Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy hissed quietly as he messily wrapped a band-aid around the last open cut on the side of his middle finger. He maybe should have been much more careful when he handled the razor blade, but it worked, so he didn’t regret a single thing.

It had to happen today, tonight when his two roommates weren’t home, but having a sleepover at some other friend from school Tommy wasn’t invited to. It hadn’t really bothered him, even if he heavily complained about it to Tubbo. He rather was excited to have the room for himself for once when he barely had any time alone.

When he managed to force the cheap ass thing to stay sticking on his skin, his gaze trailed off to the table in front of him. It was covered in a few wrinkled wrappers of band-aids and of the sweets he sneaked out of the common hall into his own room. A bloody tissue paper was witness to his incompetence and the stolen razor blade the convict.

In between that mess, that wasn’t even unusual for Tommy’s room, was the heart of his current project. The thing that made him stay up until past one in the morning to carefully craft it in the shitty flashlight of his phone that was too dim and too bright at the same time, and behind closed curtains.

An empty can of coke, cut up just in the right angle to open up just how Tommy wanted it to.

Sure, to an outsider, this might seem weird. To the people of the orphanage, it might look like a place to hide drugs in. Tommy wouldn’t blame them, it happened, but he didn’t plan on doing that. That was more of a third-floor kind of thing to do, the kids up there were the first thing you warned newbies about.

No, this was going to be Tommy’s altar. His first one, to be exact, and he felt excitement bubbling up in his stomach when he thought about it.

It wasn’t for anyone or anything. It was just a settlement, a tiny place to anchor his naïve practices on and to have something to ground himself on.

He shoved the trash aside and inspected his altar once more, picking the can up and turning it in his bandaged fingers. No, it was good like that. Tommy set it back down and reached into the pocket of his jacket that hung over his chair to pull out a single tea light. He carefully brushed off some crumbs and dust off the white wax as well as he could and set it into the can.

When this was done, he scrambled through the trash again. The little shiny rock he found outside on his way to school weeks ago found it’s place next to the small candle.

And… that was it.

That was what Tommy was starting out with.

And despite him knowing that this was pathetic, it was all he could manage to bring to the table at the moment. He would punch anyone who dared to say that it wasn’t good enough.

When Tubbo and Ranboo returned in the afternoon of the following day, a Sunday and therefore a very quiet day in the orphanage, they looked like someone emptied out a bucket of water over their heads.

Tommy turned his head towards the door when he recognised their step patterns in the hallway, approaching the end of it. He hastily closed the book that laid on his lap and shoved it under his pillow. Sure, he trusted his friends, but he would rather not hear the berating and warnings they would have left for him if they found out that he decided to mingle with magic, even if it was just minor magic.

He appreciated it that they worried, and he knew that it wasn’t his place to stick his nose into witchcraft – that was reserved for a few, special children each year who got sent off to practice the big, big spells and not learn out of an old book on low magical items like crystals.

Tommy found that book in the public library and borrowed it, so he had to read it quickly before he had to bring it back. It wasn’t the first one he read on that topic, and it would not be the last. He was sure he borrowed almost every book he could find on different craft forms and magic basics the public library had to offer.

Despite the risk, Tommy was drawn to anything that was even remotely close to magic from a very young age. He was simply not strong enough to resist that, so his sneaky fingers slipped into things they were not supposed to be in on a regular basis.

But he just now started to follow the overwhelmingly strong call to get into some kind of practice himself.

Tommy quickly pulled out his phone and opened a random app, leaning back against the wall next to his bed. Just in time.

The door opened and Tubbo stormed into the room.

“Hey guys, how was- “

“Don’t ask,” Tubbo grumbled. He was dripping with rainwater. Ranboo followed and closed the door behind him. He dropped his bag right next to the foot of Tommy’s bed and used his sleeve to wipe his face down.

“You look like shit,” Tommy chuckled.

“Ah, yeah? Thanks for that observation, dickhead!”

“You missed lunch.” Tommy yawned as if he was bored, but the sparkle in his light eyes betrayed how interested he was in hearing how the sleepover went.

“I know. Were they mad?”, Ranboo wanted to know.

“Eh, I dunno, I don’t think they noticed. They didn’t ask me at least, and if they had, I would have said you have homework to do or anything like that.”

Ranboo shrugged and removed his dripping coat. Rain was still drumming against the windows of their room.

It was room 014, and on the end of the hallway of the ground floor. The room was a bit larger than the others, that usually were rooms with just two beds. It wasn’t pretty, but it was enough – the floor made from some rubbery plastic material, the walls painted in a weird vanilla looking yellow colour and the curtains bright orange with an obnoxious chess board pattern.

Each of the boys had a bed with different coloured sheets and a small desk area, just as a white closet that weren’t that white anymore. Various stickers were slapped all across the doors, some that had been there before they were even born and some that they added over the past years.

Tommy set his phone down, finally.

“So, how was it?”

Tubbo simply snorted at the question and pulled his wet hoodie over his head to slap it onto the heater.

“It sucked,” Ranboo said, “they apparently just invited us to make fun of us with. We also didn’t expect that there were like four more people we didn’t know of.”

“Oh,” Tommy let out, “wow, that’s a dick move! Such assholes.”

“True.” Ranboo rolled his eyes and kicked his shoes off his feet. He hadn’t even bothered to tie them when he put them on earlier

“Yeah, yeah, just let’s forget them,” Tubbo said and made a dismissive hand movement as if he was throwing something away, “more important, wanna play a round of Mario Party?”

“The TV on our floor should be free.” Tommy shrugged and slipped off his bed. Tubbo was hurt, he could feel it underneath his portrayed anger, but he was not the one to pressure him into talking. He also knew better than bothering Ranboo. The taller one would come to him if he needed to talk, and it would just counterproductive of him to press it.

Ranboo shoved his bag towards his closet using his foot and nodded. “Sure, just let me change my clothes too.”

The TV was free, just like Tommy predicted. The weekends were often used by the kids to visit people, sometimes family even. Not everyone here was an orphan either, some were just here because their parents couldn’t care for them anymore for whatever reason (and sometimes, Tommy envied those people). So, the corridors were mostly empty.

They planted themselves on the chairs that were crammed into the narrow room after Ranboo closed the windows someone had left open and locked the rain out with that. Tubbo turned on the TV and connected the console they shared. It was one of the most treasured possessions of their floor and most of them put money together, so they managed to pay for it and call it their own. Mario Party was the usual evening activity, and it destroyed more friendships than it created.

It never got to touch the thing Ranboo, Tubbo and Tommy had though. Maybe one of them was mad at the other for a few hours, but they would always end up fine again.

They were just on the edge of finishing their round as Ranboo’s phone went off with the usual generic alarm he always put at 5:50 pm. Just in case they got caught up in something and forgot dinner. It never happened before, but Tommy knew that this fact wouldn’t stop Ranboo to set alarms, three times a day, every day, ten minutes before the meals.

“You fucker,” Tommy hissed at Tubbo as the last bonus star was given out and Tubbo snatched first place. His shorter friend set his controller down while Tommy boiled with rage.

“Ha!”

“I’m going to curse your entire bloodline!”, Tommy threatened.

“Sure thing, bossman, go ahead. There isn’t much left of that.”

The room went silent for a moment before Tommy suddenly started wheezing and Ranboo let out a concerned chuckle.

“What the fuck,” he muttered under his breath.

Tubbo let out a laugh too, proud of himself that he once more managed to conceal difficult circumstances with a joke that amused his friends, before he got up and turned off the tech.

“Okay, let’s get going, I don’t wanna have to stand in line for half an hour again.”

That was threat enough for Ranboo and Tommy to get moving. Tommy was not going to let this go though, so he kept raging while they climbed up the stairs towards the kitchen.

“I want revenge, I would have won if it wasn’t for that stupid bonus star!”

“I want revenge too,” Ranboo agreed, “I just had shit luck today, that wasn’t even my fault.”

“Yeah, sure, you would get your revenge when you would be actually good at the game,” Tubbo teased as they reached the short line that had formed, “go and practice first.”

“Fuck you,” Ranboo muttered, “you lost to me three times in a row last week.”

“We shall leave past events in the past.”

Their arguing soon was interrupted by the bell that called everyone for dinner and soon after, the corridor was full of children and teenagers who hungrily waited their turn.

Tommy wasn’t very hungry, he had to admit. His thoughts wandered and landed back on the book he borrowed. He found liking in quite a lot of the crystals over time. He could order some online, but he would rather want to see and inspect them first…

He also wanted to get his hands on a set of tarot cards, but maybe that was a bit far for the beginning…? A tug ran through his stomach, and he swallowed. No, he decided. Some things shouldn’t wait for too long. Tommy could feel his fingertips tingle at the thought of that gate opening up for him and he had already read a million books on that. Enough of the theory, Tommy wanted to actually get better and collect own experiences.

“You there? Aye! Houston to Tommy, please answer!”

Tubbo’s frantic finger snapping in front of his face made his eyes focus again and his brows furrowed.

“What?!”

“It’s our turn.”

Tommy rolled his eyes but followed his friends to pick up his plate with dinner from where the kitchen was handing it out. His thoughts drifted off to other fields while he forced the only slightly disgusting food down his throat.

He needed to get a better grip on what was called school too, his grades were slipping… Tommy knew that he was guilty of neglecting his homework from time to time and he was more than aware of the fact that there was unfinished math and history homework laying around on his little desk in their room. He knew that he should be doing it all day, but his nose had sunk far too deep into that book for him to care.

He wouldn’t die from not doing it once in a while. Maybe his grades would, but that was a problem for future Tommy.

Tommy was still chewing when he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened his browser, just to be met with an annoying ‘No Connection’ message. He forced the Wi-Fi to reconnect a few times, cursing the other kids who were holding loud conversations all over the dining hall, probably watching some shit on their phones and blocking him from doing a simple Google search, before he finally managed to get the website to load.

His fork set down on the plate and he swallowed before taking the phone in both hands and searched up the store he found ages ago already – but never dared to go into. He checked their website almost every week and debated whenever he should go or not.

Tommy turned down the brightness of his phone before the obnoxiously bright yellow and purple design of the website with its clashing colours could sting in his eyes. The weirdly animated letters on top announced the store as (Witch)Craft, Soot & more. Tommy remembered how he had scrunched his nose at the bad word joke when spotting the shop on his way back from school for the first time, but despite the bad humour of the owner, the shop was the only one that sold low level items that he could get use out of. And that were available for the public.

Tommy knew how frowned upon practicing magic without guidance of the Grand Academy of Magic was, but it technically wasn’t illegal.

The reviews of the store left an impression that was questionable at best, and the photos attached to them often showed weird ass shit that supposedly laid around in it, but it was the only store around. Even if it looked shady.

Tommy scrolled through the website while ignoring the loud conversation between Tubbo and Ranboo. He picked up his fork again, stabbing a piece of potato with it a bit too hard and it broke into two pieces. The fork slipped over the porcelain with a disgusting scratching sound and Tommy simply dropped it, deciding he was done now.

There were no new updates since last week. What exactly was he even doing? It was bullshit. Tommy would never be able to practice in any meaningful way – he wasn’t meant for it. He would have gotten picked for the Academy if he had been meant for it at fourteen already, and how old was he now? Correct, sixteen. Two years late, bitch.

He scrolled up to the top of the website a bit too harshly, suddenly caught up in his own misery about things he couldn’t get to change, and it refreshed.

A new update jumped up in Tommy’s face, flashing in big letters and horribly obnoxious colours, and he felt a familiar, curious spark flare up in his chest.

!!!Sale!!!
Up to 50% off all crystals
Only this Monday, 4th of March

Now this… This was interesting. Tommy stared at the white letters on colourful underground on his screen for a few seconds as his mind ran wild. He didn’t have a lot of money, really, but he was sure that he could afford at least one crystal if he found one he liked and it was 50% off. Maybe even two?

Even with the privilege to hold them in his hands before simply buying them.

He would have to finally gather the courage to walk into the strange looking and just as strangely smelling shop, but Tommy was a big man and got all the ladies, so he could manage for sure!

The thought of finally owning a real crystal after having read about them for ages now made his hands tingle gently. It could be his only chance to get something decent in his hands for his humble coke can altar that was well hidden in the back of his closet.

Tommy locked his phone and dropped it onto the table.

“I’ll have to stay longer at school tomorrow,” he told Tubbo and Ranboo, suddenly interrupting their heated conversation about… something exciting for sure.

“Oh? What did you do to deserve that?”

Tommy felt a little pang of guilt for lying to his best friends, but he couldn’t tell them what he really was going to do.

“I forgot my math homework and you know how that goes.”

“Eww,” Ranboo commented, and Tommy couldn’t make out if he was talking about the slightly dried up boiled potato he just shoved into his cheeks, or the situation Tommy just made up. He decided to shrug.

“We’ll pray to Kristin that she’ll handle your soul gently,” Tubbo joked and Ranboo snorted into his cup of water. It took Tommy a second to understand that he was reciting a common funeral phrase and he rolled his eyes.

“Oh wow, you’re such an overdramatic bitch. I’ll survive a simple detention hour, that is no obstacle for me.”

“Your true obstacle is the homework you could just do instead,” Ranboo said.

“You can be glad that I don’t have anything to throw right now that wouldn’t get me in trouble,” Tommy grumbled and meant it.

After dinner, Tommy went back to their room while Ranboo and Tubbo went to play some stupid board game with the kids from room 011. He tried to catch up on the homework just so much that they would count as done, but while history went okay, he wasn’t sure if he even understood the math assignment correctly. With no real way to find that out that didn’t involve texting a classmate and admitting that he, the big man, struggled with such easy homework, he decided that he would learn about that soon enough tomorrow.

Tommy shoved his school stuff into his bag without caring too much about some pages wrinkling and threw himself back onto his bed to return his attention to the book that was still under his pillow.

The room was quiet, just filled with the occasional sound of a turning page or Tommy muttering some random comments on what he read under his breath. When he heard footsteps approaching around an hour later, the book disappeared under his pillow again.

The light in room 014 turned off at 10 pm, just in time for their curfew, but that didn’t mean that the boys didn’t continue talking. Laying in the darkness, they whispered to each other or held their hands over their mouths to muffle the one or other laughter.

Tommy finally fell asleep at maybe half past 12, way after Tubbo’s soft snoring filled the room and Ranboo’s quiet complaints about him snoring died down. He couldn’t sleep earlier, his stomach twisting in excitement and fear about the next day and his palms tingling.

Just as if he had found a particularly interesting looking stone or something extremely exiting like a fairy ring.

Chapter Text

Tommy adjusted the strap of his black backpack and swallowed thickly.

He was standing in front of (Witch)Craft, Soot & more, looking up to the unevenly hanging sign over the door and tried to bring up the courage to finally go into the shop. Tommy had wandered past the building at least ten times, shooting it mistrustful looks and trying to get a grip on its layout before even entering.

(Witch)Craft, Soot & more looked like someone had forced two houses apart and squished it in between them. Everything seemed to be just a tad uneven, just like the name sign. The display windows were slightly blind and dull, but you could still look through them.

The shop was stuffed full of clutter. He couldn’t make out what colour the walls had from here because they were covered over and over with things. Every more or less even surface was occupied by something. It reminded Tommy of a hidden object game.

He would have passed (Witch)Craft, Soot & more ten times more if it hadn’t been for the door opening. Tommy’s head shot up as the light ringing of a bell reached his ears. A tall, dark blonde woman in a long, olive-green coat left the shop while still talking into it, calling out her goodbyes. She was holding a colourful fabric bag in her hand and left with quickening steps as if she wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible.

Tommy used the chance and quickly slipped into the store without causing the bell to ring again and pull even more attention to himself. He was sure that his weird pacing in front of the store made him look more than suspicious.

When the teenager entered, he felt like he was walking into a literal wall of smoke. The air was heavy with the scent of cinnamon, burnt plant material and nicotine. The ceiling was low and uneven, wooden, horizontal beams and pillars supporting it without any visible order to them. Not a single place was free and nothing seemed organised.

Tommy startled when the door fell shut behind him and the bell rung again. He didn’t even know where to start.

The store didn’t have clear sections. He still wasn’t able to spot a single free space or surface. There were mountains of books scattered everywhere and anywhere. Thick folders and boxes of various shapes and sizes piled up as well, creating a bunch of tables that were not made of table with clutter all over them. Picture frames made from brass and porcelain, tiny tea pots, candle holders in all shapes and colours…

Tommy had to duck his head to fit underneath some stuff that hung off the ceiling, a bunch of strings that held countless bundles of dried-up plants, copper chains not connected to anything really, and a few long hanging, antique looking swords.

He couldn’t see anyone from here, but he heard some slow steps creak on the old wooden floor that were not his own. Tommy took off his backpack and turned sideways to slide past a very narrow gateway of some sorts.

He noted his foot getting stuck behind something way too late and already dragged it after him. He tripped and quickly leaned down to catch whatever he was about to bring down with him.

His stomach twisted with the sudden rush of anxiety as his knees hit the floor hard and his hands just managed to wrap around the frame of… something. Was that a picture frame? He stopped it just in time before it could hit the floor too.

“What the heck, fuck! Fuck that shit!”, Tommy hissed as pain slithered through his legs. His knees would bruise from that, probably.

His gaze lowered into the wide, flat item he held in his hands and what he assumed to be a painting of some sorts, but as he got a look at it, it turned out to be a simple smooth black surface. Tommy faced himself. It was surrounded by a pretty, dark grey iron frame that featured a lot of symbols that were twisted into the metal. The whole thing was maybe half a meter high.

He felt himself tilt his head a bit in question, not sure what exactly he was holding in his hands, and Tommy in the mirror copied the movement. His palms started to tingle in a way he would expect to feel if he could hold them to a cloud in a thunderstorm, but it was cold tingling. Or maybe it was so hot that Tommy just recognised it as cold again.

He didn’t hear the person coming towards him, he just saw them when a large hand grabbed on the frame of the mirror and tugged it out of his hands. It was turned away in one swift movement and a roughly webbed, white cloth covered it elegantly like the other was putting down a delicate tablecloth in preparation of a fine dinner.

“Oops, that one was not meant to stand there,” a melodic voice told him, and Tommy’s gaze followed the mirror that was removed from his grasp until it got stuck on the face of the man who stepped in front of him, “I just bought it and then a regular got here.”

Tommy jumped to his feet.

“Sorry, I tripped over it- … You shouldn’t let shit like that stand in the way!”, Tommy blurted out as he collected his backpack up from the floor. He found himself a bit angry at the guy for being at fault for his sudden adrenaline rush.

The man was tall. He towered over Tommy quite a bit and almost filled out the whole space he was standing in. He wore a comfy looking, orange sweater and a pair of neat black jeans. Tommy could spot several necklaces hanging off his neck and hidden underneath his sweater and a few piercings in both his ears – little golden rings and chains. He wore round, golden wireframe glasses. A golden chain dangled from its sides, looping around and behind his neck. Glass or maybe clear crystal beads were worked into it.

Tommy would be able to spot him as a witch from a mile away.

The man smiled at him and shoved the strange mirror under his arm.

“Sorry. I got distracted. She wasn’t here for a while after all. I had a lot of things to catch up on! You know, the newest gossip over a nice cup of tea, exchanging some recipes, giving her relationship advice – not that she would need it, her girlfriend is lovely, you know, but sometimes- …”

“Shut up, I get so many women myself that I have no interest in listening to stories like that!”, Tommy interrupted him and brushed the dust off his jeans, “what the actual fuck was that thing I tripped over!?”

The man pounded at Tommy’s disinterest in hearing about his regulars, but he didn’t continue his talking.

“That? Oh, that is not in your league, boy,” he said softly, “may I assist you with something else instead?”

Tommy frowned at the dissatisfactory answer.

“Excuse you?! How do you want to know what’s in my league?! I’m the greatest witch who ever walked the earth!”

He felt the man look him up and down, but he didn’t get a reply. What exactly was he trying to imply with that?! Tommy puffed up his chest to appear taller, but it wasn’t quite enough to match the guy.

The man had the audacity to turn on his heels. “I see! Then feel free to collect what you need for your craft, I’m sure you don’t have any questions, so I can head to the back.”

Tommy’s stupid pride stood in his way of him stopping the other and he swallowed thickly. Okay, he could do this. He didn’t need a more experienced witch to give him advice on anything. He read so many books already, he could manage this alone.

He went to search through the shelves and piles of stuff on his own after letting out a last offended huff. It was hard to find any kind of order in the messed up store and it was impossible to navigate for Tommy, but he stubbornly stuck his nose into everything and anything he deemed interesting enough.

A strange shiver crawled up his spine, slowly, very slowly, as he worked himself through the tight aisles. Sometimes he could hear the man he just met walk over the creaky wooden floor, but he wasn’t able to locate him for sure. They always seemed to come from different directions. Either the asshole was pacing a lot or Tommy didn’t spot the other custormers yet.

“So, for how long have you been working here?”, Tommy called out as the silence and confusing layout got too much for him to bear. He was holding a picture frame in his hands but as he got no response in the form of tingling skin, he put it down a second later since his attention slipped off it.

“Huh?”, the man’s voice answered from Tommy’s left – not from in front of him where Tommy heard the footsteps from, “As long as it exists. I’m the owner.”

“So, Mr. Craft? That joke is kinda pathetic,” Tommy spit to keep his face in front of the other customers that wandered around here and grabbed a book from the side. He skimmed through it quickly, despite the stinging feeling in his fingers, but he didn’t understand the language. He wasn’t even sure what writing system this was and sticking his nose into it felt… illegal.

The man snorted. “No, I’m the Soot part of the whole deal.”

Tommy quickly shoved the book back into its place, wiped his hands off on his jacket and peeked around the corner. There was nobody there. He frowned and slipped into the next narrow aisle.

“Okay then, Mr. Soot, let’s just pretend that name is less pathetic.”

“Then, what’s your name, I’m sure you have a less pathetic one to offer.”

“Who the fuck are you to ask me for my name? For all what I know, you could be fae folk! You sure as hell look like it!”, Tommy shouted over the shelves.

He would not be dumb enough to expose his identity in a store where other people were listening to their conversation and possibly accusing him of forbidden craft to the Academy.

The steps shifted. He heard something getting dropped on a counter or a table and Mr. Soot started laughing. He had a nice sounding laugh, one that let you know just by the sound of it that it would even look pretty on his face.

Tommy hated it.

“I appreciate the compliment, but I have to disappoint you. Excuse my curiosity, but you implied you are familiar with fae folk?”

“Sure as hell not, dumbass, everyone knows to not get familiar with them. You just look fucked up enough to match my imagination of them.”

Tommy took a high step over another pile of books, and he finally found what he was looking for. A small copper bowl with different, colourful crystals was sitting on a low table, right in front of him.

He squatted down in front of it and took a second to admire what he found. A lot of them were too big to fit into his little can, but there still were some that would fit his criteria. Tommy grabbed a clear quartz and set it back down immediately. Nope. Not that one. His hand levitated over another piece of the same kind of crystal, but he was interrupted.

“So, greatest witch who ever walked earth, when did you start practicing?”

“None of your fucking business.”

“You know, I prefer to know my customers,” Mr. Soot explained in his annoying sing-sang voice, “it’s not often that I have new ones, so I am interested in knowing what they could be looking for – if you don’t share this idea of business relationship, this is the wrong shop for you.”

Tommy chewed on his bottom lip as he weighed the other crystal in his hand before setting it down again. Not that one. And now he had to deal with the stupid looking Soot guy if he wanted to keep coming here. He surely was young and inexperienced, but he was able to read people well enough to note the weirdly soft threat in Mr. Soot’s words.

“I started last night,” Tommy hissed between clenched teeth, “but I’ve done a year of extensive research before you get the idea of berating me now!”

“I would never,” Soot said, “I’m here to support all witches, no matter where they stand or where they wish to go, as long as it’s in certain rules. You surely understand.”

Tommy didn’t answer and continued to dig through the collection of crystals. He really was trying to not allow Soot’s talking get to his head, but it was hard. He was sure the guy was somehow judging him, despite of what he just said. He thought that Tommy was dumb, he could hear it in his tone. He thought, Tommy was a moron who was green behind his ears. He looked down on Tommy, he was sure about that.

“What do you think about those?”, a voice from behind said and Tommy jumped.

He almost flipped over the entire table in front of him as he got back on his slightly numb feet he deprived of blood flow for the last minutes. Tommy’s body snapped around, he tumbled backwards and almost tripped over his own bag and a breathless “Motherfuck-“ escaped him as he caught his balance again.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you, dude?!”, he shouted at the person behind him.

Who turned out to be Soot himself, wearing a teasing smile on his lips. The little golden chain on his glasses was swinging softly and his fluffy brown curls covered most of his right eye.

He was holding out a small bowl towards Tommy. A soft white piece of fabric covered it and offered a bed to the few pink crystals Soot was offering to Tommy. They were small, just as big as the fingernail of Tommy’s thumb, but each of them in a slightly different shape.

“How the hell did you get here so quick, you were just fucking mocking me from all over there!”

Soot’s expression changed swiftly. It suddenly expressed something Tommy couldn’t read, but he would say it was comparable to… displeasure?

“I wasn’t mocking you,” he said, “and it’s my store, I’m leading it for years already. I know where to go to get from one end to the other quickly. Now look, I’m sure you could use one of these.”

Tommy shot him another venomous look before he craned his neck to get a better look at the offered crystals.

“You don’t even look that old,” he commented.

“Thanks, that is my flawless skincare routine,” Soot replied, and Tommy snorted.

What an odd fella.

“What makes you think I could use rose quartz?”, Tommy asked, and he couldn’t hide the suspicion in his voice as he reached out and took the bowl from Soot, who handed it to him without hesitation.

Soot shrugged carelessly and shoved his hands into his pockets, but his gaze kept lingering on Tommy. The blonde teenager shivered. It came suddenly and he couldn’t stop it from happening. Something about Soot made him feel weird. It was as if his eyes just pretended to be soft with this gentle brown colour, but in reality… every time he looked at Tommy was one time more his gaze brushed his young soul. As if there was nothing, absolutely nothing that stayed hidden from him.

“I get the impression you need a bit more love in your life. You sound really bitter.”

“Excuse you!? Bitter?!”, Tommy exploded, “I am offended! I get all the women and I marry one every other day! I have more wedding anniversaries than you have times you even spoke to a pretty woman!”

Before he could think his hand had grabbed into the bowl of crystals and grabbed one of them to raise up as if he really planned to throw it at Soot.

“’Need more love in your life’, oh my gosh, just wait, I’ll give you love, some really tough love, you clearly need it more than me!”

The man lifted his hands to catch the stone if Tommy got any fucked up ideas, but he couldn’t hide his laugh.

“I think you misunderstood, witchling, the term ‘tough love’ doesn’t actually mean that you have to throw rose quartz at people,” Soot joked.

“Watch it, I’m armed!”, Tommy screeched.

Soot rolled his eyes at him. “Oh no, I’m so scared.”

“As you fucking should be,” Tommy huffed.

He just now noted the warm buzzing in his hand. Tommy lowered and opened it again. The crystal he picked from the bowl had a comfortable weight to it. It was tumbled, so it was smooth, but it had kept it’s slightly triangular shape. The cloudy, but gentle pink hue sometimes got interrupted by lighter streaks of rosé that appeared to be almost white.

His fingers closed back around the stone.

“This is mine now,” he declared.

“You still gotta pay for that,” Soot reminded him and lifted his eyebrows.

“Of course, I will, or are you implying I look fucking poor?”, Tommy snorted as if he fucking was not. “I simply wanted to reserve it and make sure no one else takes it.”

Soot nodded slowly as another amused smile spread out on his lips. There, there it was again. The weird sparkle in his eyes. Tommy had to look back down on his newly found crystal to not shiver again.

“I see, I see,” he hummed, “can I help you with anything else?”

Tommy hesitated. He wanted to take a look on the tarot decks that surely were to find… somewhere. Maybe even check out some books. Even if he couldn’t buy them, he could read some pages and maybe get a short overview over new topics. The store definitely looked like it was home to some very interesting literature that Tommy wouldn’t find at the public library.

“Books,” Tommy said, deciding that he would not be able to afford a deck of cards anyway, “do you have any structure for the books in here?”

Soot scratched the back of his head and adjusted his glasses.

“What are you looking for?”

“I just want to take a look at what you have.”

“Then I can’t help you. If you know what exactly you’re searching for, I can hand you some on that topic. If you just want to look through some books, feel free to skim through everything and see what you find.”

Tommy frowned. “You just throw them all over the place?”

“No. You’ll find what you’ll find.”

“Very helpful.”

“Some will feel drawn to you. Some don’t wish to be read by certain people, so you won’t find them,” Soot said and took the bowl with the remaining crystals back from Tommy, “you don’t force a cat to sit on your lap either or it might scratch you.”

Soot disappeared in between the shelves before Tommy could call him out for that stupid metaphor.

“Wow, even more helpful, dickhead,” he muttered under his breath, but that would not stop Tommy.

After all, he was the greatest witch who ever walked the earth and not even a prick like Soot would stop him from becoming the greatest witch who ever existed in this universe. He picked up his bag again and started to skim through the shelves and the piles of items for books that he didn’t know yet.

He searched for a calm spot close to the windows to spread out his jacket on the ground, cross his legs and sit down in the first warm rays of the early spring sun after he found a few books he thought looked interesting and of which he liked the feel of when picking them up. Whenever he needed a short break, Tommy watched the dust particles in the air performing their cute little dance in the sunrays.

Sometimes, when was sitting there and flipped yet another page, he heard footsteps, but the melodic humming tracing its way through the aisles betrayed that it was probably just Soot. Tommy never peeked past the shelves to check.

Sometimes, when he was kneeling on some dusty old rug and sorting a new pile of books he almost tripped over, he saw smears of shadows in the corners of his eyes. Almost shaped like people. Tommy never lifted his gaze up from his hands to check.

It made him feel uneasy and caused the little hairs on his arms and the nape of his neck to stand. He didn’t like the way a few creaking floorboards and some light changes made him question his senses. It made him feel like he was being played and the one who played him was his own brain.

But Tommy knew better than checking, just in case he was not just on edge and imagining things. Besides that, he was busy reading.

The books he carried over to his selected and claimed spot were on completely different topics and the pile on his right side got smaller while the one on his left one grew whenever he finished skimming through a book and putting it there.

Tommy forgot the concept of time.

Sigil magic, botany, more books on crystals, different tarot interpretations, advanced botany, tea magic, astrology, a book that he couldn’t read because of a language barrier but which felt so good in his hands that he just held it for several minutes, such advanced botany that Tommy wasn’t even sure if that book wouldn’t be a better fit for the biology section of a university library and the one that was currently resting on his thighs was a huge lexicon of different deities.

Tommy pulled his legs closer and carefully leaned the book against his knees. It looked (and smelled) quite old and he was nobody to not handle old books with the respect they deserved – that would be a very unmanly move. The warm buzz that it sent into Tommy’s fingertips felt like complex lines with a lot of nicks and edges.

His fingers flipped through the yellowing pages. Most paragraphs were short with references to other, more specific sources. The bigger gods and deities had longer ones dedicated to them, but Tommy didn’t need to read about those. He knew them. Not that he was an expert, but he had a brief overview of what most people worshipped here and there.

Some pages contained skilfully drawn illustrations that he found himself admiring for a few moments before moving on.

Tommy confidently skipping over the sections A to D, reading a few paragraphs and skipping again. He followed that method until he felt the book slipping slightly, so he stopped his hasty skipping and carefully reached underneath it to steady it.

His gaze slipped over the open page in the S section and stopped on a longer paragraph. Despite it being a bigger entry, Tommy didn’t recognise the deity it described, so he started reading.

Seirēn

Seirēn (more commonly known as Siren in English speaking areas) is a minor deity mainly associated with music, more specifically with voice and string instruments such as the lyra, guitars and harps. Other fields of association include celebration, protection and guidance (both emotional and tactical), manipulation, madness, and explosives.

Tommy had to stop for a moment to check if he accidentally skipped a line, but no, he didn’t. How the fuck did they get from singing little songs and playing a lyra to madness and explosives?

Something tipped over somewhere on the other side of the store and he heard Soot’s humming stop to turn into a dirty swear.

Oh well. He continued.

Seirēn is most commonly worshipped by musicians, artists, entertainers, comedians, craftsmen or students of those or other fields.

People of different orientation may feel called to his worship, despite of unrelated professions. Undiagnosed, recently diagnosed, or hospitalised patients of mental illness tend to turn to him as well.

There are currently no officially associated Covens of Seirēn, but he is known to sometimes accept or, rarely, seek out connections to students of witchcraft who also show special ambitions towards his fields and/or show signs of or are diagnosed with mental illnesses. There does not seem to be a favouritism of age, sex, ethnicity, nationality, or any other factors.

If he presents, he almost exclusively does so in the form of young men in their early to late twenties.

Following the most commonly told myth, Seirēn is the twin of the Blood God (ref. p. 23) and despite having unknown parents, was raised by the Angel of Death (ref. p. 7). Seirēn would often accompany his twin brother in the planning of battle or battle itself, either leading parts of and supporting their own side or driving leaders or whole armies of their enemies into madness. Sometimes, he would personally aid in battle, often with explosives.

Despite his engagement in war, he is said to sing mournful songs over deaths or lost places. Seirēn is also said to be often found at the Angel of Death’s side to guide recently passed souls.
He is father to Fun (ref. p. 49) and birthed him spontaneously.

Lesser-known myths describe him as a more sinister and more spirit like, guiding or confusing at random and hypnotising the innocent to lead them into their deaths. In some versions, Seirēn is said to be married to a water spirit which vary in form and description. Other versions may portray him as the only son of Kristin (ref. p. 71) and the Angel of Death or half-brother of Eret (ref. p. 40).

Tommy scratched the back of his head. Soot was humming again.

That was an awfully confusing story. Some parts were not fitting into others, he thought, but it explained why the paragraph on him was so long if he was believed to be the Angel’s adoptive son. The Angel was a major deity, so he could understand this part.

He partially regretted to not have read more on spirits and deities prior, but his engagement with this part was limited to believing they existed and praying to Prime sometimes. The deeper understanding of that topic scratched awfully close at the rules of the Academy – working with or for deities was a restricted practice. Tommy simply had been scared to attract too much attention with too much research about this, especially because he wasn’t even experienced enough for this part of his craft, even if it would be legal.

So, he had rather focused on the things he would be allowed to do.

Tommy looked up and shock ran through his body. The sun was setting.

Oh fuck, oh shit, oh shitty fuck, he was late. He was so late.

He jumped up, placing the gently buzzing book back on one of the tables that stood around and grabbing his things, including the little rose quartz he decided to buy. Tommy rushed through the store as quickly as he was able to without knocking everything over.

As he reached the counter with the cash register, it was empty, and Soot was nowhere to be seen. Tommy impatiently slapped on the little brass bell that stood on the counter several times until he saw Soot sticking his head out of the room behind the register. It had no door, but the sight into it was covered with silky looking, dark red curtains.

“Hm? Are you done with reading?”

“I am, I would like to pay,” Tommy said hastily and put the crystal on the wood of the counter.

“Okay, sure.”

Soot turned around and stepped behind the register to take a fancy looking pen and… Tommy could barely believe his eyes, crouch his lanky body over the counter and… fucking handwrite the receipt onto very expensive looking paper. With red ink.

“Are you sure we live in the same century?”, Tommy hissed.

Soot’s gaze lifted from the paper and above the top frame of his glasses to look at Tommy. A smile spread out on his lips and the teenager stood his ground, despite the new shiver that ran over his back.

“Time is a funny concept, witchling,” Soot stated and looked Tommy up and down, “I sometimes forget about it, but I’m not alone with that as it seems.”

Tommy laughed at that, but even if it was his usual, explosive laugh, it was born from insecurity and awkwardness. Soot's strange eyes on him made him uncomfortable.

“You are alone with it; I am perfectly on time! I need you to hurry anyway, ‘cause otherwise I won’t be perfectly on time anymore.”

Soot lowered his eyes again and finished the receipt. He turned the fancy light brown paper and shoved it over to Tommy.

“That will be exactly one pound,” he said.

Tommy searched through the pocket of his jacket and collected the loose change out of it. It would be enough. He hoped that it would, at least. He hurried to scratch the coins together and counted them before he shoved the small pile over to Soot.

“You’re a weird one for writing that for an item worth one pound,” Tommy criticised, but quickly grabbed the crystal and the receipt, stuffed both in his pocket and rushed out of the store.

“Thank you for visiting (Witch)Craft, Soot & more, I hope I can welcome you more often from now on!”, Soot called after him in a particularly gorgeous sing-sang tone.
It wasn’t clear if Tommy still heard him or not because the bell above the door announced it being shoved open aggressively and Soot could watch Tommy run down the street through the one window he could see from where he was standing.

Chapter Text

Tommy went home together with Ranboo and Tubbo for the next two days. He tried to keep up with whatever was going on in school and with whatever current events were going down in the orphanage. Which was… not a lot and that was good.

There was an English quiz coming up on Friday and a history one for next Monday, and Tommy got back his last math quiz. He passed, barely, but he passed. That had to be enough.

There was no piece of big news in the orphanage either. Just a new social worker who got introduced Tuesday afternoon. Tommy had not paid a lot of attention to her yet and he didn’t need to. She was probably not going to be an important figure in his day to day life.

It was Thursday when he texted Ranboo during their last class period under his group table about how he still got something to talk about to a teacher after school and how him and Tubbo could already go home without him. It was a lucky moment since Tommy had music class while Ranboo picked art and Tubbo went for theatre this year, so he could manage to avoid both of them until he was sure they left before… he could make his way back to (Witch)Craft, Soot & more.

Sure, he wouldn’t be able to buy anything, and the website didn’t announce any more sales, but Tommy wanted to read again.

Soot hadn’t sent him away last time as he basically misused his shop as a library, so he would use this opportunity.

He still felt it sting in his stomach as he lied to his friends again but telling the truth would only bring him a lot of problems he didn’t want to face. Maybe he was a coward for choosing the easier way out, but Tommy really didn’t feel like he was able to carry a conversation about how he shouldn’t do what he was drawn to.

He barely enjoyed anything else, so he was glad to have anything at all that was able to keep his attention.

Tommy waited impatiently for music class to end and as the bell rung, he jumped up to pack his things. He was done studying theory for today. When he signed up for this, he hadn’t expected so fucking much theory. He hadn’t even touched an instrument yet and that was what he had been excited about – once, a longer while ago.

He rushed out of the building about fifteen minutes later after Ranboo texted him back about it being his own loss that he didn’t want to walk with them today. Tommy snorted at the thought of that. It sort of was his loss.

The weird store was around half an hour away if you had to walk like Tommy. He was listening to song after song, ignoring the shit sound quality his cheap earphones managed to produce. Tommy was still having a good time. His playlist was full of songs that were absolute bops – of course, it was his own taste in music and as everyone knew, it was just outstandingly great.

He kicked a few stones out of the way whenever he came across one that looked kickable and sometimes stopped to admire this or that graffiti that he hadn’t seen yet.

At some point, the crooked building that was (Witch)Craft, Soot & more came into sight and Tommy’s lanky legs picked up an even quicker pace to reach it a few seconds earlier.

This time, he simply barged into the store, causing the bell above the door to ring loudly – a copy of the sound with which he left on Monday. He had grown more confident, confident enough to put up something that came close to his usual attitude.

The store looked empty again, but Tommy heard footsteps and Soot’s fluffy head of brown curls peeked past a shelf soon enough. His face lit up.

“Ah, hello little witchling.”

“Hello, fancy bitch,” Tommy said and went to strut towards him.

Soot laughed and emerged from the chaos that was the inside of the shop so Tommy could get a better look at him. His glasses and the golden chain were still there, just as the shiny golden jewellery in his ears. He wore a dark sweater this time that featured a simple pattern of geometric shapes around his stomach. One of his necklaces had slipped out of the collar of the sweater and dangled free.

Tommy recognised it.

“I wouldn’t have guessed you to be a follower of the Angel,” he commented plainly and gestured towards the black feather that dangled from Soot’s neck.

Soot looked down and carefully picked it up from his chest. It disappeared back underneath his sweater to the rest of his multiple necklaces. He handled it gently, straightening it with a soft brush of his fingers even though the feather didn’t even look messed up.

“That’s okay,” Soot gave back and smiled.

Tommy stood there and stared at him in silence for a few heartbeats, waiting for him to add something. To explain himself in some way, to give Tommy an answer to the indirect Why he asked of him. Or to get offended. For any reaction besides this one.

But Soot didn’t grant this favour.

Tommy scoffed. He hadn’t asked him for forgiveness or for anything, but Soot made it feel like he did. “Whatever.”

“What brings you here on this beautiful day? How can I help you?”

“It would help me immensely if you could shut up,” Tommy noted, and Soot’s eyes sparkled with amusement.

“So, the greatest witch that ever walked the earth knows what he wants and where to find it?”

“Absolutely.”

Soot grinned and nodded before he went to disappear in between the shelves and piles of stuff once more. Tommy raised his chin in false confidence, but Soot didn’t need to know that he didn’t even know where to start. He thought he had a kind of plan in the back of his head but now that he was standing in here, his mind felt like it had been cleared.

Part of him wanted to turn around and leave. It was the same part of his brain that would usually tell him how useless he was, how much his friends actually hated him and how people still remembered every awkward mistake he had ever done in his life.

But the logical part of Tommy knew that this was bullshit for various reasons.

He shook his head as if he had to physically shake the bad thoughts out of it. One step after the other. He got this. It didn’t matter what Soot was thinking of him.

Tommy slowly made his way back to the spot right at the window where he had been reading last time and slid his backpack from his shoulders before he did the same with his slightly fucked up coat. He looked around.

Things were arranged differently this time. The pile of books he left here was gone, which was a bit of a pain in the arse Tommy thought, but that was not the only thing that changed. He also wasn’t able to spot the painting anymore that used to lean against the shelf on his right and an entire table just disappeared. He spotted a bundle of old ass looking swords hanging from one of the crooked beams that hadn’t been there before – at least Tommy hadn’t noticed it last time.

Tommy stilled and just listened for a few heartbeats. There was creaking, as if Tommy was listening to the old wood around him breathing in a sluggish, lazy rhythm. Sometimes, he thought he’d hear footsteps again, but if there were any, they were distant.

He deemed the store as quiet enough to start walking, one step after another. His eyes were skimming through the chaos, searching for books or any items that could be interesting.

Nothing caught his attention until his gaze stopped at one of the shelves to his right. Tommy was greeted by the same deity lexicon he looked though last time. A warm, expectant tingle spread out in his palms. He considered picking it up but stopped himself. No, that was not what he wanted to read about again. Tommy left it behind and continued.

He turned around the next corner and shoved his lanky body through a narrow gap between a pile of boxes and a long standing mirror that was covered with a purple sheet. It wasn’t possible to stop his face to pull into a disgusted grimace as his back brushed lightly against the fabric. It left a slimy sensation on him, even though his thick hoodie and he had to brush over where it touched him to get rid of it again.

A few more shelves and piles passed, but there weren’t any books to find in the clutter that spilled from them. Tommy just wanted to sneak into the next aisle, but he stopped as he spotted something familiar from the corner of his eye.

The lexicon.

What? Tommy frowned and ignored the nice feeling in his palms again as he quickened his pace. How many of these did Soot sell at the same time?

He reached the middle aisle, or what he assumed was the middle – approximately. Tommy ducked his head underneath the string that hung from one beam to the other to avoid shoving his face into the thick bundles of plants hanging from it... and he froze.

Again, the lexicon. Standing on a very fancy looking black bookstand on display.

Tommy scrunched his nose at that. There was no other fucking book laying around but this one? He turned on his heel and went down the next aisle. Tommy took a big step over a box filled with clothes as it looked like.

His searching got more frantic. There had to be other books around here, there was no fucking way this was the only book in this entire store. Tommy remembered tons of them laying around just like that and now he couldn’t find a single one that was not that dumb deity lexicon?

But he didn’t have luck here either. No books. Absolutely none.

Tommy slipped into the next one and groaned loudly. He was greeted by another lexicon – or was it the same one every time? This time, it was on display on an empty glass box that looked a bit like an aquarium, but way too small. A smaller, brass coloured bookstand held it up as if to proudly show off it’s cover to the young witch in front of it.

It got a mistrustful look from him that lasted longer than just a minute. An uncanny feeling settled down deeply in Tommy’s stomach. Sure, Soot told him about books that didn’t want to be read, even if he hadn’t exactly believed this to be an actual thing. But this? Being unable to find a single other book in this entire mess of a place that is normally stuffed with them?

Tommy gave himself a few deep breaths in which he closed his eyes. What did he feel? It was hard to tell in here. He was surrounded by all kinds of things that gave off all kinds of energies and vibes to him. It was impossible to tell them apart. Some were deeply uncomfortable, and some felt inviting or gentle – but Tommy felt no danger.

Now that his frustration over feeling kidded lowered a bit, the only feeling that was left was raging curiosity that seemed to burn every other feeling he had. His heart was picking up a quicker pace. That was so odd and not like anything he had experienced before – Tommy loved it. It was something special, something that made him feel like he was suddenly making a huge jump of progress in his practice. Maybe it was something important.

Tommy opened his eyes again. Soot was humming somewhere from his right side, and he heard gentle shuffling of things being rearranged. The book was still there, and the warm tingles returned as he locked his light eyes on it. This time, he followed his urge to pick the lexicon off the stand.

Just as his hands wrapped around the heavy book, the warmth spread out into his whole body and caused a comfortable shiver to crawl down his neck, shoulders, and spine. It was like endorphins were seeping through him in a very gentle way.

Praise.

If you asked him to compare the feeling to something, it was similar to receiving praise from someone like a parent or a beloved teacher you really looked up to.

Tommy caught himself swimming in that feeling for way longer than he would ever admit to anyone. His eyes flew open, even if he hadn’t even felt himself close them, and he wiped the soft smile off his face to replace it with a hard expression.

No. He shook himself and looked down to the book. That wasn’t… good? It felt good, but who… what was making him feel that? And why?

Tommy knew that it was an awful idea to follow through, but as he looked down to the book in his hands, he couldn’t resist. He wanted to find out and he was sure he would find out if he just let himself being led by the trail of breadcrumbs someone or something was laying out to him, even if this was – probably – ridiculously dangerous.

Maybe, just maybe, he should ask Soot-

No.

He just renewed his protection circle yesterday and had even added some things he didn’t have before, so it was well updated. Tommy wouldn’t know what he could have done better.

It would be fine; he could manage without that weird guy’s help. He was not going to embarrass himself by going there just to be told off in the end. Tommy pressed the book against his chest which made his skin there tingle faintly through the fabric of his hoodie and went to make his way back to his conquered reading spot. He looked out for other books on his way back, but he still couldn’t spot any. As he reached his stuff, he dropped himself onto the floor next to it with a semi-loud thud and crossed his legs.

The heavy lexicon was carefully rested on them. Tommy stared at it for a few seconds as excitement and curiosity raged in his stomach, but still mixed with slight mistrust. He was careful when he opened the book and was welcomed by the same pages as last time, well considerate of its age and state.

Lingering on the first few pages, Tommy tried to get a get a feeling for the trail of breadcrumbs again to see where it would lead him. His right index finger brushed down against the side of the book and over the edges of the pages. A faint, tugging sensation pulled it back on the page he was on just now, but further to the left.

Tommy’s heart almost stopped. It worked. Oh gosh, it actually worked.

And it worked so well and surprisingly clearly. If there was one thing, he was not used to such clearness even if it was so faint, Tommy was still able to feel it. It felt so easy compared to all the other things he tried before.

He quickly skipped a page back and tried again, following the soft pulling over the paper, further and further left to the end of the paper. Tommy turned back another page.

This repeated for a few times until he reached the first double page of the table of contents and the pulling redirected. Tommy took another deep breath, closed his eyes, and followed where it was tugging him to. Despite being a quite odd sensation, it didn’t feel… wrong.

When it stopped, Tommy broke his focus and reopened his eyes. His index finger had landed far in the beginning of the table.

Angel of Death . . . . . . . . p. 7

A confused expression spread out on the young witch’s face as he eyed the text. He knew about the Angel, so why would the lexicon want to teach him that? If it was teaching him at all. Tommy assumed so, it did feel like teaching and guiding at least.

With a shrug, he skipped to page seven and inspected the page.

Angel of Death

The Angel of Death is a major deity of guidance, flight, death, justice, diplomacy and revenge; just as a minor deity of war, tactics, family and domestic living. The Angel is further associated with crows, emerald (or emerald-green), and travel. He is the loyal executive servant of Kristin (ref. p. 71).

The Angel is an old god, even by deity standards, and so are the traditions of his worship. He is worshipped by many people in countless different ways, but especially sick or older folks are drawn to his service or prayer. There are no requirements for his worship. He is commonly included in most prayers to Kristin.

There are several known and recognised Covens of the Angel of Death, but he is almost always worshipped as a secondary or equal deity in the Covens of Kristin as well.

Tommy snorted quietly. He knew most of the things that were written here, but the Angel seemed to be really attached to the Goddess of Death from how this was phrased.

The Angel is known to work with especially young witches enthusiastically and attentively, and he often picks them out very early on, sometimes even before they chose a path or even started practicing at the Academy. There are several reports of lifelong connections between the Angel and his witches. Nevertheless, he is well known to ignore attempts of seeking a connection to him from a new witch’s side.

If there is reason to assume the Angel is reaching out to the well-informed practitioner, it is trivial knowledge to verify his identity before allowing a connection, since his popularity encourages impostors and trickster spirits.

Of course, this was trivial knowledge Tommy already had. He would never follow random tugs and tingles he received just like that. That would be reckless.

He rolled his eyes at the caution warning he just read and swiftly wet his finger to turn the page. As if. He would definitely notice a fraud spirit, without question. Besides that, Tommy was sure that his own presence wasn’t strong enough to attract any deity or spirit that were more meaningful than a simple poltergeist.

He wasn’t even a real, verified witch, so he was safe from that.

The Angel is not officially known to materialise, but some sources speak of meeting him in the disguise of a blonde man of around 30 years of age (sources ref. p. 203).

Tommy sighed. Ah yes, source work.

He was used to this, though. A lot of research concerning his more or less legal practice of witchcraft was source work. It wouldn’t hurt to check if they were explicitly written out here. He grabbed a good chunk of pages at once and worked himself through to page 203.

Anderson, Stephan. Heaven and back. Copenhagen, 1921.
Miller, Gaby Mary. Near death experiences – a collection of memories. London, 1977.

That was all. Well, good to know. Tommy thought about skipping back to the Angel’s entry, but he needed a break and he also felt how the tingling in his fingers faded.

He carefully closed the book and set it aside. Maybe next time.

Tommy straightened his back from his weird, slouched over position and felt his back crack uncomfortably. Damn, he needed to work on his posture, but also damn, who the heck got time for that? He stretched out to both sides and looked up, just to almost have a fucking heart attack.

It wasn’t like he screeched when he spotted Soot looming over him like he was the fucking Angel of death himself, but he would admit that he jumped a bit.

“By the gods, by all the gods there are, you bastard!”

Soot crooked his head to the side. He was leaning against a wobbly ass looking shelf not far from Tommy, eyeing him closely from above. It was hard to see anything concerning his mimics. Tommy had to admit that he was not familiar with the expression that laid on Soot’s face – and that caused the weird, uncanny feeling in his stomach reappear.

Just until a shit eating smile spread out on his face, just as if he enjoyed to torment Tommy with every ounce of energy that fucker had.

“I would apologise, but I think that would be a quite nasty lie,” Soot commented.

“You watched me?! Wow, what a creep you are.”

“Hm? Oh, I just wondered why it got so still around here and I simply wanted to check on you in case you got eaten by some Chelifer cancroides.”

Tommy stared at him, and his face pulled into an expression that was a neat mixture of annoyance and confusion. He scoffed and rolled his eyes dramatically. He had no fucking clue what Soot was talking about.

“I could defeat all of those.”

Soot gave him a very slow nod and shoved himself away from the shelf he was leaning against.

“I’m sure,” he agreed.

Tommy was absolutely not sure anymore.

But who was Soot to get to know that?

“I’m leaving. Good work scaring your customers away, you prick,” Tommy exclaimed and jumped back on his feet.

“Such a shame,” Soot said in a weird sing-sang tone, “I wouldn’t mind you staying, witchling.”

“You’re being a creep again.”

“I’m polite. Did nobody teach you how manners work?”

Tommy flipped him off and hurried to pick up his coat from the ground to roughly pull it over his arms and shoulders. Soot raised his eyebrows behind his stupid glasses.

“Oh, apparently not.”

Tommy didn’t answer, he simply fought with the zipper of his coat that was being a huge dick again until he muttered a few curses under his breath and let the stupid thing be. He leaned down to grab his bag. It was fun to play those little verbal games with the older witch. Tommy didn’t find liking in Soot, and he didn’t feel kind of comfortable in the store. He just enjoyed arguing, that was all.

“I really wouldn’t mind you staying,” Soot repeated, “I was just making some tea. How about you have a cup with me? It is raining outside.”

“No,” Tommy stated and pulled his backpack onto his shoulders. He lifted his gaze up to the window and Soot was correct. Stupid English weather. He huffed as he decided that he would take that as personal offense.

“May I ask why not?”

“I’m convinced the tea you make is fucking disgusting. You just look like a guy who's tea would taste disgusting.”

“That’s valid,” Soot laughed, and Tommy slowed a bit, “but I can also offer you some hot chocolate.”

Well, that was an entirely different argument. Tommy rarely got his hands on something as nice as a cup of good hot chocolate. Most of the stuff he was eating, or drinking was… scoring dangerously low on the mediocre scale. You could eat it, but that was all. It didn't taste great. The hot chocolate he usually had access to was watery. It had been ages since…

Besides that, he definitely was not tempted to run through the rain.

He stilled and looked Soot up and down. Maybe it wasn’t a bad idea to wait it out. Maybe it was a good time to slip through some more difficult questions he did not find answers to yet and maybe Soot would be able to give him useful answers. Tommy somehow… didn’t doubt that he would know an answer to almost everything Tommy could ask of him, even if he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for that assumption.

“I won’t accept any cheap shit.”

“It isn’t, I promise,” Soot said and gestured towards the general direction of his counter before starting to walk towards it, “you deserve just the best, little witchling. We also need to talk about your shoes, are those holes in the soles?”

Tommy scoffed at the comment and went to follow him through the general chaos of (Witch)Craft, Soot & more. Sensitive topic. Nevertheless, Tommy felt like he had to answer instead of just changing the topic.

“That is none of your fucking business.”

“Hm. I was just wondering who would let a kid walk around in those temperatures and with frequent rain with holes in their shoes.”

“Soot, keep your nose out of my shit,” Tommy warned, and Soot went silent for a moment.

The flesh on Tommy’s palms seemed to tighten and he had to shake his hands out a few times, but that feeling clung to them stubbornly. It wasn’t the feeling of danger or as if he had done anything wrong like it would be easy to assume in that situation, it was… different. Tommy wasn’t familiar with it. It was the first time he ever felt that, and he didn’t know if it was good or bad.

“It’s Wilbur,” Soot corrected gently and stopped by the counter.

He went behind it and lifted away one of the dark red curtains that shielded the room behind them from curious gazes.

Tommy slowed. He, again, wasn’t able to interpret what was going on in Soot’s face. What kind of expression was that? It just stayed on his face for half a second, but what was it supposed to signal to Tommy? He didn’t know. Maybe he was just preferring his first name. The young witch followed him behind the counter.

“Mh, sure, Wilbur it is then, not that I would care, of course.”

Wilbur gifted him another smile and welcomed him at the curtains with. Tommy felt warm. Like he was being wrapped in cotton. It was a bit odd, but… not bad. Wilbur set a heavy hand down on his shoulder, just for a brief moment as Tommy passed him as a guiding gesture before taking it away.

His touch was warm, comfortably tingly, spreading out like rhythmic soundwaves into his skin, flesh, and bone even through his hoodie and jacket. It shook him, moved him, set vibration to him to his very core like a single string of a new guitar you just played for the first time and now watched it swing in a smooth wave pattern without it actually being there, but it was… good. Comfortable. Almost familiar, or at least as if it could grow familiar very quickly.

Tommy could not find a single thing off with how Wilbur’s energy felt like, despite the intensity.

The only thing he was certain of after being able to feel it close up was: Wilbur was an incredibly powerful person with natural magical talent of roots that felt almost ancient and which crawled, wrapped and clung so much deeper than Tommy could've ever imagined.

Chapter Text

Tommy ducked his head to the side as Wilbur held the heavy velvet curtains open for him and entered the more private area behind the actual store.

The way it looked like shouldn’t surprise him, but he still looked around and inspected everything as well as he could. He was standing in a corridor that was halfway blocked by cardboard and wooden boxes.

