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T.S. Eliot was a liar and a fucking prick, Tommy has decided. Not just because the man had written a 434-line poem, bloody hell, but also because The Wasteland spreads lies and slander. Tommy has scribbled out the first line in his copy with dark black ink and scrawled next to it: Wrong, you bitch. January is the cruelest month.
It is an hour past midnight on a cold winter night, and Tommy closes his eyes and pictures himself a year ago, or tries to, at least. He had probably been at his childhood house fast asleep or scrolling on his phone. That had been before he’d moved into this very room, before he’d graduated high school, before college decisions had even come out. Maybe year-ago-Tommy had been dreaming. Maybe he had not. Either way, he’d been just as alone as current-day-Tommy is now.
The boy sighs and slams the cover of The Complete Poems of T.S. Eliot shut.
Outside, the snow falls gently but mercilessly. There will be ice on the ground tomorrow. He’ll have to wear his boots.
Tommy hoists himself up onto his half-lofted bed and throws his phone under his pillow. Normally, he would scroll mindlessly for another half hour or two. Today, though, something stops him.
He looks across the room toward his dormmate’s bed—empty. The usual. Probably out with his friends from the rowing team again.
Tommy bites his lip and burrows himself under his comforter, hoping that sleep comes to him quick. He doesn’t want to think about January anymore.
---
Tommy regrets ever thinking a nine A.M. would be better than an eight A.M. class.
He slides into a seat at the back of the lecture hall with groggy disdain for anything and everything. The granola bar he’d eaten on the way sits like a rock in his stomach. Washing it down with water would be the smart thing to do, but in his hurry out of his room this morning, his water bottle got left behind.
So instead, he licks his dry lips and tries to keep his eyes from falling shut.
Around him, two hundred students whisper to their friends in neighboring seats. It’s only the second week back after break. Most of the students still have that beginning-of-the-semester energy about them.
At 9:02, Dr. Craft clears his throat into his microphone until the chatter falls away.
“Welcome back, everyone,” he says with a warm smile. How does he do it? How is he ever able to smile this early in the day? Maybe he injects coffee bean juice straight to his veins. “Hope you all had a nice first weekend back. Let’s dive right in, today, okay? We’ve got a lot to cover in the next fourteen weeks.”
Tommy looks around at the enormous hall. Everyone else pulls out their iPads and notebooks. It takes a second for him to follow suit. He doesn’t really feel like learning about biology today.
But then again… when does he feel like learning at all these days?
The thought makes him freeze up, but he dismisses it quickly in order to begin taking his notes.
---
The dining hall is designed for people to eat and socialize, but Tommy only goes to do one of those things. He gets his food and wanders trying to find a place to sit.
He ignores the dread and coldness beneath his skin. It embraces him wholeheartedly, though, and fills his veins with ice when he sees all the other students laughing at tables, often in enormous groups of people.
He can’t remember the last time he talked to anyone outside of class-related matter. Every lab partner and presentation group he’s been assigned to never sticks around after it’s done.
As he stares at the seating area, a group of two girls gets up from their table near the window. Quickly, Tommy swoops in after they leave, sliding into the seat. He eats bad dining hall food and scrolls through his Spotify.
Join a club, the Internet has said when he typed in the miserable, pathetic question of how to make friends at a big university. Leave your dorm room door open. Find people with similar interests.
Tommy had tried all that in the fall semester when people still laid outside in the sunshine. And no clubs really appealed to people who only studied, listened to music, and slept. He’d gone to several meetings for a music history club, but had quickly splintered off.
He thinks he’s always been five steps behind everyone else here, watching as they all walk away.
It doesn’t matter, he tries to assure himself. He has studying to do, and a T. S. Eliot poem to hate.
---
It happens on a Thursday.
Tommy is absolutely exhausted. He spent the entire evening the prior day catching up on homework. He finished stupid Eliot’s stupid poem, wrote an essay, did his physics pre-lab assignment, and made flashcards about philosophers. Needless to say, he kind of never wants to see the words Socrates, centripetal acceleration, or modernism ever again.
He just needs to finish these last couple classes of the day, and then he can go back to his dorm and crash.
The campus is enormous, but its center, a big overlap of many diagonal paths that resemble a spider web, almost, is by far its busiest spot. The tree branches are coated in icicles and crystalline frost. Everything is blanketed in snow. It’s beautiful. The perfect college campus.
People are making snowmen off the paths and chucking snowballs at their friends. Tommy wishes he could join in.
An icicle goes soaring past his head. Someone yelps, “Sorry!”
He almost laughs. January is a bitter month, but new adults fresh out of adolescence can make even the most wicked things fun sometimes.
He’s scanning the people on and off the paths as he walks, admiring the scenery and also the squirrels that wander campus, when it happens. It is a January Thursday, and Tommy’s world ends.
A flash of pink hair. That’s fine, but then Tommy catches sight of the face underneath it and stops dead in his tracks.
His breath catches in his throat. In the time it takes him to stop walking and then start again, a few universes are born. Stars die. Are born. Collapse.
But those eyes… those eyes, which had caught his own—
There have been many circumstances in Tommy’s life where he has found the best thing he can possibly do is just walk away. This is one of them. He turns one hundred eighty degrees on his heel and begins walking back the way he came. Fuck that he has to reroute his way to his biology discussion now, taking the side paths instead of the main. Fuck that it will make him late. Fuck all of this.
Two eyes, dark and intense and knowing, have branded themselves on the back of Tommy’s eyelids.
Fuck. Fuck.
In a school of nearly forty thousand students, he had hoped he might avoid this.
Tommy’s footsteps are sluggish. He runs into someone heading in his direction. They scoff as they move past him. Tommy hardly hears it.
There is bile in his throat. He swallows it back down. He is half submerged in memory.
Tommy does not remember the rest of the walk to class. He gets there a minute and a half late, but the graduate instructor doesn’t seem to notice.
It takes him the entirety of the class to calm himself down and, even then, his foot is tapping against the floor. Whatever he is supposed to have learned today, he hasn’t.
I won’t go that way again, he thinks, but that’s stupid. He’s stupid.
He skips physics.
He takes the long way back to his dorm. Just in case. And then he curls up on the top of his bed, thinking of those eyes and the man behind them. It takes everything within him not to throw up. Phantom memories of pain lance up his ribs, curling around his collarbone and tugging. His bones want to dismantle themselves. They’re bruised, but they’re not. He’s in pain, but he’s really not. He’s a wreck.
No one but himself bears witness to his inevitable panic attack, and for that he is thankful.
---
“Techno?” Wilbur says, and Techno pretends he doesn’t hear it as he breaks away from looking at Tommy’s retreating shadow.
“Techno,” Wilbur repeats, because they’re stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. Students are filing around them but giving them dirty looks as they do so.
“Hmm?” Techno forces his legs into motion and keeps walking.
Wilbur kicks into gear behind him and, in two long strides, is already caught up. His legs are too long, Techno thinks. It’s almost unfair.
“Fuck you mean ‘hmm’? Who was that kid?” Wilbur says. So insistent.
“Nobody. Some kid from my high school.” The words burn Techno’s throat. He feels sick.
Wilbur’s eyes light up. “Is he a freshman? Looks like a freshman. A deer in headlights, kinda. You get me?”
“Yeah,” Techno says bitterly. “I was a senior when he was a sophomore.”
The instrument case Wilbur is carrying keeps hitting his leg as he walks. It creates a steady sort of rhythm. Thump. Step. Thump. Step. “Did you know each other? He looked terrified to see you.”
Like someone has seized him by the shoulders and shook him, Techno’s heart ricochets about in his chest. He’d seen it, too—the fear, the pain, the betrayal in Tommy’s pale blue eyes…
“I don’t know,” he dismisses. “We didn’t… didn’t talk much.”
Wilbur blinks. Then blinks again. The snow crunching under both their boots fills the silence.
“Are you lying to me, Tech-no-blade?” Wilbur draws each syllable out.
“No,” Techno says sharply, if a bit frantically. “No. Just… drop it, please.”
