Chapter Text
The first thing Phil does when they return to the cottage is try and warm Tommy up.
Tommy tries to protest, insisting that he is fine, and that he isn’t that cold to begin with, but Techno grabs his hand and wordlessly shoves it into his own face. Forced to stare at fingertips tinted white and blue, Tommy finally groans his agreement and allows himself to be seated in front of the fireplace.
It’s weird. The fact that he is in Phil’s house, in all his whole TommyInnit glory. There is no sword digging into his throat, no death threats or harsh words thrown his way, and the guilt swollen deep within his chest replaced with something warm and blooming.
Techno doesn’t ask for his cape back. Tommy decides to keep it for now. Phil smothers him with blankets on top of it, until he is drowning in them, only his face and hands peeking out of layers and layers of thick soft coverings.
Great. Now he is an avian burrito.
Tommy moves his wings, trying to get them into a more comfortable position, “I’m getting that weird sensation where you fucking feel like, you know, you have already been in the same situation before,” he scrunches up his face, “Deje – dejevor or something like that.”
“Déjà vu,” Techno corrects him, throwing an extra log into the fireplace. Tommy watches it get swallowed in red flames and leans forward to get the heat wash over his cold cheeks.
“Well, it’s dejevor now, bitch,” he announces.
Techno throws him a pointed look. “And that is because...?”
“Because I said so.”
Techno sighs deeply and sinks into an empty armchair. “You never change, do you?”
“What do you mean?” Tommy yelps. “I’ve spend a literal month in the body of a fucking bird.”
“You were still Tommy as a bird, though,” Techno points out. “Stealing my apples, getting on people’s nerves and, you know, being a general nuisance. Ten out of ten on the Tommy scale.”
Tommy manages to wiggle out one of his wings out of the blankets’ trap and smacks Techno, “Then why didn’t you recognize me sooner, you prick?”
That gets Techno to shut up. He makes a face that Tommy can best describe as something in-between of angry and embarrassed. “I know like I should have,” Techno says, “and somehow still didn’t. To be honest, it makes me feel kind of stupid.”
From the kitchen, Phil comes, a steaming bowl in his hands. He passes it to Tommy. Now that his teeth aren’t clanging against each other and his hands don’t shake from the cold, he has the time to acknowledge the twists and wrenches of his empty stomach. It’s almost disappointing to find the bowl to be filled to the brim with cloudy broth.
“I want a mug of hot chocolate after that,” Tommy says. More like demands, really. Phil, dropping on the couch next to him, tilts his head.
“You haven’t eaten anything for days, mate. It would just make you sick.”
“Greedy, greedy Phil,” Tommy’s tone is nothing if not accusing. “At this point you’re just making up excuses not to share your hot chocolate supplies with me.”
Tommy ends up downing the broth, anyway. And braces himself to ask the question that buzzes in the back of his mind throughout their journey back to the Arctic commune.
“Does anybody else know that I’m alive?”
Techno blinks slowly and leaning back in his armchair. “Nobody besides me, Phil, Callahan and also Ranboo.”
“Ranboo?” Tommy says, uneasiness settling in his stomach. “Why him?”
“Well, for one, the guy literally lives next door. It would be hard to hide something from him even if we wanted to.”
“If you wanted to?” Tommy echoes.
He hasn’t realized that his shoulders spiked up to his ears until he feels the grounding weight of Phil’s hand. Oh so slowly, Tommy relaxes into the touch. He raises his gaze and meets the sympathetic expression on Phil’s face.
“Your death hit Ranboo hard," Phil says. “He was very happy to learn that you’re alright.”
Tommy squirms uncomfortably in his seat. He thinks back of what happened in Snowchester and a lump arises in his throat. "Really?" he says, voice small.
Techno raises a brow. "Why are you so surprised? Aren't you two friends or something?"
"I don't know," Tommy answers honestly. And when Techno and Phil share a confused look, he adds, "I don't remember."
"Is there anything else you don't remember?" Phil asks, frowning.
A part of Tommy is reluctant to talk. His memory is a weakness, and weaknesses are not to be spilled in front of your enemies.
But these are not Tommy's enemies. They are family, and family is where you allow yourself to be weak and vulnerable.
"I've lost some of my memories while I was a crow.” Tommy grimaces. “First skills. Then the details of older memories. Now I can recall a flash of colors here, a few faces there. Nothing in-between, and everything is very fuzzy.”
His wings flutter against his own will. Tommy tries to press down their movement and the best he manages is to make them curl around himself protectively, shielding him from gazes barring into him heavily as the realization settles in.
