His shift was pretty boring today all things considered. Wilbur didn’t show up, luckily, and neither did Techno. So it was quiet, as quiet as a busy cafe can be anyways.

Niki is still sick, which is honestly starting to be a bit weird. She’s been sick for like a week now. But Tommy’s not one to judge, who knows, maybe she has the flu or something. Either way, Bad won’t give him extra hours at the diner anymore so now he’s stuck wandering around the city trying to kill time. Fun.

After about two hours of just mindlessly walking around, Tommy decides to go browse some shops in the mall. Well, he had decided that anyways, that was until something else caught his eyes- or more specifically, his ears.

“Let go of me you twat! I might be fucking short, but I swear to god I’ll sting you- ow! Stop yanking on those-!”

Tommy stops right outside the alley all the ruckus is coming from. Looking down it he sees two people. A man, probably around his twenties, and a boy who looks to be about Tommy’s age, maybe a year older.

The boy is pretty short, probably about a foot or so shorter than Tommy. He has fluffy brown hair with faded blonde edges, and bangs just long enough to cover his eyes. He looks to be a bee hybrid, if the long black antennas and translucent bee wings are anything to go by. It also looks like he has these sort of black spikes on his knuckles, which kinda look like bee stingers.

The man- no, the prick is yanking on one of the buy’s antennae, laughing and calling him a “stupid little bumble bee.” Tommy scoffs at the sight, his hands clenching into fists beside him. Yeah, no, not on his watch you bastard.

“Ahem,” Tommy clears his throat dramatically loud as he walks into the alley, approaching the pair. “You might wanna let him go, pal.”

The man looks over at him, a mocking smile on his face as he raises an eyebrow at Tommy. “And who are you supposed to be, kid?”

He scowles, “I am not a fucking kid, you-” The man cuts Tommy off with a laugh. Okay, rude.

“Look, kid,” Tommy scoffs, eyes narrowing as he glares at the man, “I think you should just go on your merry little way and mind your own damn business. Before something happens to you.”

Tommy shrugs, “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He closes the gap between him and the man, grabs the wrist of the hand holding the boy’s antennae, and kicks the man in the gut.

The man- y’know what, let's just call him Jared, it feels fitting- lets out a pained grunt and lets go of the antennae, falling to his knees clutching his stomach. “You brat!” Jared growls, pushing himself back up to his feet and reaching to grab, probably a knife, from his pocket. Before he can though, Tommy punches him, fist connecting right with his jaw.

Jared falls to the side and lands roughly on the concrete ground with a thunk. He doesn’t get back up.. He’s fine, just hit his head a little hard on the ground, that’s all. He’ll wake back up, probably- is that blood?

Tommy turns to look at the boy, who is straightening out his antennae. “Are you alright-? I’m Tommy, by the way.”

“Tubbo, and yes, I’m fine. I didn’t need your help for the record, I had it perfectly under control.” The boy, Tubbo, huffs, crossing his arms.

Tommy raises an eyebrow but smirks, “Sure, sure. You totally weren’t just screaming like a little girl, totally."

“I was not!” Tubbo exclaims, wings buzzing slightly behind him. “Quit speaking lies and slander about me.” Tommy laughs, Tubbo laughs as well.

The two end up chatting for a while, and it’s safe to say Tubbo is the best person ever. Unfortunately it starts to get around the time for Tommy’s shift at Bad’s diner, so they exchange numbers with the promise to hang out sometime soon, and go their separate ways.

The first hour of his shift goes as expected. He takes orders, he serves orders, he wipes down the tables. Just like every other night. That is until a certain family walks through those god forsaken doors.

“Tommy!” A certain brunette gasps. Wilbur.

“God, please, no.” Tommy turns around and, sure enough. Wilbur, Techno and some blonde are standing at the front counter waiting for a table.

Unlike Tommy though, Wilbur is quite happy about this unlikely turn of events. “I didn’t know you worked here? Bad’s never said anything about you! Are you gonna be our server?”

“No- no, I am not. Ant’s gonna be your server.” Tommy grabs said cat hybrid's wrist as he walks past, earning a confused what? from him as he’s shoved over into the direction of the group.

“Yes. Tom will be your server.” Bad, goddamnit, speaks up. He pats Ant’s shoulder, who walks off back in the direction he was originally going in. Tommy glares at Bad as the demon shoves three menus into his hands and ushers him in the direction of a corner booth, gesturing for the group of hellspawns to follow him.

Tommy begrudgingly gives them their menus as they sit down, pulling out his notepad. “Right, what drinks do you bitches want?”

“Tommy, obviously you know me and Techno. But this,” Wilbur gestures to the man sitting across from him and next to Techno, he has short blonde hair, and bright blue eyes, “is our dad, Philza.”

Oh god they have a father-? Wait, no that’s stupid, of course they have a father. “Great. So, drinks?” he asks again, he’d really rather not stick around and talk to these three any longer than he has to.

Wilbur opens his mouth to say something but Phil, the dad, Phad? No, that sounds dumb, dadza? Yeah. Dadza cuts him off, “I’ll have a coffee, Techno will have water, and Wilbur wants a sprite.” Wilbur frowns but doesn’t voice his complaints.

Tommy scribbles the order down on his notepad and walks off, returning a few minutes later with the drinks, purposely setting the drinks down in front of the wrong person. He smirks to himself as he watches them pass the drinks around to the correct person. “So, do y’all know what you want to eat yet? Or should I come back in a few minutes?”

“Why don’t you sit down with us while we look over the menu?” Wilbur suggests.

“I have other tables to take care of, I can’t just-”

“You can take a break, Tommy.” Bad speaks up. How does he keep just appearing out of thin air everytime he doesn’t want the man to?? “Go ahead and sit down with them, I’ll have Ant take up the rest of your tables.”

The universe really is just working against him right now, huh? Tommy glares at Bad as he sits down on the seat next to Wilbur, who is practically beaming with joy. “So, any suggestions?” Wil asks, picking his menu up.

Tommy sighs but looks over Wilbur’s shoulder to look at the menu as well, “I don’t know, the raman’s alright.”

Wilbur ends up getting the raman, and he somehow convinces Tommy to get something to eat as well, so he just orders the kids chicken strips. They all chat for a while, and honestly Phil’s pretty cool all things considered. He’s not obnoxious like Wilbur, but not emotionally closed off like Techno, he’s actually quite nice to talk to. Kinda like what he would imagine talking to a dad is like- Not because Tommy sees him as his father! Because he is a dad, of course.

The three eat and talk for the rest of Tommy’s shift, so until the diner closes. It was nice, but Tommy is definitely glad it’s over, he’s ready for bed. When he gets back to his apartment he’s bummed to find Clementine isn’t waiting at the window for him, guess he’s not having any company tonight.

Tommy grabs his new blanket from the counter and settles down on his old warm down couch. He pulls the soft blue wool blanket over himself and it’s quite frankly the most comfortable blanket he’s ever had in his life. So, thank you, whoever broke into his apartment and found it so pitiful they gave him something instead of robbing him. Tommy falls asleep that night happy, and warm.

Chapter Text

Early this morning Tommy got a call from Sam, apparently the cafe will be closed today for some reason- to be honest Tommy wasn’t really paying attention, it was like five in the morning, give him a break- So here he is, on his way to go shopping. Not because he wants to, and certainly not because he has the money to, but because unfortunately he needs food to survive. Yup, it’s true, the great TommyInnit™ needs food to survive just like the rest of you people- trust him, he’s tried, it starts to suck pretty quickly.

Tommy walks through the sliding glass doors of the convenient store, the stupid fluorescent lights immediately blinding his poor eyes, grumbling to himself as he grabs a shopping basket and starts perusing the aisles. He’s mostly just searching for all the “On Sale” items- look, he’s not ashamed to buy all the shitty “buy-one-get-one-free” stuff, mans gotta live- While having his awesome inner dialogue, Tommy ever so gracefully runs into someone.

“Hey-! Watch where you’re going basta- oh- Tommy?” Aw c’mon, seriously?

Stepping back and looking up at the man, oh look, it’s Wilbur. “How is it that you manage to be everywhere I am? Seriously man, this is bullshit.”

“Guess I’m just lucky,” Wilbur chuckles, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he shrugs. “Mind if I tag along with you? I don’t actually have anything to buy here.”

Tommy gives Wilbur a weird look, “If you don’t have anything to buy then why are you even here in the first place?”

Wilbur pauses for a moment before awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “I just like hanging out at stores, seeing if there’s anything worthwhile.” The statement sounds a lot like a question. Tommy gives him an unimpressed look before shrugging and walking past the man.

“Do what you want, I don’t care. Just don’t be annoying.”

Yeah, like that was gonna stop Wilbur from talking nonstop about things Tommy honestly doesn't care about and isn’t even really listening. Things go relatively smoothly though aside from that, Wilbur rambles, Tommy tosses random cheap things into his basket. While walking past a stupid toy aisle though, unbeknownst to Tommy, a dumb brown stuffed cow catches his eyes. Okay, it’s not dumb, it’s the best thing ever. Look at his little ears and his closed eyes and-

Tommy’s train of thought gets cut off though. “Something catch your eye?” Wilbur questions, trying to spot what exactly he’s looking at before landing on the stuffed cow and a small smile tugs at his lips.

“What? No- shut up.” Tommy bristles and immediately walks past the aisle. Wilbur snickers but just trails behind Tommy, choosing not to push the subject.

Soon enough Tommy is done shopping and heads over to the checkout area. Unfortunately there’s only one section that doesn’t have a mile long line to wait in- it’s actually hilarious that everyone is avoiding his checkout station but he’s too peeved about the long lines to laugh about it- so he reluctantly walks up to the empty station.

“Tommy, my man! Still buying the cheapest stuff in the store?” A certain man quips, ever familiar red and blue 3-D looking glasses rested on his face.

Tommy rolls his eyes, putting the stuff from his basket on the conveyor belt, “Jack, I thought you’d died from hypothermia, seeing as you’ve got no hair on your head to warm yourself.”

Jack gasps in mock offence. “I’m not bald!” He protests.

“You might as well be.” Tommy chuckles, pulling a crumpled up twenty from his pocket as Jack rings up his stuff.

“You’re so unoriginal, man. Find a new joke, it’s getting old.” Jack huffs, putting the last item in the plastic bag, “21.50 is your total.”

Tommy stares at the little screen reading his total for a moment. “Oh. I must’ve counted wrong, can you take the apple off?” He says, handing Jack the twenty. The one week he decides to try and be somewhat healthy and grab an apple, of course.

Jack takes the twenty and sighs, pulling a five from his own pocket and putting the money in the register. Tommy opens his mouth to either protest or tease him but Jack cuts him off. “Just take your bag and go before I change my mind you gremlin child.” Tommy gives Jack an appreciative smile before grabbing his bag and leaving the store. Okay, maybe Jack isn’t the worst. But he’ll never admit that out loud.

“Hey, Tommy! Wait up!” Tommy stops walking, barely two steps down the sidewalk, and turns around to see Wilbur walking up to him. He honestly hadn’t even noticed the man had slipped away in the first place.

Tommy sighs, “No you can’t walk me home, no I don’t want to ‘grab a bite to eat’, no I don’t wanna come see your house, and no I don’t want any candy.” He adds that last one just pull at Wil’s leg. What can he say? He’s hilarious!

Wilbur rolls his eyes and holds out a familiar brown cow plush. “Here, I saw you starin’ at it, so I decided to buy it for you,” he says with a smile. Tommy stares at the cow wide-eyed for a good minute before taking it, gently running his thumb over the soft material.

“You didn’t have to do that-”

“I wanted to.” Wilbur cuts him off.

Tommy smiles and stuffs the plushy in his grocery bag, “For the record, I’m not a child, I don’t need toys. Cows are just- my favourite animal, yeah, that’s all.

Wilbur rolls his eyes and ruffles Tommy’s hair, which earns an offended scowl from the younger. “Of course, of course. Cows are just really cool, I get it, totally not just a child.”

“Yeah,” Tommy glares at Wilbur, slapping his hand away, “So if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got groceries to get home.” He doesn’t wait for a response before turning and leaving. (More like I couldn’t think of more dialogue cause I’m a loser)

It’s actually not that bad of a day, so Tommy doesn’t mind having to walk a few blocks back to his apartment. The sun is hidden by clouds and the wind doesn’t feel like ice being thrown at your face, for once, and with what time it is most people are at work, so the streets aren’t bustling with people. It’s actually quite nice.

Though of course Tommy can’t have anything nice for long. As he passes by an alley he hears a voice- well, several voices. It sounds almost like dozens of voices overlapping each other, whispering, beckoning him to enter the alley. And, being the smart and calculated person Tommy is, he enters the alley to investigate. 

The Blade stands deep in the centre of the alley, clad in his large red cape with fur lining, his almost royalty like poet's shirt, and shimmering gold crown rested on his long light pink hair tied in a neat braid. His large black combat boots, boar skull shielding his face from the world around. He has his back facing the street, so he doesn’t notice Tommy. He’s surrounded by shadows, shadows that act almost like a pack of wolves as they lap over each other and swirl around him like a vortex.

“No, chat, we can’t just walk up and say hi. That’s not how this works-” The Blade speaks, trying to reason -why is he talking to them- with the shadows.