Wilbur does. For a moment. Then he asks, cautiously, “What’s his name?”
It’s Techno’s turn to hesitate. Memories he’d hoped to bury forever begin to claw their way out of their dirt graves.
They’re outside the building Techno’s class is in. Wilbur stops, anticipating. Around them, students pour out of the heated building and into the cold as others do the exact opposite.
“Tommy,” Techno says. He hasn’t said the name out loud in ages.
Wilbur pauses a moment, then grins. He waggles his fingers in a teasing goodbye. “Have fun in class, Techno. See you later, Techno.”
Techno enters the languages building and tries to ignore the feeling that he’s just boarded a sinking ship.
---
2 missed calls from Mom
1 new voicemail from Mom
7 messages from Mom
1 message from Dad
Tommy’s eyes catch the glow of the screen. He sees the calls, the messages, the voicemails. He loves his parents. Really, he does. But they don’t know him anymore. They haven’t since he was in elementary school. He loves them like how he loves the moon and the sun, grateful that they’re there, but never really on the same scale as them.
And they love like him how parents love their children, but really nothing more than that. They’re busy. They work, they cook, they love him. It’s just another task.
But loving and living are two separate things, and Tommy’s life is not the same as his parents’.
Lying to them comes as easily as breathing.
I’m fine. School’s good. Sorry I can’t take your calls, I’m sick. Just a cold. He replies to each little message. Thank you. Love you. Miss you.
Home isn’t here, but it’s definitely not there, either.
Lately, Tommy has been set adrift.
---
For two weeks, everything is normal.
Or, well, what Tommy considers to be normal.
Meals by himself. Walks by himself. Classes by himself.
That familiar feeling of loneliness turns him numb. He hangs his head as he walks between classes and to study spots, trying to keep from making eye contact with anyone. Especially Techno…
The name itself is like a poison. Previously, it had been under lock and key deep, deep in his mind. But it’s escaped. He pushes it down, tries to suffocate it, but it’s a losing battle.
Because now it’s all come rushing back to him. This is exactly what he had feared might happen if he chose to come here. Lo and behold, the day has arrived.
Two weeks of nothing happening, though, is almost enough to persuade him everything might be fine. He even ventures downtown for a coffee—from the good shop, not the shitty little university-run one in the student union.
He pulls out his laptop, buries his nose in his notes, and retrieves his coffee when they call out the order name. It’s cold against his palm, running an electric shock down his system. So what… sue him for getting iced coffee in the midst of winter. It’s his money, his treat for himself. And it’s not as if he has anyone around to tease or scold him for his decisions, anyways.
The smell of the café is heavenly, full of cinnamon, mocha, matcha, and honey, and it’s full of people working silently by themselves, too. For the first time in a long time, he feels comfortable. Like he belongs here—as a background prop, sure, but at least he belongs. He can almost pretend the other patrons are like him in other ways, that maybe they don’t have friends waiting for them, either.
All his imagining comes to a horrible crash, though, when someone clears their voice from behind his seat. He turns, expecting to hear, hey man, can I steal that chair or are you using that outlet by any chance.
What he does not anticipate is the grin of the man behind him. He’s a tall fellow. Tommy’s sitting, too, so he has to crane his neck to get a good look.
“Can I help you?” he asks slowly.
“Oh, I’m not sure quite yet.” If it’s possible, the man’s grin grows wider.
Tommy sighs. “I don’t carry any cash. Sorry, really.”
Immediately, the man’s smile falls into a confused grimace. It’s nearly comical. “Oh, no—no, I don’t want money.”
“Um,” Tommy says, then glances around the shop. No one is looking at him. It’s a quiet café, sure, but there are still plenty of people holding conversations over steaming cups of coffee, so they’re not drawing any attention.
“Sorry. Sorry, let me start over.” The man extends a hand expectantly and says with yet another smile, “I’m Wilbur Soot.”
Tommy looks at the hand, then looks up to the self-proclaimed-Wilbur-Soot it belongs to, and pointedly does not return the handshake. “Is this a money laundering scheme or something?”
For a second, Wilbur stares at him, but then he bursts out laughing. That does grab some customers’ attention. The man mouths, apologetically, sorry, sorry, then looks back at Tommy. “Mind if I sit?” He points at the chair opposite Tommy’s.
It’s a small, two-person table. Honestly, Tommy does mind. But at the same time, something in him leans forward, hoping, praying that maybe this is going to be the moment everything works out. Where this guy says something like, I’ve noticed you around campus before. You’re always by yourself. Don’t worry, that’s not a bad thing. I don’t have friends, either, you know. I’m just as lonely as you. What are you working on? What did you order? Maybe, maybe, maybe.
So, Tommy says, though still a bit hesitant, “Go for it, man.”
Wilbur smiles graciously and slides into the chair. He folds his legs and leans forward like he’s someone Tommy has known his entire life, like this is a standard conversation between two perfectly acquainted friends.
“I don’t think you know what money laundering is.”
Tommy shrugs, trying hard to seem like he is effortlessly amusing. He settles on saying, “Pyramid schemes and shit, innit?”
Wilbur laughs again. “You know, you’re funny. I thought you might not be, the way my friend reacted to you.”
And just like that, the make-believe is gone. Tommy’s blood turns cold. Plenty of words and half-sentences rise to the tip of his tongue, but his mouth is numb. All he can manage to say: “What?”
“Oh, no! No! Don’t take it wrong, Tommy—your name is Tommy, right?”
Tommy flinches, suddenly very scared. His hands have a tremble to them. No one knows his name. No one here even knows he exists. He’s just the number on his student ID. He’s a ghost, a spectator, a background character.
“Oh, I’ve messed it all up. Here. No,” Wilbur mutters, shaking his head. His dark curls shake with it. “I have a good friend, Technoblade; you probably know him, maybe? And I was walking with him when you saw him on the sidewalk the other day. Kinda by the math building, you know where? And he seemed to know you! I just wanted to see what made you react like that. He’s a good friend, but he never mentioned you before, or much about high school at all really—”
Tommy’s full body is shaking now. Slowly, as Wilbur continues to talk, Tommy closes his laptop and pulls it toward him, placing it in his backpack.
“–so, I just thought I’d approach!”
Tommy doesn’t even bother to zip his backpack. He stands abruptly, and isn’t that odd, to be the one towering over Wilbur now, who only stares at him as if caught in a trap.
“I have to go.” The second the words leave Tommy’s mouth, he rips himself away from the disaster scene, taking his backpack and coffee with him. He practically surges forth towards the door.
The icy air hits him like a wall. Thankfully, he’d left his coat on, just not buttoned. Still, his breath fogs as he rushes down the city streets.
I have a good friend, Technoblade. The words echo over and over and over again in Tommy’s mind.
He lurches into a side alley just in case, breaths coming far too fast. His eyes squeeze shut tight.
Hands around his collar, slamming him against brick just like this. Laughter, a chorus of it. Tommy, before he was a ghost, was just food for the wolves.
He gasps, sinking to the gravel underfoot. The alleyway is actually employee parking for one of the businesses near here, he realizes, but thankfully there are no cars in it. It’s a Sunday.
It’s almost pathetic how easily his body curls into a ball, knees pressed tight to his chest. It’s like instinct. Like surrender.
Tommy came to college to escape his past, but part of it has resurfaced.
This is better than that, he tries to assure himself. This is nothing like bruises on his ribs, hands around his collar, or awful words spat at him.
Besides, he’s an adult now, isn’t he? He’s eighteen. He’s supposed to be all grown up.
So why does he feel so much like a child?
He doesn’t cry, but he comes close to it, throat aching and eyes stinging. Even if he did cry, the tears would probably freeze on his face. It’s frigid. January is the cruelest month, full of failed new beginnings.
Tommy doesn’t like to admit defeat, but here, in a gravel drive on a cold winter weekend, he does, just a little bit, just for himself.
He was supposed to make a new life for himself here, to make friends and finally be happy. Everyone else makes that look so easy. But it isn’t. Not for Tommy.