Wilbur shoved himself past the teenager and gestured to follow him as he made his way down the stuffed corridor, and he followed.

The air was heavy with the scent of pine wood, sage and just a hint of cinnamon. The walls were decorated with a wide variety of items, and he couldn’t identify most of them. Tommy slowed down as he passed a halfway hardly open door. Tommy’s hands tingled in excitement. He pushed it open with his foot.

Behind it was a small room without windows. A deep wine-red carpet covered the floor. A wide system of wind chimes was hanging from the ceiling with way too many items worked into them to recognise.

The room was barely lit as well, but he couldn’t make out where the light was even coming from. Was it coming from the floor?

As his gaze slid further to the left, Tommy forgot to breathe for a moment. That was an altar. A real and a proper one. Build up and arranged on a fine cherry wood table against the wall and cluttered with stuff. But that wasn’t what startled Tommy the most.

There was a massive skull hanging from the wall above the altar. If he had to guess, he’d say it was the one of a big wild boar. It was long and had tusks on the side of its jaws. Golden chains and jewellery were hanging off them, reflecting the dim light well enough to recognise them as such.

“Oh shit…”, escaped Tommy’s lips in a faint whisper.

The energy of the room he was standing in front of was almost suffocating as it heavily laid down on Tommy’s shoulders. It felt like it was the shoulder and neck piece of metal amour, sloppily dropped on the body of a child solider and making their posture fall forward to balance it out with their twig like built, despite wearing a gambeson underneath.

A sensation of a stern gaze laid on the nape of Tommy’s neck and the little hairs on his skin there were rising instantly. It was a stern, analytical gaze of someone who was knowing exactly what they were doing, but somewhat searching.

Tommy shivered and ripped himself away ad kept stumbling after Wilbur with quick steps. It all had lasted just a few seconds, but it had felt like an hour. The feeling of the gaze got dimmer and disappeared after a few of Tommy’s quickened heartbeats.

“So, hot chocolate, yes?”

“Yes,” Tommy answered and shook his head to make the memory of what happened disappear. He was not going to ask what the fuck Wilbur was worshipping in there because damn, this was none of his business and he was not going to make it his. Some things were not for him to stick his nose into.

Wilbur stopped at a door that led into a small kitchen. It was slightly messy. Cups were standing around and on the small bench around the corner was a whole own biome of loose papers and piles of books. The table in front of it was mostly clear.

“Take a seat,” Wilbur told him.

Tommy shoved the paper shit aside unceremonically and dropped himself on the padded bench. His backpack was thrown on the floor besides him, and his coat followed.

The kitchen stayed silent for a while, the exact while which Wilbur needed to prepare the two cups of steaming liquids on the counter. Tommy barely watched him. His thoughts circled around other things but were interrupted when Wilbur put the two cups down on the table and shoved the blue one over to Tommy, keeping the brown one.

“Thanks, I guess,” Tommy said and took the cup. The sweet scent of chocolate seeped into his nose, and he gently blew against the surface of the liquid to make it cool off quicker. Maybe. Or to keep the steam away.

“Don’t burn your tongue, witchling,” Wilbur warned and sat down on a chair across the table.

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Tommy grumbled and took a small sip of the drink mostly out of pure spite. He did burn his tongue a bit, but damn, that was delicious. It was sweet and creamy, not too harsh in the chocolate taste but also not too weak. Just like Tommy loved it.

“Also, quit calling me that.”

“What?”

“Witchling,” Tommy clarified, “I’m not a student of the Academy.”

“You don’t have to be to count as witchling,” Wilbur mused and blew the steam off his tea, “there are many independently working students of different kinds of magic.”

“That’s pretty much illegal,” Tommy commented and stared at Wilbur from above the rim of his cup.

“Not as long it is in certain limits. Besides, who gets to decide what is illegal if magic is such a highly personal and subjective thing? And… not to be rude, but you would absolutely count as an independent witchling.”

“I bought a single crystal, Soot,” Tommy suddenly defended himself, “ And for what you know, I could use it as decoration. I have done absolutely nothing illegal. If this is going to be a trial for me being as kind as I am and shoving money up your arse or you trying to gather information to falsely snitch on me, I’m leaving.”

“No, none of those things,” Wilbur said calmly and leaned back in his chair, closing both his hands around the cup, “I just wanted to learn some things about you. If you aren’t satisfied with how I call you, how should I call you instead?”

Tommy stared him down for a few seconds and took a sip of his hot chocolate to delay having to answer. He was being careful. Wilbur could still get the idea of snitching on him to the Academy, right? He wasn’t that dumb.

“No chance. I’m not giving out my name.”

Wilbur looked more disappointed than he should have at some stranger kid not handing over their name. He pulled a face.

“You don’t trust me.”

“Obviously not.”

“That hurts me, little witchling, a lot.”

“Suck it up.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes and sunk back into silence, sipping on his tea for a minute or two. When he was done with what Tommy interpreted as sulking, he smiled at him.

“Okay then, witchling. You just started practicing, you said. Tell me a little bit about your craft.”

Tommy frowned as he pulled up his legs and set the cup down on his knees.

“I don’t want to.”

Mostly because there was not much active craft Tommy could share. He didn’t even own a deck of cards or a pendulum to practice simple divination.

“It’s because you think I would judge you for just starting out, isn’t it?”

Tommy kept eying him from above his cup that had set down against his lips. Attentive, not missing a single one of Wilbur’s movements. The older witch continued.

“You know, I started out with a two buck fifty guitar I got off a flea market and a bit of half burnt wood. The guitar had two broken strings and sounded horrible,” Wilbur said.

His voice was soft and musing. Relaxing, somehow. Tommy had to finally admit that he liked his voice. He nodded slowly and Wilbur continued talking.

“Then I failed a bunch of times and messed up basic shit that got me in trouble a bunch. I managed to piss off things that you’d rather not piss off by being rude even if I should have known better and my teacher had to take care of it for me. Because, of course, I had no idea what the hell I did,” he explained in a light, musing tone.

Tommy grinned crookedly, showing off half of his front teeth.

“That’s stupid, everyone knows to be polite.”

“You have a bit of a foul mouth too tho.”

Tommy shrugged and rolled his eyes. “So, you had a teacher. Are you an Academy witch?”

“No, I prefer not to deal with the Academy,” Wilbur said and shook his head, “I prefer to work with independent witches.”

“Ah,” Tommy made as if he understood, even if he had no real idea about how things worked at the Academy or why someone would prefer to not get into contact with them. It was the only place people learned higher magic that was not available to the greater mass. Tommy didn’t even know what he could image under the term of ‘higher magic’ though.

“Ya got beef with them?”, he asked and took a long sip of his delicious drink to make sure to appear busy.

Wilbur’s eyes gleamed with something like amusement.

“I don’t think you can name it like that, but they sometimes send someone over to annoy me about some boring adult stuff. It’s nothing important though, and nothing to worry about.”

“Where did you learn your shit then?”

“Some people,” Wilbur started and fixed his gaze on Tommy, “are born with some kind of natural talent for magic and learn a lot of things naturally, but often incorrectly. I was picked up by someone who knew better.”

Tommy avoided the other’s eyes. He didn’t like the way he was more or less staring at him, so he tried to look other ways and appear to do it naturally. As Wilbur didn’t continue talking, his chin lifted in false pride, and he caught his gaze.

“Got a problem with my face?”

“Not in the slightest,” Wilbur answered and didn’t even acknowledge the sarcasm, making it appear like Tommy asked a genuine question.

The young witch scoffed.

“So?”

“What can I call you?”, Wilbur tried again. As Tommy didn’t answer, he continued. “You just caught my eye a bit, you know? You seem well organised in your craft order and very determined when it comes to your research. I don’t invite just anyone to sit and drink tea with me. So, excuse my continuous interest in your person, but I would really love to learn a bit about you as well.”

Something about that made Tommy feel weird. It wasn’t a negative weird. It was a confused, but warm weird. It wasn’t often that he was perceived positively in a way like this – Tommy knew negative attention, but if you weren’t loud and rude, you will sink and get buried in the system he spent a lot of time in already.

Wilbur also didn’t feel… off. He maybe acted a bit odd, but with what Tommy knew about him now, it probably would have been hard to grow up to be someone who did not act odd.

No, his energy was nice. His voice was calming and soft. He even was a little bit funny. Not as funny, charming, and amazing as Tommy himself, of course, but it was a beginning. All in all, he had the strange, but strong urge to make Wilbur like him.

“You may call me Tommy,” he said slowly as if he expected to be caught by sudden lightning that crashed down on him, but nothing happened.

Nothing, but Wilbur giving him a soft smile and something warm tingling down Tommy’s spine. It conjured a smile on his own face, and he even allowed it to stay.

“Tommy,” Wilbur repeated.

The name seemed to smoothly roll off his tongue and lay comfortably heavy on Tommy’s shoulders, wrap around his head, and cover his ears for any other noise around him. Inviting him to lean into the sensation but keep his attention up to catch anything else Wilbur would say.

Tommy ended up sighing and closing his eyes. He slouched against the back of the bench even more and allowed his form to relax. When he opened his eyes again a few seconds later, Wilbur hadn’t moved much. Just his cup was placed on the table in front of him and his hands were now folded behind it.

“Thank you, I really prefer to call my favourite customers by their names,” he said, and Tommy lazily nodded along before he noticed how much he had slipped and tilted his cup.

He quickly sat up straighter and set his own cup down, mirroring Wilbur’s actions without noticing it. Tommy felt a bit tired; his head was foggy with the usual comfort you slipped into just before falling asleep for good.

“Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night,” he excused himself.

“What kept you up?”, Wilbur asked casually.

Tommy finished his cup of hot chocolate, using the time this took well to figure out the vibe of the situation. Of how he could sense it, he meant the question. He didn’t know why Wilbur would be interested, but he somehow was sure that he wouldn’t take a rejection to his question well.

“My roommate had a nightmare,” he replied, “and we took care of him.”

Last night’s memories were still clear in his head. The way Ranboo jerked up from his bed and his heavy breathing. The silent terror on his face. Room 014 was used to nightly disturbances of this kind. Not that Ranboo would remember his nightmares, but he usually was distressed, nevertheless.

“We?”

“I have two roommates,” Tommy clarified.

“Are you a university student?”, Wilbur asked and raised one of his eyebrows.

Tommy shook his head and looked around the room again. Wilbur waited.

Well, that was awkward. Tommy didn’t like to admit where he was living, especially because it never fully felt like home. Sure, he had his two best friends in his room, which was an already filthy kind of good luck, but it never was… Ah well. Whatever. Wilbur was still eying him. Expecting explanation. Shining with something Tommy didn't understand. He coughed awkwardly.

He would prefer to not talk about it, but he couldn’t just leave the other with no answer, he surely wouldn’t like that.

“Eh,” Tommy continued to interrupt the stupid silence, “ya know the large ugly building at Baker’s Street?”

“The orphanage.”

Tommy cringed and pulled a face. He felt the sudden urge to leave. It was getting late and Tommy had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach that his friends maybe tried to call him already, but his phone was still on silence to avoid it ringing in class.

“You don’t need to name it, big man, but yah, and that’s where I’ll go back to now because it is getting late, and I will be missed already, probably. Hopefully. Anyway. Thanks for the chocolate and shit.”

Tommy jumped up to his feet. Wilbur got up too.

“I’ll bring you to the door- “

“Not necessary,” Tommy interrupted, but he felt the questioning gaze burn into his skull as he picked up his stuff and threw his coat over his shoulders, “yeah, yeah, I’ll be back tomorrow, don’t worry.”

He didn’t know why he had blurted that information out, but it just happened in between him handling coat and backpack, but it felt like this had been expected of him. Wilbur gave him a slow, but deeply satisfied nod.

“Alright, Tommy,” he agreed, and Tommy shivered again at hearing his name, “I hope you get home safely and get some better sleep tonight. When can I expect you back tomorrow?”

The question startled the teenager a bit, not expecting Wilbur asking for a time frame.

“Uh… around the time I arrived at today as well, I guess,” he answered, but it was enough of an answer to satisfy the other.

Tommy hurried to get out into the stuffed corridor but stopped harshly as he reached the halfway open door to the red altar room. It felt… looming, heavy with something, but warm and somewhat protective. Even if he didn’t sense it as a threatening feeling, it was prominent enough to make it appear important. Besides that, the ornate decoration of the room just fed into that assumption in his opinion.

Turning on his heel, Tommy made his way back and stuck his blonde curly head back into the kitchen.

“Aye, dickhead, the door to your altar room is open and it leaks some kind of ‘If you touch something that belongs to be, you’ll die’-energy, you maybe wanna… ya know… deity stuff, I assume?”

With that, Tommy pulled his head back again. He was not even waiting for an answer as he left the backrooms and the store in a hasty sprint.

He needed some time to think and some space to breathe.

Chapter Text

Tommy wasn’t having it. Absolutely not.

“Oh, come on, what the fuck do you want me to do then?! Urg, whatever. Fine.”

The flimsy cards in front of him stayed silent and stared back at him from where he placed them on the floor in front of him. His small white candle above them flickered gently.

Well, what did he expect?

He had room 014 for himself this evening, at least for a few hours until Tubbo and Ranboo returned from the movie theatre. They asked him if he wanted to join, but he declined. Tommy had no money to pay for a ticket. Tubbo had called him poor and Ranboo gave an awkward laugh before they were off already.

Tommy was sitting on the grey plastic floor, cross legged, in front of his pride and… he would like to say joy, but it wasn’t sparking a lot of joy at the very moment. He spent the past few days crafting his own deck of tarot cards.

He hadn’t visited (Witch)Craft, Soot & more since he had hot chocolate in Soot’s tea kitchen. Not felt like it after telling him where he was from. That guy surely judged him, looked down on him in some way… and it wasn’t like he would have been able to afford a deck of tarot cards in there anyway. Tommy knew the usual prices for stuff like this.

So, he did what he did best: Helping himself when nobody else would.

His homemade deck was pencil on plain white paper, no images due to his lack of artistic talent, only the numbers and names of the cards. Yet, the moment Tommy finished making the very first one, soft tingling rushed into his fingers. They felt like his own, like brushing your fingers over cotton bedding that was placed on the heater before. Comfortable roughness, faintly warm… but there. Made with intent and a purpose in mind.

78 rectangular snippets of paper, roughly the size of a normal deck of playing cards, the big and the small arcana, every card was present.

That was all it needed for the beginning.

If they wouldn’t try to piss Tommy off.

His phone was sitting on one of his knees, an illegally downloaded eBook on tarot open on the screen. It was the only source of light next to the small candle Tommy had lit, also illegally, because fire wasn’t allowed in the building.

The small rose quartz sat next to his candle, reflecting the light of the flame beautifully.

It had been the fifth time he essentially asked the same question in different wording, just to get answers that were just as flimsy as the cards themselves.

Maybe it was a bit of a hard question for the first time?

He shuffled the cards again by turning them all around and shoving them around on the floor. Letting the soft warmth run over his hands until he felt the energy shift. Then he closed his eyes and let his hand hover over the chaos in front of him.

Tommy tried to keep his mind clear besides a single question, a different one this time.

What will the day of tomorrow bring to him?

He stopped his hand as soon as the energy shifted, and he felt his hand getting dragged down a bit. Allowing it, his hand dipped down, and he picked up a snippet of paper.

As Tommy opened his eyes, he lowered his gaze immediately and pulled the paper closer to be able to read his own shitty handwriting.

He was staring at the Three of Pentacles, but upside down.

Tommy huffed, placed the card on his free thigh and picked up his phone to scroll and search for a meaning. When he read over it, he rolled his eyes.

“Sloppiness, yes? Lack of skill? Are you trying to hint at my math test tomorrow?! Well, thank you, I know that I suck at it, no need to be so rude.”

He repeated the process, trying a different question, one that burnt on his soul for a while now.

“What’s up with the Soot guy…?”, he muttered, his eyes still closed until his fingers felt the familiar tug.

When he turned the card, he identified his writing quicker. It was The Moon.

“I’ve seen that one before, let me check,” Tommy said quietly as he scrolled through his cheat PDF.

The flame of the candle stilled as he looked back up. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think about this outcome, but it was the card, his writing scribbled clearly on it and labelling it as The Moon.

“Different meanings, hard to interpret, huh? Occult forces, pff,” Tommy said, “I was that far on my own already! And… error? Darkness? Why error though?”

The card he pulled on that question was The Fool and Tommy couldn’t stop himself from smirking before setting the card down again. He knew that one by heart.

“Insulting some weird witch, I see, I see. Glad we’re having the same taste here.”

The candle caught his attention this time as the flame started to dance, flickering rhythmically, and growing tall. He stilled and chewed on his bottom lip. Okay? That didn’t look safe. Maybe he should have put something underneath the candle.

Tommy remembered several interpretations on behaviour like that, but they were mostly in connection to deity or spirit work. He cleansed the space and the cards, both things twice, he probably overdid it completely and still…

The young witch shuffled the paper snippets over the floor.

“May I ask… who I am talking to?”

Tommy held out his hand, hovering, searching until it felt right, until he felt a tug, but he was caught by surprise as his fingertips grew… what was that? It felt like spicy food, but on his fingers. He wanted to twitch back, but his body refused.

Sudden fear sunk into his stomach, making it drop, twist, and turn with the sudden violent feeling. Oh no. Oh no. No, no, no.

The spicy sensation wrapped around his fingers and crept into his palm, licking, and irritating the nerves on it, but Tommy’s fear was gone as quick as it came.

It hurt.

But it was good pain.

Euphoric, almost. Hot, violent, dangerous, but not directed towards Tommy. It felt like a blanket that was thrown over him and he only felt what radiated through it but was directed against something on the outside.

Tommy’s breath hitched as tears escaped the corners of his eyes.

The energy he felt was big. Huge, to be exact. It was huge, ancient and powerful. A sudden memory resurfaced. He had felt this before, but he couldn’t piece together when and where.

His rational mind tried to tell him that this was bad, horrible in fact. Terribly horrible. Dangerous. He had no idea what he was talking to, but it pressed the air out of his chest and Tommy had the audacity to shake in euphoria.

As if he ran a marathon, swam through the Atlantic, fenced off five hundred enemies and won it all.

Tommy barely heard himself giggle as if he was high on drugs, victory, and ego.

Then, the pain left, just leaving a throbbing shadow behind that clung to the skin of the entire front of his body. He felt his form drop forward and he barely got his hand in between himself and the floor covered in pieces of paper to catch himself.

The young witch gasped for air. He barely was able to keep himself up, his lanky arms were shaking – all of him was shaking – and his vision was unclear. Tommy wondered why that was, but he got his answer as he felt tears fall on knees, hands, and paper.

His crying was silent but lasted a few minutes while a tsunami of emotions he didn’t understand flooded his brain and left him dizzy and lightheaded.

Euphoria, regret, loneliness, confusion, triumph.

A weird noise left his hoarse throat. It sounded like a mixture of a groan and a cough. Tommy sat up straight and tried to calm his shaking body, but his attention was caught by the sensation of paper sticking to his sweaty left palm.

As he lifted his hand, he was greeted by The Chariot. Tommy blinked as he stared at the card. He didn’t even notice how time passed. His mind was foggy and hazy. The meaning was easy to remember, he knew what it meant.

“Okay…” he coaxed quietly and picked the card off his shaky hand, “okay… That… narrows it down a bit…”

But to what? Tommy shook his head in an attempt to shoo off the thick clouds in his brain and wiped over his face. That was a lot, but what the fuck even was it?

Part of him wanted to cleanse the shit out of everything around him. Part of him was still levitating in the euphoric triumph feeling and the shadow of the good pain. And it wanted to stay there.

His head lifted and so did his gaze. The flame of the small white candle was still and tall.

Waiting for… something, Tommy could feel it in the back of his neck and his hands.

Tingly, expectant, a stern but patient glance on your back paired with a raised eyebrow.

“I… appreciate your visit,” Tommy slurred.

It probably was better to stay polite and welcoming. The candle flicked once before returning to its previous still, tall state.

“How may I assist you? I’m not very… I don’t know what you want with your visit. I’m confused. You have to know that I just started practicing and I didn’t plan on… communicating this early.”

Tommy felt a tug in his left hand, and it obeyed immediately by following the warm, spicy pull. He didn’t fight it. His respect of whatever he was talking to here was too big to fight it, so he simply closed his eyes and pulled a card, not even bothering to shuffle.

Three of Cups.

“Let me… look that one up real quick… Social connections and friendship… Look. I’m not experienced enough to... You know what I mean. I don’t think that is a good idea. Do you mind clarifying how you think that should work?”

Tommy shuffled his cards. The fog in his head started to disappear slowly. Talking to that entity was dangerous for sure, more than dangerous. But he was… curious. And excited. It was something new and it didn’t hurt him. In a bad way at least. He pulled a new card.

Page of Cups.

“I don’t understand. It is an opportunity? I’m not even entirely sure who you are and I’m pretty sure this is illegal for me,” Tommy said, his eyes still glued to his screen.

He scratched the back of his head. An opportunity. A good opportunity… He had felt so nice and floaty in the energy around him. Well protected, even if he didn’t know why he would need that, but he liked it. He liked it a lot.

He knew he shouldn’t, but he did.

It was a great opportunity, not just because of the nice sensation it gave him, but also because of pure spite. If such powerful entity reached out to Tommy, big man but beginner Tommy, it meant that it gave him power. He was in charge of choosing to accept.

He could have something witches of the Academy didn’t. Even if they didn’t allow him to study there because of who his parents were and where he was from.

The flame of the candle danced softly, the warm light flickering and shifting.

“Fine,” Tommy said, “agreed.”

During the next week, Tommy tripped over a truly ridiculous number of items whenever he left his room.

He didn’t even notice at first, but at some point, it was just impossible to miss.

It started with yellow or orange bottle caps in school.

Then, Tommy found a shiny golden ballpoint pen, a small can featuring a lot of dents and scratches without the lid meant for sweets in the same colour… then a dainty plain gold necklace. All of it on his way to school or back from school. All items someone lost or simply threw away.

And he had felt the same spicy tingling in his palms when he passed them, and which left him physically unable to not pick them up and take them with him.

He asked his cards what this was supposed to mean as soon as he got the chance to – on the lid of a toilet in the boy’s bathrooms of the orphanage. Unceremonially, he knew, but he didn’t have the space for this in room 014.

Tommy gathered a simple answer. They were gifts of his newfound… deity?

Sure, he tried to find out who he was even working with here, but he still wasn’t certain. Tommy knew the warnings to not accept anything from someone or something you didn’t know, but they were washed off under the sheer amount of power he felt.

Tommy felt drunk on it. Nobody could stand in his way anymore. No matter who or what he faced during that week, he was able to fight off any problem and the sudden success left him high and drunk on endorphins without needing to take any substances.

The deity made absolutely crystal clear that they wanted Tommy to wear the found jewellery as it responded with Tommy’s little witch hands pulling the Tower out of his makeshift deck on the question if he was meant to put it in the altar.

The energy shift was scary.

Tommy quickly apologised and wrapped the piece of jewellery around his neck.

A feeling of doom crawled up his skin whenever he touched the necklace and his fingers brushed over the closure. They were not liking the idea of him removing it.

So, Tommy wore what he could wear and used what he could use. The rest of the gifts were carefully placed in his sacred coke can altar. The deity rewarded him with the soft feeling of approval when he wrote something down with the pen or placed something in the golden can.

But especially when he rubbed the necklace between his fingers.

It was until he collected a small black box with golden writing on it from under a bush on the side of the small park he passed daily on his way from school. When he opened it in the privacy of the bathroom, his brows furrowed in confusion.

Inside the box his hands were four small shiny rings, all gold and placed on a fancy little black velvet pillow. When Tommy picked them out, he realised what they were.

Earrings.

He stared at them in confusion for a few more seconds before his hand raised up to his smooth earlobe. He couldn’t wear them. It was jewellery, and the deity made clear in his last reading how they wished him to wear jewellery, but he couldn’t wear them.

Tommy asked for clarification the right after, again, in the bathroom. He didn’t even set down his backpack in his room beforehand.

The icky lighting robbed him of a good portion of the usual magical feeling whenever he reached out to his deity. The room was ugly and could be cleaner. Marker drawings and writing decorated the stained white walls here and there. More or less colourful and often offensive stickers were plastered into the corners of the mirrors above the four sinks.

Tommy stared into his own bluish-grey eyes as he stood in front of them. The small jewellery box innocently rested on the wide protrusion shortly above the sinks.

His heart was beating uncomfortably against the inside of his ribcage, and it took him a few deep breaths to close down his eyes and start concentrating on the faint shadow of the spice on his skin.

Nothing happened for a few minutes, but after that, he was dipped in the chilli pepper bath energy of the ancient deity.

“I don’t want to bother you for long,” Tommy started hesitantly.

A warm feeling flooded him. Still hot, stern, violent, everything this deity was, but calming. A gentle pat on your head and just the awfully long claws softly scratching your ear would remind you of them being potentially dangerous.

Tommy wasn’t reminded. He was scared, a bit at least… but it was rooted in a different reason. He didn’t want to disappoint them.

“I can’t… wear… the earrings you gave me today,” he whispered.

Doom crawled up his hands, forearms, upper arms, and shoulders, whipped over them and slipped down his back.

“Not because I don’t want them or don’t appreciate them! I love them!”, Tommy justified himself.

The doom didn’t stop. He shivered and tears rose to his eyes, but his hand made quick work of them. Don’t cry because of something like that! That was stupid.

“I don’t have pierced ears, I physically can’t wear them,” he explained hastily as his shaking hands shuffled his flimsy cards.

He lost one immediately and it fell into the luckily dry sink. His own handwriting informed him that the card chosen was the Three of Swords. Tommy set the deck down, fished the card out of the sink and set it aside too to quickly open his cheat PDF on the meanings.

It took him a moment to make sense of it, but he got the message soon enough.

“Oh,” he exhaled, and the uncomfortable feeling stopped crawling over his body. It simply rested on his skin now. He didn’t even think about it.

The hot pressure on his skin dug in, making him shake even more and let his blood boil. It wasn’t anger he felt, it was restlessness. He couldn’t deny them. They gifted him things and he couldn’t just… refuse them. Everything in him recoiled at the idea of doing that, even if he didn’t understand why he felt that way or why two sets of earrings were so important.

Tommy shoved his phone into the pocket of his jeans. He dropped to his knees and his fingers started fighting with the pin of a vinyl record on his backpack. The needle would do. As soon as he had it off, he got back on his feet and plucked his lighter from the pocket of his coat.

The lighter sparked a quick flame and Tommy held the semi-long needle of the pin into it. The pressuring feeling on his shoulders lessened and was replaced with something that reminded him of praise. Like the thing he felt in (Witch)Craft, Soot & more when he finally picked up the stupid deity lexicon… Tommy probably should return there and ask Soot… Wilbur for help… maybe?

At least for identifying his deity.

The small flame licked at the needle. Tommy watched. Twenty seconds. Fifty seconds. Hundred seconds.

“Okay… okay…”, he muttered and let the flame of the lighter die down.

He looked around quickly. Something to offer resistance. A piece of soap? As his eyes laid on it, he already reached over to grab it and pull it over. It was dry and scrapy, but it would do.

Another wave of praise. Faint, an approving gaze, an appreciative nod.

Tommy breathed in and out, deeply, to steady his shaking hands. It wasn’t quick enough. Anger curled up in his chest. It had to work! Right now! With shaking hands or without.

“Fuck it.”

In one swift movement, Tommy leaned over the sink and closer towards the mirror, set the piece of soap behind his earlobe and the needle against it from the other side. The needle was through and stuck in the soap block before he could think about it.

Tommy didn’t register much pain, it just was a hot feeling spreading out in his earlobe, and it bled. He ignored the deep crimson droplets that landed on his shoulder and pulled the soap block off, leaving the needle inside. Now it stung a bit.

Deep vibrations tingled over his shoulders, almost like humming. Humming in approval, but deep, proud of something big, of something meaningful, of something… he didn’t know how to describe it. But it sent Tommy’s mind floating without that he could do anything against it. Floating into the good pain, the good hurt, the spicy hot, selfish, possessive embrace.

The deity hummed at the sight of his fresh blood he spilled willingly for them, at the sight of the first earring finding its way into his flesh and claiming Tommy as something he couldn’t grasp just yet.

Chapter Text

“What the fuck did you do to your ears, Tommy? Let me see.”

“Piss off.”

Ranboo sounded concerned as he leaned closer towards him. Tommy put his hand in the way of his roommate’s face to stop him from approaching too closely – and to avoid his gaze.

They were sitting in the cafeteria of their school, waiting for Tubbo to join them who was still stuck in line to get his lunch. The hall was rapidly filling with students. The sounds of people talking, shoes squeaking over the PVC floor and plates clattering together was almost too much to bear for Tommy’s brain, if he was expected to have a serious conversation here.

Ranboo grabbed his wrist and pulled his out of the way easily. Tommy felt his eyes on him – or rather on the two little gold rings in his ear. He managed to keep it hidden for the night, using his hair to cover his ears up and keeping the hood of his hoodie on his head as he sat down on his desk to do some of his homework.

Not all of it, if he wanted to do all of what was left on his table, he would have ended up staying up till way over 2 in the morning.

“I pierced them,” he said in the most careless tone he could manage.

“What? Uff, that looks painful. You did it yourself? Why?”

“Yah,” Tommy said and shrugged, “I thought it would look cool, so I took the needle of my pin and did it.”

Ranboo let out a disbelieving, but also slightly amused snort and slouched back into his seat. He was too large for it. His knees dipped to both sides when he leaned forward so his legs wouldn’t be in his way and would return to a more parallel position as he sloped back.

“Is that what old people mean when they talk about mistakes they did because they were young and dumb?”

“Are you patronising me?!”

“Maybe a bit,” Ranboo admitted, “or should I be brave enough to just assume that you already know that this was a stupid idea?”

Tommy didn’t answer other than groaning and rolling his eyes.

Yes, of course he knew. He wasn’t a dumb child anymore who wasn’t able to grasp the consequences of his own actions.

It had been a stupid idea and his hot, throbbing earlobes reminded him of them almost constantly.

After he had stabbed one hole into his ear, the deity wasn’t satisfied with what Tommy offered them – and they still were not after the second or third time. He ended up with four piercings, two on each side, and after he was done fumbling the last ring into his flesh, he spent a while levitating in a feeling that had been pure bliss.

Tommy couldn’t tell how long it had been, but it was warmth and gentle euphoria you’d get after receiving extensive praise for getting a good grade you studied very hard for.

No pain reached him in this state, no sense of time had been left. When it stopped, he felt lightheaded, but good. He barely realised that his ears were dripping with blood, his hands smeared all over with it and his neck and shoulders covered with red circles. But when he realised, he almost broke down from laughing hysterically. It wouldn’t stop until his stomach hurt and his face felt like he caught a strike of lightning with it.

Not because the sight was funny, no, he literally looked like he had straight up stabbed someone. It was the overwhelming feeling that caught up to him and he did with it what he did best with an unwanted feeling: Laughing at it until it felt ridiculed and went away.

When he calmed down, he googled how to clean blood out of your clothes (as if that was just your everyday search history entry, his FBI agent was surely frowning at him right then) and washed his face and neck. He used hand sanitizer on the piercings to do some damage control on what he caused, and it stung like a bitch. Then, he spent a good fifteen minutes scrubbing the stains out of his coat and sweater under running cold water, like a website for young women worrying about their ruined underwear told him to do.

Tommy found out that this worked better than he expected and added another mental note on his profession list:

Thomas Careful Danger Kraken Innit
Professional Witch (greatest witch that ever walked the earth)
Professional A* (or lower) Student
Very Professional Gamer
Professional in cleaning blood from clothes

That sounded pretty metal. Tommy liked it.

The whole time, Tommy felt the deity around, sometimes suffocatingly close. As if they were breathing down his neck.

Strangely enough, he didn’t mind it for a single second. Which was odd, he normally was a big defender of his own personal space.

After that quite bloody incident the deity used their presence to make themselves known to Tommy randomly, almost as if to check in on him from time to time. He didn’t notice any regularity in their visits though.

Sometimes, they would stay for several minutes. Whenever that happened, something heavy would rest on Tommy’s shoulders as if someone threw a thick winter coat over them. His scalp and ears would tingle and the weight on him would shift randomly from one shoulder to another and over his back. There wasn’t always time and space for Tommy to actually talk to them out loud, but he tried to make known that he noticed.

And sometimes, it was just a moment. A mere brush of a presence against him that grew more and more familiar.

It reminded Tommy of the time he first came to an orphanage at just shy of ten years of age when he was still used to living and sleeping alone in a room, and truly spent a lot of time on his own.

Back then, he had to get used to having three roommates having conversations, playing, living, and sleeping right beside him. Even when they were not talking, Tommy was often interrupted by small things like their shifting or just breathing.

It had felt like he had been deaf and blind all his life and suddenly received his senses back, without any warning. Everything was too loud, too bright, too much, too much, too much. He would notice everything.

Eventually, he got used to other children being around him. Their booming voices got quieter, their eye soring colours duller, and their movements would become mere smudges on the edges of his field of view. Their presences would grow familiar as they grazed against each other, acknowledging one another as being there.

Tommy took a few years, but at some point, he would even enjoy it.

“Where did you get those from though?”, Ranboo asked.

It was a question Tommy would rather not answer, but again, he wasn’t dumb. He knew that it would pop up at some point.

He shrugged as he shoved his food around on the plate with his fork, trying to pronounce his presumed carelessness of the situation.

“I found them.”

You could practically hear Ranboo raise his eyebrows without looking at him.

“You found them.”

“Yeah, I found them,” Tommy confirmed and just now looked up to his friend and roommate, “what?”

“I’m brave again and assume that you know yourself how unbelievable that sounds,” Ranboo said and turned back to eat his own food.

“Maybe I should be brave too and assume you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t steal,” Tommy responded.

It hurt to feel how Ranboo didn’t believe him, even while he was telling the truth. He maybe lied to him about his whereabouts sometimes, but that didn’t mean he was much worse than that, right?

“You’ve been behaving weirdly, Tommy.”

Ranboo had his eyes pinned to his plate and Tommy did the same with his own. They sat in silence for the time of a few agonising seconds. Or, in the usual cafeteria noise.

Tommy chewed on the inside of his cheek.

Of course, they would notice at some point. He had known that the whole time, but he still didn’t know what to answer on that. Not to mention that he would always shove it away when it popped up in his head.

“We worry, you know?”, Ranboo carefully continued, “I don’t know what’s up, and maybe you can’t tell us for whatever reason. Or not tell us at the moment, but later. Maybe you don’t want to tell me but Tubbo first. That’s all okay. Just know you can talk to us about anything.”

Tommy nodded slowly.

Could he?

“Thanks,” he said, and his throat felt hoarse as he spoke, “but damn, you’re such a softie, boob boy!”

Ranboo rolled his eyes.

“What was he being a softie about?”, Tubbo’s voice asked from behind Tommy, and he turned his head to look at him as the shorter boy smacked his tray down on the table next to him.

“Emotions,” Tommy responded.

“Ewww,” Tubbo commented and pulled his even facial featured into a disgusted grimace.

Ranboo scoffed and Tubbo let himself drop on his chair like a wet sack of cement shoving it backward quite a bit by that.

“Very true, big man,” Tommy said.

“No more emotions, only food.”

Tubbo immediately dug into his portion of lunch hungrily and for a short while, all what was to be heard of him was chewing. Then, he looked up to Tommy and pushed his elbow into his side.

“You look stupid with those things in your ears,” he commented.

“And you look always stupid.”

“Oh no, I’m hurt by that.”

Tubbo didn’t ask. Not about the why, the where or the how. He simply accepted it.

Tommy didn’t really need to be surprised about it. Ranboo and him probably talked about it beforehand.

Tommy entered (Witch)Craft, Soot & more in the late afternoon, way after he had dropped off his things in his room and bravely worked against the growing pile that was his homework.

The store appeared to be empty, again, and Tommy started to wonder how Soot kept it at all when nobody came around to hand over their hard-earned money. Or use the place as a library, like Tommy was doing.

Maybe Soot was actually just money laundering, but to be honest, Tommy didn’t have much of a clue how that concept was working at all.

The moment the door fell shut behind him and the bell alerted of his visit, Soot leaned as far over the counter as possible to gift him one of his disgustingly gorgeous and contagious smiles.

“Oh! Tommy!”, he mused, and Tommy felt how the small hairs on the nape of his neck raised up in a comfortable shiver.

He rolled his eyes and started walking towards the counter.

“Hi, bitch!”

Soot just kept smiling despite the insult, or maybe because of it. Tommy saw him put his weight on his hands that still laid on the counter and hop around it. He hadn’t touched the bundle of long elegant peacock feathers that were on display behind him, but they moved and swung gently in the slight gust of wind his playful movements created.

Tommy put his hands in his sides and stared up to the weird witch. Today, Wilbur wore a lose white button down and a light grey waistcoat over it that was wrapped snugly around his torso. The jewellery was still there, just as always, but it wasn’t as well-hidden underneath a wide jumper anymore.

“I started to miss you a little, witchling,” he said.

“Is that a fucking pocket watch?”, Tommy asked and gestured towards a little chain hanging lose on the other’s side.

“Yes,” he confirmed and had the audacity to not even feel shame for it.

“Soot, you look like you’re about to demand blood money from me and if I’m not gonna pay it, you’d shoot me. I don’t get why you always dress so obnoxiously.”

Soot’s body moved to the side as well, just a bit, as he tilted his head in question. It reminded Tommy of reed that stood close to the shore of a large, clear lake and would elegantly bend, swing and dance in the wind.

“I said you look like a mafiosi,” he clarified, rolling his eyes.

“I know, I just wondered how someone who looks like he would absolutely fight a racoon to rip a chocolate bar from its little grabby hands with his own little grabby hands got the expertise to critique my choice in fashion?”

Tommy needed a moment to process what he said, but when he got that he had been insulted on three different levels here, Wilbur already lifted his hand and patted it on top of his head.

“AY!”

“It’s okay, we get it, not everyone can have a sense of fashion.”

Tommy smacked his hand off his head and roughly adjusted his curls.

“If that’s what you call a ‘sense of fashion’ you got there, I don’t want it. I look fabulous!”

“Fair.”

Wilbur leaned back against his counter, crossed his feet, and looked Tommy up and down.

“Also, I thought we settled on first names now? What brings you in today?”

“I’m gonna go over there and read,” Tommy revealed his very mysterious plan for the next few hours and adjusted his coat in the manliest way he could muster.

He noted how Wilbur leaned to the side further as if to look beneath something. Tommy made a rather obscene gesture towards him, and the older stood tall again, a crooked smile on his lips.

But it somehow wasn’t the same as usual.

“I don’t think you will right now, because...”

“Guess I was right about you not being able to think then,” Tommy interrupted quickly as soon as he sniffed out an uncomfortable interruption to his plans and turned on his heels to get to his usual reading corner, but he was stopped.

Stopped by a hand curling around his shoulder and tugging him back. He was already cussing Wilbur out as he felt his other hand drive up into his hair and pulled it up gently on the side of his head. Shivers ran over his skin, almost like crackling lightning. Or maybe like pushing the cord into a huge speaker and getting startled by the loud waves of vibrating music coming from them because you forgot to turn down the volume.

“What the fuck are you- “

Tommy was blind. He knew his eyes were wide open, but he didn’t see anything. There was not even blackness, because that would be something at all, but no. There was nothing.

It didn’t last long. Tommy received his eyesight privileges back very soon, so soon that he wondered if he maybe just imagined that it even happened.

“What the fuck did you do to yourself?”, Wilbur asked, quicker to answer his question than Tommy was.

Gosh, would nobody leave him alone with this crap?! He had hoped that his hair would have been long enough to cover his ears from at least Wilbur, but of course he had to assume it was his business as soon as he saw it.

“What?! Can’t I get some cool piercings?! I’m fucking sixteen, it is legal-”

“Tommy…”, Wilbur muttered and turned his head a bit to get a better look at his ear.

The teenager would try to wiggle out of Wilbur’s grip, but his body didn’t move. Warm buzzing, gentle and soft. He relaxed into his hands and let him manhandle him, and there was nothing he could do against it. It maybe sounded scary if described that way, but it wasn’t. Not a single moment did he feel scared.

He didn’t even know why he was so sure that this weird ass person wouldn’t just curse him for life and bite off his entire ear in the same breath – because he surely looked like he could sometimes.

His head was turned, and his other ear was freed of his blonde locks of hair just as gently as the first one. It felt… nice. He didn’t even know when he last got touched like this. If he ever did at all. Wilbur rubbed his thumb over his scalp in a calming manner.

Part of him wanted to recoil at the touch. It felt foreign and new. A bigger, touch starved part of him liked it.

“Well, at least they are even…”, Tommy heard Wilbur say.

He didn’t understand either his tone or his expression as he looked up to him. Tommy grumbled, but that was the only comment he gave on that.

Wilbur released him and brushed a few papers to the side to free the counter off stuff. The witchling blinked. The low buzz disappeared but left parts of his skin slightly numb as if he had stopped a thick string on a guitar with them.

Part of him immediately missed the touch. Damn, that was fucking pathetic.

“Sit down, I’ll go and get some supplies.”

“It’s fine, Wilbur…”

“It’s not. Sit down, please.”

And Tommy sat.

Just when he adjusted his position ever so slightly, he wondered how he even got up here. His feet were now swinging freely in the air. He slowly pulled his coat off his shoulders, folded it over his arm once and set it aside afterwards.

Wilbur didn’t let him wait for long. When he returned from behind the velvet curtains, he was carrying a box he set down next to Tommy and opened it.

Tommy watched him in silence for now. He didn’t feel like explaining anything. Did he owe that to Wilbur anyway? Probably not, he never asked for this. Why was he even sitting here then…? Wait, that didn’t make much sense.

His head was foggy, but somehow, he didn’t classify that as cause for concern because Wilbur surely would take care of everything.

Wilbur put on black latex gloves in the meantime.

“Could you hold your hair out of the way? It’s too long to not be in the way.”

Tommy obeyed silently.

Wilbur sprayed something cold onto his earlobe and he breathed in deeply at the slight burn it produced. He tried to stay still as Wilbur carefully felt over the earrings and moved them gently. He applied some more pressure once and Tommy hissed through between his teeth.

His ears were hot and sensitive. Even Wilbur’s hands felt cold on them.

“Well, you caught a pretty little infection there.”

Tommy shrugged at that information. Surprise, bitch. That came entirely unexpected for sure.

“That’s not too much of a surprise,” he finally managed to answer.

“I guess. It’s not all of them though, the top one on the left looks surprisingly fine. You got a 25% success rate, witchling, congratulations.”

Wilbur’s fingers moved carefully as he moved the rings more. He held them out in different angles, turned them and continued to spray on them.

“What, are you not going to ask me to remove them?”, Tommy asked since through all that fog in his brain, that reaction would make some sense to him.

“No,” Wilbur replied, and Tommy felt how his stomach dropped slightly in relief, “awful idea for several reasons. You could then pierce them again because they would shut. And that would only allow the infection to get trapped in there too.”

Tommy nodded lazily. That sounded logical to him. He zoned out for a bit, barely noticing the movements next to his head, and just letting himself drift into the nice thick fog. That was until Wilbur’s voice returned and ripped him back into the clearer waters of consciousness.

“Besides all that, I doubt it would be approved by the one who gave those to you.”

“Mhh, think so too.”

“Glad we agree here, we wouldn’t wanna anger him.”

“Mhh… wait. One second,” Tommy interrupted himself and blinked in sudden confusion.

There seemed to be an interruption in the webbing of logic here. He revisited what had been said in the past moments.

“What do you know about where I got them from?”

Wilbur finished his work by wiping his earlobes down with a clean piece of paper tissue and removed his gloves one after the other. The first one he removed immediately served as a kind of bag for the other one, inside out, trapping the outside he used to touch Tommy’s skin on the inside now.

The shop owner then dropped the gloves and the paper towels into the metal bin that stood behind the counter. The bin was painted by hand as it looked like. Several big sunflowers on light blue background. Looked like something you would put into a child’s room, Tommy thought.

“Just a sweet little gut feeling,” Soot responded.

“I’m no gastrointestinal specialist, but if I was you, I’d get that checked out, big man.”

“It is good that you are not a gastrointestinal specialist.”

Wilbur closed the box again and shoved it aside. Tommy stayed sitting on the counter, but he couldn’t tell if he did so out of spite or because he wanted to.

“When did you start working with the Blood God?”

Oh?

The Blood God.

Oh.

Wilbur seemed to misinterpret his sudden silence.

“I don’t want to berate you, Tommy. I know that most books and older witches will tell you that deity work is not beginner friendly. Personally, I say that everything is beginner friendly – if you’re brave enough,” he said and shared a short grin with Tommy, “but I am… I must say, fairly interested, in how this connection came to what it is now.”

Tommy’s facial expression betrayed confusion as he needed several seconds to think about that sentence to make sense of it.

“That’s nothing you can explain just like that, I guess... Maybe it would-”

“Sure, no problem, that’s what the tea kitchen is for. I’ll close the store and hang out my break sign.”

Tommy quickly opened his mouth to reply, but Wilbur didn’t wait. He was gone before he could bring out a single word of protest. Tommy shut his mouth again before he could feel too stupid.

Wilbur’s steps were long and quick. Like Tubbo’s when he showed off his new theatre skills. He called it “walking with intent”.

Tommy stayed where he was, but frowned at the possible intent behind those steps – whatever it may be – because he couldn’t fully make sense of why Wilbur was being so fucking nosey about this.

Chapter Text

The only sound that filled the kitchen for a while was the one of ceramic mugs and plates getting rearranged. Soot didn’t speak and Tommy followed his glorious example without hesitation.

The young witch sat on the bench, just on the same spot he picked out last time and busied his hands with the hem of his shirt. Tommy stayed stubborn. He wouldn’t start a conversation Wilbur wanted to have.

Tommy felt manhandled without being touched. It wasn’t like Wilbur did anything… bad or wrong here, the rational part of him understood his reaction well. Nonetheless, he felt like his privacy was being invaded. Wilbur maybe told him that he wasn’t meaning to berate or judge him, but Tommy felt like he did.

Something in him wished for his deity to join. To curl up in their smothering, possessive presence and let them handle Wilbur for him.

Tommy chewed on his bottom lip. The idea to call out for them was probably a bad one. To be real now, he had no business being so trustful towards them. They forced him to use a stupid pin needle and a piece of soap to pierce his ears… more or less forced. When Tommy thought back to the scene, he remembered euphoria and the warm snugness he felt, but he barely had a grasp on the pain or the overwhelming feeling he… for sure felt but didn’t remember well.

And to be even realer, Tommy had to admit that he still had no real clue about deity work. He read a bunch of articles, searched for free pdf files on the internet on the matter and scrolled through a few forums and discussion boards.

Despite his research, he remained timid with the deity and avoided actively asking questions. Tommy had a lot of them, always laying on his tongue when the deity was around, but he chickened out all the time. The presence of them was intimidating and no matter how sincerely Tommy promised himself to start demanding something in return for his worship, information in this case, he ended up not doing it when he faced them.

Wilbur turned around with two mugs in his hands, one blue featuring drawn on clouds and the other one a smooth orange colour. He shoved the blue one together with a small teaspoon over the wood of the table towards Tommy and sat down on the chair in front of him.

The mug was filled with steamy liquid that smelled suspiciously like chocolate. A cap of whipped cream was floating on top, and Tommy could spot several small, light pink marshmallows sprinkled on it. He picked up the spoon and quickly started to fish them off the whipped cream to shove them in his mouth.

Wilbur watched him even as Tommy decided to ignore him for now and be invested in the marshmallows instead. His own hands were wrapped around the mug of plain black tea.

“So,” he started after some time passed, “start from the beginning.”

Tommy looked up and licked over his lips to clean the rests of the whipped cream off them.

“I started to do tarot readings,” he said and wrapped his hands around the mug, rubbing his thumb over the smooth texture of the painted-on clouds, “and I got some answers.”

Wilbur nodded slowly but didn’t say anything. Tommy took this as a sign to continue talking.

“Yeah, uh, the answers… I got curious. I asked who I was talking to. Normally, you would just ask in the void, I guess, but it didn’t feel like it. I didn’t get a real answer, but I suddenly felt a lot.”

“What did you feel?”

“Just a lot of stuff. Positive tho.”

Wilbur raised his eyebrows but didn’t ask for more details and resistance built up in Tommy’s chest. Who did he think he was with his arrogant expressions? He wasn’t an expert on stuff like that, but he was aware enough of what he was doing. He continued and confidence entered his voice once more.

“I got the Chariot card as a more concrete answer. I asked further stuff, just… the usual and we agreed on companionship. I thought it would be a nice way of not being alone in my craft and having someone to support me.”

Wilbur leaned back in his chair and led his mug to his lips without his gaze leaving Tommy.

“So, they showed up a lot. Just checking in I assume. I found a lot of things too, everything golden or yellow or anything. Including the earrings. I reached out and-…”

“Did he respond?”, Wilbur interrupted him. His question was stabbed at him precisely on pinpoint, just as if the two were fighters and Wilbur just waited patiently until Tommy did a careless move and offered him a chance to stab his sword right into a gap of his armour that was presented by it.

“Of course, they did,” Tommy huffed in a deeply offended voice, “what the hell do you think?”

“Just asking,” Wilbur answered, “go on.”

Tommy rolled his eyes so hard, his irises almost disappeared underneath his lids, but he obeyed.

“As I was saying, I reached out and asked what the matter with the earrings was and told them that I can’t wear them. I didn’t have any piercings. They… didn’t seem very amused and didn’t let off me until they were in my ears. I grabbed what I had at the time.”

“And that was?”

Tommy tapped his fingers against the mug and avoided further eye contact with Wilbur. He tried to erase his guilty feeling because there was no reason to feel any guilt. Tommy didn’t owe him shit and he shouldn’t feel like he was supposed to feel guilty for doing something that was completely in his own lane of privacy.

It was his decision. He could do to his body whatever he wanted.

And if he wanted to pierce his own septum at 3 a.m. with a coloured pencil or take a razorblade and cut some cool pattern into his thigh, that was on him.

He forced himself to stare directly at Wilbur.

“I was in the bathroom at the time. Had to be quick. There is a pin on my rucksack, and it has a sturdy needle. I held it in a flame and used a piece of soap behind my ears to have a good surface and resistance.”

The adult sighed. It looked like he literally deflated a bit as he did.

“Oh, Tommy…”

“What ‘Oh, Tommy’? Don’t ‘Oh, Tommy’ me! Piss off, Wilbur!”, Tommy hissed, “I can fucking do whatever I want. It’s my body! Fuckin’ mine! And I will do whatever the heck I want with it! Don’t act like… that, trying to make me feel guilty and apologise for something that doesn’t even affect you in the fucking slightest! What else do you want; shall I ask if and when I can go eat again?”

Wilbur tilted his head to the side and sat up straighter, opening up his body language and shaking his head. Tommy watched him closely, his gaze twitching over him in sudden distress.

Wilbur looked like he wanted to ask a lot of questions, but like he wouldn’t know with which one he was supposed to start. It just lasted a moment. Then, he gave Tommy one of his usual smiles that became such a stable thing in Tommy’s life already.

You said something and Wilbur would smile.

“Next time you want a piercing, tell me and I’ll do it for you.”

Tommy blinked but before he could process what he was told, his mouth snapped again.

“I want a tattoo,” he exclaimed and tapped on his left shoulder, “right there. Of a cow, a fluffy one. And I want a moth on my sternum.”

Wilbur kept smiling and reached to the side to grab a sketchpad and a pencil.

Tommy didn’t get it. Why didn’t he get angry? He was an adult; he was supposed to get angry when Tommy came forward and told him about wanting to use his skin as a canvas. Berate him, tell him that it would look ugly when he got older. Or that he would look like a cow himself.

“I want a septum piercing too,” he stated, “and an Ashley one.”

Wilbur didn’t look up from his sketch, but he nodded.

“Those are some big plans you have. Did you think about what kind of ring you want for your septum?”

That question made Tommy furious, but he didn’t fully understand why, and he couldn’t even direct his anger onto Wilbur.

“I want some very shiny stuff. Hot pink and sparkling or something.”

“I don’t have something like that here, but I could for sure see if I can get some that are what you imagined.”

Tommy let out a breath through his nose. This was like punching the fucking air!

“I’m saving money for a dress,” he stated bluntly.

“That’s cool,” Wilbur said without looking up from the paper in front of him, “I don’t know what size would fit you though, dresses tend to be cut for a different default body type than yours. I can ask someone I know though; she has a good idea about that corner of fashion.”

This wasn’t what he had expected. Again. Tommy felt how he was rapidly losing steam.

He stayed silent for several minutes, just huffing and puffing against some imaginary wall in his own head until Wilbur turned the sketchpad and slid it over to him.

“It’s just an idea, but I think like tattoos are best when they go with the flow of the body part they are put on. Your chest would be a very wide space, so how about you put it on the upper part of your sternum and add a bit of shape to it, just like that…”, Wilbur paused and used the pencil to clear the shape up a bit more.

What Tommy was looking at was a simplistic but fluffy looking moth with beautifully shaped, elongated, and spread-out wings, sitting on a kind of vine. A few not further detailed shapes were placed around the motive to stretch it out further to the sides.

“You’re not a legal adult yet, so the tattoos will have to wait, but if you describe what you want, we can work something out together that is exactly what you thought about.”

Tommy swallowed thickly. He couldn’t stop his body from deflating himself now. His throat felt like someone wrapped a rope around it and put the knot right in the front.

“O-Oh…”

Wilbur put the black pencil down on the sketchpad and leaned back again.

Tommy didn’t even know what to say anymore. His jaw tensed as he bit his teeth together. Something in his throat suddenly felt raw, as if the knot in it was made of very rough rope, the type of rope sailors would use to tie a ship tight in a new seaport, and rubbed his flesh open.

He wiped is sleeve over his eyes to prevent tears from rolling over his cheeks.

“I don’t… actually want the piercings and the dress thing was a lie too,” he admitted.

“I know.”

“You should have gotten angry…”

“I don’t think that it’s necessary to be angry at a teenager who wants to try things out. The world is full of colourful, exciting things and they are even more colourful and so much more exciting for young souls like you. It’s just important to guide them while trying to find their path to make sure they do it safely.”

“What are you doing, reciting a stupid parenting book?”, Tommy asked, wanting to sound offensive but all he managed was weak coaxing.

“No,” Wilbur smiled warmly and picked up his mug of tea again, “do you need a tissue paper?”

“I’m fine, bitch. Those are manly tears. Crying is very manly,” Tommy muttered.

“Of course.”
Wilbur gave him space. He wouldn’t talk to Tommy for a while, and he also wouldn’t watch him. Tommy felt weird about that. Part of him was suspicious. Wilbur for sure was putting on an act, right? It had to be an act. People never talked like that.

But at the same time, it was hard to think that Wilbur was not meaning it. No matter how hard Tommy was searching and digging, he could not find himself getting the feeling that he was lying or tricking him. He was quite good at reading people, or at least good enough to find out a thing like this.

When people put on an act, Tommy would get this slightly slimy feeling as if he was currently looking at a mask of someone rather than their real face and the only thing even slightly real in his field of view was the faint feeling of how they normally looked like.

Wilbur did not have a mask on. Tommy patted his hands into his face several times and was met with nothing than real skin, blinking lashes and a confused, but fond smile.

“So, what the fuck do you know about the Blood God and why are you thinking it’s them?”, Tommy finally asked after a while.

“I know enough,” Wilbur said.

“Sure, Mr. Cryptic, much help, much wow.”

It was Wilbur’s turn to roll his eyes.

“The Altar Room you saw.”

“So, you’re a worshipper?”

“You could say that.”

“Good. Good. Tell me about this guy then,” Tommy said and leaned back in his seat, trying to copy the pose he saw Wilbur do often.

“What do you want to know?

“Basics.”

“I thought, he is still widely worshipped and known about.”

“I dunno, big man,” Tommy shrugged, “I didn’t grow up very religiously and I’m also not a soldier.”

“Maybe you should think about why he would reach out to you if you don’t meet criteria like that.”

Tommy frowned. Yes, but no.

“And you? You’re not a soldier either, why should you worship him?”

Wilbur didn’t even reply to his question but simply started to explain.

“The Blood God is a quite old deity,” he told Tommy, “And you should take his name literally. He is known to be of strict and very loyal nature.”

“Sounds… like something for old people,” Tommy commented, and Wilbur let out a chuckle.

“Maybe. Traditional qualities, for sure.”

“Does he demand some… funky blood sacrifices? Human skin and eyes and shit?”

Wilbur finished the rest of his tea and adjusted the collar of his waistcoat.

“The times of human sacrifices are over,” Wilbur said.