Where Tommy expects to see pity, he meets only soft concern. “Callahan said he’d be around the main area from now on. We can talk to him about it tomorrow,” Phil says. “Until then, don’t worry about it.”
Phil is careful as he puts a hand over his wing and guides it down until it’s loosely folded behind his back. His own, larger feathers cover over Tommy’s shoulders and side. Fuck. That sets off Tommy’s bird brain again. Rumbles and chirps make their way out of his lips as he involuntarily leans into the touch.
A moment later, he is all but slumping down Phil’s arm. Gently, careful of still-irritated skin on Tommy’s back, he is lowered into a half-sitting, half-laying position. Huh. Well, it’s not that bad. Especially with a hand absently brushing through his feathers.
“I don’t think I want to announce my return to the rest of the server yet,” Tommy says, staring into the ceiling.
“It’s okay, mate,” Phil pulls out a loose feather. Tommy barely feels the pull of it but the uncomfortable itching feeling is gone. “Take as much time as you need to be ready.”
“I’m not sure if I am ever going to be,” Tommy admits. His voice comes out quiet, barely louder than the dying creaks of the wood in the fireplace, and he squirms a bit in his position, trying to twist his head to an angle where he can look into Phil’s face. “Does it make me a pussy?”
To his surprise, it’s Techno who answers this time. “Being afraid doesn’t make you a coward,” he says, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. “Nobody heals in one day, after all.”
His voice is a deep rumble. Orange and yellow patches of light reflecting from the fire make his expression look almost soft. His words sound like an echo of something else, of something that came long before and carved out a hole in Tommy’s heart that remained painfully empty to this day.
He may not remember every memory shared with Techno, but the feelings are still there, and they make him yearning even for mere hints of fondness and affection. That urge to be closer, to be welcomed, states the undeniable truth: Tommy missed Techno more than he’d like to admit.
It’s a crow that can get away with being clingy and not be rejected or make others feel embarrassed. This is a situation where Tommy would like to have his small animal privileges back because his bird instincts want a hug from Techno. Badly.
Tommy drops his head into his hands.
“You alright, mate?”
“I’m fine,” Tommy mutters back. “Just the bird shit getting at me again.”
He has been an avian for a grand total of four days as opposed to Phil, who always had his wings and is literally centuries old, and Techno, his closest companion. Both know more about avian mind and instincts a shit ton more than he does. Tommy feels his ears burning when they exchange a knowing look and Phil coughs as if trying to bring Techno’s attention to something.
“No,” Techno dismisses.
“Techno,” Phil says, tone almost scolding.
“I said, no.”
“Come on, mate. Just look at him.”
Tommy snarls without any real heat behind it. He may look like an abandoned puppy, especially with his wings dropping low and a sad trill rumbling in his throat, but he is done with people ignoring his presence.
“Excuse me,” he says. “I’m right fuckin’ here. What are you two even on about?”
“Nothing,” Techno says, standing up. “I’ll pour myself some tea.”
Techno rounds the armchair and the couch. Tommy presses down a disappointed chirp. It’s fine. It’s not like he really wanted that hug, anyway.
Tommy blinks when a warm palm brushes his hair. It’s a mere ruffle, a ghost of affection on Techno’s side, but to Tommy, it feels like everything. The touch is gone as suddenly as it appeared. Tommy cranes his neck and sees Techno’s broad back disappearing in the kitchen doorway. He returns a minute later, a mug in hand, and face as indifferent as always.
Passing by, Techno pretends he did not ruffle Tommy’s hair.
In return, it’s hard for Tommy to pretend he did not like it when his bird brain is singing fucking serenades in delight, and he can’t help but caw questioningly at Techno.
"You tell anybody about this and I will murder you, no questions asked,” Techno deadpans, taking a sip out of his mug. Tommy suspects he only did it so that he could hide his own rumble, a deep, contented sound.
Tommy shares a look with Phil. “I don’t think he will,” Tommy’s wordlessly says.
“No he won’t,” Phil’s face confirms.
***
Between Techno leaning back in his armchair, relaxed and eyelids half-closed, and Tommy still clinging to Phil, the room is swallowed in silence.
Usually, Tommy would try to break it. By being louder, by being so bold that people wouldn’t have any other choice but turn their attention to him, he makes himself be heard and known.
Ironically, it’s one of Tommy’s traits that harmed him the most in the long term. When they were unnecessary, he only annoyed others out of their minds. But when Tommy was slowly dying, drowning in the ocean of his own fears, his cries for help were swallowed by the void of ignorance.
