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The crater of L'Manberg was very gigantic and void-like, and not really a place someone would want to go there for a picnic, on the edge or on top of the glass that covers the hole.
It would be a very off-putting thing indeed. But Tommy thinks nothing can be more off-putting than the man in green hoodie looking at him, his hand an inch away from Tommy's cheek as if he could just close the distance and cup his face like a loving brother.
Or he could also slap you, his mind supplied.
Or twist your neck in half, his other voice giggled, as if they were playing a game of Guess Who?
Thankfully, Dream settled for the first one, and Tommy traitorously leaned into it, the repulsive but comforting touch almost forcing a sob out of him.
He seemed on the edge of breaking down everytime something happened, even if it had no significant meaning to it.Today, he dropped a stack of his bread on the ground and almost broke down in hysterical tears.
Forcing himself not to yearn for the touch when Dream retracted his hand, he looked down immediately and tried to focus on his breathing, convincing himself that his scrap of a bandana wasn't choking him.
"Do we have to do this here?" He asks.
Dream sighed, sounding tired, and Tommy hopes he doesn't get another slap to the face. "The dramatic sense, Tommy! What use is it if you don't do it right? Don't be a baby Tommy."
" 'm not a baby," he mumbled as quiet as possible. "Is he safe?"
Now Dream was really starting to sound annoyed. "Yes, I just rowed the kid back in the morning. I even snapped a picture of it. Can you ever be grateful of the things I did for you?"
The urge to cry was returning. Tommy was used to scolding. It wasn't as if he didn't get a death stare at every corner he took, but this thing was new to him, and Tommy just had to get used to another painful thing in life.
So he merely swallowed down the tight, sour sensation at the back of his throat and said, "No, I'm sorry Dream. Thank you."
"Good. And I was so kind to take you here as your last chance to see him too."
Part of Tommy wanted to yell Dream, to punch and hit him that he wasn't kind to kidnap Michael and use the kid as a leverage to get Tommy, but he only bow his head lower in submission.
He then hears Dream say, "Technoblade might be here any minute anyway. I'll leave for now." He pierced Tommy with one of his sharp glares, "And don't even try anything."
Maybe younger Tommy would have, but this Tommy was much more pathetic and weak now, and he wouldn't even think of trying a thing.
He feels the thumping footsteps of netherite boots fade away and decides to fashion himself a wooden bench, the exact same as the other one up the hill just outside his house. He hopes Dream wouldn't mind this small thing, and slumps onto the seat, the two items in his inventory an invisible weight on his tense shoulders.
"Please come, Techno. For the last time I'll be seeing you, I hope you come," he whispered, voice too tired to be louder any longer.
Technoblade stared at the plain paper in his hands, the words much more tidier than the last time he's read this handwriting.
I have something to return to you, Techno. I would come to you instead but I could not, because Dream might come and hunt me down and you know I fight like shit in the snow. Pretty pathetic of me, I know. Believe me, I wanted to march up to your house and deliver the items to you like a big man. I really did.
But could you please come to the crater of L'Manberg one last time? I will wait for you there, in the middle of the crater on the glass. There are some things I want to say before you and I leave this all in the past forever. Even if you're busy, can you come? Just today? I-
Techno's eyes went more steely as he read on, but his chest was shifting slightly, and he felt a bit uncomfortable. But when Tommy's words got more desperate, he decided to clench his teeth and tear the paper in half.
Without waiting a second for his mind to process it, he threw it in his fireplace. He dimly felt Chat gasp softly, and a tiny buzz of their conversation at the back of his mind. He picked up his trident and strode out into the snow, he footfalls so heavy he was nearly trampling the dead grass instead.
He had no time for Tommy, who just sent him a flimsy letter and hoped Techno had pranced to him for a "talk" and some "items" he wanted to return to him. (Chat was buzzing even more loudly now, and his gut churned even more, but he ignored it.)
He had more pressing matters to tend to, someone else who actually cared for him.
A few feet away, the door was thrown open to reveal the smiling grin of Ghostboo. His grin calms down the storm in his chest, and he dimly recalled a someone who made him feel this way just little over a year ago.
It felt like a long time ago now.
Tommy waited. He waited all day, and waited as the day turned to afternoon then evening, turned to night, to midnight, and then to the rise of dawn. He hadn't eaten the whole time he waited, but he had no appetite. He didn't move an inch from his seat, only sightly when night came and he cowered a little from the cold.
When it was clear Techno was never coming, he felt like crying again. Wailing like a child pathetically, for someone to pick them up and rock them to sleep, in the arms of warmth and safety.
But Tommy does not cry. He can not, can never cry. Only people who deserve to cry can cry. He feels like the biggest fuck-up, the biggest fool, to not even deserve to cry.
How can someone fail to the point where they don't even deserve to cry and feel sad for themselves?
He can, apparently. Him, the biggest fool in the world.
So he takes in a deep, slow breath and places a chest beside the bench. With leaden arms, he takes out a block of bedrock and a blue disc, Wait.
I waited, Techno.
I waited all day and night.
I waited and waited like a fool for you.
He wants to pull the two items to his chest and cry his heart out, sob his remaining energy away and maybe die from his hysterical heart pumping too fast or the lack of energy, but he can't, so he slips the items into the chest and labels them "Technoblade's" with a singular oak sign he's prepared just in case. He's also left a note in his house just in case Phil come over, and tells him to come here to collect the items if Techno fails to show up.
I'm sorry, he adds at the end of the note and feels bitter and sad that he recently keeps saying that to everyone. To himself.
Finally, he let himself break down into tears that rocked his body that wouldn't stop. In the haze of it, he had took back out the disc and curled his knees up to his chest with it, rocking his body back and forth. He couldn't breathe, could talk, could only sob until the sun fully rised, and the bitterness of a whole day starting again pains him even more that he has to go along with it and not remain dead asleep to the world for an eternity.
He held Wait in his arms gently and nearly choked on his breathlessness when he tried laughing at the irony of the name.
He stared at the disc until Dream came back, a pitying smile on his face as he forces him to eat some bread (unlike the gentleness Techno had when he tried to convince Tommy to eat after taking him in) and tugs him away from the bench, the crater, his home.
I waited, Techno.
I would've waited forever for you. If you had come, I would spend hours upon hours of apologies for you, no matter now insignificant those may be to you.
I waited.
But you never came.
(Techno has more important things to do, he tells himself.
To tend to Ranboo and Michael.
And Tommy...
Tommy's just not important enough.
LIES, his chat screams. LIES. LIES LIES.)
The liar and the fool. What a pair they make.