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nomsfaultau · 3 days ago

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It was like trying to hold water in cupped hands. Sanity trickling out no matter how tight Tommy pressed his fingers together. Another drop splattering on the bathroom floor. Another second closer to when he finally murdered Tubbo.

Tommy couldn’t trust that his longing to turn Tubbo instead was anything other than vamperic hunger tempting him. Those words Tubbo said pounding in his head over, over, he knows I wouldn’t leave him. He was scared to ask what Tubbo meant by that, if he even understood what the horror of eternity really entailed.

Tommy knew it wasn’t fair, for him to make this choice for Tubbo. But he couldn’t bear to know Tubbo’s answer. Philza had been right about how cruelly selfish a vampire’s love was.

But he wouldn’t be Tubbo, just like Tommy wasn’t Tommy anymore. He was killing his friend either way.

Though a last desperate instinct was screaming at him to run in the handful of moments before dawn and his sanity broke, Tommy couldn’t. What would they do to Tubbo? Close enough to protect his friend was too close to be safe. Surely whatever torture they inflicted would be crueler.

He could tell the moment Tubbo woke by the hitch of his breath. By the creak of the bed he could picture the arc of Tubbo’s body as he stretched, tongue curling with a yawn. The scruffy mess of fluffy hair covering bleary eyes. The flutter of his tantalizing heartbeat. The scurry of nearby prey made his mind skitter out of grasp, and Tommy covered his ears miserably.

But this might be the last time they had together, or had at all. He wanted his friend so, so badly, never mind what that want entailed. All that came out was a low whine at first, and Tommy couched to clear his parched throat. “Big T?” he made out.

“Bossman!” It hurt how excited he sounded. At once Tubbo raced to the door. It refused to budge, stuck behind the rubble of the broken tub, and toilet, and sink, and drawer, and cabinets, and ripped up floor tiles, and every last shred of protection that Tommy could scrounge up. A useless bastion, constructed as it was by Tubbo’s bitter enemy.

“I don’t have much longer, Tubbo.”

“Oh.” A shift, as he unconsciously stepped back. Trepidation laced his voice, soft like he was scared of hurting Tommy. “Can- can you hold out just a little longer?”

Tommy choked on a sudden sob. It was the first time Tubbo had begged for his life, but it wouldn’t be the last. Level now, not scared, yet, eventually screamed when it was too late for Tommy to understand it. But he heard it now, while it could still hurt.

“It’s okay!” Tubbo rushed out. “I don’t need much more time. Just- how long do I have?”

“I’m so sorry Tubbo.”

“Don’t be, just tell me.” It was abrupt, almost a snap. Because of course this was so, so much worse for Tubbo. Tommy shrunk in shame.

“Maybe a day. Two. Didn’t mean to scare you there. Just meant…I won’t be to do this anymore. Like: talking, thinking. Pretending to be a person. The blood I took from Phil wasn’t enough.” He’d licked every last drop off the bathroom floor.

“You bit him?” What kind of monster would do that? Reluctantly, Tommy confirmed. But Tubbo only laughed lightly. “Nice. Reckon it hurt?”

“Um. Probably, I bit the finger clean off.”

“Permanently?”

“Nah. It’ll regen.” Unless it got in sunlight. Not that Philza was stupid enough to.

Their conversation was nice enough, though lulled frequently, both of them distracted. But Tubbo forced the topic to be light, upbeat, and Tommy wouldn’t ruin it for the world. They ignored what was to come. They had to. And so the friends talked about movies they wanted to see, and old childhood memories, and pretended to make weekend plans for a future that didn’t exist. He could hear Tubbo pace, full of energetic life despite it all. The rustling of something or other. It did something funny to his back brain, like dangling something in front of a cat. The conversation listed to the side as it became harder to concentrated

He slipped deeper into the familiar haze. His last wound was too long ago, but he was running out of fresh areas. And maybe Philza was right, that his desperate attempt to postpone Tubbo’s death had really only hastened it. Without blood the healing was slow. But he had time. Plummeting fast, so so much quicker than last time as the brief high petered out. Tubbo’s conversation came in random bursts, and he couldn’t tell if it was because he had nothing to say or if Tommy was losing his grasp that quick.

The scent of fresh blood burst into his nostrils, and in a blink he was at the door, inhuman strength blurring limbs as he ripped away the mounds of ruins barring the door.

Tommy caught himself on the threshold. Claws sunk in deep as if that could hold himself back. Too eager. Alarm bells ringing. Tubbo, stop, protect-

“You can drain animals, right? Cause I’ll feel stupid having gone through all this effort if not.”

The days of holding himself back nearly crumbled as Tubbo opened the door. It only grew worse as the human immediately drained seeing him, horror captured in round eyes. The feeding hiss poured out of Tommy’s throat automatically. And a blur as he lost control, and teeth sinking into flesh, and sweet fresh blood.

What was he eating? The question was small in his head, drowning. So unimportant. He was finally fed. But persistent in a way that was annoying.

What was he eating? Who was he eating?

Tubbo. Tubbo what if it’s Tubbo stop you can’t Tubbo no Tubbo- but he couldn’t pry his jaws open even as he began to panic, the world was a blur of blood. How much had he drunk? Was it already too late?

“Philza did that to you?”

It wrenched Tommy’s focus out of the blood thirst fueled spiral. Meat squelched in his hands as he unclenched his pulverizing grasp, staring vacantly at the dead rat turned to bloody pulp. Yes. Philza did this to him. Turned him into something so desperate it would eat a dead rat.

Unsure of how he got here, Tommy slowly looked up to Tubbo as the human gently knelt before him. As Tubbo reached for him, for an irrational moment Tommy thought he meant to steal the rat before he was done, and clutched it protectively to his chest. But Tubbo carefully ghosted over the deep gouges and bitemarks in Tommy’s arms. “He- in the bathroom, he was snarling so much and I couldn’t protect you since you wouldn’t open the door! And look at you! you’re half dead!”