These days are now long done. In this comfortable silence, his every whisper would be listened to, his every word understood and accepted. It’s a silence that Tommy chooses, for he knows that he doesn’t need to scream anymore.
From the crackle of the fire, from the rustle of feathers of the wings wrapped around him, from the bristle of the snow outside and dying sunlight spilling through the windows – Tommy learns again what it’s like to feel happy.
Every good thing comes to an end, however. A faint voice of alarm at the back of his mind takes over the simpler, instinctual part. Tommy pulls away from Phil, swallowing down a sad caw arising from the loss of contact. “How long?” he asks.
Phil’s hand, rubbing comforting circles into his back, pauses for a bit. “How long… what?”
“How long am I allowed to stay here?”
Tommy thinks he stops breathing in the short moment he waits for an answer. Phil’s eyes widen with realization and the glint of sadness in them is all-too clear for Tommy to see. The fingers rearranging the feathers on his wing disappears. He chases after the touch subconsciously and only gets distracted by Phil’s calloused hands gripping his own.
“Mate,” Phi says. “Nobody is going to make you leave unless you want to.”
Tommy opens his mouth. Nothing comes out except for a strangled confused sound. Questioning. Hopeful.
Phil did offer him shelter. Tommy had wanted, of course, but he didn’t think Phil would actually –
Tommy stiffens. “Are you sure?”
The grip on his hands tightens a bit, but there isn’t as much restraint about it as there is reassurance, a wordless promise. “This place is now as much your home as it is mine.”
Tommy stares into Phil’s face, studying every shift and twitch of his expressions. Looking for a slightest hint of a lie, for a malice intent or mockery behind clear blue eyes.
Instead, Phil looks at Tommy with fondness and warmth. It’s hard to believe that it’s actually directed at him, but then he is pulled into a hug again.
Flock. Tommy feels safe, encased in giant black wings. Family. He can both hear and feel the purrs vibrating in Phil’s chest.
Parent, Tommy’s head pounds. A whine breaks through his sealed lips.
“Easy, mate,” Phil says.
That is the final straw. The burning sensation prickling at Tommy’s eyes reaches its peak. He brings a hand to his face and feels something wet on his fingers.
Oh. These are tears.
Tommy couldn’t cry when he was angry, he couldn’t cry when he was sad.
The tears only came when Tommy felt happy and there was someone else to witness them.
Tommy hurries to hide his face in Phil’s shoulder, but it’s already too late. Techno’s eyes are open, and he quirks a brow at him mockingly.
"I'm not crying,” Tommy snaps.
Tears stack up like hours of sleep, apparently. They keep spilling and staining his cheeks no matter how hard he tries to wipe them out.
"Sure you aren't,” Techno puts his mug onto a coffee table. “This is just your eyes inconveniently turning into waterfalls."
Tommy feels his ears reddening. He wiggles out of Phil’s arms to flip Techno off. "Fuck you, Techno,” he says. And then he pulls up Techno’s cape closer to his face and blows his nose into it.
Tommy sees the exact moment Techno’s soul leaves his body. A look of disgust so intense would throw anybody off. Anybody but Tommy. He only makes sure to wipe at his face even more intensely and stares proudly at the Mona Lisa of tears and snot he created on previously perfectly clean, rich red fabric.
“Have fun washing that, bitch.”
"You know, I liked you like a crow a lot more,” Techno declares.
“Oi you, dickhead!” Tommy screeches. “Asshole, bitch, prick – “
Swears continue to spill and flow from Tommy’s mouth even as Techno hits a bullseye on him with a pillow. The second one he dodges like a pro and it headshots Phil instead. Yelping, the avian shoots upright, only to get smacked by Tommy’s wing. The room would turn into a full-on pillow fight if it wasn’t for the sudden knock at the door.
It opens without any warning. A disheveled white-and-black head peeks in through the slit. Ranboo looks guilty, like a dog about to be scolded for ruined furniture. “Uh, Phil, I’m sorry, but – “ the anxious speech comes to a halt when his gaze falls on the two avians frozen in the middle of the room. Ranboo lets out a soft warble, “Tommy –”
The door slams open.
Tubbo walks through the doorway, with his eyes shining bright and face skewed with fury. Tommy watches, mouth agape, as Techno tries to block his way, and gets fucking shoved into a wall.
And then that five and a half feet of pure muscle and determination meet eyes with him.
Oh fuck.
Tommy is about to get murdered by his own best friend.
He doesn’t have the time to do as much as squeak when Tubbo comes charging at him. Instead of getting dropkicked or punched like he had expected, two strong arms wrap around him. In a hold so tight that Tommy struggles to breathe, he doesn’t immediately recognize that he is getting hugged.