“I can’t fully differentiate if you think that it’s a good or a bad thing when you say it like that,” Tommy huffed and eyed Wilbur carefully.

“That fully depends on who you ask, witchling,” the older witch responded and gently tugged on one of his earrings on his right ear, “It is one of the safest and most powerful ways of securing a connection to certain deities and other, more feral entities. The law department of the Academy classifies it as necromancy and therefore, as a bad thing. At the same time, the Goddess of Death herself is still playing a big role in the religion of the commoners. Depending on where you are, her popularity surpasses the one of Prime by far and there are a few truly ancient Covens quite devoted to her and the Angel’s worship.”

“But I thought, all of the official Covens work under the current magic law shit?”, Tommy asked before he downed the last bit of his now slightly cold hot chocolate.

“Even if those are aligned with the Law of magic. You are a clever witchling, you can image what happens behind closed doors sometimes.”

Tommy felt a bit nauseous. He nervously turned the mug in his hands.

“So… that means for me now?”

“No. He doesn’t demand human sacrifices,” Wilbur said and got up to grab Tommy’s and his own mug, “he will demand blood though, in one way or another.”

Tommy decided to not press the matter further. He meant the question as a light-hearted little comment on the side, and he had expected Wilbur to laugh it off. That was a truly uncanny feeling to be met with an answer like this.

“What is the matter with the earrings?”

“Another of his qualities is his protectiveness,” Wilbur said as his hands busied themselves with further drink making.

Another tea and another hot chocolate. Tommy checked his phone to get the time. Apparently, he would stay a bit longer of how it looked like.

“What do you know of the general hierarchy of worshippers?”

“Eh,” Tommy made and pulled his face into a strong grimace, a mockery of a cartoon character thinking, “there is the god. Then there are the high priests and priestesses. Then you have priests and priestesses again, but they ain’t high this time.”

Tommy could hear Wilbur exhale in a way that sounded quite amused.

“Sometimes there are oracles and stuff like that, but not always. Does he have one?”

“No,” Wilbur said, “Kristin does, but the Angel takes that role, more or less. Complicated structures.”

“Eh, ‘kay, no oracle then. Then there are… like worshippers that are also practicing extensive witchcraft and those in some important positions I don’t know shit about and then the normal people. Covens work differently, don’t ask me how tho.”

“Roughly. There is a separate caste for people who have been claimed. How that works is different from God to God and just because a deity reached out to you doesn’t mean they have claimed you or plan on doing that,” Wilbur explained while he returned to the table.

Tommy got his second mug of sweet hot chocolate, whipped cream, and pink marshmallows. Despite the serious topic, he felt warm. It was nice of Wilbur to just hand him drinks that were quite expensive just like that.

The shop owner continued right after taking a seat again.

“The Blood God is quick when it comes to claiming gold objects as ritual items and accepting gold offerings. When he wants to claim a person, he will make them wear gold jewellery in some way. Usually with piercings, preferably ear piercings. It’s used to… basically to show you off to other deities as theirs.”

Tommy crooked his head to the side.

“I don’t get it. Never heard of such thing as a claim, to be honest.”

“It is quite complex. Doesn’t happen all that often either in modern times, but it’s not impossible.”

“What’s the use of such a thing anyway?”

“Witches usually aren’t able to fight a claim off. You’d have to be very powerful to do that and facing a deity that is rather weak. It’s sometimes used to force a witch in a connection to a deity. Other than that, a claim can’t be removed that easily, and it puts the God first in line when it comes to decisions about their craft and other deities they can or cannot work with or worship. On the witches’ side, being claimed by a deity will offer protection, often suddenly increased luck and other benefits, depending on which one we’re talking about.”

“Why would he though?”, Tommy asked, and his upper lip curled in a mixture of confusion and self-disgust, “I’m a bratty teenager who can’t even do his homework right and kinda looks like a street rat.”

Wilbur frowned and Tommy felt himself recoil a bit, slouching and busying himself with picking the marshmallows off the top of his mug again.

It just was a lot. Tommy didn’t know how to handle this situation at all. He didn’t think he’d ever be in one like that.

“I don’t want to hear you call yourself names,” he said, and his tone was stern, a quick warning, before it loosened up again, “and well. He has his reasoning for sure. It happens sometimes that Gods just find… liking in a mortal for apparently no good reason. In some cases, several Gods feel the need to claim the same one and if said Gods work well together, it is an option.”

Tommy felt Wilbur’s gaze creep over him as he was eyed. It was a strange feeling, again, just as if Wilbur saw more of him than his physical form showed. He tried to ignore it and rather ate off the sweets in silence.

When he was done, he looked up again. Wilbur sat there in silence, his chin resting in his hand and his fingers covering his mouth. His deep brown eyes were still pinned at Tommy.

“So… that’s a lot,” the teenager said and pushed a strand of his hair out of his forehead before looking around the room to avoid Wilbur’s eyes once again, “I… what the heck do I do now?”

Tommy didn’t get an answer. He waited several seconds before he looked back to Wilbur just to find him still staring at him. He frowned and leaned over the table to impatiently snap his fingers in front of his face several times.

“Ay, weirdo!”

“Hm. Sorry, zoned out.”

“Yah, I saw that.”

Wilbur sat up again, picking up his mug and having a few sips.

“What was the question?”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do now?!”, Tommy asked and nervously changed his sitting position, “You’re worshipping him, ain’t you? You should know?”

A smile spread out on Wilbur’s lips. A strange, dreamy one. Tommy didn’t really care at the moment.

“Call him.”

“What?”

“You can’t do anything against the claim anyway, so you better accept it as soon as possible. Your best bet is to build a the best connection possible. If he had to be that impatient already, you should absolutely use what he can do for you; and if you’re even able to call the Blood God and he actually answers, you should have no fear of asking him whatever you need to know. You know, even Gods must follow certain rules, and him being bound to several ones about time and space, he isn’t actually able to divide his attention too far. And… I worked with him for… ages and he still stubbornly ignores me sometimes when he thinks he has something better to do,” Wilbur said, sounding seriously offended, and rolling his eyes.

“This is… so weird. I really don’t know what comes next.”

“I bet it is a lot to handle for the beginning. What comes next is what you want to come next. You have been presented with a very interesting chance, now you gotta see what you want to make of it.”

“My head is spinning a bit,” Tommy admitted, “a lot of information. I read about another deity a while ago. It was said, he can take a human form.”

“Most deities can do that, no matter how minor. It’s one of the easiest and oldest little tricks in the book. Some just choose not to, or just do under specific circumstances.”

“Why would they even do that? Why be human when you can be a God? As a human, you have to go to school, work, do taxes…”, Tommy huffed and downed half of his hot chocolate in one go.

Wilbur laughed his gentle, contagious laugh. The look he was giving Tommy was fond and Tommy shivered as he felt it literally crawl over his skin, vibrating and soft.

“You know, witchling, eternity is a really, reeeaaaally fucking long time and immortality can get boring. At some point, you’d really rather work and do taxes.”

Chapter Text

House five was busy today. Fairly busy.

If one could call it like that.

When Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo came home from school, everything seemed normal, but just as they were shutting the door of room 014 behind them, the sound of a generalised alarm rung through the corridors.

It was a dull noise, louder in the common rooms and hallways than in the children’s rooms, but Tommy tensed immediately upon it reaching his ears. It sounded like the air raid sirens you’d hear in history class when watching a documentary of a war that, scarily, happened not that long ago.

Tubbo’s hand froze on top of the door handle.

Tommy could hear calls coming from the common room of their floor. Furniture scraping over the floor. Thudding. Rapid footsteps scattering. Things were happening quickly.

The teenagers shared a quick look, but Tommy was sure this moment lasted ages. He would recall every detail in Ranboo’s face and every little movement of Tubbo’s posture later.

The door was slammed shut and Tubbo struck forward to grab the foot end of Tommy’s bed that was right next to the door. His shoulders underneath the straps of his rucksack, the tendons in his hands, his whole body tensed as he leaned back into the harsh tug he forced onto the bedframe.

Rubber squeaked over plastic as the piece of furniture scraped over the floor a good distance. Tubbo was of shorter built, but he was much stronger than he looked like.

Tommy stumbled forward just a millisecond later and forced his feet to carry him over to the other end of the bed to push it forward, assisting his friend in his effort to push the bed in front of the door to keep it shut.

His hands were shaking as he put all his weight into the shove. Tommy felt his heartbeat against his ribs in a painful way, quick and hectic, not even fully regular. His pulse was hammering in his ears as if to accompany the howling siren in its terrifying song.

Fear flooded his system, but only after the bed was standing where it was supposed to be and Tubbo tripped out of the tiny space their act of combined strength left him between the bed and the wall.

The flesh in his palms tightened painfully as the raw panic was pumped through his system by his fluttering heartbeat, beat by beat, reaching even the last corners and edges of his body and causing his nerves and senses to cry out at the sudden wake up call. The bottom of his ribcage seemed to tighten around his stomach like a corset that was being laced way too tightly in an attempt to crush his organs between grinding bones and hefty outside pressure.

Tommy faintly noted Tubbo rushing past him and another motion in the corner of his eye that could have been Ranboo.

He had to get moving. He had to get moving, but there was really no place to run to. The door was blocked now, but otherwise, 014 was a dead end.

Tommy backed off from the door. Distant shouting reached his ears and more furniture seemed to be moved. Another movement caught his attention, but from the other side this time, from the window.

He didn’t remember how when he stepped closer, but when he was close enough to peak over the window still, he could watch more people running into the building. The front door that was otherwise locked for people coming from the outside was wide open. Tommy recognised who was coming into their house, but that was just because of the keychain bands and the name tags. They worked for the orphanage.

Generalised alarms called everyone on duty over to the house that sent it out, so this made sense, at least that was what some seemingly distant part of his brain tried to inform him of.

The noise from outside got louder, and closer. A sudden crash of wood somewhere in the corridor leading up to their room let Tommy flinch and bring more distance between himself and the door.

A hand grabbed him from behind and pulled him further back, further, and further until his heels hit wood. A quick gaze over his shoulder told him that it was Ranboo who had been dragging him over to the closets of the room.

Tommy needed a second, but he understood. He hopped into the one he had been dragged to, Ranboo following with a stern look on his face. The door closed and darkness wrapped around the three boys were squished against each other in the tight space.

Nobody dared to move. Tommy didn’t even dare to breathe for the first while. The siren was still howling, and his hands were still cramping at the suffocating feeling of fear.

For a few minutes, but it could have been hours too, that was all there was to it.

Just them, their disrupted, shallow gasps for air and their shaking against each other’s frightened bodies.

Nobody dared to speak. Nobody dared to ask what the others thought what was happening. Despite their limb numbing confusion, the mute agreement between them to not even let out the tiniest sound of voice stood like an iron wall. Holding their stance against whatever there was outside.

Tommy prayed. Oh, and how he prayed.

He prayed to the Blood God, his deity meant to be with him, he prayed to the Goddess of Death to protect him from joining her too early, he prayed to Quackster, the God of Luck, to grant him some after abandoning him for such a fucking long time.

All of this was muddled up with panicked thoughts that rushed through Tommy’s mind, constructing a million possible scenarios on what could be going on outside and the echo of the sound of the siren, repeating itself over and over and over and over.

It wasn’t the first time Tommy heard it.

But this had been the longest. The noise burnt itself into his mind, leaving a scary imprint on its exact tone and rhythm for him to repeat over and over and over and over again later. When he would be trying to get some sleep.

The sudden sensation of a presence joining had Tommy gasping again, but he quickly raised both his hands up to his mouth to cover it up tightly. His eyes were blown wide, and his pupils expanded suddenly, shallowing almost all of the blue colour of his irises and causing his vision to swim for a few seconds.

He recognised the presence easily. It was the Blood God.

That was when the sirens stopped just as suddenly as they started and ghostly silence rested down on the house like a smothering layer of cotton that would swallow all sound.

None of them really saw it, but the teenagers shared another look.

Tommy was still shaking, even with the heavy presence of the deity around. It was all over him, causing his skin to crawl in a weirdly comfortable way as if he was being reached over and patted down for any kind of injury or cause for his distress.

Ranboo moved first. He used the tip of his foot to carefully shove the closet door open. The quiet squeaking had Tommy flinching, even if he was able to localise and categorise the noise as harmless.

Tommy almost fell out of the closet as soon as the space was opened far enough. He tripped and stumbled out of it, shortly followed by his friends. Tubbo left the closet door open, just in case-

The Blood God stayed this time, despite Tommy not talking to him, and it didn’t feel like he planned on leaving any time soon. The young witch meant he could sense confusion, but it quickly turned into determination, at least this was how he would interpret it.

“What the fuck was that?”, Tommy finally dared to whisper, but he wasn’t surprised as his question was answered with frightened stares, shrugging shoulders and helpless gestures.

Tommy ducked as he heard voices outside, quite clearly even, through the open window slit. He sneaked closer to the window and peeked out, wearing the presence of his deity like a layer of reliable armour despite the corset of fright still strangling his torso.

He could see the front entrance door and the open space in front of it. Part of it was covered with a roof for the bikes of the children who had one. In the wall next to the front door was a wooden bench.

A young man was sitting on it, the rest of the adults standing around him. Tommy didn’t recognise him at all.

He had a slim backpack on his shoulders, wore mostly dark clothes and dirty shoes that looked not too far off from how Tommy’s own shoes looked like. His short hair was dark too, maybe brown, maybe black already. Not that this mattered.

Tommy stood there and stared. His mind started to piece things together. The backdoor, the backdoor towards the small garden this house of the orphanage had. It had a small lever on the side, to prevent it from locking you out when you were outside.

His mind made a quick beeline to the low, flimsy fence around the garden.

“There is a stranger,” he said quietly, “someone… must have left the backdoor open.”

“What…”, Ranboo answered from behind him. He sounded like there was a ton of weight compressing his voice. “What the fuck.”

Tommy’s eyes scanned the outside scene repeatedly, scared to miss something, just something, until they laid back onto the stranger’s frame.

He moved. He moved, slowly. Watching the closest social worker to him. Tommy didn’t know him; he probably was from another house. The man had his back turned to the guy on the bench behind him and was chatting with the woman in front of him.

Tommy tensed and tensed until his body was frozen to a single block of ice.

This idiot. This fucking idiot. Those fucking idiots! Why was nobody paying attention to the dude who just broke into their home and obviously caused violent trouble in the common room?!

The man pulled his backpack form his shoulders as if he was caught in slow motion and tugged it into his lap. The zipper opened. One of the social workers laughed.

Tommy knew what was going to happen before it even started to happen. He had seen it a few times already and those few times had been enough for his taste. And still, he was frozen to the ground, his eyes pinned on the large group of people who cared for him daily, maybe not very well, but daily chatting without paying attention.

Why was nobody paying attention?!

Tommy felt the Blood God’s presence expand.

Why was nobody- …!!?

It happened quickly. The blade was drawn in a single, swift movement. It was long, his mind automatically guessed between fifteen and twenty centimetres.

Tommy heard someone scream and he was to realise seconds later that it had been his own voice. It was like his brain lagged, stuttered, and struggled to process all of the information reaching it at once.

Movement came into the group of people as the man jumped up and raised the knife next to his head like a fucking cartoon character chasing after their victim in a manner that was meant to be comical, but there was no comedy value in this situation.

This scene, this totally absurd scene, burned itself into Tommy’s retina.

It wasn’t a conscious thought, but the horrifically dismaying realisation that this, this would stay with him for the rest of his life reached him, nevertheless.

Somewhere in his psyche, covered by countless layers of other, more urgent thoughts and instincts, he wanted to mourn this like he would mourn the fall of stars as tears and weep for vanquished beauty.

The group of adults outside scattered like a flock of roused chickens. The only thing missing to that picture would be the feathers busting into the air as the fox ripped through the coop.

His mind kindly informed him of his doubt that the daydreaming social worker had a chance, trying to help him stay on top of everything, trying to make sure he always had the best overview over everything to make the best possible decisions – but he barely acknowledged it.

Tommy faltered backward, his hand flying back to covering his mouth to suppress a pathetic gagging noise, and he lowered his gaze. Most of his attention turned to him controlling his breathing and to fight down the uprising nausea in his corset tightened middle.

Someone said something, but it was far away. Tommy didn’t notice himself sink on the floor.

The phantom of the Blood God surrounded him, caught him in his stumble and embraced his trembling frame.

Tommy felt his anger, his boiling rage, but he couldn’t see why it would be there. It wasn’t everything he felt either. He felt sorrow, tinted in a strange glimmer of understanding.

Tommy felt warmth and protection. He floated in it for a while. It was a welcomed interruption to what his mind tried to show and tell him. Tommy fled into the Blood God’s metaphorical arms with tightly shut eyes, silently begging to make it all end.

The deity shifted, the rage calmed slightly, and Tommy was welcomed. Low rumbling filled his head. The witchling didn’t recognise the melody, but he would from now on, no matter where he went.

The Blood God gained his voice, through blood and terror, but without intent to cause it to his witchling.

Tommy didn’t get to notice the confused and then equally terrified calls from outside as the stranger suddenly folded like an old picknick table and collapsed to the floor.

It was a bloody, truly gory, scenery, but none of the teenagers got to see it.

Ranboo and Tubbo both were sunken next to Tommy, holding him and each other. Tommy’s mind was far gone.

Maybe, someone would write an article about what happened. For a magazine of, more likely, a local newspaper. Maybe it would be shaped into two or three paragraphs that would be interesting to read for the audience. Without doubt, product of talented writing and maybe even slightly poetic?

Nonetheless, there was no poetry to it. Blood wasn’t pretty when it dripped from the petals of a flower to frame the tragic scene of two lovers dying in the beautiful garden behind the castle. Blood wasn’t even once proof of triumph and victory of a returning survivor of battle as poetry made it out to be.

Really, blood was just red.

Chapter Text

Room 014 did not have to go to school on the next day and the teenagers took that opportunity as soon as it presented itself to them.

They missed breakfast because they slept in, and nobody would comment on that.

Tommy woke up first and as he did, he had a massive headache. Each heartbeat made his skull pound and seemingly brought it closer to exploding. It was the worst on his forehead and when he concentrated on it for too long, he thought he could even feel his blood flowing with each beat of his heart.

His mind felt haunted.

If he’d have to describe it to someone, Tommy would that say it was like an abandoned house in a horror movie.

You could feel the shadows creep up the walls, behind the good memories in the form of framed family photos whenever you went down the corridor, but when you checked, there was of course nothing there.

You could see strange specks out of the corner of your eye that made up the silhouettes of people for just a fraction of a second. It happened often enough to make you look behind you more, but not enough times to make the rational part of you really believe something was off.

And when it was late at night and you were in bed in your room trying to fall asleep in the long shadows the moonlight cast on the creaky floor, you could hear the walls of your bedroom whispering.

We are coming for you, they whisper, they promise. We will never not be with you.

Tommy slowly rolled over on his back with a groan and covered his face with both of his hands to stop the light flooding through the gaps in the ugly curtains from hurting in his eyes.

Smears of last night’s dreams smudged over the black canvas in front of his eyes. They weren’t pretty. Tommy took his hands down to escape them and slowly fought himself in a sitting position.

He had barely slept. Not just his mind, but also room that was his home for such a long time already suddenly felt haunted. Every creak and shift in the hallways or in here let Tommy flinch when he was lying awake and wake up when he finally managed to drift off to a light sleep.

He hadn’t been the only one who didn’t feel safe anymore.

Looking around, he found Tubbo’s bed empty. The blanket had been kicked to the foot end messily and the pillow fell off the bed. He spotted his friend in Ranboo’s bed.

Ranboo had an odd sleeping position. He was too tall to fit into the standard sized beds. Even Tommy had some problems with comfort sometimes, but Ranboo was simply too tall to fit on the bed or under the blanket. To solve that, or at least to make it work, Ranboo would curl up into a foetal position and try to take up as little space as possible.

Now, Tubbo was in the way for that, so the bump underneath the blanket was longer than usual. Ranboo had curled around him and Tubbo gladly accepted his little spoon position.

Tommy didn’t know why, but when he saw that, he felt a small pang of jealousy hit into his stomach.

They had slept huddled together and left Tommy out there on his own with his nightmares and his own whispering mind when he tried to silently talk himself down from tears or stress trembling.

He quickly shook his head at that feeling. The two always had a kind of special connection. It was just different than any other friendships, and it was something Tommy never was able to build with anyone. He had tried, but it just… never worked out.

Besides that, he really hadn’t made himself more approachable for the two in the past few weeks.

It was his fault, and he now had to be a big man and live with the consequences that presented themselves to him. Maybe, he didn’t fit with them after all.

Tommy let them sleep. He needed some alone time now, to calm his mind down and to organise it.

He hadn’t gotten to think about what happened yet. Yesterday had been a pure chaotic mess. So many things happened after the attack and Tommy didn’t even manage to remember half of them. It was hard to replay them in his mind in the correct order.

He grabbed his bathroom supplies and left the room as quietly as possible. His mind replayed yesterday without his consent, but he just accepted it with a mere sigh.

The alarm was first, then Tubbo and him shoved his bed in front of the door to block it.

Then, Ranboo pulled him back to hide in the closet and many people ran into their house of the building complex. Or the other way around. Probably the other way around.

Then the alarm stopped. Tommy had sent some hectic prayers out to his deity and some others in hopes they would protect them.

What happened then? Tommy was sure that they left the closet at some point, but he didn’t have clear memories of that anymore.

The next thing he remembered clearly were his frantic thoughts about how nobody noticed anything and then his scream as he watched the stranger outside pull out a knife.

Then, there was nothing again, just a weird but not uncomfortable floaty feeling. Later, he remembered, he was sitting in the common room of their floor together with Tubbo and Ranboo and some other kids. A social worker was with them and told… something. It just was a brief flash. When he came back to himself the next time, he was standing in the shower.

From then on, the memories were continuous again.

He knew reactions like that from himself. It happened sometimes after very difficult situations. At least he could be sure that he didn’t do anything dumb in those gaps of his memories.

He simply couldn’t remember them, which sometimes led to weird situations because he spoke to people and didn’t know a thing of those conversations anymore.

Tommy tried again, reorganising his memories, and adding in all the information he gathered later.

The guy wasn’t originally looking to kill anybody. If Tommy got it right, he was looking for one of the kids, apparently was related to them. He wanted to take the girl with him, which he obviously could not do.

Things escalated in the common room as he was trying to make them hand her over anyway.

As Tommy heard that for the first time, he had scoffed. This was an orphanage. They were not hostages. None of them needed to be saved, but sometimes, mentally unstable people thought so.

When the alarm went off and the intruder finally got the message that his stupid plan was pointless and had failed, he threw a tantrum like a five-year-old. Was escorted outside. Tommy had seen the rest with his own eyes.

He didn’t manage to hurt anyone. Without warning, the dude randomly collapsed and died on the spot. A heart attack or something, Tommy had been told, but he had seen the mess on the asphalt outside. The rests of it at least. He never had been a big splatter movie fan, but he had seen some with less blood involved.

His head continued skipping through everything.

He couldn’t really wind down while he was brushing his teeth and washing his face. Something in him always wanted to check behind him. A heavy clump of clay seemed to sit in his stomach, smearing his insides with anxiety. The pieces stuck and made parts of him cramped or tensed whenever he couldn’t keep his eyes on the mirror to have an eye on what happened behind his back.

Not that anything happened. He was being silly.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and dried his face off as quick as possible. His stomach twisted.

He was okay, he told himself.

Okay, his mind repeated, okay and safe. Nothing’s there.

Okay

We would see

We would warn you

Okay

Safe

He tried to be careful to not get the towel on his ears, but he didn’t quite manage in the hectic his raising anxiety produced. Tommy’s logical side lost the fight with the part of him that always made him sprint up the basement stairway whenever he had to turn of the light downstairs already.

The towel was set down quickly, even before his skin was dry, and not even he trying to talk himself down worked.

Tommy used a paper towel and hand sanitiser to dab on the little gold hoops in his ears and the wounds. He had to admit that it was a look, the gold lowkey suited him and went well with his hair colour.

That didn’t change the fact that the sanitiser still stung like a bitch. Well, you gotta suffer for beauty, right?

Tommy set down his utensils and threw away the paper towel. He tried to focus for a moment instead of letting his mind race in all directions. What did he want to do today? It was free after all.

He couldn’t really think of something he wanted to do here. He could do more school stuff. That would be productive and very necessary, but just the thought of that made him feel anxious. Tommy was so far behind in most of his classes that even the thought of starting to catch up made his stomach twist and cramp. The thought of the pile of work made him want to curl back up in bed and distract himself from it, despite it not getting better through that.

Well… he could use the excuse of what happened yesterday to not do it, and he probably would, but it felt very wrong. He was being lazy. A whole day free and it already looked like he would not get to work for school, or for the repair of his friend group.

He knew that he should talk to Tubbo and Ranboo. He should apologise for being so distant lately. He should make an effort to change that and talk openly to them.

Tommy wiped his nose with the back of his hand and sighed. He knew he should do all of these things because they would help him with his growing feeling of isolation and overwhelmed stupor.

He knew all of those things, but he still couldn’t muster the courage to fight himself out of the hole he dug himself not long ago.
On top of that, his head was still pounding with pain and ghosts.

Sometimes, his thoughts didn’t make sense to him, or he barely heard them at all. These weird statements and calls from the outer edge of his consciousness often managed to distract him from trains of thoughts that were louder and closer to himself.

He had trouble identifying what those were for sure, but rarely, he managed to catch something, and it sounded just like Tommy talking himself down throughout the night and at the mirror just a second ago… just much quieter and less directed at himself.

One of us!

ooooHH new arc what’s happening??

Hah dead

Tommy didn’t try to make sense out of what his brain produced.

Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, the scene of yesterday replayed, or his head made up pictures of how the death of the guy could have looked like to explain that much blood. Detailed pictures.

Sighing, he fixed his clothes and grabbed his stuff.

He would pay Wilbur a visit. Maybe the calmness of the environment and the strange witch himself could help him to keep his mind in check. Maybe he would even gather some energy there to tackle what was going wrong with him and his life.

It was not even noon when Tommy reached (Witch)Craft, Soot & more and the sky was grey. It was one of the days on which you could not even make out the sun behind the thick cover of clouds, but at least it wasn’t raining again.

That was at least something, but the weather didn’t do much for his mood.

Tommy’s mind hadn’t calmed down and the brabbling of the ghosts of his thoughts far away from him was so mixed up that his headache would just get worse if he tried to listen. He tried to shut it up with his music, but his phone crashed and refused to give off any sign of life since.

The doorbell rang just as always when Tommy shoved it open, and he was greeted by the nice smoky scent of the store.

Wilbur stuck his head out from his usual corner. Tommy assumed that he usually sat behind the counter if there wasn’t anything to do around here.

Wilbur’s next movement was harsh. He swatted the newspaper down he just had been reading and circled around to come over.

Even if he flinched at the sudden sound, seeing his face let Tommy feel some kind of relief.

“Tommy!”

“Hi, fuckface.”

“I just read about it! They said, no one was injured, is that true?”

Wilbur reached him and Tommy rolled his eyes before opening his mouth to answer – of course that idiot would ask stupid questions now, he should have fucking known it – but he didn’t get to answer. Instead, he was pulled into Wilbur’s form and smashed half of his face flat on his shoulder.

His teeth clattered together from the force of the surprise hug, and he was glad that he hadn’t had his tongue in between them. Tommy felt dizzy.

“What the fuc-“

“Is that true?”

“Yeah, yeah, no one besides that piece of shit himself, the parking lot looked like he fucking exploded.”

Wilbur’s grip around him loosened and his hands set down on his upper arms to hold the teenager in place as he pulled back and looked him up and down. Tommy didn’t like that. Wilbur’s eyes were just as brown and warm as always, but something felt very different about them today.

Tommy could spot concern in them, something like guilt, and a strange kind of determination. His grip on the young witch had more strength in them than he would have expected Wilbur’s bony fingers being able to produce and much more than was needed. Firm. Holding him still. As if Tommy would run away as soon as he let him go and he couldn’t tolerate him leaving.

But Tommy wouldn’t leave.

It was the first time I today that he felt safe enough to release the tension from his body.

“What did you see?”

Tommy tried to hold the eye contact and his ground, but Wilbur’s searching gaze bore into him and made him feel like he could see every last bit of his soul. He lowered his eyes and stared at Wilbur’s wine-red wool sweater instead.

It did nothing to escape the feeling of being watched, though.

“Enough. I don’t think you wanna hear it.”

His mind raged up immediately.

No, tell him

he knows best

has seen sum shit too

No

Talk

the nightmares

not safe

Not safe

not safe

abandoned

not fucking safe

Tommy had to blink a few times to collect himself again. He refused to look up and kept his gaze pinned on Wilbur’s chest.

“I asked, so of course”, Wilbur said quietly, letting the words roll off his tongue like little poems, “I can close the shop down for a while again and we sit down? You look terrible, Tommy. Did you sleep at all?”

“I’m tired,” Tommy muttered, throwing the urge to insult the stupid witch back into the wind.

It wouldn’t do shit. Not like it would have stopped Wilbur from talking in the past, so he had no reason to believe it would do this time.

“I understand,” the stupid witch replied softly and pulled him back into the hug.

Tommy let him. He gripped into the fucking disgustingly soft wool of his sweater on his sides and planted his forehead on his shoulder. His mind picked up its favourite task of assaulting him as soon as it got dark around his eyes.

The young witch sighed and opened them again. Fine, no rest for his sore eyes then.

The harsh night crept into his bones and let his legs complain about the weight he put on them. Was this really just because of yesterday or was it the general shit he got stuck in? If yesterday was the straw that made him feel shitty again for the next months, he would cry.

Not in sadness, but in anger.

It was stupid, stupid, stupid.

He was grown, he had seen that before, he knew how the world was.

He shouldn’t get nightmares from that, especially because they were just as stupid as Tommy himself was. And not even scary as soon as he woke up from them. They were just a wild mess of ridiculous things he only feared in his dreams.

“It happened in front of the window of my room,” Tommy finally muttered flatly.

He felt Wilbur nod and his hug tightened. It felt like Wilbur took off some weight off him with that alone.

“We barricaded the door when the alarm went off.”

“Do you do that often?”

“Sometimes, when it’s needed,” Tommy answered and closed his eyes before leaning even further into Wilbur, “when the alarm goes off.”

The silence that followed was comfortable, but Tommy broke it soon.

“I’m tired,” he repeated.

Wilbur brushed his hand over his upper back and nodded again.

“You can lay down for a while if you want to.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m tired. I want to try, but I feel like I’m not even really trying, you know? I’m not even good enough at trying,” Tommy hissed out between his teeth, but the sudden aggression didn’t even let Wilbur twitch.

He wanted to make him twitch and flinch, he wanted to make sure everyone knew Tommy’s barking would be followed with serious biting. At the same time, his jaws seemed to be locked open at an aching angle and he just wanted to stick his fingers down his throat further to purge out the sick feeling that sat high, twisting, turning, moving in his abdomen.

Just like a parasite.

“That shit yesterday was just another drop in the bucket. I’m fucking up school, I’m fucking up witchcraft, I’m fucking up friends. I don’t do enough for either of those. And then I let myself waste time over a stupid guy who wasn’t even after me. The girl he was after, sure, damn, but I wasn’t even… there. I’m making all of this about me again. I keep shoving people away that are meant to be my friends, I keep not doing work I should do, I can’t sleep, I just can’t sleep. I’m too dumb for sleeping, Wilbur, how do you live with such incompetence?!”

Wilbur hummed, but it didn’t sound agreeing nor disagreeing. It was just a low, neutral hum. Tommy felt him stretch up his chin and put it on top of his head and he wanted to punch him. His body was shaking.

“Have you thought of how bad your starting conditions were for everything you just described as being your fault?”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it? Nobody asks for that when you try to get into university with shit grades or fuck it up with some powerful deity.”

“What makes you think you fucked up with him?”

“I don’t know,” Tommy grumbled, “just feels like I did. Feels like I fuck up everything I touch.”

“It’s quite the spiral, right?”, Wilbur hummed and ran his hand up and down his back, “You try to catch the boxes over here but just as you have them, another pile behind you tips over and you’re supposed to catch those too. And then everything falls and crashes down. You try to pick everything up, but it doesn’t work and the boxes of all the other people seem so much more organised and neatly put together.”

Tommy swallowed thickly and nodded.

“Most other people get it together. Tubbo and Ranboo were in the same room as me, but they didn’t wake up every twenty minutes to some childish nightmares. They get school together. They…”

“Tommy, please stop beating yourself up for reacting traumatised over a traumatising event.”

When Tommy didn’t answer, Wilbur took it as an invitation to continue.

“That was a very serious thing you had to see… and I don’t like that you have seen similar ones before already. It doesn’t matter how often you have seen it. Your reaction is normal. It was a fucked up thing you didn’t deserve have to go through. You can’t have the demand to yourself to walk away from all that unfazed,” Wilbur whispered, and Tommy hiccupped.

He couldn’t answer. Something clogged his throat and from the feel of it, Tommy would have guessed it was a stone wrapped in sandpaper. His face grew hot, and he quickly bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from crying.

He silently promised himself that he wouldn’t cry. Instead, he tried to focus on Wilbur’s hand on his back and the weight of his head on top of his own. It was pathetic that he ran here with his childish problems.

“You said you can’t sleep well, so that happens a lot?”

Tommy nodded.

“How is it with energy for things that are fun?”

“What energy? Haven’t really heard of her in a while”, Tommy grumbled back, “Also, what are those questions?”

“Just questions,” Wilbur answered, and his grip tightened again, “not that I really need to ask them…”

“Then don’t,” Tommy snapped.

Wilbur hummed again, but it didn’t stay silent for long.

“Tommy,” he asked and carefully pushed him back to be able to look him in the eyes.

That was nothing the teenager was particularly excited about, but he let it slide and bravely stared back into Wilbur’s eyes… or rather at the dark wreath of lashes on the bottom lids of his eyes to hopefully keep up the illusion that he was able to hold eye contact for longer than two seconds without cringing.

“What?”

“Do you sometimes think that it would be better if you didn’t exist?”

Tommy hiccupped and it quickly turned into a quiet laugh. It was an honest one, a small chuckle of amusement.

“Almost every day, big man,” he said and rolled his eyes before twisting himself out of Wilbur’s grip, “Don’t worry though, I won’t actually do it. I didn’t earn myself a place somewhere nice yet and I don’t want to end up… however those people end up.”

Wilbur’s hand curled around his arm and pulled him back. His grip was iron and his eyes brown steel. No longer soft and gentle. Tommy’s lighthearted chatter died down, together with the smile on his lips. Both looked almost as if they were wiped away.

“I understand that it’s sometimes easier to crack jokes about hard things, but that is nothing we joke about,” Wilbur said sternly.

His steel gaze stared Tommy down and made him literally shrink a few centimetres by slouching. Well, this was awkward. He joked about this with Tubbo all the time. Ranboo already told them that he didn’t like it, but Ranboo was kind of a pussy sometimes.

Wilbur on the other hand wasn’t a pussy, Tommy could feel that. He maybe let the teen insult him and everything, but it seemed like Tommy ran face first into a topic the other didn’t fuck around with at all.

“Sorry,” he muttered looking down, and Wilbur’s thumb ran over his upper arm.

“Good, good. No more joking. You need a break, Tommy. A serious one. That institution there isn’t doing a good enough job for you.”

Tommy looked up to his face again. His face was a prime example of a surprised expression study artists would sometimes sketch out into their sketchbooks.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“What I said. They fucked up enough times, I am not going to let you experience more of those things. You need a place you can actually sleep in. Proper meals and not the stuff they warm up twenty times and server as ‘food’. That isn’t even properly balanced. Way too many carbs and processed sugars in it.”

Tommy’s head was spinning. Did that fucker… research their meal plan?! He studied Wilbur’s face. The shop owner’s face was flushed red. His pupils were blown wide, swallowing almost all of the brown colour of the iris that often looked more like honey if the light fell in correctly. His expression was hard, if not impossible, to interpret – at least for Tommy.

There was a smile on his lips, but it was tense and his forehead was laying in wrinkles like an old bedsheet you forgot to pick out of the washing machine for two weeks and was now ready to rip at the slightest stress that was put on it.

“It is no wonder their kids end up getting depressed with that treatment,” Wilbur said, his tone accusing and displeased.

Tommy felt the stone in his throat drop suddenly deep, deep into his stomach. A twitch ran through his body. He tried to yank his arm out of Wilbur’s grip as he jumped back.

He needed to get out of here. Fast. Very fast.

Wilbur didn’t let go and he even had the audacity to look unfazed. He simply pulled the struggling blonde back towards him and caught his paddling free arm in the air just before Tommy got the idea to shove his hand into his face.

“Oops, okay, no, not like that… Sorry, I scared you, I didn't mean to... Stop that. You have to understand that I worry about you, especially after what you just told me...”

Tommy found his voice back. He must have dropped it. The freezing feeling of betrayal picked it back up.

“I don't have to understand SHIT! Let go of me you fucking, asshole! Who do you think you are? That is fucking creepy!”

“Oh, oh no, witchling,” Wilbur cooed and wrapped his arms around Tommy’s still exhausted body, “you need someone to take care of you. You need guidance and protection. I can give you all that! I know, I know, I would have waited a few more weeks, but… now this happened, and I swear my heart would tear apart because of worry every second if I let you return. I won't allow any more danger getting close to you, not even if the danger is yourself..."

Tommy hated how soft and calming his voice was. He hated how his body slowed its efforts to struggle at him hearing this. This was so scary. Someone he originally just gained trust towards now turned out to be a… psycho and now he was trying to manipulate him with the pretty sound his voice?! That was fucked up, but it was more fucked up that it seemingly... worked.

No, he needed to get out, he couldn’t let his stupid talking get to his head. Tommy picked up his struggling, kicking and shoving. It all seemed senseless.

He didn’t get to say something, even after letting his mouth fall open to start and yell for help.

The bell of the shop rang twice as the front door opened and closed.

“Wil, mate? Hi, I'm back!”, someone called into the store.

Chapter Text

Tommy felt the whole balance of the environment shift. He didn’t even see the newcomer yet, all he did see was Wilbur’s blank face, and he already had the overwhelming urge to duck his head in between his shoulders.

“Phil,” Wilbur stated quietly, blankly… almost predatory.

Tommy tried to turn and crane his head in an almost impossible angle to get a look at the ominous man named Phil, but he didn’t manage, not in the iron grip he was in now.

“Did I interrupt an important customer interaction?”

Differently to Wilbur, Phil’s tone sounded light and floaty, but it seemed to smother the young witch, nevertheless. Tommy just seemed to know intuitively how he looked like, how his mimics and gestures worked, what colour and taste his whole presence had.

He tasted like dust that laid in the air of an abandoned building, felt like a protective coat on your shoulders, but his colour was hard to describe.

It made his stomach sink, his ears ring, and his fingers shaky while a large shadow seemed to sink down on Tommy’s form and swallow him whole. Despite being a shadow, it wasn’t a black or purely dark one though. It fluttered, but without any hurry.

Phil’s presence that confidently slipped and creeped into all the small corners of (Witch)Craft, Soot & more as if this was its hereditary right was a constant play of colours. It shifted between very dark and blueish to a lighter brown, almost a red – and reminded Tommy of when he was younger and couldn’t leave his hands off feathers he found on the ground.

Holding a primary feather of a crow, a raven or a magpie into the sun and shifting it to see how the light would change the colours… yes, that was it. Tommy could see it, feel it, everything, as if he was doing just that right now.

“You could say it like that, yes.”

“Sorry for that. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Tommy was frozen in place for a few seconds. Wilbur’s gaze didn’t lay on him any longer, but was rather pinned at Phil. He still had his hands set on Tommy’s shoulders, but even his grip had loosened, and his attention was purely set on the newcomer.

They knew each other, that much was obvious… but they somehow didn’t seem too fond of each other.

Tommy’s body reacted promptly without leaving him a chance to think about the consequences, but he took what he could and ran with it. Any reaction was better than a freeze one.

He dropped himself like he was a stone being dropped from a bridge and started to scurry away instantly to escape Wilbur’s hands that tried to follow and catch him.

Almost planting his face into the old wooden floor of the shop, Tommy was able to win a bit of distance between him and psycho-witch just before he almost tripped into Phil.

“I know you don’t know me, Sir, but you have to help me, that guy there lost his fucking mind!”

Tommy could swear he was staring into the waters of Styx herself when he first made eye contact with the stranger. It almost was too much; it almost knocked the air out of him and let him drown before he even got a chance to pay the ferryman. The worst thing was that it wasn’t a bad sensation.

The expression in his eyes was impossible to read, just as it was with Wilbur a lot, but he thought he saw a glimpse of poorly suppressed avarice in them when they ran over Tommy, even if that didn’t make any sense.

Blonde hair that was lighter than his own framed the man’s face that told Tommy that he must be in his thirties, but most of it was bound back to a small bun on the back of his head.

His ears featured countless piercings, much more than Wilbur’s, and were so covered in gold jewellery that it made Tommy wonder how all of them didn’t tangle up with each other.

“Again?”, he asked and looked up to Wilbur now, who was standing a few meters away from them, still in his ‘I gotta catch this stupid pet ferret that escaped me’-pose.

“Phil,” he warned.

While this tone in his voice made Tommy duck his head between his shoulders, Phil didn’t look impressed in the slightest. He pulled Tommy to his side and wrapped his arm around his shoulders as if he was a baby bird and this was his parent that pulled their wing over his head to protect him from the rain.

Wilbur’s jaw tensed as his gaze wandered over this clear physical representation of the shift in the dynamics. Tommy’s heart was racing, and his body went stiff from the sheer amount of sensory overload. Everything was buzzing and tingling. Whoever this guy was, he carried so much magic in him that it flat out scared Tommy.

“What’s the matter, Wilbur? I thought everything was under control.”

“Tommy,” Wilbur spoke his name like a particularly emotional poem and pinned his gaze back on the teen, “isn’t treated well at home and I was going to take care of him.”

The hand on Tommy’s shoulder tightened its grip and forced another wave of tingles down his skin, so intense it made his sight swim, and his hands cramp up into fists.

“Looks like Techno already had an eye on him?”

“Not enough. He was being fucking sloppy, Phil!”, Wilbur cried out as if this physically hurt him and started to gesture wildly, “He let him see a freaking knife attack, right in front of his bedroom window! And the people there, those who are supposed to watch out for him! They don’t treat him right. Look at him, look at his clothes and how pale he is. His shoes are completely worn down, there are holes in the soles.”

Phil indeed looked at him. Tommy shuddered under his glance even if he didn’t dare to look up to him. Where the fuck was this going?! Was he being stalked? By Wilbur and someone else? Good on them dropping names he hadn’t heard in his entire life.

“Hey, I don’t know how that’s your fucking business- “

“He got away with piercing his ears by himself without anyone giving a shit! Four times. I had to clean that. He can’t sleep. He even looks too thin. They let him get traumatised, depressed- “

“There are other ways you could choose to deal with that, Wil,” Phil responded, but Tommy wasn’t too sure if what he said matched his firm grip on his shoulder.

It felt as if Phil tried to keep him from leaving at all at this point, despite his words.

“Why dealing with- “, Tommy tried again, but he was interrupted.

“I don’t want to choose another way to deal with that,” Wilbur called out.

The eyes he gave Phil were angry, filled with hot, mad fear of loss and pleading at the very same time. Looking into them made Tommy almost choke on the confusing cocktail of emotion he didn’t get.

His presence got more and more blinding, growing as if it was a cat that saw the stranger’s energy as intruder in its territory. It now arched its back, bristled its fur, and hissed; ready to challenge it.

Tommy weighed off his chances.

He didn’t understand much here, but Wilbur seemed to have entered some kind of tantrum and he would really prefer to not be a part of that, thank you very much. Phil just radiated too much something for Tommy to feel comfortable at all.

He had enough reasons to believe that this was a thing between two much older, much more powerful witches. A thing way too big for himself.

Wilbur acted off. Phil was weird. The whole store around them appeared to be vibrating under the tension. There were no odd footsteps that seemed to belong to nobody anymore, no pulls and tugs to certain shelves or objects, and no presence of anything – everything around them faded, seemed to have stilled and stopped breathing to not disturb the stand off between the two men.

Not just that, Wilbur had collected information about him outside of what Tommy told him and as if that wasn’t fucking creepy enough, someone having an eye on him? Phil knowing of it?

Something was very wrong with (Witch)Craft, Soot & more.

He finally got the memo. He had to get out of here and never return.

Tommy regretted having ran under Phil’s non-existent wings voluntarily and now tried to turn himself out of his grip. As he didn’t let go of him, he spoke up and looked Phil in his face in an attempt to seem firm and brave.

In all reality, anxiety twisted under his skin, the clash of energies made him feel nauseous and having Phil so closely next to him made him dizzy.

“I’ll leave now.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Phil stated, and he heard Wil release his breath.

Tommy stared at him as the blood recoiled from his limbs and let the cold crawl up from his hands and feet. His mind was surprisingly silent.

He stared into his all-swallowing eyes as if to make clear that, no, they won’t swallow him too, even if they were all he could see.

“I will leave now,” he repeated, silently pleading for help.

Oh, may the Gods help him.

This made him earn a gentle smile on Phil’s lips, one that made you feel safe and urged you to trust, to follow him immediately. This paralysing aura was the only reason he didn’t start to struggle right then and there.

“Tommy, you approached me and said you knew I wouldn’t know you,” he spoke, “but that isn’t quite the truth. I’ve met you before.”

As if that would be the answer to all questions Tommy could possibly ever ask, he used his free hand to gesture into the stuffed store. The witchling himself couldn’t hold eye contact any longer and quickly took the chance to peak in that direction to take a break.

“You were very lost. I made sure you’d find something that would help you and I was very proud when you finally took the help.”

“The stupid book…”, Tommy breathed out.

“Yes, right,” Phil cooed and the same feeling of pride and praise he felt when picking up the lexicon washed over the teenager, “you’re smart and you have proven yourself able to accept help. I’m sure you can be good and do that again. I know there is a lot to explain, but that is nothing to worry about- “

Tommy was the one to interrupt this time. He still had no clear idea of what was going on. It was as if someone had thrown him into a foreign language course and nobody bothered to speak English.

He needed to plug his ears before the brabbling got the chance to go to his head.

The interruption was a harsh stomp onto Phil’s foot with all the strength and weight he could muster. Using the expression of surprise that spread out on the face of… – whatever this being was at this point! – he shoved his spread-out hand into it and started struggling.

He did his best to ignore the spike of lightning rushing down his arm as he made contact with Phil’s skin as he tried to push his face as far from him as possible.

“You fucking creep, let go of me, let me go!”, Tommy screeched and he would later defend himself with all his power, claiming that he still sounded manly.

Phil didn’t even seem to twitch. He only started talking again and this time, Tommy had no chance to understand a single word under his own screaming.

He registered two other hands on him that plucked his hand out of Phil’s face and guided him off him in a surprisingly gentle manner, but Tommy was too busy with kicking and punching to notice and his shouting only got louder when Wilbur tugged him close to his chest.

He was angry, he was so angry over how easily they seemed to overpower him. Over how little they seemed to care about him hurting them. He was scared and overwhelmed, and he couldn’t thing straight.

The world seemed to tip over.

He had to get out, he had to get away, had to return home, home, had to get…

Home?

The dizziness in his head and the nausea in his stomach forced him to slow down his efforts after who knew how long and this was when he finally heard what the two were saying.

“You deserve so much better, witchling, and they don’t deserve you,” Wilbur’s voice told him from above his head, gently and in that… strange tone that he already knew from when he looked at his ears.

Panting, he stilled. Tommy was pressed against him, both of his hands still somewhere on his arms and his nails dug into his skin. His fingertips were wet.

“Wil is right. You did so good accepting help until now. You need it, we knew so early on, but I didn’t know how bad it really was. You were abused,” Phil’s voice added.

“Let me go home,” Tommy demanded quietly and still out of breath from tiring himself out.

“We are going home,” Wilbur assured him eagerly.

Tommy didn’t know what to answer here. His brain was stuffed full of fog and swirls of their words. What was Wilbur talking about? He didn’t understand, but it felt heavy in a good way.

“N-… No,” he managed to slur and to weakly shake his head in confusion, “home.”

“You’d like to live with us, rather than back there, right? I felt that several times when you were here…”

Tommy had to close his eyes.

“I’m-… I’m very dizzy.”

“Phil.”

There was no answer. The only thing Tommy heard was ruffling of fabric, maybe, and the pressure on his head lifted off a bit. This didn’t make the black spots blooming happily in his vision disappear, though.

“You will even meet someone important. And we will care so, so much better for you than they ever could,” Wilbur promised close to his ear.

It sounded like he would promise him much more if he just asked.

What had been said wasn’t… wrong. Tommy had found himself liking the attention he got here, sometimes. It had confused him. It still did. He didn’t know how to handle it. It was so much that he had no idea where to put it.

“I’m tired,” Tommy slipped out involuntarily.

His weight was taken off his feet when Wilbur picked him up. A hand on the back of his head gently guided it to rest on his shoulder and the only thing Tommy could do to react to that was to close his eyes and let helpless, confused tears seep into the soft sweater.

Everything was spinning and randomly changing direction as it did. His hands and feet felt like thousands of tiny needles stung into them.

“I know… but you’ll never have to be again,” someone answered before everything tipped over, his hearing got numb and gooey, and his consciousness faded into welcomed darkness.

Chapter Text

When Tommy woke up, he felt like he had been dreaming for a very long time. A time span of fifteen hours or more at the least.

The sense that came back to him first was his hearing. Tommy registered the sound of a page turning. Someone shifting and clearing their throat.

With his eyes still closed, Tommy lazily tried to remember what happened.

Slowly, the memories came back. The chaos of the past days came back. He felt how the tension came back to his limbs with that too.

But... where was he now? He frowned as he felt over the fabric under his hand. Soft. Creasing. Felt like cotton. Gentle sparks of calm tingled over his skin.

It was nice. He could use this in his bed at home.

Only now it occurred to him that he could just open his eyes. Tommy called himself stupid in his head and sat up in one swift movement, ignoring the dizziness raising into his head.

The room he was in was dimly illuminated by several lights across the walls. Everything was held in a dim green if the light conditions didn’t cheat his eyes. There was a second bed to his left, but it was empty. Other than that, Tommy could make out a round rug on the floor, shelves with stuff in them and a sink on the wall.

In a seat not far from Tommy, he recognised Wilbur sitting.

Wilbur.

Wilbur, who looked up from his book with such a sickening sweet smile on his face that Tommy felt bile raise up his throat.

This fucking bitch.

"Tommy! You're awake, that's good," he said and put the book down on a low table next to his seat, "I'm so sorry, it all happened so quickly, and I really didn't expect Phil to show up and get his hands into this..."

"Where are we?"

"Somewhere safe," Wilbur ensured, or he tried to.

Tommy didn't believe a single word.

Wilbur got up and that alone caused Tommy to immediately kick the blanket off his legs before the other witch could take a step towards him. His shoes were missing, but he was still wearing his clothes.

That was a win. Sometimes, you had to work with what you had available.

Wilbur didn't come closer. Instead, he even took a step backwards and lifted his hands to show him his empty palms.
Tommy had almost scoffed at this gesture. It was ridiculous, like trying to stop a forest fire with only a glass of water. What did he think this would do? Make his fucking kidnapping undone? Damage control?

‘Hey, so, I know I just kidnapped you, but I mean, at least I won’t shoot you. See, no gun!’ Awfully convincing and trust restoring.

"What happened?", Tommy asked.

"Phil knocked you out in the end, more accidentally than anything really..."

"No, the... you fucking stalked me!"

Wilbur lifted his eyebrows. It made him look like he was actually confused or surprised at Tommy’s reaction, but how could he? It was obvious! Nobody liked being stalked!

This was sick. This guy was sick. Tommy regretted ever trusting him, and this feeling stung. It sat in his chest, seemingly clawing the inside of it open and causing him to bleed painful sorrow, woe, and anger. For once, his anger didn’t drown out the rest of his emotions and Tommy hated it.

“You could probably call it like that from your point of view,” Wilbur finally said after taking his time with the answer, “but I never meant any harm.”

Tommy clenched his jaw. He wanted to retreat into some corner, follow the stupid urge to cry over nothing and lick his wounds in peace, but that wasn’t an option. Not yet. He could do that later if he still wanted to. First, he needed to learn about his whereabouts and get out. Maybe he could use his phone too, but Tommy didn’t spot his backpack and his jacket was gone too.

Too bad he had stuffed his phone into its pocket, but he wouldn’t count on them letting him keep his phone anyway. Not just that, he couldn’t rely on having cell service.

He took a deep breath and shoved his emotions aside. It was hard, they really fought to surface this time, but he won the struggle. Later, he told himself, later. His heartbeat calmed down and the pain in his chest eased off slowly.

Think, not feel.

This was a kidnapping situation. In all theory and ignoring the witchy part which was not even a stable thing because he knew jack shit about most of it, Tommy had an idea on how to deal with this. Keep calm, don’t provoke anything, and cooperate.

He had to handle Wilbur carefully and get to know him better. Whatever was going on here, he didn’t seem stable, and Tommy didn’t trust him to not hurt him. No matter how much he wanted to just try and run out of the door, it wouldn’t help him.

“I know, this was a lot,” Wilbur started again after Tommy didn’t answer, “and you have every right to be confused.”

“Yeah…”, Tommy rasped and cleared his throat after noticing how dry it was suddenly, “you could say I am.”

And fucking terrified, feeling betrayed and left alone, and angry… and a lot of other things. He stared down onto his hands in his lap and felt how desperate tears threatened to collect in his eyes.

No. Calm, think. No retreating into himself and drowning in his emotions.

“I’m so sorry,” Wilbur told him again, almost in a pleading tone, “I will explain everything. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you understand, bit by bit. You’re safe with me. There is nothing that can happen to you.”

“It’s… okay,” Tommy forced out between his teeth, “I… I get it.”

No, he didn’t. Not a single bit.

He couldn’t look at Wilbur, but he had to. He had to make him believe him, even if Tommy had no hecking idea what the matter was here. Wilbur constantly talked about how he wanted to keep him safe, or how he was sorry, and even it didn’t fucking feel like it, Tommy was willing to give him his delusion.

Instead of meeting the other’s brown eyes, he stared at his eyebrows and hoped this would pass as eye contact.

Wilbur looked… disarmed.

“What?”

Okay. Tommy took another deep breath and resisted the urge to pull his knees up to his chest while he was trying to quickly piece together something that could make sense in Wilbur’s head.

“No, I… I think I understand. A bit. You had your reasons.”

Wow. No, he could do better. Wilbur kneaded his hands for a second before shoving them into his pockets. A puzzled expression decorated his face. It looked so stupid; Tommy would have laughed at him for it under normal circumstances.

“I mean, I’m a teenager,” Tommy continued and couldn’t stop himself from laughing hysterically, but at least he got it to quiet down, “what do I know? Whatever, dude. You’ll know what you’re doing.”

Wilbur’s forehead creased, but Tommy couldn’t tell if he was angry, concerned or further confused.

“Oh, Tommy,” he said softly, and Tommy put his bets on ‘concerned’ for now, “you are very overwhelmed, right? It’s okay. Can I come over to you?”

Tommy hesitated. He didn’t really want Wilbur to come closer. He probably would try to comfort him or some bullshit, but he could already tell how it would only achieve the opposite effect. Also, how was he supposed to understand that reaction?! That patronising tone in Wilbur’s voice. Didn’t he come across as believable? Probably not.

He needed to try harder.

“Uh… okay,” Tommy hesitantly agreed.

Wilbur nodded and slowly closed the distance between them. Tommy already feared he would sit down on the bed, but he reached out and dragged a small chair away from the wall behind Tommy and sat down on it. He hadn’t even noticed it being there.

Tommy had to focus on his breathing again to not freak out. Wilbur’s presence crackled in the air and tickled over any exposed inch of his skin. It wasn’t uncomfortable but distracting and Tommy knew it shouldn’t be there. No other person he met was like that to be around.

Tommy had been around witches before, real and legal witches. Academy students, to be exact. You met them in town sometimes and they were easily recognisable by their school uniform.

Normally, he didn’t like to see them. They were living his dream and were absolutely oblivious about it. If they knew, they would probably look down on him too. They were simply living their lives and didn’t know of his struggles to collect bits and bits of information they got spoon fed. To Tommy, seeing them was like someone took a plank of wood and smacked it across his face.

Nevertheless, they were around and yes, they radiated something, but it was not what felt like what he noticed around Wilbur.

Taking it a step further, it was laughable next to what Phil gave off.

He first thought Wilbur was simply an odd exception, especially since it wasn’t a consistent thing. Wilbur being weird in one more matter didn’t even catch a lot of attention. But now that he met a second person who was like that, just ten times stronger than Wil…?