He burrows his face further in his arms.
“Tommy?”
The voice pumps dread into his chest. Because it is not Wilbur’s.
He looks up and sees two eyes, golden-honey-amber, a color Tommy has never quite had the guts to call just brown. Because Technoblade has never been just anything.
And, of course, there he stands in all his glory, looming at the alley’s opening. Tommy could run the other direction. He considers it briefly, but there’s hardly any fight left in him. All of that was beaten out of him in high school.
Techno, golden student, valedictorian of his year, the witness to Tommy’s misery, seems to be in shock. His lips have parted. Each exhale is a puff of smoke. Behind him, Wilbur shuffles back and forth, switching his weight from one foot to the other, obviously freezing.
Tommy gets to his own feet before anyone can say anything. “I’m fine.” A familiar lie, but a good one.
He grabs his backpack and coffee off the ground. “I’m fine.”
He starts to walk back toward the main street, passing Techno and Wilbur. “I’m fine.”
A hand grabs him by the shoulder, not harshly but actually rather gentle. Tommy flinches violently all the same and turns to see Technoblade.
They’re the same height now, after all these years.
Techno’s eyes are full of some emotion Tommy cannot place. “If you keep saying that, I don’t think you are.”
Tommy’s breath hitches in his lungs. The world seems suddenly very, very tiny.
“Goodbye, Techno,” he says, and shoves himself out of the man’s reach.
The man he once thought could be his ally in war only watches as he goes.
---
Phil Craft has never considered himself a stellar parent. He gets the job done and he does it with love, of course, but he’s not sure if he does it right. Especially when his son is currently laying sprawled across the top of one of the lecture hall desks, thumbs on his phone screen which he has dangling over his head an arm’s length away. It’s definitely not proper classroom etiquette, but Phil’s scolding will do absolutely nothing.
Still, he warns, “Mate, you’re gonna drop that phone on your head.”
“Am not, Dad.” Each word is drawn out and painful to listen to.
“Okay, Wilbur Soot.” Phil snickers, similarly drawing out each word.
Wilbur keeps scrolling through his phone. “Craft is lame. I took the fridge’s last name.”
“For fuck’s sake, Wil, you’re adopted. I did not have a child with a refrigerator.”
“How dare you,” says Wilbur, but it’s dull. By this time of day, he’s ordinarily bouncing off the walls with energy, anxious to go get dinner. Today, something is different. Phil just can’t place it, exactly.
Instead of making this an interrogation, Phil tries to subtly redirect the conversation as he puts the few remaining papers into his briefcase. “Soooo… anything new happen lately?”
Wilbur stops scrolling. He sits straight up, dropping the phone into his lap, and blinks. “What. Are you doing.”
Phil smiles innocently. “What do you mean?”
Wilbur quirks an eyebrow, tilting his head. “You never ask if anything is new. You learned to stop doing that when I kept saying I was doing drugs.”
“Well, I knew you weren’t.”
“Crack cocaine, Dad. And you think it’s a joke. How dare you.”
Phil sighs. “You shit. What are you thinking for dinner?”
Wilbur gives an enormous grin, but it’s somewhat forced. “There’s the question of the hour. I’m thinking… oysters and snow crab.”
“Go catch it yourself and it’s a deal.”
With a dramatic groan, Wilbur clambers off the desk and sets his feet on the tile below. “What about that new salad bowl place?”
“That’s glorified rabbit food, Wil,” Phil says. He shuts off the lecture hall lights with the switch.
“It sounds good!”
“How about sushi?”
When Phil doesn’t get a response, he looks back at his son walking behind him out of the lecture hall doors. Wilbur is staring at his phone, suddenly very focused.
“Wil?”
The boy’s head jerks up. “What? Sorry.”
“Sushi?”
Wilbur nods emphatically. “Sounds good.” Immediately, his attention is back on his phone.
Phil has always been more of a laid-back professor, and he guesses that same sentiment extends toward his parenting, too. He manages to wait until they’re both in the car, seat belts buckled, before he can no longer resist asking, “Who’re you texting?”
“Techno,” Wilbur says softly, half-distracted still.
Phil knows Techno, of course. Good kid. “Oh, yeah? How’s he doing?”
“He’s—” Wilbur trails off, and then suddenly looks to his father. “Dad, do you have a Tommy Innit in any of your classes?”
“Wil, please, every class I teach has at least two hundred people.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Wilbur bites his lip. “I dunno, Techno knows him from high school but it’s… weird. I only figured out his last name from an online roster of students. They avoid each other like the plague. Like, bubonic.”
Phil starts the car and pulls out of the parking spot. “If it’s from high school, it could just be some petty drama. Teenagers are just like that. You were, too.”
“No,” Wilbur sighs. “Not petty drama. Not this bad. I don’t know.”
He actually seems worried about it, Phil realizes, whatever it is. He takes a hand off the wheel and ruffles Wilbur’s hair. “It’s a big college, mate. They’re not in high school anymore.”
“But Tommy—he just—” Wilbur’s eyes glaze over a little before they refocus, more intent than before. “He seems so small. So timid. There’s nothing about him anywhere. No clubs. No mentions in papers. No social media.”
Phil directs the car onto a main street after turning out of the lot. “He might just be introverted. But I’ll see if he’s a student of mine, okay? I can’t ask him personal questions about that stuff with Tech, though.”
“I know, I know. But… Techno’s always told me everything. Nothing like this has ever happened with him before. It’s strange.”
“Try not to get too hung up on it, okay?” Phil says.
Wilbur nods.
The car ride falls into comfortable silence. Wilbur keeps glancing at his phone.
---
Technoblade’s roommates are a far cry from organized, but they do help with cleaning. Their little apartment is neat, not perfect, but neat. Pearl usually keeps Grian and Scar in check, because even though the three of them are always out and about, they do have a role in maintaining the apartment, as she makes sure they know.
Techno is naturally organized, or so everyone else says, but it’s a force of habit, honestly. He’s never owned many possessions, and so it’s easy to keep his space clean.
As he works on homework for English, sitting in the middle of the living room, typing away on his laptop, he can’t help but notice how sterile the place is beginning to feel. White-walled, carpeted floors. It feels a bit like a school.
Techno blinks, promptly ripping his attention away from that.
Instead, he turns it back to his laptop. A laptop he’s had since junior year of high school. Full of files in folders he’s never deleted.
He gnaws on his lip for a moment, then minimizes the Word document he’s currently writing an essay on Irish literature in the 19th century in. He clicks the little file folder, then waits, heart pumping blood sporadically, heartbeat all off-kilter.
It takes him a moment to navigate from Desktop to School to Past Years and then to 12th Grade. There are a few dozen little icons of documents staring back at him. It doesn’t even remotely compare to the number of things he’s downloaded during college, of course, but it does make him have to search a bit.
Then, with a jittery hand, he double clicks on the .docx file titled Letter to Administration.
To whom it may concern, it begins, and Techno always has been a formal writer, hasn’t he?
I know you may not know me, and that’s alright. I reach out in anonymity today to make you aware of a situation in County Park High School.
Techno scoffs. Of all the schools he’s been to, that one had the stupidest name he’d ever heard of.
There is one Tommy Innit, a sophomore currently attending within the district.
Techno remembers how difficult this had been to write, how he had to keep writing, backspacing, rewriting, and deleting. It’s stupid, looking back on it now, how he danced around the topic. He should have said what was happening from the first sentence. Still, the words he knows await him greet him, and if they had teeth, they might have been baring them in a wicked smile.
Lately, I have witnessed him being verbally and physically harassed by several other members of the student body. This is a repeated offense, and I find it important that I let you know the individuals behind this act.
Here, he lists a bunch of names that have blurred into obscurity over the years. Their faces are all smudged in his mind, nothing more than spirits from his past. Their fists and their brutality, though, he remembers, sharp and painful and clearer than crystal.
The world tips and rights itself. Techno is dizzy.