“That actually is how a conversation works.” Tommy cuts him off, not at all regretting his decisions when The Blade snaps his head over to look at him -okay that has to hurt his neck- the black void-less eyes of the boar skull staring into Tommy’s soul. “Just sayin’.”

The shadows- wolves? puppies! stop circling around Blade when Tommy falls into view, instead the pack scuttles over and starts circling around Tommy, some of them even jumping up on him like dogs -this is normal, this is fine- to which Tommy happily pets them- is it weird that he’s essentially petting shadows? Sure, but let’s be honest, who wouldn’t pet these precious -probably murderous- babies.

The Blade doesn’t immediately pull out his axe and chop Tommy’s head clean off his body, so he takes it as a win. “Soo, what brings you to this side of town?”

“That’s none of your business.” The Blade says gruffly.

Tommy rolls his eyes. “You’re such a party pooper, can’t even spill your entire plan in one big speech like a proper villain, like Siren. Tsk-tsk.” He says, shaking his head disappointedly.

Blade huffs -is that a laugh? Does Tommy win?- crossing his arms as he leans against the only part of the walls not stained in blood and spray paint and who knows what the rest is. “Siren is an idiot, don’t use him as the standard for villains.”

“He’s like the cartoon equivalent of a villain, just with a few rated R episodes.” Tommy jokes, earning a -what he assumes is- a snort from Blade.

“That is probably the most accurate description of him I think I’ve ever heard.” Blade huffs, shaking his head in amusement? Disappointment? This man really needs some better body language, or to just not wear a mask, it’s so hard to tell if he’s pissed or just has resting bitch- everything. “But speaking of Siren, I was actually meant to be grabbing him. See ya round kid.”

Tommy doesn’t get to make a quip about not being a kid as all the shadows swarm back to Blade and he does a two finger salute as he disappears into the shadows like fucking Batman, the murk fading into nothing with him, leaving nothing but the alley behind.

“Damn dramatic fucker, he might as well have yelled ‘exit stage right’ as he disappeared.” Tommy grumbles, rolling his eyes as he turns and leaves the alley, continuing his original walk back home.

Finally, Tommy returns back to the shitty apartment he calls home. He kicks his shoes off and puts away what little groceries he bought and checks the window, disappointed to find that Clementine once again isn't there. Tommy grabs his new friend, Henry, and curls up on the couch under his awesome blanket. “Today wasn't that bad of a day, Henry” he decided, resting his head down on the cushion of the couch. It only takes a few minutes for the exhaustion to catchu up to him and fall asleep for the night.

Chapter Text

It was a pretty slow day at the cafe today, but that’s alright because today the library’s finally back open. Which means Niki is back! Not that he was starting to get worried about her or anything, big men don’t get worried about their friends- not that he considers Niki his friend of course! Big men don’t need friends, except maybe Tubbo, he should really message Tubbo, huh? It’s been like a week- Whatever, we’re getting off track.

Tommy totally does not run the entire four blocks from the cafe to the library after his shift and ram straight into Karl as he’s leaving, nope. But hypothetically if he did, he would apologise and walk inside, which he totally doesn’t do because it was hypothetical.

“Niki!” Tommy calls out as he walks up to the counter.

A familiar pink haired woman turns around with an ever so kind smile. “Tommy! It’s so nice to see you again, it feels like it’s been forever.” She chuckles softly.

“It has been!” Tommy laughs, crossing his arms on the counter, “How’re you doing? Better I assume since you’re here.”

“Yes, much better. I’m glad to finally be back-” Niki gets cut off as the backroom door swings open and reveals- Jack??

“Hey, I went through all the boxes and I don’t think they sent the-”

“Jack?? What the hell are you doing here! Shouldn’t you be working your dead-end job at the grocery store?” Tommy cuts the man off oh so politely.

Jack groans, “Gooodd, I forgot you worked here. Geez, just how many jobs do you have? I knew you were poor but I didn’t realise you were this poor.”

Tommy scoffs, jabbing his finger at Jack, “I’m not poor, I’m just too cool for money.”

“Suure you are,” Jack muses, rolling his eyes. “Either way, the reason I’m here -not that it’s any of your business- is to make sure Niki settles back in alright, doesn’t overwork herself or something her first day back.”

“How generous of you, I didn’t think you were capable of that.” Tommy sneers, but there’s no real bite behind the words. What can he say? That’s actually a very good reason to be here. “Anything I can do to help out?”

Jack hums and totally wasn’t about to suggest Tommy going home when Niki elbows him in the ribs, cutting him off before he can actually say anything. “We just got some new books in, think you could shelf them for me?”

Tommy nods, and that’s what he does. He carries out the three boxes filled to the brim with new books -totally doesn’t have to get help carrying them out from Jack- and starts shelving them. It’s actually a pretty good selection, there’s Maximum Ride, Alive, Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, The Leo Frank Case etc. but shelving doesn’t last for long. Tommy get’s barely halfway through the first box when the quiet music playing over the library’s speakers gets cut off, replaced by a news report.

“Fight spotted between top heroes Dream and Flame and top villains Blade and Siren, please be advised-” Oh great, a fight, those never happen, “-the fight is taking place in 4th district and is travelling fast towards the corner of fourth and main-” Wait, the Library is on main st.

There’s a loud bang outside on the street, the flash of an explosion, likely a car. Niki is already ushering him and Jack out the back door but Tommy slips away, going out front to see what’s actually going on, cause like hell he’s going to miss out seeing an awesome fight in person.

Sure enough, everyone the news report said is here. Dream and Blade are duelling it out on the side, to nobody’s surprise, while Flame gets increasingly pissed off whilst trying to turn Siren to ashes as the other continues to mock him and his aim. Flame lets out a frustrated cry as he aims to shoot another ray of fire at Siren, but of course the villain dodges out of the way with ease and the fire hits- oh, the flame is coming right at Tommy instead. Next thing Tommy knows, a blur of black feathers swoops in and suddenly Tommy isn’t getting burnt to a crisp, instead is now standing off to the side while wrapped in The Angel of Death’s wing! Tommy’s totally not fan boying, shut up, there’s just no good heroes to look up to so he went with what he had okay?

The shorter man yells something, seemingly at Siren. Something about being reckless? Tommy’s too stunned to actually hear what’s going on, simply staring wide eyed as the bloody Angel of Death pats his shoulder with a kind smile before batting his wings and shooting up into the sky to go join the fight.

. . .

Maybe Tommy should message Tubbo, he needs a break from all this crazy shit. First he meets a random guy on the metro, then he has a casual encounter with Death, then he has a shitty ‘meet and greet’ with Dream in the cafe, then he has a reverse robbery done on his apartment while he’s asleep, then he totally didn’t accidentally kill someone in an ally, then he had an unreasonably casual conversation with the literal Blade and his fucking shadow puppies, and now he’s both almost died and got saved by The Angel of Death in the span of five minutes. Really, Tommy’s done with it, he’d like his sad boring life back now please.

Not wanting to stick around any longer and risk actually dying, Tommy turns and leaves, pretending that this is all incredibly normal and totally not going to become something bigger later on.

Tommy pulls out his phone from his pocket, about to call Tubbo as he turns a corner, only to immediately ram into someone. Great.

“Ah- shit, sorry man, didn’t see you.” Tommy quickly apologizes as he looks up from his phone only to be greeted by not a familiar face, and unfortunately not a person, but a- slime?

The man(?) is a bit shorter than Tommy and is formed out of this mostly transparent green goo? slime? but there’s no bones or organs inside of him- on top of his head the goo is shaped in a way that must represent his hair. The slime(?) is wearing a simple white button up, black pants and green suspenders. He has black rectangular glasses perched on what must be his nose and a relatively thick stick poking out of the left side of his head.

“It’s okay Tommy Innit from-” The slime pauses, his already dead looking black eyes losing what little life they had in them as he thinks, before moving on like that wasn’t weird as shit. “I’m Charlie from Las Nevadas!”

Las Nevadas? Isn’t that the really wealthy casino ran by that dangerous mafia leader, at least that’s what the news said, so best not to trust that information. Tommy hums, “Las Nevadas, do you work there then?”

The slime, Charlie apparently, nods. “I’m Quackity from Las Nevadas’ spy, but I can’t tell you that.”

Tommy snorts. Because as bad as it is that he now knows top secret information about a highly illegal man running the most powerful casino in the country- it fits in with his current track record. “Well you best be going then, wouldn’t want you to accidentally tell me anything I shouldn’t know, right?”

“You’re right! I better go.” Charlie smiles and waves before quickly walking past Tommy, continuing his path down the sidewalk.

Well, that was interesting, and Tommy is officially done today. Maybe he’ll call Tubbo tomorrow, but right now he’s just gonna go home and sleep off all the craziness that was his day. He knows it’s only three in the afternoon, shut up, he’s tired mentally. Give the man a break.

Chapter Text

Like he said he would, to himself, Tommy called Tubbo earlier today to set up a time for them to hangout. They were both free today, which is good, but Tubbo said he’s bringing this guy “Ranboob” or whatever the hell their name was. Tommy’s not thrilled about the addition, but being the generous man he is, he allowed Tubbo to bring the guy. He totally didn’t just cave under the very persuasive “Pleasseeeeeeeeeeee” Tubbo tried to pull, he’d never.

They decided to meet up at the coffee shop around noon, so here Tommy is, walking down the sidewalk at 11:59. He looks up from his phone when he hears his name get called to see two guys standing outside the coffee shop. Tubbo, and who Tommy can only assume is Ranboob.

The guy is tall, taller than Tommy would like. They’ve got thick brown hair, and they have on a black mask and sunglasses, weirdo. They’re wearing a grey shirt with a half black half white jacket, dark blue jeans, and black and white sneakers with green details on the black shoes and red details on the white shoe. They really seem to have a theme going on.

“Hey Tubbo!” Tommy greets as he walks over to the pair, briefly glancing over at the other, “Ranboob.”

“Uh- it’s Ranboo, actually,” the guy, Ranboo, corrects with an annoyingly kind tone.

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Yeah yeah, Ranboob, that’s what I said. So are we gettin’ drinks or just standing out here for the next hour?” Tubbo laughs and leads the group inside, pulling Ranboo along.

The trio head up to the counter and order their respective drinks; Tommy orders a Expresso like always, Tubbo orders a Latte and a cinnamon roll, and Ranboo orders a hot chocolate. Once their drinks, and in Tubbo’s case pastry, are ready they all sit down in a booth near the big window. Tommy on one side while Tubbo and Ranboo sit together on the other side.

“So Tommy, are you taking any college classes?” Tubbo questions, antenna flicking as he tilts his head.

Tommy laughs. “You kidding me? Absolutely not, that shit’s hella expensive, I’m stumped enough just paying rent,” he rants, leaning back in the booth. “What about y’all?”

Tubbo smiles, “Well Ranboo’s not taking any classes, but I’m taking computer coding and advanced mechanics!” (I honestly have no idea if those are real classes but I’m not looking it up :p)

“Oh, that sounds cool.”

“It really is! Last week I built this drone in my mechanics class then got to write the coding to make it actually fly via an app on my laptop in my coding class. Don’t tell the school, but once I got to bring it home I built in a few small machine guns under the arms and even added night vision and thermal vision to the camera-”

The group spends quite a while just listening to Tubbo ramble about all of his projects that he’s done in class and one’s that he’s actively working on. It’s actually really cool so neither Tommy nor Ranboo mind just listening in awe as Tubbo talks about knowing how to make a mini-nuke out of scraps he collected in classes. Like, what the hell? That’s awesome, and terrifying, and based off of the look on Ranboo’s face they didn’t know that part either.

Eventually though Tubbo manages to, somehow, run out of things to talk about and Ranboo takes the chance to speak up. “Do you guys wanna go bowling?”

“Hell yeah!” Tubbo immediately cheers, throwing his arms up as his wings buzz slightly behind him.

Tommy tilts his head, “Is there even a bowling alley anywhere in this city? I’ve never seen one before.”

Ranboo nods. “Yeah, there is. It opened up not long ago, but me and Tubbo have been there a few times, it’s nice. Plus it’s only, like, a block away from here.” They explain.

“Huh, well, I’m down,” Tommy shrugs, finishing the last bit of his coffee as they all shuffle out from the booth and get up, throwing away all their trash before leaving the cafe to walk over to the bowling alley.

The first thing Tommy notices when they get to the bowling alley is the large neon sign reading “The Inbetween,” pretty cool name for a bowling alley all things considered, but what’s even cooler is the inside of this place. It’s basically exactly what you think when you hear someone say “black light, neon, bowling alley.” 

It has the astro carpet carpet with all the neon colored squiggles and dots that practically glow under the black light LED strips lining the top and bottom around the black walls of the bowling alley, along with 80s music playing over the speakers in the background. There’s fun neon signs and retro 80s posters all over the walls, there are these cool light up bowling pins hung up over the actual lanes, and the booths at each the lanes are those 80s red diner booths. To sum it up, this is essentially the coolest bowling alley ever.

“Hello! Welcome to the Inbetween,” Tommy turns to look at the front desk to see, well, a man that no doubt owns the establishment. He has fluffy brown hair and messy bangs, along with green star shaped sunglasses resting on his head. He’s wearing a colorful striped crop top and high-waist checkered bell bottom jeans, he’s also got tons of bracelets and rings, along with dangly vinyl record earrings.