It was suspicious and now that he thought back to them, Wilbur’s shifts in his aura were too. In one moment, it almost blinded him and in the next it was barely present.

When Tommy thought back to what it felt like to be next to Phil, it was comparable to what he felt when he was in close communication with the Blood God.

No, that couldn’t be.

“Thank you. You are doing really good, you know? I was worried you’d jump up and hurt yourself as soon as you woke up…”

The corner of Tommy’s mouth twitched before he could control himself. He hated this. He hated how Wilbur acted like he was a scared animal that needed a lot of gentle words and positive reassurance. He hated more that something in his chest fucking liked hearing that from Wilbur, just as if it still meant that he learned something new or understood something very quickly.

“I considered this a not so good idea,” Tommy said quietly and tried to sound as neutral as possible.

Maybe, just maybe, it could be. Yes, deities in human cloak were rare. Rare as hell even, especially in modern times and non-witches would probably never encounter them.

But it wasn’t completely unheard of.

“How are you feeling?”, Wilbur asked softly and sluggishly reached out his hand towards Tommy’s face.

Tommy’s breath hitched and he felt like his heart would stop any moment, but he managed to stay still. Wilbur, surprisingly, didn’t strangle him to death. He only rested the back of his hand against his forehead and seemed very pleased with the fact that Tommy let him touch him.

His skin grew even more tingly immediately and the little hairs on the back of his neck were rising in response. Was Wilbur’s skin buzzing or was Tommy imagining that?

Keep it cool. Calm. Breathe.

Nothing was confirmed yet, and that was a problem, because nothing was confirmed.

“A bit dizzy,” he answered honestly, “and maybe a little out of it, but okay.”

“Okay, good to hear. I worried,” Wilbur said and took his hand away, “You should have some water. Are you hungry?”

Tommy shrugged.

He knew he should take offered food, but he didn’t know if directly asking for food was a good idea. Asking for small favours, okay, but wasn’t food a big favour already? Besides that, his stomach felt so numb that he couldn’t even tell if he was hungry, and he wouldn’t bet on being able to keep food down right now.

Part of him grew angry at Wilbur again. That motherfucker would ask him if he was hungry but not explain what the matter was?!

“I understand. Don’t worry, that’s normal too. You have to eat something soon though.”

Still chatting but trailing off topic, the brunette got up and went over to the sink. He took a plastic cup out of the stack of them from a small shelf above it and filled it with water.

Tommy’s eyes followed him carefully, but he couldn’t listen. Panic threatened to raise in his chest again.

Oh, by the gods. By his god. By the Blood God.

May the Blood God help him.

Breathe. Calm. Keep it cool.

“Uh…”, Tommy let out with a deep breath, but his voice suddenly felt scratchy, and he needed to clear his throat before speaking.

Wilbur turned to him immediately and went back. Tommy wanted to twitch back when he came too close for his taste, but he made it to control himself. The strange man reached out to hand him the white plastic cup and Tommy hesitantly took it.

“Uhm, I- …”, he started again, but he was interrupted.

“Drink first, please. The whole cup.”

Tommy looked down into the cup, watching the water crease and move for a few heartbeats before guiding his gaze back to Wilbur’s face.

“It’s not poisoned?”

“No, I would never… No. It’s not. You’ve literally just seen me fill the cup.”

Did he take it too far? Wilbur didn’t look angry. His face hadn’t changed at all, but Tommy’s inner alarm bells rung and warned him about a possible mood swing he just kept hidden. He assumed Wilbur would be good at this, he worked retail after all.

He shouldn’t keep arguing. Getting his capturer annoyed with him or being too difficult too early could cost him important trust points he would need later.

So, Tommy took a sip, slowly, ignoring his suddenly uprising thirst.

It looked like water, smelled like water, moved like water, tasted like water and he couldn’t detect any weird textures or crumbs in the liquid either. Relief washed over him, and he emptied the cup before setting it down on his thigh and refusing to move his hands off the newly crowned safe item.

“Well done,” Wilbur cooed, “What did you want to say?”

“Uh… I have some questions. Is it okay if I ask them?”, Tommy asked.

He wouldn’t let any of Wilbur’s reactions on what he said slip. It was important that he caught everything. Every single one of them could be the first warning sign of something awful.

“Of course. And you don’t need to censor yourself, Toms.”

That was just a trap. Tommy had seen those too often to fall for it. Adults used them to smother them in false safety and to make them talk about critical things. And when they did and gave them the information they wanted, they would snap, get mad or punish them.

Tubbo once compared this tactic to an anglerfish, and Tommy could not think of a name that suited better.

His next words were chosen carefully, but not completely true. If Wilbur could do the anglerfish, Tommy could too.

“I’m confused… You talked about helping, about me deserving better somehow?”

Wilbur sighed quietly. He looked like he wanted to reach out to touch Tommy, but he didn’t. He wasn’t disappointed about that.

“We took you home because I couldn’t watch how you were living any longer,” he responded.

Oh well, at least the bastard was being honest.

Tommy took in a shaky breath and tried to sort his thoughts while anger bubbled up in his stomach. No. Stay diplomatic.

“I don’t get it,” he finally said and tried to put up a confused expression, “why are you caring about that?”

“How could I not? It was agonising to look at!”

“We… barely know each other, Wilbur,” Tommy tried to reason as gently as he could.

He nervously adjusted his position and scooted closer to the edge of the bed, just in case he could jump up if he needed to get away.

Wilbur’s expression changed slightly. It was… If Tommy read it correctly, it was pity.

“I know, it’s scary for you. It’s very scary.”

“You’re not saying anything right now,” Tommy pushed, “and you didn’t even answer my question.”

He wouldn’t let Wilbur slither around his questions, even if he for sure would like to.

“I want to be honest with you. I don’t know. I just know that I would rather not go against my gut feeling. The why isn’t even important, really,” Wilbur said and did a vague gesture that suggested him dismissing something.

Wow, okay. Tommy started to chew on the inside of his cheeks and finally let go of the cup to stop himself from throwing it at Wilbur’s stupid face.

This wasn’t only testing his nerves, but also his patience. It was running thin. This bitch had the audacity to kidnap him, just like that, and now was saying nothing, absolutely nothing of use. As if this was a normal afternoon activity to him.

Tommy just now noticed that he had no idea what time it was either. The room had no windows. Somehow, that fact made the matter even worse.

Someone he just started to trust kidnapped him and had thrown him into a room without any windows. It was grim. He normally would expect shit like this in a horror movie. To be fair, the room was too nice to be from that kind of scenario, but it still had no windows.

Or was Soot one of those psychopaths who would create nice rooms for his victims? Maybe it was all part of his plan.

“Okay,” Tommy managed to press out between gritting teeth. Anything else he could have said wouldn’t be helpful in his current situation.

Soot looked like he was about to say something, but he was interrupted by a faint buzzing noise coming from his right pocket.

“I’m sorry,” he fucking excused himself before pulling his phone out when he just stole Tommy’s.

He was sure that he made a too big of a deal out of this matter, but Tommy had saved for that phone, and it took ages until he was able to buy it. Did Soot even recognise that?

The ugly motherfucker checked the screen and took a call a second later.

“What is it?”, he said.

Tommy side eyed him. The voice that came through the phone speaker was too quiet to understand anything. Soot just listened and nodded sometimes as if the person on the line could see that.

Just another piece of evidence for Tommy’s thesis of his stupidity.

“Okay, give me a minute,” Soot finally answered, and the call ended.

To Tommy’s disappointment, his phone disappeared back into his pocket. Something in him had hoped that he would forget it on the table or put it somewhere without thinking about it. If this was to enhance his chances of escape or to just pay the phone stealing stunt back to him… It probably was a bit of both.

“I’ll be back in a minute. It won’t take long. Don’t get up, okay?”

Tommy nodded. Oh, of course not. Who would even think about that? Surely not him.

“Thank you, witchling. You’re being so good in such a hard situation. I knew you would be quick to understand,” Soot said, and the worst thing was that he sounded genuine.

After giving Tommy a soft smile like it was a special gift of some sorts, Soot got up and went over to the door. As he left the room, he closed it behind himself in such a slow motion that Tommy expected him to change his mind again.

His expectation was wrong. The door shut and Wilbur’s steps got quieter while Tommy listened tensely. Just as tensely as a student who didn’t do their homework and now the teacher was walking around in class and looked over everyone’s tasks.

As soon as he deemed it safe enough and the tickling electric feeling Soot had so obnoxiously radiated in his direction faded, he jumped on his feet.

Soot didn’t lock the door.

This realisation let relief wash through Tommy’s body, so intense and dizzying that he thought he had to sit back down again for a second.

He scampered through the room as quick as he could. Tommy looked under the beds, lifted the mattresses, opened drawers, and rummaged through their contents to maybe, maybe find his shoes, phone or any other items that could be useful.

“If you really care for me, I could use your fucking help,” he muttered under his breath, “Stupid erythrocyte God, only there if he wants to punch some new holes through my ears.”

Maybe it wasn’t the best choice he ever made to talk to a war god like that, but it felt good to have a vent to let off some nervous steam by insulting someone or something. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had left him already. It would be just one creature more that decided Tommy’s company wasn’t worth the hassle anymore.

Tommy stilled in between his search and listened, just to make sure there was nobody coming, but he didn’t hear anything.

Yet.

There was no guarantee it would stay that way. He picked up his tempo.

Finally, finally, with his arm almost completely swallowed by a drawer, his grubby fingers felt over something small, only as large as his index finger was long, but considering that he almost poked a new hole into his hand it was worth pulling out of there.

When the item saw the light of day, or rather the artificial light Tommy would rather not spend the rest of his days looking at in here, he took a look at it. It had a dark blue plastic handle and a weirdly shaped metal hook on the other side. The long side of the hook was pointy and looked sharp – Tommy assumed it was what he grabbed into a second before. The shorter side was protected by a tiny white plastic ball.

Tommy had no idea what it was, but the tool was easy to hide in his sleeve and pointy. It would serve its purpose.

He didn’t want to think about the purpose.

Tommy shoved the pillow under the blanket that constantly wanted to whisper calm, safe into his head and hoped it would mimic his curled-up form long enough to buy himself a few precious seconds. Soot seemed so out of it that he could fall for it.

Abandoning his shoes, on tiptoes and with his own racing heartbeat in his ears, Tommy sneaked to the door and pressed his ear against it.

No sound. Nothing.

He had to be quick. Tommy opened the door as quietly as possible and peeked out of the room.

In front of him was a long corridor with a few more closed doors on both sides. The ceiling was high, and the corridor looked like one of those fancy temple galleries he had seen in several books already. Seeing this didn’t calm his anxious thoughts. Not at all.

There were countless temples in town, but not just there. There were temples everywhere. He could be in an entirely different country already, or underground.

He had to bite down a lot of dark ideas his brain started to make up. What did Soot tell him about human sacrifices…? No. He had no time for that. If he was meant to become one, then be it. He would learn about that soon enough – or, if he was lucky, not at all.

Preferably, he would be out of here before anyone saw him.

Closing the door behind him was nerve wrecking, but he managed without much of a sound.

Tommy chose to walk to the left. He avoided getting too close to the doors and stayed on his tiptoes. Maybe it wasn’t that bad that he didn’t find his shoes. Just on his socks on the smooth stone floor, he didn’t make much of a sound as he snuck down the corridor.

He had almost reached the corner as he heard a quick pace of steps coming closer behind him.

Easily recognisable. Soot.

Tommy’s heart leaped at the same time as his body did and he disappeared behind the corner just in time. He pressed himself against the wall and stopped breathing.

He needed to keep going. He needed to keep moving.

His body refused service as fear crept into every last cell of his body. It started in the pit of his stomach with a nasty, nauseating twist and spread quick like a venom. He was sure, even the tips of his hair were frozen in place.

The sound of a door opening in the corridor behind him. Soot’s voice greeting him.

Him, who wasn’t even in the room. He had seconds until Soot would notice him being gone.

Run. Just run. Move!

He tried to obey his own thoughts yelling at him, but all it did was making silent tears stream down his cheeks and drip down onto his shirt.

But Tommy’s trembling body wasted those seconds in shock freeze, as if someone had dipped him into liquid nitrogen. He would never get them back.

Soot’s scream was screechy and so hurt, hurt like a wounded animal, and angry.

But most importantly, it was not human.

The sound of it was intense enough to make Tommy feel like his bones were vibrating. The sudden pressure on his skull was so much, so much, so much. It rushed down into his throat and made him choke on his held breath.

His heart felt like it would quit its job any second now and he was sure he could see colours he had never seen in his life before.

They all turned into funny black clouds that started to float in front of his eyes.

The door flew open.

Tommy sucked in air sharply and life rushed back into his limbs. Hot, desperate life.

His feet finally moved. He tripped forward and before he knew it, he was blindly dashing down the next corridor. The adrenaline felt like a drug in his bloodstream, and he gripped his tiny defence tool tighter in his hand.

The hunt was opened.

Chapter Text

The deadly combination of smoothly polished stone and cotton socks almost made him skid and slip as he took the first tight corner, but he managed to catch himself before he could kiss the floor.

He didn’t know how close Soot was, if he even was close at all, but he didn’t want to check either.

The corridors were long and blurred by the speed he was holding. They were too long to feel comfortable when running down yet another one. Once you did, you could be sure that the person behind you would have a good, long prospect on you until you turned around the next corner. Tommy didn’t like that.

He didn’t like how the building looked more and more like a temple, he didn’t like how loud his feet sounded as he ran, he didn’t like the whole situation.

The adrenaline stung and hurt in his veins, especially in his palms where everything just seemed more intense anyway.

And tears wouldn’t stop streaming down his cheeks. He feared that wiping them away would blind him for too long. He would miss something if he did that. Something important, like an exit or someone stepping into his way.

When Tommy turned left the next time, he almost tripped as his feet stopped obeying him.

The corridor in front of him looked just like the others, just one thing was different. There was a door on the side. He knew that door, despite it looking just like the others. There was something betraying it as the door to the room he woke up in.

It was wide open.

So wide open that the upper hinge was torn out of the doorframe – and the lower one didn’t look like it would keep doing its job for long anymore either.

Despite the damage he caused, Soot was nowhere to be seen. Tommy took a deep breath as he tried to not let the sight impress him too much.

It did impress him. ‘Impress’ more in the sense of ‘fucking frightened half to death’ but he would try to sell the drop of his stomach and the ugly sob he tried to suppress as being mildly impressed to anyone who asked him.

But you gotta work with what you have, gotta work with what’s there.

And Soot wasn’t. Good thing. Very good.

Bad thing was that he had been running in a circle. Another good thing was that he hadn’t encountered Soot while running in a circle, which meant that he must have been following him.

Just, it was no circle, and Tommy was certain that he turned left more often than three times… and there had been no way of turning right as well.

Or were there four times to complete a square? Was that important? He felt like his brain tripped over itself as it tired to think straight.

What would Soot do to him if he got him?

No, he had no time for that. He would see that soon if he didn’t get his ass away from here soon.

Tommy quickly wiped his face down with his sleeve and picked up his previous speed again.

If Soot was still hot on his heels, which the busted-out door hinge subtlety and the fact that he hadn’t met him yet tried to suggest to Tommy, he would have to use one of the doors eventually.

Preferably one of the doors on the right side, those on the left would only lead him deeper into the building.

Just which door? How far could he run? Soot was stupid, but not stupid enough to not turn around at some point if he thought that Tommy could be still running in one direction.

Tommy passed so many of them and in his hectic, it was hard to see any difference between them. Just, none of them looked like a general exit. He needed to decide, he needed to get away from those hallways, and he needed a fucking break.

Tommy’s lungs were starting to scream at him and complained about the pace, but he tried his best to ignore it. He had more important issues.

Soot could appear behind the next corner anytime.

The thought of Soot alone stressed Tommy out. His mind wanted to get a grip on who… on what he was dealing with here, but he didn’t allow it.

He couldn’t allow it.

He would lose his mind trying to figure it out. He would spiral into theories and ideas, one worse than the one before.

Those spirals never ended well. Tommy knew the pattern. They would appear as soon as he laid down and tried to sleep, as soon as he made a stupid mistake with anything as soon as he finished talking to someone. It didn’t really matter. He always seemed to find a reason for them.

And sometimes, they would end with his own thoughts suggesting a solution that started to sound more and more tempting over the past weeks.

Tommy knew which ideas his mind could get right now because he had them before and he didn’t want to hear them now. They weren’t helpful.

His whole brain didn’t seem helpful at the moment. The weird whispering on the edge of his consciousness started to swell in volume.

He stopped his running abruptly and struggled to stay on his feet as he continued to slide a bit further on his socks. He came to a stop in front of a door.

That door, this one would do. It looked like the others, no sign, no nothing. This one or nothing, he decided, before the overwhelming fear of picking the wrong thing could get a chance of paralysing him.

He’d end up playing this stupid game with Soot until it was too late.

Tommy pushed down the doorhandle without thinking about it or looking back and shoved the door open.

The floor was still stone, but it felt much rougher under his socks.

He gave the room a quick look. His jaw tensed. This didn’t look like a good escape route, but he pulled the door shut behind him, nevertheless. He didn’t need to give away his location that easily. Maybe he could hide for a while until he got a better understanding of where the fuck he was and how he could get back.

Tommy was standing in what looked like a library. The room was much longer than it was wide and seemed to stretch out next to the corridor like a lazy cat waking up from a nap in the sun on your windowsill. The lighting was quite dim, and Tommy couldn’t make put where it was coming from at all.

The shelves reached the ceiling easily, but when Tommy looked more closely as he passed a few of them, he noted how not all of them were filled with books. Some held neatly labelled boxes, bowls filled with gems and stones or whatever honestly, gardening and knitting magazines for reasons Tommy didn’t understand, flasks and little glass bottles with colourful liquids…

Tommy’s dexterous feet carried him through the room and his fingers brushed against the wood of the shelves as he passed. He was searching for a good place to hide and tried to get as far away from the door as possible, as soon as possible.

He assumed that it was logical that temples had libraries or storage rooms for whatever was collected in here. His gaze scanned the walls and the spaces underneath the tables.

No, that was too obvious.

The room had an eerie feeling to it, but it was distant and just really present when Tommy actively touched something – it didn’t have the audacity to jump into his face like both Soot’s and Phil’s presences did without him even touching them.

This made him feel like he was a step closer to normal again. Tommy just now noticed how wild the past weeks had been from that standpoint. The environment and his perception of it working normally again was so welcome to him, he would have loved to hug it.

If there wouldn’t be the weird shrill babble on the edge of his consciousness – it sounded like there would be a few hundred individual Navis that tried to get his attention when he was just trying to get through the next part of his Zelda playthrough.

Tommy didn’t even try to listen and stubbornly ignored it.

He didn’t have time for a new mental disorder right now.

He reached one end of the room and stopped. It was darker here, and much creepier. The books around here looked older from what Tommy could see in that light. There was a small space in between the shelves, but it looked too tight for him to wiggle in.

The sound of the door opening had him jumping.

“Tommy!”, Soot called.

The brabbling in his head flared up like a fire after you poured oil into it, but he couldn’t understand shit next to a few words.

Wil-

fuckin idio-

WILBUR-

Wil!

Whatever this was, it wasn’t fucking helpful.

He was glad that there was a good distance between himself and the door, enough to muffle that awfully hurt sounding voice, but not nearly enough to not cause him another heart attack by hearing it.

Great. Until now, Tommy only found one door and that was the one Soot was probably blocking right now. He stayed where he was and prayed that the problem would solve itself.

“Tommy, I’m so sorry, I must have scared you!”

Fuck that, he sounded as if he was close to fucking crying, but he didn’t sound… angry just yet. Psychotic, stupidly insane and insanely stupid.

Like he lost his fucking mind but not as if he was going to tear him apart anymore.

Tommy held his breath. He was sure if he breathed, Soot would know he was there. He flipped the tool he found earlier in his hand to make it face an imaginary Wilbur in front of him and his grip around it tightened.

Steps. The door closed. More steps but coming into the room this time. Damnit how did that guy even knew he was in here?!

“TOMS!”

He flinched. Okay, think. Think!

Tommy’s head was spinning with the new adrenaline rush. Only the 20th one in like an hour. That couldn’t be healthy. His head was loud as fuck and what was supposed to be his deity didn’t show up to help either.

Okay. Okay. Calm.

Time to prove his acting talent. He’ll better get that scholarship after he already didn’t turn out to be enough to be picked for the Academy.

“Wilbur!”, he called into the room and started to sneak along the wall as quick as he could without making a sound.

Soot’s steps stopped abruptly.

Oh, come on. Come here!

He had to get him away from that stupid door area.

“Wilbur, I’m sorry!”, Tommy called again, but it turned into a choked whisper as his voice broke away.

No reaction. What the hell.

He chewed hard on the inside of his cheeks. Blood rushed through his ears. The anxiety caused his heart to stutter and his stomach to twist.

Now he gave away his position and he couldn’t change it again until Wilbur started to trail him. Where were his stupid watchdog qualities when you needed them to work in your favour for once!? This was unfair.

“Wil,” he tried again and dropped his tone into a shameless whine. His situation called for desperate measures. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to run. I just got scared! I… I tripped; I think… I think there is something wrong with my foot.”

The continuous silence started to convince Tommy of how he made a mistake.

One, two, three, seven of his quickened heartbeats later, finally, there were steps and Tommy started sneaking.

Not for long, though. Wilbur, or what pretended to be Wilbur he knew from the shop for so long for the sole purpose to fuck him over, picked up the tempo.

Tommy really tried to keep a calm temper. He tried to stay clever with what he did, he tried to think three steps ahead and he tried to not freak out.

It was just something about the quickening steps echoing through the ravines of bookshelves, the dim lighting not allowing him to see anything for that matter and the shift in the atmosphere that caused some wire to burn through in his mind.

It probably was the last one he had, and it must have been a steel wire for it to hold on for that long anyway.

With the snap of this wire, a sudden rush of adrenaline burnt Tommy’s rational thinking and he bolted. He had to get out, out, out, right now.

He had to right now. The longer he snuck around in here, the longer he agreed to play those psycho games with Soot and his friends… the higher the chance was to get grabbed, chained up, skinned alive, sold… lose his freedom, his organs, lose his mind.

And the longer he stayed in this specific room with only one exit, the worse.

Tommy’s hasty steps were loud and casted a panicking echo through the hall.

Circling around the outer edge of the shelves was easy and he didn’t meet anyone – but he also didn’t hear Soot and his steps anymore… or his own. Tommy couldn’t really tell if this was because there weren’t anymore, or because his head was exploding with noise. It was screaming in there, so loud that he could not make out a single word in all the chaos, but none of the voices were his own.

Not a single one.

Not hearing your own inner monologue was scary, let Tommy tell that tale.

His breath was knocked out of him as he ran straight into someone, something, Soot-thing. Tears shot into his eyes as his nose was squished painfully and his jaw clattered shut with his tongue in between his teeth.

Tommy tasted blood and like this was another wake-up call for the voices in his head, they started fucking screeching. The pure volume almost blinded him – however those two things were connected.

The door wasn’t far. His way out, but Soot had cut him off and made it seem so easy as well, despite having let Tommy trick him earlier. The was he stepped into his path almost looked elegant. As he turned around to bolt again, Soot grabbed him. Tommy almost expected the witch to pick him up like a disobedient puppy.

“Hurt foot, my ass,” Soot hissed, and he sounded mad.

Not just mad in an angry sense. Mad in the sense of insane too.

Shaky fear almost cut off Tommy’s airways. There was a weird pressure on his stomach that made him feel nauseous.

He suddenly was sure the screeching, screaming, rioting in his mind was actually caused by some sort of physical animal that was trapped in there and it now started to drag, scratch, dig its claws down the inside of his skull. It left him with a headache and deep notches in the bone.

Soot’s eyes had looked gold in this weird lighting.

“Let go! Let me go!”

The grip on him just tightened and Tommy felt how his feet lost the connection to the floor.

“I made a mistake, again, I’m so sorry,” Soot spoke, surprisingly quietly and the anger that had been in his voice before vanished like it had never been there.

Tommy didn’t understand, but he probably wouldn’t understand the simplest form of basic addition right now either.

He didn’t care, he really didn’t!

All he cared about was that he was being picked up. Tommy snarled and turned in Soot’s grip.

The tool he stole earlier slipped into a better grip and the next thing he knew was the unique feeling of metal driving into the dull resistance of skin, muscle, tendon, and flesh. It was an unclean sensation. The tool was not made for the use Tommy coaxed out of it, but he was lucky it wasn’t a knife since his fist slipped through and hit Wilbur’s skin. He lost the tool as the plastic handle suddenly got slippery with warm liquid.

Soot’s grip was removed as if he had finally burnt his hands on him. Tommy slipped on the smooth stone floor, but he was back on his feet a moment later.

Fireworks of red, salt, iron scent and righteous euphoria ripping through him forced him to fight for air himself. The disgusting gargling sound Soot let out almost didn’t reach his consciousness, but the picture of him crouching over in front of Tommy definitely did.

His hand was pressing against the left side of his neck and a constant stream of dark red ran down his arm.

Oh. Oh fuck.

Tommy turned and bolted again. He needed to get away from here.

Oh, this was… The voices found unison.

Blood

For the Blood God

Blood

wrong blood

Blood

blood

blood for the blood God

blood for the Blood God

blood for the blood god

false false false false

NO

blood for the blood God

WRONG BLOOD

Blood

blood for the blood God

Blood for the Blood God

The floaty euphoria, the victorious pride was disturbed. Something was off. Why, why was it off?

Tommy did the right thing. He was sure he did the right thing and the pretty stream of red down Soot’s forearm was proof of it, oddly enough. He just had to… He had to do something, but he didn’t know what.

He felt tugged towards something, but where?

Wait, no, no, it had not been the right thing! What was he thinking?!

The young witch slowed his running and stopped. The corridor he was in looked familiar.

He just… stabbed Wilbur. He stabbed Wilbur and now left him back there to bleed out on the floor. He had to close his eyes and hold his head for a second. The migraine was killing him, and tears were taking his eyesight.

By the Gods, by all of the Gods, Tommy was a murderer.

“Tommy?”

Tommy was a caught murderer.

As he looked up, he saw Phil peeking past the next corner. Horror in his eyes and wearing a strange green robe.

“I-…”

“We’ve been looking for you! Techno said something felt off and… Oh my gosh, are you bleeding?”

Tommy couldn’t think and he couldn’t listen.

He stormed over to Phil and grabbed him. He was barely able to breathe as he came so close, but it didn’t matter. Tommy immediately tugged him into the corridor, and he almost tripped over his own haste.

“Phil, we have to do something, I… I stabbed Wilbur! It was an accident, I swear, I swear by Prime and the Blood God, really! He’s dying!”

Phil had the audacity to resist his dragging at this point. What was he doing?!

Tommy thought he was in the wrong universe when he heard Phil supress a chuckle. He turned around to properly stare at him like he lost all his marbles, because he fucking did.

“It’s okay, mate, don’t worry. It really is. Calm down.”

He hated the way Phil set his hand on his left shoulder and grabbed his bloody right hand to inspect it as if he was the one who got stabbed.

“NOTHING is fucking okay!”, he cried and dragged his hand out of Phil’s grip.

Or he tried to. Phil didn’t budge.

Tommy froze when his scary blue gaze snapped up to his face.

“He’s an asshole for not telling you. No, Tommy, he’s not dying. No mortal ever killed a God and while you are special, you aren’t that special. Techno will be over in a second, I’ll go and check on Wil then. Whatever you managed to do to him, he’s fine, I promise.”

Chapter Text

“What?” 
 
Tommy was convinced he didn’t hear correctly. Instead, there was a ringing in his ears. His arm was still handled in Phil’s hands, and he was too stunned to resist. The calming numbness Phil’s touch spread over his skin even was quite welcome.  
 
Despite his question, he didn’t… need an explanation. Not really. He didn’t need Phil to explain what he just said, elaborate, or find different words.  
 
The coast cleared and so did Tommy’s memories. Things clicked and clacked like a very old mechanic clockwork. Only a few gears started turning in the beginning, but those moved more and bigger ones… and these moved many more by themselves.  
 
And then, the clock started ticking. Tommy would only need to adjust the time. 
 
“Oh,” he let out before Phil could pick up the word again, “I see.”  
 
Looking back, he could have noticed this way earlier. He could’ve at least had a feeling, a suspicion that something was off with Soot.  
 
It wasn’t even like… he made a big secret out of it! He didn’t. If you knew what was going on here, it was blankly obvious that he was some kind of deity – or at least that he thought he was.  
 
On the other side, not dying after getting stabbed in the neck was a quite convincing argument for one’s godhood. 
 
Tommy wanted to be angry at Soot, for yet another reason this time. The carelessness, the info dumping, the audacity this bitch had. He would recollect his anger for all the little things he wanted to rage about later. He had no steam left for that right now. 
 
His head was still spinning and the animal inside of it was still scratching and screeching, but not as loud anymore. Tommy didn’t bother to try to listen to it. 
 
Phil finally seemed to be convinced that he wasn’t injured and looked back up to his face. Tommy felt examined. He didn’t like it. His heart still felt like it was tripping over its own beat, and he was cold. 
 
“This has been quite chaotic,” Phil said and clicked his tongue, “and you look very pale. Let’s get you somewhere you can sit do-…” 
 
Phil didn’t get to finish the sentence. Tommy ripped himself away from him.  
 
“Don’t fucking touch me,” he snarled lowly.  
 
To make his underlying anger worse, Phil only looked at him with pity. Tommy had the sudden urge to beat the disgusting compassion out of him. It felt sticky on his palms. Sticky and a bit slimy.  
 
He feared it would stick to him and make him reek of it.  
 
“Okay, mate. Sorry, I overstepped.” 
 
As Tommy eyed Phil carefully as if he expected him to grab him again any moment, he decided to push his doubts about the deity thing aside.  
 
If these people believed in it, he would have a better time if he didn’t doubt it openly. Besides that, it really wasn’t that unrealistic. Tommy had dealt with one deity already, with his own, and now comparing… Wilbur’s presence was different, but not a completely different thing.  
 
But not just Wilbur in that matter. How could he have been that dense? 
 
Tommy flipped though his mental notes on deities.  
 
“And you?”, he finally asked.  
 
Despite the lack of context, the other understood. 
 
Phil’s gaze softened even more if that was even possible. Tommy hated how safe that felt and much he wanted to melt under it. He didn’t even know that guy.  
 
“Let’s talk about that later. One step after the other. This has been a dumpster fire for way too long, let’s try to get on with it a little more organised. All you need to know for now is that nobody here has the intention of harming you.” 
 
Tommy’s jaw tensed and he felt how he pulled his arms against his chest without ordering them to do so.  
 
“That looked very differently just a second ago. Terribly sorry I can't believe you here.” 
 
“Completely understandable. I couldn’t blame you if I tried,” Phil answered, “still, let’s get somewhere you can sit down. You really don’t look good, and you can believe me that he is completely fine.” 
 
Tommy grinded his teeth for a moment and didn’t move. Phil didn't either. He stayed still. As still as a marble statue.
 
He would make a good one. Phil looked like art in a very eerie way.  
 
“Tommy,” he started, “if you pass out, I will have to touch you and I’m sure you don’t want that. I would really prefer if we could save you that. You had enough stress.” 
 
“Touch me and I will bite your fucking hand off,” Tommy warned.  
 
“You can’t do that if you’re unconscious.” 
 
Tommy attempted to stare Phil into the ground for a few more seconds, unsuccessfully, before the corner of his mouth twitched and he rolled his eyes.  
 
He wouldn’t risk finding out how serious he was.  
 
“Fine,” he snarled, “where?” 
 
Phil ushered him down the corridor and into a door on the left. Tommy was greeted with yet another corridor. And another one. And… one could almost guess it… another one.  
 
“Where the fuck are we?”, Tommy finally dared to ask as he looked around, “this looks like a temple.” 
 
Phil gave him a short look that made his skin crawl in the most neutral way possible.  
 
“It is a temple,” he replied. 
 
“For whom?” 
 
“Lady Death used to be worshipped here, a long time ago. The local Coven moved, and so did this community.” 
 
Tommy nodded. That was probably a lie. He believed that this was a temple, but at the same time, this was way too well kept for a building that used to be an active place of worship.  
 
He thought about asking more questions, but he didn’t want to be suspicious, and he definitely would be if he started to ask about their current location.  
 
He still needed to think. Calm and think. Tubbo and Ranboo would tear him apart if they learned that he handled this poorly. He wanted to see them again.  
 
And no matter how fucked up school was at the moment, he still had to return to music class. He didn’t get to try out the instruments yet.  
 
So, Tommy nodded and kept his mouth shut.  
 
Or he tried to.  
 
“The shape is off,” Tommy commented. 
 
Hie eyes were still pinned on Phil, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Tommy wasn’t sure if he even noticed, and if he did, it didn’t seem to have any effect.  
 
Tommy wished he could be that calm when he knew people were staring at him. Phil simply ushered him down the corridor.  
 
“What shape?” 
 
“The… whole shape?”, Tommy said carefully, gesturing towards what seemed to include the temple as a whole, “It’s weird.” 
 
“I see, you have been running around.” 
 
Even if there was no aggression in that statement, Tommy recoiled.
 
“The temple has a specific shape, yes. What about it?”, Phil asked back.
 
Tommy shook his head. If he had to pull that information out of that guy’s nose, he wouldn’t try. Later. He could shove this aside and care for it later. Like everything else apparently too.  
 
“Nevermind.”
 
Phil turned to the left, to one of the doors Tommy surely passed before, but he started to feel like he had passed every single one in this building. He opened it and waited for Tommy to step through.

Tommy stayed where he was. He didn't feel comfortable doing that.

“I don't want to insult you, but your trustworthiness level is at a solid -125 right now.”

“If I'm at -125, I can only imagine where Wilbur is on that scale.”

“-250.5,” Tommy replied without hesitation.

Phil gave him an almost sad looking smile.

“I'd... prefer to go home,” Tommy carefully stated after a few seconds of silence.

That was an absolute understatement, but he feared consequences if he voiced his wants any clearer than that.

“I can image. We will see what we can do about that, yes?”, Phil spoke,

“I was very clear about not wanting to come here in the first place. You ignored that, of what I can remember.”

Tommy had to restrain himself to not get rude about it. It wouldn't help him right now, but the flames of anger licked the inside of his skin and the faint whispering in his mind began to swell in volume to screeching and wailing once more.

He was tired and really didn't have enough energy to let it grow to usual heights, but it looked like he wasn't exhausted enough to not have to stomp his rage problems down in order to not smash his nose flat on some social matter.

“I had some time to think about this,” Phil answered.

“How long?”

“You were out for quite a few hours.”

This, again, could mean basically anything. Tommy was so sick of Phil and his cryptic answers already.

“How long?”, he repeated.

Phil lifted up his left hand and shoved his sleeve back to reveal a golden watch on his wrist. Tommy had the sudden urge to grab and steal it.

“Sixteen hours, round about.”

“Were those sixteen hours, round about, enough for you to gather some common sense again?”, Tommy snarled mockingly before he could stop the words leaving his tongue.

The voices howled at this. He couldn't even differentiate if it was a positive or negative reaction.

His stomach sunk as he watched Phil's expression twist and change. Maybe he had gone too far.

“Careful,” he warned.

Tommy could almost feel how his blood left his face.

No matter how badly he wanted to go for Phil's throat as well, that one word was enough to make him dizzy and light-headed, flip his stomach upside down, and threatened to kick loose his fight or flight response.

“Sorry,” he retreated.

“It's okay. I understand that it's a difficult situation. I still would like to experience some respect, since you would like to be treated with respect too, right?”

Was that a threat?

“Right.”

“To answer what you actually wanted to ask: I think we should work over some of the conditions, but I see Wilbur as well.”

Meanwhile, part of Tommy wished he would never see Wilbur again and if that meant stabbing out his own eyes.

“Come on, mate,” Phil said and nodded towards the still open door, “you don't look good.”

“I look fabulous.”

“I disagree, respectfully.”

“Who's that Techno guy?”, Tommy asked, “Another God, like Wilbur and you apparently are?”

Vocalising this felt strange. Not incorrect, not like a lie, not like something unrealistic you would say when playing D&D for the sake of fantasy.

Phil nodded and Tommy felt like he was going to pass out again.

He wanted to say something else, but stopped, stilled, and gave him a gentle smile.

Tommy felt exactly how this wasn't meant for himself.

“You can ask him for yourself, that is always better than talking about someone.”

“Huh? I-...”

The young witch stilled as well before he could finish – or even start – his question.

His head flew around to face the direction they came from. There was no need for his stupid question anymore anyway.

Wilbur was approaching, very much still alive and kicking. His neck and his clothes were still bloodied, something the voices seemed to love and hate at the very same time, but Tommy couldn't spot any wound. In his hand, he carried the weird tool he had used to shove into his neck in the first place, gesturing in excentric ways towards...

Next to Wilbur was a stranger walking. Tommy had the urge to turn on his heel and flee down the corridor.

The guy, the God was huge. Brawny. A tank.

He towered over Wilbur and filled a good chunk of the corridor with it's high ceilings effortlessly. His shoulders swayed in the rhythm of his walk like a massive ship in strong waves, ready to break through the pack ice of the arctic.

He even was dressed for it. His frame was covered in heavy looking fabrics with white fur lining. Pieces of antique metal armour laid on his shoulders and chest.

Long scars ran through his face. One cut his eyebrow in half. A thick, rose coloured braid rested on his shoulder and reached his hip without a problem. It got a bit lighter in the ends. Large pink ears stuck out of his hair on the sides of his head.

Red eyes met his own.

Tommy didn't need to ask who that was.

The Blood God himself.

He couldn't move. His body suddenly felt 20 kilos heavier, just as if someone had laid the same shoulder pieces the Blood God wore onto him. He tried to, but he just was unable to break eye contact.

The palms of his hands burnt up, his bones shuddered echoing the heavy steps of his deity and his joints felt they would soon give up under the extra weight that wasn't even physically on him.

Despite this all, this heavy, crushing pressure was... comfortable.

If Tommy took a step now, he was sure the earth would shake under his own feet too.

His desire to run away evaporated in deep, floaty instinctive trust. No matter what, even if he was absolutely able to, his deity would never hurt him.

“You,” ghosted past his lips when the two reached them.

Soot perked up, but the Blood God lifted his hand to stop him. Picking the tool from Wilbur's hand, he leaned down toward Tommy and held it to his face. The movement alone caused a soft gust of wind to brush through his blonde curls.

“A seam ripper,” he rumbled.

He spoke quietly, lowly, in a calming monotone.

Tommy didn't recognise the accent, if there even was one in the God's voice. It sounded foreign, ancient, so he assumed it was one.

“He scared me,” Tommy answered without hesitation.

The idea to lie to the God or justify his actions didn't even come to his mind. He didn't need to explain. Or to apologise.

The Blood God nodded and held the seam ripper out for Tommy to take. He did so, after he was very sure he had the permission to. The God turned his hand, flicked his wrist and pulled it back then.

“I'll show you how you use it. I think that would suit you.”

“Excuse me!? He stabbed me with a sewing tool!”, Soot interrupted, “There is absolutely no reason to give the child real weapons!”

Tommy's gaze lowered, confused. He was holding a dagger instead of the thing that apparently was a sewing tool.

It had a comfortable weight in his hand. His palm tingled wherever the gold had contact to his skin. Warm, heavy, content. A gold head of a pig was worked into the end of the hilt, it's ears enforced and sharp enough to be a weapon itself. The blade was covered in a thin, neat line of runes.

The Blood God stood tall again in one swift movement, but his gaze never left Tommy.

“There is. You shall bleed every time you forget whose claim was laid first.”

“This is so rude.”

“Let's grab you a nice pair of shoes and get you back home, Theseus, what do you say?”

Tommy released a breath and his shoulder sunk. Sudden relief washed over him. He could cry. He would cry, if Soot and Phil wouldn't be standing around here.

“Yes, please. I do have some questions, tho...”

“We'll talk about those, and about a few other things in a moment. As much as I wish I could, I can't let you go back without some conditions.”

Tommy suddenly didn't care about conditions.

Chapter Text

“You lied to me.”

“I fucking stabbed you in the neck and you're mad about that I lied to you.”

“It hurt. I thought you were injured.”

“You hurt me before!”

“I'm sorry you felt hurt. That's no reason to do it to someone else though.”

Tommy felt like he was talking to a Soot shaped brick wall.

“There is so much wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to begin. You're trying to gaslight me!”

“You manipulated me!”

Tommy wanted to snap at Wilbur but just in that moment, Phil slipped into the room, Techno hot on his tail. They haven't left them alone for more than a few minutes, but it had been enough to bring Tommy's pulse back on 200 beats per minute. He couldn't tell if it was due to fear or burning rage, but it definitely had something to do with Soot being in the same room

The burning fireplace threw long shadows into the room and on the fluffy dark red carpet. Tommy's legs were pulled up against his chest and his chin was set down on his knees.

He was sitting squished against the edge of a sofa so large it threatened to swallow him in its cushions. The grip around his dagger was crushing and it seemed to be the only thing that stopped Soot from getting touchy again.

Despite not dying when getting stabbed, it didn't seem to be a particularly pleasurable experience.

“There you go, mate. That should be your size,” Phil spoke as he carefully set down a pair of shoes on the foot of the large sofa.

Tommy peaked down at them. A brand new pair of tennis shoes, not too far off his old ones in terms of design. He looked back up to Phil.

He must have looked suspicious. The God gave him a reassuring nod.

“They're yours. No catch.”

Tommy had a hard time believing him, but he wasn't exactly in the position to not take them, so he slowly reached down to them and picked them up. A bundled pair of fluffy black socks was stuffed into one of the shoes. Tommy didn't know how much he needed them until now.

He was busy changing his socks and putting on his shoes while the room settled. Soot was shooed from the sofa after a short, silent fight where your gaze was your sword and replaced with Techno after he lost. The cushion dipped so deeply and suddenly, it almost made Tommy roll into the God's side.

Soot retreated onto the other sofa and Phil joined him shortly after. At least Tommy wasn't the only one he was seemingly touchy with because it didn't take long until Soot was leaning up against Phil's side.

The room felt like fairy lights in winter to Tommy and his palms stayed cold as if he was holding a handful of fluffy powder snow. He side eyed the massive deity who was now seated next to him.

Tommy could feel his presence from far away already, but sitting next to him was almost too much. Not in a bad way, not in the way Soot's touch would feel to him... but it still was a lot to handle. He felt pinned down into the sofa and he doubted he could get up that easily without straining his legs or breaking through the floor with his feet.

Nevertheless, his racing heart calmed slowly and Soot suddenly didn't feel like much of a threat anymore.

The room would be silent if there wasn't the crackling of the fire filling it.

Tommy took a deep breath. No need to panic. He was just sitting in a room where he was the only human in, together with a bunch of ancient beings that wore a human looking cloak for fun. And who showed an awful amount of obsession with him he couldn't explain.

Oh, and he stabbed one of them. That was a thing that happened.

“I don't understand the motive behind the kidnapping,” Tommy spoke.

It was risky, but he had his deity next to him, who even acknowledged that something went wrong.

“It wasn't kidnapping, you just were very far from home and somewhere you shouldn't belong to,” Soot told him.

“I won't be discussing how to call it, Soot-”

“Wilbur-”, Soot said under his breath.

“– and I won't apologise for not understanding this logic either because it is fucking scuffed. You took me, why.”

“I just told you.”

Tommy didn't even doubt that Soot was just as confused as he was. He believed him that he gave Tommy a completely reasonable explanation in his eyes. It just didn't make sense to him.

“To understand that, we have to take a step back,” Phil said and folded his hands in his lap, “Gods work differently than humans do, but it is in our nature to form bonds with witches. This can have different reasons and it will look different for every witch. It's very individual and no two connections are the same. Sometimes, deities find a witch who just... seems to belong to them. We lay claim then. It blocks them from building a connection to any other deity.”

Tommy stared at Phil in silence who seemed to wait for some kind of answer from him. Yes, he got that. He also could smell in which direction this went. Not that he would like it...

“Go on,” he said.

“It looks like Techno and Wilbur both feel that way with you, but only Techno got to put down a claim-”

“This isn't fair,” Soot jumped in.

To Tommy, he looked like he would just start sobbing any moment now.

“This is why he acts very irrationally at the moment, it stresses him out a lot.”

“He'll get over it,” Techno rumbled next to him.

“What?!”

“Finders keepers.”

“You can't be serious right now!”, Soot shrieked and jumped up from his seat.

Tommy flinched at the sudden movement and the Blood God set a hand down on his shoulder in response. To Tommy, it felt like another weighed blanket. He didn't even have space to experience a big emotional response to Soot's antics anymore.

“Wilbur, calm the fuck down.”

Soot slumped into the couch again.

“If that's how we play, I found him first.”

“I would appreciate if we stopped talking about me like I am a stupid street cat,” Tommy interrupted, “You are rude.”

The fact that it didn't take much for them to start to talk about him like that scared him. He wondered, if they even saw him as something else at this point.

“You're right,” Techno said.

He gestured vaguely towards Soot and Phil on the other side of the room, as if to include them despite the distance. It was a comfortable distance in Tommy's opinion. It could be bigger.

“You surely understand that this is quite the new situation for us as well,” Phil said and Tommy assumed he was talking to him so he nodded.

He nodded, just to shake his head right after.

“No, but I know now I guess.”

“It would run a lot smoother if that was a regular thing.”

“Calming,” Tommy spat, “get to the point.”

“We see how this sudden change of situation can be pretty overwhelming for a mortal, and Wilbur has definitely overreacted.”

“A bit,” Tommy said.

He pressed his teeth together. No more comments. They were about to let him run. He didn't need to make them change their mind.

Phil didn't look bothered, yet, but Soot and is face dragged the mood down severely. Tommy couldn't look at him directly, but he could see him cook in the steam of his own anger in his peripheral vision.

Tommy himself felt personally attacked by that.

How could Soot have the fucking audacity to be angry? Tommy had the right to be angry, but Soot acted like he was the one that got wronged. He had serious difficulties to connect this Soot, Wilbur, to the one sat across in the small kitchen behind the red velvet curtain in (Witch-)Craft, Soot & more.

Was that even the same person? It was hard to believe that.

The Wilbur there would hum annoying tunes, laugh, curse funnily when he dropped something and offer Tommy tea. This one was just mad he couldn't control Tommy without backlash.

“So I can go home, right?”

“You can,” Techno answered.

“And I don't have to come back?”

“Never again, if you don't want to.”

Tommy sunk back into the couch cushion. Never again.

“I don't think that-”

“Wilbur,” Phil said and gestured, but Tommy couldn't see what it was by how unfocused his eyes were.

“That doesn't mean you can simply go about and tell people what happened,” Phil continued and Tommy assumed he was talking to him again.

“How unexpected.”

Tommy rubbed his eyes. As if anyone would believe him. He didn't even know for sure who Wilbur and Phil were under the faces they showed him.

He wondered if Gods stole the faces of people they had seen somewhere or if they constructed their own to wear. Or did they have faces of their own that looked human enough to wear them when they tried to look mortal?

Not that Techno looked particularly human, and Phil didn't really manage to override his dooming energy that seemed to swallow all life around.

The only one who really was convincing was Wilbur, or maybe the others simply didn't want to appear human right now? Maybe he was also a God so minor that he just... was more human than the others.

He was not going to ask that right now. Asking a God if he just looked so human because he was weak seemed to be a good strategy to get torn to pieces. Maybe it didn't even matter.

“It's not like anyone would believe me anyway,” he said.

Maybe not the smartest thing to say, but Tommy was tired. Too tired to keep thinking three steps ahead and try to take into account how what he said could be understood. He needed a nap, preferably yet another sixteen hour long nap.

“They wouldn't, that's right. It would still cause a lot of trouble for yourself if you did.”

Phil didn't need to elaborate. Tommy knew. Someone like him talking about how he was kidnapped by gods? Yah, for sure. He'd see a mental hospital from the inside much quicker than he could count to three.

Maybe they would believe a real witch, but not an orphan with no connection to magic at all, besides a trashy coke can altar under his bed.

Tommy rubbed his hand over his face as if to refresh the nerve endings in his skin from weird, otherworldly sensations he wasn't even meant to feel, but it didn't do much. They were still there, Wilbur's sour prickling, Techno's heavy weight and Phil's doom.

“Fine, no snitchin'. What else?”

“You continue your craft,” Techno said from his side.

“I don't know if I want that.”

Tommy had enough of magic. It wasn't his field to play in, he learned that much.

“If that's the case, no, you can't leave.”

His head turned to face Techno. It was a slow, careful turn, just in case he had angered him and was now to be struck by lightning if he moved too quickly.

Techno's face was still. Very still. Tommy wasn't even sure if he was breathing and if he was not, it wouldn't surprise him. There was no threat, it just had been a disturbingly calm statement of the situation. He was free to speak.

“May I ask why that is?”, Tommy muttered.

It wasn't like he didn't want to understand, but it was like they had given him a stick, took his vision and threw him into a swamp – he had to test the ground before he took a step, just in case it was a trap or there was no ground to step on. It was hard. There were a million paths.

“We have our limitations,” Techno said and finally granted him a break from the eye contact, releasing Tommy in the process. It didn't take long until his gaze was back though. "And sometimes, communication isn't possible without some good old methods of witchcraft.”

“So I assume I won't get rid of you, yes?”

Techno's lips curled into what could be a snarl, or a simply very scary smile.

“That is a very correct assumption. I can't image you wanting to get rid of me anyway.”

Tommy shuddered and broke the eye contact.

“Fine. I continue. At my own pace.”

“That is a staple.”

Tommy dropped his hands on his thighs and looked around the room. He didn't trust his feet yet, but he inched close to the edge of the sofa. It was time to leave before they came forward with even more ridiculous conditions.

“It has been lovely with you guys, but a big man has to go now... You understand- important plans.”

“What are your plans?”, Phil asked.

“Go home. Do some homework. Sleep. Cry. Marry some more women.”

“We weren't done,” Techno rumbled and that statement alone seemed to pin Tommy in place effortlessly.

“What else is it? I really... look, I don't want to be rude or seem like I have no respect,” Tommy said and side eyed Phil, “but this has been a lot and I need some fucking space. If I stay away much longer, I'll get in serious trouble.”

“How does that serious trouble look like, Tommy?”, Soot asked as he leaned forward as well, copying Tommy's body language, “Tell me, they don't hurt you, do they?”

This didn't feel like it was directed at him. Tommy squinted his eyes.

“No. They don't.”

“Then, how does it look like? What would happen?”

“I might lose my phone. Not that I have it on me anyway tho. Looks like someone took it.”

“What else?”

“I don't know! Depends on who is working,” Tommy snapped.

“It depends on who is working, I see,” Soot repeated and leaned back into the sofa.

Tommy felt urged to do the same. He crawled back into the back of the couch and wanted to pull up his knees up against his chest, but he remembered he was sitting on a cushion and that this wouldn't be such a good idea here. He would get it dirty.

“I want to know what the worst thing is that could-...”

“Soot-”

“Wilbur.”

“Wil-bur,” Tommy repeated and tried to make it sound as mocking as possible, but his voice didn't follow his orders as well anymore, “I don't know what game you're playing here, but it is not working. I want home, you are draggin' it out.”

“That sounds like a quite unpredictable environment if you're not even sure what will happen when you come back,” Phil commented.

“Back to the conditions! Just tell me what the fuck you want from me! I have no time for that!”

“First, nobody learns of this,” Techno repeated, “Second, you continue your craft. Third, you will not actively work against us. That's all for now.”

“That implies?”

“Ignoring us, lying to us, going against what we tell you,... your general area of expertise.”

Rude.

“I'm getting fucked over here.”

Techno adjusted his posture into a more relaxed one and Tommy took a deep breath. He suddenly felt very tired. Physically. His limbs were heavy from the inside out.

“Either that or you stay with me.”

“With us,” Wilb-... Soot corrected.

“Am I going to have to work with that one too? He seems like an awful coworker,” Tommy asked lowly, trying to conceal the nagging warning bells in the back of his head as more jokes.

Amusement sparkled in Techno's eyes as Soot let out a wounded sound, but he didn't get an answer.

“So, is that a deal you're willing to make?”

Tommy eyed the three again. Techno looked awfully relaxed. Nothing could stress that man right now if it tried. A hand rested on his shoulder again and his thumb rubbed over it at a slow rhythm. There was no urge in him to shove it off. It was comfortable and heavy, like praise. Like he had done something well. Tommy even found himself liking it.

Soot on the other hand was still riled up. Tommy felt the faint buzzing of the stress the God seemed to be under on the edge of his consciousness. It was itchy. As if he had worked under a roof for too long and dragged his back along the glass wool one too many times. It made him want to shake out his clothes. The buzzing was combined with a weird kind of tugging, a greedy siren call he would follow if Techno's heavy presence didn't press on him and kept him grounded.

Phil... Phil looked like a curious bird. Distant, just watching from the other corner of the room, interested in his own reserved ways. The way he looked at him made Tommy feel like a shiny piece of scrap metal found by a magpie – nothing particularly precious or valuable, but the bird would grab it and treat it just like it was if just a few more rays of sun illuminated it from the right angle.

“The alternatives are pure crap, let me tell you. It's a deal.”

Chapter Text

It was Wilbur who drove Tommy back close enough to the orphanage so he was able to walk the last meters comfortably. Nevertheless, Tommy's memory of the actual drive home was more than hazy.

He distantly remembered how he had protested. Then, there was a huge gap and now he was standing here with the car speeding off.

Tommy blinked in confusion. He was dizzy, so dizzy, and the palms of his hands were so itchy, he had to drag them flat over his jeans to try and soothe the sensation.

The constant chit-chat in his head had gone silent. There was a quiet whisper very, very far away, but if it hadn't been in his head, Tommy would be sure it was just the wind brushing through the branches of the weeping willows that lined the street.

Tommy sat down on the side of the street for a few minutes until the world stopped spinning and the pressure on skull in between his eyes lessened. When he wanted to get back up, his hand brushed against the side of a rucksack, his rucksack to be exact.

How did that get here?

Tommy dragged the bag onto his lap and pulled the zippers down a bit. He needed to know if everything was still there. He didn't doubt that those fuckers would just steal his stuff without a second thought. Instead of following Tommy's lead, the cheap zipper ripped open all the way without any resistance.

“Fuc-”

Books, folders and bundles of cash spilled into his lap. Some landed on the street next to him, pooling around his feet. His stomach dropped in shock and seemed to get crushed by ten tons of weights a second later.

“Fuck!”

Tommy stared down on his lap. He counted five bundles of bills, two different colours and values. He blinked a few times. Was this real? This seemed super surreal.

Then, Tommy snorted. Of course.

Of course.

He shook his head as he tried to suppress his upcoming laughter about this crazy, absurd, absolutely stupid situation and quickly collected the spilled money back into his rucksack to keep it covered.

A quick look from left to right secured him. He was covered between cars and he didn't see a single soul on the street at this time. Not that he would know what time it was anyway.

It was dark.

Was it even worth asking about that? He assumed not. When he turned one of the hundred pound bundles in his hand and inspected it, he wasn't even surprised to find that it was held together by very fancy looking golden money clasps. There was a strange symbol engraved in them Tommy didn't recognise.

If he didn't have any context, he would assume this was blood money. No matter what it was, he was now richer by a few thousand pounds as it looked like.

Just a bummer that it was too much in too big bills to actually be useful. Tommy groaned quietly at the unworldliness and loss of reality the deities portrayed constantly. This was unbelievable. You would at least expect Wilbur to have some human logic in his peanut sized brain.

He had no chance of getting rid of even a singular bill without looking extremely suspicious.

Tommy usually took what he could get, especially with money. This all in all was enough to buy him a new phone and get him a bunch of new clothes, but at this point, he could also use the money as fire starter.

Even if he somehow magically got rid of it, he'd not be able to use anything he bought – people would ask stupid questions about where he got what and accuse him of stealing in the end.

It wouldn't be the first time that happened, and not the last time.

Tommy didn't steal, even if he looked like it.

He had to frame this right first try.

Despite its complete uselessness, a huge part in Tommy got sick at the mere thought of getting rid of the small fortune or just leaving it here.

He hadn't held that much money at once in his entire life and his grip tightened around the bills as his brain brought the idea forward to just throw it all in the sewer. Greed stood in his way like a fat security guy in front of a popular club straight out of an American movie.

He took a moment to breathe.

No way he could keep this in his bag though. He had a high chance to lose his rucksack to one of the adults as soon as he entered the building.

Tommy took another look around, removed his coat and pulled down the zipper of his hooded jacket underneath. He straightened his torso and stuffed the hem of his t shirt into his jeans. Tommy tightened the belt by one of its holes and tugged on his shirt experimentally. Nope, that would hold up. It didn't budge. Tommy pulled the collar away from his neck and dropped the money down his shirt, one bundle after the other. He shivered at the cold sensation of the paper, but quickly adjusted the bundles around his stomach and pulled the zipper of his jacket up again.

