Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

His life began when he opened his eyes.

At first, he could process only the sound of rushing wind and the chilling feel of it on his skin beneath the long sleeves of his white and red shirt. Then his mind caught up with his wide eyes and he was able to see the interconnecting metal threads creating diamond patterns in front of him. He blinked and licked his dry lips, squinting at the LED lights set into the cable covered wall behind the metal. 

Where was he? With a panicked lurch, he realized that he couldn’t remember. That was fucked up. Wasn’t it? 

“Hey! Hello?”

The sound of his own voice surprised him. Raspy and laced with high pitched cracks. Uneasiness fed through him. Why didn’t he recognise his own voice?

“Is anyone out there? HEY! Let me out of here!”

He started forward with his heart jack-hammering in his ears. Mounting hysteria forced his breaths to become short and sharp. His vision swam. Then his left hand collided with the cold solidity of the metal in front of him and he was hit with the horrible sensation of knowing that this was reality.

He lifted his right hand with the intent to latch on to the bars but as soon as his fingers moved, he realized that he was holding on to something.

He stared, squinting at two heavy black disks and a crumpled note.

What the-

He let out a shaky breath, shivering in the cool air and shifted the disks into his waiting left hand so he could read the note.

The handwriting was achingly unfamiliar and the words only served to eject a new barb of terror into his overloading system.

‘Live with your choice.’

What did that mean? It was ominous as all fuck. What choice had he made? Why couldn’t he remember where he was?

He felt sick. The fear was spiraling out of control so he forced himself to take a deep breath, glancing above him to see that the metal threads stretched overhead, attached to an industrial sized grey cable.

With dread lining the bare slivers of his self control, he let his eyes sift down to the same metal grid that wove beneath his worn sneakers. 

Was he…in a cage?

He sucked in a shaky breath before spinning slowly around, taking in every detail he possibly could about where he was. More LED lights lined the walls outside of the cage. There were no breaks in the diamond pattern confining him. There were several crates with plastic tarpaulins covering them as well as a couple of metal barrels that gave off a sloshing sound when he moved. There was no discernable door.

Suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of hopeless despair, he slumped down on the floor so his back was resting up against the metal. With a reverence that surprised him, he placed the disks down beside himself on the cool grating and squeezed his eyes tight shut.

How had he gotten here? Who was the last person he’d seen?

He tried to remember. A name, a face, anything at all but it was like there were gaping black spaces in his memory where there should have been people. He couldn’t remember anyone that he had seen. With a start, he realized that he couldn’t remember his family if he even had one.

Trembling, he asked himself the darkest question he could think of.

‘Who am I?’

The answer was instantaneous but it surprised him all the same.

‘Tommy. My name is Tommy.’

He wasn’t sure where the name had come from and it scared him to think that even his own name had been a struggle to pull out of the black pit of his mind. The voice that had answered him didn’t even sound like his voice. It was smoother, surer. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to trust it at all.

Tommy.

The name felt right. He felt a new burn of terror because he had to question this. 

Did he have brain damage? Had there been an accident? 

It was weird, the more he tried to remember things, the more he realized how…specific his memory loss was. He could remember learning the alphabet at school, the smell of chalk and the pull of concentration. He could remember sitting on a bench overlooking the sunset as it dipped below the crest of the hill. The wind had tugged gently on his shirt over his neck and the sensation had been something special. 

He remembered watching something hurtling across a grey sky, something black and oblong. The speed it had been going had filled him with a mixture of excitement and fear.

All these things were vivid, pristine memories yet he could not remember a single person’s name outside of what he assumed was his own. There were no facial features, no people at all. And there was no information relating to his current circumstances.

He let out a yelp when the cage jerked and the air was filled with the sound of metal scraping metal. For one black moment, he thought that maybe the cable above him was giving way and he was about to plunge to his end but then a mechanical sound floated across the air and with another lurch, the cage started ascending.

Tommy sucked in a startled breath. Then another and another. His stomach rebelled hideously inside him, churned by the panic and as he moved, it was all he could do not to throw up.

The elevator ascended for a good fifteen minutes. After a while, Tommy got used to the sensation of movement. It did nothing to lessen the terror.

Where was he going? Did he want to be going up in this weird metal box?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know and he didn’t know. At some point, he’d picked up the disks again, clutching them in his hands like he was a drowning man and they were lifelines. The words of the note burnt behind his eyes every time he blinked.

Then the elevator stopped.

He froze as it slowed. His breaths picked back up again. His head jerked up as a new scraping sound came from overhead and then light poured in. He squinted, raising his left hand to shield his eyes. New smells hit him, outdoor smells of grass, trees and wet stone. Then the voices registered and Tommy went rigid.

“...back there. Fucking Schlatt looks like he wants to murder me.”

“I still don’t know if it was a good idea to pitch up over the box Wilbur.”

“What are you talking about? You can literally see why it was such a great idea.”

“Hello? Are you okay?”

“Hey, is he holding something?”

Tommy blinked, desperately willing his eyes to adjust and flinched when he realized there were human shaped figures above him. His initial reaction was to jerk back and press himself against the cold bars of the cage. The threat of the unknown coated everything in a grey haze of distrust and mildly suppressed horror.

“Chill out bro, you’re safe alright?”

A hand was thrust into his face, a tanned calloused hand covered in peeling plasters. Tommy stared at that hand as indecisiveness churned acid in his stomach. Fear and brittle confusion still had their hold over him. He didn’t know if this place was good, if these people meant to help him or hurt him. Perhaps they’d been the ones to take his memory somehow. But he’d had enough of the cage.