“Hey Karl, three pairs and a lane?” Ranboo says, standing next to Tubbo who leans against the counter.

The man, Karl apparently, smiles, “Of course! Shoe size?” Before any of them can answer, someone very familiar walks out from a room labelled “break room”, hugging Karl and resting his chin on the man’s shoulder. Karl chuckles, “Hey Sapnap, were you able to get the AC working in there?”

Sapnap has a black shoulder length mullet with his bangs held out of his face via a white headband, which hangs down just past his shoulders in the back where it’s tied together. He’s a few inches shorter than Karl and is wearing a black baggy turtleneck sweater and a leather jacket with flames going from the cuffs up a little past his elbows, jeans, and checkered pattern vans. He also has quite a few ear piercings and a black chain hanging around his neck with a lock attached to it which has “K+S+Q” engraved into it- whatever that means. 

Either way, know who this guy looks 1-for-1 identical to? Flame. The bastard who almost turned Tommy into fucking ash-innit, which Tommy makes kindly points out as soon as he sees the guy. “Hey! You’re the jackass who almost turned me to ash yesterday!” Tommy quite loudly announces, pointing his finger at this Sapnap guy accusingly, to which the guy also looks at him and his eyes widen.

“Holy shit, Karl, that's the kid I told you I almost killed yesterday- Are you okay by the way? I felt so bad about the whole thing but I never got a chance to apologise for it.”

“Wh- I'm not a kid you-” Tommy cuts himself off when he hears the rest of what Sapnap said. “Wait, apologize?”

“I mean yeah, I almost disintegrated you dude.” Sapnap says with an awkward chuckle. “Which I'm really sorry for by the way, Siren was pissing me off and I let it get to me, I should have been more attentive to where I was aiming my flames.”

Huh, a hero admitting fault for something wrong they did, that's a first. “Well uh- it's alright really, I'm honestly just glad I didn't lose a limb or anything, or y'know everything.”

They talk for a bit and it turns out that not all heroes are prestigious assholes, or at least Sapnap isn't, he may be the only one. Finally the trio get their bowling shoes, pay, and head over to the bowling lanes to actually play like they came here to do.

It's fun, Tommy has a really good time and it turns out he's a complete natural at bowling (he lost every round they played lol). When it's finally time to go they all return the shoes and say bye to Karl and Sapnap before parting ways once they exit the bowling alley. 

Tommy watches the pair go until they're fully out of sight. “Today was a good day,” he thinks out loud, smiling softly as he turns and starts the walk back to his apartment.

Chapter Text

Tommy stirs awake to the sound of, unnecessarily aggressive, knocking at his door. Blearily, he checks his phone to see what time it is. Four fucking AM. Lovely. Tommy groans as he kicks his blanket off, drags himself off the couch and over to the door. Opening it, Tommy’s met with two rather large, heavily armed men.

The first man looks about 6’7” tall, has short dark green hair pulled back by a large, spiky, golden crown. His skin, what little of it you can see, is light green with very short fur. He’s wearing a black gas mask with dark smoke seeping out of the filters and his eyes look completely black except for a white pupil in each, and his ears are long and pointed. The man is wearing a dark green, long sleeved, protective shirt under a golden chestplate. Along with black armored pants, and golden armor boots. He’s holding a bloody (british slang, not actual blood) netherite trident in his left hand.

The second man, somehow even taller, is probably about 7’-7’2” tall. He has on a light grey, shark like cloak on, the hood -which has little metal shark teeth around the lining of the hood, and a shark fin on top- is casting a shadow over his face, shielding his identity. Though it's clear that his skin is a golden/yellow color. From under the cloak he’s wearing a black, skin tight, turtle neck, tanktop, with a green sash belt tied around his waist. He's also wearing brown sirwal pants and green compression socks with open toe and open heel. He has a golden/yellow shark tail sticking out from under his cloak.

“Uh- I think y'all have the wrong apartment-” Tommy says and quickly tries to shut the door. Of course, that doesn't work, as the green one catches the door before it shuts and pushes it back open.

“You're coming with us, now. So either comply or we will have no choice other than to use force.” He says gruffly, his mask making his voice sound probably way deeper and gravily than it actually is.

Tommy stares at the two of them for a long moment, then tries to shut the door again. The green man sighs and catches the door again, shoving it back open and this time stepping inside, forcing Tommy to step back. “Osiris, grab him and let's get out of here.” 

The shark man, Osiris apparently, briefly hesitates before walking in and grabbing Tommy's arm- who immediately tries to bite him. The man doesn't do much as tense to the bite, and only continues pulling Tommy out of his apartment and down the stairs of the building, the green man following closely behind them. Tommy tries struggling, tries yelling, tries doing the toddler thing and just planting himself down on the ground- but that just causes him to get tossed over Osiris’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Once outside, Tommy hears a car door open and then he's being tossed into the backseat of a- a limo? Holy shit he's in a limo. Completely forgetting the whole kidna- MANnapping™ situation, Tommy spends like five minutes just exploring all the different buttons and remotes until he's told from the front seat to, and quote “quit it before I come back there and tie you up with the seatbelts.” To which Tommy flipped him off but reluctantly slumped back against the seat, resting his head against the window as they drive through the city.

It takes awhile but eventually the limo pulls up to the biggest casino Tommy has ever seen which is famously known as, if the giant glowing sign out front is anything to go by, Las Nevadas. It's big, with stairs and a red carpet leading up to the large glass doors. Even from within the limo the sound of music and chatter can be heard pouring out from the building. All things considered, it's a very nice building, very well made and a great design. It'd be something to admire if its residents weren't so foul.

Tommy's snapped out of his thoughts as the door he was resting against us opened and he's yanked out of the limo. “Hey-! A little warning would'a been nice-” he's cut off as he gets dragged up the stairs, his complaints completely ignored like sound in the wind.

Once inside Tommy's met with the strong smell of alcohol and smoke, the blinding fluorescent lights reflecting off the marble flooring. The guards stop as Osiris starts to speak to someone on his earpiece. Taking a moment to glance around, Tommy locks eyes with someone on the other side of the room. A boy, one who looks around Tommy's age, maybe an inch or two shorter than him.

The boy has short, light brown hair and piercing purple eyes, they're foggy like they hold the weight of a man who's seen and lived too much. He has pointed ears, and a long slick purple tail with a cyan star shaped end. The boy has his hands stuffed in a neutral purple hoodie, and he's wearing black pants which are accompanied by white shoes.

He looked pissed off until he met eyes with Tommy, then his expression shifted into one more of confusion, maybe curiosity. Though Tommy doesn't get very long before he's being dragged away and up more bloody stairs. Eventually they stop outside and office door, which is opened by someone much more familiar, Ace.

Ace is a short man, much shorter than Tommy, probably around 5’6” tall or something. He has shaggy raven hair which sticks out from under his navy blue beanie. He has a large, jagged scar stretching from his chin, up the corner of his lips, through his left eye, and up through the center of his left eyebrow. His injured eye has a clearly fake eye in it, resembling an 8 ball, while his un-injured eye is a dull golden/orange-ish color. His teeth flash sharp in a crooked smirk, his yellow tinted teeth glowing in contrast to his dark red button up and black tie, black suspenders connected to a belt holding up neat black pants, fit together with nice black dress shoes. From where he's stood, Tommy can just barely see small, damaged, bright yellow duck wings behind the man.

“Ah, you must be Tommy, yes? Please, come in, make yourself comfortable. Osiris, Warden, stand by our here.” Ace says, waving off the two guards as he turns and walks back over to his dark wooden desk. Tommy briefly hesitates, which gets him shoved inside the office and the door shut behind him. “C'mon, I don't bite. Take a seat.”

Tommy huffs and walks forward, dropping down into the red leather chair right across from Ace’s desk. Ace’s gaze is not a very comfortable one to be under, especially since the man's smirk is gone from his face, leaving no traces of friendliness behind.

Ace hums, leaning back against his desk and folding his arms. “So, I heard you had a pleasant run-in with my errands boy, hm?”

He’s confused for a moment as to what Ace is talking about before it clicks. The slime. “You mean Charlie?”

“Obviously,” Ace rolls his eyes and pushes off from the desk, walking up to where Tommy is sitting and leaning down to be eye to eye. “What exactly did Charlie tell you, Tom?”

“Uh- not much really, just that he’s Quackity’s spy- which I’m starting to realize that Quackity is probably you.”

Ace sighs as he straightens back up, it’s long and tired, like he’s had to deal with this exact situation a hundred times over. “Well that’s not too bad. Besides, I’m sure we can trust you not to tell anyone, right Tommy? I wouldn’t wanna have to clean blood out of my carpet again.” he hums

Tommy chuckles, nodding. Realistically he should probably be scared right now, scared and begging to be let go, promising he won’t tell anyone anything- but why? Because this guy might kill him? Almost everyone in this city might kill him, but he can’t go living his whole life being afraid now can he. That’s just not who he is. “Won’t tell a soul, nobody would believe me even if I tried to.”

Ace grins, raising an eyebrow as he crosses his arms, tilting his head to the side slightly. “Y’know, most people I have kidnapped and brought here are trembling in their ski by now, crying and begging for forgiveness-”

“Mannapping™.” Tommy corrects, and Ace laughs. It’s not cruel or shudder inducing, it’s an actual amused laugh. How funny.

“Of course, mannapping, my mistake,” he says. “You’re funny, I like you. C’mon Thomas, let me show you around the place.” Ace hums, gesturing for Tommy to follow as he heads for the door.

Ace spends a while touring Tommy around the casino, showing him around all the VIP rooms, the different slot machines and other gambling areas, shows him the bar area- which somehow even the owner of Las Nevadas won’t let him try alcohol just because he’s not of drinking age, which is absolute bullshit, the guy kills people on a weekly if not daily basis but won’t let a minor have a sip of alcohol? Where’s the logic in this guy’s morals?

Not before long they stumble across a certain slime on their way to the exit. “Quackity from Las Nevadas- and Tommy from unknown, it’s nice to see you again!” Charlie says cheerfully as he walks up to the pair.

Ace facepalms, but Tommy ignores it. “Hey Charlie, how’re you doing today?”

“I saw a squirrel! Dap me up!” The slime holds up a hand and Tommy can only assume that he wants a high five. Tommy snorts in amusement and high fives Charlie, grimacing when he gets some slime on his hand, which was expected when he thinks about it. Tommy’s disgust gets cut off by Quackity suddenly calling out to someone.

“Ah, Executioner! Come over here, I want you to meet someone.” Tommy wipes his hand off on his pants and looks over to see the same guy from earlier walk over, tail idly swaying behind him and he walks up and stops in front of them. Now seeing him up close, Tommy can see faint cyan freckles dusting his cheeks and nose. “Executioner, this is Tommy. Tommy, this is Executioner.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow when he registers the name. “Pretty cut throat name for someone who looks as young as you,” he comments, amused.

‘Executioner’ sighs, hands still resting in his hoodie pocket. “Crazy pants over there picked it.” He says, gesturing to Quackity, “I just wanted to use my name, but he insisted that I need to ‘hide my identity’, even though neither of us usually even wear a mask.”

“And what is your name then?” Tommy hums.

“Well, it’d defeat the purpose of the persona if he just went and told you, now wouldn’t it?” Quackity cuts them off before Executioner could answer, who does in fact shoot a glare at the man for being interrupted.

“I know your name?” Tommy points out.

Quackity huffs, crossing his arms, “Not by my own accord.”

Tommy rolls his eyes and looks back over to Executioner, “Maybe some other time then?”

The other’s eyes shift back over to Tommy, his glare shifting into that confused/curious look once again. Tommy can’t help but wonder what he’s confused about this time, but he doesn’t get long to simmer on it before he’s being ushered towards the exit. “Alright, alright, enough chatting.” Quackity says, but stops right before they walk out the glass doors.

“You’re a good kid Tommy, and I don’t like seeing good kid’s die.” He begins, then pulls out a silver and gold business card and hands it to Tommy, “If you ever get into trouble, or if you need anything, just give me a call.” Tommy chooses not to complain about ‘not being a kid’ and just accepts the card, looking it over before giving a grateful smile.

“Thanks, Q. Y’know, you’re not too bad yourself, against popular belief.” He says, putting the card in his pocket, Quackity rolls his eyes fondly and walks Tommy out to the limo. They say goodbye and Tommy gets driven back to his apartment. It’s still early once he gets inside, only six in the morning, much too early to be awake when he doesn’t have work today. He’s about to collapse back down onto the couch when there’s a soft tapping on his window. Confused for a second Tommy immediately rushes over to the window, smiling brightly at the sight of his familiar companion. “Clementine! Where’ve you been? Oh, what’s that you’ve got?”

The little crow hops inside on the windowsill, she holds up a golden chain with her beak, a necklace with an emerald charm hanging on it. Tommy’s heart all but melts at the sight. “Awe, is that a gift for me?” He gently takes the necklace from her, holding it up to get a better look. It’s beautiful, really, and Tommy can’t help but wonder what poor person she stole it off of. Not his problem though.