Looking down on him, this looked... okay. It was weird, he didn't like how it felt on his skin, but it would do until he found another way to handle this. The jacket was wide enough to hide the extra volume and the bundles were just slim enough to not cause obvious bumps. He just wouldn't be able to remove it until he was very, very alone.

On top of that, the dagger. The bare blade was now covered in a pretty golden sheath, delicately decorated and also engraved with runes or foreign letters Tommy didn't know enough about to try and assign them any meaning.

It went into the side of his pants, under the belt.

Tommy closed his rucksack and got back up on his feet. He jumped a few times to see if everything was holding up and was pleased with himself as it did. At least some things had to go well after all.

He had to get back.

The orphanage was build on top of a shallow hill. A street led up to the back of it and the pavement next to it could use restoration. Tommy knew the loose stones by now and simply avoided them. He passed two other buildings of the complex and the windows of his own room before finally reaching the wooden front door.

He eyed the doorbell as if it would bite him as soon as he would reach out to press it.

Tommy let out a shaky breath. He needed to function. He needed to think and act accordingly, until he had some time for himself. And even then, he wasn't sure if he wanted to emotionally face what was going on. He wasn't sure if he was able to do that, if he was big of a man enough to do that, if he even wanted to do that. It was much more comfortable just reacting and wiggling through the mess of stuff that was thrown at him.

No one needed an emotional wreck to deal with, and nobody he knew had the capacity to. Not even himself.

So Tommy pulled himself together, adjusted his newly collected belly fat to be as invisible as possible and pressed the doorbell.

He was home. He got what he wanted.

He should be excited, happy, content.

He wasn't.

Ranboo cried when Tommy showed up in the doorway of 014 like a figure of a nightmare, with his ears ringing from the yelling he just had to enure, the obnoxiously bright light from the corridor in his back and without his rucksack, and ripping his two best friends(?) from their sleep.

Tommy only could go limp in his hug like a stuffed animal that had been loved too much and was cuddled flat, dull and spotty.

He for sure felt like one, even if he didn't feel the hug.

Tubbo sat on Ranboo's bed and rubbed his eyes. His feet didn't really touch the ground. He looked tired, like he hadn't slept in a while.

“We worried! Why would you just run away like that, without telling us?”

“Yeah, I... I ran away,” Tommy repeated and tried to get back into his body instead of just floating next to it.

“Why?”

“It... things were too much. I guess I needed a break.”

“You could have told us instead of just disappearing...”, Tubbo muttered and fully set his feet to the ground to get up and slowly walk over to them.

“I'm... sorry,” Tommy said and he meant it.

“You better are.”

Oh. Tommy pressed his cheek into Ranboo's shoulder, seeking comfort. It felt so wrong.

“I'm sorry,” he repeated.

Tubbo eyed him from the distance, and the ugly light from the hallway only illuminated him enough for Tommy to see that his jaw slowly relaxed. He slowly went over to the pair and wrapped his arms around both Tommy and Ranboo.

Tommy didn't have the heart to reject him, even if his heart tripped at the thought of him possibly feeling the money around his waist. If Tubbo noted anything, he didn't mention it.

He wished he could feel the hug, he really did. It was there, he could see it, but his skin refused to notify him of the touch and pressure.

“Where have you been?”, Tubbo whispered.

“I don't know,” Tommy choked and his voice felt stained with an emotion he didn't recognise.

He wanted to tell them. He wanted to spill and spit the words out that scratched his throat and drove a wedge in between him and the only people he really liked. Tommy took a deep breath.

“I was...” I was taken by someone I thought started to feel trustworthy. Wilbur. He tried to keep me. He was obsessed with me and I don't understand how someone can be so obsessed with someone else.

He tried again.

“There-...” There were Gods, actual Gods, Tubbo. You remember that one kid at school who said his older sister was now worshipping the Blood God since she joined the Academy? I met that guy. He is huge and nails you to the ground by only looking at you.

“And I-” And I met two more. I don't know who they are.

Nothing would leave his lips. Not a single peep. It was like Tommy's automatic skill of speaking English suddenly got muddled and was taken from him. He fully intented of saying all that, but was physically unable to spill the beans. Tommy gave it up.

“I don't know,” he repeated, “I think I got lost. My memory is hazy.”

“It's okay,” Ranboo said and loosened his grip, “I think I understand.”

Tubbo let go of them as well. “We're glad you're back.”

Tommy nodded and straightened his body again.

“Motherfuckers took my shit,” he muttered and used his thumb to point over his shoulder into the corridor.

“Fuck them,” Tubbo said, “You'll get it back tho.”

“It's just my school stuff anyway, they can keep it if that means I don't have to get back there. Well, and my phone. I want my phone back.”

Ranboo smiled at him and shook his head.

“Alright!”, Tommy removed himself from their personal space, shoved the door shut and turned on the small light next to his bed.

He dropped himself onto it and tried to kick his shoes off his feet, only to be reminded that they wouldn't come off his feet that well anymore. Tommy huffed and leaned down to properly undo the laces.

“What did I miss?”

“A lot,” Ranboo said and sat down next to him, watching him struggle, “104 fucked up the TV on our floor.”

“What??”

Tommy stopped what he did and stared at Ranboo from his weird folded in half position.

This was outrageous!

“They aren't even from here! Why wouldn't they use the TV upstairs?”

Tubbo dropped himself on the bed to Tommy's other side and rolled his eyes.

“They said it wasn't as good and asked if they could use ours. We didn't want to, but we had to allow it because, ya know, 'sharing is caring' and other social work bullshit. They wrecked it somehow.”

Tommy lowkey felt like crying. That was it with playing Mario Party in the evenings. It would take months, if not up to a fucking year for the orphanage to replace it. Maybe, if they were once more feeling like all evil on the world personified, they would make them pay for it since they broke it.

“I hate this. Let's cut the cables on the TV upstairs. Our fallen hero needs revenge in its name.”

“Yeah, they already broke it,” Ranboo commented, “Or like, 016 and Purpled from 010 did. So that was it. No TV anymore. Not on our floor, not upstairs, not above that.”

Tommy finally got his shoes off his feet and let out a weird grunting sound as he kicked them under his bed.

“I am so offended. What else?”

“The meal plan for next week was sent off today. You missed it. We wrote down what we knew you like though,” Tubbo informed him and Tommy nodded.

“Thanks, big man.”

“Besides that, the new social worker sucks massively,” Tubbo continued, “It was her who made us share the TV. I don't know what fluffy pink unicorn superior parenting cloud shit pills she takes, but let me tell you, she is tripping balls on them.”

Tommy pulled a face. Those always were the worst ones. New people who thought they had it all figured out, who thought they knew how things worked and who had the opinion they would change the system with their pedagogical bullshit. They never did. They just made their life harder and it always took a while until they accepted that what they learned about kids did not actually work outside of books.

“I'll go back to sleep now,” Tubbo announced and got back up to wander over to his own bed that looked pretty untouched.

“Sure thing. Sorry for like... disturbing you, it's three in the morning after all.”

“No worries, just get your ass to bed. You look awful.”

“You are a nasty liar, Tubbo, I look fantastic,” Tommy replied.

Ranboo didn't actually look like he wanted to leave Tommy's bed. He rather crossed his awkwardly long legs and pulled them close to fit them on it.

“I'll sleep here, if that's okay with you.”

“Sure. I'm going to take a piss, though,” Tommy said and collected his sleep clothes from somewhere under his blanket, “And brush my teeth and stuff. I'll be right back.”

“Enjoy the piss, king.”

“Tubbo, shut the fuck up.”

Tubbo had already laid down and turned his back on the other two. Now, he fully extended his arm towards the ceiling with proudly risen middle finger from underneath his blanket. Tommy scoffed.

This had gone much better than he expected, even though he had been yelled at, got his phone and stuff taken from him and had to lie to his friends once again. It wasn't a secret that they weren't satisfied with his stupid excuses and he didn't know if it was good or bad that they accepted them nevertheless. Maybe they had given up on trying to get a satisfactory answer out of him. It wouldn't come as surprise.

Tommy had to work with what he had, and all he seemed to have right now were a bunch of problems.

He slipped into his house shoes, collected his toiletries and rushed out of the room.

He needed to get the money from his skin, the bills started to stick on him and his bag he used to store his toothbrush would be perfect to hide it and the dagger in for now. Who the hell would expect that in between that stuff.

Tommy hurried. He didn't like the mirror and he didn't like the silence of the bathroom, only interrupted by the annoying buzzing of the lights and occasionally water running. It seemed threatening, even if the only thing that was threatening him was his own mind.

The longer he was exposed to his thoughts running in ever the same circles, the worse he felt. He tried not to listen. He had no time for that. He needed to be quick, he needed to perform this very cursed role he was casted for against his will because if he didn't, there would be almost nothing left.

But then, when he finished splashing water to his face and dried it off, he couldn't avoid a quick glance at himself in the dirty mirror and new thought harassed him almost instantly.

There wasn't much left of himself.

It felt like the very first time the young witch had paced up and down the street in front of (Witch-)Craft, Soot & more, only that Tommy now ignored the feeling and busted into the shop without allowing it to paralyse him.

He ignored it just as well as he ignored the 'I'm taking a break, will be back at 2:30 p.m.!'-sign.

The bell rung loudly, even aggressively, but it was overloaded by a loud thud as the door caught in a whole pile of boxes that blocked the entrance and tipped a big pile of books over that was placed behind them.

“HELLO!”, Tommy shouted, “Wilbur, you piece of shit, you packed a bunch of stuff in the doorway!”

The answer didn't take long. Tommy heard someone shuffle through the aisles until Wilbur emerged from one of them not far from him. Too close for Tommy's comfort, but he was too big of a man to back away now.

He had a mission, a very important mission. He was allowed to take space and use Wilbur for that after what that bastard did to him just yesterday.

“Tommy! Did you hurt yourself?”

Wilbur's face was awfully excited.

“Yeah, yeah, it is me. The one and only. And no, absolutely not, I only hurt your stupid ass books you packed in front of the door.”

Tommy took a big, high step over the stuff that he almost tipped over and let the door fall shut behind him. He barely managed to dodge a whole bunch of half dried herbs that hung from one of the thin ropes spreading from one side of the shop to the other dangerously close to the door and now threatened to slap him in the face.

“Well, I did not exactly expect customers who are illiterate.”

“I can read, bitch, but I can ignore just as well.”

Wilbur laughed.

Tommy hated it. He hated it all. He hated the act he put on without trying, or wanting to. He hated how he wasn't able to confront Wilbur about what happened. He hated how he just went over to acting like nothing, nothing at all, happened.

Yet, he absolutely was not able to ignore the elephant, the God, in the room.

Wilbur looked fine. He wore a sweatshirt that looked a little more modern this time, brown and with two thin beige lines running around the bottom hem of it. The glasses, the chain dangling from it, the wildly pierced ears with the stupid gold jewellery.

Phil had just as many, if not even more. Tommy had no doubt at this point that this was forced on them from Techno's side.

There was no scar on the side of his neck. Not even slight discolouration. He looked like always, looked like the person who would draw Tommy's stupid tattoo ideas and clean up his infected earlobes.

Not the one screeching like a fucking harpy and hunting him through the corridors of an abandoned temple of Kristin.

The only trace that reminded him of how this was very much real and not just a wild nightmare he have had was the way Wilbur's soft brown gaze watched him. Soft, yes, but also uncanny, eerie, as if he was looking at something stupidly overpriced in a shop display window that he couldn't have.

Warmed metal that pressed patterns and runes into the skin on his hip and thigh reminded Tommy that he was not defenceless anymore.

“How can I help you, Toms?”

Tommy forced himself to ignore the tremble that ran through his body at the nickname.

“I'd like a proper tarot deck, some candles and jars.”

“I see! Good idea,” Wilbur praised him and gestured to make Tommy follow him.

It took just a second too long for him to obey, just a second in which he thought about turning around and running as fast as he could. He almost tripped over yet another box as he finally got moving.

The floorboards creaked and walls whispered. Tommy found himself distracted by something in the shelves a few times, but largely kept up with Wilbur.

It was strange. The other really seemed completely normal. A witch, yes, but otherwise? No radiating ancient energy and no giving off sinister vibes anymore. He hated it. Wilbur tricked him. He tricked everyone and anyone buying from him.

“Do you have anything specific in mind?”, Wilbur asked him as they stopped in front of a decent sized display of tarot boxes.

“I want some different colours in the candles later.”

“And for the deck?”

“I don't know,” Tommy said and shrugged, “I guess I'll just go through what you have.”

He didn't waste time to look at the other again and just started what he just announced he'd do. Tommy was a simple man who stood with his word after all.

The first deck box he held, traditional and plain, felt so disgusting he almost dropped it. It felt like running your flat hand over a piece of fabric so cheap that it was basically just plastic strands that tried to mimic velvet. Tommy quickly put it back.

“Ewwww.”

“Very understandable.”

Tommy scoffed and tested the second box in line. It was a white deck with simple designs, nothing special and that was exactly what it felt like. There was nothing. Nothing at all. Not even something weak or almost there, no, smooth and just plain average. It was put back.

He wanted to test all of them, quickly and methodically. Tommy didn't have much time. He didn't need to, though, in the middle of his rundown he wrapped his hand around a deep wine crimson wooden box. A stretching cat was burnt into the wood, made of exactly one line. A simple golden lock promised to hold its contents secret. It felt warm and heavy in his hands. Tommy undid the lock that was luckily not closed. Two keys were rested on top of the cards.

They weren't just thrown in the box. Instead, a piece of black silk was wrapped around them, keeping them together and well protected.

When Tommy took the bundle of cards out he didn't feel much, only a very muted, gentle shadow of what laid underneath. Only as he unwrapped the card and spread them in his hands, a prickle ran up his forearms and caused goosebumps till exactly his elbows. It was stronger on the inside of his wrists than anywhere else and not exactly the most comfortable thing he ever felt. It was tugging, leading, ripping even.

Demanding.

The deck itself was pretty. The colours were muted, but pleasant to look at and the designs of the cards were detailed and very creative, Tommy thought. He checked every single card before pushing them back into one neat pile, wrapping them back up and putting them back into the box. Tommy turned back to Wilbur, who had watched him closely.

“Interesting pick. Not exactly cheap.”

Tommy tried to control the slight thrill of not having to care about the price for the very first time in his life.

“I didn't ask for your opinion.”

“I just gave it anyway. That's what good customer service calls for after all.”

“Waste of time,” Tommy spoke judgement, “Candles.”

“Of course, your highness,” Wilbur mocked and turned to lead the way.

Tommy followed in silence. He didn't really feel like talking to him more than needed, so he didn't reply even though it itched in his throat to spit out a fitting answer. Wilbur got too comfortable insulting and mocking him.

It was easy to pick the candles, and Tommy was quick to do so. He just wanted a few standard options, not those huge chunks of twisted and painted wax Wilbur had on display on the lower shelves and not the tiny rolled up ones that... surely had some purpose. He didn't ask.

“It is nice to see you,” Wilbur suddenly said from behind him as he just picked out the last white candle.

“I can't claim to feel the same without lying straight to your face.”

The wince that came from Wilbur sounded wounded, but it was quiet and didn't call for attention.

“Were you in a lot of trouble?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, “I lost my phone and they emptied my entire bag. Yelled at me so hard several doors on the hallway opened to see what was going on and my ears rang for like an hour. I had to lie to my friends. I am skipping the last two class periods just to be here, since I am also grounded.”

Wilbur didn't answer and Tommy didn't turn around to put in the effort to try to read his face. He would just be illiterate here again.

“But you are here.”

“Don't read into it, Wilbur.”

Silence. Tommy pushed the candles under his arm and kept staring at the shelf.

“I'm sorry.”

“Bummer. You must have better things to do. Jars?”

Wilbur sighed, but he didn't fight.

“This way.”

It didn't take long until Tommy was standing at the counter and Wilbur was writing his obnoxiously fine receipts. Red ink, fancy paper.

“That will be 109,55.”

Tommy reached into his shirt from the top and pulled out one of the now significantly slimmer bundles of money he just got. He pulled two bills from it and slapped them on the counter.

Wilbur's gaze had followed his every movement, carefully, attentively, always ready to catch some detail Tommy accidentally let slip.

“Don't you have a wallet?”, he asked.

Tommy scoffed in false amusement and shrugged.

“You know, not everyone is so eager to destroy the local economy and not everyone can be seen doing it.”

Wilbur took the bills and handed Tommy his change, the receipt on top of the now smaller bills.

“It's not ruining the economy,” he said.

“You need to read a book.”

“Look. I'm really sorry about what happened. It wasn't meant to go that way.”

“Oh, I feel like I'm lucky that it didn't go how it was meant to go.”

Tommy pulled his wallet from the pocket of his coat and sorted in a few of the small bills and the loose change. The larger bills found their way back into his shirt.

“Actually-...”

“Cut it. Not to be rude, but you guys, all three of you, have absolutely no clue of how humans work. Heads stuck too far in some fluffy godly clouds or too far up your very own asses.”

Sudden fear struck Tommy when he saw Wilbur's expression drop, but there was no way back. He didn't want to hear that, he didn't want to hear anything. Tommy's hand dropped onto his hip and rested on the dagger. He was safe to tell Wilbur off, he guessed at least.

The Blood God had his back.

That didn't change his sudden urge to turn around and run. The silence rung in his ears worse than the yelling did today in the ungodly early morning ours.

Tommy tried to hold his stance under Wilbur's stare that told him absolutely nothing. It got harder and harder, more uncomfortable by the second and scary. Until he just couldn't anymore and dropped his gaze.

That seemed to be the signal Wilbur waited for.

“Interesting. That might be true, even if you were very rude for someone who claims he doesn't want to be,” he finally spoke, “It's been a while since a mortal ran their mouth like that.”

Tommy, still swaying under the weight of his gaze, shivered. His heart raced. He went far, very far, maybe too far. He should have controlled himself and shut his stupid mouth. He should have never showed up here, not even to get rid of as many as the bills as possible. It had been a mistake and he fell into a deep pit of regret.

“We both know you won't do shit.” Tommy's voice cracked and he swallowed quickly to hide it.

He wasn't so sure anymore.

“I have no interest in that,” Wilbur confirmed.

He suddenly dropped into a high squatting position, folded his arms on top of the counter and put his chin on top of them. Tommy risked a quick glance.

Wilbur looked thrilled, for some odd reason. Alive. Sparking interest and... greed.

“I lost it a bit yesterday and I am sorry for that. You obviously don't have to accept my apology, but know that I had some time to think, rethink and... negotiate.”

Negotiation. Wilbur's words hung in the air over Tommy's head like an anvil as he stared two holes into the old wood of the counter.

“You can't hurt me,” he coughed.

“That is very true. And I hate anyone who does.”

“I have to... leave.”

“Of course. I hope you have a good day and visit again soon.”

Chapter Text

Tommy ignored the fact that he was being grounded quite excessively. He tried to follow the rules for once, he really did outside from skipping two class periods, but only for the first day. He soon found out that if he stayed in his room for too long, he would just lose it rather sooner than later. He would go up his walls. Disobeying was the only way to save him from himself.

As soon as it fell too quiet around him, Tommy's brain ate him alive.

As soon as the nights came, it got dark and the street light turned on outside, Tommy fell. 

The fact that he couldn't sleep just made it worse. Everything seemed to get progressively worse the longer he was awake.

He once believed that he enjoyed nighttime and the silence that came with it, but at this point Tommy would give a lot just to make sure the sun never set again.

The thought of praying crossed his mind more than once. He never did it.

The first time he skipped school completely was on day four of his two week long punishment. He went to school with Tubbo and Ranboo, but found himself standing in front of the classroom door like he was paralysed. The thought of him having to endure music class right now was so agonising that he felt physically unable to walk in. He wasn't proud of it, but he went away and sat down in the library for a while. Tommy tried to sleep there, but he wasn't surprised when it didn't work out. In the end, he stayed in there for only twenty minutes before the walls seemed to crawl with darkness as well.

He decided to leave before first period was over, so the corridors were still empty and he could get away before they were flooded with students and teachers again in the first break.

He fought the urge to visit Wilbur for one or two hours while wandering through the streets of the city. When he reached one of the largest plazas of it, he went to sit on the ledge of the fountain in the middle of it. Tommy followed the sudden urge he had and stuck both his hands into the cold water just for the hell of it. He had a short intrusive thought of just dropping himself into the fountain head first, but ignored it dutifully. 
Tommy stared into the water for a while, absently counting the copper coins on the ground of the fountain, and let his thoughts wander. Nothing came of it in the end.

It was the same circle as ever. He worried about school for a while, but decided that he couldn't care less for that at the moment soon after and shoved that aside. He worried about his friendships to Tubbo and Ranboo, a long time, until his mind was exhausted of running down the ever same paths. He worried about how he was basically a criminal now, paying with maybe false money and agreeing to a deal with literal gods... tapping into restricted, illegal practices with that alone.

He wished Techno would check in on him again, he hadn't done yet today, so he had a chance to voice his worries, but who was Tommy kidding? He wouldn't even talk effortlessly if the Blood God was standing right in front of him.

A few droplets of water hitting the back of Tommy's neck made him look up. Great. Rain, again.

Before it could get worse and drench him to the bone since the sky looked like it would open the floodgates any minute now, he hopped off the edge of the fountain and went to seek shelter in one of the many cafés that were littered all around here. When crossing the plaza, he watched the small fight between two crows and a seagull over quite the big piece of what looked like a pretzel to Tommy. The seagull, being on the smaller side, retreated quite quickly and one of the crows picked up the piece of bread to take off with it.

Tommy pushed the door to the café open. It was small, a cosy little front room with delicate, romantic looking furniture. The scent of freshly brewed coffee, black tea, lemon and sugar hung in the air. Quiet music set a calm atmosphere.

He set his hands against each other to try and catch the soft feeling of freshly shaven wool and silk paper that formed on his palms, but it slipped and fluttered off like a shy butterfly.

Sweet looking art of artists in various stages of their journeys hung on the walls, just one of the walls to Tommy's right was left empty. Well, “empty”. Countless handmade drawings or lettering covered it. Markers hung from the wall, held on it by rainbow coloured bead chains and ribbons.

Tommy let his gaze wander over the doodles and writing for a while before he turned to the counter. Two women stood behind it, both wearing pastel coloured aprons. One was pink, the other one lavender. The one with the pink one disappeared behind a white painted door as a light jingle sounded through the store.

The pastries behind the glass of the counter looked just as sweet and colourful than the rest of the shop did. Tommy liked it. He approached the counter after lingering a few more seconds.

“Hi, welcome,” the woman greeted him, “how can I help you?”

Tommy inspected her briefly. She wore her light pink hair in a small bun. Her make up was done flawlessly, soft and innocent looking. A she/her pronoun pin, a pin featuring a silly looking frog and a tag giving Tommy the name “Niki” to work with were put on the right side of the sturdy cotton fabric of her apron.

“Hi, uh...”, Tommy let out and allowed himself to look over the blackboard behind Niki and the pastries that were on display, “What can you recommend?”

“Are you a fruit kind of person? The apple pie is freshly out of the oven and still warm,” Niki replied.

“Guess I'll take a piece. Oh, and a hot chocolate.”

“White, milk or dark?”, Niki asked while she already turned to one of the machines in the back.

“White?”

Niki nodded and proceeded to prepare his order. Tommy looked around some more in the meantime. There were three more customers sitting in here, all of them busy over books, papers or laptops. Tommy set his mind to sitting in the corner of the self-made art wall.

“I really like your earrings,” Niki said and his head snapped back to her.

“Oh. Thank you.”

She gifted him a sweet smile and set a plate with a piece of pie on the counter, placing a napkin next to and a small fork on it.

“That will be 6,50. You can sit down already, I'll bring you your drink.”

Tommy nodded and quickly reached into his pocket to pull out his wallet. It felt truly strange to suddenly have money laying around you actually could use. Something in the back of his mind told him that 6,50 for a bit of cake and a cup of hot chocolate was too expensive, but he forced it to shut the fuck up.

He deserved a treat, he decided.

He took his plate after he paid Niki for her work and went over to the spot he mentally reserved already. There was another guy on the table next to him and Tommy side eyed him curiously while removing his coat and setting down his rucksack.

He wore big headphones and tried to focus on the mess on the table in front of him, but was slouched over and looked awfully close to just dozing off. He didn't even look up. Tommy found himself rising an eyebrow when he let his gaze slip over the guy's clothes. He wore a dark waistcoat that seemed to be long in the back. A grey button up and a green tie sat underneath. Black dress pants and awfully fancy looking shoes. Wilbur would for sure know the exact name of the style.

Where did all the fancy bitches came from and why wouldn't they stop spawning?

Tommy decided that this guy was not worth his time since he looked rich and his attention returned to getting comfortable on the soft bench and then on his apple pie. He dug in without regards for patience. The door opened again and two new customers came in.

He ignored them. The pie was delicious. Still warm, just like Niki said. Just the right amount of sweet, just the right texture, the apples added a nice slightly sour note. Tommy found himself smiling unwillingly. This was close to what he imagined the upper layers of the Calm to be like, he thought as he separated the next piece off the pie.

Niki soon went over to him after she finished serving the other two people and placed the large cup of hot chocolate on his table. It was steaming slightly and hood of milk foam covered the surface. A large heart shape was powdered on it with cocoa.

“There you go.”

“Thank you. The pie is great,” Tommy said, his tone a little warmer than he intended.

“Glad you like it,” Niki smiled.

She turned around halfway to return to behind the counter, but stopped as her gaze brushed over the man on the table next to Tommy. Tommy's eyes followed hers and he let out a quiet gloating snort.

A mop of light strawberry blonde hair was planted on the table and halfway on top of his forearm. The headphones were slipped off and now resting around his neck. Slow, rhythmic breathing let his shoulders raise and fall in an almost calming pattern.

Niki's face stayed still. She didn't seem to share Tommy's opinion on how this was hilarious.

When her gaze met Tommy's again, she simply smiled without any further word and left him alone.

Tommy shrugged more to himself than anything else and picked up his fresh cup of liquid sugary treat. He blew against the surface a few times and took a careful sip just to burn his upper lip mercilessly, but he just couldn't wait.

He never had the chance to have white hot chocolate, but it was just as amazing as it sounded like. Much sweeter than the one he was used to or the one Wilbur served him, but also much richer and strangely silky. He loved it.

Tommy leaned back against the cushion of the bench, tangled his feet around each other and took another brave sip, ignoring the burn in favour of the taste and watched the rain fall outside.

He found his mood rising without putting any effort into it, and he allowed himself to enjoy every second of it. It was nice to feel like a person again.

Tommy even picked out some of his neglected school work out of his rucksack after a while. The calm, but productive atmosphere of the café, if you ignored the sleeping guy next to him, was contagious. Everyone here seemed to be a student of some sort and Tommy let it wash him with the stream. Of what he could see, it was a good direction after all.

It was impossible for him to catch up with everything he missed in one go, but even if that would have normally frustrated him, he found himself facing the sobering reality with a confidence he didn't usually have. It didn't really matter that he couldn't just snap his fingers and get everything done in a heartbeat, because realistically, nobody could do that.

Why should Tommy hold himself to a higher standard than he would hold any other person? Even though he usually did, now that he thought about it, it didn‘t really make sense.

The quiet scratching of pen over paper or the sound of yet another turning page accompanied Tommy for the next two hours next to the usual background music of the café. It was a good feeling to get something done. He did not regret coming here, even if finding the café had been nothing more than a lucky coincidence.

After those two hours of basically non-stop work, Tommy set his pen down and took a few moments to stretch himself. His back started to hurt from his horrible slouching position. Sometimes he wondered if he already was a worthy rival for all the shrimps in the world.

His back cracked a few times and he groaned. His pie was eaten and his hot chocolate was empty. A glance out the window was sobering when it came to his plans to get going again - it was still raining. Not as badly as when he just sat down here, but badly enough to make him not want to run around outside.

The guy next to him was still fast asleep. Tommy had noticed that his phone vibrated sometimes, but he was alone with that realisation. The man did not even stir.

Tommy‘s gaze wandered off Sleeping Beauty and back to the window. A figure was rushing through the rain and towards the café. They were covering their head with a jacket, but Tommy couldn‘t image that this did much to protect them from the water. When they came closer, he felt his eyebrow raise by itself. The man was wearing the exact same outfit as sleeping beauty wore. The tie was orange, but that was it with the differences. This was weird.

The man stopped in front of the door, brushed his hands over his clothes and folded his jacket over his left arm. He had black hair, straight and short, and probably used to be neat before the rain. His skin was somewhat tan.

Tommy watched him for a few seconds longer. The guy looked impatient as he kept peeking into the window. He ended up pulled out his phone to put it up against his ear. The phone on his neighbour‘s table started buzzing.

The witchling leaned back in his seat and brought himself in a more comfortable position. He picked up his empty mug and just acted like he would still have something of his drink left. This could become interesting after all.

After a few failed calls and more angry glances into the building that were obviously directed at the strawberry blonde, the man outside stuffed his phone back into his pocket. Tommy already wondered why he wouldn‘t just come in and wake the dude up, but he finally seemed to have the same idea despite still hesitating.

He opened the door as if it was Pandora‘s box. Then, he was quick to strut over.

Tommy recoiled as the burning aura brushed against his own. It was gentle, distracted touch. It was on the weaker side and absolutely not interested in him, but there, very much there and right against him. To him, this felt like reaching over a candle too closely. The fire would burn the hair on your arm, making it shrivel and fall off your skin as fresh ash. It left the scent of burnt hair lingering in the air and disturbed the comfortable field of energy Niki's café just naturally had.

Yet another god? Here?

A hand on his shoulder was not enough to wake Sleeping Beauty. He needed to be shaken harshly to groan quietly and blink in confusion.

A quick look up to the newcomer‘s face seemed to solve his internal riddle of who dared to disturb his very important sleep.

“You‘re very late, Dream, they already started.“

“Sapnap? Fuck,“ the guy, Dream (what kind of name even was that?), groaned.

“I called you, like what, 30 times and the only thing that comes up is your stupid, fucked up voicemail. You fucking owe me one, you know exactly how much I hate it here.“

Dream sat up straight and blinked a few more times before rubbing his eyes and starting to collect his stuff without answering. Sapnap stood firmly, his shoulders square and his chin high, yet Tommy could see how tense his jaw and gaze were.

He didn‘t understand his opinion on Niki‘s café. He looked around again just to check if he missed anything, maybe a monster that was hidden in some corner that made Sapnap hate it here so much, but no, just the gorgeous little front room and the cute counter.

Niki, who was standing behind the counter. Tommy shivered. Her gaze that was pinned on Sapnap and Dream was steel and blood.

“Can we please hurry? Karl and the rest are waiting.“

Dream rolled his eyes.

“Go catch your little lovebird. I‘ll be right on your heels.“

“Fuck. Off. I ran through the rain for you and you-”

Sapnap flared up at that and the way he did made Tommy feel threatened in an instant. There was something on Sapnap that he simply didn't like and he couldn't explain it. Anger rose in his chest and flooded his hands.

“Could you please continue your fight outside?”, Tommy hissed back, “There are people here who are trying to be productive.”

Tommy lowkey regretted saying anything as both men looked over to him. Their gazes were heavy on his skin and soon sunk right into his bones. He suddenly didn't like being seated anymore when both of them were standing. Neither of them was particularly short and Tommy was cornered. The pace of his heartbeat picked up at the strange sensation, but he only straightened his back and lifted his chin a bit further.

However, this seemed to have been the sign for Niki.

“I have to agree,” she said as she approached with quick steps, “And I have to ask you to leave. You are disturbing my customers.”

Sapnap's gaze lingered on Tommy for a few more beats of his racing heart. Then, he looked over to Niki and gave her an apologetic smile.

“Sorry. I wouldn't be here at all if Dream here wouldn't fall asleep where he stands still for longer than a few seconds.”

Dream's green eyes still haven't left Tommy's frame. He had paused his packing completely and he wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't even heard Niki and Sapnap talk. Tommy stared back and felt more and more anger boil up in him as if the guy himself just had stoked the fire. The gaze on him, soon joined and made much worse by Sapnap who frantically looked back and forth between Dream and Tommy, was a constant stream of oil.

The moment Sapnap's gaze lingered on him for a few seconds, Tommy felt like he had to defend himself immediately as agonising terror ripped through him. That was not even simple panic anymore.

He wanted to scream. To bite, scratch, kick, punch and scream. Scream.

Before Tommy knew it, his mind wailed again like an ancient wild hunt that rushed over the stormy night sky in December. Its screeching was terrifying, but not as foreign anymore.

WHat

excuse me?

No

blood

excuse HIM??

Disrespect

Blood!1!!11

dirty half blood

THE DISRESPECT

Blood

Blood for the Blood God

Dirty feet on sacred ground??

disrespect

blood blood blood blood

Get him!

e

Tommy felt how his body slowly rose up to his feet without having any control over himself, but this was the moment Dream's gaze left him. The man, slightly taller than Tommy himself, grabbed his bag and got his ass out of this tight, heated up corner. Sapnap was already out the door before he could squeeze past the table completely.

“I'm sorry to have disturbed your peace, Niki. It won't happen again,” he told the owner of the café who still stood her warrior stance, tall and firm.

“I hope so,” she replied.

The corner of Dream's lips twitched as if an emotion tried to surface on his face, but nothing readable appeared. There only was a polite, but plain smile. Then, he followed Sapnap, the half blood, his mind supplied for some reason.

Dream's steps were long and quick. Each of them seemed to push the earth down a little bit further under his soles.

Tommy only managed to relax when the door closed behind him and he could fall back onto the bench like a bag of wet potatoes. He tried to get his panicked breathing under control. His ears were ringing.

Niki's frozen hard expression melted the moment the door closed. The smile that replaced it was sweet and gentle.

“I'm very sorry for the disturbance. You can absolutely come and get yourself a little treat from the counter if you'd like. On the house. To calm some flared up nerves, how does that sound?”, she asked into the room and a few of the guests slowly got up.

Niki looked back to Tommy and inspected his slouched form briefly.

“Are you okay? I'm so sorry for that!”

“I'm fine,” Tommy muttered and lifted his hands to massage his temples, “just don't handle conflicts well, that's all.”

Niki gave him a gentle nod and didn't press further.

His heart slowly came down from its racehorse pace and the distant taste of adrenaline faded from his tongue. The twisting feeling in his palms loosened and he could finally breathe again without having to fear a burning torch brushing against his soul and let the fire lick at it.

Tommy took a few more minutes to calm himself. Maybe even longer. Niki handed him a small bundle of tiny pink muffins for free and even after Tommy tried to decline, she insisted on him takjng them and eating at least one right now.

He would rather avoid admitting that, but it definitely helped to calm his spiking anxiety for some reason.

In the end Tommy found himself in front of (Witch-)Craft, Soot & more nevertheless.

Despite the fact that the rain finally fucked off right after Tommy was done with his crooked little drawing of a rat on the guest art wall at Niki's, it was still very cold in his opinion and he didn't want to spend all day walking around the streets freezing his ass off. He also didn't want to be seen by someone he knew.

Tommy would prefer to not be known by anybody right now.

Disappearing sounded like a really good idea, and he could do that in here for a while.

He hesitated because of Wilbur. Tommy didn't like how easily he returned here after what happened, despite desperately trying to avoid it. How unimportant his own experience seemed to be for himself. He was genuinely confused about it. From the outside, this looked incredibly stupid.

Tommy had been though a small hell and Wilbur had chased him through it. But now, he was standing here like nothing happened, seeking some kind of sick comfort and not even getting to the bottom of the reason for his behaviour.

Maybe it was some God shit again. He didn't know, but if that was the case, Tommy hated what it did to him.

The only thing he could really tell was that returning felt strangely right, and that his brain really tried to do anything just to make him downplay the incident.

It hadn't been as bad. Wilbur and Phil only had wanted the best thing for him, they underlined that several times and it even made sense. Tommy could trace the train of thought, somewhat, when he spent a moment longer to think about it.

Tommy just had to break and ruin everything by being a brat, lying to Wilbur and causing such a huge scene. He could have solved it differently, calmer, more mature. Or, even better, he could have just not gotten into this situation beforehand. He could have just been more careful with what he told Wilbur. If he had done that, he wouldn't have triggered this kind of behaviour in him.

You didn't need to be a professional to see how this was not a normal reaction and if Tommy just had been a bit more mindful...

He shook his head, suddenly and violently.

There he was, fucking gaslighting himself outside of Wilbur's store. In the cold.

Tommy scoffed and simply went inside, allowing the smokey scent and the warm energy welcome him like an old friend.

He could tell Soot off anytime if it got too much.

The little bell alerted Wilbur immediately, but this time it took him a while to come forth and annoy Tommy so that he was able to walk past the counter already before the heavy velvet curtain moved and Wilbur stuck his head out.

He was already beaming.

“Oh, hello!”

“Hi you fucking god-bitch,” Tommy grumbled and put the bag of muffins on the counter to be able to remove his rucksack.

That thing was getting heavy and would only be in the way when he tried to navigate all the tight spaces here.

Wilbur emerged fully. Today, he wore older looking clothes. Trousers that had dirty patches on his knees and a simple t shirt with paint splatters on it. He went up to the counter and picked up the bag immediately without even asking for permission.

“Ay! That's mine!”

“You've been at Niki's?”, Wilbur asked.

He inspected the bag carefully and turned it in his hands as if it was a piece he wanted to buy off a customer just to resell it to another one later.

“Who's asking?”

Wilbur stilled and nailed his gaze on Tommy as if that answered all the questions he could ever think of in his short mortal life.

The young witch held his stance for a few seconds before feeling himself crumble under yet another stare and the push of Wilbur's presence against him.

“I did some homework there after it started pissing from the skies, okay?! It was a nice little café, so I stayed a while. Niki gave me some muffins after two customers caused some trouble, as an apology,” Tommy spilled over.

Wilbur set the muffins down. If Tommy hadn't already had all of his attention, he'd have it now.

“Trouble?”

Tommy rolled his eyes.

“Just two dudes.”

Wilbur's gaze on him didn't move in the slightest. Tommy regretted having said anything, but it somehow got very hard to lie to Wil. It was as if his tongue tied into a complicated sailor's knot as soon as he tried.

The teenager groaned and put his hands into his sides so hard that it almost hurt.

“One guy in fancy ass clothing fell asleep on the table next to me. Slept through like a meeting or something he had and was late. Someone constantly tried to call him and in the end, he showed up in person to wake him up.”

“Fancy ass clothing, yes? Like, a long waistcoat?”

“Yeah, something like that. Looked absolutely hideous. Something you'd wear.”

Wilbur nodded and stilled again, waiting for Tommy to continue talking. He rolled his eyes again, but obeyed.

“They lowkey started to fight and I told them to fuck off. They felt like fucking bastards. Niki stepped in and sent them outside. The one who just came to get Sleeping Beauty didn't look like he wanted to be in there anyway, so they indeed pissed off quite quickly.”

Wilbur nodded and set down the bag of muffins before he circled around the counter. Tommy went into a defensive stance before he even reached him, but Wilbur completely ignored that and set his hands down on his shoulders.

His grip was firm and Tommy just wanted to hiss at him for touching him like he was just some object Wilbur fucking owned, but he was interrupted.

“Looks like you just met two professors of the Academy,” Wil informed while his eyes still seemed to search something in Tommy's face.

Tommy stilled and frowned deeply. A wild mixture of emotions ripped through him. The cocktail was heavy and uncomfortable, but he failed to identify what exactly it was made of or how to handle it. Especially because Wilbur fucking muddled it all with his touch, pressing soft buzzing into his skin, flesh and deep into his bones like an ancient rhythm that didn't make sense to him as a modern person.

All he knew is that it seemed to crush the skin on his palms between two heavy plates of dark metal. He didn't know why his brain insisted on that they were dark.

“That is stupid,” he concluded.

“I had my up and downs with Niki,” Wilbur told him in a much softer tone now.

Tommy felt the tugging on his soul again. The longing call he couldn't follow. The glitching sensation it caused on its edges as some thin parts of it were dragged along. It was different this time though. He felt no longer weighed down with the grounding presence of Techno. It was confusing.

Maybe he simply didn't want to follow the siren's luring song?

He gave the other a nod and tried to gently wiggle his body out of his grip, but Wilbur held him like a clear crystal ball in both his hands. And reading him just like one. His eyes were wide and pupils blown, the black swallowing most of the brown of his irises. Tommy could see his own reflection in them.

“We had our differences, but she is a very talented witch and a loyally devoted priestess to Techno and Phil. You have to understand that working with a God in such a tight laced way, or belonging to one like you do... can put you at instinctive spiritual war with high ranked followers of other Gods.”

“I... didn't like how they felt. Or I didn't like how one of them felt in particular.”

“Techno isn't without enemies,” Wilbur explained gently and finally let go of him with one hand, only to bury it in Tommy's curls. His whole fucking hand.

He brushed his fingers through his hair and scratched his nails against his scalp. Confusion rested on Tommy's face. Why didn't he pull away? Why did it feel so... nice? It was horrifying, but he... liked the touch. It was warm, welcoming, gentle like a lullaby. Why did he come in here again?

“Could you please stop with that, Wil?”, Tommy asked, but his voice was reduced to a slipping whimper.

Wilbur smiled his ever so gentle smile, his all-swallowing possessive smile he always had on his lips in some variation when he got to touch Tommy. The god hummed lowly and sluggishly dragged his fingers out of his hair.

Tommy released his breath.

“Some of those enemies are quite... strong themselves. Despite Niki being a priestess and Techno not being at active war with any other God at the very moment, I would prefer you not returning there. You being there probably was enough to put you on their radar already and... I don't fucking like that.”

Tommy blinked.

“That one guy, he... felt like a God himself?”

Wilbur tensed and his grip did as well. His free hand went into Tommy's hair again, but this time to force him into a clingy embrace and to hold his head as if he was scared it could tip to the side or back and injure him like the one of a baby.

Tommy didn't have the strength to resist and he melted bit by bit. It was warm and comfortable, fuzzy and soft. He could only put up a fight for so long.

“No,” Wilbur hissed.

“It was like holding my hand over a flame,” Tommy muttered into Wilbur's shoulder.

His shirt smelled like redstone dust, salt and old paper.

“It wasn't comfortable,” he simply continued, “His stare felt... agonising.”

The God nodded and tugged him even closer.

“It's okay. That must have been very intimidating. I'm proud of you. You stood up to him after all.”

Tommy nodded and closed his eyes. Wilbur was proud. Oh, he could just let himself drop and Wil would hold him. Why did he even use his own legs anymore? It was difficult and he suddenly didn't like the strain it put on his feet.

He experimentally leaned closer against Wilbur and the God held him.

It was getting harder to not just follow the call. What would it change anyway? He didn't even understand anymore why he was resisting.

Tommy hummed.

Wilbur's claim felt much differently than Techno's. It didn't hurt, it didn't burn itself into his soul and left marks as hot as glowing iron.

It was like music was: A stable, but swaying feeling. Beautiful and continuous, but so two faced it could tip over the mood anytime simply for the art's sake and to prove a point.

A thousand different things fell into place as Wilbur finally got to welcome his young soul in his arms. The God let out a deep sigh that could make the silky fabric of the universe ripple gently.

It felt like buzzing as a new melody ran through Tommy's brain and body. A warm hug as his soul finally tripped into wide open arms. It felt light, floaty, effortless.

So easy.

What felt very similar to what Techno had felt like was the demanding part. Wil was demanding, so demanding, so possessive.

Tommy only felt faint sorrow at the thought of never belonging to just himself. It was distant and turned into quiet echo just seconds later. Then, his soft mourning suddenly faded and all that was left was floaty, safe, held, protected, warm, safe, safe, so safe.

“You would be such a big help if you had a name for me, Toms,” Wil whispered into his hair.

Tommy hummed absently. His whole being was too far gone, but the God of the Too Far Gone held him. Tight and safe, so he wouldn't float away.

"I think he was Dreaming," he slurred, "and Sapnap didn't like the rain."

Chapter Text

The Blood God

The Blood God (or sometimes the Blade) is a major deity of war, tactics, martial arts, revenge and blood magic, just as a minor deity of literature, farming and animal keeping.

Tommy groaned. Barely one sentence in and yet another two faced bitch who could not decide on what he wanted to be. He tried to imagine Techno with risen eyebrows over a book he would later criticise the shit out of. Yes, that was a bit of a stretch, but it worked fine, yet trying to imagine him as a farmer...? That just didn't look right in his head.

He is most commonly worshipped by soldiers of all ages and ranks, retired soldiers, and martial arts athletes. Victims of violence and abuse will sometimes feel called to him. Regionally, his worship may expand to farmers, building rings and clusters of well connected Covens.

There are many Covens dedicated to the Blood God, all of which underlay stricter rules than the majority of the Covens of other Gods. This is a common issue often taken to courts. It is uncommon to find single witches outside of Covens who work with him since there are yet more and even stricter sets of rules to follow if one wants to dedicate part of their craft to him single-handedly, but the Blade is known to reach out to illegal practitioners. Some examples of the current modified Coven laws include, but are not limited to: complete ban of blood magic (including body modifications in connection to the craft), ban of joining the military, ban of ritualistic weaponry and so on.

Tommy pulled in his lips between his teeth at reading that. Modifications of his body who? Weaponry what? He didn't do shit.

Did his piercings... count as blood magic?

It seemed to be allowed if you worked with other deities, according to the wording of this at least. It implied that you could pierce the shit out of yourself in fancy rituals practically made from all the ritual daggers, as long as none of them was dedicated to the Blade.

Tommy didn't understand why this seemed to be such a big issue. He didn't remember a single time he felt more... connected than in the very moments he forced a needle through his ears. Not that Tommy had ever taken any, but the high afterwards was better than any drug you could imagine.

But maybe that was exactly the point?

The Blood God seems to prefer to work with witches who are already worshippers of the Angel of Death or Kristin. He is known to reach out to the witches he choses to work with. Reaching out to him with a request for that will most likely stay unanswered.

The Blood God is a major player of most human and non-human conflict. Areas of political instability usually report a massive spike in sightings or worship of the Blade. Here, he again seems to prefer to side with the party of the most chaos. If there is an anarchy standpoint to the matter, the Blood God is most likely with it.

The most common place to encounter some of his influence is the battlefield or, despite his focal point on battle itself, the lazaret. Many soldiers report hallucinations of the God in battle or after injury.

Tommy interrupted his reading with a sudden yawn and stretched out his back. It cracked a few times before it felt normal again. He stretched out his legs as well and leaned back into the small mountain of pillows he collected behind him.

The warm rays of the sun reaching him in his usual reading spot made him feel lazy and sluggish. Something in the back of his mind told him to just lay down here and bask in the sun for a while... maybe even sleep.

Tommy set down the book on his chest and closed his eyes. It felt right. He was home after all. It was warm, comfortable and safe. The scent of lavender and rosemary smoke, old paper, leather and ground coffee ghosted through the aisles. He could hear footsteps creaking over the wooden floor to his right and some on his left as well.

None of them belonged to Wilbur. Wilbur was at the counter and busy. If Tommy focused enough, he could hear the scratching of pen on paper. Nothing serious or too important, he knew. Inventory lists?

Tommy wondered if Wil even kept an inventory list of this pure mess of a store. Phil would for sure, he knew, for some reason.

He floated for a while longer until his mind decided to disturb his peace. How long had he been in here?

His eyes flew open.

Wait, right. He had been... skipping school? He did. He had wandered around the town. Discovered Niki's café.

What time was it?!

Tommy struggled to reach into his pocket to fish his phone out of it and dumped the book on the floor in the process.

1:23 p.m.

He released a breath and his anxiety calmed slowly. If he went to school, he would still be there for another hour. Nothing stood in his way to be at the orphanage on time. They wouldn't suspect a thing and Tommy would simply forge a signature later to get his missing hours at school excused.

The only thing that worried him was the message from Ranboo that sat on his screen like a silent threat to his calm mood.

Tommy stared at his screen until it went black again. He hadn't left them any message, and they did have a class together. At least with Ranboo. Ranboo always noticed if something was off in his routine, and Tommy was usually part of it today.

He sat up, crossed his legs and tried to collect the courage to actually read what he texted him. A nagging tug dragged itself down his hands and into his wrists. A stone weighed down his entire gut, but a stone covered in fuzzy mold making him feel like he should throw up, but he would never be able to do it. Guilt. He should have at least texted Ranboo and Tubbo. How had he been so out of it earlier?

Tommy had to fix that. He took a deep breath and unlocked his phone. It took a while to even respond to his command. As he checked the time of when the message was sent, things fell into their place. Ranboo had missed him at lunch.

Ranboo; 12:03 p.m.
Hey, you skipped school, right? That's okay I guess, just text me so I know you're ok. Let's talk later

Tommy was quick to type out a short response to let his friend and roommate know he was indeed alive and kicking. He should have known that he would end up having to talk to at least one of them at some point. Ranboo had offered it to him a while ago, when Tommy first went to school with his absolutely professionally done piercings since he was obviously a professional now – he did four of them after all, that was enough in his book.

It just was that he never went to one of them to talk. A surprise looked differently. Looking back, Tommy wasn't surprised at all that Tubbo had just allowed him to distance himself while Ranboo frequently tried to get him to talk.

Tubbo didn't put up with bullshit as long as Ranboo did. And Tommy had been pulling a lot of bullshit.

What really surprised him was that the two were still talking to him at all.

“Toms?”

Tommy looked up. Wilbur was standing there, not far from him and his hand still rested against the shelf he just passed. It slid down the wood slowly as the god eyed him.

His gaze was just as unreadable as ever. Just now, Tommy felt... How did he feel?

“What?”

“What is it? You seemed stressed.”

Oh, right. While Wil and him haven't talked about what happened, now that Tommy had a head that was a little clearer he could easily tell.

Wilbur's actions were predictable. So predictable that Tommy should have realised that it was a bad idea to come here at all. He should have known what would happen, Wil hadn't been exactly sneaky about what was planned.

“I forgot the time,” he replied.

Wilbur tiled his head, but his expression stayed the same. It was a small, eerily slow movement, as if not to scare Tommy away with something that was too quick and harsh for him to handle.

Or, as if Wilbur was just pretending and poorly imitating what he saw other humans doing.

It made the fine hairs in the back of his neck raise just as slowly.

“Is someone bothering you?”

“No,” Tommy replied and shoved his phone back into his pocket, “what kind of question is that? You sound like a mob boss again. Stop that.”

Wil took a heartbeat too long to smile.

Yeah. He was not selling Ranboo out to that creep.

“Sorry. That came across wrong. Do you need to leave already?”, Wilbur asked and checked his stupidly pretentious pocket watch, “School ends in around an hour.”

Tommy didn't ask why he knew that.

He would actually like to ask Wilbur for another blanket, curl up and sleep right here. The worst thing was that he would get it. Wil's presence made sure that Tommy knew he would get anything he asked for.

He hesitated and Wilbur waited.

Tommy needed to get a fucking grip. Sure, the claim didn't make things easier. It made things really fucking hard now. He could not get away with viewing Wilbur as a threat anymore, at least not to himself, because he wasn't. He just wasn't. Nothing on Wilbur looked or felt like he was.

Instinctively, he just knew that he'd never hurt him, just like Techno would never.

But the young witch wasn't dumb. He knew how that felt now and just because he mercilessly fell into Techno's hold didn't mean he had to do the same with Wilbur. Especially because Techno still let him live his own life while Wilbur apparently would like to fucking own him and his life.

And while his rational side hated the mere thought that Techno could mean trouble to him in any way so much it made him feel nauseous, it still managed to remember just enough of what happened to know that Wilbur was a threat.

The claim didn't change shit. Tommy needed to stay focused and on top of that.

Would Wil freak again when he said he wanted to leave? This fuzzy floaty feeling had kept him pinned down here for over an hour now. Did he actively cause it to made Tommy forget the time and just... stay here? Like he wanted before when he simply took him away.

“I've read some entries in here,” he said as casually as he could and pulled the deity lexicon back into his lap.

“You have?”

“Mhh. Say... who exactly are you?”

Tommy had wanted to ask that as long as he suspected Wilbur being a god. He didn't for several reasons, one of which being fear. Another one being that he was busy with running away, gambling his way back into restricted freedom or fighting his own mind to stay sane.

“I'm Wilbur,” Wil said oh so gently.

Oh so gently, it caused Tommy to feel how his palms heated up to just the right, comfortably hot temperature the showers back at home would never reach. It caused his body weight to disappear and made him float again.

Oh so gently, it made Tommy want to believe him. So badly.

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“You want to know my name so you can google it,” Wilbur said and closed the gap between him and Tommy so easily as if it never had been there.

The tall man lowered himself on Tommy's level, squatting down in front of him.

Tommy's brain got the memo embarrassingly late, but as it happened, he scooted away as far as he could until his back hit the heating system and the back of his head the low windowsill over it.

“You want the name humans gave me centuries ago so you can research in books about me, to scroll through myths and legends and whatever nonsense people post online. But Tommy, why? You have me right here.”

“I want to know who I'm talking to so I don't run blindly into things I could have known.”

Wilbur's face twisted into something weird. It looked like a mixture of anger and hurt, but Tommy could be wrong. It lingered much longer on his face than he usually would portray hurt.

“You still don't trust me.”

“I am at your fucking mercy like that!”

Wilbur performed yet another sluggish head tilt.

“What is the problem with that? I'm taking care of you. I'm taking care of everything if you'd just let me.”

“No!”, Tommy called out angrily, “How is that supposed to work? You could tell me anything and everything. How would you feel if I just swooped in, manipulated you into feeling safe around me and then depriving you of any method of gathering information about me that is not myself?”

He didn't believe that he had to pull the elementary school teacher bullshit card of 'mimimi how would you feel if someone did that to you?' but Tommy seriously started to believe he needed to talk to Wilbur like he was just an oversized toddler.

“Tommy,” Wilbur said as if their roles were reversed and he was the oversized toddler in their conversation, “that isn't even a question. You are a mere mortal.”

Tommy stilled for a few seconds before he let out the air of his lungs in an angered huff. This bastard. This absolute bastard.

“So, I'm worth less in your eyes.”

Wilbur's expression changed to shock.

“What? No. No, never.”

Tommy was fuming. Hot anger burnt away the inside of his skin. This was bullshit, Wil was a bastard and the way he went misunderstood by him stung in such a deep, fundamental way that he felt his throat getting sore and his eyes wet with frustration.

No matter how he worded things, he would never be able to make himself clear enough for people to understand. He sometimes felt like he was the issue, but he couldn't find out where the problem was sitting, no matter how often he questioned himself in or after conversations. To him, he made perfect sense, but Tommy assumed that Wilbur made perfect sense to himself as well.

They just didn't get a connection between those two things.

The teen took a deep breath and tried to get back to thinking. Think, not feel. How the fuck could he word this so Wil being as dense as he was sometimes would understand?

Tommy had seen his intelligence in action already but the God seemed to lose 30 IQ points sometimes, seemingly at random and making him lose the ability to get where Tommy was standing.

He didn't get why it was so important to him that this stupid being that apparently stole a pile of atoms to even make their body understood him, but he physically had no choice but following this urge. He had to understand, he had to be heard.

The witchling changed strategies.

“If you say that, like... that I'm just a 'mere mortal', I feel like you put yourself above me. It makes me think that you don't trust me when it comes to handling myself and it feels like you're putting a distance between us,” he said carefully.

Why was it so hard to not cry right now? Tommy managed fine, he always managed to stay out of his own emotions until he had some alone time. But now, they were clouding his mind and this didn't help when he had to think for himself and for Wil at the very same time.

“Oh. Oh, no no no, I didn't mean it like that-”

“It feels like you do.”

“No- I mean... yes. Okay. Okay. I understand and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. Let me explain?”

Tommy stared at the other warily, desperately trying to get his bottom lip to stop wobbling. He nodded hesitantly and scooted over to make some space for Wilbur next to him on the small pillow mountain.

Maybe the first step to making him understand was to understand Wilbur.

The man sat down next to him slowly, turned in a way he was still facing him.

“It's... hard for me to look over how fragile you are,” Wil said after a few seconds of probably sorting out his own thoughts, “and to ignore it. All I can see sometimes is a soul too small and easy to break... in a world too big and too violent, filled with things too well equipped to rip it apart.”

“Don't tell me you can actually see souls,” Tommy sniffled before laughing nervously.

Wilbur just met him with another head tilt.

“Oh, of course,” the witchling snorted, “are those people I hear walking around here ghosts or... I dunno, random souls too?”

Wilbur's head tilted deeper to the side. His expression stayed still.

“And you want to tell me you can see them?”

“I see nothing. I said I hear people walking around when there is nobody here. I actually have never met anybody else. How the fuck aren't you bankrupt yet?"