He grasped the hand, wincing at the feel of the sticky plasters on his fingers and allowed himself to be hauled up and out of the box.

Fresh air hit him properly and he breathed in deep. The feel of cold, crisp oxygen running through him cleared his head. He was still afraid, still confused but now, he felt like he could think. There was something about being in that box, down that hole, that had made everything worse somehow.

A litany of muffled but harshly thrown swear words filtered through the breeze followed by some incriminating thumps and a few frustrated screeches. Tommy flinched, feeling an upsurge of the terror that had been ebbing away. Now that he had the space, he could feel adrenaline pumping into his legs in a fight or flight response. His stomach heaved with new nausea as his eyes darted over the immediate ground for something he could use as a weapon. His head snapped up again as a particularly loud thump sounded just in front of him. A haphazardly constructed hardwood and stone wall met his eyes. He followed it, glancing to the left and the right to see that it ran alongside what appeared to be a communal camping area. 

He didn’t like that wall or the way that it made him feel boxed in anew. 

Then he looked to the far left and what he saw there made his jaw drop in panic-urging horror. It was another wall but this one was made entirely of solid grey stone. Ivy crept over the craggy surface, stretching up so far that Tommy felt a bit dizzy just trying to comprehend how high the top must be. 

He was just about to take a step towards the wall when a tall boy with messy brown hair and a ratty beanie slipped in front of him from the left. Taken off guard, Tommy blanched back. A new shot of freezing liquid fright spiraled through him - starting from his chest and ending in the tips of his toes. 

“Shit, the Hell man?” he asked, patting his heart with the hand that still held on to his disks. 

The boy didn’t move. Instead, he continued to stare at Tommy with an intensity that unnerved him. Then his dark eyes trailed down to the disks in Tommy’s hand and they narrowed with unmistakable suspicion. Tommy’s fingers tightened around the ridges in the disks and the note still balled up between his fingers. Shockingly, Tommy felt a soul deep possessiveness dredge itself up from the depths of his addled mind. The feeling only got stronger as the boy in front of him continued to stare at the disks like they were a sandwich and he’d been starving for weeks. Where the possessiveness came from, Tommy didn’t know but he latched onto the feeling, knowing that it was a remnant from a life he couldn’t properly remember. With pointed precision, he slipped the disks out from his chest and behind his back. The movement made the boy’s eyes flick back up to his. Tommy levelled a challenging glare at him. 

“See? I told you he was holding something,” a voice declared behind him. Tommy craned his neck to try and get a good look at the new speaker as his heart rate picked up again and his fingers flinched over the disks. He’d sort of forgotten that there were other people here. Did they want his disks? Why? 

Tommy’s head whipped back round as the boy in front of him moved. He raised hands clad in fingerless gloves up in a placating gesture that made Tommy let out a breath.  

“Alright, I won’t ask about the disks yet, newbie,” the boy said. “What’s your name?” 

Tommy licked his lips again, realizing that he was terribly thirsty and that he had no idea when or if he was going to get a drink. The realization was unnerving but he pushed his need away. Now wasn’t the time. 

The boy was looking at him with the sort of expectant gravity that reminded Tommy of something he’d read once about black holes - how they’d suck everything in and pressure things until they’d been compressed into nothingness. He tried to remember where he’d read up on black holes but that was another black space memory.

Tommy wasn’t sure about this boy. Wasn’t sure about any of this. He hadn’t liked the way the boy had looked at his disks at all but he wasn’t exactly in any position to refuse to answer questions. Maybe he’d be able to ask some of his own in turn if he played nice. He wished he wasn’t still so scared. 

“T-Tommy,” he croaked out, annoyed at himself even through all the overwhelming fear and confusion that he didn’t sound stronger.

“Tommy,” the boy repeated, testing the name before finally averting his impenetrable gaze. Tommy had to grit his teeth when those eyes fell down to the hands tucked behind his back. Why was this guy so interested in his disks? What the fuck was going on?

“Hey, what’s your-

Tommy was cut off by a new deluge of curse words and another ominous thump against the wood and stone wall. Wilbur turned to smirk triumphantly at the wall and Tommy allowed his shoulders to sag slightly, glad to be away from the scrutiny for one crucial second. 

“Idiots,” the boy muttered, shaking his head.

“Hey shitheads! There’s no way you’re getting through those walls so just fuck off, yeah?”
 
To Tommy, he said:

“My name’s Wilbur.”

Tommy gaped at him, not quite sure what to make of this guy who seemed to delight in tormenting whoever was so angry beyond the stone and wood wall.

Why were they so angry? What had this Wilbur done to them? What would he do to Tommy?

Wilbur cocked his head behind him and Tommy allowed his eyes to follow the motion, turning slightly so he could see what Wilbur was directing him to. He stiffened again when he realized that he was being goggled at by three other people. Two of them stood over the box that Tommy had come up in, the other was crouched though he straightened when he realized that Wilbur and Tommy were both paying attention.

“The guy in the orange hoodie’s Fundy,” Wilbur said, jabbing a thumb at a thin guy wearing said hole riddled orange hoodie. He had brown eyes like Wilbur’s though they were warmer and his hair was a sandy brown colour.

“That’s Niki,” Wilbur continued, pointing at the only girl of the group. She was pretty, Tommy noted with a little clench of his chest. Even though she wore an oversized black jumper, Tommy could still see the appealing way her body curved. Her eyes were almond shaped and her mouth was a pleasant bow. She smiled awkwardly at him and heat rose in his cheeks when he realized that he’d spent just a little too long looking. 

“The shortie with the pickaxe is Tubbo,” Wilbur finished, pointing at the last member of the party.

“Hey, I’m not that short!” Tubbo complained with an exaggerated pout.