“Thank you, I love it-” As he looks back down though, Clementine is no longer there. “Huh, in a hurry tonight.” He hums. Tommy stands there for a moment longer before shutting the window and walking back over to the couch. He sits down and puts the necklace on, admiring it for a bit before yawning and flopping over, laying down on the couch and stretching his legs out over the armrest with a sigh.

Things really do seem to be turning for the better recently, for the most part, and Tommy can only hope that it’ll continue that way.

Chapter Text

Because of that, very rude, early awakening this morning Tommy doesn’t end up waking until late afternoon. Though, that doesn’t stop him from still feeling absolutely wrecked when he wakes up. And what’s the best solution to feeling exhausted? Coffee of course. So that’s what Tommy sets out to get once he manages to drag himself off the couch.

It’s about five PM, so unfortunately the streets are packed full of people getting out of work and heading home for the day. Unlike the streets though, the coffee shop will probably be mostly empty, since it’s just a bit too early for the evening rush of all the night shifters to come in dead on their feet. So luckily Tommy shouldn’t have to stand in a very long line, if any line at all.

Just as he’s reaching the coffee shop he catches a flash of blue in the corner of his eye, and when he turns to look, what does he see a couple feet away? A man in a Sonic onesie. Tommy immediately recognises him, how could he not? There’s only one hero going around the city in a damn Sonic onesie of all things.

“Conner!” Tommy calls out, jogging over to the man before he leaves, “Hey man, what’re you doing out ‘n about? Thought you didn’t really go on patrols at all?”

The man, Conner, looks over as Tommy calls out. Everyone in the city knows his name. Why, you might ask? Shouldn’t he have a hero name to protect his identity? Sure, if you wanna go around calling him fucking “Eatspants.” Which, c’mon, nobody does. So, after a few months of complaints, they released his name to the public for use.

“Ey, Tommy, good to see you man.” Conner says with a, rather tired, smile and shrugs, “Yeah, man. Well, you know how it is, gotta go on a patrol or two every few months so the higher ups don’t throw a fit.”

Tommy nods, “Makes sense, I’d be more surprised if they didn’t get upset about how little actual work you do.” He chuckles, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’ll still never understand how you managed to become a hero.”

Conner shrugs, stretching his arms out above his head. “Me neither man, I took the entrance exam as a joke when I was eighteen. Apparently they weren’t getting enough applications so they were just accepting anyone who wanted in.”

“Yeesh, they must have really been desperate- ah, no offense.”

“None taken, I know I’m not hero material. But I’m basically getting paid to do nothing, it’s the dream man. Same reward with none of the effort.” He chuckles. Their conversation unfortunately gets cut short when the bus arrives- to which he has the audacity to ask Tommy for a dollar for the bus right after talking about getting paid a shit ton of money for being a hero. Of course, Tommy gave him a dollar, he wasn’t about to leave the man stranded after all. He’ll never understand how Conner gets paid enough to practically be wealthy, yet always be borderline broke.

Now that Conner is gone though, Tommy can finally get back to what he was doing, getting coffee. He goes back and enters the cafe, just about to yell out to Foolish when he realizes that the man isn’t behind the counter, instead it’s some teen.

She’s rather short, probably only 4’11 at best, and Tommy had thought that Tubbo was short. She has long, silk brown hair, accompanied by a white beanie with medium length bunny ears hanging down from it behind her. She’s wearing a baggy grey t-shirt which is tucked into her pants, and has a white and light blue striped sweater underneath. She’s wearing jeans, held up by a black belt which has a golden heart belt buckle on the front, and white sneakers.

Tommy walks up to the counter, and before she can say anything, he immediately demands, “Where’s Foolish.”

“Ah- you must be Tommy then. Foolish had to drop a few shifts because of his new security job at Las Nevadas, so Sam had to hire a few people to take up the shifts.” She, reading the name tag apparently her name is Aimsey, says with a kind smile.

Wait, a few?

Before Tommy gets the chance to question it, someone else walks out from the back kitchen area where the pastries are baked and kept warm. He's much taller than Aimsey, probably only an inch shorter than Tommy.

His name tag reads “Billzo” and he has mullet length black hair with bangs held out of his eyes by a black and red headband. He's wearing a baggy red sweater with a skeleton design on it in white, and a black turtleneck underneath the sweater. He's also wearing baggy black jeans, and checked pattern vans. He has a couple of different piercings, mostly on his ears, but he does have one nose piercing. Along with having kinda sharp looking teeth.

“Hey Aimsey, can you come- oh, you're with a customer.”

Tommy stares at him for a moment before looking back over to Aimsey. “Right, I'll just have a black coffee.”

Aimsey nods and moves to the side to make the coffee. Meanwhile, Billzo walks over and takes Aimsey's original place at the counter, folding his arms on the surface and just kinda- stares at Tommy. After a few minutes of nothing but silence, Tommy bites.

"What? Got something on my face?" He muses.

Billzo snorts, “No, not that I would tell you if you actually did though.” Tommy rolls his eyes, but before he can respond Aimsey comes back over and hands him the coffee cup.

“Here you are, that'll be-”

“I know,” Tommy says, cutting her off as he hands over the money. He gives Billzo one last glance before saying bye and leaving. It hadn't been packed, just like Tommy had expected, but it wasn't the short nice experience he was expecting on his way there. He was expecting to have a nice conversation with Foolish for a bit, not deal with two new faces.

Shrugging it off Tommy heads to the park, deciding to relax for a bit while he drinks his coffee, maybe stay till the sun sets since it'll be six o'clock not too long from now. He settles down on a bench near the lake with a sigh, smiling softly as he watches the few ducks swim around in the water. Maybe he should come by sometime with some bread to feed them. That'd be nice.

“Ah, I hadn't been expecting to see you here again.”

Tommy perks up at the familiar voice, looking over to see Techno, stood about a foot away with a book held in his right hand. He smiles, “Hey man, It's been a minute! I guess you come here often to read? Since this is the second time we've bumped into each other here.”

Techno hums as he strolls over and sits down on the other end of the bench, setting his book down in the space between them. “It's quiet out here.”

“No Wilbur to talk your ear off.” Tommy nods in agreement, pulling one leg up onto the bench as he leans back against the backrest. After a few minutes of silence, he speaks again, “It's nice.”

“It is.”

They don't talk much, Tommy doesn't think Techno is much of a “chatter” anyways. Techno reads his book and Tommy watches the area around them; watches the water, the ducks, dragonflies, birds flying above in the sky, grass swaying in the cool evening breeze. The sun slowly starts to sink below the horizon, painting the sky an abundant of oranges and reds. Tommy has always loved sunsets, almost as much as he loves sunrises, the pink tones and almost cotton candy look to the sky in early mornings is just something he'll never not love.

Things are nice. Everyone is calm. Everything is quiet.

Chapter Text

Work. Tommy hates work, but y’know, it pays the bills- mostly at least. It's a miracle he hasn’t been evicted yet with how many times he’s had to push paying rent by a few weeks. But at least his jobs aren’t hard by any means, minus the karens. Luckily most days though, much like today, are just quiet with only a few customers coming in and out occasionally. Quiet, at least until a familiar brunette walks through those glass doors, smile on his face and laptop under his arm.

“Hey Tommy, nice day so far?” Wilbur asks, walking up to the counter.

Tommy nods as he starts to make Wilbur’s drink. The man orders the same thing every day, so he doesn’t even bother asking anymore. “Yeah, it had been a nice quiet day.” Wilbur rolls his eyes at the jab and sits down on one of the stools, setting his laptop down on the surface.

“Nice to see you too,” he muses as Tommy sets the coffee cup down in front of him, and Tommy simply waves the man off as another customer comes up to the counter.

To Tommy’s surprise Wilbur doesn’t spend the next few hours chatting his ear off, instead he just works away on his laptop, whatever it is he’s working on. Tommy doesn’t care, just means he still gets his quiet day with added company. He’d sooner die than admit it out loud, but Tommy does actually enjoy having Wilbur around, even when the man is talking his ear off or even vice versa.

Eventually though Tommy’s shift ends and he says bye to Wilbur as he heads over to the library. The library, like always, is quiet and slow. But luckily Bad decided to close the diner early, for whatever reason, so that’s one less thing to worry about today. Tommy spends his shift reshelving books and checking back in returned books, he helps a few people find/check out books, but hardly anyone comes in today. Despite how slow everything has been going today, the day itself has passed by very quickly without him even noticing.

Once the library closes Tommy goes to the convenient store. Why? To get a loaf of bread of course. Though once he gets it he makes sure to go through Puff’s checkout lane rather than Jack’s. Puffy is a nice lady with brown curly hair tied up into a bun with a red bandana wrapped up like a headband, everytime Tommy comes through she always slips him a candy bar of some sort for free, despite Tommy’s multiple insists that she doesn’t need to do that. 

She always brightens Tommy’s day, no matter how shitty the day was. She’ll ask how he’s been and actually listen as he either rambles about how good his day was or rants about how he hates the world and everyone in it. It’s nice getting it all off his chest, whether good or bad, to someone who actually listens all the way through.

Bread secured and whatchamacallit bar tucked into his pocket, Tommy makes the walk over to the park. Once he gets there he walks over to his usual bench and- and there’s a man passed out on his bench. Wait, is that 404!? What the hell is the number two hero of the entire city doing taking a nap on a random bench in the park?? Tommy stares at the man for a long moment, he really did get himself all comfy too, using his moss like cape as a damn blanket and everything.

Now obviously Tommy doesn’t know the man personally, but he just gives off the vibes of someone who would quite literally kill you if you wake them while they’re sleeping, so like hell Tommy’s gonna wake the guy. He’ll just have to feed the ducks some other time, since there’s no other benches near the water and the grass is all wet, so just sitting on the ground isn’t an option today. With a heavy sigh, Tommy just stands there watching the ducks for a few moments before turning and heading home for the day.

Chapter Text

As Tommy closes up the diner and starts walking to the subway, a feather lands in his path. It looks like a crow feather. He looks up and sees none other than The Angel of Death fly overhead, he watches as the man lands on a rooftop a few buildings away. Tommy stands there for a moment, just kinda watching him. That is, until he gets all but jumpscared from behind. 

“Hullo.”

Tommy does not let out a very undignified squeak as he spins around wide eyed to be face to face with the Blade- who, despite his boar mask, still manages to look amused with the way his head is slightly tilted and arms crossed over his chest. “Jesus christ, man- you almost gave me a heart attack!”

Blade hums, and looks up slightly before back down to Tommy, “Why were you staring at Death?”

“Wh- No! I wasn’t staring.” Tommy scoffs, looking away as he feels his cheeks heating up in embarrassment. “You're seeing things if you think I was staring, you might be going senile in your old age Blade.”

“Old age? How old do you think I am?”

Tommy blinks, “uhh-”

Blade raises up a hand, cutting Tommy off. “I'm going to stop you there before you say something that will get your head cut off.” Tommy nods, shutting his mouth as he stuffs his hands in his pocket.

“Well, as fun as this has been, I better get going before I get mugged.”

As Blade waves him off Tommy turns and quickly hurries back home. Tommy all but throws himself at the couch as soon as he steps inside, almost forgetting to actually, y'know, close the door behind him. It's amazing that Tommy hasn't been robbed or stabbed in his sleep yet, guess the universe just likes him.

. . .

The universe does not like Tommy, not even a bit, if it did then it wouldn't be so damn cold out today. Tommy understands that it's December, but shit man, he doesn't have a coat to wear. Couldn't the world just skip winter for once? Everyone would be much happier if it did.

Throwing open the glass doors, Tommy quickly ducks into the cafe, shuttering as he soaks in the much warmer air of the cafe. Rubbing his hands together to hopefully regain some feeling in his fingers, Tommy flips the open sign in the window and pulls his apron on as he slips behind the counter, taking a moment to brew himself some hot cocoa before any customers come in. Don't worry, he's not stealing, he put a five in the register.

Unfortunately it's not long before the first customers filter in through the door, and unsurprisingly it's Wilbur yet again -this man seriously needs to cut back on the coffee- but this time Phil has tagged along with the brunette. “Cold day today, huh?” Wilbur chuckles, leaning against the counter.

“Freezing more like.” Tommy huffs, “The usual?”

Wilbur hums, “Nah, not today. I'll do a hot chocolate. Phil?”

“Cocoa sounds good to me, mate.”

“Two hot chocolates then, they'll be done in a minute. Please, feel free to sit while you wait, away from the counter-” Tommy gets cut off as Wilbur happily sits down on one of the stools, to which Phil chuckles and sits down as well. “Or don't.” He sighs, grabbing two cups as he flicks on the milk frother.

And of course, Wilbur is incapable of sitting in silence. Or just, y'know, talking to Phil. “So, Tommy, got any plans for the holidays?”

“Plans?” Tommy questions.

“Yeah? Like visiting family, or celebrating with friends, or just huddling up at home bench watching "It's a Wonderful Life” on repeat all day while eating Christmas cookies?”

“Oh. Yeah, no, I'll probably be working or something.”

At that, Wilbur looks borderline appalled that Tommy even has a possibility of working on Christmas. “What?? No no no, nobody works on Christmas day- it's illegal-!”

“It’s not illegal.” Tommy cuts in.

