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peninkwrites · 8 months

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Hear no evil. See no evil. Speak no evil. - Ch 8 of ?

A lot goes on. Eggs, Nukes, and Trauma abound.

crossposted to ao3

Ch 1

Ch 7

Ch 9 (all chapters going forward will be on ao3)

Something Tubbo has longed for since the Red Festival happens, and it is strange and terrible beyond comprehension.

Tommy is signing rapidly, still in his hardhat from Sam Nook, he’s had Tubbo wear one as well. Tubbo likes Sam Nook. His default mode of speaking is subtitled, even if it had taken Tubbo a moment to register that the machine used Sam’s Comm ID but definitely wasn’t Sam talking. Tubbo hadn’t realized that the robot didn’t even talk until Tommy told him so.

“There’s this…” Tommy hesitates in his signs, looking for the word. “Egg.”

“Egg?” Tubbo frowns, assuming Tommy had gotten the sign wrong or he’s mixed it up, but Tommy nods.

“Egg,” Tommy signs again. “Makes red on the server.”

“That’s what that is?!”

Tommy stops him sharply from walking along the prime path. “Wrong!” He signs sharply, pointing at Bad and Ant. “Wrong… U. N. S.”

“Wronguns?” Tubbo laughs.

Tommy nods sharply. “Follow!” Tommy motions urgently, before sprinting past Bad and Antfrost alongside the prime path. Tubbo follows, stopping to give Bad a wave, and he sees Tommy hopping frantically in the corner of his eye, motioning him away. Tubbo hurries.

Tommy motions him into the church, gesturing to the font of holy water. Tubbo stares at it, puzzled, until Tommy deigns to shove him in.

“What the hell, man?!”

“Clean!” Tommy signs. “Take!” He points to the suits arranged around the church.

Tubbo deigns to go along with it, as is usually easiest with Tommy, and puts on the suit.

Tommy takes him to the spider farm. Then, he takes him further. They enter a massive cavern that had been cut out of stone. It is currently covered in a layer of red growth, vines and various plant matter have overtaken stone. Tubbo shivers. Tommy strides across it, fearless and without protection, signing back to him, “feel it?”

“What?” Tubbo sticks to a disjointed wooden path, the thought of stepping onto the strange, porous plants leaves him uneasy.

“I don’t feel it,” Tommy signs. “Other people love it or hate it. Do you?”

“That’s the egg?” Tubbo approaches the back corner, where Tommy stands on top of something with a strange, thick shell covered in red moss. It’s clearly dense underneath, as Tommy is able to stand on it.

Tommy nods. “Take off suit to feel it. Weird. It talks. Talked to me. Be careful. It’s dangerous–”

Tommy hasn’t even finished the sign and Tubbo has slung off the cloak from church prime. It talks to people? Tubbo doesn’t exactly consider that to be a concern of his.

Do you tire of silence, little one..?

Tubbo screams, staggering back, hands covering his ears, as for the first time in months he hears a voice other than his own. It is unnatural, a deep, roaring hum, its words comprehensible and nonetheless foreign. Tubbo doesn’t remember if sound used to be like this, if it only hurts because he has been without it for so long, or–

I know what you make out in the ice. Do you wish to see the consequences of your broken atoms, or to hear them..?

Tubbo collapses to his knees, hunched over, cowering between vines thick as tree trunks, hands clasped tightly over his ears. Its voice is loud and deep and inhuman. Covering his ears does not silence it. It is not merely words spoken in his consciousness, he is hearing them, undeniably, he is hearing it echoing around the chamber, but nonetheless unhindered by Tubbo’s desperate attempts to silence it.

Tubbo does not see visions of his family dying. The egg caters to its audience, and instead, the first time Tubbo hears his friend’s voices in so long, they are not truly theirs.

“Tubbo, please! Please, how could you do this?! How could you–”

“It burns! I– I can’t see! There’s nothing left! There’s nothing left–”

Those words deteriorate into screams, pleading joined by explosions and shattered by agony as Tubbo hears the end times. The voices, one sounds like Tommy, an impossibility, a sound he has longed for, and finally he hears it again and it hurts. The other voice is deeper, even when shaken by terror, and Tubbo knows it must be Ranboo’s, he feels it almost like pain deep in his chest. It can only be Ranboo’s. The first time he hears Ranboo’s voice, and it is a corruption, an infernal infection caused by this thing prying into his head, not real words from someone he cares for.

