#but hey! this is my life now. exams have begun so i'm editing fics when i should be revising in class

[painless-innit-colourful]

'Blind Trust'

AU where Tommy loses his memory temporarily on being resurrected, and when he leaves the prison, he has no idea who he is or who he can trust. Tubbo's nowhere to be found (not that he even knows him). Jack wants him dead. Ranboo's the only one he feels safe with. TW for vague references to the abuse of the exile/prison arc, and a bit of blood.

Something happened to him, he’s pretty sure.

He remembers pain. He remembers fear. He remembers a feeling beyond both of those things, a ripping sensation, a great agony, a fearsome sense of loss. He seems to remember a feeling like being ripped apart, and then reassembled, only like it happened a hundred times, fracturing him to pieces, nothing but apathy for any parts of him lost along the way. He thinks he knows what it’s like to be caught in a seemingly endless cycle of neither existing or not. The ache in his bones, the pounding in his skull, the itchy tremor beneath his skin - he imagines this is what death feels like. He imagines that he’s known death, tasted it, danced in its cold hold, and somehow, evaded it, somehow let go.

But that would be crazy.

Only there’s one more major issue.

Whatever happened, he can’t remember.

Panic rises; he pushes against it, disliking the familiar sensation of drowning. He takes stock of what he does know. The green man he was trapped with, he’s not nice. The green man that let him out… He’s not nice either. Without even knowing why, he’d stood, shaking violently next to his rescuer, and whispered “You left me. You left me in there with him.” He can’t even remember if that’s true.

There are items in his pockets, things in the tatty backpack on his back. He has food. He has blocks. There are no books, no labels in the clothes, no receipts or cards or papers. Nothing that tells him anything about who he was. Is. The items are too heavy, too many random things, what’s he gonna do with all this random paraphernalia? Too much, too little. Nothing that he feels any immediate attraction or attachment to. Nothing that gives him a clue as to who he is. If he’s anyone at all.

There’s a trident, mixed in with the assortment of random blocks. He puts the bag back on his shoulders and holds it with one hand, weighing it against nothing but the pain in his heart. It evokes a lonely feeling. It smells like salty water. It tastes like tears.

He soars through the air, and if he closes his eyes, he’s somewhere else, flying over a calm sapphire ocean. The water is still, the air is heavy, the stars are so near. He’s one of them, part of the sky, just another light for the uncaring mortals below, going about their business as if nothing has changed, as if he wasn’t once part of their society and now he’s nothing but dust, no tears shed, no love lost, as if he never mattered, as if he won’t be missed-

The ground reaches up to meet him, and he crashes into its embrace, and something inside him is terribly, terribly broken. He can’t have been like this before, whoever he was. There’s blood, bloody fingers touching a scrape the length of his back, and it seems to multiply, running down his forearms, over his eyes, pooling beneath him as if to pronounce him dead then and there. He scrambles away, and it reaches for him, tendrils like vines trying to claim him, undo him already. He’s been reborn, delivered from whoever this body belonged to before to this new life, but whatever has given him the chance is already taking back their gift. He rifles through the backpack looking for something to wrap around his wound, something to hide the bloodstains, something to make it go away, please make it go away-

He comes up with a high vis jacket - bloody hell, was he a lollipop man? - and it’s barely anything but it certainly distracts from the crimson, so it’ll do. His trousers are stained an unnecessary shade of red, and he’s panting with an unnecessary terror. He isn’t under attack. He isn’t being attacked. He isn’t going to be killed.

With an uneasiness that feels unearned, he walks along the wooden path ahead of him, away from the imposing black building that threatens to suffocate him with helplessness everytime he looks at it. There’s a petite, yellow building decorated with purple flowers, round like globes and sweetly-fragranced. He reaches out to touch one, to hold it in his hand, and it seems to disintegrate between his fingers, a tiny explosion of colour that withers into nothing like a candle being extinguished. He steps away quickly before it starts turning red too.

Speaking of red, he backs directly into the perimeter fence of a ruby-red monolith, striped and vaguely-rectangular in shape. He’s about to turn and retreat from that too (before he breaks anything else), when he spots a man, standing stoically by the door, wearing a high vis jacket. Before he knows it, the boy is pushing through the fence and approaching with a vain curiosity. ‘You’re dressed like me!’ He wants to call out, because this man is the first that doesn’t immediately strike him with the urge to run for his life.

Confusingly, the man doesn’t react immediately to his approach, gaze directed ahead with a thousand yard stare. He is surprised, naturally, when the man’s head turns sharply and looks him in the eyes. “WELCOME BACK TO THE BIG INNIT HOTEL TOMMYINNIT!! IT IS GOOD TO SEE YOU AGAIN…”

“AAH-!” He shrieks, flailing violently backwards and falling on his ass. His breath comes out in short pants.

