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The house was bitter.
Oh,
So,
Bitter.
Tommy could taste it on his tongue, like a texture that caused your teeth to hurt. It spread from his mouth to his chest, his legs, his arms. It invaded every little crevice of his body that held any form of feeling. It was this static in his forever persistent body.
It weighed him down, forcing him to burrow into his blankets, but they weren’t his blankets. They never should have been, but they brought warmth and pine so he couldn’t help but take them. They hid his feelings and suppressed the static for a while but it always returned.
It was this vicious cycle he’d been in for the past year, all building to this point of sorrow. A sorrow he wanted nothing more than to drown in and fade away. Anything was better than this sorrow. He’d hidden from it for months, despised the pins and needles that bloomed with every condolence and apology, unable to escape into his own mind. It had been wrecked and scraped free of any emotion, returning with time and comfort only to be ripped away once more.
He had clawed for it, desperate to have any sense of self after losing his anker. Pink had replaced the green that built in his head only to fade within a few small years. He couldn’t help but see a demented smile forming behind him, constantly lurking and taking every chance to drag him back into the living hell.
Tommy missed Techno. It was as simple as that. He knew Wilbur and Phil also missed the piglin hybrid. His older brother had to be taken from them before they all had a chance to have a proper home. Their life together, back after so much hell on the SMP, was no longer open. Cancer was uncommon on its own, but in their lives, it was almost unheard of. They had code that could be easily manipulated and changed. It was possible to turn off someone's pain receptors and remove aspects of their body. Tommy remembered begging Dream to change his code shortly after they joined and no matter how mad they got with each other and even after he’d begun to be tortured, their admin refused to stoop low enough to touch the previous change.
Code was something close to everyone, the only people who were allowed to come in contact with it or even read it were Admins and family. He still remembered rushing off the Smp to eagerly return home and show Philza, Techno, and Wilbur the change. Tommy regrets not trying harder.
Techno hadn’t been home. He was gone a lot because of the voices and he understood it. Maybe if he’d shown Techno how easy it was to change code, how to access it, or anything to help him check it, they would have noticed it before it got that bad. Cancer was when a line of code became corrupted. Sometimes it would fix itself or spread slowly enough to be easily fixed and, other times, it would quickly take over any binary it could come in contact with.
Since code was the basics of your life and it dictated what you were and your skills you’d lose yourself in the corruption and end up dead. Out of all the people this could happen to, had to happen to, Techno was the person everyone believed didn’t deserve to suffer.
Shortly after they noticed what was happening, their dad immediately began trying to fix the problem. It was so persistent that the moment Phil got a line or two fixed, five more would grow in its place. Wilbur had jumped up to try and assist him, the two of them were doing their best to contain and at least slow the progress but nothing changed it.
Tommy still remembered when all three of them left the room after a few days of constant attempts, their faces were a horrid mix of anger, sadness, and remorse. His oldest brother kept his face as stoic as always. The one who was dying simply gave a soft smile and started acting like nothing was wrong. The combined looks were enough to tell him the situation was grim.
In the following days, Tommy kept his eyes on them, the three choosing to keep him in the dark but they couldn’t keep him from putting the pieces together on his own. He could hear Wilbur crying in the dark of his room and see the looks of pain Phil gave Techno. After a week of this hell, he finally went forward, confronting his brother. The conversation, despite how long ago it had accrued, Tommy remembered every word and the way he felt.
Tommy had walked over towards the strawberry blonde as he leaned over his garden. Techno was tending to his vegetables and growing plants and the blonde found himself fidgeting as he listened to the soothing sounds of birds and small chuffs as his brother expressed his enjoyment.
He could tell that they were both aware of the other’s presence. The piglin’s pointed ears had twitched as he got closer and he could see his tail flick, moving in a way to tell Tommy he could come closer. He stepped closer before sitting down right next to his side, glancing up and over at the boar-like man. He hated the uncomfortable silence that grew among them before he opted to break it.
“Blade.”
The silence continued.
“Please, Techno.”
A sigh left the elder as he sat up, red eyes drifting from the soil and leaves, before speaking. “You know what going on, don’t you Gremlin?” His voice was gruff as he huffed out his words.
It was his turn to stay quiet.
Tears threatened to spill from his eyes, his ears pinning back as he looked down, breaking their eye contact. His voice threatened to shake as he tried to think over his answer. Tommy knew it was bad, he knew about code corruption and how it can lead to problems at least and death at worst.