I hope you can determine the proper repercussions that these students should face. After many incidents of this happening, Tommy deserves to go about his day like any other high schooler.
Thank you,
A concerned senior
Techno’s breaths are bitter and tense. The words from his past have ignited something deep in his chest, a spark he wasn’t sure was there anymore, but now he recalls it well. How, when he saw Tommy pressed against the locker, being told that he wasn’t worth anything, that he should throw himself off a bridge or something, that he’d be more of use that way, Techno had been angry. Livid, even.
His life is a series of dominoes, like everyone else’s, but his had somehow fallen so that he’d been seemingly the sole witness to the bullying.
And he’d done nothing.
Techno slams his laptop shut. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes.
He owes an apology, but he’s not even sure there are any words to express the turmoil and guilt that have eaten at his ribs for the past three years. But all of that pales in comparison to whatever he put Tommy through.
He wishes he could go back in time and shake himself, yell at the younger version he used to be, and say to just throw a punch, damn it, or intercede, or even just go get a fucking teacher.
There is no such thing as time travel, though, and so things are as they are.
---
Tommy is going to fail freshman biology, one of the easiest classes at this university, because his head always feels on the brink of a migraine and he can barely focus anymore. There’s an exam next week, the first week of February, and he is going to fail this class.
In a desperate attempt to get himself to pay more attention, he switches from the back row to the third from the front. Of course, there’s no assigned seating, but a pair of goth guys stop when they see him sitting there and redirect. They keep looking back at him for the first ten minutes of class.
Tommy chews on his pen cap as he stares at the slides. Dr. Craft explains them well. No one else seems to be struggling, but the words filter in through one of Tommy’s ears and out through the other.
By the end of class, he’s staring at his own notes in horrified confusion. What the fuck.
At 9:50, everyone starts standing up, anxious to use the ten minutes to get to their next classes or the dining halls or whatnot, even as the professor continues to talk over them.
“—don’t forget to study. Office hours today at 3. I’d like to see more of your smiling faces there. And, oh yes, Tommy Innit, will you please come to the front up here?”
Tommy’s head snaps upward. The biology professor he has never even spoken to, who he assumed didn’t even know his name, is staring at him.
Tommy flounders for a moment, completely at a loss. Then, with limbs moving stiff as boards, he stands up and walks down the lecture hall stairs to the front desk.
“Um,” he says, his throat hoarse. He clears it, shifting his weight between his feet. “I’m Tommy.”
The professor unclips his microphone from his shirt and sets it on the desk. “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble.” He gives a smile. It’s soft. Kind. The guy has consistent 5-star ratings on RateMyProfessor. Why the fuck is this happening?
“Did I do something wrong?” Tommy would assume if he’d forgotten about an assignment or something the man could have just emailed him. This is ludicrous, whatever this is.
“No, no, of course not.” The man shrugs his shoulders. “I just had a student who wanted me to check in with you. Are you doing okay?”
“Um,” says Tommy, still at a loss. Who the hell even cares enough about him to ask a damn professor to keep him after class? “Yes?”
The man’s brows furrow a bit. “I’m not making you late to a class, am I?”
“No, no,” Tommy assures. He hesitates a moment, then adds, “I think I’m just a bit confused is all.”
“Oh!” Dr. Craft’s forehead wrinkles. “Do you have questions about the material?”
Every word gets stuck in Tommy’s throat. “Well, um. That, too, I guess.” Embarrassment burns his face.
“Anything I can help you with? Not just school. If you’re not feeling your best, I can also refer you to the university health services or the counseling center, if you need it.”
Frantically, Tommy shakes his head. “No, I don’t need any of that. Thank you, though.” He probably does need it, but he doesn’t want to tell one of his fucking professors that. Slowly, he musters the ability to say, “I did have a few questions about the… protein salt bridges. And all that.” There are students beginning to file in for the 10 A.M. class, so he makes sure to say, “It’s okay if you’re busy, of course.”
“No, it’s no problem at all!” Dr. Craft’s eyes crinkle at the edges. “If you have longer questions, how about you shoot me an email? Or, if you’re comfortable, you can come to office hours. I offer them virtually, too.”
Tommy opens his mouth to say he’ll email, then pauses, considering. “Actually, I… I might. Thanks.”
“Anytime. See you later, hopefully?” The professor phrases it as a question, to which Tommy nods.
“Yeah. Have a good day,” he says before he starts climbing up the stairs, fighting against the swarm of people heading down to take their seats.
---
Tommy fights his own anxiety in the dining hall, guiltily taking up a four-person booth because all the double-seating tables are full.
He swallows down a bowl of half-cooked broccoli and beef. It sits like lead in his stomach. He looks around at the people eating near him as they chat with their friends. On the televisions, they’re playing footage of the school’s football recaps. A table goes up in a victorious roar as they watch the clip picturing the defeat of their rival school.
Tommy remembers his high school teachers all telling him he’d have a ton of fun at such a big sports school. It has some of the best teams in the nation, after all. But Tommy had never been a big football guy. Or hockey. Or basketball.
He’d come for the academics, and because this was a school where, no matter what program he ended up choosing, it would be good. He thought it would make him feel more confident declaring his major.
How far that is from the truth. With forty thousand people living their lives around him, he feels smaller than an ant. He’s still undeclared. Still clueless.
He takes the classes his advisor had suggested. Some science, some humanities. “See what you like in a broader sense,” she’d suggested, “and we can narrow it down from there.”
The problem is that Tommy isn’t liking anything. Not biology, not English, not philosophy, and not physics. And the same goes for all the classes he had taken last semester.
Freshman year is over in a few months, too, and then it’s summer. And then what? He can’t come back and do a repeat of another clueless, undeclared year.
His beef and broccoli tastes like glue. He deposits his bowl and fork in the dish return and then trudges out the dining hall and into the snow.
---
It’s a Thursday, so he has his bio discussion at 11 and then a 2-hour physics lecture right after. Seventeen credit hours seems doable until Tommy has to fight for his life in the snow to get between buildings. After physics, though, he has an hour until Dr. Craft’s office hours. He spends it in the undergraduate library, sipping on a hot chocolate from the student-run café and flipping through his biology notes.
Lunch was a while ago now, but he still feels a pit in his stomach. He’s never gone to a class’s office hours before. Usually, he just uses the Internet and his own textbooks to try to get him back up to speed. It doesn’t work very well.
At 2:55, he checks and rechecks the biology syllabus, heads over to the room it lists, checks he has it right again, and notices that he is the only one out in the hallway. Huh. He would’ve thought more people would come to the office hours with the exam next week.
Then again, he’s probably the only one struggling. He wants to slam his head into the wall. He refrains.
He knocks on the door at 3:02. From within: “Come on in!”
Tommy pushes open the door cautiously.
His professor’s office is smaller than he expected. He would have assumed college professors were more respected than secondary school ones, and in some ways it seems to be true, but they still aren’t given much space to work.
There are several seats opposite Dr. Craft at his desk. Tommy takes one, more than a little anxious.
“Hi, Tommy!” the professor says brightly. “I was hoping to see you in person today.”
Tommy gives a nervous smile back. “Yeah. I mean- do people usually ask questions first or-?”
“Shoot, kid. Whatever you want. My time is your time.”
Tommy purses his lips, then nods. “Okay, um, well, like I said earlier about… about the salt bridges? With the proteins?”
The man asks him to specify a bit, but from there, he guides his explanation easily. He tilts his computer monitor toward Tommy, too, so that the boy can see all the slides and worksheets he refers to as he talks.
The professor uses a lot of terminology Tommy has heard in class, but he also seems to sense Tommy’s confusion. Word by word, he breaks it down even simpler.
For a while, Tommy just keeps thinking to himself, I don’t get it, I don’t get it, but then the thoughts fade away. Oh. Yeah. Wait, this actually makes sense.
The biology professor is kind, understanding. He seems to understand why Tommy could get confused where he did, and he doesn’t shame him or make him feel childish for not knowing things he was supposed to have learned several weeks back. Instead, he just pulls up the slides from then and walks Tommy through it bit by bit.