Tommy frowned at the boy, taking in the mop of unkempt brown hair and a green collared shirt flapping in untucked folds over the hem of his heavily stained jeans. He looked to be several years younger than the others and despite what he said, he was pretty short. Tommy was surprised to find that, aside from Wilbur, he towered over pretty much everyone else present.

He wondered how old he was and then felt sick for wondering about something like that. 

“Where are we?” he asked, turning in a slow circle. 

Now that he was really looking, Tommy realized with a stab of new unease that this place wasn’t actually that big. It was maybe one and a half football fields in size and most of it was taken up with rows of varying vegetables. A cluster of dark trees almost hid another colossal stone wall. Tommy trailed his gaze up to the top of the wall, humming out his distress when he saw just how high up that wall went again. 

“Walk with me,” Wilbur said, gesturing with a wave of his hands to the others. 

Tommy felt a new bite of mild surprise when the others finally stopped staring at him and got to work. The guy in the orange hoodie, Fundy, hopped down into the cage that Tommy had come out of and a moment later, he was passing up the tarpaulin crates to a waiting Tubbo and Niki.

Wilbur led Tommy off to the right and already, Tommy could see where this guy meant to take him. There was a corner where another irregular hardwood and stone wall met the first one that Tommy had seen and there, a collapsing watchtower stood a whole storey higher than the walls it leant against. Curiosity bristled through Tommy as Wilbur opened a thin wooden door at the base of the tower. He gestured Tommy into the dusty interior.

“Did you guys make all this?” Tommy asked, both impressed and a bit uncomfortable with the fact that it looked like a stiff wind would take this place out.

Wilbur glanced back at him, a shrewd look in place. Tommy didn’t miss the way that his eyes dipped down to the disks one more time. He felt another lance of heated possessiveness rise up within him and briefly contemplated stuffing the disks in the back of his trousers to stop this boy from looking like he wanted to steal them.

A winding ramp fed up the interior of the tower. To Tommy’s horror, Wilbur started climbing up with a bored expression on his face. 

“C’mon newbie,” Wilbur told him when he met Tommy’s eyes through the gaps.

Tommy’s eye twitched but he was no wimp. Carefully, he stepped forward, wincing as the wood creaked beneath his weight.

The second storey of the building was curved carefully inwards. Strong poles had been erected to support a straw roof and from here, Tommy could see the full extent of where they were for the first time. 

The crude wood and stone walls separated the people Tommy had been introduced to from a bigger horde of livid guys still cursing, throwing rocks and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Tommy caught the words: ‘selfish’ ‘supplies’ and ‘Pogtopia’ amongst the slurs as he listened. He frowned as his eyes skimmed up and he saw another lackadaisical wall circling a much bigger area of land. And beyond that…

He sucked in a breath when he saw two more gargantuan walls stretching out around them. He turned again, feeling his skin prickle with another upsurge of fearful dread as he realized that the immense stone walls boxed them in - like a prison courtyard.

“What is this place?” He breathed, side eyeing Wilbur whose expression had become carefully neutral.

“We call it the Dream SMP,” Wilbur told him.

Chapter Text

“There’s a lot to take in,” Wilbur said, stalking forward and leaning over the edge of the tower in a way that made Tommy’s heart pull with discomfort. Up here, the air was colder, blowing in through the openings like it was being channelled and Tommy shivered in his thin shirt. He wondered, uncomfortably, if he owned a jumper at all. More chillingly than that, if he did, then he wondered if he would ever see it again. 

Below them, the guys that had been relentlessly hitting the walls and swearing seemed to be tiring. Tommy raised an eyebrow, feeling a squirm of new unease as one of them noticed himself and Wilbur up at the watchtower. Tommy watched as the boy stepped back pointedly to flip them off. 

“I’m only going to tell you the basics so you don’t get yourself killed today,” Wilbur elaborated, throwing up a casual bird to respond to the boy below. Tommy’s heart stilled in his chest at the phrase: ‘so you don’t get yourself killed.’ Wilbur was making it sound like dying was easy. In a deep dark part of himself, Tommy was a little horrified to find that the idea of dying here wasn’t as hard to grasp as it probably should have been.

“I’m not going to tell you the whole story at once and before you get your knickers in a twist about it, just know that it isn’t in your best interest to know everything right now.”

Tommy bristled at that, feeling the fear buckle beneath an upsurge of indignation. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need to be babied even if he was still terrified.

“You don’t get to decide that for me,” he spat and Wilbur threw him a side glance that was decidedly exasperated.

“Trust me Toms. Knowing everything at once will just make you sick.”

“And how do you know that?” Tommy challenged, puffing out his chest even though his fingers were clenching around his disks with trepidation.

Wilbur let out an explosive sigh then and when he turned back to face Tommy fully, Tommy was unable to stop himself from recoiling at the black look that swam beneath the brown of Wilbur’s eyes.

“Because I remember it,” he said flatly.

Tommy stared at him for a moment, at a loss for words. Wilbur…had been in Tommy’s shoes? How long ago? What exactly had he learnt that had made him sick? Tommy’s eyes flicked to Fundy’s slightly blurred frame as he appeared from the copse of trees at the back of the little encampment. Had everyone in here been sent up the same way as Tommy? What did that mean?

His heart rate was picking up again. Anxiety bubbled like magma through his stomach and out through his blood. He wanted to ask every question that had just steam rollered through him. Only one came out.

“So…you came up in the box like I did?” Tommy whispered.

He flinched when a muscle in Wilbur’s jaw tensed. He leant back against the edge of the tower, draping his arms over the railings in an exaggeratedly casual display that fooled no-one. 