“I don’t wanna be right…” He whispered as he tried to pretend to himself. Tommy didn’t want this to be true, he didn’t want Techno to have a life-threatening condition. “But…” he started, feeling as his warm tears slid down his face.
“I’m dying kid.”
He didn’t even get to ask about it, or even try to get his brother to lie. Tommy forced himself to look upwards, his blue eyes glancing over his face. The pig looked at him, his face showed a bit of sadness and guilt but overall, he looked…
content.
Anger began to bubble in his chest, his heart was thudding in his ears and forcing the sensation of pain into his whole person. His tail moved, curling around his legs as he sat on his knees. He gripped it, running his fingers through his striped fur as he shakily spoke up.
“It’s not fair.” He whispered.
“I know.”
Techno moved, looking up at the sky without much more to say. Tommy didn’t want this to happen. He wanted his older brother to just give him a fake story. He wanted to simply be told everything was fine and that nothing was going to happen or change. It had only been a year since the SMP had been abandoned. All of them had returned to their home, no longer handling the situation.
“Everything is normal, finally normal, and we’re all healing. Now- Now you’re gonna leave again!” Tommy started to shout. He was upset with this mix of resentment and wrong: he was mad that they were just accepting it! They were done with trying to prevent the corruption and they were acting like life wasn’t going to be suddenly uprooted.
Techno turned his body towards him, hands pressing against his shoulders. Tommy felt his eyes burn before cries began to leave his mouth. He pushed himself against his brother’s chest, gripping the fabric of the white button-up and the red shawl draped over his shoulders. He held on as though it would disappear in a few seconds.
“It’s not fair!” He called out, hands gently rubbing his back and holding him.
Tommy found himself holding onto the red fabric, running the silk through his fingers. He wanted to see it wrapped over broad shoulders again and the voice that accompanied it. It wasn’t possible though since the person it belonged to wasn’t within reach.
Since they couldn’t reach him the younger brothers were sitting near the raised ground. The grass in this place was coming in more sparsely and the dirt almost seemed as loose as it had been all those months ago. The rain-smoked earth seemed damn under their knees and matched the feeling they both had.
He had his head pressed against the brunette shoulder, his warmth flooding Tommy to ground him. He looked up, recognizing the pointed ears and flicking tail. He wished it was Techno sitting next to him, letting them both garden again as the two just enjoyed the other’s company. He wouldn’t trade him for Wilbur, of course, he’d rather be the one to die than have either of them gone, but he didn’t really get a choice.
The garden in front of them would have been overgrown, but Phil had refused to allow that. Their dad had taken the plot of vegetables and turned it into a bouquet of flowers. It was full of pink, white, red, and yellow petals.
Every orchid was placed in the same precise way the garden owner used with his own plants. Tommy remembered the way his brother described orchids.
Elegance.
Strength.
Endurance.
Thoughtfulness.
This one flower seemed like the perfect mix of the brute. Techno was a person who always held every one of these traits in all their glory. He wanted nothing more than to have any kind of reminder of his protector. Tommy wasn’t a piglin so he couldn’t understand the kind of pain Wil was going through but he still was part of their sounder.
As far as he was aware, his already limited nursery was shrunken. He spent the first week after his death curled up in their den. Wil had been mad at him, considering raccoons were known for taking other animals' dens as their own but.. That wasn’t what he wanted.
All of them had been sad, angry, and honestly broken at the loss. After they buried him, Tommy refused to leave the grave sight, needing to be dragged away hissing and screaming when it started to rain. He’d ended up bedridden for a few days, sick with a mild case of hypothermia. Phil had used this as a big push for doing more research into raccoon hybrids.
He’d woken up to being curled up in the family’s nest/den, his dad was curled up around him. Tommy was glad at least to have someone near him and to help him with his grief. All three of them spent a few days just with each other. It was missing Tech, of course, but they all needed some time to adjust.
Tommy let the silk in his hand shift as he moved it around. He could feel a hand on his back, right between his shoulder blades before a calm voice spoke. “We need to go inside Toms.”
His eyes drifted upwards, the amber eyes of his brother as soft as always. The blonde found himself glancing back at the flowers, a sad smile gracing his lips as he took a shaky breath. “I know.” He whispered.
It was how things had to be.