The god leaned his shoulder against the windowsill and shook his head.

“I sell and buy, and come out at zero most months. I make no salary at all and that's the reason I run the store alone, for the most part.”

Tommy called bullshit.

“You gave me more money than I managed to count yet. You could have several employees and pay them well.”

“I don't cheat with the store,” Wilbur answered, “It would be boring if I broke the rules we set for it.”

“Fuck you,” Tommy said.

Wil smiled, but it looked confused.

“You treat... this all like a fucking video game. You basically just said that you keep cheats disabled with running a stupid fucking business,” the witchling added to his insult.

It would be better if people knew why they were shit instead just knowing that they were.

Yet, Wilbur's smile stayed on his face as he lifted his head back up and shrugged his shoulders.

“It isn't too far from the truth, isn't it?”

Tommy hated this, but he knew expressing this would give him nothing. He took a deep breath and rubbed his hand over his face.

“Okay, so... I guess I can see where you are coming from. I assume our realities are very far from each other. I'd still ask you to at least try. There are millions over millions of humans around here who get through life just fine.”

When Wilbur didn't answer, Tommy looked back up to him. Looking at him sometimes felt like looking into a very deep well. You couldn't see the ground, or anything for that matter, so you just had to assume there was water in there...

“Our realities collide more and harder than you think, Tommy, and you see much more than you're supposed to already.”

“What, you mean the ghosts in here?”, he tried to joke, but Wilbur stayed serious.

“They aren't exactly what you'd understand as a ghost. There are many, many layers of reality and different beings move on different surfaces. And there are places in which they overlay and cross each other, so it is easier for them to move layers.

“So... they are gods?”

“No. I no not tolerate others of my kind in my private spaces.”

“You tolerate Phil and Techno.”

Wilbur's lips pulled into a straight line and a crease in his forehead appeared.

“Phil and Techno are a different story because they are family. More or less. I'm not actually related to Techno, but he has been with Phil for almost an entire eternity.”

“Soooo... if they aren't ghosts or gods, what are they?”, Tommy asked as he gestured into the supposed emptiness of the store.

“Customers,” Wil answered, “As I sell on multiple layers.”

Tommy shook his head and huffed, but he didn't press further. Instead, he chose a different route. He started to believe that he wouldn't make himself understood here. No matter what Wilbur said, he could see how far apart their understanding of things were – it was unlikely to make Wil see that Tommy just wanted some space to breathe on the spot.

No matter how much this wanted to sting and burn him, Tommy did not allow it. He would need to shove that all onto the god slowly, like you would hide vegetables in the food for very picky kids. He had a solution for it already, so there was no space for hurt. The way he reached his goal was unimportant, as long as it worked.

Wilbur said that he could just ask him if he wanted to know about him, so that was what Tommy would do now.

“Is Phil your brother or something?”

“Phil is my father.”

“Do you have children?”

Wilbur sighed.

“I do.”

“How many?”

“Just one. A son. But Fundy and I don't talk much anymore.”

Tommy set up the next question, but he stopped.

Fundy.

Fun Dy.

He knew that name. There it was. A trace.

Wilbur fucking betrayed himself.

Tommy grabbed the lexicon he had been reading in and pulled it in his lap. He opened it to the table of contents and ran his finger over the page until he reached a particular name.

Fun.

One chunk of pages flipped later, he started to read the entry and was too busy to hear Wilbur's disappointed sound.

“You're Seirēn,“ Tommy concluded and looked back up to look at his deity.

Wilbur, Seirēn, looked like he bit into a lemon. A thick layer of disapproval seeped through the pillows, blankets and floorboards. Tommy didn't mind it running over his skin, or at least he tried to ignore it.

The urge to drop the topic was strong, almost overwhelming, but he kept his mental blinkers up. He was not giving into Wilbur's influence when he was so close to getting the truth out of him. Wil rolled his eyes as he crumbled.

“People seem to focus a lot on the voice aspect.”

“You're Seirēn!”, Tommy cheered.

He figured it out. He did it. He didn't need Wilbur to tell him shit, he managed to find it out alone, as long as Wilbur was stupid enough to talk too much.

“I'd still prefer if you didn't google too much, you know. There is only a spark of truth in what people say and write.”

The witchling dug through his memory. He had read the part about Seirēn on his very first day of coming here, he remembered it more or less clearly. His stomach sunk.

“Phil is the Angel?”

“Yeah,” Wilbur confirmed.

For fuck's sake. Tommy swatted the Angel of Death in the face-

He chewed on the inside of his cheek and tried to find words.

“You're stupid,” he managed to say, “be honest with me next time. It would be helpful if I knew who I'm about to punch. I'm just trying my best here. ”

Wilbur sighed, but smiled. Tommy felt hugged without him touching him. He wanted to hate it, but he couldn't bring himself to it. It had gotten really hard to hate Wilbur, but Tommy needed to keep it up. He needed to make sure he kept himself.

This honestly was enough Wilbur for a day. He needed space, otherwise he would fall for this.

“We all are.”

“I'm leaving now. Have to be on point,” Tommy said, despite the words hardly leaving his lips.

“You can always stay, you know that?”

The offer hung in the air like the herbal smoke Wil used to keep his space clean.

The witchling wanted to spit something rude, something hateful, something to keep Wilbur's words away from him.

But they reached his core without having to go through the filter he tried to shove between them. It was like he had been offered home.

A solution to all his problems.

A way to leave the darkness behind him that seemed to eat him whenever he was alone and without distraction.

He hated how much he wanted to agree. It wasn't him who wanted this, it was the god's influence. At least that was what he was guessing. He needed to keep things separated. Things would not end well if he didn't.

“Don't tell me that,” Tommy spoke.

Returning home felt strange. When Tommy went back to his room, he was greeted by a mood that he usually just knew from when none of them did their homework and they now watched the teacher circle around the classroom to check everyone’s work.

Watching doom crawl closer and closer, but this time, when he slowly closed the door behind him again, Tommy was doom.

Ranboo was sitting on Tommy's bed again, Tubbo in front of it.

“Hey guys, how are you-...” he greeted and went to drop his rucksack on the floor, but he froze in the middle of the movement when Tommy got a look at what sat in front of Ranboo on his blanket.

Innocently, as if no strings were attached, laid his coke can altar.

His shitty trash altar, but the one he dedicated to the Blood God, to his deity.

And next to it, a book on sigil magic he had borrowed and the wooden box that held his precious tarot deck.

Tommy felt like he was hit by lightning. He felt like tens of thousands volts ran through his bones, his bones specifically. His stomach sunk so suddenly and painfully that he felt like he would have to mop it up from the floor later.

“Wha-...”

“Tommy,” Tubbo said and his jaws were so tense you could see it change his fucking facial structures, “we need to talk.”

Chapter Text

The first few seconds of shock felt like they were several minutes long. Tommy felt like he ran into a solid stone wall at full speed.

An ugly, ugly mixture of shock, betrayal and anger curled in his stomach, tightening to a large ball and threatening to suffocate Tommy.

He tried. He really tried. He took deep breaths and put his everything up to control his rage. It didn't work. His emotions won the upper hand before he could put a filter between them and his mouth.

“You've been digging through my stuff?!”

“We haven't!”, Ranboo immediately defended himself, “The can tipped out of the closet as Tubbo wanted to put your bag back in there.”

What? The altar tipped out of the closet?

He didn't manage to decide on the spot if he deemed this believable or not.

“And then you proceeded to dig through my stuff!”

Tommy gestured frantically at the two items on his bed. His two most personal items. He didn't even know if it would have been worse if they found the money instead.

„I was putting away the stuff you left on the fucking floor, Tommy,” Tubbo hissed between his teeth, “And I am not happy to have found this. It would be nice if we could get an explanation?”

Tommy felt a pang of guilt, but it was buried easily.

“You touched my shit, I am very much allowed to be pissed off! You know exactly how much I hate this!”

“You can be glad we didn't run straight to the office with this.”

Tubbo got up from the floor and built himself up in front of Tommy. No matter how short he was in comparison to him, it did not take away from how intimidating he was and it somehow even managed to make Tommy feel like his own height was an disadvantage – somehow. Tubbo was raw, grounded strength, and the fact that this was compressed into his shorter frame only seemed to make it more explosive.

“This is literally none of your business and the audacity to demand an explanation for something you stuck your nose into is through the roof!”

“Can we just-”, Ranboo started, but he was cut off by Tubbo.

“The audacity?! Tommy, you do realise that we live here, yes?”

“In my fucking closet?! You could have just left my fucking bag where it was, I was on my way back anyway!”

“Yeah, that is a whole different thing. You leave and then you're just gone for hours on end! No trace! No call, not even a text! And today was on the shorter side, you were gone for like a day before. You haven't even told us where you've been! Do you even have an idea how hard it was to keep people off our asses while you were gone? We had your stupid back, Tommy, we didn't say a thing!”

“Okay, cool. Cool. You act as if I wouldn't have done the same for you thousands of times already. I thought we were friends who did that for each other?!”

Tubbo paused.

“Yeah, I thought we were friends too.”

Outch.

Tommy felt how pain poured through his anger and mixed into it like venom. It tugged at his soul in a nasty manner as if it tried to rip a piece out, but to make it as slow as humanly possible. He was sure he could hear it if his own heartbeat wasn't as loud in his ears as it was, and he knew how it would sound like. It would mimic the sound of ripping paper, but the kind that was as thin as an oak leaf.

It only stayed for a second, then it was drowned out once more. Tubbo had poured hot oil into a flame. It started to consume Tommy as if he really was an oak tree. The forest fire spread quickly and the hot winds made it deadly to fly in there.

“Ohhh, suuuure, you thought! You thought! I thought too, you know? I thought a lot. I had some really hard weeks, you know? Of course, you offered to talk, I appreciated that too, but you two always act like you'd be... I don't even know, as if you'd be fucking married or some shit!”

“Tommy-”, Ranboo tried again.

Unsuccessfully.

“You act as if you're a heart and a soul, super sweet, but excuse me if I didn't make your best man at the wedding, I wasn't fucking invited.”

“Wow, excuse you, that is so far off topic right now, I-”

“No, Tubbo, I'm not saying sorry here,” Tommy hissed, “You always made it seem like I was an disturbance to you and now you complain that I didn't disturb you further.”

Tommy gave Ranboo a short glance in between gesturing.

He gave off the impression of a crumbled piece of cloth that someone threw into the corner of a room. It wouldn't surprise Tommy if he started crying any second now.

Ranboo just did not handle conflict well. Tommy had seen him literally hide under a desk before as it got very bad one day as Tubbo fought with another kid from upstairs. He was trying very hard to stay fair and pick the people behind the sides of a fight, but this here... was quite the hopeless situation to be in if you drove on that route.

“You were always welcome-”

“Surely. You went to sleepovers without me. Went to the movies without me. Went here, went there. Without me. You even picked out classes! Specifically, to be together. You didn't even ask me in the beginning of the year!”

Even more betrayal seeped through Tommy's veins. He never managed to verbalise this. Now that he did, it stung ten times more than it did as it just was a vague thought ghosting through the dark void in his head. It hurt. And it was bad hurt.

It felt like something he always kept dearly was being washed down the drain, and he himself had turned on the water to make it slip down there faster. He was sure that he could handle this better, more mature and less emotional – but Tommy was missing the capacities for that.

He had been trying to be considerate, to be calm and think first. Always think, not feel. He had successfully navigated around the unstable moods of his teachers, the social workers here, and in the end even literal gods. He had tried to be smart about everything, to see everyone’s point of view... and to manage everything as best as he could.

Odds played against him. A lot.

The wound in his back bled and he just could not crick and strain his arms enough and in the right angle to be able to press yet another shitty rag on it that had been used ten times already for other shit. All he could do now was to bite himself out of this if he didn't want to bleed out.

“Can I please say something?”, Ranboo asked and his voice quivered in such a familiar way.

Tommy huffed, but stayed silent. Tubbo stared his feet down.

“Thank you. Tommy, I see you. I'm sorry, we really should have included you more. That wasn't fair, I understand that. At the same time, you kinda have to understand us too... We worry, you know? Just image I would do that, or Tubbo-”

“Don't pull that at me, Ranboo,” Tommy snarled warningly.

“Okay,” Ranboo said, a bit too quick, “okay. Okay. We just worry. And now this. It wasn't... cool of us to open your closet like that-”

“I was just putting his shit away after he wouldn't do it himself!”

“It would have not fallen out like this,” Tommy said with sudden confidence.

It was an altar, and not just a random one for any random minor god. Techno protected his spaces. Tommy didn't know why he was so sure of that, but he would bet his soul on that fact.

The following silence was deafening and lasted several seconds.

“Okay, maybe it did not,” Tubbo said.

“Cool,” Tommy managed to squeeze out of his throat.

“I-”

“Save it. I don't wanna hear it.”

He needed a few breaths.

The young witch couldn't find a single rational thought in his head. Again, he wasn't even sure which of them were his own. Everything was loud. Most of them were screaming with blind rage and Tommy recognised the tone of it. It was a similar one as he heard in his fight with Soot.

There was all-consuming rage, breaking and burning through everything in its way. There was indignation and outraged calls.

When Tommy listened for just a few seconds longer, he could make out the chanting for blood again.

Maybe it even was chanting and calling for the Blood God himself, he couldn't make out the details. There were too many.

“You don't deserve an explanation. I don't have to justify myself in front of you. You're the wrong instance for that,” Tommy decided and the rage of the voices seeped though his voice, “I kept everything off you and did it in private. You invaded that and demand shit you have no right to. You even fucking lied to me. Absolutely not.”

“Tommy, it's illegal. It is very illegal. We're trying to protect you here. I have no idea what you did there, but I really hope it stayed with some cards and a candle,” Ranboo said quietly.

“What do you expect? Disprove you by explaining what exactly I did after I just said you don't deserve that? Yeah, keep guessing. Cards and candles are not illegal.”

Tubbo's forehead creased and his icy gaze raised back up to blow hail into Tommy's face.

“What syllable of 'This is very illegal' did you not understand? I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that any further.”

Tommy felt how his body tensed up and the voices wailed at this scandalous words as if they were angry banshees. Sometimes, he felt like they were exactly that.

“Okay, what is that? Are you threatening me?”

“You can't expect us to... cover you. Really. It is... a crime?”, Ranboo muttered.

“I agree,” Tubbo said, “and I think that we're in the right here too.”

More of this painful venom that was betrayed trust poisoned his body and mind. He just did not manage to pull the knife from his back and as they twisted and turned, all Tommy wanted was to see them bleed like they made him bleed.

“Yeah, I really thought we were friends, but look at this: I was wrong,” Tommy snarled, “We are not, and I start to doubt that we ever really were.”

“What?”, Ranboo winced, “You can't mean that-”

“I fucking do mean it. Threatening to snitch – to fucking sell me out here. Wow. Maybe I really should hex you or something.”

As if he had drawn an actual weapon on Tubbo, the shorter retreated instantly.

“What?”

It was a sudden whiff of power Tommy dragged out much longer than necessary. The small steps back, the way Tubbo's stance widened as if he expected a strike got him high instantly. It was impossible to make out a reason for it. Tommy didn't even question it. It was a great distraction from the ripping pain, so he took it.

“Yeah, maybe I should. Hex your mouth shut or your voice away.”

Tubbo shared a glance with Ranboo, seeking help, but Ranboo was just sobbing at this point. So Tubbo focused back on Tommy.

“How can you say that...?”

“That's what I asked myself a lot during the past ten minutes whenever you two opened your mouths.”

Tommy felt his knees bending. It was subtle from the outside, but to him it felt as if someone had dropped a chain mail piece on him that now hugged his entire torso. It wasn't crushing this time, Tommy carried it easily and without worry to dent the cheap plastic floor under his feet.

If it did, so be it.

The sudden support almost made him lunge at Tubbo immediately, but only for a split second, only until his deity orientated himself and judged the situation as peaceful enough.

Tommy felt his tenseness as if it sat in his own muscle fibres. His suppressed, but heavily bubbling anger at whatever dared to threaten him. His hawk eyes on him and the situation, ready to decide it was enough and step in.

But very willing to let Tommy handle himself.

Nothing could touch him now. What dared to would die.

“Looks like we have a bit of a dead end here,” he spoke, now finally able to think again.

Tubbo just stared at him and his eyes betrayed clear distrust. It was one of the kind you couldn't heal with time. Ranboo's sobbing hitched and stilled.

As he was sure he had the entire stage just for himself, he continued.

“I can offer you two options. You either keep your mouth shut, or I leave.”

“Leave,” Ranboo repeated without it sounding like a question, but it was one.

He was just exhausted, Tommy could hear it leaking in his voice clearly.

“Leave... to where?”, he added, a bit firmer now as he warily inspected the room as if he was looking for something.

“You can't seriously expect me to tell you that.”

“Well, I thought... I mean... I-”

“Because I will not.”

“Absolutely not,” Tubbo snarled.

The tone made Techno's presence shift and twitch in deep displeasure, from somewhere on Tommy's left shoulder to having even pressure on both and very close to his neck.

“Okay. So, no snitching it is,” Tommy concluded, even if he was unsure about how long this promise would hold.

There was absolutely no guarantee that they would hold their word, he realised.

Tubbo did not look happy. At all. He was chewing his bottom lip bloody and stared at Tommy's face as if a few important secrets of the universe were hidden in his features. Maybe there were some, at this point. None Tubbo could see, though.

Apparently, people were pretty blind when it came to this matter.

Techno was literally holding him and his possessive anger crept up every wall in here like black mildew, but no matter how clear that was to Tommy, Tubbo stared at him as if there was nothing but himself.

“Okay,” he finally said, and his voice sounded just as crumpled as Ranboo looked like.

“Great,” Tommy replied flatly.

“Great.”

“Yeah.”

Despite Tommy's tight grip on victory and Techno's constant presence, the mood in 014 was at a record breaking, all time low. While Tubbo didn't look at Tommy at all anymore, Ranboo's heterochromatic gaze seemed to dig through his flesh all the time.

And when he said all the time, he meant all the time.

Techno was not thrilled, to say the least. As long as Ranboo stayed at a distance he stayed motionless, but as soon as he was just a tad too close for Techno's liking, Tommy felt a tug or a drag straight up strong enough to make it seem like the god was physically grabbing him to make him move away from his friend(?).

It was much worse with Tubbo though. The voices kept spitting hateful insults in his direction the second Tommy's attention laid on him for longer than a single heartbeat, and Techno shoved himself between them whenever it was possible.

Wilbur – Tommy had the safe and calming knowledge that it was Wil because he felt very similar and Techno tolerated him – visited a while later. His presence was buzzing, but it wasn't enthusiastic and careless like usual, but baritone laced and curled in deep worry.

Wil fuzzed, it was almost unbearable. Unbearable since Tommy wasn't used to company in his dark hours. The god slipped in niches and little crinkles Techno left him, and then he was everywhere. Tommy almost regretted ever meeting him, but then he wondered if there would be a single day in his existence where he would not.

Time slipped while he laid in bed motionlessly, turned to the wall, and bathed in the attention he was getting. The distraction was welcome. The mental, half-assed swatting at Wilbur and the soft, heavy being that was Techno. Tommy stopped trying to shoo Wil away soon. Somewhere, deep inside him, he wanted to hate himself for accepting his fate here, but Wil's embrace was too good to do that.

He understood. He finally understood Tommy in some aspect, from some weirdly twisted angle.

There was a time somewhere between lunch and dinner time approaching quickly where he tried to sleep. It didn't surprise him that it didn't work. The space that used to feel at least somewhat safe didn't anymore. Not with Tubbo angrily scribbling down his homework and Ranboo sometimes letting a sob rip through the room, all of this happening in Tommy's back and looming the constant threat over his head that one of them could get up while he was napping and snitch on him.

He didn't hold enough lavage to ensure that this didn't happen. Tommy had a deep rooted understanding of all kinds of violence, and this had not been enough to buy their silence. There would be no easy way out of trouble when they decided to tell on him.

As much as he trusted Techno and Wilbur to warn him if that was about to go down... No. No chance. No sleep.

Tommy could not bring himself to care about the loss. He also was not able to give himself space to properly feel the pain of what happened. It had been brutal, he knew that somewhere in the back of his mind and he sensed it in Wilbur and Techno. The fallout of this would be just as brutal. Nevertheless, there was no space for it right now. He had to keep a clear head – once more. Once again.

In a calm second, the question of when all of this would fall on his feet reached his consciousness. Tommy was quick to shove it off. No time, no space. Never time, never space. Always moving even when laying still, always better things to do.

More important things.

Like, when Tubbo and Ranboo left for dinner and Tommy did not, packing.

Chapter Text

Sneaking out should have been harder than it was, but who was Tommy to complain?

It was a bit of a drop from the window of the bathroom, but none he hadn't survived before. He landed in the neglected flower bed in front of it. All he did was getting his hands dirty because he put them in the soil to stabilise himself.

The very invasive adrenaline shock he got when he jumped was not his own. If he had to guess, he would put his bets on Wilbur.

“Oh my gosh, you're a pussy,” he muttered into the collar of his coat and used his pants to clean off his hands, “It wasn't that high.”

Tommy picked his backpack out of the soil and stilled to listen.

It was four in the morning. The complex was quiet, as quiet as it got.

All he heard were distant cars driving by and a dog barking somewhere in the distance.

Tommy chose to wait this long to make sure he caught the shift change of the social workers. They would always sit in the office at this time, checking over what happened during the night and the evening before with those who hadn't been on shift. Sometimes they would talk about specific incidents that required more attention or introduce someone new to the team.

Now that he thought about it, Tommy realised that he didn't even know all of them.

It wasn't very important now anyway. What was important was that those conversations took ages and nobody was on hallway duty during this time. Tommy had heard them before. The walls were quite thin and the topics they talked about weren't always work related either.

It used to annoy him a lot when he was standing in front of there to get some papers signed or wanting to ask a question whenever they overdid it and the door stayed closed for half an hour longer than it was supposed to. Tonight, Tommy hoped they would keep it shut, preferably until he was 700 kilometers away.

Maybe it would.

Considering this, dropping his shit out of the window and then following was almost comically easy, but he was thankful that he had shoes that did not feature a bunch of holes as he climbed out of the flower bed.

Tommy stayed close to the wall to avoid being seen from the windows, but the area he picked was pitch black after the street lights broke a few months ago. When it first happened it was a massive pain in the ass and Tommy picked up Ranboo more than once because he slipped and fell when heavy snowfall even worsened the street's conditions last winter. They had no chance to see where they were going when leaving for school when it was still dark outside.

Tubbo never fell. Tommy remembered wondering why, but then he simply accepted the fact that he just did not. Honestly, he would not be surprised if Tubbo also could climb walls that were almost 90 degrees, just like one of those sick anti-gravity goats he read about for a school project ages ago.

He didn't remember much about them, but he did remember the pictures of them basically sticking to a wall.

Tommy almost slipped when his weight became too much to handle for a piece of street debris and he suppressed a swear.

The stumble ripped him from his thoughts for long enough to realise that it was not a good idea to think about them right now, and to notice that no matter how much he tried to keep his mind off them, it would return.

He had not found sleep either. All Tommy had done for the past hours was having a headache, thinking in circles and hating himself.

Hating himself for hating himself instead of hating Ranboo and Tubbo.

Hating himself for not being able to keep a calm temper. For being so stubborn, and now being too hurt to make a more mature decision.

Tommy wanted to think clearly about what happened. Maybe that was why he did not find any peace.

If he had the chance to do whatever he wished, he would have pulled the memory out of his head, laid it out in front of him on the floor and dissected it until he understood every single detail of where he went wrong so it would never happen again.

Or, if things were unrealistic anyway, he would travel back in time and erase his mistake.

He had thought about the situation and his position in it and he had played through several hundred ways of solution. He had tried to weigh off everything he could see, every piece of information he was able to get his hands on through his arguably very tinted glasses, every possible way...

His bubbling emotions stood in his path as he tried to reflect and figure out his mistakes. There was no way to get things even and to remove them from the picture just like he always did. Tommy was disturbed by them constantly, borderline assaulted and harassed. He didn't want his feelings, but they forced themselves right back in his line of focus.

Tommy didn't even know what exactly he felt. It was a big muddled mess of bad that demanded to be handled, but all he could do was stand there with the black seeping through his fingers as it got too much to carry and he had to let it drown him eventually.

He cried quite a bit, but always silently and turned away from the middle of the room. It was painful to do that, physically painful, but he would rather die than let Tubbo and Ranboo see his tears. No matter how agonising the urge to scream got: Tommy stayed strong.

Maybe he was spoilt rotten by the fact that he usually always knew which options he had, and which ones could be the best ones for him, even in very hard circumstances or emergencies when he did not even have a lot of time to think everything through.

Not having any idea where to go whatsoever overwhelmed him to the point of finding himself catching mental slaps to his face whenever his brain stopped working. It were weird moments, moments in which his mind went silent and his frame still, until Wilbur's presence forced him back into his body. Sometimes that felt like getting dipped into ice cold water, but more often than not, he would just realise that he had been gone for a while by familiar buzzing on his skin.

The options he worked out for himself by the end of the night were flawed, but he was so paralysed that he truly believed them.

He broke what used to be a supportive and very real friendship, and he failed to work out where he took the wrong turn as well to repair it. It was his very own fault and it was likely this started months ago rather than being an acute issue, aside from the obvious.

Looking at what was in shambles in front of his feet, Tommy was almost offended at how little there was at all. It was just them. The rest of his life had been shit for so many reasons. He would have ran away years ago if it wasn't for his friends to try his luck elsewhere, yet he had turned into something counterproductive for them.

Tubbo and Ranboo were better off without his constant failure to fill the role of a real friend, and his inability to figure out his own faults. Oh, and the fact that he couldn't bring up enough willpower to go through a few hours of school to sit with them during lunch. Just the whole avoidance thing in general. They didn't deserve someone who couldn't keep up with their pace of life, and it was not even a very quick pace.

Tommy was just slow. He had gotten sluggish and lazy, until he exploded with way too much energy in the worst situations. He was unreliable, he didn't seek out any contact, and he didn't even manage to text them when there was a serious reason to.

It wasn't like this didn't have reasons, without him trying to hide behind those. Tommy didn't have much to talk about anymore. He had nothing positive to share, no real topics to talk about and what he could say wasn't something he wanted to bother them with.

He didn't want to let them into the haunted house that was his mind. It had gotten scary in there.

They deserved better, and that kind of better was nothing Tommy was able to provide.

There was doubt that he ever had, or possibly could in the future.

When there was nothing good to share anymore, he did not see a reason to force them though more of what was... himself.

Disapproval crept through him. Both Techno and Wilbur were not sharing his thoughts and made this very clear, but for different reasons. They got muddled and mixed sometimes, but Tommy could separate them if he really focused on it.

Techno was deep displeasure, he was creeping over your bones with it and there was no escape. Tommy wasn't completely sure where his problem sat, but he guessed he would ask him later. Not that he really wanted to know. He would rather forget this all happened at all.

Wilbur on the other hand was offended. Offended in his name without Tommy having asked for it. It was almost as if everything was a very personal insult to him. The weird urge to defend, or to set things straight, that sat somewhere in Tommy's spine was not his own. It bled off Wilbur and the god used it to paint little sparks of... something on the insides of his eyelids whenever he blinked.

To Tommy, Wilbur was a little easier to read. He could tell that he was upset because he did not share Tommy's opinion on who was at fault.

It wasn't like Tommy didn't want to be mad. He wanted to, really. It just felt like it was not the truth. He wasn't mad because he had no right to be.

“If you don't stop with that, I'll just go anywhere and let you search,” he said into the darkness as he made his way downhill to the wider alleyway.

The streets were not better than what his feet had to endure uphill, but here, he had more space and a bit more light.

Wilbur did not back off. In fact, his threat seemed to strike a match instead. His own thoughts were drowned out in buzzing, upset and almost threatening back.

“You're making me hate myself with that, you know? If I'm not mad, let me instead of telling me I should. I would change that if I could. Make yourself useful and tell me where to go instead. I'm not walking down to your store. It's fucking freezing.”

Tommy didn't get an answer, but Wilbur faded a bit.

Good enough.

They would find some way of telling him were to go. Maybe something about the layers did not sit right around here, or maybe they didn't want to build a new body for themselves to pick Tommy up from where he was standing. If he really had to, he could walk all the way back to (Witch-)Craft, Soot & more, he supposed. Tommy just did not feel very comfortable with that.

Not that he would find the option of them just stumbling out of a bush or anything more comforting. He'd rather get mugged than that if he was being honest.

It was good to have something to do, even if it was just walking down the street. He barely felt his body, but he noted that he was walking and that was enough for now. Tommy tried to stay attentive of his surroundings, but he found himself slip often.

The few other people the witch saw avoided him just as much as he was avoiding them.

It wasn't too easy to spot them at all. They were either sneaking, or walking with such a determined goal in mind that he was afraid to get trampled if he ended up in their way. Other than that, they felt untouchable, as if they were ghosts who would disappear if they dared to move around in broad daylight.

Watching them made him think. He wondered if other outcasts would often stay up and out at night because it was comfortable for them, or because the weight of their own being made them unable to exist during the day just like Tommy.

Maybe he had turned into a ghost too without him noting.

Tommy found himself sitting down on a bench without remembering that he had told his body to do it, but as soon as he was off his feet, his exhaustion kept him pinned there. He hadn't even realised it being so heavy.

He took his backpack from his shoulders and just wanted to drop it down next to his feet, but he stopped when he realised the floor was littered with cigarette butts and other trash that he was not putting in the effort to identify it.

He scoffed and used his feet to kick and shove it away from the spot he determined as his very professional backpack rest. Then, he finally got to put it down and he could pull his coat closer around him.

Tommy had broken the zipper earlier, but he lacked the energy to be mad about it.

“I'll just wait here then I guess,” he said quietly.

All he got was a quick wash of approval, and something that felt like praise. Tommy only scoffed at that and caught himself trying to shoo it away by waving his hand as if it was a fly. That was the wrong moment for shit like this. Well, thinking about it, there was barely ever a right moment.

Maybe tonight he had some good luck and he actually got mugged and murdered before they managed to catch him, but he would not put his hand into the fire for that option.

Despite them being the smoothest way he could pick right now, they were not his favourite, no matter what his twisted mind and the choir of voices tried to convince him of. Getting hit by a car sounded better.

He leaned his head back against the dirty wood of the bench and stared up to the sky. Tommy wished he could count the faint stars behind the thin veil of clouds, but they disappeared and reappeared too often to be caught accurately.

After only a minute of him sitting still, the flapping of wings made him turn his head. A crow had landed on the edge of the overflowing bin next to the bench and started to pick the garbage apart, probably in hope to find something edible.

Tommy stayed still to not scare it away. It did not stay alone for long either. As soon as it found something that looked like the rests of a half eaten burger and dragged it out of there, it got jumped by a few more of its kind. The crows fought over the treat, loudly and completely ignoring Tommy's existence and his stare.

He secretly hoped that the first one would win, but he soon lost it in the group of all the same looking black birds.

Tommy only realised someone was sitting next to him when he heard the sound of clothes ruffling. He jolted, quickly jumping to the edge of the bench and almost dropping through a hole a missing piece of wood created on the seat board.

“Holy shit, can you like, not?”

“Sorry. I thought you heard me.”

Tommy didn't know the man. He was shorter than him and looked quite young. His hair was probably light brown, but it was a bit hard to see in the lighting. It formed a fluffy, curly halo around his head. The stranger's posture was odd, stiff and very shrimp like at the same time. It reminded Tommy of a candle that had gotten too much sun and bent over before the wax hardened again.

He wore dress pants and a grey hoodie with a simplistic black flower print over what looked like a waistcoat from here.

Talk about questionable fashion choices.

He didn't like him. The witch decided that spontaneously, but if one asked him for a reason, he wouldn't be able to give one. It wasn't strong dislike, but closer to instinctive wariness.

The stranger made him feel like the seconds passing were too long.

“I don't have money, no sense in robbing me.”

“Don't worry. I'm not a thief.”

Tommy side eyed him.

“You're odd. You look odd. You're not from here.”

“No, I'm not. I don't know what brought me here either.”

“What, are you lost?”

“No. I don't think so, at least. I passed and you felt very weird... and curiosity kills a lot of cats.”

Tommy stared at him. What was that supposed to mean? What a cryptic motherfucker.

“Ah, yeah? You feel like a wrongun. A bit like you'd cheat at a board game.”

The man snorted.

“I haven't heard that one yet. I'm mostly banned from them so I don't play board games though.”

“Sucks to suck,” Tommy judged, “and you must suck hard to be fucking banned from board games.”

He didn't even know why he was talking to that strange fucker. Not that he'd have anything else to do right now, but Tommy refused to believe that he was that lonely and pathetic already to be talking to some... weird person on the street at like four in the morning.

The guy shrugged and tipped his head back to loo at the sky.

“It's pretty early to walk around here.”

“Tell me about it,” Tommy said.

“I mean, I start work pretty early, so.”

Silence rested on them like a thick layer of clouds for a few minutes. The stranger didn't seem to have a plan concerning leaving and Tommy was too tired to tell him to piss off in a way that'd be effective. It was like all energy left his body as soon as he had a few moments alone without some gods smothering him under their presence or other teenagers threatening to destroy his life.

He didn't think sleep could fix this specific brand of tired.

It could be worse, he assumed. It was pretty peaceful here, despite the dirt and trash, and the debris of broken lives.

“What are you working as?”, he finally asked as the silence got too uncomfortable for his taste.

“I'm a teacher,” the man answered after a short moment.

“What are you teaching?”

“What do you think?”

“Math,” Tommy replied without hesitation and the other laughed quietly.

“No, but numbers are correct.”

“No math, but numbers?”

“Time.”

Tommy frowned deeply and shook his head.

“You're talking nonsense. You can't teach time.”

“Mh. You can teach the handling of it.”

Tommy flipped his hand in a lazy, dismissive gesture and tried to count the stars again. It was a mission set up to fail, still, but he couldn't care less. If that guy could teach people how to handle time, he could pin a number to stars.

Maybe he was some kind of team manager teaching office people who had a serious stick up their asses how to manage their time in order to make the company they are working for even richer.

Convincing them to sacrifice even their free time to it. Tommy knew that this was how things were working in the adult world. He wasn't particularly excited to join that circle one day.

“And, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, I ran away from home I guess,” Tommy replied with a laugh, “and now I'm waiting on a sign where to go. I basically know where to go already, but I'm acting like I don't, because I don't really want to go. I barely know them, but they seem to be so obsessed with me that they'd probably think it was better if I didn't talk to anybody else at all. I don't know why I trust them, but I somehow do.”

Upon getting met with silence, Tommy turned his head. The man wore a sudden frown of concern that seemed to cement his always worried looking expression into his face even more. Tommy thought it was the angle of his eyes that made him look like it.

“Seriously?”

The eye contact only lasted a second. It was crushing, so Tommy shook the weight off immediately by looking away and back into the sky.

“Just kidding, man. As if, that'd be crazy. I'm not that stupid, you know?”

Tommy was met with a slow nod before the man's attention moved to the flock of crows still tearing apart trash and fighting over the burger rests. The two were again sitting in silence until the man gestured towards the birds.

“They seem to be quite attached to you.”

“They are birds, man. I think they are more attached to the burger.”

“Ah, that's true,” the guy said without hesitation.

Tommy had the impression that he didn't believe it though.

“What was your name? Sorry, but I don't think I caught it.”

“That's cause I never told you. It's none of your business, my dude,” Tommy replied.

“Guessed so.”

And more silence. This was starting to get a bit uncomfortable. Tommy grabbed his bag and pulled it on his lap, snaking an arm after the other under the shoulder straps.

“I'll go now,” he announced and got back up on his feet.

“Alright. You are safe?”

Tommy felt his body stilling.

“What kind of question is that? What do you care?”

“Well,I don't know,. You're a kid sitting here in the middle of the night. It should be worrying to anyone meeting you, really.”

“No,” Tommy judged briefly, “you're just weird.”

He adjusted the straps of his backpack and gave the stranger a quick half salute.

“So, you are safe?”

The man smiled at him. Again, his facial features made him look like only the slightest, most unsure reason for concern would worry him half to death. Tommy felt like his brain had been emptied out as he felt Wilbur's slow buzzing add as a sensation on his shoulders, right under the straps of his backpack.

“I am. Now fuck off,” he said and despite his ordering tone, he was the one to walk away.

He didn't turn around once as he left the strange man on the bench and made his way further into the town, Wilbur's deep displeasure crawling up in the back of his skull.

“What?”, Tommy snapped into the dark.

The loud caw of a crow his voice shooed up send him tumbling to the side with as spicy adrenaline flooded his blood. He circled a small bow on the empty street and then back on the pavement to avoid the sudden sound.

“By the Goddess of fucking Death, I swear-”

Tommy would be mad at himself for getting scared in the first place, it was just that he didn't have time for it.

“She doesn't like people swearing by her very much,” someone corrected him from the side.

The pavement that had been empty just a second ago was now taken in by someone. Tommy took just a second to recognise it as the massive frame of an icebreaker, eerily long and pointy ears with countless little gold hoops in them and a neat, but very thick red bun on the back of their head.

Techno.

“You just gave me half a heart attack!”

The God eyed him from head to toe before he let out something that sounded like a very deep huff, almost a grunt.

“You act as if it was my fault that you have such a weak heart. Did you try cardio?”

Tommy had the sudden impulse to repeat his very smart move of shoving his hand into a godly face with Techno, but he resisted and turned to the even smarter option of not doing it.

Instead, it was his turn to huff.

“Where are we going?”, he asked, despite already walking next to him.

Techno looked up to the sky and stretched up both arms behind his head. Then, he dropped them back down and shoved both of his hands into his pockets. Techno wore a pair of blue jeans. It was weird to Tommy to see such an ancient being just... wear jeans.

“Wherever you like,” he replied.

“Don't you have somewhere to be?”

“I have all the time in the world.”

“Sounds boring,” Tommy blurted out and Techno huffed again.

“It's not.”

“I don't know, man. Wilbur said that life would get boring sometimes.”

“Wilbur,” Techno said calmly, “often acts like a elementary school child that was given sugar, cocaine and seven puppies.”

The mental picture that popped up in front of Tommy's inner eye was so fitting that he snorted loudly. Yeah, that was fitting. He could see that. Tommy was glad that Wilbur didn't seem to have access to cocaine.

“He doesn't understand money, does he?”, he asked.

“Barely. The store is still running because Phil watches over it. I refused to get involved, not wanting to add tax fraud to my list, you know?”

Tommy shook his head with a smile.

“Okay. I bet he's waiting, isn't he?”

“Phil and him are, yeah.”

“Where?”

“At the temple.”

Tommy shrugged and dropped his head back to see if he could recognise a star constellation from here, but he wasn't the best when it came to that, so he didn't see any he knew. He was sure Techno would teach him if he just asked. Techno would teach him nearly everything, and so would Wilbur.

He remembered how frustrated he was with music class. The theory that just constantly flew over his head and the anger that he spent almost half a year there, twice every week and still didn't get to touch an instrument once. Wilbur was a God of music, wasn't he? He would show him.

“No rush,” Techno grunted, “wherever you want, how long you want. Wilbur won't bother you.”

He was right. Since Techno joined him, Wilbur's presence was gone. An hour ago, he would have agreed instantly, but Tommy's heart felt like it was ripping to thin little shreds as it got pulled in some direction. It was as if he was floating in space next to a big black hole and slowly getting sucked in. He had read a word for that before, something like spaghetti-fication. All he did was wanting to feel whole again.

“No, no. It's okay. I bet he worries his immature ass off and I... don't think he deserves that. And I need a fucking break. Let's go there, I guess.”

Chapter Text

Tommy let his bag down on the carpeted floor so carefully that one could think he was handling a sensitive explosive before looking back at Techno.

The god stood in the door frame. Leaning against the left side of it with his hands buried in his pockets, he looked so relaxed and almost indifferent that Tommy was sure he could ignore him if he wanted. The only gesture he got from him was a small upwards nod into the room.

Tommy turned his back on him again and let his gaze follow the direction of his nod.

The room he was standing in looked like a living room. A couch corner to the right close to a big TV on the wall, and a desk and a few book shelves on the left. A closed laptop rested on the desk and there were several paintings and an empty pin wall hung up on the free walls. A delicate chain of fairy lights lined up at the walls, right underneath the ceiling.

There was no window, but the reason for that was simple: They were underground.

Tommy leaned forward without leaving his current position to get a better look at the door that led to another room to his left. Just a normal white wood door. He looked back to Techno and this time, the God flipped his wrist and made an encouraging gesture.

“It won't eat you.”

Tommy wished he could puff up his chest like a bird.

“Very funny, bitch,” he said and went towards the door to shove it open with way too much force.

It flew open and revealed a bedroom. More fairy lights traced pretty patterns in the walls. A large, fluffy looking bed took in most of the space here, alongside the big closet. There was an empty looking shelf on the side. A nightstand sat next to the bed, featuring a small round lamp with a floral pattern and an alarm clock.

Tommy turned in the door frame to face Techno again, who still was patiently waiting. He hadn't moved from his spot even by a bit.

“Fancy shit,” he commented and Techno grunted.

“You could say we are fancy people after all.”

“Still confused Wilbur didn't break through some doors yet.”

Techno hummed and shrugged. He pulled his hands out of his pockets and opened the bun on the back of his head to redo it. The red waterfall reached his hips easily and Tommy wondered if that wouldn't be very annoying to take care of.

“I told you he wouldn't disturb you,” Techno spoke as he pulled it all back into a new bun, bit by bit.

“Surprised he listens to you.”

“You can bet your bones he's not doing that by free will.”

Tommy didn't even want to know what exactly that meant.

“Not like he has a good understanding of what free will is, apparently,” Tommy huffed as he bowed down to his rucksack and opened it.

He carefully fished out the coke can he had placed on top of his clothes and gently started to pull off the tape he used to keep it shut. As it didn't work like he wanted, he took the way too fancy dagger as a help to scrape it off.

“Tell me, do you know a Dream and a Sapnap?”, he asked as he picked the tape of the sharp blade and crumbled the piece in his hand.

Techno took too long to tear his gaze away from the trashy altar dedicated to himself and rest it back on Tommy's face, just as if he had been reminded of something important and had to make a mental note to remember it later.

“I'd say I know them, sometimes more, sometimes less,” Techno said, “Is it because you saw them at Niki's?”

Tommy nodded. He didn't think it was needed to ask where Techno knew about his encounter with Niki. It was a bit strange to him nevertheless, he hadn't felt his presence back then.

“Just wondered. Wil didn't seem fond of the fact that I've met them.”

“And that's because Wilbur is an overbearing little control freak,” Techno said just as if he wasn't one himself, just a different brand of it, “and he doesn't trust Niki about handling her own space.”

“Are they Gods?”, Tommy asked as his curiousity got a sudden hold of him, “Sapnap sure as hell felt like one.”

“Sapnap is half a God, and Dream is a very unfortunate soul that pulled too much of Prime's attention. Two out of ten experience, wouldn't recommend. Makes good story material, but that's about it.”

“What?”

Tommy didn't understand. Half a God? There were such things as demigods? How the fuck did that happen and why did he never hear of that? Sure, when the voices were calling him a half blood, Tommy thought about this option, but he didn't really think it was possible.

“Where did I lose you?”

“I... didn't know demigods were a thing.”

“It isn't a big deal. Sapnap is an exception because his other half is human. That's a more recent concept,” Techno said vaguely and returned his attention to the can in Tommy's hands

Tommy frowned.

“A demigod teaching aspiring witches seems odd to me.”

“This is something you don't need to worry about.”

“What if I want to worry about it though?”

Tommy's mind went down different routes, but they all agreed on the fact that at least Sapnap's existence seemed to be a much bigger deal than Techno led it on to be.

He did believe that the Gods wouldn't really care about the demigods resulting from other connections, it would be on brand for them, but humans in general seemed to be held to a different standard than... other creatures that seemed to exist and that Tommy didn't even know about yet.

“Drop it,” Techno rumbled and gestured dismissingly.

Tommy thought about pressing further, but he didn't. He didn't want to. His curiosity just didn't quite match the urge to follow what Techno was saying.

He turned the coke can in his hands and inspected it, looking for damage, but it looked like it survived the journey safely.

“I'll search for a suiting place for that later,” Tommy said.

He earned a slow nod of approval of the God.

The witchling looked around the room again to look for a place that seemed suitable as his new altar, but he was interrupted.

A weird feeling was creeping over his skin. Now that he was standing here, in the same building as he woke up when I was taken to last time, watching the pretty little fairy lights line the walls, the weight of the situation started to dawn on him.

He was here again.

“What happens now?”, he asked.

Techno seemed to move behind him, adjusting his stance maybe. Tommy's eyes stayed fixed at the fairy lights. If he didn't feel so blind, he'd admire the little rays they smeared into his vision. The Voices whispered in the back of his mind like a wild tornado, clutching themselves against his thoughts and acted like they were part of him.

The only thing that prevented him from getting whipped up by the storm was the heavy shoulder piece of the armour Techno put on him with his presence.

“That's the wrong question,” he answered, “What you need to ask yourself is what you want to happen.”

This was almost funny. Tommy wasn't under the impression that what he wanted mattered much

“I don't think my word means a lot.”

“You don't even know what to say yet, Tommy. Can you speak?”

“I said what I wanted a few times already.”

“No, you only said what you didn't want. That's a good start, but being against everything and everyone will pin you in place.”

“What if I change my mind and don't anything to do with you guys anymore? Not just Wilbur, or Phil. What if I wake up tomorrow and decide I never want to see you again? Would that matter?”

Tommy was met with nerve wrecking silence for a while.

“I'd mourn that,” the war God spoke soon enough, “But I'd mourn it more if you stayed mute.”

Finally, Tommy brought up the courage to turn around. Techno was still standing there, only now leaning to the other side of the door frame. His gaze on Tommy was suddenly burning through him as soon as he caught it with his own.

Not just metaphorically, no, it hurt. It hurt like someone was forcing him to keep his hands under steaming hot water pouring from the sink. If it was foreign pain, he'd flinch back.

Yet, it was not. The pain made something click for him and brought the whispering voices in unison. It was expectant, but oh so impatient and demanding. He was to answer now, he had to pick a path to move on this minute and he had to do it with confidence. His stomach felt like he was falling, falling, falling, and at immediate risk of hitting the ground. Not that this would be a problem. The thrill was again sending him to some high he'd only reach during dedication to his God.

It hurt so bad, but Tommy could hold it.

“I want to know,” he heard himself say as salty tears seeped on his tongue through the corners of his mouth and he made his way over to his God, “I want to be someone. I want... I want them to regret it.”

Techno's smile, terrifying and unforgiving, was soothing on Tommy's burning soul. He stumbled forward towards it and Techno caught him as he crashed into him.

His hug was crushingly heavy and searing, yet it held him on his feet. Tommy sobbed. Something that had been longing in him seemed finally satisfied, while another part of him just started to rage. He wanted to break down and rip everything around with him.

“I want them all to regret it!”

Techno was still while Tommy was shaking. Still in a way a huge complex of machinery was still when it waited to pick up work again, and huge in a way air was huge. Tommy could feel him reach far, so far, up to the highest clouds and down into the deepest caves.

There was more to this. He wanted... he wanted something from Techno.

The Voices were chanting for justice and for blood.

“I want... you to give me what I need to get justice,” he said firmly.

Something ate away his own patience. He needed that now. Techno's presence twisted violently and for the first time really, the witchling felt something like fear. Humility, maybe.

“You'll get that, and more,” Techno said deeply, but Tommy didn't feel his chest move or rumble when he spoke.

Still, somehow his words reached him.

Tommy sobbed in a kind of relief he didn't understand, despite everything still hurting. The existence of his dagger and the altar in his hands started to come back to his mind. His grip suddenly cramped around both items in a flaring up urge to protect them, just as if someone threatened to take them from him. The spots dancing in his visions looked like they were fairy lights too. They were colourful at first, but turned black quickly.

“I'm-... dizzy...”

“No, you're strong. You can do it.”

Tommy's rational mind didn't understand what he meant, but somehow he knew what to do and how. He slowly pushed back from Techno. The sudden weight of himself and of the heavy weight of the Blood God brought him to his knees. Tommy didn't hesitate. The dagger ripped through the carpet easily as if it was acting by itself. Tommy used the blade laid flatly to scrape the carpet up from the bare ground. His hands looked like he was playing a first person video game.

The more carpet he ripped up, the more of the white floor and the red markings on it came to the surface. Tommy didn't know the symbols, or the writing system for that matter, but the moment the carpet was gone from the circle, he knew he was right.

Tommy shuffled through the dust and settled down in it. He dragged the coke can over to him and emptied it out in front of his knees. The small original tea light dropped out, together with the rosequartz he first bought from Wilbur and a few other golden trinkets he collected over the first time with Techno.

He set the small candle down on one of the symbols clumsily and barely got his hand out of the way in time when it caught fire. The small candle was not equipped to handle the force of the flame. Instead of staying at the wick, the wax itself started burning instantly. Tommy just had to pause for a moment. The flame was beautiful, pure dark red as if someone had sprinkled strontium chloride on the candle.

Ripping his gaze away from it, Tommy just managed to stop himself in time from dragging the blade of his dagger over the palm of his hand. The Voices suddenly screamed and wailed in frustration. Staring down his hands, he desperately tried to collect himself. The metal was reflecting the light of the flame so beautifully, it was hypnotic.

He managed to force his head to tip back to look at Techno. The God was gone, at least his body was gone. He could still see him, or so Tommy assumed. There... was nothing and everything at the same time. Tommy desperately tried to focus on something. His stomach got heavier and heavier by the second.

What if he didn't make it on time? What was he even waiting for? Where did Techno go? He was still here, right?

A gentle flash of calm rushed up his arms as if he had put his burning hands in lukewarm water. The Voices got quieter for a second. Yes, he was there, he could feel him clearly. How could he ever doubt that? There was more, but it was far from here. His God held it stable and away.

In a brief, bright moment that came out of nowhere, Tommy turned his hand and set the blade down on the outer side of his forearm.

Tommy didn't remember everything what happened then, but he did remember the screams and almost demonic chanting of the Voices that swallowed him whole, more of the searing, floaty pain and Techno's new hug, one that didn't hurt as badly anymore.

There were faces in front of his own, many, many, so many of them.

When he came back to himself he realised that he was talking, repeating all the same ancient, foreign words. He stopped as confusion drew deep lines into his expression. Tommy felt a drag, this time on his physical body. Something knocked over. He groaned.

Having a physical body felt like shit, just like he was a sack of wet, mouldy potatoes that had been hit by a truck and dragged after it for a few miles until there was nothing left of it.

Techno's low, slightly distorted voice reached his ears.

“There you are. I told you, you're strong.”

Tommy moved, or he tried to. He felt like he was gripping into nothing as he tried to push himself back up. Earth seemed to offer no resistance. His own curls brushed over his face and fell into his vision.

Muttering some indistinguishable cusses, he fought to turn himself around on his back. Techno had pulled him out of the circle. His head was resting on his knee, and as he turned the God adjusted him firmly, so Tommy stilled.

“What happened?”

“You received a blessing,” Techno informed him blandly as if it was nothing, but a single look in his narrowed red eyes gave Tommy a glimpse at how how pent-up he was.

The colour was swirling so unnaturally that he had to look away before he could even hope to figure out he was angry, worried or just very bristled up. He feared he'd get lost and not find back in his body otherwise.

What the fuck did he mean with 'blessing'?

“I feel like that blessing was a truck at full speed,” Tommy huffed.

Techno huffed back.

“I'm sure,” he replied.

Techno shoved his hands under Tommy's shoulders and forced him up in a sitting position, almost strong enough to make him tip over to forward again if his legs weren't in the way.

The witchling managed to stay up, his legs extended widely into the now light grey circle. It looked almost like very old, burnt out ash. There was no fire anymore, the red flame was gone and the tiny candle looked pretty much destroyed. In the middle of the circle, there was the dagger, it's blade tinted red and the floor featured some small droplets of the liquid too.

The sight of it caused weak chanting of the Voices. They did a great job at unmistakable identifying blood. They should go to become criminal technicians and stop pestering him, Tommy thought.

Shuffling behind him told him that Techno was getting up.

“I'm sorry about the carpet,” Tommy said, still staring at the blood splatters.

“No need. I'd just like to remind you that the dagger isn't meant as a tool for tasks like this.”

Tommy tried to nod, but the movement of his head made him dizzy.

“Did I-”

Before he could ask, he decided to look himself. His gaze dropped to his left forearm, but it was... fine. Frowning, he lifted it closer to his face, but no. Not even a scratch, or a scar. Tommy blinked and looked again. Nothing.

“Blessings aren't free,” Techno said.

Suddenly, he reached under Tommy's arms from behind to lift him up from the floor. Tommy covered his surprised sound with a cough and swatted at Techno's hand angrily as he was already placed back on his feet.

“Stop that, I'm not 5.”

“You're not to sit on the floor.”

Tommy puffed up his chest. What if he wanted to sit on the floor? He could sit on the floor all day if he fucking wanted to. Who was he to tell him what he could and couldn't do?

Oh right. Well. The God he got claimed by. Maybe that gave him some kind of authority.

He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples for a moment. Wild memories swirled around in front of his blocked vision. Not free, yes?

What else did Tommy pay? And for... what?

“Your lessons start tomorrow evening,” Techno said bluntly as if he had read Tommy's mind.

“What?”

“I have to leave. You'll decide on a place for your new altar and sleep now. You haven't slept all night and that ritual was very draining.”

“No, wait, what do you mean? What, are you throwing me out again to rot over there with those fuckers of the Academy?”

“Of course not.”

“An answer would be appreciated, prick.”

Techno's smile was faint but there.

“You didn't even tell me what a blessing is,” Tommy pushed further.

“You slept in school, huh? I was wrong, lesson one starts now: Do not sleep in school, sleep now. More lessons tomorrow.”

“I won't be able to sleep if I don't know what's going to happen.”

Techno, who had been on his way to the door already, turned around again.

“You said you wanted to know and to be someone. And that you want revenge. You'll get all that, we will start with the 'knowing' part. Since you really slept through all of your religious education at your human school, and that curriculum is very much fucked up already, and you skipped some important parts of beginning witchcraft, we'll start at zero.”

Tommy gritted his teeth.

“You were the one who pushed.”

“I did. And it was good like that. I don't even want to image you in the hands of any of the other Gods.”

“I would have handled it.”

“You wouldn't. I protected you. That's the reason you are standing here and not in front of the courts of the Academy while they try to use you to drive home the idea human laws mean anything,” Techno said in such a frosty tone that Tommy wouldn't be surprised if it started snowing in here right then and there.

Tommy felt his face heat up in shame. He could have very well protected himself, he didn't need... Techno for that. The God's tone melted again.

“There's no accusation against you in my words. You couldn't have known it much better, even if you researched for years. These are things much bigger than you. You're not at fault. For what you knew, you did very well.”

“... Keep your secrets. I'll go to fucking bed now,” Tommy grumbled, trying to not let Techno's words get to his head too much.

It was... good to know that he didn't do everything wrong, at least. He was sure he could do much better now.

“Wilbur will pick you up for lunch.”

Tommy groaned, but something in him was glad he'd see Wil again. He still hated this part.

“Who will teach me? I'll leave if it's Wil.”

“You liked Niki, right?”

Chapter Text

“Who's that? Kristin?”, Tommy asked.

The kitchen he was standing in now was large and modern, somewhat too modern to fit the rest of the building Tommy had seen up to this point. Not that he would understand much of kitchen equipment, frankly. He could only judge of how everything looked, and it looked like shit. All white and grey counters, a large island in the middle and two stoves. It all looked like it was made for a much bigger scale than just the trio of Gods who seemed to call the temple their residence sometimes.

The most interesting thing around was the window on the left side. Upon getting led here by Wilbur, Tommy had almost sprinted over to it to look outside. All he got to see from here was a large inner courtyard chaotically filled with flowerbeds, trees and several smaller ponds. It looked like it was a rather warm day outside.

Narrow cobblestone pathways looped through the garden that was still recovering from winter. In the middle of all of the was a statue made of a smooth, dark stone. It was big, overshadowing most of the bald circle in the garden it was placed in, and easily three or four meters high.

Tommy's gaze wandered up and down the beautiful piece of craftsmanship. The woman caved from stone held her arms out to the side, embracing the garden and anyone laying eyes on her. A large hat sat on her head and voluminous waves of hair spilled over her shoulders. She wore a long, complex looking dress that made Tommy wonder what kind of superhuman artist you'd need to make stone look soft enough to resemble real cloth so effectively.

The whole statue was covered to a large part. A thin, dark purple veil was draped on top of it, flowing down from the rims of her hat over her upper arms down to her elbows and almost down to the floor. It was see through enough to expose the warm smile on the woman's full lips and featured golden ornaments at the hems of it. Just her forearms and hands were exposed.