“We all did,” Wilbur confirmed.

Tommy wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The cage had been…a horrible experience. He didn’t really want to wish it on anyone else but he couldn’t deny the sense of relief that he felt that he wasn’t the only one. 

“Why?” Tommy asked.

This time, Wilbur shook his head and Tommy frowned as frustration curdled his stomach.

“We don’t know but for today, it’s not important. What is important is getting the hang of what you see in front of you.”

Tommy pouted, annoyed that Wilbur was being dismissive. He opened his mouth to ask another question but Wilbur raised his hand in a gesture for silence that Tommy obeyed without meaning to. His own automatic acquiescence made him seethe quietly. He wasn’t this bastard’s bitch.

“This is the Dream SMP,” Wilbur repeated, gesturing once again at the land below him. “Rule number one is don’t go beyond those stone walls.”

A molten hot burn of curiosity and desperate hope shot like liquid nitrogen through Tommy’s system. He could go beyond the walls? They weren’t just trapped in a concrete box? Where was the door? What was on the other side?

“Rule number-

“Wait, you can go out there ?” Tommy asked, stepping forward and staring with unabashed longing at the tip of the closest stone wall. He winced when he heard the childish excitement in his own voice. In front of him, Wilbur narrowed his eyes and the air between them suddenly dropped several crucial degrees. Tommy swallowed loudly when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, turning his attention back to Wilbur. Wilbur’s irritation seemed a little unwarranted. Why was he so annoyed?

“Not if you want to live to see tomorrow newbie,” Wilbur ground out and Tommy had to fight the urge to step away from the man. He was suddenly very aware of how high up he was and how easy it would be for Wilbur to push him over the edge. Not that he would. At least, Tommy hoped.

“Why? What’s out there?” Tommy asked, noting with interest as Wilbur’s glower became more intense with each question. “Or are you saying that if I try to leave this place you guys will kill me?”

Wilbur’s jaw clenched into a hard line. His fingers flexed into notable fists beside the folds of his coat. Tommy’s eyes narrowed. He figured he could take Wilbur. Wilbur was tall and skinny. Tommy could just about make out the set of his shoulders through the drape of the trench coat he wore. He had no idea about his own build but he found himself already cataloguing ways to fight so that he could gain the advantage.

Huh.

“Curious fucker aren’t you?” Wilbur muttered and, oddly, the utterance cleared the air. The muscles in Tommy’s neck and shoulders relaxed. He let out a little breath that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

“Well, yeah,” Tommy said with a shrug. Why wouldn’t he be curious? Sure he was disorientated and full to the brim with an aching fear that threatened to consume him at any moment. Sure he really wanted to find a quiet bush to throw up in but more than that, more than all of this, he just wanted out of the box. Didn’t everyone here? They weren’t free.

Wilbur shook his head.

“I’ll get Techno to show you why we don’t go out there tomorrow. That ought to put a cap on your curiosity.”

Tommy frowned again, mentally noting down the name ‘Techno’. It didn’t sound like a real name, like ‘Fundy’ and ‘Tubbo’.

“Hey, how come some of us have real names and some of us have stupid names?” Tommy asked, feeling the ghost of a smile drag itself through the daunting pit of terror and blazing curiosity still yawning inside him. He was only asking now to push Wilbur’s buttons and sure enough, there was a flash in the other boy’s eyes that sent a thrill through Tommy’s stomach.

He wondered how much it would take to get Wilbur to actually try and hit him.

“Will you fucking stop with the questions?” Wilbur hissed, taking a step forward. “I’m trying to help you here. I could just leave you to fucking flounder out here and then you’ll end up like the deaders we’ve got back at the Plot.”

Tommy sobered immediately. The teasing fire of indignation at being treated like a child was doused with a freezing cold reality check. There were ‘deaders’ at the Plot. Wilbur had said he was going to tell Tommy the rules so Tommy wouldn’t get himself killed like dying was the easiest thing in the world. Why was he fucking about when the stakes were so high? Was that a personality trait about himself that he didn’t remember?

“Alright, sorry,” Tommy relented, feeling sheepish.

Wilbur let out a long suffering sigh, sagging.

“Good,” he said. “So, rule number one for today is don’t go outside the walls even if you’re tempted. Techno will show you why tomorrow. Rule number two is stay in Pogtopia. These walls here -”

Wilbur pointed at the surprisingly sturdy wood and stone constructions that had separated Tommy and the people he’d met from those that had been kicking and swearing.

“They mark up Pogtopia, our camp. The other walls -”

He pointed to the larger settlement across the way and Tommy squinted at it, watching as several boys met up by a large smoking campfire.

“They mark up the boundaries of Manberg - our enemy.”

Tommy frowned.

“Enemy?” he asked. “You guys are fighting?”

“Yes.”

There was a new hard look on Wilbur’s face now that Tommy was having a hard time reading. He almost looked excited as he leant back but that excitement was flinty sharp. It was weird. Tommy wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Why?” Tommy asked, earning himself another glare from Wilbur. He instantly motioned zipping his lips, pleased with himself when Wilbur’s reprimanding expression softened into simple amusement.

“It’s a long story,” Wilbur said. “You don’t have to worry about that for now.”

Tommy pulled a face, crossing his arms and not bothering to hide how Wilbur glossing over vital information was irritating him.

“I kind of do,” he countered. “If I’m going to be a part of this.”

Wilbur shook his head, his expression firm. 

“Like I said, you don’t want to know everything all at once.”

Tommy felt a sense of mounting dread as Wilbur’s eyes skimmed down to the disks still clamped in his clammy fists. Unpleasant protectiveness squirmed through him as he caught the calculated flash in Wilbur’s stare.