“YOU SURE WERE GONE A WHILE TOMMYINNIT… WE MISSED YOU…”

Was that his name? What is this crazy guy talking about? The words were summoning scraps of memories that reached out to each other, trying to build bridges and webs between each other, colouring the gaps between themselves with bright blues and warm greens and soothing beiges; yet the webs collapsed as soon as they formed, like they were made by the world’s most ineffective spider. At least he knows he had once belonged here now…

“What are you making a fuss abou-” From the building emerges a nearly bald man wearing hi-tech glasses, and the boy is hit with two knee-jerk reactions. The first one, a sense of camaraderie, the urge to smile and joke and tease. And the second is the blaring of his danger sense like a nuclear siren, screaming at him to run, get away, get away quick and hide.

“What the f-” The man roughly taps the blue side of his glasses, leering at the boy. “...No- What the fuck.”

“I don’t know anything!” The boy throws his hands up, instinctual surrender. “I don’t have anything!”

“What are you-”

“Why are you saying that?” He squeaks, fear clogging his throat.

The man swipes his hands through the air, cutting the boy off. “No, shut- Bigger elephant in the room, why are you alive?”

He freezes, his body dumping all the adrenaline he thought a boy his size could hold into his bloodstream, his limbs tensing to sprint away. Any second now the weapons would come out, the red would return, he can’t do this, he can’t do this, he can’t do this-

“You’re dead- You’re dead! You died!” The man’s voice is rising until he's almost shouting, yet the frightened boy stops backing away, because something doesn’t make sense, this doesn’t seem like a threat- No, this is- this-

“I grieved for you.” Their eyes meet, and despite the statement, the glare from behind the red and blue lenses is cold and unforgiving, and it sends a shiver through him. “You’re not back.”

“I- I don’t know what you mean…” He raises his hands defensively, but instead of swinging, the man just laughs with a sound like rolling thunder.

“Oh don’t play dumb with me Tommy. No one comes back-” He catches himself. “I mean, most people don’t come back.”

“I- I don’t understand…” He mutters. “I… died?”

The man crosses his arms, scoffing with immense disapproval and scorn. “You wanna speak up? Or d’you want to keep playing stupid? Because I’m not an idiot Tommy. Do you take me for a fool?”

“I don’t know what’s going on!” His hoarse whisper comes out as a shout, and his hands fly to his hair, gripping the strands like they're a rope someone would use to rescue him. “I can’t remember what’s happened, and you keep saying I’ve- died- and nothing makes sense and I don’t even know who you are…” His voice cracks and breaks as he struggles to get the words out, process their meaning, determine their level of truth. Then it shatters, dropping to barely above a whisper again as his knees shake with the effort of keeping him on his feet. He chances a glance at the man’s expression, apprehensively waiting for his judgement, and is met with a glare to rival Medusa’s.

“You don’t know who I am.” His tone is level, and yet, threat runs through it like a river, threatening to catch him in the rapids, pull him under and fill his lungs full of lies, or his own blood, or worse. The man reaches up to push his glasses back up his nose, and the boy flinches back onto the main path. “You are so… selfish.” He opens his mouth to counter, but no sound comes out. “You’re selfish! Shit like this… This is why you deserved this. This is why you should’ve stayed dead.”

Why does that hurt so much? He wants to reach through the fog in his mind, knock down the walls and see this man as he should’ve. Their history- It's all in there somewhere! Somewhere, locked away, inaccessible, painfully so. He hugs his arms to his chest, they are already bloody, he realises, the bandages to protect his bleeding heart.

“I mourned you! I grieved for you, and now I remember why I wanted you dead.”

That's it, he’s gone, he's scrambling along the path, he’s clumsily vaulting the gate, grazing his knees, tears staining his cheeks, hands gripping his sides, nails breaking skin, heart and feet thudding the rhythm to a song he barely remembers, ‘Stay alive, stay alive-’

Terrified and confused and so, so weary, he runs until he can no longer see the black building, or the yellow one with the flowers, or the red one that feels so familiar in a hopeless way. He follows the hills and dips of the wooden path, feet falling into familiar grooves as he winds along the peaks and troughs, past peculiar buildings and strange establishments. Eyes watch him as he goes, their murmured exchanges commenting on his appearance or his desperation or no doubt what he’s done, what he can’t remember, how bad he’s been. He’s a freak, he thinks he hears someone say. There’s more red: twirling vines undulating down towers or wrapping tendrils around infrastructure. It reaches for him; it beckons to him with a hissing voice. He dashes harder: he wants away. From everything, and everyone.