Tommy only had a second to watch a pair of sparrows surrounding each other, landing on her hand and arm and then quickly flying off again. They chased each other through the air until Tommy couldn't see them anymore.

“Yes,” Wilbur answered from behind him.

“Pretty. Is it a good idea to leave the veil outside though?”

“Phil replaces it almost every day.”

Tommy turned back to Wilbur. The God was standing at the counter. After setting up rice to boil, he started to peel an onion.

“Sit down,” Wil said.

“I can help.”

“I'm not handing you a knife.”

Tommy grimaced and drew a vaguely rude gesture in the air.

“What's that? The big, magical God is scared.”

Wilbur stopped his slow rhythmic chopping of the onion and side eyed him as if he was a teacher and just spotted Tommy passing a note in class. For a moment Tommy feared he read the room wrong again and reminding Wilbur of what happened wasn't as light-hearted as he assumed.

“Scared for your fingers, yeah. Humans tend to be quite untalented when it comes to regrowing limbs.”

“I knew it, you're actually a lizard,” Tommy said in an attempt to sound just as judgy.

Wilbur scoffed, yet that was the only reaction he got out of him.

Tommy shifted his weight from one foot to another as he looked around the kitchen for something else to do besides sitting down and being boring, but he felt like it was not a good idea to anger Wilbur.

The mood in the temple was relaxed and calm, but it was easy to feel the careful gazes brushing over Tommy. When Wilbur picked the young witch up from his room complex earlier after he almost tripped over the hole in the carpet to get to the door, it had felt like meeting him all over again.

Not that Wil felt foreign, not at all, but it was like they took a few steps back and adjusted the direction. Tommy was almost glad when he finally showed up. He had slept in as much as he could, but the new environment was weighing heavier on him than he wanted to admit. He was managing as long as there was something happening around him, and even sleeping went well enough since he had been very exhausted. He even was quite thankful for the hours of alone time he got to adjust and sort out his thoughts – after he turned off his phone as it started to blow up and took it apart completely.

There just was that weird delusional feeling that he never was fully alone anymore.

Tommy wasn't really disturbed by it, surprisingly. He feared that when the world around him stilled too much, the walls would start to close in on him once more just like they always did if he didn't take measures to stop them early on.

All of this left him confused. Thousands of holes, unclean webbing and loose ends spoiled the slowly forming veil of lace that would, one day, form the entirety of his new reality.

Looking at the back of Wilbur's figure as he chopped up more and more vegetables made him feel faintly weary. It reminded him of a time laying not too far in the past, but deep instinctive trust tried to override it. Almost as if Wil took a thick black marker and selectively went through Tommy's archive of memories.

No, he didn't just scratch memories, he was much sneakier. The headlines and the entries themselves stayed as he went through folder over folder and paper over paper. Wil only blacked out the bullet points that were written at the bottom of every memory that described Tommy's emotions.

Tommy remembered how he ran through the corridors of the temple, and he was very able to remember the way he defended himself after Wilbur got him back in his hands. Recalling these memories was possible for the most part, but he only got to image how it could have felt like.

The actual emotional connection was gone.

Maybe it was simple, he thought as he finally sat down on one of the high bar stools standing at the kitchen island in the middle of the room. Maybe he didn't need to be able to re-feel all of this. Maybe it was enough to know rationally that it must have felt bad. The only thing that made handling Wilbur appropriately to these memories harder was that he didn't feel constantly repulsed by his presence. There was nothing automatically reminding him of his actions.

He had to do that manually by recalling the memory, going over it and reminding himself how what happened was very wrong. Then he could stuff the God back into his proper box in his head.

“How are you doing right now, Tommy?”, Wilbur suddenly asked and a bunch of cut up vegetables hit the hot pan on the stove.

“How am I supposed to be doing?”, Tommy scoffed.

“That was my question.”

“I don't know, man,” he said and let his gaze slide back to the statue of Kristin outside, “I'm pretty exhausted, I think.”

Wil gave him a slow nod as he stirred through the pan, making sure nothing was burning.

“I heard you're going to class today.”

“Apparently. Techno didn't exactly leave me a choice.”

“Niki is a patient teacher.”

“I thought you didn't like her.”

“Oh, no. She is the one who doesn't like me. Anymore. If I didn't like or trust her, you'd not see her again.”

Tommy pulled a disgusted face, but as much as he wanted to argue here, Wilbur proved himself deaf to his protest about these openly controlling approaches. He'd call him out and Wilbur would laugh as if it was a joke, ignore it and elegantly lead the conversation away, or give him some kind of half-arsed, super cryptic, aloof excuse.

He was tired. He could still argue later if he still felt like it.

“What did you do to make her hate you? She doesn't seem like someone who'd just randomly decide to despise you,” Tommy commented as he lightly knocked the bottom of his palms together again and again.

“We ended up on the wrong foot.”

“Did she reject you? Can't relate at all, the only reason behind me not dating a woman is me not wanting to.”

Wilbur let out a noise that sounded like a mixture between a laugh and a scoff.

“There never was anything like that. We were just good friends for a while when she started out her craft a few years back. She just didn't appreciate me suddenly disappearing and when I reappeared in the town, I didn't put in an effort to catch up with her. We didn't speak until... I think a year later and she was not very forgiving about what happened. It also didn't help that there was an argument right before I left.”

“I mean, yeaaah, that is prick behaviour of you, sooo...”

“Yeah,” Wilbur agreed, “that is true.”

“Why did you leave?”

“The town wasn't doing anything for me anymore, and I was in a dark place. I was sick. I went overseas for a while. Returned, and took back the store from Phil.”

“What, did you get a therapist? Didn't know Gods needed that.”

“I'm much better now,” Wilbur replied.

Even if his answer didn't match Tommy's question, he dropped the topic. He didn't think it was a good idea to stick his toes deeper into that water. He wouldn't want Wilbur dig deeper if their roles were reversed and honestly, he had enough on his own plate at the moment.

Tommy wasn't sure if he even wanted to know what was going on back then when he himself probably was still stealing from the kitchen when dinner hadn't been enough.

“So, what are you cooking?”

“Just stir fry, essentially. Rice, vegetables, spices...”

“Boring. You're a lousy cook.”

Wilbur laughed and Tommy suddenly felt content again.

Niki was a true master in the complicated arts of ignoring Wilbur. He was standing behind Tommy when she arrived. Tommy could feel him on his shoulders and on the back of his neck, despite him not touching him or even being particularly close.

They were waiting outside. It was not the garden of the Goddess of Death, but some kind of cloister stretching around the building. Tommy still didn't have much of an idea how the temple was working, but he could tell that it was way too big to properly explore in one day.

He could also tell that he would not be out here exploring by himself. Honestly, he didn't expect any space alone at all, at least not in the near future.

Wilbur and Tommy only waited for a few minutes until Niki joined them. She wore a long dark brown coat, but underneath Tommy could see a tan blouse and a brown skirt with tartan pattern. Thick looking leggings protected her legs from the spring cold.

Niki had tied her cotton candy pink hair in two low set buns, exposing her ears to Tommy's curious gaze. He was not surprised to find several piercings in them, all of them gold. They were reaching from hanging ones over little hoops very similar to the ones Tommy wore, up to an industrial piercing in her left ear.

“Hi Tommy,” she greeted him with a smile and held out a little paper bag to him.

“Hi,” he responded, not really sure what else to say.

It was a little awkward. Wilbur's gaze stuck to the back of Tommy's head while Niki just acted like he wasn't even there. It was tempting to just copy her with that, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not erase his presence form his mind.

Tommy took the paper bag hesitantly.

“What's that?”

“Ah, I worked on some new recipes last night and those were left over.”

Once more, Tommy was overwhelmed. He looked down and opened up the paper bag to buy himself a bit of time to work out an answer and to not be forced to hold eye contact anymore. Cupcakes, and a few pieces that what resembled squiggly cinnamon buns. Niki barely knew him, why would she bring him food? That much too? Where was the catch this time?

“Thank you?”, he asked more than he said.

“No problem, I hope you like them. Tell me what you think of them later, I'd like your opinion on which one to add to the menu.”

“Oh, uh... sure. I'll make sure to tell you.”

“Great,” she said and gifted him a smile that was impossible to not return, “Shall we then?”

Tommy caught himself turning and looking at Wilbur too late. This was stupid. He could go wherever he wanted, he didn't need permission for it, but Wilbur gave him a smile and a brief nod. Of course he didn't need permission because he'd do it anyway, but having it felt calming in some way. Just as if he had a get out of jail card.

“Do you know where...?”

“Yes, of course,” Niki said and gestured towards the direction she came from, “Let's go.”

With that, the older witch turned, still without having granted Wilbur even a single look, and Tommy tried to catch up to follow her. Despite her height, Niki was quick on her feet.

He prevented himself from looking back at Wilbur. It was stupid. Why would he constantly check on him like that? He was acting like some lost baby animal and it annoyed him. A lot.

Tommy shook out his hands to distract from that feeling, making the bag crumple.

“Uff, that was some cold ass mood over there,” he said.

“I'm glad to see you again, Tommy. I've been worried about you since you came to my café. Having Academy professors around is not the best company for you, you know?”

“I can handle myself. Besides that, aren't you practising illegally too?”

“Yes,” she agreed and slowed her pace to open a door on the wall on their right, “If you want to call it like that. But Dream never was an issue until now, despite him knowing for sure. He just never really cared about my craft.”

“Who the fuck names their kid Dream tho?”, Tommy asked as he followed her into the temple again.

He was glad to be back inside. The current weather still was too cold for his taste, especially since the zipper of his coat broke. The thought of telling Wilbur about it crossed his mind, but he quickly threw it overboard.

Of course his brain would see this as a fitting solution. He had to manually remind it again that no, not everyone who seemingly cared about him would care for him in a way Tommy would like it, or with the same conditions in mind. He was sure that Wilbur would jump over backwards to get him new clothes, but Tommy had no idea what price he'd have to pay for it.

Niki laughed quietly and it sounded like you rang a soft bell, calling him back to reality.

“His parents, apparently.”

They kept chatting as they walked down another hallway, turned, another hallway. A staircase down, left turn, staircase down, left turn, hallway, hallway, hallway. Tommy already thought it would never end until Niki suddenly stopped in front of a huge double door. Patterns and artistic scenes were carved into it. He didn't have time to inspect them all. Niki already started to shove it open, forcing her entire body weight against one side to make it budge. Tommy stood there for a second in awe before he quickly set his own hands against the wood and pushed.

The wood was way too warm against his skin, on the verge of being too hot. Tommy felt it bleed into his hands and settle against his bones before it ran up his forearms. He had the urge to shake out his arms, but he ignored it until the door was open enough for Niki and himself to slip through.

“What the fuck,” he said as he followed her and helplessly wiggled his hands and fingers to get that odd feeling to disappear. “Why is it hot?”

Niki gave him a quick look, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion, or anger, Tommy couldn't tell for sure. Context wise there was no reason for her to be angry, he knew that, but he braced himself. Just in case he unknowingly jumped into yet another social disaster.

“Hot?”

It was confusion. Tommy laughed nervously, shaking his hands one last time and shoving them back into his pockets.

“The door?”

“It's a little warm,” she said as she looked back at the slowly closing door.

“Where are we?”, Tommy asked to quickly drop the topic.

The hall they just entered was too warm too, but it was manageable. The constant buzzing against Tommy's skin was more distracting.

The ceiling was insanely high, held up by reddish looking stone arcs and painted in between them. The room in front of Tommy and Niki stretched out for days as it seemed, and it needed to considering what it was holding.

Bookshelves, bookshelves and more bookshelves lined up at the sides and forming neat rows in the middle. Tommy thought he had already seen one of the most impressive libraries in here, but he figured that he had been wrong. This one needed the many ladders and the rails they were attached to, just to make sure you could reach every book.

Pretty chandeliers hung from the ceiling in a regular pattern, but they alone would probably not be able to light up everything. They got a little help from more lamps lining up along the walls or stuck at the shelves.

In some distance Tommy could make out a free space hosting a group of tables and chairs.

It smelled like leather, old paper and wax.

“This is the central library of the temple complex this one used to belong to.”

“What the fuck,” Tommy commented, “This is massive! How many books are in here?!”

Niki removed her coat and rested it over her forearm as she smiled at him.

“I'm not completely sure, but I think between forty and fifty thousand.”

Tommy whirled around to her and gestured wildly into the library. Every movement caused a new, warm shiver run up his skin.

“Only that one? There are more libraries in here!”

“Only this one here, yes.”

“What? I hope the guy who had to count was paid well.”

Niki laughed at that and shrugged.

“You have to make sure to follow some rules in here. No fire of any sort. No food or drinks. No phones and no taking pictures. This is a sacred space and you're lucky to be allowed in here,” she explained softly before gesturing Tommy to follow her through the middle of the shelf walls.

He did, slowly, still looking around and trying to sort the weird sensations.

“Why are we allowed in here?”, Tommy asked quietly.

This was too big for him. It felt like you took (Witch-)Craft, Soot & more and cranked it up by 700. While the items in the store only left an impression on him whenever he was touching them, it felt like every single book in here was trying to get his attention at the same time as he was just passing them.

“We are guests. Me as one of the Blood God's High Priestesses and you as claimed one. And my student for now. Kristin allows education taking place in her halls, but this is a special occasion nevertheless.”

“Niki, I feel like I'm not supposed to be here.”

“Give it a bit of time,” Niki said, “This is all big and new and overwhelming, but you don't need to be worried. You are very welcome here.”

They reached the work space in the middle and Niki set her coat down over the back of a chair. Tommy slowly followed her example next to her.

He was worried. It felt like he was one wrong step away from setting this whole thing on fire and fucking up big time.

“Sit down, I'll be back in second.”

Niki left him alone before Tommy could even bring out a word. He awkwardly stood behind his chosen chair for a few seconds before he shook his head. No, this was stupid. He wasn't going to fuck up anything. He was just sitting here, not touching anything, just existing.

And he was going to learn a fuck ton of shit now.

He was going to learn how he was supposed to handle his situation and he was going to return in the evening and brag about knowing shit to Techno.

Filled with self raised determination because this was as good as it got, Tommy dropped himself on his chair and stared down the table surface in front of him until he heard Niki's steps getting closer again. As he looked up, she was approaching quickly and carrying a whole bunch of books in her arms.

“There we go,” she stated and set them all down with a dull thud.

“That's a lot of words.”

“For sure,” Niki said and started sorting them through.

In the end, there were three neat piles on the table. Tommy eyed them wearily, not even daring to reach out and touch the books. Niki sat down and took one of the books from the pile that was the closest to her. She opened it, flipping through quickly.

“How much do you know about the world of Gods?”

“I know that there are the two main ones. There's the Goddess of Death and the God of Life. From there, a bunch of others branch down. Oh, and apparently there are some sort of demigods too? Techno was talking about that yesterday.”

“Roughly, yes. Kristin and XD didn't just appear, though,” Niki said and stopped skipping through the book.

She turned it and showed Tommy a double page filled with a fine lined illustration of a river flowing down. It started with a blank spot, parted to the two main branches of Kristin and XD, and went to fan up more and more the further to the bottom it got. The thinnest lines were at the very bottom, suggesting some kind of...

“Is that an old ass flowchart about power?”

“Yes,” Niki confirmed, “This shows how powerful you'd assume a God because it's strongly related to their ancestry. The number of followers each God has and how active the worship happens plays a significant role too, so it is not always easy to pinpoint where exactly one of them is really located on the chart. Not all of them are on here either, there are far too many minor God's to list them here.”

Tommy's eyes traced the river up again, following a random line of Gods until he tripped over Philza.

“There's the Angel,” he pointed out, tapping on the name right underneath Kristin's.

Not far from him, Tommy found the Blood God. Staring down at the set of names that were not even far from each other and at about the same level, his heart dropped into his stomach.

“They are pretty high up,” he muttered.

Tommy wished he could smack his past self across the face a few times. He had been so light-hearted and stupid. He could have died so easily. Literally died. Seeing this now, he could have messed with Kristin herself too and it wouldn't make a huge difference.

“How can they be so high up, yet so... not cruel?”

“They are cruel,” Niki corrected him instantly, “They are cruel and brutal, they follow very own laws they made themselves and decide over the end of existences based on them.”

Tommy's head snapped up, his eyes wide and his heart pounding in his ears. His chest and stomach felt like they were trying to shrivel up real small, but he only noticed it distantly.

Niki looked dead serious. Her face was smooth and stern. Eyeliner framed eyes were pinned at him like steel darts. Then, her expression suddenly seemed to soften.

“You are lucky they found liking in you.”

Tommy knew who they were before, he had known it and he still acted like a brat. Only now as he saw the chart the weight of the situation started to fully press down on his head, neck and shoulders.

“I disrespected them constantly!”

“if it was a big deal, you'd know it by now,” Niki calmed him. “Just don't make the mistake to confuse their behaviour towards you with how they act normally towards anyone else.”

Tommy chewed on his bottom lip, but after letting his brain run a few laps, he sighed. Niki was right. Overthinking the past would not do much right now. He could have a nervous breakdown about his own stupidity later in his room, or preferably, sitting in his closet. Now, he should continue.

“Who's the blank space up there?”

“That's one of the biggest mysteries in the field of religious studies. The Gods do not talk about it, but following our previous logic, we assume this is the entity everything started with. Maybe it's not just a single one, but a group. Or maybe it doesn't exist at all. High Priests and Priestesses of both Kristin and XD were referring to something above them, but that's all we know. We do not even have a name.”

Tommy rested his head in his hand. That was unfortunate. He would loved to find out with whom or what it all started.

“Where did it come from then? Why does it end with it?”

“We're moving over to philosophy with that question. Not everything has an answer. Let's focus on what we know for now.”

The young witch nodded and Niki gestured back to the book, resting her finger on the old looking page.

“What else do you notice?”

Tommy leaned closer and eyed the chart again.

“The branches of Kristin and XD don't mix,” he stated and ran his finger from Kristin's side to XD's. “See, there are no cross connections.”

“That's right,” Niki said and Tommy felt shy pride fill his chest. “There are none. The two groups stay reserved.”

“Where is Wilbur from?”, Tommy suddenly heard himself asking.

He already wanted to take that question back immediately after it rolled over his tongue, but Niki did not even flinch as she reached out and tapped down in the middle of the page.

“Seirēn is over here,” she spoke.

Tommy followed her finger and nodded. His gaze slipped over to the other side, following the line of XD, over entities two named Callahan and Manifold. He started again, slipping down further until he stopped at the name of Quackster.

“I know that one.”

“Personally?”

“No,” Tommy answered, almost asking her how she'd get the idea that you could know a God personally, but he realised how stupid that would be considering where he was at this point. “Wilbur talked about him.”

“Quackity is someone you want to stay far away from,” Niki explained. “An awful relationship to Techno. And close, close relationships to the Academy. This one here too.”

Tommy followed her finger again as she set it down on yet another name tag reading 404 closer to the top of the page.

“That's a fucking odd name.”

“Mostly harmless, despite his placement, but like I said very close to the Academy.”

“Why are there no cross connections?”, Tommy asked.

“There can't be. Gods created by Kristin will never create a God with the characteristics of XD, and Gods created by XD will never show traits of Kristin. They are opposites and won't mix. Like oil in water.”

“That's interesting. In school we had a different structure. Even that one book I was reading in the store didn't seem to settle on just one thing. There is so much bullshit out there. Why is it so clear in here?”

“Because this is classified information and would get burned instantly outside these walls. Not all of it is true or the latest information, but it is definitely closer to the truth than what you find in public education.”

“Why the fuck would they do that?”, Tommy asked. “That's stupid. They teach completely false things as if they are true.”

“I'm sure you can answer that yourself,” Niki said.

She watched him attentively, as if he was just about to have a huge break through. And waited.

“The Academy seems to teach correct things,” Tommy grumbled.

“They do, for the most part. Think about it, Tommy. I'm sure you saw some truly amazing things over the past weeks.”

“I did. Techno even... solved a pretty big problem for me,” he said as he thought back at the violent outburst at the orphanage again.

“Image if anyone could have the information and tools to work with a deity or entity that could be solving pretty big problems for them.”

“That'd be kinda cool. There would be less problems, I guess.”

“Would the Academy still exist then?”, Niki asked.

Tommy stilled. His attention was drawn to the bookshelves again as he took in the truly massive number of books. Looking around, he realised that Niki was right again.

“Those fucks,” he spit. “They don't prevent the spread of false information, maybe they even spread false ones themselves. They prevent people from becoming witches to stay like... upper class, but with witchcraft.”

“Not just that, Tommy. They also prevent the work with certain deities, or limit it severely for the public. Preventing that doesn't just create this kind of classism for humans, but also for Gods. Do you know why?”

Tommy thought for a second, then he smacked both hands on the table. Sudden rage burnt in his stomach and up his chest. Faint whispers filled his ears.

“Because they decide who gets the most followers and the most worship. They can also decide who gets more powerful and who drops in power! Niki, we have to burn these fuckers!”

Niki sat still, only a soft smile on her lips.

“That's one way to see it, yes. Why do you think you want to burn them?”

“Because they have way too much power over way too many people. Everyone should be able to make informed decisions about this kind of stuff. They decide who gets rights everyone should have. That just... creates a huge ass chain of corruption. I wasn't taken when I applied, not just because I didn't perform well in their exams and tests. I'm sure I did fine, and they didn't take me!”

Niki leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap.

“Not because you are biased?”

“What do you mean I'm biased?!”, Tommy bubbled up.

“You're in a special position. Both the Blood God and Seirēn are at a disadvantage because they are being limited, and you stand in direct contact to them. Much closer than the average witch or any Priest or Priestess. They have a very direct influence on you, and you on them to some extent.”

Tommy felt himself lose some steam instantly. He blinked and frowned. His hands were tingling uncomfortably, so he rubbed them over the sleeves of his sweater.

“I thought like that beforehand too,” he defended himself.

“i believe you,” Niki stated and gestured in a vaguely dismissive way. “And you can absolutely still have that opinion as a claimed witch. You just need to be a bit careful. The influence of the Blood God can be powerful and you need to question your bias even more carefully than any other witch.”

Tommy nodded slowly. Another question popped up in his mind as he continued to rub his hands over the fabric.

“Do you... okay, that sounds super insane, but bear with me here. Do you... uh... hear... things?”

“Things?”

“Yeah, I... Look I know that sounds stupid-”

“Don't even worry about how it sounds, Tommy. Just ask. No shame in that.”

Tommy chewed on the inside of his cheek. His hands were still buzzing. It was hard to focus on building a sentence that got his point across without getting classified as bat shit crazy by Niki. On the other side, she was so... sweet and kind. It was hard to believe that she would judge him, even for his mistrustful mind. Tommy thought about asking her about blessings too, especially the one he recieved... but something prevented him from forming the question. Maybe he could find out quite a lot on his own now if he was lucky enough to be able to use the library more often.

“Okay, so... uh, when I first started to work with Techno, I had no idea who he was. I just tripped into that, honestly. It took me like... embarrassingly long to figure out Wilbur was not human either. You know... I first needed to stab him in the neck-”

“You did... what?”

“I stabbed him. In the neck. But, uh, that's history I think. He wasn't that mad, surprisingly. Considering the situation and all. So. When I started. I started to hear... voices? They aren't always there, just... sometimes. When I'm mad, or when something bigger happens, I think.”

Niki nodded slowly. Tommy was not able to read her expression well, but he assumed she tried to seem as relaxed as possible.

“You pulled the right parallels here. Techno is often accompanied by a whole bunch of other entities. A wild mix of dead human souls and other things.”

“I'm hearing dead people and other things??”, Tommy heard himself squeak and it came out higher than he wanted to.

He coughed, trying to play it off as a voice crack.

“Yeah. No cause for concern tho. They are all very loyal to him. They act a bit like Philza's flock of crows, getting sent around and watching certain things they don't have the capacities for at those moments, and then report back to them. Looks like he has an eye on you all the time, which is unsurprising.”

Tommy deflated, sinking his head down and dropping it on the table with a loud thud. He was tired. What was this shit even?

“You're telling me Philza has been stalking me too now?”, he asked the table.

Niki didn't answer immediately, but when she did, she sounded firm.

“I wouldn't be surprised.”

Chapter Text

Tommy made a real habit of outrunning his insomniac mind by wandering the temple at night, after finishing class with Niki.

He didn't think his actions went unnoticed, but no one lost a word about his nightly or early morning trips, not even after a solid week of him doing it.

It started small as a shy little waltz Tommy danced alone in the pitch black corridor right in front of his rooms. Slowly shifting and rolling his weight over the balls of his feet as he tested the ground under them – just in case the floor would suddenly break underneath him. When no lightning struck and no hidden trap doors opened, he sheepishly moved out further.

The past days were weird for Tommy as he watched a disgustingly soft and easy fall into a routine take place.

He barely spent time alone. Wilbur would wake him up, they had breakfast, and Wilbur would leave him with tasks to finish while he was gone at the store until afternoon. Until then, Tommy was supposed to be busy with schoolwork anyway.

But Wil never really left.

Tommy had gotten pretty fucking sure by now that deities could teleport.

The God would check on him, unprompted. A lot. Randomly appearing in the doorway of Tommy's now very own small library down the hallway like a vivid hallucination, or a ghost. Setting down yet another book he asked for a day ago on his large desk, or even helping him with questions or explaining topics he didn't get.

Wilbur proved himself to be insanely intelligent, yet again. Tommy never thought of him as stupid, not seriously anyway, but the way he explained and pulled him though topic over topic made him catch up with his missed out work in record time. The tempo was slightly nauseating, but Wil made it happen effortlessly.

It was just as impressive as it was scary.

Sometimes, it wasn't Wilbur who would help. Sometimes, Tommy specifically asked for Techno and even if he didn't always follow his call, sometimes he would peek into the room. Raise an eyebrow mockingly before asking him what he needed. And then staying until Tommy got the answers he wanted.

Often even longer.

When Tommy was done with this kind of education, he had some time to breathe. The next hours after he had lunch with Wilbur were spent with him either feeling drawn to tend to his small altar or strolling through the corridors if he chose to stay awake. He had to admit that he mostly used the time to sleep, until Wilbur would wake him up for dinner. If he didn't sleep he would meet the God before, but Tommy was tired a lot from barely being able to rest at night. Sleeping worked better during the daytime for him.

At some point after dinner, Niki would show up. Sometimes she did at 7 already, and sometimes she took until almost 9. Depending on when she made her appearance, Tommy would spend the next one to three hours with her. It would never get later than 10, even if they were still in the middle of something. Wilbur personally made sure of it by showing up at the doorstep of the library like the fucking stalker he was at 10 p.m. sharp.

Niki proved herself to be a patient, but strict teacher, and those last hours of the day were reliably pushing the last bits of steam Tommy had out of him.

It was mainly because Niki did not take breaks and did not tolerate distractions. She called him to pay attention often when his brain tried to find other activities, and then she backtracked slowly to the point where she lost him. The pace she forced on him was speedy as well, but time was flying, Tommy was learning quickly and he had the most fun he had in a long while.

They barely needed a week until Tommy was reciting the history of witchcraft flawlessly and was able to trace down the pantheon of common deities by heart. Names left his lips easier, connections were drawn automatically and the picture got clearer.

And then, after those taxing days, the real fun began as Niki carefully started to introduce him to practical witchcraft.

She did so today, just a few hours ago. Slowly and carefully. They didn't even make it through the whole deck of Tommy's cards until Wilbur stuck his ugly face into the library and made them stop.

And now, it was Friday night and Tommy's feet carried him down the corridor softly after he abandoned the idea of sleep.

The weekend. It was the first weekend Tommy was spending here, but Wilbur made clear that there wouldn't be any classes on weekends. He also made clear that he wouldn't leave over the weekend.

It was tragic for Tommy to see his routine falter. He'd rather keep himself busy with more witchcraft theory than aimlessly ghosting through the temple for the next two days or becoming Wilbur's squish toy. Something that would most certainly happen if he allowed Wil to be around him too much.

The God's habit to casually manhandle Tommy had only gotten worse, but to be honest, he had mostly accepted his fate at this point.

The hallways that grew more familiar day by day and night by night were empty, or as empty as they could be.

When he stilled he could swear he heard faint footsteps. When he turned his head too quickly Tommy was confident that he saw shadows in the corner of his eye. They were suspiciously human shaped (sometimes not), but Tommy knew better than paying attention to them. He knew them from the store, or he assumed he did. One of the more important things he learned from Niki was that he didn't need to know everything, and it was better to pretend to not have seen anything more often than not.

He didn't know exactly what or who he was looking at aside from what Wilbur explained to him once. He didn't know where they came from or what they wanted here.

All he could say for sure was that it got bad at night.

Especially tonight though.

So bad that Tommy had to lower his gaze down to his feet at some point and keep away from the walls as he took his nightly stroll.

Maybe it would have been better to stay in bed this time. Tommy discharged that idea immediately after he got it. Sometimes it was better to deal with shadows on the outside raising up on walls or pooling around the corners rather than the ones in his head that he would have faced undoubtedly if he stayed laying still in the dark.

Tommy's steady pace was disturbed by a collective swelling wail of Techno's voices crawling up the sides of his head and laying heavy under his tongue as they did their best to try and get him to join in. Their gentle nudging was rewarded, but only sparsely. Tommy let a low hum slip as he looked up. Confused, he let his eyes wander.

The corridor was empty, still. Not a surprise. They weren't calling in distress after all, only something that felt like an uncommonly needy attention grabber.

His searching gaze stilled as it laid on the glass door to his left. It led to the outside and wasn't closed all the way.

Tommy frowned and felt himself duck his head between his shoulders in alarm. Sure, there was no warning in the way the voices sounded, but looking at the open door alone caused him to get more cautious. He tried to stay as quiet as possible when sneaking up to it.

Upon peeking outside, Tommy felt his shoulders relax.

In front of him laid the inner garden court, the one he had seen through the kitchen window so often now when he had breakfast, lunch and dinner with Wilbur. He was just looking into it from the other side.

Gazing up at the large monument of the Goddess of Death in the middle somehow caused much more awe to light up in Tommy's chest than the first time he only briefly inspected her and asked Wilbur about it at the beginning of the week.

Niki was never shy to praise Kristin, and the more he heard about her, the more respect he felt growing inside of him.

Tonight, Kristin wasn't alone. Philza was easy to spot as he just rose back up to his feet from in front of her.

Tommy hadn't seen him once since he arrived here, but the veil of the Goddess was always clean, dry and featured a slightly different colour every day.

Sneaking out the door without being seen proved to be harder said than done and the moment Tommy pushed it out of the way, Phil turned his head.

“Ah, Tommy. You're up late.”

Tommy stopped a snarly remark leaving his tongue the moment it came up and just stood there for a moment without knowing what to say.

His first instinct was to make a kind of joke, but Phil had expressed how disrespectful he found Tommy not too long ago. It only gave him the impulse to frantically try to dig up a new strategy. Normally, he'd just shrug and piss on what other people thought was disrespectful and being deprived of that option left him helpless.

Of course, Tommy could sit down and refuse to leave his hill, but all the knowledge he now had about who Phil was made it look incredibly uncomfortable to die on.

Perhaps literally.

“Insomnia,” Tommy said.

Phil turned his back on his Goddess and the attention laid on Tommy made his skin crawl. It didn't feel uncomfortable, but it was there. Numbing, in some sense.

The young witch knew how big presences felt and he also knew how massive, ancient ones felt. Phil was a bit different when it came to that.

He wasn't like Wil, with magic running deep but somehow still being almost interchangeable with a human if you squinted a little bit. He wasn't like Techno, ancient chaos and the raw instinct to claw yourself back to life, to endure, to survive.

He was still and motionless, just like a impossibly deep lake at night was. He knew without urge to prove by talking, and he was able without the need to prove by doing.

Philza was truly terrifying.

“I see,” he said. “You seem to struggle with that quite a lot.”

Tommy shrugged. He couldn't make himself stop staring at the God, no matter how rude that possibly could be perceived as. Was he really trying to make a conversation here?

“How are your studies going?”

Ah. Yes, he was.

“They're going very well. A bit stressful. It's a lot at the same time.”

“I understand.”

“What... I'm sorry if that sounds rude, but what are you doing out here in the middle of the night? Are you praying? If I interrupted you, I can-...”

“None of that. I was praying, but I'm done.”

Tommy nodded slowly and warily. Somehow, this made Phil laugh quietly.

“You're fine, mate. Do you want to take a walk together?”, he asked and gestured widely towards the large garden.

Should he? Did he want that? Techno's voices whispered gently as they tried to nudge him towards Phil. They were so, so fond of him that it was confusing to Tommy. It was strange to experience them like that. Normally, they were loud and bold in expressing a wide variety of opinions on people until they settled on one that they would chant over and over again. Preferably one that ended bloody if they decided to not like someone.

Here, they were relatively quiet and careful. They didn't see Phil as the ancient, unpredictable being he was in Tommy's instinctive pool of feelings in his stomach.

As if that impression of the God wasn't complicated enough, pure awe and weirdly deep devotion mixed into it, and Tommy couldn't tell if that was the fault of the voices or if it originated somewhere in himself. It felt like it came from himself, but when was a sole feeling reliable?

“Uh... only if you promise not to hurt me,” Tommy blurted out.

“I won't,” Phil replied instantly.

“Why? Is it because it would upset Techno?”

“Let's turn that around, why would you think it was my intention?”

Tommy shrugged. How was he supposed to know that? Phil was the Angel of Death.

“I don't know. There isn't a reason I'd see right now, but maybe you see one that I can't.”

Phil shook his head and started walking down one of the wonky paths through the flowerbeds. Tommy followed automatically and caught up with him immediately.

“If that's what you're worried about: There's none. But even if there was, you aren't so far off with your first idea. Tech wouldn't exactly approve.”

Tommy found his hands fidgeting with each other in front of his stomach. He didn't answer. What did that mean? It was hard to see how far the Blood God's claim was reaching. Would it prevent other Gods from hurting him entirely? Or would it just set him on the list of targets in the first place, just because he was tied to the Blade?

Also, Wilbur's claim too for that matter. He hadn't really learned much about that with Niki yet and his self studies were quite restricted.

“Good,” Tommy responded bluntly.

“I agree, actually.”

“What the fuck do you ca-...? I mean... Sorry, why would you care about that?”

“Isn't that obvious? Wilbur is my only son. Techno's and my connection runs deep and old. Both are very fond of you. Besides that, you're a child. It takes a hard hand and an even harder heart to hurt a child. I lack both in this case.”

“I'm almost 17.”

“When is your birthday?”, Phil wanted to know.

Tommy snorted in amusement.

“4th of July. Do Gods celebrate birthdays?”

“We do acknowledge and sometimes celebrate the birthdays of our high priests and priestesses.”

“What about your own ones?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“There isn't really a reason for it. Besides that, sometimes the birth of a God takes decades or centuries.”

“When is your birthday?”

“Calendars and dates are human made. How do you pinpoint something that predates humanity entirely?”

“Wow, you're one old man then,” Tommy commented.

Phil laughed and it was a real laugh.

“You could say that.”

Tommy stopped walking as they passed a loose flowerbed on his right. He squatted down and reached out to poke one of the widely open flowers. It was white and looked a little bit like chamomile, but not quite. It had a flat kind of warmth, Tommy felt it clearly under the tip of his finger.

He heard how Phil stopped not far behind him.

“Aren't they supposed to be closed at night?”

“Not necessarily, but things work a little differently in the garden anyway.”

“Is that why there are so many flowers already? It's still a little cold for that... No, actually... It's not cold”, Tommy noted.

It was warm outside. How did he not notice immediately as he stepped outside?

Phil shifted behind him. The movement made his long robes rub against each other and the fabric sounded thick and delicately woven. Part of him didn't like to have the God in his back, but it didn't scare him as badly as he expected it. Tommy allowed it to happen.

“Yes, Kristin likes to keep them blooming throughout the winter.”

Thinking about it, it was strange to see such obvious and direct effects of magic around. All that Tommy had seen happening up till the point of him meeting Wilbur was vague. The things that were on the verge of legal, the tarot for example, or his own interpretations of what he felt radiating off of objects or people. All Tommy did was feel.

Even now, he never saw the Gods shift forms, or just appear or disappear in front of his eyes. Tommy knew it was happening, it must be happening all the fucking time, but he never saw it.

Sometimes they would have features that weren't exactly human, but they always looked so integrated into their forms that Tommy found himself not even looking twice.

Techno always looked like he had elf ears, but sometimes he was much bigger than the frame of a human could get just like that and sometimes, very rarely, Wil would smile and Tommy got greeted warmly with sharp, strangely shaped teeth.

At the same time he seemed to be insanely sensitive for any kind of magic happening around him, even if he didn't realise them all the time. The constant impressions he got when he was around charged objects, he saw things he wasn't supposed to see, and to be frank it was weird that Gods seemed to flock towards him. They treated him weirdly. Even Niki seemed unsure how to react to some of the things Tommy told her.

What if Tommy's experiences were unique? They were for sure compared to people who didn't play with magic, but... Niki?

Shouldn't she know? Shouldn't she share some experiences? She was the highest ranked witch Tommy knew and the respect he felt towards her was immense.

Questions burnt on his tongue. Did Phil know all of that? Did Techno piece things together Tommy didn't know of? Did Wilbur draw connections he didn't see? Did they know what was going on? Or was it not as clear and were they missing crucial pieces of the whole picture because Tommy didn't express them all and Niki chose to not inform them?

If so, was it clever to ask Phil open questions?

Tommy wasn't willing to hand out valuable information for free. He might live here now, but it was still hard to believe for him that they were all on the same team. Hell, scratch that, it was hard to believe all of them were on the same team!

The social net was huge and confusing. Tommy was simply too small to spread it out fully, no matter how much he stretched and struggled. He would drop parts of it if he tried too hard, but even if he wasn't able to see the big picture he could spot holes and inconsistencies.

Why in the world was he even here? Why was he being treated so differently?

He stayed silent and his gaze stayed pinned on the open flowers. They swayed gently as a soft gust of wind ran through the garden.

Another idea came to his mind. Maybe he could carefully sneak around his actual questions, or at least manage to seem so naïve that it led to them underestimating him in the future. Not that he'd need it right now. Weather was calm, but who would guarantee it to him that it'd stay that way?

“When is Niki's birthday? I'd like to get her something then.”

“6th of August,” Phil replied without hesitation.

“Cool. What stuff does she like?”

Phil shifted gently until he appeared next to Tommy. It was more comfortable to finally have him back in his field of view, even if it was just his legs.

“She reads a lot and she enjoys flowers of what I know.”

“You seem close to her. You even remember her birthday,” Tommy mentioned and tried to sound as casual as he could.

“She's one of my high priestesses, so there is a connection.”

“I guess. So what do you guys do on her birthday normally? It's a bit hard to imagine you and Techno wearing party hats.”

The God next to him let out a cackle that turned into a small laugh.

“That'd look ridiculous.”

“You haven't tried it? Shame. Anyone looks good with party hats.”

Come on, Philza. Tommy almost rolled his eyes. Did he really have to pull all that information out of his nose again? Phil acted like this a lot.

“I haven't. I don't really attend any birthday parties.”

There it was. Finally. He needed to secure this right now before the conversation turned again. He feared Phil would just do it like Wilbur did: Just change the subject before even really acknowledging what Tommy was talking about or asking before.

“Not even Niki's? You said you'd sometimes celebrate”, he asked in an attempt to sound surprised.

It didn't come across that genuine, but Tommy tried to violently shake off his fear that Phil could suddenly come behind exactly what he was doing at any given moment, or that he simply knew and let him run into a wall. He was scared there would he a flat answer without any space for him to drive a hook into.

“That is a strange question.”

“Why?”, Tommy asked back immediately. “You said you'd care about Niki, so I assumed... Ah well. Some God thing again, am I right? Not that I'd understand.”

Phil hummed and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

It basically was answer enough. Tommy thought it was fair to assume that this meant that neither Phil nor Techno showed up in front of Niki wearing a physical form. He tried to decide what kind of reaction would make the most sense in Phil's eyes now, but even as he spoke he wasn't fully sure.

Tommy decided that playing dumb could be his best bet.

“I'm confused. So you're not... I mean, we are talking right now? You're standing here. What stops you from attending her birthday and wearing stupid hats? It's fun, believe me.”

“That's not that easy to explain. Many Gods choose to not show up physically for their followers.”

It was Tommy's turn to hum and then fall silent. He somehow hoped it would make Phil talk again without him having to ask, but he had the audacity to feel comfortable enough with the quiet to not feel the need to open his mouth.

Tommy gave him a few minutes until he got back up. Fine. Then he'd pick the direct path.

“Why?”

“Why should we?”

“I mean, you can. Wouldn't it make sense to secure more of them? Prove you're real? The more people believe and the more of them pray, the more power you can get, right?”

“It's not all about power, Tommy,” Phil explained calmly and the soft smile on his lips looked oddly fond. “It has a lot to do with how human we want to appear and how much distance we wish to keep. A follower wants to worship and even if worship is a two way road, they want the distance more often than not.”

“You're standing right here. You're taking a walk with me,” Tommy repeated and gestured vaguely towards Phil's body.

“We're not walking and you're not a worshipper.”

The answer was instant, but confusing. Tommy frowned.

“All humans kind of worship you and the Goddess of Death.”

“No. Almost all humans believe.”

Tommy chewed around on the inside of his cheek as he thought about that. So what did that mean?

“I get there's a difference, but that would mean I'm not worshipping Techno either. Despite the connection.”

“You're worshipping Techno more than you'd think.”

“And Wilbur? Same thing.”

“Very different thing,” Phil corrected him. “Wilbur doesn't demand worship and never did. He barely approaches you in a way that leaves normal mortal connection.”

“You're making no sense, buddy,” Tommy huffed and turned around to continue walking down the path.

Philza took the hint and caught up quickly.

“You seem confused.”

“Of course I am confused. Imagine how that all looks for me.”

“How does it look for you?”

“I feel weird. You're treating me differently.”

“You are different.”

“You're doing it again. It's all oh so awfully simple to you.”

“Maybe it is also simple to you and you're just complicating it. You don't need to understand each and every thing to be safe. That is it, isn't it? You're scared that if you don't know enough, you'll miss something that could endanger you.”

“Woah, woah, stay in your lane, Mr. Dr. Freud! What, don't you have, like, own issues to psychoanalyse?”

Phil laughed at that. To Tommy, it wasn't even half as funny, but Phil laughed. He reached out and set his hand down on top of his head. Tommy flinched, but didn't dare to pull away.

“No one is going to hurt you, Tommy. No one. Look at Techno, would he let you get hurt? And Wilbur, you know how he is. He for sure scared you before, but did he ever hurt you?”

The weight of Phil's hand was a weird feeling, and having his fingers rake though his hair was even weirder. Not bad, not uncomfortable. Just weird. It made his scalp feel oddly numb and this feeling stretched out into his ears.

“I don't think it's asking to much to know what is going on,” Tommy said, but he wasn't so sure of it anymore.

“It's complex, it's a lot, and you don't need it right now. They, or we for that matter, will take care of everything until you do. You just need to trust us, you can do that, right?”

“I don't know.”

“Try, that's enough. You can trust us. You're precious, we would never do you harm. It's very late, mate. You look tired. You should go back to bed.”

Tommy squinted a little. There it was again, the strange tilt of Phil's head and the weirdly familiar, way too interested gaze fixated on him. Tommy had seen it before, but not in a human or anything close to a human. He had seen it when raven like birds played with each other, when their insane intelligence was obvious through their play, when they mocked each other just to share their food later. When they solved riddles and problems. When they found something interesting.

“I'd just like to appreciate it properly and I can't when I'm confused,” Tommy said carefully.

“Sometimes, people are just special and click with each other. It doesn't really need a reason. Consider yourself such a case.”

“That doesn't make sense, I-...”

He suddenly couldn't stop a yawn escape him. Tommy hid it behind his hand and carefully tried to duck away from Phil. It was crowned by only moderate success as his hand only slipped down on his shoulder instead.

“I'm tired.”

Phil nodded.

“I'll bring you inside.”

“Nah, it's fine, no need.”

“I'll bring you inside.”

Tommy scoffed and tried to bat his hand off him finally, to no success at all this time. Phil used his grip to make him turn back to where they came from.

“You act like I'm a toddler.”

“You act not far off sometimes.”

“... hey.”

Tommy wanted to give some more creative come back on that, but his brain seemed to be fogged up. He couldn't find anything witty in time. The numbness of Phil's touch only spread out further through his body and made him feel heavy and floaty at the same time. His body felt like he was falling asleep while walking and as if he was weighing nothing at all anymore. It was warm and comfortable.

If he still had his full mental capacity, Tommy would panic.

“Hey. What are you doing?”

“Doing something against the insomnia. You're just worrying yourself sick with things that aren't your responsibility.”

“Weird timing... can't you wait till we're like... back inside?”

Phil didn't provide him with an answer, but simply hummed as his thumb rubbed gentle circles into his shoulder.

Tommy shook his head in an attempt to shoo off the fog, but it only made him dizzy. The door suddenly felt very far away, even if he could see it already in the moonlight. All he wanted was sleep. He was sure he took a few steps more, but suddenly he felt two arms under his armpits and his cheek brushed against soft fabric. How did that happen? The other had been by his side just a second ago.

“Oh, right, there you go... Got you, it's alright,” he heard Phil mutter.

“Lemme,” Tommy slurred as he felt his feet leave the ground, yet he couldn't really process what was happening. “I can do that.”

The way he was turned and secured tightly against the God didn't make sense to him and contradicted his understanding of how his body usually worked in a space, but when he was able to lay his head down on his shoulder, Tommy felt deep satisfaction crawl through his core.

“Sure you can,” Phil whispered.

“Mmmh.”

Phil set a hand down on the back of Tommy's neck to hold his head where it was and then he started swaying gently. Tommy needed embarrassingly long to realise it was because he was walking.

“No, lemme down. Is embarrassing, Wil is gonna... make fun of me for that.”

“I won't tell him. He's never going to know,” Phil promised gently.

For some reason, Tommy felt calmed by that statement and he finally allowed himself to close down his eyes and doze off into the welcoming dark arms of the deepest sleep he ever had.

Chapter Text

“Niki?”

“Hm?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Niki took a moment until he looked up from her own book. She was sitting on her usual spot at their table, her glasses low on her nose and her hair tied back. Before she finally met Tommy's gaze, she set her index finger on the page she was skimming over to not lose her line.

“Sure. Do you need help?”

“Not really,” Tommy shrugged.

Memorising stuff was just boring and his mind wouldn't stop assaulting him with lingering questions that were very far from what he was actually supposed to do. The book in front of him was on botany, and Tommy was not even sure why he needed to know all the details of how moss evolved.

Usually, he'd never get the idea to interrupt a self-studying phase like that unless he had a question on the matter, but the fact there was even a lesson happening today was a borderline miracle.

“Okay?”

“How are things outside?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know. I couldn't sleep well last night and I thought back a bit. It's probably stupid,” he scoffed and gestured dismissingly. “But I wondered if I caused... lasting trouble at your café.”

Niki adjusted her glasses and sighed, taking her finger off the page.

Oh, great. Tommy took his own hands from the table and crossed his arms.

“No, you didn't. You're free to move in town and visit any shop you like.”

Tommy waited as he scanned her. That wasn't it. He wasn't sure what her expression was trying to tell him, but that for sure was not it. She would never lose her line on a page for nothing.

Niki didn't elaborate by herself, so he picked up the word again to push further as gently as he could. She seemed reluctant to get into the topic, but he needed to know.

“The two guys didn't seem very happy when they left last time. I'd hate to be the reason your customers are unhappy.”

“Unhappy, yes, but that was not your fault.”

Tommy pulled his shoulders up to his ears and sunk back into his chair before dropping them again. His arms stayed snugly wrapped around himself.

“No?”

Niki sighed again and took a quick look at her watch to check how much time they had left. Tommy peeked over. There only would be like ten minutes before Wilbur interrupted them for tonight. His teacher closed her book and he quickly did the same, only to bring his arm back around himself afterwards.

“Witches usually don't enter the spaces of other witches that work under opposing Gods. I'm not a fan of that teacher doing so, even if it just was to pick out Dream. He could have stayed at the door and signalled me to come over. I would have gotten Dream for him, without dragging in the shadow of Quackity, you know?”

“That's one thing, but... I worried you'd get in trouble because... I don't know. You're practising outside of the Academy rules. We went over that just earlier today.”

Tommy had begged for his lessons with Niki to continue after spending the whole Saturday with Wilbur essentially, and that begging was needed to convince him to call up her to ask her if she still had time.

It wasn't like Tommy hadn't enjoyed the free time, but being around Wilbur for hours over hours on end with no breaks had proven itself to be... a lot. Wil originally refused his request, claiming that Tommy couldn't work through all week and then continue at that pace for the weekend too, but he managed to change the God's mind.

Wilbur merely being Wilbur was one problem, but his status as over worldly entity who also wouldn't share most of Tommy's morals soon turned out to be a completely different one. Niki was his only human contact in here. It was grounding to not be around someone who caused his nerves to flare up with a whole bunch of sensations that demanded interpretation and with whom he didn't need to constantly argue over some basic human concepts.

Concepts Wilbur clearly did understand, but just didn't share.

Disagreeing with someone who didn't understand his opinion was easier than disagreeing with someone who just thought his opinion was crap, and Tommy learned that quickly.

When he expressed his distress over his nightly walk with Philza in the morning, Wilbur was confused. It took him a few tries to explain himself and why he thought it was fucking creepy to just get sent to sleep like that without warning or the chance to stop it from happening. Yes, Tommy slept like a baby, and yes, it was nice to be able to sleep in without waking up every hour or so, but that wasn't the point.

Wilbur got that, he did understand, Tommy just got the feeling that he didn't prioritise what he thought was creepy and weird. Ends seemingly justified the means for him.

He didn't need to explain himself to Niki, and he didn't need to argue with her over why he didn't like what happened. She got it. She reacted with slow, empathetic nods and the offer of a hug. She didn't get offended when Tommy refused.

“I know. I'm glad you remember some of that. Laws are a dry topic,” Niki answered.

Tommy shrugged yet again. He remembered, very well even. Learning the actual rules and laws he broke so freely when he started was a hell of an experience. Learning what kinds of punishments loomed over the various crimes he committed, according to the Academy, was even more surreal.

They didn't even make it through all of them.

It was weird to Tommy to suddenly know. It had a few different effects. For once the whole thing lost its scary aspect of never knowing how far one could go. Tommy didn't have to dig through forums and discussion threads anymore to find a bunch of biased information, no, he had it all neatly laid out here on his table anytime he wanted. He suddenly knew how to handle possible accusations, what he could and couldn't say, buzzwords, his own religous rights as citizen even.

Yet, Tommy also knew he could lose free foot for what he did here. Especially Techno's worship was limited to a ridiculous fraction of what Tommy felt called to naturally, and Wilbur was seen as so unstable that his witches frequently reported getting taken less seriously in court.

Niki made sure he knew the risk he was at all the time. Complete prohibition to all kinds of witchcraft, getting re-homed, religious bans, fucking jail time, and in the worst case they seemed very able to take away his sole ability to sense. This was something that scared him. Despite it not always being comfortable to notice what was going on, it was like a 6th sense Tommy only now realised how heavily he relied on it.

The slowly spreading feeling of deep, dark doom that crawled through him when he thought about someone taking it away was terrifying. It made his hands ball to fists as if to protect it and caused a ice cold sensation to creep up his fingers, hands, and forearms.

At last, realising at what risk Niki was herself only made him worry more. He didn't want this to happen to her.

“You said you'd expect Dream to know already, and that Sapnap guy knew too for sure. You also said he just wouldn't care and that he hadn't bothered you until then. How does that work when there seems to be such strict laws?”

“Justice is blind,” Niki replied.

Tommy rolled his eyes.

“What's that supposed to mean? They are justice.”

“They are not. They just make up rules that benefit them. The Academy is big and not everyone cares about who is allowed to worship what as much as the law department of it does.”

Tommy ran his fingers through his hair to push it out of his face.

“Did that change after what happened?”

The silence following that question was causing a stone to form in Tommy's throat. He messed things up for Niki. He messed them up, and here she was, still patiently teaching him on a Saturday night as if she couldn't imagine a single other place she would rather be at.

“A few details changed, yes.”

“So, they are bothering you?”

“They picked up on who you are quite quickly, and they have gotten a bit too interested with their questions since then.”

“I'm sorry, Niki. That was stupid, I shouldn't have come. You were caught in some magic crossfire there and that's not fair.”

“How exactly should you have known any of that? Don't beat yourself up over it. It's not nearly as big of a deal as your mind makes it out to be.”

“You're literally lying for me out there there. Risking your bare ass. You're covering me. I just know you're taking a massive risk right there.”

“I am,” Niki confirmed and gave him a smile that was as soft as ever. “Not that this matters. I'm not selling anyone out, especially not you. They don't get a single word from me regarding you.”

“Why the fuck would you do something like that?”

Tommy didn't get it. They could probably drag her to court any time if she just allowed one small misstep to happen. If she said too much, or the wrong thing.

“That's just what we do. You'll understand eventually. We only have a minute left, can you do me a favour and finish the chapter on moss? I'd like to continue with the ferns next time.”

“Niki-”, Tommy pleaded.

He didn't even know for what. The now confirmed fact that Niki was at risk just didn't sit right with him. It felt like it lit up a urgent need to move within his muscles, to do something. Anything, only that Tommy was bound to watch from the sideline while Niki fought a fight not meant for her.

The bubbling fear of her not returning one day was almost too much to bear.

“None of that, Tom. The moss.”

Yet, Niki was Niki, just how she always was, with her warm gaze and her strict focus. Tommy couldn't understand how she stayed so calm and collected. Didn't she understand she was all he had here?

“It's such a long chapter tho,” he groaned.

“Yes, and the next one is only longer, but I believe in you. You have all day tomorrow.”

Tommy felt himself frown.

“That's a lot, man. I barely understand that, and nothing like this looks like witchcraft anymore. Does it get less? Or easier? When we're done with that plant shit, I mean.”

“No. It doesn't,” Niki said, and despite no soft veil covering her brutality, she made it sound so light. “It is a lot, and I'm sorry that we have to rush like that. You're smart, and doing this to build a good, wide foundation for yourself. There is no way around it and it is such an unfair way to be taught, but you should see yourself, Tommy.”

When he looked up, he thought he could see something like pride glimmering in her eyes. Then, it was gone as quick as it came, and made space for Niki's usual mostly neutral expression, but the spark had reached him long before it got the chance to die out.

“... anything important to take notes on?”

He was going to keep up with her pace. He was the greatest witch who ever walked the earth after all. If this helped him to become even greater, he would take it.

“Pay attention to the generational change and the basics of their water management. And especially...”

“Am I interrupting?”, Wilbur's voice mused carelessly from behind Tommy and made him flinch.

He hadn't even heard the door. Had Wilbur even opened it or did he just decide to teleport in here? When he turned his head, Wil was standing only a few meters away and was leaning lazily against the side of one of the huge bookshelves.

He must have teleported. Only now his presence started to seep into Tommy's skin.

“One second, Wilbur,” Niki shut him down, sounding unimpressed. “Especially where to find them and what they need to grow. If you want to, you can try to find out why they need what they need.”

“Got it,” Tommy spoke and shoved the book he had been working with (“Botany I, Introduction to General Concepts and Extended Studies”) to the edge of their table to pick it up without accidentally nicking the cover with his fingernails.

There were a whole bunch of books parked in the middle of the table and a few piles a bit away on the other side, all of them needed for their studies, but Niki only used them to make him read from them himself to collect information, or to show him pictures.

The rest was recited freely. Niki seemed to know so much of the top of her head that it dizzied Tommy to imagine all of her knowledge written on paper and piled up. It'd probably make more than the books on the table, and more than would ever fit on it.

She knew an answer to most of his questions and for the rare case she did not know, she knew exactly where to look.

“Great. See you on Monday.”

“Aren't you coming?”, Tommy asked as he lingered behind his chair, the heavy college book clutched to his chest.

Usually, she would join him and Wilbur for a short while until their ways parted in the middle of the hallways and Niki found the exit. Meaning, Tommy and her would chat while Niki did her best to ignore Wilbur's remarks and comments. Or his entire existence, for that matter.

“I'll just finish this chapter real quick. I find the way out myself,” Niki said and gave him a smile.

“Tommy,” Wilbur called, and the drag on the witch's soul towards him got stronger.

Tommy lingered between them, indecisive and unsure.

He didn't want to leave Niki, or maybe he just didn't want to spend time with Wilbur again. Niki looked over the rim of her glasses and caught his gaze. She gently nodded her head towards the God behind him.

Tommy straightened himself and squared out his shoulders. He turned and stubbornly walked past Soot.