Every once in a while, Dr. Craft will be the one to ask a question, seeing if Tommy can explain it back to him, and for once, Tommy can. There are a few things he still gets caught up on, but he jots the topics down on a sticky note in his notebook to go back and review.
He’s in the middle of asking another question about one of those said topics when a shadow passes over the office. The professor looks toward the door. His brow furrows.
“Wilbur,” he says, surprised.
Tommy looks backward, following his gaze, and then freezes up.
The tall, brunet guy from the café, Wilbur Soot, is staring at him like he’s walked in on the goddamn elephant’s foot. Jaw slack, eyes wide, clearly startled.
“I’ll- I’ll come back later,” he says, and Tommy’s not sure who he’s talking to, him or the teacher.
Either way, it shocks Tommy back into reality from this little study bubble he’s been in for… for…. He looks at the clock on the wall and sucks in a breath. 5:06. Definitely past when Phil’s office hours had ended.
“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes to his teacher, instantly in a frenzy. He pulls his notebook across the desk and shoves it into his backpack. “I didn’t realize we went so far over.”
“Mate, it’s just a half an hour. I really don’t mind—”
Tommy pauses halfway out the door. In the hallway, he can see Wilbur’s retreating form, and in the office, he can see Dr. Craft’s worried frown.
“I—thank you so much for your time. I really, really, really appreciate it,” Tommy says earnestly. “Can I come back next week, maybe?”
Dr. Craft nods. “Of course. That’s kinda my whole job. To teach. And if you have any questions at all, even if it’s not during office hours, feel free to email me.”
“I will. Thanks,” Tommy says.
Then, he leaves the room and bolts down the hall in the opposite direction Wilbur went.
He races down the stairs from the second floor and toward the main entrance. Now that it’s past five, there is hardly anyone wandering in the building. Tommy’s footsteps echo against the linoleum tile.
Tommy exits the doors and immediately, like a predator stalking its prey in the savannah, Wilbur Soot steps out of the shadows. Tommy has been ambushed like this plenty of times before. He instantly plants himself on the ground, bracing, expecting the shoving, the kicking, the impact—
“Wait!” Wilbur says, desperately, before Tommy can even flinch. “Wait, please. I promise I’m not going to mention Technoblade. Well, except for that, just then. But, please, I just want to talk.”
Tommy’s eyes flit back and forth at people milling about on their way to class. It’s no longer snowing today, but the wind does whip back and forth violently. It makes Tommy’s cheeks sting. “Talk, then.”
A flood of relief crosses Wilbur’s face. “Okay. I really didn’t mean to walk in on you in there, just then. I was just going to see my dad since he wasn’t responding to my texts about dinner.”
Your dad? Tommy mouths in confusion, but it doesn’t matter. Wilbur is still talking.
“Look, I- I don’t mean to scare you. I promise, seeing you in that alley like that, it was awful. I felt horrible. I didn’t know what I said would affect you like that.” He exhales, and it rattles deep in his chest. “Can I please make it up to you? Treat you to a coffee? Or a- a hot cocoa or something? On me. I swear I won’t act like I did last time.”
Tommy inhales sharply through his teeth. The air is cold against his lips. And a coffee does sound excellent right now. Something warm.
Maybe… maybe it won’t go as badly this time. This guy does look like Tommy rammed a sword through his chest or something. Those watery brown eyes are absolutely pitiful.
“Okay,” Tommy agrees, the words vanishing in the air as smoke.
“Perfect,” Wilbur says, grinning wildly. “Do you want to go that same café?”
That’s where the expensive coffee is. Tommy nods. He might as well get the good stuff if someone else is paying, even if it does mean a further walk.
They begin the trek over, thankfully walking with the wind and not against it.
For a moment, no one speaks. Wilbur’s hair blows wildly about despite the beanie he wears doing its best.
“So,” the man breathes. Tommy tenses, readying, only to hear, “Any more classes for the day?”
“No,” Tommy says, if a bit warily. He sniffs.
“You’re a freshman, right? All those gen eds and weeder classes. Ugh. I remember hating that.”
Tommy, who had been anticipating silence, is suddenly drawn into the conversation. “You like the upper-level classes more?”
“Oh, yeah,” Wilbur says. “Junior year is so much better. The specific classes are definitely more interesting than the general ones. And way less people are enrolled, too.”
“Huh,” Tommy says.
“It gets better. Don’t worry,” Wilbur assures, like it’s just a small nugget of knowledge and not the exact thing Tommy had been hoping to hear one day.
Still, Tommy can’t get all buddy-buddy with this guy just out of the blue. This is Technoblade’s friend, he has to remember, so he has to be careful what he says.
“I’m assuming you’re in bio? Since you were in office hours, I mean,” Wilbur says.
“Yeah.” Tommy bobs his head up and down. They turn a corner onto a side street. “But… you mentioned… your dad…?”
“Oh! Right.” Wilbur laughs. “The professor is my dad.”
“Oh,” Tommy says, somewhat dumbly. He should have guessed that. “So do you do biology, too?”
“God, no. I’m a music therapy major.”
“Oh,” Tommy says again. “I just assumed, you know, science ran in the family?”
Wilbur grins. “Everyone says that. Then I tell them I’m adopted, and they look like they want to self-implode.”
Tommy kind of feels like that, too, but he doesn’t admit it.
“What about you?” Wilbur says.
“Hmm?”
“You have a major yet?”
Dejectedly, Tommy whispers, “No, I’m not sure.”
“I was in the same boat for a semester. I remember them signing me up for all those science classes. I wanted to tear my hair out.”
Tommy glances over at Wilbur, who walks confidently. Who seems like he’s had his major picked out his whole life. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” Wilbur smiles, looking directly at Tommy. “I hated that shit. And I played in a band but I never thought I could make a career out of music until one day, bam, I met a music therapy major. And all of a sudden, I kept thinking about switching into the School of Music. And then I just did.”
“Science and the Arts lost a brave soul that day,” Tommy can’t help but joking.
Wilbur laughs. “No, I think they hated me.”
Tommy hasn’t even thought of transferring within the university to another school. He’s surprised by how much the idea entices him.
They arrive at the coffee shop in record time, probably because they’re both quite long-legged, even if Wilbur still towers over Tommy.
“After you,” says the musician, holding the door open for Tommy.
The warm, sweet smell of glorious caffeine is like a flashing welcome sign. Tommy lets out an enormous sigh.
Tommy picks out the drink he wants as they wait in line, pointing out the sign. A latte, warm for once instead of iced. At the counter, Wilbur orders it along with a London Fog for himself.
“Anything else?” the barista says.
“You want anything to eat?” Wilbur asks Tommy, pointing at the glass display case.
Tommy hesitates, then says, “Can I get a chocolate croissant, please? Warmed.”
The barista nods and adds it to the order. The total rings up, Wilbur pays, and then they sit down, waiting for the name to be called.
“You said you’re in a band?” The words slip from Tommy’s tongue before he can stop them.
Wilbur’s eyes light up. “Yeah. It’s kinda small. Just me and a few other students. But I play guitar.”
“Do you have your music on Spotify?”
Wilbur nods. “Hand me your phone?”
Tommy does. He gets it back just a moment later, open to a Spotify page newly followed. He thumbs through the discography for a second. They have a humble few thousand listens total, but it’s still impressive. “I’ll have to give it a listen later.”
“Let me know what you think,” Wilbur says, and that gives Tommy pause, because with that comes the assumption that they’ll talk again after this.
Which… if it’s like this and not before… Tommy might not mind.
It’s been so long since he’s had a proper conversation it sort of irks him that he’s not sure if he’s doing it right.
“So, music therapy. What do you do with that?”
Immediately, Wilbur launches into a spiel. It’s very obvious he must be a songwriter, too, since he never runs out of words. He makes it seem so effortless. The only interruption is when he goes to retrieve their order from the counter.