Tommy feels confused. Whatever he expected from Tubbo’s reaction to him being alive – he hadn’t expected this.
Hoped, maybe. But Tommy was too afraid of ignorance or rejection to let himself believe, even for a second, that Tubbo would be happy to get him back.
Feeling something wet on his shoulder, Tommy thinks that might have been a mistake. He returns the hug back. Tommy’s voice betrays him, so he mutters quietly, “Hi, Tubso.”
Tubbo goes slack in his hold. Tommy’s wings encase them into a warm cocoon. It’s awkward, for that he doesn’t know how to position them so that Tubbo wouldn’t get buried whole under the black feathers, but it’s the last thing either of them cares about.
Tubbo is shaking.
Tommy’s eyes are burning again.
Tubbo can’t see it, but Phil throws him a concerned look. Tommy shakes his head – he is fine. How is he supposed to explain the tight wrench in his chest that makes him gasp for air?
Relief can be a powerful emotion. With Tubbo’s death grip on him relaxing slowly, Tommy closes his eyes and exhales with relief stronger than he ever felt in his entire life.
He isn’t hated.
He wasn’t replaced.
Tommy feels stupid for doubting their friendship. He cracks an eye open and sees Ranboo smiling at him, awkward but genuine, though his ears flicker anxiously at Techno peeling himself off a wall and crossing his arms.
His pride must be in shambles after being tossed like this by Tubbo of all fucking people. Phil’s face is a silent plea for him not to make a scene out of it right now. Techo grabs his mug and walks towards the kitchen with an ‘I’m going to need something much stronger than tea for this’ kind of expression.
Tommy cackles out a laugh. Tubbo raises his head from his shoulder. “If you disappear like this one more time,” he mutters into Tommy’s ear. “I’m going to kill you myself.”
“I’m not planning to go anywhere,” he squeezes Tubbo harder. And to everyone in this room and the server and himself, he adds, “I’m back. For real this time.”
***
When Tommy falls asleep, the first thing he hears is the sound of a train coming.
He thinks he might have imagined it, though, because the next moment he is surrounded, once again, by a field of flowers.
This time, there are no dead bodies swallowed by blooming poppies, and the sun is not painting the sky in the color of Tommy's blood. Instead, it's a quiet night, with rustling grass and golden stars woven into a void meadow stretched above his head.
A deer stands in the middle of it all, waiting for someone to arrive. Tommy's black shadow dives down – he is a bird as he flies, a human as he falls, but the moment his feet touch the ground, the wings sprout from his back and wrap around him in a comfortable blanket.
Callahan is not a deer anymore, either. The way his head tilts make it seem like the moon got tangled in the massive antlers, but the eyes that bore into him are human, and so is the gesture of a hand suggesting Tommy to take a walk with him.
"Are you going to keep invading my dreams?" Tommy bluntly asks, stumbling after him.
"You’re the one who wanted to see me this time.”
Tommy jumps and clasps hands over his own ears. The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, and it sounds like his own voice reading from a fucking audiobook or a text message.
“What the fuck?” he yelps. “Did you hear that, too?”
Callahan tilts his head at him with a look of amusement on his face. Tommy understands that not only Callahan heard the voice but he was the one talking. In Tommy’s head. In Tommy’s voice.
“That’s fucking creepy,” Tommy informs him.
“It’s easier this way.” Callahan shrugs.
His words startle Tommy despite him knowing what to expect. Fuck. It’s going to be hard to get used to this. Tommy swallows hard and wipes away at the sweat running down his forehead. “Whatever,” he says. “I wanted to talk to you about my memory issues.”
Callahan looks at him in a way that makes it immediately obvious that he knows what Tommy is talking about, so he doesn’t bother with a long explanation. Tommy picks up the closest flower he can find – a white daffodil – and twists the delicate stem between his fingers. “Are these memories… I’m going to remember everything eventually, right?”
“With enough dedication, perhaps, some of your memories will return.”
Something inside of Tommy turns upside down. “What do you mean, some of my memories?”
“It means that the memory damage is partially permanent,” Callahan says, not in the least bothered by the drop of Tommy’s voice. “Some of your skills will need some rewinding, too.”
Tommy feels very tempted to clench the flower in his hand and throw it away, but the poor plant is not to blame on the fact that certain people are very shit at their jobs.
“With Dream as the only other admin we could compare you to, the bar was so fuckin’ low,” Tommy’s head falls into his hands. “And you still managed to break right through it.”