“It should be illegal. Everywhere is closed on Christmas anyways. No, y'know what? Why don't you celebrate Christmas with us this year? Phil always cooks way too much anyways, and you could come over Christmas eve to decorate the tree with us and build gingerbread houses then just stay the night!” Wilbur rambles, clearly already excited about the idea.

Tommy shakes his head, quickly cutting off Wilbur's rant. “No- I wouldn't want to intrude on y'alls family celebrations, plus I wouldn't be able to get any of you guys presents or anything like that.”

“So? You don't need to get us gifts Toms, just you being apart of everything would be plenty for all of us.” Wilbur insists.

Phil nods along. “He's right, Tommy. You wouldn't be intruding, we'd be more than happy to have you join us for Christmas.” He says with a soft smile.

“But-”

“Ah-ah,” Wilbur cuts him off, “No ‘but’s, you're more than welcome in our home. We won't force you to do anything, but I promise you'll have more fun than forcing a shift on Christmas.”

Tommy hesitates, but eventually relents. “Fine, fine. I'll join you and your stupid family for Christmas- no offence, Phil.”

“None taken, mate.” Phil chuckles, waving him off. Tommy gets them their hot chocolate’s, and Phil shoves Wilbur out the door. Before he follows the lanky bastard out though, he turns back to Tommy one last time, a warm smile plastered on his face. “I know he comes on strong, but he means well. He just likes to take care of the people he cares about and doesn't understand when people don't want the help. Does it to Techno all the time, trying to force the damn brute to let him bandage a cut or just to actually get some sleep for once. But you'll get used to it, everyone who wants to does.”

Tommy chuckles lightly, imagining Wilbur and Techno yelling at each other over a small paper cut. He nods, a bit relieved to know he's not the only one who has to deal with Wilbur's nonsense, “Thanks, Phil.”

“Any time, mate.” With that Phil waves and heads out after the impatient brunette who's already started to just walk away without Phil.

. . .

Work finally done for the day Tommy tiredly makes his way to the subway. He stops as he passes by the park, remembering that he had wanted to feed the ducks. Unfortunately for the little feather balls, Tommy is far too tired to go home, get the bread, then come back and actually feed them. But, his tiredness doesn't prevent him from going over and relaxing on his bench. So, with a yawn, Tommy strolls into the park and plops down on the wooden bench, watching the reflection of the moon flicker in the pond water. After a few minutes of sitting there Tommy's eyes slip shut. No harm in resting his eyes for a moment, he'll get up in a bit.

Now if Tommy wakes up in the morning tucked in on his couch, not remembering getting up and going back to his apartment last night? Well, he must have just been too tired to remember.

Chapter Text

Tommy wakes up early Christmas eve, shivering under his blanket. Gods he misses having heating in his apartment, why must repairs cost so much? With a tired yawn Tommy pushes the blanket off, sitting up and checking his phone. He has a message from Wilbur giving him the address and to “feel free to come over whenever”- he sent the message at almost 4 AM, Jesus, does the guy not sleep? Tommy's not even surprised honestly.

After watching about half a documentary on crows Tommy reluctantly pulls himself off the couch, stuffing his phone in his pocket as he picks up his sweater. As, unfortunately, that's the warmest piece of clothing he has. Pulling the sweater on Tommy shoves his feet into his sneakers. It's still pretty early, so maybe he could get something to bring over? Since he couldn't get gifts for anyone. And yes, Tommy knows that Phil said he doesn't need to get them anything, but it would feel weird to show up empty handed.

So, walking down the street, he stops outside of a familiar bakery. Everyone likes pastries, right? Walking inside he's greeted by a familiar face. “Tommy! It's been ages, finally decided to stop by and say hi again?” Ponk questions, leaning forward against the counter as Tommy walks up.

Ponk is around 5’2”, and is always wearing a red balaclava mask with yellow and black squiggles on it, though there's just a bit of white hair visible at the top of the eye opening. They're wearing a dark gray hoodie with a black hood, white pants with a red stripe down either side, and black sneakers with red laces. Tommy doesn't know what happened, but their left arm is a prosthetic. The skin tone on it is a bit darker than their own skin, and it has a red and gold metal design stretching from the fingertips up.

“Well of course, I couldn't deprive you of my awesomeness for too long, it would be cruel.” Tommy nods, agreeing with himself.

Ponk chuckles, shaking their head as they stand up straight, “No, of course not. So what can I get for you today? I have these new lemon cookies I recently started making, would you like to try one?”

“Sounds delicious, but maybe next time.” Tommy smiles, it's nice to know that they're still trying new recipes. “Can I just get three banana bread muffins?” 

They nod, turning and walking back into the kitchen to get the muffins for Tommy. While Tom waits Callahan actually comes out from the back, waving with a smile as he walks over to the counter. “Callahan! Hey man, how’re you doing? Throat alright?” Callahan nods, giving a thumbs up. “Good, I’m glad to hear.”

Callahan has short fluffy brown hair and black eyes, wearing a Captain America mask covering the bottom half of his face. He’s always wearing the same reindeer hoodie, which has cloth reindeer ears and small horns on the hood. A while ago he was in an incident which damaged his throat and his vocal cords, preventing him from being able to speak seemingly ever again. Tommy knows that it happened a while ago, before they even met, but he still likes to check up on the man whenever he sees him.

Sooner or later Ponk comes back with a white paper bag with the muffins in it, fresh and warm. Tommy smiles as he accepts the bag, humming, “mmh, they smell delicious, as always. I’ll never get tired of your baking Ponk. I still stand by the fact that you could absolutely win on one of those baking shows on Netflix.”

Ponk chuckles as they rub the back of their neck. “Thank’s Tommy, I appreciate it. But still, it's never gonna happen.”

Tommy sighs dramatically but doesn’t bother to press the idea for the next ten minutes like he usually would, got places to be and bitches to see. “Whatever you say. On that note, how much do I owe you for the muffins?”

They shake their head, waving Tommy off. “None of that, they’re on the house.”

“Are you sure? I really don’t mind paying, y'know, you don’t need to do that for me.”

“I’m sure,” Ponk insists, glancing over when Callahan signs something before smiling. Despite the mask, Tommy can still they’re smiling by the way their eyes squint slightly. “Exactly, holiday spirits. Count it as our Christmas gift to you, for being our most loyal and definitely favorite customer.

Tommy smiles softly, shaking his head with a chuckle. “Fine, fine. Christmas gift then. I swear, you two are too nice to not be going bankrupt.”

Ponk chuckles, placing their hands on their hips. “That’s how we get them. We rope you in with kindness, then bam, you can never stop coming and giving us your money.”

“Ah, I see. So it’s all a part of your master business plan, huh?” Tommy hums, laughing softly when Callahan nods. “Alright, well I better head off now. It was nice seeing you two again, I’ll make sure to start coming by more often.”

“You’d better,” Ponk jokes. “Merry Christmas, Tommy. Stay warm alright?” Tommy nods, waving as he leaves the bakery, feeling much more ready for today than he did when he woke up this morning. Though he is definitely regretting not getting himself a muffin, what was he thinking?

____________________________________________________

Soon Tommy is walking up to the door, eyes looking over the potted plants on the porch before gently knocking on the white wooden door. Not long after -almost immediately actually- Wilbur is flinging the door open, a bright smile plastered on his face. “Tommy! You’re here!”

“Well yeah, I messaged you this morning that I’d be over around noon.”

Wilbur rolls his eyes, ushering Tommy inside, “Yeah, which left you plenty of time to bail last minute if you wanted to. Which clearly you didn’t, which is a pleasant surprise. And speaking of surprises, whatcha got there?” He asks, gesturing to the bag in Tommy’s hands.

“Oh- Yeah, I brought banana bread muffins, I hope that’s alright, I didn’t really know what y’all prefer.”

“I love banana bread,” Wilbur assures, smiling as they walk into the kitchen. Phil is standing at the stove, cooking some food while Techno is sitting at the counter, building a gingerbread house. Is it a train?? “C’mon, I had Techno build the pieces so that we can just decorate the gingerbread train. I thought it was cute, y’know? Techno can decorate the locomotive (Is that what the front is called?) while you and I each decorate one of the carts.” He explains, sitting down on the stool next to Techno.

Tommy chuckles, nodding as he sits down on the opposite side of Techno, setting the muffin bag down on the counter. “Yeah, it’s a good idea, I like it.”

Wilbur smiles proudly, giving Techno a smug look. “See? Even Tommy agrees that it isn’t stupid.” He teases, earning an eye roll from said pinkette.

“Can we just decorate the stupid thing so that we can eat? I’m starving.” Techno huffs.

After a bit longer of Wilbur and Techno bickering they finally start actually decorating the gingerbread train, and at some point Phil even turns on some Christmas music to really set the mood. It’s fun, silly and kinda childish, but fun. Candy is occasionally thrown, frosting is sometimes smudged on faces, and plenty of laughs are shared. All in all, everybody is actually having a good time.

Eventually they finish decorating, and they all sit down in the dining room to eat dinner. Phil did a wonderful time with the food; there’s turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, scones, and even a bloody apple pie. Tommy doesn’t think he’s ever seen so much food in one place anywhere other than a store, and gods it all tastes amazing. He could get used to this. The casual conversation, the joking around, the easy and comfortable air, actual food on the table at night- not just a sad piece of bread, or not-so-great tasting instant ramen. This is nice. Really nice.

Once dinner is finished they all pile into the living room. Phil sits down on the armchair, turning on a classic Christmas movie and Techno settles down on one end of the couch, meanwhile Tommy and Wilbur decorate the Christmas tree. Tommy doesn’t think he’s ever actually had a Christmas tree before, let alone decorated one. There’s so many lights, tinsel, and all sorts of ornaments, and Wilbur even lets Tommy put the star on top of the tree.

The entire night has felt like living out a Christmas movie, all the joy and pure happiness every second of every minute, and Tommy can’t help but wish it will never end. But, eventually it does. It gets late and everyone gets tired. Before going to his own room, Wilbur shows Tommy to the guest bedroom.

“This is where you’ll sleep. There’s pj’s in the drawers and the bathroom is right over there, feel free to take a shower if you want to.” Wilbur says, showing him the room. “Other than that, just don’t stay up too late, because Phil is very good at making sure we all get up early Christmas morning for cinnamon buns and opening presents.” He chuckles.

Tommy nods and watches as Wilbur smiles and leaves, softly shutting the door behind him. Tommy looks in the drawers for the pajamas Wilbur was talking about, changing into a red and white Christmas sweater and a pair of green grinch pants before shutting off the lights and slipping into the -extremely fucking comfortable- bed. “Gods.. why can’t I just stay here?” Tommy mutters, wiping his eye with the back of his hand as he turns onto his side, curling up under the comforter. Tommy falls asleep warm and comfortable that night, excited for the next day but not looking forward to going back home.

Chapter Text

Just like Wilbur had warned him the night before, Tommy is woken up early in the morning by, a way to up beat for how early it is, Phil. Tommy groans as the curtain in the guest bedroom is thrown open, light pouring in through the glass and blinding his poor eyes. “Rise and shine Tommy, breakfast is almost done.” Phil says cheerfully, gently tugging the blanket off of Tommy, clad in Frosty the Snowman themed pajamas.

Tommy whines, trying to pull the blanket back up. “Noo, it's too early to people yet.”

Rolling his eyes fondly Phil crosses his arms over his chest, cocking his head to the side. “C'mon kiddo, don't you want to open your present with everyone downstairs?”

Tommy perks up at that, his tired mind glazing over the use of the word “kiddo” in favour of focusing in on “present.” Yawning, Tommy sits up, stretching his arms over his head and rubbing his eyes. “I have presents to open?” He questions.

“Well of course, we wouldn't have invited you over just to watch us open presents.” Phil chuckles, ruffling Tommy's hair before offering him a hand. With a huff, Tommy accepts the extended hand, letting Phil pull him up to his feet and lead him downstairs. 

Once downstairs Tommy tugs his hand away from Phil, sleepily wandering over to the couch and flopping down between Techno and Wilbur. They're both wearing onesies, Techno wearing a pink onesie with cartoon pigs on it wearing Santa hats while wearing a Santa hat of his own, and Wilbur is wearing a Rudolph the rednosed Reindeer onesie with the hood up which has reindeer ears and horns on it along with a little red nose.

Wilbur yawns as he reaches over to wrap an arm around Tommy's shoulders, to which Tommy swats him away with a sleepy glare. “Clingy bastard.” Tommy huffs, slumping against Techno's shoulder instead, relishing in the offended gasp from Wil.

“Hey!” Wilbur protests, laughing as he scooches over, ruffling Tommy's hair. “You're such a gremlin.” Tommy swats at his hand but eventually relents, too tired to care all that much and just letting Wilbur mess up his hair.

“Cinnamon rolls are ready!” Phil calls out from, presumably, the kitchen. 

Wilbur, with a gasp, jumps up off the couch and runs out of the living room yelling, “I call dibs on the one with the most glaze!” Tommy would get up and chase after him, but who is he kidding? It’s like six in the morning, and Tommy is very comfortable right where he is. Plus we all know that Wilbur is a sappy bastard and will most likely end up just giving Tommy the best one despite himself, so there’s no point in trying to fight for it anyways.