Then, he asks Tommy about his own interests, to which Tommy awkwardly admits that he doesn’t have very many. He doesn’t do sports or play in bands. He likes music. And drawing, too, a little, but he’s not very good at it.
“Oh, man, it doesn’t matter how good you think you are,” Wilbur says. “Art is fucking art, dude.”
Tommy nods slowly.
“So no clubs or anything, then?”
“Nah,” Tommy says softly. “Just school right now.”
Wilbur takes a sip of his drink, then licks the foam off his lip. “Do you get along with your roommate? Mine was a total bitch back in freshman year. I was looking for an apartment two months in.” He laughs.
“He’s- he’s fine,” Tommy says. It’s true. “He’s just not there very often. His sleep schedule is wack. Goes to sleep at fuckin’ 4 A.M. and wakes up at noon. Always out… hanging with friends. I mainly just stay there alone.”
Wilbur has some unreadable emotion spanning his face. “Yeah, that is better than mine. He once came home so drunk that I found him passed out on our rug. Couldn’t even make it to his bed, the insufferable bastard.”
Tommy giggles. It’s unfamiliar. “Probably in a frat now, I assume. Gappa delpha fee? Or something like that.”
Wilbur nearly spits out his drink. He laughs. Loud. They get a few stares.
“Sorry, that got me,” he apologizes to Tommy. He clutches his side.
Tommy smiles back.
“He is a frat guy now, by the way. I’ll tell you what; I would not want to go against him in a drinking contest.”
They talk for a little while longer about more silly, stupid shit. Wilbur has so many stories it makes Tommy’s head spin. The situations he has been in rival the ones that characters in movies endure. He has no idea how someone’s life could ever be so entertaining.
Of course, though, it is the middle of winter, and the sun begins to set outside. The only class Tommy has tomorrow is his physics lab at 1, so it’s almost a shame when Wilbur sets down his empty cup, leans back in his chair, and says, “I should probably get going. I’ve got a monster of a music theory assignment to tackle tonight.”
Something like fear pangs Tommy’s heart. He doesn’t want this to end, he realizes.
“Can we- um,” Tommy starts, terrified he’ll be told no. “Can I give you my phone number? Maybe we can come back sometime.”
Wilbur looks absolutely delighted. “Of course! You’ve gotta try the tea here eventually. It’s severely underrated.”
Tommy nods, maybe looking a bit too enthusiastic, but they both switch phones and input their numbers. Tommy gets it back. The contact is put in as Wilbur with more than several guitar, music note, and coffee cup emojis following it.
They walk back toward the center of campus, then split when Wilbur has to turn left and Tommy right.
Wilbur waves. “I had a blast. Text me, and maybe if you like my music, you can come listen to my band in person!”
On the walk back to his dorm, Tommy already has his earbuds in, discography playing from the top down. He breathes in the frigid air and feels something like warmth take root in his chest.
---
January ends. February begins.
Tommy texts Wilbur often, waiting a couple days before sending a few texts expressing just how good Wilbur’s band is. How he’s an amazing singer. The onslaught of texts Tommy receives almost immediately after makes him grin ear to ear.
Then, he pauses. Lifts a hand to his mouth.
He’s smiling.
It’s so strange. His heart has thawed a little since he had coffee on Thursday. It gives him the confidence to send, would you want to maybe hang out again soon?
He follows up immediately, of course, with, it’s okay if not, ofc. ik you’re probably super busy. Just in case.
Ten minutes later, Wilbur responds with, Sorry! I’m really busy today with band rehearsal.
For a second, Tommy’s heart drops. Of course. Of course. How could he be so damn stupid, thinking that he had maybe found a friend, or at least a coffee buddy, at long, long last?
Then comes the follow-up text from Wilbur, How about tomorrow? I’m free all day but I have some homework, so maybe coffee and study?
Tommy stares at the message for a minute, thinking it’s too good to be true, then responds back, sounds like a plan!
Awesome, Wilbur says. How about noon?
works for me! see you then!
Maybe it’s too many exclamation marks, Tommy thinks after he sends it. He hits the power button and lays back on his bed. It’s time for yet another Saturday afternoon depression nap.
This time, though, his depression nap isn’t so depressing. He drifts into a sleep that’s almost peaceful.
---
Techno has been texting a lot of people these days. People he hasn’t spoken to in years.
While he wasn’t exactly popular in high school, he had been on the fencing team, so he had some connections. Some people who were juniors when he was a senior.
Hey, he sends them all one by one. Sorry, it’s been a while. I was just wondering if you knew anything about Tommy Innit? He was two years under me. Thanks.
A quarter of the people he texts don’t respond.
Those who do, though, seem confused.
Sorry, man, I don’t know who that is. How’s life been?
Uhhhh, the blond kid? Squeaky voice? I think I remember him kinda??? But that’s it lol.
Hey, dude! We’ve gotta talk again. Oh, yeah, my sister had a class with him once. Said he seemed kinda weird. That’s all I know, tho.
No one from County Park High School seems to know who the hell Tommy Innit was or what became of him.
Techno clutches his phone to his chest, then unlocks it and messages Wilbur.
---
When Tommy tries to pay for both his and Wilbur’s coffee next time, the other man shuts him down. “Hell no, dude. I owe you like, at least one more drink after the idiot I was.”
Tommy doesn’t think that’s true, but he clenches his jaw and lets Wilbur buy him a London Fog anyways.
“I’m not much of a tea guy,” he prefaces before he takes a sip.
“That’s fine,” Wilbur says, but his attention is entirely on Tommy’s reaction.
The boy sets his cup down. His face scrunches up. “That’s- that’s good, actually. Like, really good.”
“See?”
“Ah, shut up,” Tommy teases, afraid Wilbur will get mad at him for it, but he doesn’t.
“I was right, as usual,” Wilbur says jokingly. “That’s what they call me. Always-Right-Soot.”
“Sure they do,” Tommy says, but he smiles into his drink as he takes another sip.
---
The first thing Tommy notices as the two of them study in the student union is that Wilbur is popular. Like, startlingly so. People keep coming up to their table, asking him what’s up, how he’s doing, et cetera, et cetera.
Every time, Wilbur gives a polite wave, says school is killing him slowly but he’s having a blast, and then asks how they are too, how so-and-so is, how their dog is, and whatnot.
Tommy would have thought that it would serve as a distraction. That it would make Wilbur stop and realize, oh, maybe this kid isn’t all that fun to hang out with, anyways, and then up and leave.
He never does, though. He is shit at studying, admittedly, constantly pulling up funny videos to show Tommy and cracking jokes.
“Tommy, look at this raccoon. Look.” “You’ve gotta watch this, please.”
It never gets on Tommy’s nerves, though. Instead, he partially embraces Wilbur’s chaotic “study method” of 90% breaks and 10% work.
Wilbur makes conversation with the people who approach him, but he manages to make them all quick, and every time he reverts his attention to Tommy afterward.
“I hate theory,” he groans, but just as soon will say, “How goes your physics homework?”
It feels nice to not be abandoned.
Tommy finds himself scrolling through his phone and showing Wilbur all the funniest Tweets that he’s bookmarked over the years. Each time, the musician laughs.
They spend nearly the whole day like that, and afterwards they go get boba. It’s one of the best days Tommy’s had in a long time.
---
He gets an A- on his biology exam. He hardly believes it when he sees the grade notification. After a week of attending Dr. Craft’s office hours, he thought he’d improved his understanding, sure, but not by that much.
But there his Scantron sheet is, 91 of its bubbles matching the answer key’s.
He nearly breaks down in celebration. But he doesn’t want to throw himself a tearful party, so instead he texts Wilbur.
AHHHHHHH, is Wilbur’s reply.
Then, I knew you could do it. You worked your ass studying off for that exam.
But then, even more surprising, Wanna come see my band practice?
As soon as Tommy sends back a joyous affirmation that, yes, he really, really would, Wilbur shoots him the address of his apartment.
It’s a thirty-minute walk from Tommy’s dorm which isn’t that surprising. Off campus housing here is a monster, and anything even ten minutes from the center of campus is at minimum $2,000 a person. Tommy merely slides on his boots and coat and heads out into the snow.