“Now it’s my turn to ask some questions.”

“These are mine,” Tommy stated. He blinked, dry mouth parting and breath hitching in shock at the forcefulness of his words and just how much he meant them. These disks really did mean something to him. Or they had, before. What were they? How could he feel so strongly about something that he couldn’t remember?

He glanced down at them, studying the coloured labels on the front and trying with every ounce of self awareness that he possessed to remember anything about them. He could recall holding devices, playing video games and the sense of excitement that thrummed through him whenever a new technological update was announced in the ghost of his old life. But he could not remember the disks.

He was hesitant when he met eyes with Wilbur who was simply watching him with eyebrows raised high enough that they’d almost disappeared into his beanie.

“I wasn’t going to suggest that you give them to me Tommy,” Wilbur assured him.

Tommy let out a shaky breath, concerned by his own behaviour. He ran another hand through his hair, wincing at the tug of tangles.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Don’t know why I’m so attached to these damn things.”

Wilbur frowned in front of him.

“So you don’t remember what they are?” he asked carefully.

Tommy threw Wilbur a sidelong look, weighing up the pros and cons of revealing just how clueless he was. But then he figured that was dumb. Wilbur already knew that Tommy didn’t know anything. He’d been in the same boat after all and maybe, just maybe these people could help him figure it all out.

“I don’t,” he admitted, wincing at the feeling of vulnerability that came with the admission. “They were just in my hands when I opened my eyes in the cage.”

Wilbur nodded thoughtfully, raising his right hand to tap his index finger against his chin.

The note burnt through Tommy’s fingers. Knowing about his disks and his clueless albeit bullheaded attachment to them was one thing but the note was incriminating. Horribly so. Even if Tommy didn’t know what choice it had referred to, something inside him like a gut instinct told him that it couldn’t be good. His fingers tightened around it, squashing up against the surface of the disk like he could squash it away.

“I just can’t figure out why they’ve put you up here with something obviously related to an electronic device,” Wilbur muttered, his eyes flashing. Tommy shivered as a new wind shot through the exposed part of the tower. 

“Who are ‘they’?” he asked, dreading the answer.

Wilbur raised an eyebrow at him for the question but this time, made sure his answering look was challenging. This seemed like something that he had to know.

“We don’t know,” Wilbur told him and something dark squirmed it’s way up through Tommy’s guts. It wasn’t quite fear but it was damn close. Wilbur had said ‘we don’t know’ about a lot of information that Tommy would consider a cornerstone to understanding his situation. It unnerved him more than he cared to admit.

“Well, whatever those disks are, they’re not going to change anything without the device to play them on so…”

Wilbur shrugged and Tommy tried to ignore the stab of annoyance he’d felt when his disks had been written off as something that didn’t matter. Logically, Wilbur was right. Tommy agreed with him and it was frustrating to have these emotions without the known trigger to back them up. It just drew attention to the unnerving blank spaces in his brain. 

“Oi, Tubbo!” Wilbur shouted suddenly, causing Tommy to jump about a foot in the air.

“Yeah?” an eager voice called back.

Tommy peered over the edge of the watch tower, flinching as he saw the brown haired boy a good ten feet below him.

“Come look after the newbie!”

Tommy’s head snapped back to Wilbur. His chest suddenly felt like it was closing in on itself, constricting like a snake. 

“You fobbing me off now?” he asked.

It hadn’t escaped his notice that Wilbur only seemed to want to get rid of him now that he’d exposed the fact that he didn’t have any answers about the disks. Suspicion clouded his thoughts and made the air around Wilbur seem dangerous all over again. Did he know or suspect something more that he wasn’t letting on? Probably. 

“Sort of,” Wilbur admitted with a wry grin. Tommy scowled at him.

“I need to sort out what supplies we got along with you king,” Wilbur explained like it would wipe the scowl from Tommy’s features. “I also need to figure out where the Hell you’re going to sleep tonight. And the rest. Tubbo’s a good kid, he can take you from here.”

Wilbur shifted, smooth as syrup from where he was standing, slipping past Tommy to the ramp that would lead him downwards.

“Hey!” Tommy barked, surprising himself but rolling with it.

“If I figure anything out about these disks, I’ll tell you okay? I’m not here to make unnecessary enemies.”

Wilbur’s eyes glinted. He flashed Tommy a smile that reminded him of a crocodile - all teeth and intent.

“Sure, I know,” he said.

“In return,” Tommy ploughed on, noting as Wilbur’s pleased expression fell into something neutral. “I need you to tell me if you figure anything out alright? And the disks stay with me.”

For the tiniest moment, Tommy thought he caught something in Wilbur’s expression akin to roiling fury but then that moment was gone and Wilbur was smiling again.

“Like I said Tommy, I wasn’t going to suggest that you give them to me.”

With that, Wilbur turned and continued on his way back down the ramp. Tommy watched him go feeling more intimidated and alone than he had when he’d first opened his eyes in the cage.

Chapter Text

The water was fantastic.

“Whoa, slow down king,” Tubbo chuckled. “You don’t know when the last time you drank was. You might make yourself sick.”

Tommy glanced up over the lip of the canteen that Tubbo had brought him. He was obscenely grateful for the water. The boy had managed to pre-empt his needs and had shown up like Tommy’s own personal saviour with the small container at the bottom of the watchtower. Despite this, Tommy wasn’t sure what to make of this boy off of the bat. He carried a vastly different air to the cold and calculating darkness that seemed to surround Wilbur. Tubbo was disarming, scarily so. He had an easy-going smile as his default expression and a dreamy sort of quality to the way he spoke that put Tommy at ease even though he didn’t want to be at ease in this place.

