Chapter Text
Three months ago, Grian won the Game.
Which is just a nicer way of saying that three months ago he killed his best friend and jumped off a cliff.
He didn’t mean to survive.
He didn’t want to either.
He’d done his part and more.
Winning hadn’t filled him with any joy. How could it? How could murdering his closest friends give him any sense of satisfaction? How could walking around an empty server burying the bodies left behind make him happy?
“In some other universe,” he tells Scar’s grave one night. “We live on a huge server with everyone else, and we make massive builds. I think I’ve probably bribed you to finish mine, but you don’t end up doing it either. And you’re a wizard, and we all have wings, so we can fly forever.”
Scar, of course, doesn’t say anything back.
Now that the Game is won and Grian is alone, his days follow a similar routine:
Wake up.
Stare at the ceiling for a while.
Skip breakfast and walk the perimeter of where the world border used to be. It’s gone now, and every day, he thinks about leaving. Maybe the outside would be better, maybe he could go out there and forget all about this.
Around the time he begins contemplating if staying is the right answer, he eats a bland lunch of bread and whatever today’s vegetable happens to be--carrots or potatoes on an average day, and beetroot if he’s feeling especially lively. Which isn’t often.
Then he goes home around the time the sun is setting.
He watches the sunset next to Scar’s grave (Grian buried him next to Pizza, he thought it was fitting) and just talks.
And if there’s time, he’ll eat a light meal before bed. Usually, he ends up skipping that as well, though, because most of the time the guilt festers in his stomach to an uncomfortable degree, which makes it hard to eat.
Then, after that, he goes to bed.
Or. Well. He tries to go to bed. Really, he just stares at the ceiling again and tries not to cry.
Some time around the moon is directly overhead, he’ll pass out from sheer exhaustion, only to wake up and do the whole thing all over again.
Fun.
“And that’s what I’ve been doing for the past three months,” he finishes. “Exciting, isn’t it?”
If Scar could respond, it would probably get lost in the way the wind whistles past his ears.
“Yeah,” he says, filling in the silence. “I bet you would have had some crazy idea. Maybe I wouldn’t be so bored without you gone.” Grian wouldn’t be a lot of things if Scar wasn’t gone. Bored was just one of them.
It’s kind of sad if you think about it. Just one man sitting at the graves of his best friend and pet llama, talking to himself.
Whatever, Grian is sad anyways. And it’s not like there’s anyone here to judge him, so who cares?
“Okay,” Grian says, standing up as he brushes the sand off his pants. “It’s getting a little late. Time for bed.”
He gives a small smile to the gravestone and pats it gently in the dimming sunlight.
“Night Scar,” he says.
He doesn’t say “good night” anymore. Partly because it doesn’t make sense to lie to a dead man, and partly because Grian is long past the “denial” part of grief anymore.
***
Tommy hasn’t had a stable routine in...well, let’s just say it’s been a while.
He almost wants to call Exile stable, but just because it followed the same rules and his days were more or less scheduled (wake up drowning, get threatened, lose stuff, grind for stuff, cry himself to sleep, and repeat) but that would mean giving Dream the satisfaction of providing him with that stability.
Fuck that.
It’s not like he could call his present very steady either. No. Not with Wilbur revived and plotting away. Not with Tubbo replacing him with Ranboo. Not with Sam letting him die. Not with Dream just waiting in prison, waiting for the inevitable moment where he would escape.
Fuck them.
Fuck off.
And that’s what Tommy’s doing. Fucking off, running away, cutting and running, skipping town, etc.
See, Tommy likes to think that he has standards. No--that he has limits . Boundaries.
Wilbur, for as much as he likes to call himself Tommy’s brother, doesn’t seem to understand that fact. Wilbur likes to push, more accurately, Wilbur likes to break. Things, himself, and other people.
And when things break, there are only two things you can do.
And Tommy is fucking sick of cleaning up and fixing Wilbur’s messes.
Who stuck by Wilbur’s side when an ordinary drug van turned into a revolution against a tyrannical god?
Tommy.
Who had to fight every battle Wilbur couldn’t be bothered with?
Tommy.
Who went into exile with a brother and tried so hard to keep him from becoming a madman? And tell him, who exactly was the only family member who didn’t turn on his brother? Who tried to save him instead of condemning him?
If you guessed Tommy, you might be entitled to a prize.
Before Wilbur died, his last words to Tommy were “I’ll be back”. So Tommy waited. And waited. And waited.
By the time he was done waiting Wilbur was resurrected.
At first, Tommy couldn’t help that twinge of happiness, of the satisfaction of not being alone anymore. Wilbur would understand, Wilbur always understood. He had died just like Tommy, at the hands of someone who he once cared about. He loved L’manberg just as much as Tommy did.
But noooo.
Wilbur turned out to be a bitch.
An awful, terrible, bitch who just wanted to manipulate Tommy.
An evil, vicious bitch who screamed at him.
Who ignored him.
Who brought up Tommy’s trauma just to prove a point.
Limits? Anyone remember those?
Apparently, Wilbur hadn’t.
Well, Tommy did. He fucking remembered his own boundaries, after all, he’s the one who had to go through the therapy session with Puffy and create them.
Unfortunately, Wilbur had crossed every line that Tommy had ever set. And Tommy was really so fucking done with all of this.
So he ran.
Where?
Who the fuck knows. Not Tommy, that’s for certain.
One moment, Wilbur is telling him to shut up in front of Quackity and all of Las Nevadas--and everything is so loud, and oh my god he’s going to die Dream is going to beat him into the obsidian floor again and it’s so fucking loud but it’s all his fault if only he wasn’t so annoying--and then he’s running.