Callahan pats his shoulder sympathetically. Tommy doesn’t jerk away from the touch, but it does, combined by his own incidental mention of Dream, make uneasiness twist his stomach. Now that there are at least five people on the server know that he is alive, it is only a matter of time till the news spreads.
Tommy trusts Phil and Tubbo, Techno, and even Ranboo, but he knows that he won’t be able to hide forever. Obsidian and blackstone walls might be strong enough to hold Dream in but even they have their mouths and ears.
Tommy doesn’t realize he is hyperventilating until Callahan asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” he inhales sharply. In and out, calm down, Tommy hears in Phil’s voice. In Techno’s voice. In voices of people he knows yet doesn’t remember.
“You don’t look fine.”
Tommy shakes his head, “Just tell me… Dream can’t get me from the prison, can he? He doesn’t have any admin privileges left that could possibly help him to escape?”
“None,” Callahan confirms. “The only valuable thing he has is the Revivebook, but it’s useless now. I took care of it.”
The admin offers him a hand. Tommy throws a look at Callahan through his own fingers gripping at the base of his hair. The admin looms over him both in height and width. Tommy would have found that insulting before, but now there is something reassuring about the giant shadow Callahan’s figure casts.
It's not that he looks like a fighting type of player. Quite the opposite, skittishness reads in the way he shifts weight and flicks his long ears to every mere shuffle in the long grass. At the same time, there is a certain mysteriousness radiating off the admin, power of a source that Tommy can't see but which makes air around them buzz with energy. It circles him. Protective. Reassuring.
Tommy has a severe lack of adults he can trust on this server, but one more name might have been just added to that list.
Tommy takes Callahan’s hand.
First hints of a dawn prickle at the horizon. Tommy knows, in a way that he can’t quite explain, that this is his last time visiting the field. Flowers will fade, the winds will go still, and the rising sun will mark the moment he’ll finally be alive and free.
"Thank you," Tommy says. "For bringing me back, and everything after that."
Callahan nods. Tommy takes a couple of steps forward, flexes his wings in preparation for flight. Before he takes off the ground, however, he turns to admin with a determined expression on his face.
"I have one last favor to ask you for,” Tommy says.
***
In the box of things that Sam left him in his suite, Tommy finds a new calendar. He flips through the pages until he finds April, and marks down the number twenty-nine as today’s date.
It’s been almost a month since Tommy was turned back human. Two and a half weeks since he made his official return to the server.
His suite, located on the top floor of the Big Innit hotel, looks a lot different now. There is a table pressed against a wall, currently buried under a mess of papers Tommy has yet to go through and sign – the business agreement with Las Nevadas is coming along quite fine but fuck does he hate filling in the official stuff. All the other furniture in the room was brought in here by Sam; he also reconstructed the balcony so that it would be a lot more comfortable for Tommy to take off and land from.
Sam was one of the first people to visit Tommy after the news of his return spread.
You let me die, and similar accusations that have been weighing down Tommy's thoughts for the past days all dissipated at the sight of Sam’s pained expression, of the way he clearly hesitated to come any closer despite heavily wanting it.
Tommy’s awkward smile and unsure step forward were all encouragement Sam needed, because next thing he knew, he was encased into a gentle, careful hug. Say anything you want about creeper hybrids, but with Sam's soft fur and broad figure, he is one of the best people to hug around the server.
And Tommy would know. It was easier to list people who he did not hug around the server than those he did. The bird instincts demanded contact and affection and a lot of bloody sacrifices. Apparently, the SMP has put up a grave for Tommy. It was not a pleasant thing to stumble upon. Tubbo suggested they rig it with TNT and blow it up, but Tommy had a better idea: he pulled out a marker and corrected the engravings a bit, so now the gravestone marking his imaginary dead body says, ‘RIP TommyInnit’s pride. Murdered by bird brain.’
Nobody questions Tommy anymore when he starts trailing somebody like a lost duckling, his ears burning like the Nether itself and gaze trained on the ground. He looks like a fucking traffic light when the targets of his bird brain wordlessly pull him into a hug, trying to hide their laughter.
"Please end my suffering," he asks, burying his face into the person's shoulder between the traitorous, happy caws.
He receives a sympathetic pat on his back, or an amused chuckle, sometimes a random gift that he stashes away carefully into his nest. People quickly figured out his newfound adoration towards shiny things, and at this rate Tommy's collection of gold trinkets might rival that of Techno's. Phil told him not to tell Techno, though.
“Why?” Tommy asked.
“Skyblock’s Great Potato War,” Phil replied. He looked around warily, as if expecting Techno to materialize from thin air. “That’s one damn good example why nobody should ever get competitive with Techno.”