Tubbo’s words carried the weight of sense and, heeding the advice, Tommy started to pull the canteen away when a stupid idea struck him, along with a flicker of mischief that ignited inside him like a sparkler. Pointedly, he tipped the canteen back so that he could take a defiant fuller swig. He promptly choked for his trouble. Water and spit sprayed out of his mouth like a fountain and Tubbo shrieked, raising his arms up in a useless block over his head as his green shirt was doused.

“You arse,” Tubbo shouted, reaching up to slap Tommy upside the head. “What did I just tell you?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Tommy said immediately, raising his hands. “You just looked like you needed a good wash.”

Tubbo blinked, his mouth agape, like he couldn’t quite believe what Tommy had just said. Then, to Tommy’s immense satisfaction, Tubbo burst out laughing. His laugh was goofy and infectious so by the time he sobered, Tommy had a grin on his own face that stretched his cheeks.

“Touche,” Tubbo said as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “But mark my words good sir, I shall have my revenge.”

“Oh yeah?” Tommy quipped back, ready with a rebuttal. The rebuttal died in his throat when Tubbo pulled the soaking shirt off of his shoulders. A feeling like aversion unfolded inside him and shrunk into his darkest corners like it was ashamed of itself.

“What the fuck is that?” Tommy breathed. 

Tubbo shot him a complicated look as Tommy peered with anxious abandon at a knot of scar tissue situated to the left side of Tubbo’s chest.

Right over his heart.

Had the kid had surgery? What if something had been done to him before he’d been put in the cage? Like, what if he’d had a tracker installed or something. Freaking out on full red alert, Tommy scrambled with his own shirt; frantically tugging it up to check his own skin for anything like that.

Relief ran through him like a balm when he found that he was completely unblemished. He had no way to check his back though. 

On an anxious reflex, Tommy reached up, feeling along the ridges of his spine just below his neck and then at the small of his back but it was simply impossible to tell. Trepidation and phantom violation festered in his gut as he turned his attention back to Tubbo but the boy had pulled away from him to try and wring out the sleeves of his shirt. Tommy sucked in a sharp breath when he caught sight of more knotted skin situated over the pale skin of Tubbo’s shoulder blade. Tubbo flinched, the barest of movements when he heard that inhalation and the aversion inside Tommy melted into full on painful shame.

It was official, Tommy was the world’s biggest dickhead.

“Look,” Tommy started. He winced at his own apologetic tone. It sounded horribly ingenuine. He only hoped that Tubbo was the forgiving sort.

“I’m sorry I-

“I was shot,” Tubbo cut him off. His voice was flat and steely cold. It sent a lance of deeper regret straight to Tommy’s already twisting guts. “By Sapnap with a crossbow when Manberg was originally taken from us.”

Tommy was flat out horrified.

Someone had shot Tubbo? Why? Tubbo didn’t seem like the sort to push someone to those kinds of lengths. Wilbur had said that the Dream SMP was at war but he hadn’t mentioned anything about deadly weapons. And how close had the arrow been to Tubbo’s heart to leave a scar like that? How close had this kid come to dying?

“The Hell?” Tommy hissed, dropping down onto the grass and snatching up his disks. He didn’t remember putting them down. That wasn’t cool. He wasn’t sure if it was a testament to how chill he felt around Tubbo or how much he’d wanted to grasp at that canteen with both greedy hands. Feeling the groovy smooth surface beneath his fingers brought more comfort than he was okay with.

In front of him, Tubbo shrugged his shirt back on and pivoted back round to face Tommy, frowning. Tommy felt a weak surge of new gratitude when Tubbo didn’t let his eyes slip down to the disks the way that Wilbur’s had. It was one more point in Tubbo’s favour and a courtesy that Tommy felt he didn’t deserve right then.

“I take it Wilbur didn’t explain the three canon life system to you then?” Tubbo asked.

Tommy blinked, his mind reeling. He brought his free hand up to run through his hair and was immediately pissed off to find it shaking.

“No,” he said at length. “ Wilby didn’t tell me a whole lot honestly. He just said to stay inside the walls and don’t go to Manberg.”

Tubbo nodded like this was sound advice. That should have riled Tommy. These people were treating him like a child. Strangely though, Tommy couldn’t find it in himself to get annoyed. It was probably because he wasn’t talking to Wilbur right now.

“Yeah, I suppose that is pretty much all you really need to know on the first day. Guess you were just unlucky to catch sight of a first life scar. Sorry, I didn’t think about what I’d be showing you when I took off my shirt.”

Tommy gaped at Tubbo’s sheepish expression. 

“Dude, I freak out just because you’ve got a sick scar and you’re the one that’s sorry? That’s fucked up man.”

Tommy was unspeakably relieved when Tubbo giggled.

“Yeah, you kind of suck,” he said jokingly. Tommy beamed at him. Tubbo seemed authentically forgiving and Tommy could feel himself already getting attached to this boy who could take a joke and come back from an awkward moment with absolutely no passing judgement.

“Look, this isn’t going to make a whole lot of sense but we here in the Dream SMP have what the older guys refer to as three canon lives,” Tubbo explained. “As far as I've experienced, it’s just like it sounds. I got shot in the heart and then I was brought back. We don’t know how or why it happens but you can only die twice. The third time is permanent.”

Tommy frowned. His veins felt like they were being zapped with electric inquisitiveness. He felt jittery and his lips had gone dry once again. He licked them as his eyes travelled on autopilot to the spot on Tubbo’s chest where he knew the knotted skin tissue to be. 