Tommy isn’t really a runner--he likes to face his problems head-on, thanks--but he finds himself sprinting until long after he should.
Slowly, his sprint turns into a jog as the desert turns into a plains biome. The jog turns into a speedwalk, which in turn, fades into a regular walk as he crosses rivers and climbs mountains. The regular walk doesn’t last long though, and soon he’s stumbling around on the edge of a beach.
It’s okay though. Because he’s pretty sure he’s far enough away for the night. He can rest.
When he wakes up after a fitful night of sleep, he starts the whole process over again and doesn’t stop moving until he passes out.
There are blisters on his feet, but with every block he puts between him and his old home, his steps feel lighter.
On the third day of this--this constant running, Tommy finally destroys his communicator.
It was weighing him down, he reasons. It’s because they could track him with it, it was the right thing to do, he assures himself as he watches it burn.
He’s not getting rid of his “attachments”, he’s just making sure nobody else has to bear the burden of being his friend. Fuck--uh, no. Tommy just means he’s being distant so that no one can ever hurt him ever again. Fuck. That one isn’t good either.
Never mind, he thinks to himself. He doesn’t need a reason. He’s TommyInnit, Big Man Extraordinaire, and all he needs is himself.
Plus he was getting tired of watching the chat roll past on his screen, not a single one mentioning him as if they’d just forgot he existed.
Days pass, and so does the scenery. He goes through so many biomes that he’s sure he isn’t even sure the Human GPS could find him now. Perfect. That’s the goal, after all, get so permanently lost that no one will ever hurt bother him again.
Tommy avoids the villages he passes by. He doesn’t want to see anyone.
Once or twice he almost bumps into a wandering trader, but he always ducks behind whatever is available, usually a tree or a large boulder, and hides.
It’s a good way to get your blood pressure up, he finds. That nerve-shattering, near-paralyzing feeling of knowing you could be found and not wanting to.
When he was younger--not a child, never a child--Tommy and Tubbo would play hide and seek for hours. Tommy’s favorite was being the hider, which worked out because Tubbo loved being the seeker. Wilbur had told them then that it was a waste of time, but Tommy finds himself thanking his younger self for the skill now.
Eventually, Tommy finds a delicate balance to his days; walk all day and shiver uncontrollably in a makeshift dirt hut during the night.
But because Tommy is Tommy, he of course has to push the balance too far.
He gets tired of the nights in the ground, of shuddering every time he hears the sound of the undead scraping at the dirt walls around him, trying to get in. He decides to take his chances with the nighttime as well. It’s not like he’ll be losing any sleep.
At first, it goes relatively well. He sees a suspiciously empty village and sticks to the outskirts of it just in case. Occasionally, as he walks, he sees hints of buildings, and he cautiously avoids them.
Until he can’t.
He’s walking slowly through a forest, each step careful and measured as the half-moon shines down on his trail when he hears it--the unmistakable sound of a bowstring being drawn. Tommy only has a moment to think oh, shit before there’s the hiss of an arrow and he feels the sudden tearing sensation in his stomach.
Uh oh.
For a few terrifying seconds, Tommy is frozen. His body is still in the present, but his mind is shoved so far back in the past that it’s disorientating. At the last moment he pulls himself back to the moment and lunges, all pain and discomfort forgotten.
His attacker--a lone, pale white skeleton, partially hidden by the trees goes down easily.
Of course, it does, he thinks to himself as he collapses to the ground, heart pounding rapidly. He’s TommyInnit, and that was just a pile of bones. Of course it--he heaves a shuddering, painful breath--was easy.
And yet...
Tommy has fought in more wars than he can count, he’s been stabbed, shot, punched, and kicked more than nearly anyone else on the server. Let’s just say Tommy has experience with pain, and if you were to tell him a year ago that he wouldn’t be able to handle a little bit of damage without totally freaking out, he would’ve punched you in your face.
Nevertheless, here he is, sobbing on the forest floor, an arrow lodged in his stomach, bleeding out.
Great. Just great.
He pulls himself up to his feet using a thin birch tree, still putting pressure on his stomach with his left hand. Blood spills over his hand and stains his torn shirt a nice, deep red. It doesn’t even feel painful, to tell you the truth. Tommy’s felt worse, and the slow, nauseous feeling has gradually replaced the brief burst of shocking pain he felt at first.
Breathing raggedly, Tommy lifts one foot in front of the other and starts a draining, difficult shuffle.
Ahead, he can see something almost embedded into the hills, a wall? Maybe? Whatever it is, it’s some sort of structure, and where there is a structure there is loot. Hopefully, they’ve got some healing or regen potions, his situation doesn’t look too good without them, to be honest.
Every step feels like walking through honey, and Tommy would know. It’s what happens when you have a best--his heart jerks painfully as he corrects himself--an ex-best friend who’s obsessed with bees.
Oh--
His head is spinning. But… But that’s fine! Because look! He’s at the wall now...How did he get here, has he been walking that long? He shakes his head--oh the spinning is worse now--and tries to focus.
Tommy fumbles with the door and pulls himself inside and Tommy immediately hates it. The only reason he’s remotely tolerating it is because of the comforting walls around it...and the fact that it’s in a flower forest doesn’t make it less appealing either.
He can’t help the weak smile as he looks around at the flowers...at least if he dies again, it’ll be in a prettier place than the prison.
Almost as if his body can sense that he’s given up, he falls to the ground, letting out a weak groan as the movement jostles the wound. The grass is soft underneath him, and he feels strange, comfortingly floaty.
He tries to fight the exhaustion...but...after so many days of restless nights and exhausting days, Tommy finally feels safe enough to sleep.
Above him, the starry night sky twinkles thoughtfully as he lets his eyes fall shut.