Phil and Wilbur both return a few minutes later, each carrying two plates. Wilbur hands Tommy a plate before plopping back down onto the couch to dig into his own cinnamon bun, while Phil hands Techno a plate then sits down on the armchair, pulling the throw blanket over his lap.

“Not good, Wil?” Techno teases, watching Wilbur practically eat half the damn thing in one bite.

Wilbur scoffs, no he doesn’t slightly choke on his bite, “Shut up Techno, they’re my favorite. And you’re not any better y’know, your’s is already almost gone.”

“Yeah, but at least I’m eating mine like a civilised human being.”

“Neither of you are civilised.” Phil cuts in, earning an offended gasp from both boys.

“I take extreme offence to that, Phil. I am the epiphany of civil behaviour. I can’t say the same for Wilbur, but we all already knew he wasn’t very mature-” Techno gets cut off by a fork bouncing off the side of his head. “See?”

Tommy laughs as he listens to the banter, he can’t help but wonder if they’re always like this, always joking and bouncing off of each other. It’s nice, in a way. Though unfortunately it doesn’t continue much longer as everyone finally resigns themselves to actually eating their breakfast 

Eventually cinnamon rolls are finished and presents are passed around. Wilbur has one from Phil, Techno has one from Phil, Phil has two from both Techno and Wilbur, and Tommy has one from.. Techno? That’s surprising

Wilbur opens his first, as he is an impatient child, according to Techno. Gasp, “You got me the fish mug!” Wilbur all but screams, holding up the salmon mug like it’s Simba from the Lion King. Tommy doesn’t understand what’s so exciting about a fish cup, but he doesn’t bother to ask, knowing he most likely won’t understand the explanation either. Whatever the explanation may be.

Techno opens his present next, receiving a polar bear plush which he immediately names Steve. Huh, Tommy hadn't taken him as the stuffed animal type, good to know. Not that he plans on now randomly, and very secretly, leaving various stuffed animals in Techno’s room any time he comes over now. No, never. That would insinuate that he actually cares or something, which he very much does not.

Next is Phil, who gets a “World's most tired dad” mug with a cartoon crow sleeping on it. When was the last time Tommy saw Clementine? Which receives a hardy laugh from Phil and everyone else. The second present, from Techno, is a little glass tombstone with R.I.P and “Philza, taken from us too soon” beneath it. 

“It’s because you’re so very old, Phil.” Techno had clarified, as if the joke wasn’t already incredibly obvious.

Last but not least, Tommy opens his present. And after all the joke gifts that had gone around, he was not expecting an actually thoughtful and considerate gift. Carefully unwrapping the present, he’s met with a blue jacket with patches on it (A crow, an Orka, a music disc, a crown, a guitar, a cartoon sword, and a few others scattered around on it). It’s soft and light, but thick and warm.

“I noticed you never wear a jacket, despite it currently being the middle of winter. So I assumed you just don’t have one. I didn’t exactly know your size, so it’ll probably be a bit big on you.” Techno explains and, no, Tommy does not nearly tear up after realising that Techno had even noticed and cared enough to think about it and get him a jacket so that he won’t be cold anymore. He totally doesn’t hug Techno tightly, his voice thick with unshed tears when he says thank you.

Okay, maybe he cares. Not that much though. Totally.

____________________________________________________

After presents they all cuddle up on the couch under a fluffy blanket Phil grabbed from his bedroom. Tommy huddled up between Techno and Wilbur, and this time he doesn’t try to swat Wilbur away when the man slings an arm over his shoulders, pulling Tommy snuggly against his side as he turns on It’s A Wonderful Life.

Tommy most definitely does not cry during the movie. But he does, in fact, not at all understand how Wilbur loves this movie so much. Tommy is very relieved when the movie ends and Phil takes the remote, putting on A Year Without Santa Claus before Wilbur can try to restart the movie. Apparently one year they let Wilbur play whatever movies he wanted all Christmas day and he just kept replaying the same movie (It’s a wonderful life) over and over the entire day until Techno fought him for the remote.

The movie plays, and about halfway through Roudolf Tommy falls asleep. Once he finally wakes back up it’s late in the evening, everyone else asleep where they are on the couch and Frosty the Snowman playing softly in the background.

For a moment Tommy considers just getting comfortable and going back to sleep, staying another night. But he knows that if he stays a second night, either he won’t want to leave the next day or Wilbur simply won’t let him leave because Tommy has “now joined the family and can’t deny it anymore,” and Tommy is just a little worried that he would accept that fact.

So, with a little bit of struggling to shimmy out of Wilbur’s sleepy hold, he puts on his new jacket and reluctantly leaves. He doesn’t hear the shift on the couch as he softly shuts the door behind him.

Tommy finds himself in the park once more, sitting on his bench and watching the few ducks still awake swim around in the pond. It’s quiet. No cars, no chatter, no birds, and no screaming. Though, of course, it doesn’t stay that way for very long.

“Nice night, hm?” Tommy recognises the voice, it’s obviously Wil- Siren. Did he almost just think Wilbur? No, that would be absurd. How could Tommy ever mix up Wilbur with the number three ranked supervillain of L’Manburg?

Siren is probably around 6’8’”, though Tommy is pretty confident that he’s only that tall because of his platform boots. Stylish fuck. He has frizzy brown curls with faded blue ends, though all but the front fringe is covered by a black beanie. His eyes are hidden by a blue and black masquerade mask, though he has blue lines drawn on his cheeks which are clearly meant to look like gills, probably playing off of the fact that his name is Siren. Seriously, what is he, a theater kid? Siren wears a yellow sweater and a dark brown trench coat, black fingerless gloves, and black ripped jeans with dark blue tights beneath.

Honestly? Tommy isn’t even surprised to see him. He’s gone from having zero villain/hero interactions his entire life to having almost a dozen in just the last few months. So, of course, why wouldn’t he have another.

Tommy hums in acknowledgement to the villains question as he slides down to sit beside Tommy on the bench. Tommy doesn’t know what time it is, but it must be pretty damn late, as the sun is starting to peak over the horizon.

After a few moments of silence, Tommy speaks up. “I think sunrise is my favorite time of day.” He says quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

“I’ve always preferred sunset.” Siren responds, voice equally as soft. And that should be weird, right? All of this should be weird. But it just isn’t anymore, Tommy can’t bring himself to find it weird or bizarre that he’s just casually watching the sunrise with one of the most wanted villains in the entire city. It just feels so.. normal, at this point. Comfortable almost.

And so Tommy doesn’t question it, and neither does Siren. They both simply sit there in comfortable silence as the sky is painted various oranges and pinks, lighting up the city and pulling a small smile at Tommy’s lips. This is nice.

Tommy doesn’t dare question why it feels familiar, why Siren feels familiar. Why the Blade and the Angel of Death feel familiar. Because, honestly, Tommy doesn’t want to know why.

Chapter Text

Tommy for the first time ever, wakes up to his alarm. And not just any alarm, the first alarm. Must be a sign that today is going to be a great day despite being a work day. That thought was almost ruined when he found a note on his front door, the inside of his door, in the apartment he lives alone in. But once he reads the note, Tommy very quickly realizes that this will, in fact, be a good day as Tommy is 100% calling out sick from his jobs to go hangout with a certain purple eyed someone at the mall.

No he's not excited and slightly nervous, shut up.

After totally not stressing about his nonexistent choice for clothing, Tommy is finally walking through the mall towards the food court. It takes a few minutes of looking around but eventually he spots a familiar purple clad boy sitting at one of the tables. He's wearing the same outfit as when Tommy met him at the casino, though he has his hood up now and is wearing a black neck gaiter mask, leaving only his eyes still visible. 

Tommy stops for a moment before approaching the table, he recognises that mask, he met someone before who wore the same one. That's when he remembers the strange guy he met on the metro a while back. What was that guy's name.. Purpled. Holy shit, Executioner is Purpled.

With that revelation, Tommy marches over to the table and sits down across from Purpled. “You're the guy I met on the metro, like, however long ago.” It's a statement, not a question.

Purpled looks up from his phone when Tommy sits, setting it down in a way that feels almost precise, trained. Weirdo. “Good, you did figure it out. I thought I would have to spell it out for you.”

“What- what's that supposed to mean? Of course I figured it out, I'm smart, probably smarter than you.” Tommy rants, pointing at Purpled accusingly.

“It's not a matter of being smart, some people just don't realise to connect the dots when they're presented to them.” Purpled says, crossing his arms as he leans forward against the table, “And others choose not to see the signs, ignore the similarities, repress all the worries and suspicions. Kinda like you.”

Tommy stares at him for a long moment, shocked by the bluntness. “I- I don't know what you're talking about-”

Purpled chuckles, shaking his head. “No, of course not.” He sighs, grabbing his phone as he stands up. “Let's grab something to eat, a snack. It'll be my treat.” Tommy hesitates for a moment before nodding, standing up to follow the other.

—

Finishing the last bite of his churro, which he only chose because he keeps seeing them everywhere, Tommy is very disappointed. Considering all the great things he had heard about them, he had expected them to be amazing, not… eh.

“Not living up to the hype?” Purpled asks, only about halfway through his, delicious looking, soft pretzel. Tommy regrets not getting one himself. I'll take that as a yes then, here." Purpled tears off about half of what's left of his pretzel, handing it to Tommy.

Tommy stares at him for a moment before taking a bite of his half, muttering a quiet, "thanks.”

Once their snacks are finished they decide to walk around the mall, browse the different shops. Look at the stupid kids toys, the clothing stores, lots of different knicknacks, until eventually they end up in a jewellery shop.

“Wow, y'know I don't think I've seen so many rings in one place before.” Tommy chuckles, turning over a moon and star engraved ring in his fingers before putting it back on its holder.

Purpled hums. “It's definitely quite a few.” He agrees. Purpled looks over all the different rings before picking up a pack of two, they're silver and one has an engraving of the moon while the other has an engraving of a sun.

Tommy glances over when Purpled grabs them, looking at the engravings on them and smiling. “We should get those, they can be, like, friendship rings. Y'know, like friendship bracelets and necklaces but rings instead?”

“You want to?”

“Well, yeah? We're obviously friends now, so why not.” Tommy hums, grabbing the rings. “You can have the moon one, it'll suit you better than the sun would.”

Purpled chuckles, nodding along. “Didn't realise one real interaction was all it took to become friends with you, let alone close enough to immediately be buying friendship rings.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Oh hush, I'll have you know I'm a very untrusting and cautious individual.” He says, grabbing Purpled’s wrist and tugging him towards the register. “C’mon, after this we’re going to the arcade.”

“You’ve decided?” Purpled questions, tilting his head fondly.

“Yep,” Tommy nods, stopping at the checkout counter and handing the rings to the cashier, “we’re gonna go and we’re gonna have a grand ol’ time playing games and earning tickets to get awesome prizes.”

—

Rings adorn, the two head to the arcade next like Tommy said, getting one hundred tokens total so that they can each have fifty. Before they go off to play the games though, Tommy scouts out the prize section. Eyes immediately locking onto a blue sheep plush, he gasps. “Holy shit, okay, I need that sheep. It’s now a necessity. I’m not leaving without it- how many tickets? 1000? Yeah, I can do that, let's go.”

Purpled doesn’t get much of a chance to say anything before Tommy is grabbing his arm, pulling him deeper into the arcade to where all the higher point games are. Now, a thousand tickets should technically be relatively easy to accomplish, especially with fifty tokens, but when has anything gone to plan for Tommy?

Ski ball, thirty tickets. Galaga, died during the first wave, five tickets. Spin the wheel, one hundred tickets. Whack a mole, forty tickets. Ddr, twenty five tickets. Lock picking game, he hit the jackpot, one hundred tickets. Then Tommy got distracted and played a bunch of games that don’t give tickets. Why? Because they’re fun, that’s why, leave him alone. And once all of his tokens were used up Tommy went around with Purpled while the other used up his.

In the end, Tommy got three hundred tickets. “Wh- 300?! No no no, you must have counted wrong, count again.” Tommy demands, pointing at the worker accusingly. Purpled chuckles, looking all smug with his eight hundred tickets to spend.

“It’s fine, Tom. You can just have my tickets, I don’t see anything I want here anyways.”

“Really?” Tommy asks, stunned. “Are you sure? I thought you wanted that cool nerf gun?”

Purpled shrugs, running a finger over the ring on his index finger before stuffing his hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “Sure, it would be funny to pelt Quackity with nerf bullets, but I can always just yoink one from a store at some point.”

Tommy looks at him for a moment longer before smiling, “Thanks, and send me a video if you actually get one and do that, it sounds hilarious.”

“I will, don’t worry, and it absolutely will be the funniest thing you’ve ever seen.” Purpled agrees, nodding.

—

Blue sheep, proudly named Friend, and crappy kazoo secured, Tommy and Purpled walk together back to Tommy’s apartment. Once they part ways and Tommy heads upstairs to his home, Tommy is pleasantly surprised to find Clementine at the window, happily setting his things down on the couch before going and opening it for her to come inside.

“Clementine! I just had the best day ever, look, I have a new friend for Henry and everything. His name is Friend.” Tommy says, sitting down on the couch next to his two plushies as his feathery friend lands on the back of the couch.