Tommy does not remember what a Great Potato War is, and at this point, he is too afraid to ask.
A bell ringing at the hotel’s reception brings him out of his thoughts. Tommy strides over to the ladder and climbs down, but Jack has already beat him to it.
“Welcome to the Big Innit-Manifold hotel,” Tommy hears him say. “How can I help you today?”
Ah, right. The new hotel name is, frankly, shit, but Tommy had to go for a few sacrifices for the sake of their partnership. The story of his and Jack’s reconciliation was straight out of a fever dream. Tommy feels ridiculous thinking about it.
For one, they still didn’t fix the broken glass wall on the fourth floor from Jack’s latest defenestration.
For two, not only the court that had to decide who took over the hotel ended up with Tommy and Jack Manifold being co-owners, but Tommy somehow got officially adopted along the way.
…Yeah. Don’t even ask him about that one.
Tommy jumps off the ladder. Jack gives him an acknowledging punch to the shoulder with his left arm that isn’t, contrasting to his right one, in a cast. The guest at the reception turns out to be Puffy. Her eyes turn warm and fond when she sees Tommy.
“I’d like to book a suite for a couple nights. Someone blew up my house as a prank,” Puffy throws a pointed glance at Tommy, “and now I need somewhere to stay until I fix it.”
Tommy grins sheepishly. “That would be twenty diamonds,” he says.
Puffy rolls her eyes. “That whole capitalism thing really got to you, didn’t it?”
“You should really start charging him for your therapy appointments,” Jack says.
“Hey! She doesn’t charge you, either!” he snarls without any real heat about it.
“For our group sessions, no, but the individual ones I pay full price,” Jack dodges the smack of Tommy’s wing. “Unlike someone, I appreciate other people’s work.”
“Okay, ten diamonds, but only this time,” Tommy agrees, accepting the gems from Puffy. “I have a business to keep afloat, you know, can’t be giving out stuff for free.”
“Thank you,” Puffy nods. “By the way, there are a lot of crows gathered outside. Do you happen to know what that could be about?”
Tommy glances at the clock standing on the desk and his hands fly to his hair. “Shit! I’m running late!”
“I’ve got you, big man,” Jack says. He grabs a bag laying under the counter and tosses it to Tommy. “I’ll show our guest to her room and manage the hotel till the rest of the day.”
Tommy catches it mid-flight and pulls his wings through the slings as he sprints for the entrance. Jack really can be a good guy, when he’s not being a bitch. “Thank you!” he yells, throwing the glass door open, “See you tomorrow!”
Outside, Chat is waiting for him. It’s at least fifty of Phil’s crows on the Prime Path getting into play-fights out of boredom. At the first sight of Tommy, they all perk up and let out their unsynchronized greetings. Tommy answers right back and gets an accusing peck from Bitch right after she lands on his shoulder.
“I know, I know,” Tommy says. “I got distracted. We have one more place I need to visit, and then we’re good to go.”
With three flaps, Tommy takes off into the skies.
***
A few weeks ago, Tubbo and Ranboo brought Tommy to Snowchester to officially introduce him to Michael.
“Small!” the boy chirped upon their meeting, clasping his hands and smiling.
“No, no, I’m the biggest man alive,” Tommy corrected, crouching down in front of Michael. Ranboo and Tubbo watched them, probably confused, but Tommy’s whole attention was on the recognition in the child’s eyes.
Michael unceremoniously reached to the feathers growing at the side of Tommy’s head, near his ear, and brushed them carefully. “Tiny!”
And that’s the story of how Tommy ended up getting a Piglin nickname from his nephew.
Michael is fluent in his native language despite being away from his home Nether, and is getting quite good at Endermen’s vwoorps, too, but his English still needs a lot of improvement.
Since neither Tubbo or Ranboo speak Piglin, Tommy had acted like a translator to help them understand Michael’s bubbles and, without noticing it himself, had turned into a part-time babysitter. Tubbo even gifted Tommy a small ‘#1 Uncle’ pin just to mock him.
Jokes on Tubbo, now Tommy refuses to take it off.
Michael opens the door of his balcony on the second knock. Tommy walks in, folding his wings to fit into the frame, and grins at him.
“Big M!” he throws his arms to the sides.
“Tiny!” Michael happily snorts back. Tommy shakes his head at him, trying to hide his smile.
“No, no, that’s not the way to properly greet a person,” he says. “Remember what I taught you yesterday?”
“Fuck you,” Michael says, with a strong accent. He creases his brows in concentration, trying hard to remember something, and then beams, yelling, “Bitch!”