“Shut up! Shut up! P-Please– Please just stop! Make it stop make it stop make it stop–” Tubbo screams until his voice breaks, he feels tears blur the red vines in his vision and he screams all the harsher when someone’s trembling hand touches his shoulder. Tubbo looks up sharply, Tommy’s face pale with fear is staring at him. Behind Tommy, standing on top of the Egg, are Ant and Bad. They look far more threatening than they had on the prime path.

“Run soon!” Tommy signs frantically.

Tubbo doesn’t stand, he remains on his knees, hands clasped over his ears, even as the screams have faded. Tommy grabs his hand, dragging him to his feet. Tommy turns back to face Bad and Ant. He cannot sign at them properly without letting go of Tubbo’s hand and he would have a hard time pulling free with how tight Tubbo is holding onto him.

Bad says something, Tubbo can see his mouth moving from a face far paler than he remembers, all red drained away. Then, Bad signs: “do you like the egg?”

Tommy looks over at Tubbo, nodding frantically.

Tubbo feels dizzy. He nods. He realizes he’s still crying, and from the way Tommy is looking at him, he isn’t exactly doing so quietly. Tommy pries his hand free from Tubbo’s and Tubbo grasps desperately at where Tommy had left him behind, struggling to catch his breath, the spores clogging his throat, as more pain sharp as grief builds in his chest.

“We love the Egg!” Tommy signs quickly. “Friends of the Egg!”

Tubbo still feels unsteady, there’s still this droning noise piercing his skull, as if mocking him, no longer screams, no longer that inhuman voice, merely an array of voices once familiar talking over each other, a chorus of not the dead, but from voices that are now dead to him. He hasn’t heard them in so long, and he struggles to distinguish words but he doesn’t know if that matters. Tommy has let go of him, so Tubbo curls on the ground once more, hunched over, hands pressed to his ears, and he screams, if only to try to drown out the sound. It has made him weak, it tempts him to lie there among the vines and crimson moss until true silence eats what’s left of him, and it’s all he can do to keep screaming and hope the voice stops.

He feels someone grab his arm, pull him to his feet, and he knows it isn’t Tommy. He sees Tommy held aside by Ant with a hand on his shoulder, and Tubbo sees Bad guiding him forward, holding onto him tightly. Bad points to an obsidian box.

If you stay, it will get better. If you stay, you will hear pleasant things…

Tubbo tries to scream louder than that vile fucking voice, but he can’t. He cannot truly hear himself, not the way he hears this thing. Not a fucking option, not a fucking option–

Tubbo tears free of Bad’s hold on him, stumbling back, gasping for breath around sobs. Whatever vile temptation has dug into his skull, telling him to remain, to lay, to give in and let go, it’s not stronger than his revulsion. It’s a primal sort of terror, that voice so fucking alien, sound itself alien to him now, and Tubbo does something he barely understands himself. He leaves Tommy. He has an enderpearl in his inventory and he flings it toward the exit, clawing over vines and up the stone and into the narrow corridor, throwing himself towards the surface, desperate to get away from that fucking voice piercing his brain.

He makes it out to a world of blissful silence, only the usual monotonous hum which replaced his hearing all those months ago. He turns around. Tommy has not followed.

Tubbo flinches when his comm goes off, only to be swept with relief.

<awesamdude> I AM SAM NOOK… I SHALL BE TAKING THESSE CHILDREN WITH ME… THEY ARE UNDER MY PROTECTION…

“Oh, thank god–” Tubbo mumbles, irritated that his own voice, heard in his head, felt in his body, doesn’t sound as real as that vile thing had. He has a fire charge in his inventory and not much else. He runs across the surface to a building directly above the Egg. In it, there is a hole in the ground directly on top of the egg.

Tubbo, rage overtaking fear, falls through the tunnel and onto the egg, catching himself with a water bucket, lighting it with the fire charge, and sprinting away. He looks back and sees Bad speaking to him, he sees the flames, but they do nothing. The egg itself remains un-charred and whole.