Tommy ends up talking to Clementine for quite awhile, telling the little crow all about everything that’s happened since he last saw her. It was the perfect thing to end off such a great day in his professional opinion. Professional of what? Everything, of course. And in his professional opinion he also thinks that his days are going to keep being this good, and how could he, Tommy big man danger careful kraken innit, ever be wrong about something?

Chapter Text

Unfortunately, waking up to his alarms seems to have been a one day miracle, which he blew on hanging out with Purpled instead of getting to work on time for the first time ever. Opps. In his defence, it was one hundred percent worth it. So Tommy wasn’t exactly surprised to see Foolish behind the counter since he’s almost fifteen minutes late, again, and certainly wasn’t surprised to see him and Sam chatting. If anything it’s nice to see, normal.

Though, something feels oddly familiar about the sight this time, and not because it’s Foolish and Sam. They look different to him. Which is odd, they look the same that they have for years. But today, certain details stick out. Sam’s light green skin with the very short fur, his long pointed ears, his fully black eyes with the white pupils, the occasional puff of light gray smoke coming from his mouth when he speaks. Foolish’s golden-y yellow skin, his gold and gray shark-like tail swaying behind him with the gray tipped pointed ears to accompany it.

They feel familiar, like he’s seen those exact traits on someone else before. But who?

“I get that security is top priority for Q, to keep himself and those close to him safe, but having to kidnap someone we know on the outside? That was next level stress, I’m glad things worked out.” Foolish chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. Sam nods, sighing as he leans back against the counter.

Tommy stands there frozen, racking his brain for any explanation other than the one it’s providing. “Q? Kidnapping someone they know?” Tommy remembers Foolish mentioning a new guard job he had gotten a while back, having to drop a few shifts here because of it. Tommy remembers not seeing Sam for several days in a row, having to open the cafe himself, only for the man to show up again looking exhausted from “rough nights sleep” and feeling sick. 

He hadn’t questioned any of it at the time, hadn’t thought to put those two things together, and certainly hadn’t ever considered comparing those things to the two guards who showed up at his apartment that night he met Ace. Aka Quackity, or Q.

Foolish and Sam are Orisis and Warden.

The realization rings out in Tommy’s head for what feels like hours, making him feel nauseous, and by now the two men have noticed him standing there, staring at them like he’s just seen a ghost. Or, more accurately, two villains.

“Toms? You alright, bud?” Sam- Warden? Asks, but his voice sounds more like an echo.

Heart pounding in his chest and blood flowing through his ears, Tommy doesn’t say anything, he just turns and rushes back out of the cafe. He can hear Warden and Orisis’ worried shouts from behind him as he runs down the sidewalk, but they very quickly fall quiet.

—

Tommy can’t go home, that much is obvious, considering they know where that is. Before he even realises what he’s doing Tommy finds himself standing outside of a painfully familiar white wooden door. He’s only been over one time, what is he doing? He shouldn't be here. He should be going to the police, or- hell, straight to the hero tower even. But despite that much more logical choice, Tommy raises his hand and knocks on the door.

He doesn’t get much time to panic and regret knocking before the door is opened, his nerves relaxing slightly when he’s put face to face with Techno. “Tommy? What’s going on, are you okay?”

“I- Sam- he- he and Foolish- they-” Tommy stutters out, trying to catch his breath and slow his heart rate and stop the race of thoughts in his head and- Techno puts a hand on his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts and gently guiding him inside over to the living room.

All but collapsing down onto the couch, Tommy curls in on himself, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying his face in them. Techno’s hand leaves his shoulder, probably leaving to go get Phil and Wilbur because a few moments later the couch dips next to him, thin arms snaking around him and pulling him tightly against a chest.

“It’s alright, you’re alright, Toms. We’ve got you.” Wilbur whispers, holding Tommy close. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Tommy shakes his head, clutching onto the front of Wilbur’s sweater. He can feel a hand wipe tears away from his cheeks. When had he started crying? 

“That’s alright, mate. You don’t have to tell us, and we won’t force you to either.” Phil assures, sitting down on the other side of Tommy, resting a hand on his back and rubbing it comfortingly. “But you can stay here with us as long as you need to, okay?”

Tommy can feel Wilbur nod above him, “You don’t have to worry, alright? We’re here for you.”

They all sit there on the couch for a while, Wilbur and Phil quietly comforting Tommy while Techno sends a few messages. It feels nice, having this to turn to, having people who care so much despite not even knowing him more than a few months. The first time he came here, Christmas eve, he had felt so out of place. Felt like he was intruding on their family. But this time, sitting here with Wilbur holding him like it’ll protect him from the world, this time he feels like this is where he was always supposed to be. With them, he’s finally home. At least for a little while. It’s nice to pretend.

“Phil, can I speak with you for a moment? Alone?” Techno speaks up after a few minutes of comfortable silence, standing up from the armchair. Him and Phil slip off into the kitchen, and if Tommy listens closely enough he can just barely hear them talking. Not enough to make out any words, but enough to hear their voices.

Tommy is tired. He’s always tired, but more so recently with everything that’s been going on, all the trouble starting to find its way to him. Something bad is going to happen. For the first time ever, Tommy was wrong about something. Things aren’t good. They never truly were, were they? Good things don’t happen to him, he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up.

But for right now, just this moment, Tommy can keep pretending. With Phil and Techno talking in the other room, with Wilbur hugging him and still whispering quiet promises of safety. They’re lies, fairy tales, but he’ll believe them. Just for today, he’ll believe. Believe that he’s safe here, safe as long as he’s with them.

Soon, Tommy can’t keep his eyes open any longer, dozing off against the soft fabric of Wilbur’s sweater and to the quiet sound of a clock ticking somewhere in the room. Tommy doesn’t remember there being a clock in the living room, but what he does remember is the quiet humming above him as the world fades away to sweet nothingness. It doesn’t sound like Wilbur, doesn’t sound like it’s really there at all. But it’s warm and it’s safe. It’s a moment of calm.

Chapter Text

Tommy wakes up to sunlight filtering through curtains, quickly realizing two things; one, that yesterday wasn’t all dream and that he’s in the guest bedroom and two, that he’d managed to sleep through the entire rest of the day and then through the night. That was by far the most, and best, sleep Tommy has ever gotten in his life. Though he is a little disappointed to find himself alone in the room.

Forcing himself up off of the oh so comfortable bed and down the stairs, Tommy finds Wilbur in the kitchen, sipping on a mug of coffee. Specifically the mug he got for Christmas.

“I want to take a shower.” 

Wilbur blinks, looking up from his cup of energy with his eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. “Okay? So go take one then.”

“I don't have a change of clothes here, and I don't know where the towels are.” Tommy deadpans.

“Oh- Right, right. Well, there's always a few towels kept in the cabinet in the restroom, so you can just use those. And you can borrow some clothes from my room. It's the first one on the right upstairs, right across from the guest bedroom actually.”

Tommy sighs, but nods. “Fine, but if I die because you have such bad taste in style that I simply pass away from disappointment as soon as I open your closet, it's your fault.” (What is this line ;v;)

Tommy ends up stealing a black tee with some band logo on it and a pair of cargo pants from Wilbur’s closet before finally taking a shower. Once he’s done and returns downstairs to the kitchen everyone else is now up, all three men sat at the dining table eating breakfast, which consists of pancakes and bacon today. Tommy joins them, sitting down on the chair next to Phil, who puts a pancake and a few strips of bacon on his plate.

It’s quiet for a few minutes while everyone eats before Techno pipes up, finished with his food and now actually aware of Tommy’s presence.

“Is that one of Wilbur’s shirts?” The pinkette asks, voice deadpanned but clearly amused.

Tommy shoots Wilbur a glare when the man snorts, “Unfortunately yes, and speaking of which, I want to stop by my apartment to grab some stuff. Mainly clothes so that I don’t have to keep getting handy downs from Wilbur while I’m staying here.” He hesitates for a moment before looking down at his plate and quietly adding, “Could one of you guys come with?”

He can practically feel the sympathetic looks they all send his way and he hates it, hates the pity, hates that he feels so weak. Any other day Tommy would have never even asked, would have toughened up and went alone, but right now..? He would never admit it out loud but he’s scared, terrified even, and he doesn’t want to be alone right now.

“Me and Techno have something to take care of today,” Phil begins, resting a hand on Tommy’s shoulder before the younger can panic, “But Wil can go with you, and if anything happens or if either of you don’t feel safe,just call and we’ll drop everything.”

Techno nods in agreement. “We’ll be there in less than five minutes if you need us to.” He says firmly, and Tommy can tell that he means it.

Tommy can feel the tension in his shoulders relax some, a small grateful smile tugging at his lips. “Thank you, all of you, for everything you’re doing for me.”

Wilbur reaches over the table, resting his hand over one of Tommy’s, gently squeezing it, “We’re here for you, alright? Whatever you need, whenever you need it. We’ll be there.” And Tommy does not tear up and end up crying into Phil’s shoulder for awhile.

Once said nonexistent tears dry Phil and Wilbur clear the table and take the dishes to the kitchen while Techno stays at the table with Tommy. He knows that Techno staying is meant to be comforting, and it is, but the silence is also mildly awkward. So he breaks it.

“Soo.. what is it that you and Phil need to do today?” That’s probably too invasive.

“Just some stuff,nothing you need to worry about.” Yeah, definitely too invasive.

Tommy nods, looking down at his lap where his hands are fidgeting with the hem of the shirt he’s wearing. “Do you think you guys will be home once we get back later?”

Techno hums, crossing his arms as he leans back in his chair, “We should be, yeah.”

Luckily Tommy doesn’t have to think of anything else to say as Wilbur returns from the kitchen, resting his hands on the back of Techno’s chair and leaning against it. “Phil said to go get ready for your guys’ thing. And Tommy, you and I can leave whenever you want to.”

“Can we go now then?” Tommy asks, standing from his chair when Wilbur nods.

Shoes on and keys secured they say bye to Phil and Techno before heading out to the, still too expensive looking, car. “Do you remember the address?” He asks as he gets in the passenger seat.

“Yep.” Wilbur hums, buckling his seatbelt and starting the engine. “When we get there, do you want me to come in with you?”

Tommy ponders (look at that use of vocabulary) the question for a moment. On one hand, he doesn’t really want Wilbur seeing his sad excuse of an apartment. But on the other hand, he definitely doesn’t want to go up alone. “You can come up, just don’t be an ass about what my apartment looks like.”

Wilbur laughs as he puts the car in reverse and pulls out of the driveway. “Don’t worry, I’m not expecting it to be anything extravagant.”

—

Now, Wilbur’s hopes on what Tommy’s apartment looked like were already low, what with the estimated salary Tommy was living off of. But this? This isn’t a home. There’s not even a bed! Just an old couch with a pillow, blanket, and two stuffed animals on it- wait, two stuffed animals?

Wilbur gasps, Tommy shooting him a questioning look as his eyes light up, “You’ve been sleeping with the cow plush I got you?”

Tommy’s face heats up in embarrassment. “Shut up. Henry is a fantastic listener and just happens to be sitting where I sleep.” He argues, though when Wilbur’s eyes somehow light up even more he knows that it’s not working in his favor.

“And you named it? That’s adorable.” Wilbur coos, ruffling Tommy’s hair.

Tommy swats his hand away. “I will send you back down to wait in the car, Wilbur. Don’t patronize me.” He won’t, but Wilbur doesn’t need to know that.

Wilbur laughs, putting his hands up in surrender. “Alright, alright. I’ll lay off, just go ahead and grab your stuff you gremlin child.”

Tommy scowls at the nickname but just grumbles under his breath and moves to pack up his few belongings. He grabs his backpack from the floor and dumps out the miscellaneous items inside of it, replacing them with what he came for. Aka the few pairs of clothes he owns, a phone charger, Henry and Friend, and then he just bundles up his blanket in his arms. He knows that the guest bed has blankets on it, but he just really likes this one and it feels like a crime to leave it behind, especially when someone went through the effort of breaking into his apartment just to leave it for him. Though that probably wasn't too difficult since he never locks his widow and almost always forgets to lock the door.

Stuff gathered, they head back down to the car, storing away Tommy’s belongings in the backseat. “Hey, before we go back, can we make a slight detour?” Tommy asks, buckling up as Wilbur gets in.

“A detour, huh? Where to?” Wilbur questions, raising an eyebrow.

“A friend of mine owns a bakery, promised them that I would try a new recipe they were trying out.”

Wilbur hums, “Well, I don’t see any reason we can’t stop by. Besides, I’m always looking for an excuse to buy pastries.”

—

Walking into the bakery with Wilbur trailing behind, Tommy calls out. “Ponk!! I’m here to try those lemon cookies of yours!” He announces, leaning against the counter.

“Tommy! Just a minute, I’ll have Callahan bring one out for you!” An ever familiar voice calls back.

“Two actually!” 

At that, Ponk pokes their head out from the back room where all the pastries are baked. “Two?” They question, gaze flickering over and landing on Wilbur, who gives an awkward wave.

“Yep, this-” Tommy claps a hand on Wilbur’s back, causing the man to stumble forward slightly and shoot Tommy a glare, “-is Wilbur, he’s my chauffeur for the day. Figured I’d allow him to come in and get one as well.

Wilbur rolls his eyes. “I’m not his chauffeur.”