“You mean you actually died when that was done to you?” he asked, not really sure he believed it even though he could see the evidence of just where Tubbo had been hit right in front of him.

“What was it like?”

Tommy felt a wave of new regret when Tubbo stiffened in front of him. 

“Hey, sorry,” Tommy said quickly, mentally berating himself for asking whatever question popped into his head. Apparently, he wasn’t the sort of guy to filter much of what he said. He supposed there were pluses and minuses to that. He hadn’t particularly cared about being a bit outspoken with Wilbur but that was because the guy hadn’t looked uncomfortable at any point.

Tommy tugged on the sleeves of his shirt awkwardly. The movement seemed to promote Tubbo to relax a little. The smaller boy let out a little breath. 

“S’okay,” Tubbo said. “I know how confusing this shit is. Maybe don’t worry about it too much until it happens to you?”

Tommy wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to let this go but he didn’t relish the thought of pushing Tubbo to speak if he didn’t want to. He stayed quiet instead, his mind churning over this new information with a mixture of excitement and terror.

How could Tubbo have died and been brought back to life? Tommy might not remember much about his life before the cage but he knew that dying was usually a permanent thing from the get go. If Tubbo had come back, did that mean that this place was, potentially, not real? Maybe they were stuck inside a video game. He’d seen something on TV like that once, hadn’t he?

“Tommy?”

Tommy had to drag himself up and out of his own head, blinking at Tubbo like he’d never seen the guy before and Tubbo, in turn, flashed him a sympathetic look.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let me show you around. I’ll start with the coolest place in Pogtopia. I promise, it’ll make you feel better.”

“What am I looking at here?”

“Beehives!” Tubbo exclaimed ecstatically. “Isn’t it the best? We can literally make our own honey.”

Tommy gawped as Tubbo sprung forward with abandon, completely unperturbed that there might be bugs with stingers hovering around. The boy’s face was pure rapture as he squatted down in front of a particular hive further back where the ominous buzzing was loudest. Tommy wasn’t quite sure he understood what was so awesome about this place but Tubbo’s happy vibe was infectious. Tommy found himself cracking an easy smile as he edged forward with more caution. It was the best he’d felt since…well his life had begun in the cage. He decided to savour the feeling.

“So Tubbo like-a da bee?” Tommy ribbed, surprising himself with the playful change in accent. “Were you a beekeeper in another life?”

“I have no idea,” Tubbo deadpanned, smirking back at Tommy. “All I know is that I love them now.”

Tommy side eyed his new friend, absently tapping the disks against the side of his trousers.

“Hey, Tubbo, how long have you been here?”

Tubbo didn’t answer immediately and Tommy felt a disconcerting squirm when he realised he might have just put his foot in it again. He really did need to stop just blurting out whatever question fed through his still burning mind. He was trying to figure out the best way to word another apology when Tubbo glanced back at him with a horribly forced smile in place. The expression made Tommy’s skin crawl.

“Six months,” Tubbo said. “I’ve been here for six months. Fundy’s been here for four and Niki’s been here for three. Wilbur’s been here for a whole year and a half, or so he says. Techno’s been around for longer.”

Tommy let out a breath as he processed that. Six months. Six months in this place seemed…well like a really long time. A year and a half seemed insane. 

Tommy wasn’t even sure if he could last the day if he was really honest. The fact that he was standing in a confined space, no matter that it was a pretty big space, dragged across the back of his mind like sharp nails. Didn’t these people want to be free? Even with the bee hives, the carefully tended vegetables and the trees creating an illusion of more space, this all still felt like…

A prison.

Tubbo looked like he’d been trapped in a prison. It wasn’t so much in the kid’s unkempt appearance, it was a shadow lingering at the back of his eyes as Tommy looked at him. How could any of them live with that for so long?

No wonder Wilbur’s gaze had sucked him in. A year and a half.

Tommy frowned, letting his eyes snake up once more to the imposing walls bearing down on him from beyond the boundaries of Pogtopia. 

What was on the other side? Were the walls really keeping them in or were they keeping something out ?

“Have you ever-

Tommy cut himself off as Tubbo started. The smaller boy bolted up, his eyes wide and, with a lance of painful wariness, Tommy craned his neck back to catch sight of Fundy jogging through the scattered beehives.

“Tubbo!” Fundy called out and Tommy’s eyebrows raised as he heard the strange lilt of Fundy’s vowels. “Wilbur says that Schlatt is looking for you. You’ve got to get over to Manberg like five minutes ago bro.”

Tommy felt a dart of electric confusion zap inside his chest.

“Manberg? You mean the other camp? The one you guys are at war with?” he asked before he could stop himself. He turned his interrogation on Tubbo. “Why would you need to go over there?”

He shot a look at the smaller boy and concern threaded his confusion as he saw that his new friend had paled considerably. Tubbo’s eyes were wide, his pupils blown with undisguisable fear even though he was obviously putting the effort in to try and hide it; clenching his jaw so the contours of his face were pronounced and squeezing his hands into fists by his side.

“Ah,” Tubbo breathed out. His eyes found purchase on Tommy and despite the stress he was exuding, he offered a shaky grin. 

“It’s complicated,” he offered, glancing fearfully over at Fundy who was shaking his head. “I have, uh, connections to some people in Manberg and…uh…”

He trailed off hopelessly, throwing a pleading look at Tommy that just made Tommy reel back in anger.

What the Hell was going on? What or who the fuck was making Tubbo so terrified? Was it Fundy who was still shaking his head? Wilbur? Or was it this ‘Schlatt’? Who had the audacity to scare someone as unimposing as Tubbo?