The message repeats, his comm lighting up out of the corner of his eye.

<awesamdude> I AM SAM NOOK… I SHALL BE TAKING THESE CHILDREN WITH ME… THEY ARE UNDER MY PROTECTION…

He doesn’t know what’s happening, only that Tommy has pearled across the room and is also running for the exit. Tubbo follows. He doesn’t stop until they reach the holy lands. Tubbo struggles to catch his breath, staring at Bad and Ant across the border. He doesn’t know how to tell Tommy what had just happened to him, and he doesn’t know what to do when Tommy doesn’t ask. He doesn’t think Tommy has ever seen him break down like that. Tommy just motions him back over to the church, dunking his head in holy water and nodding for Tubbo to follow.

Tubbo does, and the cool water alone clears his head a bit, but he still feels dizzy and strange. When his head is under water, the dull tone that covers his hearing sounds different. Tommy sits back on the quartz tile floor, looking as weary as Tubbo feels.

“I… I heard–” Tubbo begins hoarsely, but he’s interrupted by Tommy jumping to his feet, eyes lighting up, signing rapidly to Sam Nook who has followed them into the holy lands. So Tubbo goes quiet. He thinks of Ranboo’s voice.

Ranboo is doing his best not to panic. This is not his forte.

That stupid, awful voice had told him, he blew up the community house, and he has Tommy’s disc tucked away somewhere. He just has to look for it, and when he turns up empty-handed, he’ll know for sure it wasn’t him.

So, he digs. He has a habit of keeping things buried, and if it’s going to be anywhere, it will be underneath his house.

“I-If it’s there, if it’s down here, that means I–” Ranboo tries to keep his calm. If he loses it, he cries and if he cries he loses a lot more. “I blew up the community house. Everything the voice said, I–” Ranboo keeps digging. “It can’t be, it can’t be down here, it just can’t–”

Ranboo digs for a long time. He destroys his yard, and he finds nothing. The sun has come out from behind the clouds, and the messy piles of dirt blur as if covered by a fog and still, he looks. Through the haze, he doesn’t see a chest.

He’s safe.

He can’t remember it, he can’t see it, so he’s safe.

Ranboo begins to cover up the yard. He doesn’t look too closely as he does.

He’s okay. He’s safe. Everyone is safe. Ranboo has reassured himself; he is not a traitor, he couldn’t have been the one to blow up the community house. He had searched underneath his house for a chest, one that awful voice warned him of, and he couldn’t find it. Therefore, he’s done nothing wrong, right? There was no disc, there was no evidence tucked away, at least not that he could see.

Not that he could see.

And if he couldn’t see it, he could ignore it. It wouldn’t be his problem. That’s what he continues to tell himself, anyway. To ward off the persistent dread.

The dread persists nonetheless.

Ranboo begins an awful habit.

“I think I… I think I did something bad, Tubbo. Something I can’t remember,” Ranboo murmurs softly as Tubbo gathers the fallen logs for firewood, his back to Ranboo so there is no chance of him reading lips. “I think… I think maybe I’ve done a lot of things I can’t remember, a-and before, it was just… just a little scary, because I didn’t know what happened, but I didn’t… I didn’t know what I did… what… what I’ve done… that it might be something I didn’t want to do, or– or shouldn’t want to do, and I’m starting to think there’s parts of me that I… that I don’t understand. I don’t understand it, I–” Ranboo shuts up sharply when Tubbo turns back to face him.

“Did you say something, Bossman?” Tubbo looks up at him.

Ranboo quickly shakes his head and the lie fits like a noose around his neck.

“Well, then help me carry this, will you?” Tubbo teases, offering up the logs. He’d offered to gather firewood closer to the mainlands, even if it’s more of a trip back. He knows that Ranboo doesn’t like Snowchester.

Ranboo nods and takes them. His chest aches when Tubbo’s hand brushes against his as he passes them off.