Ponk chuckles fondly, walking up to the counter. “Finally making friends are we, Tom?”

“Wh- I’ll have you know I have loads of friends, Ponk.” Tommy huffs, crossing his arms. Luckily Tommy doesn’t have to deal with any more lies and slander being thrown at him as Callahan comes out from the back, holding two yellowish tan cookies on a napkin, walking over to where everyone is standing at the counter and holding them out for Tommy and Wilbur. Tommy smiles, happily taking one. “Thank you, Callahan.”

Callahan nods, letting Wilbur take the second one before waving and returning to the back. Taking a bite of the cookie, Tommy all but melts. “Augh, Ponk, this is amazing. Seriously, why don’t you have a baking show yet. This is bullshit.

Wilbur laughs, but nods in agreement as he takes a bite of his own. “He’s not wrong, this is really good.”

“I appreciate it, both of you. But like I’ve told Tom hundreds of times already, there’s no way I’ll ever get a Netflix single. Besides, I’m happy where I am.” Ponk hums, folding their arms on the counter as they lean against it.

Tommy rolls his eyes, waving his hand dismissively as he finishes his cookie. “Fine, fine. It’s not going to happen. But if it did, you would absolutely dominate the competition. You should definitely keep experimenting with recipes though, because this is genuinely the best cookie I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot considering basically the only cookies I’ve ever had have been yours.”

Ponk chuckles, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Once Tommy finishes chatting with Ponk, him and Wilbur go back to the car and finally make their way back home, and Tommy totally isn’t disappointed when the house is empty. No sign of Phil or Techno being back yet.

“They’re just caught in traffic, Phil messaged me.” Wilbur reassures, patting Tommy’s shoulder. Tommy tries not to think about how Phil said they were going to take the subway there and back. “Why don’t you just go put your stuff away, yeah?”

Tommy nods, heading upstairs to the guest bedroom. He puts his clothes away in the dresser drawers, sets Henry and Friend down against the pillows on the bed, and lays out his blue wool blanket over the other covers before sitting down on the edge of the bed. His bed. Tommy hasn’t had a real bed, let alone room in.. well, ever. He hasn’t had a family ever.

This isn’t permanent, Tommy knows that, but it’s nice. Really nice. Having a home, and a sorta family, and not having to worry about food or money for a little while. With a comfortable sigh, Tommy closes his eyes and flops backwards to lay down. He wishes that he could just get used to this, keep pretending that everything is going to just stay like this now.

Chapter Text

Laying in bed wide awake, Tommy stares blankly up at the ceiling. The comfort of staying here has since worn off, leaving him on edge and waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Because of that, he hasn’t been getting a whole lot of sleep anymore, which is why he’s awake at just barely five in the morning. And has also probably made him not very pleasant to be around, what with his being tired and irritable.

With a long suffering sigh Tommy gives up on trying to get anymore sleep and drags himself out of bed. He heads downstairs to the kitchen, planning to make some coffee, when the freshly bought loaf of bread on the counter catches his eyes. Why is a regular ol loaf of bread catching Tommy’s eyes? Because he never got the chance to go back and feed the ducks. Well, what better time than now? Probably any other time, but oh well. With that plan in mind Tommy grabs the bread and sneaks out the front door, doing so quietly as to hopefully not wake anyone.

But when has anything ever gone Tommy’s way?

Around six, when Tommy is about halfway through the loaf of bread with ducks gathered all around his bench, Techno shows up and sits down next to him. “Figured I would find you here.” He hums, leaning against the armrest of the bench.

“Why look for me in the first place?” Tommy mutters, ripping up another slice of the loaf and tossing it out for the dozens of ducks.

Techno looks over at Tommy for a moment before turning his gaze back out to the ducks, which swarm the bread crumbs. “Why not?”

Tommy sighs, dropping his head down against the backrest of the bench, “That’s not an answer.”

“No, I suppose it isn’t.” Techno hums. “Well, one reason to look for you is because the entire reason you’re staying with us in the first place is because you felt unsafe, then you up and disappear one morning without a word. I assumed you were probably fine, but it’s better to be safe rather than sorry for things like this. Don’t you agree?”

Tommy doesn’t respond immediately, staring down at the ducks, who are munching away on bread without a care in the world. “Yeah, I guess so.. Sorry if I worried you.”

Techno reaches over, patting Tommy’s shoulder. “It’s alright. But maybe next time leave a note or shoot one of us a text, that way you don’t give Phil a heart attack or something.”

Tommy chuckles lightly, but nods, “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Techno lets his hand fall away from Tommy’s shoulder. “So, you’re liking that jacket I got you then? Considering you’ve worn it nearly every day since you got it.”

“Oh, yeah, I am. It’s comfortable. And definitely much warmer than my old sweater.”

Techno nods, “Well I’m glad you like it, it suits you.”

A small smile tugs at Tommy’s lips as he subconsciously fidgets with one of the decorative patches on the jacket. Specifically the music disc one, he likes that one. “You have much better taste in clothing than Wilbur, so I’m glad you chose it.” He jokes.

“You’re definitely right there, Wilbur’s fashion sense is basically just a mix between emo teenager and wannabe e-boy.” Techno hums, huffing out a sorta laugh. The sound reminds Tommy of someone, but he ignores it.

Tommy isn’t sure how much longer he sits there feeding ducks and comfortably chatting with Techno, but when he finally runs out of both bread and things to talk about the sun is much higher up in the sky than before.

“Planning on coming back now? I’m sure the others are probably up and wondering where we are by now.” Techno asks, standing up.

Tommy shakes his head, stretching his arms up over his head with a yawn as he stands up as well. “No, not yet. I think I’m gonna stay out for a while longer, maybe walk around, explore some back alleys or something stupid.” He shrugs.

“Sounds smart,” Techno deadpans, then adds slightly more seriously, “Want me to tag along?”

“I’ll be fine on my own, you can go ahead back home. I’ll catch up later.” Tommy says, waving off Techno’s offer.

Techno rolls his eyes, but doesn’t push. “Fine, but if anything happens you call one of us, okay?”

“I will, promise.” He reassures, and with that they say goodbye and Tommy watches as Techno leaves until he can no longer see the others bright hair.

—

Tommy does end up wandering through a bunch of back alleys in the city, despite how stupid of an idea that may be. It’s kinda cool, seeing all of the graffiti overlapping and painting most of the walls, it’s like an art museum. But without an entrance fee or an employee in your face trying to sell you something the whole time you’re there. But of course it can’t stay nice forever, eventually the “bad idea” part of doing this has to catch up to him.

As Tommy turns and begins to walk down another alley he gets stopped about halfway down when he hears muttered cursing from behind a dumpster. That’s probably a bad sign, because why would a normal law-abiding citizen be in a dark alleyway cursing while hiding behind a dumpster? They wouldn’t, so that means nothing good will come of whoever is there.

Now, does that mean Tommy turns and leaves? No. Of course not.

“Hello?” Tommy calls out, cautiously walking over and peeking behind the dumpster. Tommy is, let's just say, disappointed by who he finds there. It’s a villain, because of course it is. But it also just so happens to be the only villain out there who’s arguably worse than Siren. 3D.

3D is a few inches shorter than Tommy and is wearing a black headset with a mic, which looks funny in Tommy’s opinion because he has a full head buzz cut. The bottom half of 3D’s face is covered by a black techy looking mask that displays a volume/pitch fluctuating soundwave where his mouth would be, it’s actually pretty cool looking. He’s wearing a black and blue striped jacket with a white tee and a bullet proof vest beneath it, along with green camo pants and, for some reason, regular old black and white trainers. He also has on black fingerless gloves and knee pads. All in all, he looks lame. Minus the mask of course.

Okay, for the record, Tommy has never actually encountered or even watched any news broadcasts about 3D. The guy just looks like someone he wouldn’t get along with. Is it fair for Tommy to judge the guy based off of his appearance? No, probably not. But it’s more like a feeling than an assumption. Just trust Tommy on this, 3D sucks. Probably has a lame power and everything.

3D doesn’t respond, clearly too caught up in his muttering to hear Tommy. He’s holding something in his hands, something Tommy realises are glasses. They’re like those glasses you get at the movie theater for 3D movies, but nicer ones. They have white frames with one blue lens and one red lens. And they’re broken. The frame snapped in two where the nose piece is and the red lens shattered.

Now obviously Tommy knows next to nothing about 3D, but one thing he does know is that 3D only ever takes off his glasses to use his power. Whatever that power is. So his glasses being broken most likely won’t end well for Tommy. That doesn’t stop him from being annoying though.

Tommy snorts, “Geez, what’d you do man, run into a wall?”

This time 3D seems to hear Tommy as his head snaps over and suddenly they’re making direct eye contact. 3D has heterochromia, Tommy immediately notices,his right eye is a deep ocean blue while the left one is blood red. But within the same second of them making eye contact, everything goes dark. Not in the “I passed out” way though, in the “who turned off the lights” sort of way.

Tommy subconsciously takes a step back, eyes wide as he looks around. “What the hell-?” He mutters.

“Tommy! There you are, we’ve been looking all over for you, man.”

“Wilbur,” Tommy sighs, immediately relaxing at the sound of the familiar voice, turning towards it only to come face to face with Siren. Siren without his mask on. Siren with Wilbur’s face and voice. “What the fuck?!” Tommy screeches, stumbling backwards and bumping into someone else. Looking over his shoulder he sees Techno, dressed in casual clothing but with the Blade’s skull mask on.

“Careful, Theseus.” He says, and Tommy can’t tell if it’s Techno’s voice talking or if it’s the Blade’s. Is there even a difference? Tommy doesn’t know, and that’s kinda terrifying.

Tommy quickly throws himself forward, spinning around to properly face Techno- Blade? only for the other to be gone, instead stood in his place is Phil. Who thankfully looks normal. No villain clothes, no villain mask, no tricks. Just Phil. Tommy lets out a breath of relief, “Phil, thank god, you’ve gotta-”

Before Tommy can finish though, two large wings spread from Phil’s back. Crow-like wings. Void black wings that strike a mixture of fear and awe in Tommy. Angel of Death’s wings. Not giving Tommy a chance to move or even react, a hand roughly grabs his arm. Tommy’s breath catches in his throat when he looks over and sees that it’s Sam holding his arm, Foolish stood behind him. Neither of them are dressed as their villain counterparts, but they don’t need to be, Tommy already knows who they are.

Tommy, though he will never admit it, screams. He yanks his arm away and stumbles back a step, trying to get away from them, only to trip over something he can’t see in his dark surroundings. As he’s falling, his head collides with something solid before he actually hits the ground, causing the world to go dark. Properly this time.

When Tommy regains consciousness it’s still dark, but he quickly realises that it’s dark from it being night time and that he can actually see the world around him now, that he’s not still stuck in that nightmare- hallucination, whatever that was.

“Hey, you okay, kid?”

Tommy winces, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment as his brain catches up to the throbbing in his head. Oh, yeah, he hit his head on something. He probably has a concussion now. Yay.. Once Tommy forces his eyes back open he’s met with a white porcelain mask and a black smiley face. Great, now he has to deal with the number one asshole of the city. Genuinely what is his life anymore?

Groaning, Tommy pushes himself up onto his elbows, Dream grabbing his arm and helping him sit up the rest of the way. If his head wasn’t hurting so much he would say ew or something about Dream helping him, but right now he just wants to get away from this situation as soon as he can manage so he can go home and pass back out- huh, home. “I’m fine. Just.. didn’t get enough sleep last night.” He mutters, ignoring when Dream tilts his head to the side.

“You sure about that? Because you’re acting like you’re in pain, and we had some villain sightings around here earlier.” The masked hero questions, clearly disbelieving of Tommy’s flimsy excuse. “Look kid, I just want to make sure you’re safe and not seriously hurt. So how about we get you down to the hospital to get you checked out and go from there, yeah?”

Tommy inwardly shudders at the thought of being taken to a hospital. The white walls and floors, the strong smell of cleaning chemicals, the constant beeping of medical machines. Yeah, no, not happening. Tommy hasn’t had to go to a hospital since he broke his arm when he was eight and he’d like to keep it that way. “No- I, uh- I feel fine. I don’t need to go to the hospital.” He says as firmly as he can manage with his head feeling like it’s collapsing in on itself. “I just want to go home.”

Dream doesn’t look like he’s going to take no for an answer, of course, so Tommy forces himself up to his feet. “Thank you for the concern, but I’m going home.” He doesn’t give the hero a chance to protest or stop him as he quickly leaves, ducking out of the alleyway and onto the street.

He feels like he’s being watched the entire walk back.

—

Tommy doesn’t even bother taking off his shoes once he gets home, barely even remembering to shut the door behind him before shuffling over to the couch and collapsing face first onto it. He knows that he has a much more comfortable bed he could be sleeping on just upstairs, but he knows that he would most likely have passed out before he made it.

Distantly Tommy can hear concerned voices, but he’s too tired and in too much pain to tune into them. He recognises Phil’s voice out of the muffled worry, he realises, and feels a hand gently rest on his back. Tommy wants to know who’s hand it is, wants to know what Phil is saying, but exhaustion is dragging him down and he doesn’t have the strength to fight against it. So he doesn’t. He stops fighting for once and lets himself drift away from the world.