Wilbur’s apartment requires that he walk down the main street of the city, past the student union, past the art museum, and then even further past the sports facilities. Then, when he sees the place, a decent-but-not-stunning brick building sandwiched between a row of ancient homes, he knocks on the door to 1A and waits, hands tucked in his coat pockets.
It takes a moment, but the door opens and there’s Wilbur, grinning… but his smile seems off. He shuffles back and forth in the doorframe.
“Sorry, did I come at a bad time?” Tommy asks, suddenly worried. He’d assumed Wilbur had meant it was okay to come over now, but what if he was wrong?
“No!” Wilbur says abruptly. His fingers clench over the doorknob. “Sorry, I’m just antsy. We’ve never had an audience before.”
Oh. Tommy’s eyebrows raise. He’s the first, then. That’s… mildly nerve-racking.
Wilbur opens the door wider. “Come on in.”
The apartment is small, but definitely larger than Tommy’s tiny shoebox dorm. It has a small hallway with a kitchenette and a bathroom on the sides, but it leads to the living room which, instead of having a couch or coffee table or anything, has amps, instruments, and a microphone. Three people are sitting cross-legged on the floor talking: a guy with a shaved head, a girl with cropped brown hair, and another girl with long pink hair. The last makes Tommy’s stomach roll, thinking of Technoblade for a moment, but Wilbur interrupts the thought.
“Hey everyone, this is Tommy! You know, the freshman I was telling you all about.”
The nearly-bald guy blinks. “We know, Wil. You’ve only told us about him a hundred times.”
“Hi, Tommy,” the brunette girl says kindly.
“Okay, well,” Wilbur says with pursed lips, then points as he goes down the line, “that’s Jack, our drummer. Shubble, keyboard. And then Niki on bass.”
Niki smiles. “Nice to meet you.”
Jack gets up and slides into the seat at the drums. “Are we a band or not? Let’s play for the guy!”
Shubble and Niki grin and go their respective instruments.
Wilbur does, too. Tommy takes a spot on the floor, sitting up against the wall.
Then Jack taps off on his sticks, and they’re off like a horse at the races.
The effect is immediate. The room is surprisingly acoustic, and it reverbs. Tommy sits in awe.
He’s never even been to a concert before, and now he’s here having his own private one, just for him. And, well, maybe the neighbors, too.
The band plays a bunch of their tracks, all of which Tommy is familiar with, but it’s one thing to hear it through his earbuds and another for it to be right in front of him.
He hums along under his breath during the loudest parts. He doesn’t say it, but he knows all the lyrics.
Wilbur is such a good singer it’s frankly unbelievable. He has stage presence, too, even if this is possibly the furthest venue from a stage.
It’s everything Tommy had hoped for when Wilbur first proposed the idea.
They’re about halfway through their songs when someone knocks at the front door. It takes a while for the band to register that it’s an actual person waiting for a response and not just a package delivery.
Wilbur sets his guitar down, brow furrowed. “Did you guys invite anyone over today?”
A chorus of “no” and head shakes greet him.
Tommy goes to the door trailing behind Wilbur, curious now, too.
When it cracks open, the wind gusts pull it open even more, far enough that Tommy can see pink hair and amber-golden eyes.
Technoblade, standing there in all his glory, freezes. Like full-stop. His face falls apart in slow motion, forehead creasing, lower lip dropping, eyes widening. It’s clear that he hadn’t been expecting to see Tommy here. And yet.
“Tommy?” he says at the same time Wilbur says, “Techno.”
“I need to apologize to you,” Techno says, the words leaving his mouth in a rush, ignoring Wilbur. Then, his jaw snaps shut, like he isn’t even aware he had intended to speak. Perhaps he hadn’t.
Wilbur looks back and forth between the two of them. “You should have texted, Tech.”
“I did.”
Wilbur grimaces, then glances backward. His posture has gone rigid. He seems taller than he ever has before. “Tommy, you don’t have to talk to him if you don’t want to. I won’t let him in if you’re uncomfortable.”
Tommy, who has been utterly frozen, looks at Wilbur, who is staring at him intently. Obviously, he is anticipating a response.
Tongue heavy in his mouth, Tommy turns to look at Techno.
The man still has snow melting in his hair. He’s not standing menacingly or anything. Rather, he has his arms pressed against his stomach, cradling his ribs.
He looks anxious.
Tommy can relate to that sentiment.
He is about to say that he’d like to just go back into the apartment, not willing to deal with this right now, but then his mind unravels away from him. If he doesn’t do this now, when will he ever actually face this? He’ll just keep pushing it off until a day that will never come.
He nibbles on his lower lip, considering, then says, “Wilbur, do you mind going back in for a sec?”
Wilbur draws back, evidently startled. It takes a second, but he nods emphatically, stepping back through the door. “Of course. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Wait,” Tommy says before the door closes all the way. Wilbur pauses, waiting. Tommy asks, “Please don’t listen to any of this?”
Wilbur hesitates, then nods again. “No problem.”
The door shuts and Tommy and Techno face each other.
There’s an awning above them guarding them from the snow that’s racing down from the sky. The weather said it was going to be comparable to a small blizzard, Tommy remembers.
The wind whips Techno’s long hair behind him. They can’t stay out here like this for too long.
“Speak,” says Tommy, taken aback by his own sharpness.
Techno flinches. He looks down at his own shoes, at the floorboards beneath them.
Inside, the roar of the band starts again. It’ll be more than enough for the residents within to keep from listening in on this.
“I’m not going to stand here and pretend that I ever understood what happened to you in full,” Techno begins. He’s thought this through, the beginning, but not much past it. There are too many variables to account for what he’ll say start to end. He continues, “But I did make an assumption, and one I think was right.”
Tommy’s icy gaze is piercing, sharper than flint or swords or the words once thrown at him.
“I knew they were hurting you. That should have been more than enough information for me to step in.”
“But you didn’t,” Tommy rasps.
“I didn’t,” Techno confirms. “I was selfish and stupid. I turned a blind eye, thinking someone else might step in, might help you.”
“But they didn’t,” Tommy says.
“They didn’t,” Techno echoes back.
“Everyone always talked about how good you were,” Tommy hisses. “All your teachers that I had eventually. They loved you. Talked endlessly about how you were one of the best students they ever had. They showed us your essays and projects as examples. You had a reputation.”
Techno steps back now, letting Tommy speak. This is all for him.
“I thought you were good.” His voice cracks. “They said you were good. Now I know what they meant. Good at school. Good at sports. Good to them, because you knew them. Not me. Not some bullied kid you just happened to accidentally keep running into in the hallway and the locker room.”
Those places are ones bathed in violence and torment. Mentioning them is like twisting a knife in Techno’s chest.
“You just walked past me,” Tommy says. “All those talks about bystanders and speaking up throughout the years, but evidently it didn’t do a thing for you. For me.”
Techno nods. Everything Tommy is saying is true.
“And all because you didn’t want to risk your stupid spot as valedictorian,” Tommy spits. There’s vitriol in the words. The venom has been building up on his teeth for three years, after all.
Techno blinks, then closes his eyes. He appears to be in pain. Nothing physical, but many wounds aren’t. “Tommy, it wasn’t just that,” he says slowly. “Though I am ashamed to admit it was a part.”
“Then what?” Tommy hisses. There are tears at the corner of his eyes. They don’t fall, but they do burn. “What could have possibly prevented you from saving me?”
“I—” Techno starts, stops, swallows, and tries again. “I was a foster kid, you know. I didn’t—it was so stupid but I didn’t want to risk… losing everything again. Starting over when I was so near the finish line.”
Tommy, startled, trips over his own thoughts. He didn’t know that.
A lot of memories suddenly fragment and rewrite themselves with the added context. The way Techno shied away from any mention of parents or family in his valedictorian speech (so well-written that they showed it on the school broadcast). The way he held himself, like he’d been through a war. His quietness. The way he acted like he was treading on glass.