“What did you waste your time on today, Wilbur?”

“Just the usual time wasting activities, you know?”

“That's what I thought.”

“What a smart one then. Seeing the future already?”

Tommy tried to keep his spirit up. To keep the usual banter up. The one he used to make Soot put up with so effortlessly. It was hard nowadays. He could feel him exist all the time, and that fact was not seldom nauseating. While he was able to ignore Techno's constant, but faint existence against his own, Soot was pushy. Pushy in a literal sense. He pushed against him like a cat would rub up against your leg.

Techno was busy and rather distant a lot. Wilbur seemed to have all the time in the world.

It made it hard to ignore he was insulting a God here. Combined with everything he knew now, with how unpredictable Gods seemed to be sometimes, with how absurdly they would punish humans when the wind turned north-west and the colour of your underwear fit... Tommy thought he knew real fear before right in the moments when Soot's mask would drop a notch, when he felt disrespected or challenged.

When he chased him.

That had been nothing against the lingering, crawling caution he felt now, or at least so very different. Fear was one thing, it spiked and made him light headed, but it would die down. This felt like it clung to him like wet jeans. It was weighing him down and making him sluggish when it came to making decisions.

The soaked fabric stiffened his joints and he just was not enough to carry it.

He tried to keep smart assing. Just, his mind stayed blank of creative come backs and nothing would leave his tongue.

Had he just been entertaining Soot with this the whole time? Would he throw him away as soon as he got mute and boring?

This thought made Tommy feel sharp anxiety crawl up the back of his throat like a heavy noose tugging at it. Up, up, always upwards, right into his brain.

As if it was the thing that tried to string up his body on it.

“What's wrong? Tommy?”

Wilbur set down his hand on his shoulder when he just wanted to turn to his left after the heavy door of the library fell shut.

“Nothing, I'm-... I'm just tired.”

Wil turned him in his grip and Tommy felt like the rope would only pull tighter around his neck if he looked at his face, so he didn't.

“You can talk to me,” he said gently, quietly, almost like he meant it.

He did mean it, Tommy thought so at least.

“I don't know, man. Just not feeling great today.”

“Did something happen?”

Tommy stared at the black feather resting on Wilbur's chest, at the small pearls and colourful beads decorating the string that held it around his neck, at the texture of his deep blue sweater underneath; and he thought about that.

His jaw suddenly slacked and his teeth stopped grinding against each other.

He had no reason to disclose what he felt to Wilbur, especially because it included him. He was not giving him more ammunition than he already unwillingly did when he just existed.

But maybe...

“I'm worried,” he finally said.

Wilbur stayed quiet and waited. Tommy stepped from one foot to the other and started fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Calculated and slow as he moved his thumb over the fabric.

“About Niki.”

“What's with her?”

“Ah, not... not important. Nothing you should concern yourself with.”

Tommy gently escaped the other's grip and took a few steps back to suggest them leaving. Wilbur was right at his heel.

“It concerns you, so it concerns me.”

There he was. Tommy kept his gaze pinned to his shoes as he slowly climbed the stairs and tried to make his shoulders slack a bit more than usual. Just a bit more. He had to be careful, he usually wouldn't come up with a random request either, so he had to squirm a little.

“You have enough stuff to do, I imagine. Important things. Like, answering prayers and tending to your witches. That is exhausting, I read.”

“Sure, but you're important too.”

That stung, and it made Tommy want to break down immediately. Cry and weep about how scared he was that this would change. That he'd become boring. About how he worried over not being important in the end.

Tommy hated it. He hated himself for it. Wilbur was dangerous, he had to manually remind himself. He shouldn't want to be important for him, or enjoy being it.

He shouldn't want to cling to him like a child, and yet, he wanted to. This was all he wanted more often than he liked it, and in the next moment something in him squirmed and he suddenly wanted nothing more than being very, very far away from him.

Tommy felt like a fraud. What did he want now? What should he want?

Eyes on the finish line. Tommy waited for a few more seconds. This was for Niki.

“I brought in trouble for Niki,” he said between grinding teeth. “The witches of the Academy are bothering her now.”

“How so?”

The look on Wilbur's face when Tommy side eyed him was, again, hard to read. He somehow looked displeased, yet Tommy was indecisive over what reason was the most likely. Wilbur probably knew how he was trying to get the higher ground this way, did he?

It wasn't too manipulative if he stayed honest, right? He did worry after all. As long as he toed the line of truth, Tommy hoped that Wilbur would just accept it without calling it out. He learned how much of a wall Gods were when they didn't want to play your game. Just yesterday, in the garden. Philza had no interest in that.

Strangely, the distant Voices that accompanied Tommy day by day didn't have anything to say about his behaviour here, despite him using Wilbur. They weren't too happy with him injuring Wilbur, but they were ignorant towards whatever else he was doing in this context. Tommy felt them shift and move gently against his mind, pushing snugly against it but not invading it any more like they used to.

“I don't know for sure. She didn't want me to worry about it, so she didn't say a lot. I caused it though, I brought in the suspicion by being there when the professors were there too.”

“What did she say?”

“Like I said, not too much. Only that it wasn't my fault in her eyes and that she would handle it. I'm just... I'm nervous about what they could do to her.”

“You don't really need to worry about her, Tommy. The Academy focuses on small fish as long as the big ones don't cause too much trouble. She knows how to keep her head down.”

“I do though.”

“Would it help if I spoke to Techno and Phil to keep an extra eye on her?”

Tommy nodded slowly. This was a good option and about the outcome he had wanted to achieve. He would talk to Techno himself, but actively asking the God for something felt so off. It was more comfortable if Wilbur was bringing it up as something he noticed.

Tommy wondered if he was a bad person.

“They watch out for her anyway, but if it helps you sleep, that's no problem.”

“It would help me sleep,” Tommy agreed.

Wilbur smiled at him and set his flat hand down between his shoulder blades, gently nudging him to keep moving. Even when he did, the hand stayed. Tommy resisted the urge to lean into it, purely by spite.

“You can always ask Techno yourself.”

“He's busy. I don't want to bother him too much.”

“Are you hungry?”, Wilbur changed the subject instantly.

“No, not really,” Tommy replied after a short moment of silence.

“You didn't eat dinner yet.”

“I'm not hungry. I'll get something from the kitchen if I get hungry during the night.”

This was a special privilege Tommy was not used to yet, but the fact that it was possible made him use it a lot. Nonetheless, he was still fighting the guilty feeling of it. They paid for all of his stuff after all. Wilbur even got his measurements earlier, obviously planning to get him a new wardrobe.

He only hoped it would stay reasonable. The more they did for him, the more Tommy owed them.

“I made lasagna from scratch. You should try it,” Wilbur decided simply and redirected Tommy towards the kitchen by gently changing the distribution of pressure set against his back.

When Tommy didn't comply immediately, his thumb dug under his shoulder blade and forced him to. The young witch's body automatically avoided the uncomfortable stab.

Tommy didn't like it, not a single molecule in his body liked how Soot decided to treat him here. He thought about making a fuss, but he stopped himself before he could say anything. It was probably not a good idea to refuse with how neurotic Wilbur was over his food. There was a meal plan standing. Wilbur calculated up his calories and macronutrients, and he took note of when Tommy was not finishing his plate or when he went to pick something out of the fridge at night.

He hadn't went through with refusing yet, but he had gotten close one time and the mood tensed up instantly in a way that forced goosebumps to spread out on his back and shoulders. Tommy didn't think the God would physically force him, but he could imagine other ways of pressure.

Honestly, he was not willing to find out. It wouldn't help his case.

“Fine.”

“Very good,” Wil said as his hand wandered up and gently squeezed his shoulder.

A gentle wave of praise brushed over his skin and Tommy felt himself reach into it. It was so easy if he just let him, really.

Tommy brushed his hair back again.

“Wil, can I like... go to a hairdresser next week?”

“Why?”

“It's getting annoying and I'd like it shorter.”

Wilbur hummed and rubbed his thumb into his shoulder.

“I think it looks nice that way. I can get you some hair bands. Techno could show you how to tie it away.”

Tommy had to chew back a snappy comment. He chose this, he had to remind himself. Better than living in constant fear of betrayal.

He finished his plate, but it took him a while. The conversation he had with Soot moved from topic to topic, from the food over to what Tommy was studying at the moment.

Using the fork to gently poke his bottom lip, Tommy thought some things through during a short talking break. He lowered his fork and stabbed another piece of lasagna.

“Wil, what do blessings do?”, he asked, and eyed the God carefully.

Tommy focused on the corners of his mouth, his forehead with his eyebrows, and his eyes. Holding eye contact with Wilbur was hard. Not just because Tommy generally sucked at this, there also was something weird in Wilbur's eyes. Sometimes, they made Tommy feel like they were reflecting hundreds of tiny light sources that weren't even there.

Wilbur's face stayed still for the most part, only one of his eyebrows arched up gently.

“I've read that,” Tommy explained freely. “So I wondered what it meant.”

“That's a hard question to answer. Blessings can do a bunch of different things. It depends a lot on who gave it.”

Great, Tommy thought. Yet again a thing that was depending on other things that were depending on other things. Just no one knew what things. Wilbur didn't give the impression that he knew of Techno's blessing. Tommy had gambled on that, and it had felt super risky. You'd expect that the Gods were talking to each other.

“Any examples?”

“Kristin's blessings can add on to a life span, for example,” Wilbur said. “Quackity's blessings usually make you win at luck based games and gambling. Blessings are usually given with items, and always traded. The mortal has to give something for it.”

Tommy chewed on his food and shrugged, hopefully carelessly enough.

“Fine, thanks. I'm tired, I want to go to bed.”

He hadn't received an item.

Chapter Text

Tommy's stomach dropped painfully as he almost fell off the shelf ladder. The stupid book he had wanted was in his hand after tugging it lose from being stuck in the overfilled shelf, yes, but at what cost? Half a heart attack.

With cold sweat breaking out all over his skin and the adrenaline rush causing a ripping sensation in his palms, he clutched the ladder with his free hand tightly and kept himself almost impossibly close to it to stabilise. He felt the wood press into his chest and his throat as he kept his chin over one of the steps of the ladder.

The library was faintly echoing the clattering of wood on the floor from how much the whole contraption shook and the dull wood creaking of the shelf that was forced to move in ways it never should have been moved.

“Fuck. Fuck this. Fuck,” Tommy whispered under his breath. “Fucking shit.”

He had to wait till his pounding heart slowed down and he stopped shaking until he managed to convince his body to move again. This time his movements were much slower and more careful. Although Tommy had a tight time schedule, he should not be here, he decided he would rather take the scolding he'd get from Phil or Wilbur than breaking his neck from falling down a ladder.

That'd be an embarrassing way to go. He would pick another one if he could help it.

It should be intentional, Tommy thought. If he was to go out, it should be intentional. He was dead set on meaning it.

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe one day. He didn't actually plan anything, he told himself as he stood on the swinging and shuttering ladder. He just... liked to have the very general option.

The witchling switched out the book he had pulled off the shelf once the ladder stood still again. When his feet regained firm ground under them, he let out a shaky breath and listened into the big library. It was silent. The only thing he could hear was his breathing and his heartbeat echo in his ears. It didn't change how on edge he was.

The fact of him being here alone at like 4 in the morning was a thing for sure, and he wondered sometimes how he even gathered the audacity to try and outsmart otherworldly beings as frequent as he did. He wouldn't know. He only noted how stupid it was after he already did it.

It had been a few weeks here now, maybe more, maybe less. Tommy had forgotten how time worked. He had not left the temple once in this time span and there was no way to really keep his feeling of time in check with how strange the structure of his life had gotten. Sure, he knew when Niki came and didn't come in, but calculating how much time that summed up to had gotten hard. Tommy didn't even sleep in a regular pattern, so sometimes one day felt like three, and other times what must have been a week felt like a single day.

Routine was streamlined and worked like the constant wing flapping of a bird. The ups and downs kept it just exciting enough for him to not realise automatically how steady and smooth he was actually moving.

Tommy looked down to the book in his hands (“Advanced necromancy”) and then over to the other two he had settled on the table next to the shelf he just attempted to climb (“A specialised guide to metals” and “Magic through melodies; Spells through singing”).

Quite the mixture. He'd admit that.

He blew the dust off the necromancy book in his hands and shoved it into his tote bag, packing the other books on top of it and pulling the bag over his shoulder. Sneaking out of the library was much harder than sneaking in. He couldn't see the entire corridor or the stairway when sticking his head out of the huge hall, so the moment of showing the heavy door open and pushing his body into the hallway was nerve wrecking. Tommy was glad that it only was a moment and he didn't even have to touch the way too hot door for longer than needed.

Tommy had learned quickly that the strong circle of magic protecting the library, although confusing and scary, did not actually prevent him from taking books as long as he had the intention of bringing them back. It seemed to be the intention alone that allowed him to do this, and he had gathered this information from Techno's words. It had been vague and Tommy had been so stressed when trying it out for the first time despite Niki having told him that, No, books were to be left in Kristin's hands in the library.

It worked, though. And since then, Tommy's gotten sneaky with how he used his nights and sensitive to the Gods' energies around. Both things went hand in hand. If he was confident he didn't feel anyone around, he was able to grab new books and bring back his old ones. It was never a guarantee, not even close to one, but it was all he could do and it did work until now. He used to back his luck on worse takes in the past already.

The corridor was empty and his skin didn't tingle to alert him of Wilbur's usual presence, or one of the others. Wilbur was his main concern though. Wilbur was the most annoying one, and he did not fall from that position once since he was here. Phil ranked a solid second place, but he mostly didn't seem to care about Tommy all that much. Perhaps he did, but if so he did it from a distance Tommy was able to handle.

If Wilbur could, he would be in his business all day, every day. Nothing changed about that.

Yet, he could not. He had things to do. The temple was quiet today.

Tommy made his way back to his room quietly with his head ducked down. The corridors were not nearly as scary anymore as they seemed like in the beginning. Still dark and still busy with souls and soul-like creatures passing him like shadow play moving against the walls, but they didn't seem to bother him as much by now compared to how weird they felt in the beginning. Tommy still startled when one of them strayed too close, but the simple knowledge of them just passing through and not even being interested in him helped a lot to not fear them.

Things had changed. His understanding of the world and magic had changed. It got much closer to him, much less abstract. He felt like he had changed, despite the fact he often had the feeling he barely learned anything yet.

Tommy's mind strayed to tomorrow, or rather later today as he passed the kitchen and watched his feet take step after step.

He would see Wilbur, Techno and Niki again later. His day would repeat. And repeat. He'd work through maths and English before Wil would cut his basic education short to torture him with an hour of violin, the instrument Tommy chose to learn of the ones the God presented to him. He'd listen to Techno and Wilbur talk about politics during lunch. He'd study another long list Niki demanded of him later, now being able to keep up with her pace. He would spend his evening training spell circles.

He would...

Tommy jumped back and he felt like he got the second half of his daily heart attack delivered.

The man in front of him stood tall, a bit taller than Tommy, and he mirrored his jump backwards, but much higher than Tommy jumped.

“Yo, what the fuck are you doing here?”, Tommy hissed.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”, the guy answered.

Tommy could barely see him properly, which caused him to pull out the small flash light he carried in his pocket and turn it on. He normally avoided using it, preferring the usual dim temple lighting by now, but he felt like the situation called for it.

“Don't shine that in my face, man,” the stranger complained as Tommy did just that.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Tommy could only describe the man as... weird? Light maybe, weightless? Kind of. He barely radiated anything he could feel or interpret, and his jump back didn't even make a sound earlier. His voice was expressive, varying in tone a lot.

The light Tommy still forced into his face bounced off his bright red hair and his eyes reflected like the ones of a cat would do, almost blinding Tommy in the process if he dared to look directly into them. The man lifted his hand to shield his gaze from the aggressive ray of artificial light.

Now that Tommy got a better look at him, he couldn't be much older than himself. Late teens, maybe early twenties, but that was a stretch already.

“Bro-”

“How did you get in here?”

“Front door,” the guy replied.

Tommy pulled a pretty mocking face before he could stop himself. He tried to wipe it off his expression as quickly as possible. This was not the situation to mock the intruder. This was the situation to back off and call for help, actually.

Tommy found himself barely caring. Could he get stabbed? Yeah. Would he care, like, really care? He could not find it if he was being honest.

Getting stabbed was much cooler than falling off a ladder. If it happened, it was what it was. Who was he to interrupt the natural progression of things?

“What else did you expect?” The stranger gestured vaguely and mirrored Tommy's expression perfectly. It was almost like looking into a mirror. Tommy got a weird feeling about him.

Something felt strange. He felt muted, but something moved under the surface, steadily flowing like river water. Flickering gently once in a while. His presence seemed... changing, ever-changing. Too covert to be a God, too overt to be just a witch. Who was he talking to?

Tommy could not imagine Kristin allowing a real stranger in here anyway, so he must be at least connected to her in some way to be even standing here.

“I didn't expect shit. And especially not some... random ginger in my hallway,” Tommy deadpanned and flicked the light back up to his face which caused the other to curl his lip up in disgust.

Tommy took a brief second to move his gaze over him. The man wore a simple green T shirt and jeans combo. Sneakers. A grey jacket. Nothing special at all.

“Your hallway?”

“Who in the fuck are you?”

“You first.”

Tommy rolled his eyes at the kindergarten behaviour he had to endure.

“Tommy.”

“I don't know a Tommy.”

Tommy rolled his eyes again, so hard it hurt. That dude's incompetence was almost funny.

“Oh, seriously? Wouldn't have thought.”

“Joke went over your head there.”

Oh. Maybe he was the incompetent one?

“I study here. Live here too.”

The stranger eyed him suspiciously and squinted slightly in the shadow that he still draped over his eyes with his hand. “I didn't know they were still using the temple for teaching?”

“Dude, can I have a name? Do I know you?”

“I'm looking for Wilbur. Should be around.”

“He's not. He's out tonight.”

Tommy felt more suspicion and confusion grow inside him. He did not feel Wil around. Trying to use what Techno gave him and listen to the edge of his consciousness was hard while also focusing on the redhead in front of him, and the Voices were so loud and chaotic he could barely make out a single answer to who he was talking to.

He seemed to be known, but that was all he got.

He sent out a careful request to them, only to be overwhelmed with a tsunami of opinions, screaming and wailing. His vision started swimming as his mind tried to dissociate from them again, pulling back to protect itself. Using the Voices was a difficult skill and Niki could not help him learn it. Sometimes they worked well with him and Tommy had the advantage of information he'd usually would not have or a few hundred pairs of eyes to watch his back, but they were so unreliable and even dangerous that it was a gamble. One day it worked fine and the next day, they were upset over something unrelated and tried to eat his spirit and mind whole.

“You good?”, the stranger asked and Tommy only now realised he was talking to him. He tried to overtone the Voices one last time, asking for support from Techno this time before attempting to close off from them completely again.

“Yah. What did you say?”

“Fundy,” the guy introduced himself with a small mocking bow.

Oh. Tommy stared at him, his flash light now shining against his chest instead of his face, and the realisation hit him. Fundy. He knew who that was. He knew a bit about him, if he was telling the truth, but Tommy did not really doubt it. It fit.

“Oh. Yeah, right. Sorry about the flash light.”

“Looks like we'll spend a while together now. Wanna raid the kitchen?”

Tommy was confused and stared at the God's chin, trying to ignore the cunning grin just above it exposing sharp animalistic teeth. This was not how he'd imagined this God to talk, but he stayed on his toes.

Fundy, the always shapeshifting one, the unlikely child of a God and a nature spirit. The God of the Wild, the God who cackled and screamed like a fox while he toyed with injured, lost humans in the forest if he felt like it. The strange mixture of Wilbur, Wilbur of all the Gods, and a spirit. So young still, the first notion of him only barely older than Tommy himself. A Godling still. So, so unpredictable.

Was this an invitation to hang out? He was unsure what to make of the situation. Maybe this was exactly what people talked about when speaking of encounters with him.

“You wanna wait for Wil?”

Fundy frowned at what he said and Tommy quickly searched for what he could have done wrong here to cause that reaction. He didn't find an obvious mistake. Maybe it was because he had not looked him in the eye?

“Yeah,” Fun answered and Tommy looked up to his eyes quickly only to find his pupils widen and narrow at him as they adjusted to the new light conditions. Fundy's eyes were brown, or they tried to mimic brown. Orange? “That's the plan. You know him?”

Tommy nodded slowly and his mind raced through the information he had. It did not really make sense for Fundy to show up here. Of what he knew, Wilbur did not even raise his child himself, and Fun barely connected to him spiritually or in any records he skimmed through with Niki. Wilbur did not talk about him either. Tommy formed his answer carefully. “I... ehm...do know him, that's how you can call that.”

Fundy's presence heightened suddenly as if he had pulled a puppet on a string straight up in the air to make it stretch out its spine more than the structure of the doll allowed. It stayed distant enough for Tommy to only feel vaguely threatened. Fundy kept his distance on purpose, he could feel that.

“Tell me more.”

“How about we wait for Wilbur to join us for that?”, Tommy asked, now with a smile that he hoped did not look as forced as it felt. He would prefer Wil spinning the narrative and him just agreeing with it.

“That wouldn't save you. If I wanted to skin you for any reason, I'd just do it anyway, and if it just was to eat it,” Fundy declared in a tone that was too confident for Tommy's liking. The Voices pressed up snugly against his conscience at the mention of violence against him, crying out as if they were merely scared to miss something.

“I would not do that if I was you,” Tommy said, keeping his tone simple and friendly, and pushed his hair behind his ear to draw Fundy's attention to the gold hoops he wore. “Tech wouldn't approve.”

The following low snarl leaving Fundy's throat was an empty threat and not based on any real aggression. It was not like he really wanted to hurt him, Tommy did not give him a reason, but it was obvious he did not like being kept in check like that by the witchling's status. Tommy still took a step back. “You got some nerves, witch.”

“Practice.”

“Touché for now, I'd say. I won't skin you.”

“Surely the more diplomatic decision. So we will wait for Wilbur then? You can have whatever is in the fridge.”

Fundy cackled, and it sounded like it was not meant for human ears. Tommy was unable to interpret its meaning, but by how he just turned and confidently walked towards the kitchen next to the inner court of Kristin's statue, Tommy just assumed it was meant as a peace offering.

It ended up with him sitting at the middle counter on his barstool that he sat on every time he spent time here eating or talking to Wilbur; and Fundy tearing apart the inside of the fridge. The God did not look concerned with orderly eating, but Tommy lit a candle and did not watch him more than necessary. He had shoved his book tote bag under the table and hoped it would stay undiscovered. Or at least, unquestioned.

Once, he caught a glance at him and almost envied him a bit, sitting in front of the still halfway left open fridge on the floor with crossed legs, biting into a whole cabbage as if he particularly enjoyed the crunching sound it made. Tommy felt strange seeing it. Fundy suddenly seemed younger than him, and raw in his behaviour. The emotion that coated his bones in response to that was heavy and stretched out. Longing, maybe.

Tommy wished he could talk to someone his age. Another teenager. Tommy missed Tubbo and Ranboo, and while he knew he did, he acted like he had not seen that thought cross his ever moving mind.

“Is it true that you shapeshift?”, Tommy asked without deciding to speak.

The crunching sound stopped for a moment and Fundy shuffled gently.

“Yeah.”

“How so? Don't all Gods do that? Somehow?”

They did, or so he understood and watched it. Wilbur never seemed to have the same skin details or teeth structure twice he saw him. Techno's height changed drastically every time, and he adjusted his hair colour and texture as well. Philza barely changed as it seemed, but sometimes Tommy caught a detail that was off.

“Dumbass. They don't shapeshift. They build a new body every time they decide to switch realms and layers. That's complex. Stuff goes wrong or is changed sometimes. They will adjust stuff they need, but never really move too far from the blueprint. That's different, if you're a student of Techno, you should know that,” Fundy spoke and crunched down at his cabbage once more.

Tommy hummed and swung his legs back and forth. Fundy wasn't wrong, he did technically know that, but not really at the same time. He didn't know the difference. He thought that counted fine.

“And you shift forms freely?”

“Yeah.”

“So you could look completely different in the next moment?”

“I could,” Fundy munched with his mouth full.

“You turn into animals?”

“Yup.”

“Switch gender?”

“Switch sexes, yeah. All Gods can do that. Technically.”

Tommy desperately tried to imagine that with the Gods he got to know by now.

“They don't really seem to do that very often,” he noted then.

“I mean, obviously. Would you if you could?”

“No? I'm male. I like that how it is.”

“Ya got your answer.”

Fundy's got a point. Tommy nodded and tapped all ten of his fingertips on the table repeatedly while thinking. The God continued crunching away at his cabbage, then the sounds suddenly stopped. Tommy side eyed him for a moment only to find that he finished eating the entire thing, stem and all.

“So what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Some books call you a she or Wilbur's daughter, just wanting to get that right when I have you here already,” Tommy said and hoped he was not being too disrespectful with how he worded the question.

Fundy did not really seem offended, but he scrunched his nose and started answering right away as if he was eager to correct.

“I didn't resonate with my birth sex, so I changed it. Some books are old, or ignorant. The ones my witches wrote are much better, obviously.”

“That's what I thought, but good to have it confirmed.”

Now Tommy could use the right language when he decided to return to insulting Fundy behind his back in the future.

“How do Gods get born anyway?”

“Pal. If you want to know where babies come from, go ask your mum.”

“I'll ask your mum.”

“Yeah, go do that.”

“Yeah, I will!”

Speaking of which, Tommy stopped tapping on the table and pressed his lips into a thinner line. He could not feel Wil around yet, but he could be wrong. Who knew.

“Why did you come here?”, Tommy asked carefully.

“None of your business.”

“I guess that's right.”

“Yeah, it is.”

Mission failed. Wilbur did not appear out of thin air. The fridge door slowly closed and the two were left in the dim light of the large red candle Tommy lit up earlier, in silence this time. Fundy stayed sitting on the floor without making a move to get up or sit on one of the bar stools instead, and Tommy did not move from his place. The kitchen swam in dim silence.

“Do you play Mario Party?”, Tommy heard himself ask quietly and was met with more silence. He already thought he would not get an answer, but Fundy replied in the end.

“I do, sometimes.”

“Who do you pick to play as?”

“Toad.”

“That's so lame.”

“You're lame.”

“Your mum is lame.”

“Yeah, he is.”

Tommy pulled a face as if he had stubbed his toe somewhere. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Who do you play as?”, Fundy asked and forced him to drop the topic.

“Yoshi,” Tommy said and almost got lost in a memory of fighting another kid back at the orphanage who also wanted to play as Yoshi that one time. He could not handle someone else playing as Yoshi.

“Wow, and you say Toad is the lame one.”

“Guess we're both lame then.”

“Guess so.”

Tommy refused to look at Fundy. He stared at the slowly melting wax and the shadows on the counter. As long as he could not see his eyes reflect the candle light so brightly it blinded him, as long as he could ignore the sharp teeth and the inhumane body language, as long as he could talk to him for a moment without him cackling – Tommy could pretend he was talking to just another kid.

Chapter Text

Fundy stayed the rest of the night, and Tommy found himself having no problem with that. Not even when he had to verbally defend his honour to Fundy's banter.

He even thought he did a great job with it, if he was being honest.

Tommy stopped asking too many questions after a while as soon as he got the memo that Fundy would barely respond in a serious manner. Instead, he was spreading clear misinformation for fun.

“You should be equipped to know better than that,” Fundy snickered at some point after he tried to convince Tommy that cats would stand up on their hind legs when he spoke to them, and answer him.

But only on Halloween.

“How would I know that?”, Tommy asked, sounding frustrated. He learned something ridiculous every day. Cats that talked to you on Halloween were one of the less unrealistic concepts he heard in the past months of his life.

“Because it sounds outrageously made up and I kinda expected some critical thinking skills.”

“Everything sounds made up when it comes out of your mouth.”

“That should get you thinking.”

“Go eat another cabbage or something.”

Fundy had tilted his head and raised his eyebrows in considering interest at that comment. Then he had searched for another head of cabbage in the fridge, but was left empty handed in the end. He complained afterwards, accusing Tommy of tempting him.

Tommy didn't fight it. He only tried to keep up with the mood in the kitchen in order to mirror whatever Fundy gave him to work with. His words tended to be light hearted while his attention stayed on the God.

When Tommy got up from the table once, Fundy snarled at him warningly and he sat down again. When he asked if he could use the bathroom, Fundy nodded and came with him, waiting in front of the door. When he asked if he needed anything, Fundy told him to not ask that again, so he didn't ask again.

Not once did Fundy act like this was not a hostage situation, despite the relatively normal banter and conversation, and Tommy found himself appreciating the honesty. The God was clear when he communicated the behaviour he expected of Tommy, but he did not hold grudges or change his mind in between setting these rules.

Fundy didn't play some elaborate manipulation game, and Tommy could work with that. Tommy was good at that. Tommy could handle Wilbur and his frantic mood swings paired with unclear expectations. Fundy felt like he was a God set on... easy mode.

It was hard to think of them as related. Tommy could obviously make an assumption to that. He had been held hostage by both now, after all.

The witchling let Fundy pace through the kitchen without commenting, he let him sit on the floor, the counters, or the table. He let him circle the table at some point repeatedly. He let him cackle and screech again in the middle of humorous sentences without making it topic. Fundy went back to using it to replace his acted out human laugh as soon as he realised Tommy didn't shy off him for that. Tommy couldn't see why he would. It sounded much more like the version of Fundy the God let him see in their conversations.

This was the most pleasant experience being a hostage Tommy had ever been in.

He wasn't afraid, not much at least. Sometimes, the sane part of his brain tried to remind him that this was in fact a very dangerous situation to be in. Tommy didn't lie to himself though. He was glad he had someone new to talk to and make pop culture references with.

Even if he realised his own were... outdated. Not having a phone was a disadvantage when it came to trying to outdo Fundy in the battle of meme referring.

Tommy tried to not think about it too much. It'd hurt if he did. It was stupid, very much so even, but it felt like Tommy had lost something important to him. Again.

Their banter stopped by sunrise because Tommy was half asleep on his folded arms on the table.

He was tired. He would like to have an opinion on the situation at hand, but nothing would form in his mind. Nothing meaningful would appear when he tried to more consciously. He accepted it and hoped he'd get out of this just as he had gotten out of the last pile of shit situation before. And the one before. And the one before that one.

And the one before that.

He always made it out somehow. Feeling surprised at that he did after it happened felt futile. Tommy drifted off to sleep.

Wilbur's existence brushed faintly on the edge of his conscience and he assumed it to be a dream for who knows how long. Yet upon feeling the characteristic drag and pseudo-haptic of it, Tommy lifted his head tiredly.

Fundy reacted as well, or maybe he had reacted even earlier. Tommy wouldn't know, he had not paid attention as closely. The Godling had gotten up.

“There we go,” Tommy sighed gently and put his head in his hands. Would this just brush over him as well? He could not decide if he wanted that or not. Did it really matter if he was a prop in Fundy's hands or in Wilbur's?

“What's this supposed to mean?”, Wil asked when he entered the kitchen only mere moments later.

“Not much in particular,” Fundy responded and gestured weakly. “I wondered if you were still alive, so I came checking. I found this one in the hallways. Didn't want him to hurt himself, so I thought I'd take him with me.”

Wil's eyes darted between him and Tommy, and Tommy wanted to scratch his skin off his body at the feeling that coated it. Wilbur radiated some weird mixture of anger and shame, and Tommy hated how it rubbed off on him. And with how Fundy spoke, he felt like a stray.

“Very alive, very much so.”

“Good. Good.”

“Tommy, go to bed,” Wilbur ordered him.

Tommy felt himself getting up from the table mindlessly, but Fundy reached out his arm to stop him, putting him behind it and separating him further from Wilbur.

“I think this could be interesting for him too.”

“I disagree.”

“What do you think, Tommy?”, Fundy asked.

“I...”

“He disagrees,” Wilbur repeated sharply.

Fundy snarled instantly, almost cutting off Wil's word. His inhuman screeching turned back into human speech in the middle of it. “Why didn't you cut out his tongue yet then? Wouldn't that make it easier?”

“Fundy,” Wilbur snarled back warningly. Tommy flinched, and Fundy did not.

“I don't like that you do this,” he said, but despite not twitching it sounded like he had gotten kicked down a notch. Or maybe he just didn't want to provoke an escalation further.

“I saved him. It's for the better. That's how we do things here. It is none of your business and I don't like that you make it yours right now.”

“For the better?” Fundy asked. His arm was still up, keeping Tommy behind him without touching him.

Tommy didn't understand what was going on. He didn't get what the issue was, or what Fundy thought the issue was. Wilbur did save him. Things were not perfect here, but they were at least structured and less chaotic than back at the orphanage. Someone cared here. Maybe it wasn't good care, Tommy couldn't judge it because he lost his ability to know right from wrong long ago, but it was care.

“It's better than back where I came from,” Tommy chimed in quietly. His voice sounded tired, even to himself.

Fundy looked over his shoulder briefly, and the candlelight reflected in his eyes. It disturbed Tommy's field of view and he couldn't tell what Fundy could be thinking. Or feeling. Tommy looked away when it got too much for him.

“Wilbur, you can't grab into lives and decide what's for the better or not. You knew what you were doing. You picked someone who's not able to fight back, and tied him to you.”

“Tommy is very able to fight back,” Wil corrected. “He's strong, and he did just that a long time because he didn't understand what's good for him. Until he realised it is for the better.”

“He's a teenager. He has no idea.”

“You're a teenager, Fundy. You do?”

The silence was deafening and Tommy rubbed his flat hand over his face. His head was spinning as soon as he had his eyes covered. A sudden spark of Wilbur's silent attention resting down on him had him look up.

“Tommy, go to bed,” he ordered again. “My son and I have some things to talk about and we would not want to bother you with that when you've been up all night.”

“Okay,” Tommy replied quietly and stepped around Fundy's arm that was still raised protectively. He didn't understand. He hated that he did not, but he was simply too tired to think. Fundy slowly dropped his arm. When Tommy glanced back over his shoulder once to look at him, he thought he saw hurt in the Godling's face. But maybe it was just anger. Or longing. Or understanding.

“Sorry, kid,” he said.

“Sorry, kid,” Tommy repeated back at him and turned back to slowly leave the kitchen. For a moment, he wished he could go back to tell Wilbur to sit his ass down and listen, since he could not shake the feeling that Fundy had something very important to tell.

They could not save each other that morning.

“I just feel like everyone has an opinion on what I'm supposed to do... or be,” Tommy heard himself say without it sounding like his voice. It was his voice, he knew that, but the words felt wrong when they fell from his tongue. The very same tongue Wilbur could have cut out.

But he hadn't.

“Mh,” Techno answered. The hum was short and low in tone. One could think he was disinterested, but not Tommy. Tommy felt the interest. It was soft, wide, even pressure right on the back of his neck. It spiked up to crawl up the back of his skull sometimes, and that was when he knew Techno's gaze shifted on him without having to look at the God.

Tommy stared at the low coffee table in front of him. He sunk into the worn out seat he was sitting on, the book (“Advanced Necromancy”) he had been reading before Techno joined him was closed and squished between his chest and knees. The walls of the small study room he called his own seemed to sit tighter around them today. The God must have felt his bubbling emotional distress, and joined him in silence when he returned to the temple.

Techno hadn't judged him on the choice of literature either, despite the flash of recognition that rushed over his face at first when he had seen Tommy's pathetic attempt to hide it. The only thing Techno had said was to ask before the witchling wanted to try anything, and afterwards the book was left uncommented on.

“Fundy said I wouldn't know how to fight back, and that's why Wilbur picked me out. That doesn't make sense to me though, why would Wilbur want a weak follower? Or you, why would you want that?”, Tommy asked the coffee table.

“Mhh.”

“I feel like Fundy tried to decide what I should want or not, all while he accused Wilbur of doing the very same thing,” Tommy huffed in frustration.

“What do you want?”

“I want to read this book and finish up my homework before Niki tears me a new one for not getting done with it. And be on time for dinner before Wilbur tears me a new one.”

“Mh.”

“I'm too fucking busy all day to think about what I want.”

Techno shifted on the couch and Tommy looked up to him for a split second. The God had a different form. He was shorter than last time, his body shape slightly different. His skintone was slightly different than last time too, his red hair featured soft waves instead of being straight. A ponytail. A beard. A changed scar pattern to his face. A split eyebrow. A mole on his cheek where there was none last time. A gold ring through the middle of his bottom lip in addition to the usual piercing collection in his ears.

A different form Techno wore like a piece of clothing. And it was still him nonetheless.

And most of them ridiculously fancily dressed. Today, it was a red sink button up and black dress pants. Wide sleeve cuffs forced the fabric to sit just right, always. Style seemed to be a pretty important part of Techno's pseudo-human life.

When Tommy didn't continue to speak, Techno cleared his throat.

“Fundy and Wilbur have their history, but it's none you should be concerned with. Like that at least,” he said.

“What the fuck happened that they hate each other like that?”

“They don't hate each other,” Techno said and his voice was calm and deep. It was like a bandaid to Tommy's rubbed raw nerves. “But Wilbur didn't exactly earn an A+ parenting medal, you know?”

“What did he do?”

“Well, firstly, he gave Fundy away when he was a baby because he had him out of a hasty affair with a nymph and was not able to care for him in between Godhood business. Wilbur lives quite the ever-changing lifestyle. He handles his faith the same way. No environment to raise a child, let alone one that is half God, half nature spirit. Or... or whatever other blood Sally carried in her veins. I'm unfamiliar with her ancestry and it is hard to say for her kind,” Techno explained calmly. “Sally didn't want him either. Which was for the best, you know? I would not put it past Sally that she would have eaten or abandoned him if forced to keep him around.”

“Eaten?” Tommy frowned and waited for the punchline, but it seemed like Techno was... pretty serious.

“Nymph folk,” Techno said as if that explained everything and maybe it did. “Fundy was given to a High Priestess of Kristin. Phil had that idea to keep him in the hands of the family.”

“Like Niki?” Tommy sounded confused. “Tell me about that.”

“Like Niki, but far before Niki's time” Techno agreed. “It was the best choice back then. She had the time and skill, and Death's covens were even much stronger back then than they are right now. Fundy got hurt one time, very much, and they managed a chain or rituals that brought him back. That'd be unheard of in today's time, bringing back a Godling...” Techno trailed off, used his teeth to scrape the gold piercing in his lip like he was playing with it and cleared his throat. “I would have taken Fundy, but I was very busy myself and Phil was too. Phil tried his best. Sometimes I regret I couldn't do more for him either, but let's say I saw him more than Wil saw him.”

“Didn't know Gods could bite the grass,” Tommy mentioned offhandedly.

“They can when they are young and it happens. Sometimes.”

“Or be brought back.”

“When Death touches a God today, it is Death, Tommy. The golden days of witches that strong and that organised to pull something like that off are over.”

Tommy nodded, settling into that reality. It was hard to imagine a time where the covens were that large and that powerful. Even Kristin's, who still held the most devoted followers of all. He decided on asking Niki for a more detailed history lesson soon.

“So Wilbur was a shit parent and Fundy had a bone to pick with him. Fundy is also a genetic clusterfuck. Got it.”

“Something like that. I can imagine him not being happy about being abandoned and then his parent turns around and keeps a human child around like he does with you,” Techno answered.

Tommy pulled a face and scrunched up his nose. “That's not exactly my fault.”

“It's not,” Techno replied easily as if that was not even up for debate. It probably was not, Tommy thought. “But emotions are rarely rational. Fundy can feel like that without it being your fault or affecting you.”

Tommy snorted and hugged his knees. He rocked from side to side a few times and stilled again. Emotions.

“I don't know what to make out of this. I'm scared Wilbur will be mad at me for something,” Tommy expressed quietly. “It was so confusing. I don't know what's right.”

“Why would he be?”

“Maybe because I broke some rule he didn't tell me about until now. Who knows? Or because I talked to Fundy at all,” Tommy set his chin down on his knees. “It was... nice to do that though. I miss talking to people.”

Techno's red eyes moved over Tommy's form. He felt it, the small sparks whenever his gaze moved and focused. The connection he felt to him was insane, despite the fact they barely saw each other. Tommy talked more, speaking his mind freely without much of a care.

“I miss you too,” he said, and another spark shot up his spine. Jumpy, hopping up until it reached the base of his skull. Surprise? Tommy looked and caught Techno's gaze. “You're barely around. I'm stuck with Wilbur of all people and have to listen how he doesn't like that I want to eat the same thing for the fifth time in a row or can't sleep, or want to spend a bit longer with Niki. Or whatever else.”

Techno was still silent. Tommy lost his filter as he pieced more of his emotions and thoughts together.

“I can feel whenever you get close to the temple but don't visit. You check on me, then go wherever. Or you send your... terrifying ghost army-tornado-whatever to do that. You know, I was sure for a moment I shared my mind with like a thousand other things when you did that at first. I swear they are around so often and I really try to ignore them.”

“They can be a lot,” Techno confirmed.

“I can feel you die too,” Tommy blurted out. “Your bodies. I didn't know what it was at first. Its like a tug and a ripping feeling and then you're gone for a second. And then you come back. I don't like that. I'd appreciate if you could just... I don't know, die less, you know?”

Techno raised one of his eyebrows. It was the split one. “You can feel that?”

“Yeah. It's terrifying. Makes me feel like you'll leave me behind with the manic idiot for good,” Tommy tried to joke, but his voice cracked.

“Elaborate?”, Techno asked, his tone more technical now. More serious.

“On what?”

“Why do you know my body dies in those moments?”

“Well, I don't know what the fuck you're doing when you're not here but I'd assume some ultra political war business,” Tommy said. “And you changing forms feels like you're just... shifting? Changing a bit. Moving? But when you die, you literally rip away from me. The voices get distressed too. It's different.”

“You know those are just... bodies, right?” Techno asked and his heavily ringed hand gestured towards himself. The gold caught Tommy's gaze. Wide, chunky rings. It was the light that reflected on them that made Tommy follow his hand with his eyes.

“Well, that doesn't make it less terrifying for me, man.”

Techno set his hand down and hummed. Silence rested down on them. Tommy chewed on the inside of his lips and cheek.

“Sorry,” he said.

“No. I appreciate it. It shouldn't surprise me that you think and feel that way,” Techno replied casually. “Thank you for reminding me of my responsibility towards you. I wanted you, I claimed you, and now you tell me you don't feel cared for and I bring you worry. I tried to ease it off a bit, but looks like I was wrong. I didn't do enough. I'm sorry.”

It was Tommy's turn to raise his eyebrows. His expression formed without him knowing what emotion exactly it tried to show. He would have to check that in a mirror to identify it. He felt strange and a bit uneasy about Techno's apology, but his mind could not find a reason why not to trust him.

“Uh... I.. Thank you?” Tommy asked, completely dazzled over in surprise.

Techno looked like he was searching for something in Tommy's face. The witchling didn't hold his line long until he looked past Techno again, the eye contact with those deep red irises made him so nervous he had the urge to scratch over his forearms until the feeling died down.

“Would you like to come with me sometime? See what I do when I'm not around? Maybe pick up your first responsibilities as my witch?”, Techno offered.

“Are you serious?”

“I mean it. I want to make more room for you. I gave you a very special place in my coven structure and looking at what you are studying and reading at the moment,” Techno said and gestured towards Tommy's book. “You have come far enough in your studies to be shown off a bit.”

Chapter Text

It took another week until Tommy was finally, finally stepping foot out of the temple again and when he did, he almost felt like turning around on his heel and walking back in.

The sun had gotten stronger. There was no sign of frost or rests of snow anywhere, and birds sung carelessly into the soft wind. Tommy needed a minute to adjust to the feeling and the knowledge sinking in that he was not just in one of the inner courtyards of the temple, but actually outside of it. What month was it...?

“Come,” Niki said next to him and he blinked, having forgotten that she was standing next to him.

“Right.”

Niki gave him a smile that he could only describe as gentle and started walking down the path. Tommy kept up, but he did turn his head around at some point to look at the temple building from the outside. He had only seen it once yet, and back then it was dark. He had not seen much at all, and now it became apparent why. He turned completely and took a few steps backwards.

The building was made from dark purple and blue stone that would blend into the night sky perfectly. A few high towers twisted and turned into the sky. It didn't seem to follow much shape at all, besides a general direction of upwards. Not everything looked like it was built at the same time. Tommy let his eyes glide over the towers specifically. They looked newer than the base of the building. The left side crumbled in some places, and of what Tommy could see the windows there still had old glass in them. The one with the thicker circle in the middle from where the glass plate was attached to a rod and spun by a glassblower. Still handmade. The right and top sides of the building had another architecture style to it, and the windows were smooth.

The main gate of the temple was framed in gold. Tommy remembered that part, he had seen it when Techno brought him here at first, but now with the sun shining and reflecting on it, it looked much more impressive

“Niki, what's up with the shape of the temple?”, he asked as he slowly turned back around before he could accidentally trip and eat shit from walking backwards.

“What confuses you?”

“Well, it looks... a bit slapped together if I'm being honest. Not badly, it looks great of course. I just wondered if there was a plan when people built this or nah.”

“Nah,” Niki repeated. “No plan besides Lady Death's orders at the times.”

She stopped and turned around to face the temple and he did the same again.

“The towers are the newest additions, actually. They replaced old parts of the building that were destroyed in the last war.”

Tommy felt how a deep frown carved into his face. He squinted and side eyed Niki. Her lessons had touched on the last war, just like history class did too, but he had been under the impression that religion had not been involved in it. Or was it collateral damage?

“Just a question, but I don't remember Kristin having anything to do with that? It was a political thing, right?”

“It was, Kristin was not involved. But what better way do you have to rob a country of morale than bombing the main temple used to honour the fallen? A few damages were accidental for sure too. High towers just get damaged easily.”

Tommy stared up to the temple walls, his gaze tracing the lines between old and new stone at the base of the towers.

“It's been peaceful, Tommy,” Niki said as if she could read his mind. “This has been very, very long ago. Come on, let's go.”

“Right,” Tommy heard himself say again as he pulled his attention from the temple to follow her.

Niki and him were walking in silence for a while. The path down to the city was a relatively short one, at least it felt like that to Tommy. The way here had felt much longer of what he remembered.

“Okay, but,” he suddenly said again. “Wasn't that extremely stupid? Didn't Kristin take revenge to that? For one of her main temples during that time to get... misused like that?”

“Does Kristin strike you as vengeful?”, Niki asked back calmly.

“She fucking does,” Tommy replied without even hesitating.

Niki let out a snort that sounded more amused than anything. She turned it into a small scoff instead. He saw her gesture out of the corner of his eye but he didn't turn his head to her this time. Instead, he watched the first houses come into view. Seeing civilisation like that was refreshing. Tommy soaked it up like a sponge.

“Well, you're not wrong, but that time she was not. It happened pretty late into the war of what I know. I can imagine her valuing the protection of her covens higher than revenge.”

Tommy accepted that as an answer for now. He also didn't know if some old war ages ago would really interest him in the long run if Niki said it had been peaceful since then. It had been after all. She wasn't wrong.

“Why did you start with what you did?”, Tommy asked her suddenly. His words got unclear now that they reached town. He was not about to out her as a witch to anyone here when she was working hard to keep it concealed.

“Restlessness and disorientation,” Niki responded easily. “I never felt very accepted and I had no place to go, so I had a phase where I'd test out who would accept me. I suppose as all teenagers do. Wilbur did. For a while. Long enough for me to make the jump to Phil and then to Techno. Luckily, they did not come alone either.”

Tommy gave the street in front of them a slow, but empty nod. Niki did not seem like someone who'd have trouble getting accepted, but Tommy knew he only knew this version of her. Not the one she had been before she became this one. He spun the wheel of his mind for a while as he watched his thoughts wander and turn from the fleece of info she gave him to yarn of his own.

“Are you happy with what you do?”

“Most of the time,” the witch answered and Tommy noted her brushing her hair behind her ear. “It is a lot, I won't lie. I often don't sleep much and managing everything is exhausting. But it's what I do. It's what I always did and what's the right thing... I believe.”

The yarn winded up into a ball and Tommy shoved his hands into his pockets. He thought back to Fundy.

Wilbur, you can't grab into lives and decide what's for the better or not. You knew what you were doing. You picked someone who's not able to fight back, and tied him to you.

Tommy couldn't imagine that this was what happened here, or could he?

The city had not changed. It all was like it had been when Tommy left it. Even the people felt the same with their sunken down heads staring at phones, watches or their own shoes as if to make sure their feet would not wander off by themselves if they left them unattended for even a second.

He could swear he had seen every car here before. They all looked the same. Niki and Tommy passed them just as mindlessly. No one would remember their faces. Maybe this was a good thing, to be forgotten the second you passed someone. Just that Niki would return because she lived here. Tommy would not.

“Why Techno?”, he asked.

“Violence often seeks out violence,” Niki replied as if that'd make sense to him.

“No disrespect, but you don't seem very violent.”

“Good.”

Good?

“Have you ever been to one of Techno's covens?”

“No. I didn't know this city had one before you told me. I first thought they would be more rural,” Tommy said, recalling the research he had done ages and ages ago. Looking back, this felt like child's play. He used to have no idea what he was doing.

“It's not very large. You will get clothes when we get there. Change and wait for me. I will probably be busy for a while when we first arrive. I've led the coven for a few months and left it in the hands of another witch, so was not there often recently. I will be catching up,” Niki said and didn't look at Tommy, so she did not see his questioning look. “If anyone asks you who you are, you say you're a claimed witchling and in my class.”

“Do I have classmates?”, Tommy asked and failed to keep his tone from being a bit too snarly with ill-measured sarcasm.

“Not at the moment,” Niki answered bluntly. “You eat up most of my time when it comes to teaching.”

An odd mixture of shame, offence and pride settled into Tommy. He didn't want to take up most of her time, and he didn't want to be seen as so stupid that he had to be babysat all the time. He did want to be Niki's favourite though. Did it really matter why she spent her time on him if it resulted in her doing so?

“Good,” Tommy replied and tried to mirror her tone as much as he managed.

Niki scoffed and if he had to guess, he'd say it sounded amused.

He used to dream about being an only child to a rich couple when he was much younger. Somehow, that dream never disappeared. It just shifted, warped, and mixed with various other things over the years as he got older. As he learned a bit more about how the world seemed to work. He still did not have a great understanding of it, but he did know that attention was attention. Just as money was money, a place to sleep was a place to sleep, and someone who called themselves a friend was a friend.

Tommy kicked a stone over the pavement until he lost it to traffic.

“Do you need a barista for your café? I can learn to make coffee.”

“No, Tom.”

“It's cause I'm ugly, right?”

“It's because you are untrained, underage and unlucky when it comes to who you piss off when you open your mouth.”

“You're making excuses,” Tommy accused her without meaning it. “You can train me and I can keep my mouth shut.”

Niki laughed at him like he had told her a great joke.

The temple was not what Tommy had expected. It was a small, modern building and a stark contrast to what he was used to. It even had a modern letterbox next to the entrance door, set into the grey stone of the wall and labelled with a piece of paper stuck to it with clear tape.

Blood God Union of Peace
7th District

This building did not look like Techno at all, but the moment Tommy reached for the door to hold it open after Niki entered a familiar warmth hit his skin. It tingled and tugged at his hands. The sensation crept under his fingernails and sat there. Tommy wiped off his hands on his jeans, and again on his jacket. The feeling stayed and the placement of it made him grind his teeth in displeasure until it slipped up his fingers and settled in his wrists a few minutes later.

“Union of Peace?”, he whispered to Niki when they crossed the small lobby.

“7th district is mostly responsible for the diplomacy of the covens.”

Tommy nodded. Of course, Techno was not exactly known for diplomatic connections, yet Tommy recalled his lessons easily. Techno's public image had reformed in more modern times. Especially in the watchful eye of the Academy.

He wondered what was done behind closed doors and labelled as Union of Peace.

Niki was greeted with a big smile at the counter and waved through without that Tommy was even being looked at. He did not mind. If he could, he would hide under Niki's arm and hope he'd shrink until he had a floor plan of the building and an overview of the people.

He was left by his only anchor at the men's changing room door after they had passed a few conference rooms. It all looked eerily clean and empty. Even the art that hung at the walls seemed soulless. Tommy would leave if it was not for the slight pull towards the rooms further in the building and the pressing feeling sitting on his shoulders that reminded him that this was part of his home.

It felt like someone had wiped this area clean of anything that could even have a hint of a character, an opinion or an identity. White. Grey. Carpet that took away any sound. Tommy felt like a ghost in here with no idea who he had been in his lifetimes.

“The lockers have numbers and sizes for the clothes on the doors. Just pick any of the size you wear. There is a shoe rack at wall on the other side, straight ahead when you get in,” Niki explained briefly when Tommy set his hand down on the door handle.

“Thanks. You'll be on the other side then?”

“Yes, I'll pick you up. My changing room is a bit away, so it could take a while until I get back to you.”

Tommy chewed on the inside of his cheek. Looked like he would get changed extra slow.

“Don't worry. Everyone is nice,” the witch reassured him as if she had sniffed out his thoughts. Her eyes were pinned to him in such an attentive way that it made his skin crawl.

“I'm not worrying, you're worrying. I'm fine,” Tommy scoffed at her and fled to the changing room, shoving the heavy door shut with too much force. It was the most manly action anyone could have taken in his position, he told himself.

Luckily, the room was empty. Dark grey lockers lined the walls on the left and right and one singular bench was placed in the middle of the room. It smelled like smoke and rosemary. Tommy scrunched his nose and took a few deep breaths to get used to the new scent ambience. It was a lot when coming from such a squeaky clean place that was the lobby and the hallway he just stepped out of.

The source of the scent was a half burnt off bundle of herbs resting on a red plate in the corner of the room on top of a chest of drawers. A ceramic bowl sat next to it to put over the used bundles and put them out. It was the first piece of furniture that looked actually used. A lighter rested next to the plate. Tommy pushed his jacket off his arms and dropped it to the bench. He trod over to the corner lightly, not yet used to hearing his steps again after walking over silencing carpet for the past minutes.

He stared at the bundle of herbs held together by a dark red thread and tried to identify the dried plants. Rosemary and lemongrass. Tommy could tell easily despite them being dry and half burnt. Suddenly, it clicked for him. That was why Niki had forced him through the hell that was botany for weeks.

The way he opened the drawers one by one was shameless and laced with curiosity. Neatly stored dried herbs; labelled rosemary, thyme, lemongrass, blackthorn, ... Tommy skipped over most of them. A clear container with salt. Charcoal. Thread in red and white. One single spool of black thread. Unused candles, all red. A candle holder. A small set of golden bells. A box of matches. Another lighter.

He closed the last drawer again and stared at the plate. Tommy had not much clue about what was allowed and not allowed in the changing room of a Blood God temple, but decided without thinking much about it. He threw out the already used bundle of herbs and rebound a new one with exactly the same plant combination, using the red thread to bind it and tried to recreate the previous one as closely as possible. If someone else used this, it would be right for this place.

When in doubt, copy your non-existent classmate. That was how he got though math class. Couldn't be that wrong.

Tommy inspected his finished cleansing bundle and picked up the lighter. He did not get to strike it. The whole top of the thing spontaneously combusted in his hand.

“Fuck!”, he yelled and dropped it to the floor, jumping back in fear it'd explode.

Nothing happened. The lighter smouldered a spot into the plastic floor, but that was all. Tommy stood there and clutched the bundle of herbs to his chest like an offended old lady clutching her pearls.

His heart was beating and tripping from the sudden rush of adrenaline. Nothing happened. The biting smell of melting plastic was the only consequence. Tommy slowly relaxed his body and scrunched his nose. That was strange.

But one reason more to cleanse the space, even if it just was for the stench. He poked the lighter with the tip of his shoe and flipped it over a few times. Nothing. Damn, how was he going to explain the melted spot he had left not even ten minutes after arriving.

He waited until it cooled off and stopped smoking, then he picked it up. Tommy had honestly no idea how to properly get rid of a faulty lighter. He shook it, and it was empty. No fluid moved inside. Uneasily, he set it down on the fireproof plate and looked for the matches instead.

Not that he had to strike a match either. The moment he picked one of them out, it set itself on fire like it was drenched in gasoline, catching the whole top of the bundle of herbs Tommy hastily picked back up and held against it. He blew at the match in a hurry to get it out, and it stopped burning immediately. The flame died as fast as it came. Tommy killed the flame on the herb bundle and let it glimmer and smoke instead. The smoke regulated down, giving off a nice, even stream of it that only started to ripple and curl at the height of his face.

The witchling was too dumbfounded to comprehend what just happened. He cleared his throat and wiped his hand. Thank fuck he did not burn his hand. Or his eyebrows off. His bundle felt heavy in his right hand, so he quickly got to work to cleanse the space.

Mostly of his own incompetence, he hoped.