He runs until his lungs hurt, until his legs are screaming at him to stop, and he all but collapses outside a brick house. He’s on his hands and knees, although he doesn’t remember falling, and he touches his head to the floor like he’s praying, and that’s when he hears the solitary voice:

“Tommy?”

Oh shit a brick.

“Please- I’ll go, please just- Let me go-” The words barely make it past his raw throat. His eyes meet that of the enderboy’s ahead of him, and he feels frozen to the spot, and it sends another shot of panic through him. He doesn’t know how much more he can take. “Please- Just let me go.”

The boy with his half-and-half complexion and fascinating eyes approaches, palms facing Tommy - for that’s got to be his name by now - like he’s closing in on a skittish cat. “You’re- Oh… You’re-” He’s slack-jawed, and then he suddenly snaps out of whatever awed trance he’s slipping into, and comes even closer. “Tommy? Are you alright? It’s only me, it’s-” He seems to cringe slightly, for some reason. “-It’s Ranboo.”

“Ranboo.” His mouth forms the word, tastes it. It tastes… sweet. Not sweet like honey but like… a cake. Time slows, the world stops spinning like a top, and the ground settles beneath Tommy. There are no warning sirens harmonising with this boy. His heart rate slows gradually as the much taller boy crouches by his side. “You’re- You’re here…”

“Ranboo,” He says quietly. “Why is everyone looking at me like I just came back from the dead?” The question echoes in the immediate quiet, and he fears the answer to an irrational degree. “Um…” Promising start. “Obviously you know what happened, I mean- Or what everyone thinks.” He amends on catching sight of Tommy’s changing face, as his heart sinks further towards his stomach.

“Ranboo.” He takes a shaky breath. “I can’t remember anything before- before- before the big black building and some green fucker- I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why people hate me, I don’t know what’s going on-!”

“Whoa, okay.” One of Ranboo’s hands, the black one, lands on his side, the touch sending an involuntary shiver through him. “Do you… Do you remember me?”

The question is innocent enough, but all the muscles in Tommy’s body tense again, preparing themselves for the next mad dash downtown. There seems to be a terminal ahead, he could change direction and lose him-

“N- No.”

“Right, okay,” The older boy chuckles to himself. “That explains a lot actually.” Tommy’s danger sense flickers. “What- What do you mean?”

Ranboo’s smile is not cruel, nor does it inspire machiavelli; it’s kindly and soothing. “You and I… We have an on-off friendship. I don’t think you’ve properly decided whether you like me or not.”

“Why don’t I like you?”

He shrugs, looking bemused. “Would you believe me if I said I have memory problems too?”

And Tommy actually chuckles at that. “Maybe.” He swipes at some of the tears drying tracks into his face. Ranboo watches the motion intently. “...Are you okay?”

“I-” He pauses, a thousand answers taking their turn on the end of his tongue, before what comes out is: “No. I don’t remember anything, I barely know my own name, I- people hate me and I don’t know why, and- Everything hurts. Listen to me, Ranboo, I have these terrible- like, flashes of something, where everything hurts and it feels like I’m being ripped apart but the whole world is dark and cold and- and-”

The whole world is not dark and cold, though the outside of Ranboo’s jacket is. It must look a peculiar sight, he supposes, one teenager holding another, both sitting down on a public highway, but it’s happening.

It’s happening, he realises. It’s real. Someone’s holding him.

...Okay.

“You’re alright.” Ranboo murmurs, and Tommy leans into the hug, bringing his arms up to place weakly around Ranboo’s middle. “You’re okay, you’re alright.” The words surround them in the quiet, sentinels standing guard against the rest of the world.

“I’m not.” He replies involuntarily.

“Okay.” Ranboo concedes. “But you will be.”

A long moment passes, and then Tommy speaks again, for a reason he can’t grasp. “Ranboo, I- don’t seem like a very good person. This guy - I think I used to know him - he called me selfish, told me he wished I’d stayed dead. I don’t think people… like me very much.” But to that, Ranboo only shrugs.

“I wouldn’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a bit rough around the edges, but you’re alright really.”

“I’m alright?”

“You’re human. As messy and mortal as us all.”

It’s as if in that moment, the floodgates open. Tommy suddenly remembers himself. He knows the pattern of the flag of L’Manberg, he knows Tubbo’s preferred way of having his coffee (no milk, two sugars), he knows Wilbur’s favourite songs and which ones Techno will throw a sword at you for singing. He knows - partially - why Jack hates him, and incidentally, who Jack is. He knows that he died, and how, and what and who he saw beyond, and why he was stuck there in the first place. And he knows all the details of his complicated relationship with the boy whose arms he’s currently occupying.

And he pushes it all away. He snuggles closer to Ranboo, closes his eyes, and leaves it for later, logical operation be damned.

Turns out a blind instinct can be right.