Ranboo wants to spend time with Philza and Technoblade. He knows maybe he shouldn’t, but the pair had been kind to him. Ranboo hates the trip out to the arctic. He can cope with the cool dark of the Nether roof following the vibrant orange of the Nether, but going from that to the harsh white of the snow, that’s where it gets harder. He’s most tolerant going there at night, which, he fears is an imposition. Gods forbid should he ask them for an escort to their home, which he’ll admit is the only alternative he can see to how disorienting it can be to navigate the nether roof only by the coordinates on his comm, only to be blinded by sun so he stumbles across the snowdrifts and fall more than once.

Snowchester is more merciful than the Commune. There’s heavy tree coverage to shade the landscape, the area around the bay is neatly outlined by water and ice instead of just snow. It helps a little. It helps more when Tubbo meets him in the middle, when his friend comes to his little house just down the beach from Niki’s old Bakery.

Tubbo doesn’t know about the panic room. That’s important. Ranboo needs to keep it that way. The blindness nor his friend’s efforts to spend time with him stop him from isolating himself. It’s easier to just mine. It’s dark, the space simple and easily defined. All he must do is dig forward. He doesn’t notice ores often, but the particles are always very eager to point out what he misses. So he keeps digging, and he doesn’t think of what could wait on the surface.

Tommy doesn’t come out to Snowchester very often, nor does Ranboo. When Ranboo does visit, it is with evident unease. The one reassurance offered, even as Tubbo feels bad for it, is that Ranboo has yet to notice the rather literal warning signs. The doors of the warehouses marked out in vibrant yellow, warning of nuclear radiation. Ranboo doesn’t see it. That makes things easier.

And despite whatever horrors the Egg tried to offer as warning, Tubbo continues. If anything, he feels spurred on. He has one more thing to protect them from. There isn’t much room for error in nuclear physics, largely because it all remains hypothetical until the last moment. Tubbo does plan to test it in a practical way, but when that day comes, there still won’t be a margin for error, considering error could result in the total destruction of the entire SMP.

This doesn’t stop him from working on it, because he needs something to keep them safe. Dream is locked away in prison. Tubbo doesn’t want him locked away in prison. He wants him dead. He wants Tommy to be able to laugh again. If he cannot have those things, he’ll at least make sure that should Dream try to hurt them again, he’ll do so with the weighted threat of annihilation.

There are few complications outside of the science of it all, and the science Tubbo manages just fine, but other things. Tubbo won’t be able to hear the sirens. For himself, he knows it won’t matter much. He will always be the one behind the button, even on a dead man’s switch. Still, the nagging thought persists. What if he assumes they’re going off, but they’re faulty? What if his family receives no warning because he couldn’t tell they were busted?

It’s small things that reassure him, but not quiet things. It’s him registering Jack shrieking in surprise when something sparks in his face, it’s flashing lights he’d installed in the lab warning him of excess radiation. He can hear––sense?–– tones, in a vague, weak sense, if he’s not distracted, but he hopes that’s enough that when his sirens shake the air, he will recognize them. He also adds flashing lights to his list of safety measures. It's so much effort and design into something he prays he will never use.

It takes up so much of his time, so much so, he didn’t realize what he had neglected to put his brain towards. When he runs into Sam, who has also been holed up somewhere, somewhere far darker than Snowchester, Sam is relieved to see him, looking like he’s desperate for a distraction.

Sam starts talking. Tubbo reads his lips and guesses something like, “have (add?) you but (put?)...ought (taught? bought? thought?)” some word he completely misses, then: “ …earring ate?” That’s useless. Sam talks for about five seconds before he realizes, clearly looking embarrassed.

He hesitates over his signs, but having known Callahan for so long, he knows some. “I… idea.” Very little.

“Oh yeah? Lay it on me, Sam. I’m not keen on prison so I hope it’s not that,” Tubbo laughs and notices Sam wince when he mentions the prison.

Sam hesitates once more, before pointing to his ear, and then back to Tubbo.

“Very true, Sam,” Tubbo says flatly. “That is something I currently do not have.”

Sam grimaces, before motioning him to the side of the prime path, rummaging through his inventory for a tattered notebook stained with redstone.

“P. O. N. K. thinks…” Sam hesitates, clearly unable to explain properly, so instead he just flips to a page with a diagram on it. One with some sort of mechanism hooked to an ear. Tubbo assesses it thoughtfully.