Tommy ruffles his head encouragingly. “You’re growing up so fast,” he says, wiping away a non-existent tear. “Alright, Big M, are you ready for a trip?’
Michael nods, grabbing his winter coat. Tommy helps him to put it on. Michael then makes grabby hands at him, so Tommy scoops the toddler up and secures him in his arms.
The trapdoor leading to Michael’s room opens, and Ranboo peeks in, probably attracted by the sound of voices. This or his good parent senses have been set off by the fact that Tommy teaches his child to swear. Either way, instead of finding Michael peacefully playing with his toys, he sees him happily waving his hand as Tommy dives off the edge of the balcony railings.
He spreads his wings a moment before they were supposed to hit the ground. Michael sneezes when a handful of snow flies into his face, and Tommy laughs at the way he wrenches his nose. Ranboo almost throws himself off the balcony with a distressed vwoorp, only to get cooled off by a blow off air a powerful flap of Tommy’s wings.
“I’ll see you at the Arctic commune!” Tommy yells.
***
The journey is short and peaceful.
Despite what other people could think, Tommy is a very responsible uncle. With Michael in his arms, he doesn’t go for usual twists and dives he likes to practice in the air. Well. Anymore. Precisely, ever since Tubbo had caught Tommy doing a full backwards loop and threatened to chop his head off if something happens to Michael.
Tommy’s current flight speed is way faster than it used to be – since, you know, he isn’t a flying toothpick anymore – so they make it to the Arctic commune almost at the same time as Ranboo. He throws his wings wider, slowing down in a glide, and lands in the snow, stumbling a few steps forward for balance.
“Tommy, you’re going to give me a heart attack,” Ranboo says, snatching Michael from his arms.
“If you didn’t want me abducting your child in broad daylight, you shouldn’t have installed a landing pad for me at your house,” Tommy counters right back.
Ranboo sighs. Tommy pats his shoulder with a grin. There is a table set outside in the snow, with chairs all around it. Techno casts him a glance from where he was setting down plates around it, “Tommy. What’s with you and getting hypothermia around my house?”
Tommy looks down at himself, shivering in a thin red-and-white shirt. The holes on the back are great for his wings but they come with the disadvantage of an unwanted ventilation system. “I’ve actually come prepared this time.”
He takes off the bag Jack tossed him earlier, and pulls out a long blue coat.
“Finally,” Techno grumps, “you’re going to stop stealing my capes.”
And immediately, the coat is tossed aside, and Tommy grabs at Techno’s current blue cape. Loosely thrown over his shoulders, it slides into his awaiting arms faster than Techno can stop it. “Don’t mind if I do!”
“Give that back,” Techno snarls.
Tommy wraps the cape around himself further. “No, I don’t think I will.”
Techno tries to grab him, and Tommy dodges. Meanwhile, Niki approaches the table, a large box in her hands. Tommy jumps behind her back, hiding from angrily huffing Techno.
“Niki,” he whines, “Techno’s trying to steal my cape!”
“It’s literally my cape,” Techno breathes out.
“Techno’s a thief! He is a thief and a liar.”
Niki chuckles, looking between overdramatically shivering Tommy and Techno crossing his arms. “Well, I don’t know whose cape is that, but I brought us a cake!”
He sets the box on the table. Techno throws one last glance at victorious Tommy and grabs a knife to cut the cake with.
“I had someone to help me with decorating this time,” Niki says with a cheesy smile on her face. She opens the box. A funky-looking picture of a crow stares back at them above a bold red word, ‘BITCH.’
“I wonder who that could be,” Techno huffs.
Tommy grins at him. “Where is Phil?”
Instead of an answer, Techno points his finger up. As if on command, a large shadow casts over them. Ranboo yelps in surprise when Phil’s giant wings cut through the air, his feathers almost touching the top of Tommy’s head. A few napkins get blown away from the table when he flaps his wings, rapidly gaining height, much to Techno’s annoyance.
“PHIL!” he yells. “I have put so much work into folding them!”
He looks angry, but it doesn’t slide past Tommy the way his face seems to beam up at the sight of Phil soaring through the air.
Tommy tries to hide his own smile, too. That’s what he asked Callahan a favor for – the miraculous healing of Phil’s wings was not without the admin’s help. Tommy didn’t want either Phil or Techno starting on that favor for a favor shit and all, so he kept silent about his own interference. He helped because he wanted to. And also because he needed a flight teacher who could, you know, actually fly.
Speaking of that.