“Oh,” Tommy says.
“But you can’t let that change this,” Techno says, cutting off Tommy’s train of thought. “None of that matters. It doesn’t excuse it. What I did was idiotic. And a bit evil. You didn’t deserve what I did to you. I hurt you horribly.”
“You didn’t,” Tommy says blankly. It was not your fists that descended upon my body, is what he means but does not say. It was not you who told me I should go in the river behind the school and never let myself resurface.
“Not in the way those… those cowards did.” The word bully seems too small for the circumstances, so trivial. “But—Tommy, I did hurt you.”
Tommy has to turn his cheek the other way. A tear slides down his jawline toward his chin. “They didn’t stop, you know. Not until graduation. Other people saw besides you, I think, but none did anything, either. You weren’t the only one.” You weren’t the only one who abandoned me when I needed you.
If it’s supposed to make Techno feel better, it only serves to rip him apart even more. “I’m so sorry.”
For a silence that stretches out into eons, they stand in silence, staring at their own shoes.
“Administration didn’t do anything, by the way, when I sent them a letter about what was happening.” It’s such a hopeless thing for Techno to say, a last-ditch effort more than anything.
Tommy looks up at him through wet eyelashes. “What?”
“I tried to get their attention, but I didn’t do it… loud enough. I tried to make it quiet. For myself. It was selfish of me. I’m not surprised it didn’t work.”
Tommy processes the information, then bites down on his lower lip hard enough to tear skin. “There were so many days where I thought those fucking bastards were right about me, you know.”
And Techno has guessed that, but it sends a shock down his system. He can’t say I know, because he only knew in the way one knows their worst fears. From a distance, until they actually come true.
“And I- I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it.” Tommy’s voice breaks. “I thought you might have been the exception, that one day in the hallway.”
Neither of them has to recount it to the other. It lives in both their nightmares.
“You were the cool smart kid who could fence. I thought you were some kind of superhero there to save me.”
I should have, Techno thinks. I could have, but I didn’t.
“Obviously, I was wrong.” The anger has returned in Tommy’s voice.
Techno takes each blow like Tommy did back then, quietly, accepting each bruise.
“I started wondering whether I’d make it to graduation or not.”
Techno squeezes his eyes shut, not trying to block the words out but rather absorb them. This guilt is his sentence, his own justice. He is the offender, the boy before him the victim the one to deal the punishment. An eye for an eye.
“And over time, it just got all so… grey. College sucks for me. Well, actually, it’s improving,” Tommy corrects himself at the end after a moment of consideration. “Maybe. But it is better than the living hell that was high school.”
Techno nods, still only seeing the light dancing through his eyelids.
“I can’t forgive you,” Tommy says—and Techno’s heart nearly splinters all the way for this boy he barely knows, who has haunted his dreams and days—but then Tommy continues, “Not yet, anyways. I need… time. But I also need to know you for who you are now. Not the bastard you were back then.”
Techno’s breath hiccups. He sees Tommy’s words as the offering they actually are. It’s a second chance concealed under sour words. And he’ll take that.
God, he’ll take that.
“Okay,” he whispers, finally opening his eyes. “I can do that.”
Tommy is giving him a sad, small smile, tears now dry, partially frozen on his face.
Even now, three years later, he seems so small to Techno. It feels like that same petrified sophomore is looking back at him in the hallway, blue eyes thrown open wide, pleading, praying, and with ribs battered by the wolves surrounding him.
This time around, Techno won’t abandon him.
They don’t depart that day as phantoms of each other’s past, but rather something new. Maybe not good. Not yet. But new. Like wet clay, ready to be shaped.
When Tommy sits back down in front of Wilbur and his band, the guitarist shoots him a look.
“Everything okay, Tommy?” he says quietly.
It takes a second, but Tommy bobs his head up and down. “Yeah. It’ll be okay.”
For a second, Wilbur looks unsure, but then Tommy tells him to play already, for fuck’s sake, what did I even come here for, and then Jack taps his sticks together one-two-three-four. Music floods the room, and Tommy sinks back into it.
---
By the end of the school year, Techno is forgiven.
It takes a while. There are many awkward conversations spent over coffee and on walks.
But on some undeterminable day between February and April, Techno and Tommy are friends, and the past is the past, and things that have always been broken are mended for the first time.
It takes less than Tommy had expected, because Techno is too good. He was a kid scared of his situation, desperate to keep his last couple years in foster care clean of any incidents lest his scholarships be taken away when he aged out of the system. He was, in a way, a kid in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like Tommy was.
Techno likes history and books. He still fences, not competitively, but as part of a club team. He no longer has a perfect 4.0 due to several tricky history classes. When he gets his own place later in life, he wants to own two huskies.
Tommy doesn’t forget what happened, of course, but he starts to fill in the full picture whereas he had only a sliver of it before.
It’s hard to hate someone so likable.
Together, they grow out of their mistakes and their rage. Soon, there is no hate or guilt at all. Just laughter and stupid jokes about orphans and trips to the school library.
Wilbur, who learned the full story several weeks after The Big Apology, as they’ve dubbed it, says he is proud of how they’ve overcome it together. Tommy calls him a sap and tells him his dad is cooler than he is.
Tommy passes all his classes, especially proud of his A in biology. He’s not sure he’d pursue it as a career, no matter how much Dr. Craft has inspired him to consider it. In fact, he’s still not sure what he wants his major to be, but he’s not afraid of that reality anymore.
He’s only eighteen. He has time.
He cries when it’s move-out day. Not because he’ll miss his room. Fuck the dorms.
But he will miss these new people he’s met. Techno and Wilbur and Dr. Craft, who keeps insisting Tommy can call him Phil if he wants to since there is no conflict of interest now that they’re longer teacher and student.
It’s only four months until he sees them all again, but it’s four months too long. He lives all the way across the state, too far for a casual drive over.
“We’ll text and FaceTime every day,” Wilbur assures him. “And once Jack graduates, you get to sign onto the lease and move in next fall.”
Tommy nods, but it’s bittersweet. Four months still feels like forever.
Techno opens his arms from where he stands nearby and Tommy accepts the hug with ease, charging into the embrace.
“It’ll be okay, kid.” Techno’s chest rumbles as he talks. “I promise. We’re going to have weekly book chats.”
“Only you would give me assigned reading over the break.” Tommy sniffs but squeezes even tighter.
“Wow, I can’t believe I am this despised by society. How is it possible that I am this tormented?” Wilbur says flatly as he stares at the two of them.
Tommy aims to crush his ribs when he embraces him next. Wilbur hugs just as good as Techno, which should be an impossible feat. They stay like that for a minute. Wilbur’s sweater still smells like the café that they’d visited that morning for the last time before summer break.
Tommy’s father clears his throat from behind him. The car is running, after all.
It’s impossibly difficult for Tommy to detangle himself from Wilbur’s grasp, but he forces himself to.
Dr. Craft, or Phil—Tommy still has to get used to that—steps forth from behind his son. He pats Tommy on the shoulder, smiles, and says, “Have a good summer, mate.”
Tommy nods, trying to be emotionally composed when the salt tracks lining his face mark him as anything but. “I’ll see you all in August.”
When he gets in the car, and as it slowly begins to pull away, he rolls down his window and waves his final goodbyes. The car picks up speed, and he watches and waves the whole time as Techno, Wilbur, and Phil turn to specks in the distance.
Then, when he realizes that they can no longer see him, he turns and sits back in the passenger seat, exhaling.
“I didn’t know you had such close friends,” his father remarks.
“Yeah,” Tommy says, his throat hoarse, “they’re awesome.”
His father hums. Tommy unlocks his phone and sees Wilbur has already sent him a text. Attached after it is a myriad of mp3 files.
For the band’s number one fan. ONLY FOR YOUR EARS, it reads.
Tommy’s eyes go wide and he smiles, immediately reaching for his earbuds.
For the entirety of the hours-long car ride home, he plays the new music over and over and over again, already longing for August.