“You… you want to build a hearing aid?” Tubbo asks doubtfully. “Do you… do you think you know how to do that? Like actually?”

Sam hesitates, before nodding. “Ponk’s idea. Asked about your ears.”

“Do they… do they need to like run some tests or something?”

Sam nods quickly.

“Would that work?”

Sam hesitates. He shrugs.

Tubbo is not all that stunned by the idea itself, more so that he hadn’t thought of it yet. He’d been so occupied in figuring out how to make himself into a threat, he hadn’t put any thought into whether or not he could be helped in some way.

“Okay. Um. What does Ponk need from me?”

Another shrug.

“You’re a helpful one, aren’t you, Sam?”

Sam laughs. “You go talk to Ponk?” He signs.

“Right, sure. I can… I can see Ponk.”

He means it. He will. But first, he has a test of his own to run.

Niki and Jack have a plan. They are going to finally get rid of Tommy, and without Tommy, and with Dream in prison, then the server will be at peace. No more destruction, no more wars. All it takes is getting Tommy to the right place at the right time.

Jack told her Tommy spends a lot of time working on his hotel, directing her to a spot along the prime path heading toward Bad and Skeppy’s mansion by the sea. She waits there, burying impatience, as Tommy signs rapidly to that machine Sam built. Tommy turns around and spots her, looking startled, even uneasy. Niki doesn’t know why he would feel uneasy at the sight of her, what has she done?

Still, she smiles at him, and Tommy replies with a wave.

“Hi, Tommy! How are you?” Niki keeps smiling.

Tommy signs something rapidly. Niki had started picking up the basics after the red festival, but when Wil– but later on, she was more distracted working on her secret city and it fell to the wayside.

“Those were… those were letters. I know letters!” Niki’s eyebrows furrow together as she tries to watch his hands, but he’d moved too fast. “Could you… could you sign that again?”

Tommy does so, mockingly slow. “S… P… R… U… C… E…”

“Spruce! Okay, I know where you can find some spruce, Tommy! A lot of it,” Niki says brightly.

Tommy signs something else, something besides letters.

Niki frowns. “I don’t… I don’t know a lot of sign language, Tommy, sorry. Could you spell it out for me?”

Tommy scoffs, waving her off, starting to walk away.

Niki buries sharp irritation. She just needs to get him over there. “Hang on! Tommy, do you need spruce or not?!” Niki keeps up that smile, jogging to catch up with him.

Tommy nods, watching her with narrowed eyes. He signs rapidly, walking backwards so she can at least see the signs, but paying no mind to whether or not she understands it.

“I… I don’t know a lot of signs, Tommy. I can understand if you spell something,” Niki says again, hopefully with her frustration well contained.

Tommy rolls his eyes and turns back around, gesturing ahead, miming enough that Niki understands he means something like lead the way.

“Right! It’s– It’s a bit further out, but there’s a lot of spruce,” Niki moves ahead, checking for the coordinates Jack had sent her. She looks back and sees Tommy following. He’s so quiet. Obviously, he’s quiet, she already knew he came back from exile unable to talk, but that’s all she knows. It’s still unnerving for Tommy to just follow along silently. Maybe it’s a good change. Tommy talked himself into fights on more than one occasion and then left everyone else to pick up the wreckage. The thought is followed by a pang of guilt.

It shouldn’t be guilt. Why should she feel guilty?

“So, Tommy. How are you?” Niki tries to start a conversation, looking back to see Tommy’s hands have not stopped moving and she has probably interrupted whatever rambling he’s managed. Not that she considers that particularly unfair, considering he’s not bothering to do anything to allow her to understand.

Then again, she’d wanted to learn to sign for Tubbo, and she hadn’t.

Tommy signs something.

“Again, Tommy, if you could just spell it–”

“S. O. G. O. O. D. B. R. U. V.”

Niki murmurs it under her breath. “Good! I’m glad.”

Tommy walks further ahead, pointing at her, before signing, “W. E. I. R. D.”

“Me… weird… oh! I’m not being weird, Tommy! We just– We just haven’t talked in a while!”