He stared at Tubbo in utter bewilderment. “I am dead.” After months of broken bones and pulverized flesh from escapes casually dismissed by his coven, Tommy couldn’t understand why Tubbo was so upset, using ripped sheet strips at once to wrap up injuries already beginning to recover with the recent feeding. The Jawless One alone was proof enough a vampire could survive no matter how mangled. How quickly he’d unlearned sixteen years of human education upon the subjects of pain and lethality. Philza, Technoblade, and the Jawless One were swift teachers.

“It’s fine really,” he assured, uncomfortable with Tubbo’s empathy. “It’ll heal with more blood.”

Tubbo thrust his wrist forward. “Here. Dessert? You can control it now that you’ve had the rat right? So it’s fine.” Tommy shook his head adamantly. Huffing, Tubbo rolled his eyes. “You judge dying children for needing transfusions do you? Innit literally just a blood donation?”

“No.”

“Why? You homophobic, too? Cause that’s the only other reason someone’s refused to let me donate.”

“I’m not homophobic!” Tommy laughed. A mistake, since Tubbo shoved his wrist into Tommy’s open mouth. He froze on soft skin, then spat it out. “Ew! You’re gross from not bathing for so long. Nooo thanks. Plus I think it makes me more homophobic if I do eat a gay person.”

“Why? Scared to suck another man?” He laughed as Tommy shoved him back. “Come onnnnn just a small amount? Not too much, since I haven’t eaten either and might pass out.” Tommy stared at the corpse, then glanced to Tubbo as he wiped the blood dripping off his chin and licked his stained hands. Uh. Tommy grabbed the rat by the tail and shoved it in Tubbo’s direction. Tubbo pulled a face. “No thanks big T. We don’t have a way to cook it. I don’t need to be dealing with diarrhea while we- are trapped in here. Anyway. Uh. Quick question I’ve only just now thought of this very second: how good is vampire hearing?”

“It’s- pretty good. Why?” Tubbo’s head jerked to the door. “Wait you think they’ve been listening to us the whole time??”

Tubbo gave him a ‘seriously dude!?’ expression then announced, “what? Why would they? Especially after we were saying nothing for days. Surely it’d be boring.” He rolled his eyes while tapping a finger to his pursed lips. But…if Tubbo had been measuring his words the whole time, why risk letting Tommy know his line of thought now? Well, besides the fact he finally felt sentient again. Amazed, he asked Tubbo how he managed to kill the rat. “Well, human hearing is just good enough I could barely hear them at night. So that’s why I wondered if it was driving you nuts, too,” he covered. “I had some crumbs in my pocket. Not enough for me, but Mickey over there couldn’t help himself. Didn’t know what was coming when my trap kicked in!”

“What trap?”

“…waiting until it was close enough and braining it with a giant book.”

“You’re a genius,” he said, and meant it.

Tubbo grinned. “Definitely! Here, now that you’re normal again you can help me make a trap. You’ll have as many rats as you want, bossman.” Only, he winked. And then winked again as Tommy stared at him blankly. Then nudged Tommy with his elbow. Then sighed in defeat, and dragged Tommy to the bathroom, pointing repeatedly at the window.

Tommy shook his head furiously. Tubbo nodded just as furiously. Tommy shook his head even harder, blurring at inhuman speeds. Scowling, Tubbo stalked back out, seizing something and dragging it in. At once Tommy’s eyes were transfixed by the stake in his fist. It took a second to rip his gaze away to the long coils of tied together cloth strips. Tubbo lifted the heavy tangle of objects tied to the end for weight, swinging slightly. Pain stakingly -uh, not literally- he pantomimed actions until Tommy cottoned on. A zipline? Well he supposed it made sense, Tubbo couldn’t exactly fly. Philza had surely counted on Tubbo being slow, weak, a liability that would ensure their quick recapture.

The vampires had underestimated Tubbo. So had Tommy. He eyed the stake casually shoved in one of Tubbo’s pockets.

“You weren’t making the- just in case I…?”

Tubbo blinked at him. “That…wasn’t what I designed it for, no.” But by the hesitation, it became so. Tubbo tried to apologize through eyes alone for granting the only hope that had kept Tommy going.

“Good. Good. The fact you had it made me feel better.”

Tubbo’s expression was horrible. “Welp. Is what it is.”

With Tommy’s help, he broke the window out of the frame to maximize the size. Tubbo tingled the escape efforts, already there silently pantomiming the next step as if having run through it mentally hundreds of times. He grinned wildly, sticking his head out the window to survey the shadowed plummet below. Past the most to the dark forest and beyond, the horizon stretching out.

And then he hesitated for the first time, turning back. “Can you?” Tubbo asked, haloed in sunlight. Just the verge of dawn, before the full brunt of day would bear down. The confidence that he glowed with flickered, uncertainty growing. All the questions he couldn’t have asked, scared of being overheard and his plan revealed. Because, truly, it was a plan only a human could make.

And, well. Tubbo wouldn’t leave without him.

Tommy grinned. “Naw, it’s a myth. Just irritating.” The way Tubbo beamed at him, full of hope, had to be more than worth the lie.

I had a dream about vampire dark sbi, where Tommy was turned into a fledgling against his will and was desperate to escape. His coven had other ideas however, and so Tommy was constantly getting hunted down by Philza, Techno, and the Jawless One.

oh. Were you you expecting Wilbur? No that dude is problematic, and my dream presented the ideal solution: replacing him with a monster made of long mangled limbs and a ripped off jaw that dangles on a thread of viscera. So I’m just sayin, here’s how 4/4 can still work-

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