Techno whips around when Tommy throws the cape back onto his shoulders. A knowing look passes his face when he sees the avian flexing his wings.
“Five minutes,” he says. “Don’t make others wait for you again.”
“Of course,” Tommy says, already knowing that, in five minutes, nothing will be able to pull him off the skies.
The moment the ground under him is gone, and he is surrounded with nothing but air, his body shifts, like a gear clicking by to its place. It always surprises him how natural it feels: as if he always had his wings, and now, without the invisible barrier pushing them down, they spread wide and free.
For a moment, he falls. And then wind flows wild, both desperate and happy, under Tommy’s wings, and pushes him up and up and up.
Everything happens in a matter of seconds, and next thing Tommy knows, he is breaking through the clouds and bathing in the afternoon sun. The satisfaction melts his face into a relaxed smile.
Any other time, Tommy would be annoyed or embarrassed by the high-pitched chirps escaping his throat. Right now, though, he is less of a human and more of a bird: no thoughts, no emotions, only instincts.
Phil’s silhouette is darkening above. Tommy flaps faster, and catches up to him. The tips of their wings touch before they part again, almost synchronized in their movements.
Flock, Tommy’s mind hums. Home.
“I bet you can’t beat me to the Nether portal, old chicken!” Tommy yells through the wind blowing in their faces.
Phil’s wheezes at the insult. “You little shit!” he yelps. And then he dives.
When Tommy first relearned flight as an avian, he was afraid of folding his wings in flight. The feeling of air knocked out of his lungs and the ground beneath blurring down to vague shapes and colors made him panic and leap out of it too early.
Tommy isn't afraid of flight anymore, because he knows, when he catches a wind too strong to handle, when strength leaves his wings, when the sky feels like it's crashing on him - there will always be someone to break his fall.
***
Fundy doesn’t like the new admin.
There is something weird about him, almost cryptid, he’d say. Without hearing and senses like his own, nobody else notices Callahan observing them from far away, but Fundy does, and it makes his skin crawl. There is nothing necessarily bad about him, well, looking at people, if it wasn’t for the musing expression he always bores. It makes Fundy feel like Callahan has some kind of a plan in his mind that he doesn’t think he’ll like.
Even now, stumbling through the ruins of L’manburg, Fundy catches a sight of deer antlers flashing behind a half-destroyed house. If it wasn’t for the fact that Callahan is seemingly heading in the opposite direction to him, he’d go home immediately. Throw his tools into the closet, have a dinner and then go peacefully to sleep –
Well. Everything but the last one. The reason why Fundy often finds himself around L’manburg these days is his insomnia. Stupid dreams bring up old memories he’d rather not look too deep into – especially the ones that have Wilbur in them.
Fundy’s trail of thoughts involuntarily brings him to the altar Phil tried to bring Wilbur back with. He sighs and is just about to spin around and leave when he hears a sound of something wet smacking stone.
Uh. Where did this fish come from?
A salmon is flopping up and down a few feet away from Fundy. His eyes fall on a tiny pool of water in the middle of the altar. He remembers Phil bringing a pseudo-Sally there in hopes of helping in bringing Wilbur back to life, but he is also pretty sure that Ghostbur ate that fish. Raw. While it was alive.
…It was quite a traumatizing experience for Fundy.
He jumps up the struggling salmon and picks it up carefully. The salmon is opening and closing its mouth as it gasps for air. Fundy drops it into the pool of water, and it comes back to its senses, circling around in the tight space.
It looks a little bit odd for a salmon. Instead of normal yellowish eyes, these ones are a dark brown. Pink and red scales have a line of white running down them. Is this just a discoloration anomaly? Or is this fish sick?
The fish slashes him with water and swims faster. If fish could panic, this one certainly was. Fundy shifts on his heels. The salmon would most certainly die if he just left it here, from suffocation or hunger, but if he just brings it over to the sea and releases it there, it will probably get eaten by a bigger fish right away. Especially if he’s right about the white scales and the salmon is actually sick.
It’s no secret that Fundy has a soft spot for fish. For, er, understandable reasons. Fundy doesn’t even eat the fish he catches; only releases them back into the ocean. An empty bucket from his inventory is just the right size to fit fish and some water for it. That will do. At least until Fundy finds an aquarium to put it in.
As Fundy carries the bucket, he finds, multiple times, the salmon intensely staring at him. There is something too conscious about it in contrast to usually empty fish eyes. It makes him pause in his step, look closer.
Fundy’s ears flick at the sound of a hoof hitting the ground. All doubts he has disappear on their own.
Fundy brings the fish home, unaware of the smirking admin watching him from a distance.