Tommy gives her a look. “T. A. L. K. E. D. N. O. T. F. U. N. N. Y.”

“Talked… not funny…” Niki says it aloud. “Right, sorry! You– You know what I meant,” she laughs, uneasy.

Tommy starts chopping down a tree the moment they cross over into Snowchester. Niki needs him further away. Much further away.

“I bet Tubbo won’t… won’t appreciate you chopping down his trees. Come on! I know a spot, it’s far away from Tubbo’s place,” Niki points back over the hills in the direction of Jack’s coordinates. She looks back, and almost wonders if Tommy has gone deaf as well, as he’s utterly unresponsive, his focus entirely on taking down the tree in front of him. Niki steps into his line of sight. “Tommy? Can I show you the place? It’s got lots of spruce wood.”

Tommy lowers his axe, looking irritable. He switches over to a shovel and mimes like he’s going to hit her over the head with it. Niki is in full netherite and not actually concerned, but she steps back. Finally, Tommy gives her a very fake smile and a borderline malicious thumbs-up, gesturing once more for her to lead and for him to follow.

It’s still so strange. Tommy is clearly still trying his best to be annoying, but it doesn’t work the same now. Niki doesn’t understand it. What could have possibly happened to make Tommy of all people fall silent? Surely, it could only be physical damage that could put a stop to his endless rambling. Niki’s hand goes to her own throat, and she resists a shiver. It’s not like the alternative is any prettier. Niki knows plenty about psychological damage, about not eating, not sleeping, never coming out of the underground until she forgot what the sun felt like…

But that’s a different sort of pain to whatever did this to Tommy. Whatever. It’s not whatever did this, she knows it was Dream. They all do. It’s always been Dream and Tommy, fighting and causing problems. Although, Tommy’s voice is what caused so much of the harm. Maybe if he can’t goad Dream into destroying entire nations–

Niki stops that line of logic. Even with all the pain Tommy has caused her, it feels wrong to frame it that way. As if Tommy dictates what Dream does, as if he is responsible for losing his own voice. Niki knows he’s responsible for some of the harm done. He has to be, because Wilbur isn’t around anymore to reckon with her hurt.

Niki turns back and realizes Tommy has once more stopped to chop down a tree. “Tommy! I think we should go this way, Tubbo won’t like it if we chop down his trees.”

Tommy once more switches over to a shovel and waves it threateningly at her, putting it away in order to sign something very quickly that Niki imagines must be impolite.

“Tommy, come on, it’ll upset Tubbo! Just, come on, a little further.”

Tommy throws his hands in the air exasperatedly, stomping after her. He continues to make rude gestures, some of which she recognizes and does not appreciate.

<Tubbo_> [PSA] T - 2 MINS TILL LAUNCH

Niki needs them to move faster, and Tommy is still pausing to chop down trees. “Tommy, we–” she steps closer.

Tommy gestures irritably to the ground. It takes her a moment to realize he’s annoyed that she’s picked up some of his fallen logs into her inventory.

“You’ll– you’ll get those back, just follow me,” Niki turns and storms off toward the shore. “Come on,” she gets in a boat, typing out a quick, panicked message to Jack, begging him to stall. She’s almost surprised when she feels him get into the boat behind her. Despite his wordless whining, he has followed.

They get out into open water.

<Tubbo_> [PSA] T - 1 MINS TILL LAUNCH

Tommy leans forward, showing her his comm screen, tapping the message.

“I– I don’t know what they’re doing, um. I don’t know,” Niki tries to row faster.

<JackManifoldTV> NVM 3 MORE MINS

Jack comes through and Niki just keeps rowing. Tommy sits behind her, he doesn’t say a word, and he doesn’t cause any trouble beyond tapping his foot impatiently at one point. It’s eerie. She approaches the landmass, all snow and ice, and Tommy leans forward, holding out a spruce log indignantly.

“There’s spruce! There’s definitely spruce, just, over there,” Niki nods, and ahead, further down the shoreline, trees come into view.

Tommy gives her an approving nod, before jumping out of the boat into the frigid water and tridenting ahead. She loses sight of him.