Tubbo winced, obviously reading the anger in Tommy’s expression and Tommy mentally kicked himself for being as obvious with his emotions as Tubbo was.

“Sorry Tommy,” Tubbo mumbled, averting his eyes and tugging at the damp sleeves of his shirt “Guess we’ll have to pick up the whole tour thing later. Fundy, do you mind showing Tommy where the food is? He’s probably hungry.”

Fundy was nodding now, glancing nervously every so often over his shoulder.

“Yes, yes, but you have to go now Tubbo.”

Tubbo swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Right, right,” he affirmed, slipping away over the grass.

Tommy watched the smaller boy until he disappeared beneath the shade of the watchtower, fighting the urge to dart after him and demand an explanation. He wondered if the watchtower was where Pogtopia’s exit was situated. Nosiness flared up like a sinus infection, clogging his brain with the yearning to know. He wasn’t planning on disobeying Wilbur’s carefully laid down rules just yet. That would be stupid. But the drive to explore and draw conclusions for himself was torturous.

Fundy was staring at Tommy’s disks with obvious interest when Tommy turned to face him. Icy disapproval gripped Tommy’s chest and he purposefully caught Fundy’s eye to let his companion know that he’d been caught ogling. Fundy blinked at Tommy, flushing bright red as Tommy slipped the disks behind his back.

“Eyes up here bitch,” Tommy told him, pointing to his own face.

“I wasn’t staring,” Fundy said even though he blatantly had been not four seconds before. Tommy had to wonder at the guy's ability to lie when it was so futile.

“I’m surprised Wilbur didn’t ask you to hand those over,” Fundy commented in the next moment, completely abandoning the lie like it never existed. Tommy snarled at him.

“He was too intimidated by how awesome I am.”

Fundy’s eyebrows shot up and to Tommy’s surprise, he barked out a short snap of laughter that reminded Tommy of the fox-like yips he’d heard outside of his room at night.

The memory was new. He tried to hold onto it, to discern more detail. Where was he? Where was his room? Was he living with parents? 

No, all he could remember was the mournful call of the foxes. Or wolves. He didn’t even know for sure what they were.

Tommy was relieved to see the tension sink out of Fundy’s shoulders beneath the orange of his hoodie as he laughed. Tommy grinned, letting his own guard drop slightly though he made a point of keeping his disks out of view.

“You’re a fucking ballsy kid, ain’t ya?” Fundy said. 

Kid. Tommy wondered again how old he was. Fundy felt older than him. Wilbur too. He figured he was probably older than Tubbo though.

“Don’t have to be ballsy when you’re as much of a big man as I am,” Tommy pointed out, relieved somehow when Fundy laughed again.

“Alright, alright,” Fundy said, turning his back on Tommy and starting to lead the way out of Tubbo’s ‘coolest place in Pogtopia’. “Let’s get you something to eat ‘ big man’. Then I’ll show you how this place operates. I bet fucking Tubbo just took you straight to the hives didn’t he? Boy’s bee-obsessed.”

Tommy felt an involuntary smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he followed Fundy out of the trees and back towards the vegetables. These people were weird and stand-offish but there was a certain fondness about the way that Fundy had spoken about Tubbo that made Tommy feel at ease somehow. He wondered about the other side, Manberg. They certainly didn’t seem as welcoming as these guys and Tommy felt another pull of concern for Tubbo. His smile faltered.

“Hey Fundy, why did Tubbo have to go over to Manberg? I thought Wilbur said you guys were at war.”

Fundy’s shoulders stiffened in front of him. Tommy braced himself for the reprimand he was sure to receive for pushing his luck with the questions but then, to Tommy’s delight, Fundy let out a big sigh and dropped back to walk beside Tommy.

“Tubbo’s a spy,” Fundy told him. “When Manberg initially fell, Tubbo was left behind and Schlatt roped him into becoming a part of his inner circle or something. We all thought the kid was a traitor at first but then Wilbur managed to talk to him and recruit him into Pogtopia to be our spy.”

Tommy sucked in a sharp breath as the uneasiness inside him quadrupled. Tubbo didn’t exactly come across as spy material but the whole situation seemed very circumstantial. He wondered how the Hell Tubbo got away with moving back and forth across two camps without someone noticing and was about to ask Fundy this when Fundy stopped dead beside him.

Tommy stopped right along with him, studying the new tension in his face for a moment before following his line of sight to the walls. 

Someone was leaning against the thick stone, an older guy with long hair wearing a bright red jacket. 

Tommy hadn’t seen him in the line up of people that had appeared when he’d first been pulled from the cage. Who was he? And why had Fundy stopped to stare at him?

Tommy’s inward question was answered a moment later when Wilbur appeared from the farthest end of the vegetable field, gesturing with open arms. He moved like smoke towards the guy in red and Tommy watched as the new guy pushed himself up off of the wall.

“Who is that?” Tommy asked as Wilbur led the newcomer back the way he’d come. Tommy caught the flash of square rimmed spectacles and the sound of hard boots on the dirt as the two of them disappeared again.

“Technoblade,” Fundy breathed. “He’s the leader of the runners, the guys that get to go out into the labyrinth.”

Tommy’s breath hitched. His face went hot and then cold with new, mental excitement. Fundy couldn’t have just said what Tommy thought Fundy had just said, could he? His blood felt like it was charging through him, invigorating him and setting pins and needles to pop in the tips of his fingers.

“ What did you just say?” Tommy snapped, staring at Fundy who suddenly looked taken aback.

“What do you mean?” Fundy asked, frowning. “About the runners?”

“No,” Tommy whispered and the next few words felt as reverent as his feelings towards the disks still clamped in his hand. “About the labyrinth. ”