“Tommy?! Where did you go, Tommy?!” Niki calls, before hitting her forehead. He’s not going to answer. She runs further down the frozen shore. “I just want to show you the best place to get spruce wood!” Niki knows she sounds strained, but Jack bought her three minutes, and she is rapidly losing her shot.

Tommy reappears behind her, startling her with a single bolt bouncing harmlessly off her Netherrite chestplate. He puts away his crossbow before twirling his finger by his temple, as if to say crazy? before pointing at her.

“I’m– I’m fine, Tommy, let’s just– Let’s just go this way,” Niki steers him toward the hillside, just over it, a couple hundred more blocks, they’ll be in range. Then, she can lose Tommy and get out of there. Lose him for good.

Tommy is signing something.

“Tommy, I don’t know what you’re saying!” Niki says exasperatedly as he pauses to chop down another tree.

He gives her a scathing look, and Niki doesn’t need a sign to understand his judgment. Whose fault is that?

“Come on, let’s just– let’s just keep moving,” Niki pushes ahead.

Tommy isn’t following, he frowns at her, pointing at her, before signing, “W. E. I. R. D.”

“I am not–”

“W. I. L. B. U. R.”

Niki feels as if she’s been kicked in the chest. “W-Wilbur… what… what about Wilbur?”

He points insistently at her again. “L. I. K. E. W. I. L.”

“I’m like Wilbur?!” Niki says, sharp and almost pained. She has this awful, childish impulse to shout at him, “you’re like Wilbur! You! You break things!” She doesn’t, she merely looks down at her comm.

<Tubbo_> [PSA] T - 1 MINS TILL LAUNCH

Tommy stops to chop down another tree.

“Come on, Tommy! Let me– Let me show you, it’ll be really cool!” Niki is almost pleading at this point. She wants this to be over. She wants all of it to just be over. She wants Wilbur back and she wants L’Manberg back and she wants to see neither of them ever again and maybe she wants to hear Tommy’s chattering, annoying voice or his loud, grating laugh just to know he’s still in there somewhere, but mostly, she wants it to end. “There’s– There’s so much spruce, just– just come over here!”

Tommy frowns, signing, “okay?”

“I’m… I’m okay, just come on–” Niki crests over the next hilltop, before stopping in her tracks. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit!” She hisses, frustration rising in her chest as she stares at a terrible crater. They had been way off, or maybe in the grand scheme of things they had been close. Not close enough. She never even had a chance, not even because Tommy wouldn’t shut up, but this time just because he’d been too busy doing his stupid chores for that robot.

She turns back to Tommy, who runs to catch up, eyes wide, pointing from the crater back to the two of them in amazement.

“Y-Yeah! We were… we were really close to it,” she says, irritation certainly seeping through. Tommy runs ahead, and Niki watches him go. Through the sting of failure and resentment, she wants to know what Tommy might have said. What he’d been trying to say about her and Wilbur. She doesn’t know.

Tommy knows he probably shouldn’t lurk outside the prison, but he can’t stop himself. He wants to tell Dream something. He cannot do that if he can’t talk, because he knows Dream won’t bother to understand signs. And Tommy wants to be able to say it, to prove Dream hasn’t changed him completely.

He works on talking alone, and not only when he’s a hundred blocks up in the sky. That’s almost manageable. It takes some gearing up, but eventually, Tommy can mutter a string of curses with relative ease. Talking to himself is quite different to talking to someone else. He trusts Tubbo and Ranboo, he does, but they feel like an impossibility. Talking in front of anyone feels like an impossibility. Even Tubbo, who he knows physically won’t be able to hear him, it’s the presence at all, another living breathing person with the ability to cause harm, that is what renders him trapped.

He’s still keeping himself busy, so at least he’s not dwelling in it nor spending a concerning amount of time near the prison. Sam Nook sees to that. Tommy continues his tasks, he continues to sign to Sam Nook, and the robot is kind. Kinder than a lot of things have been as of late. Tubbo is kept busy too, evidently with engineering nuclear weaponry, from the crater Tommy and Niki had stumbled into earlier that day. Hence, Sam Nook remains his primary company.

Sam Nook helps in more ways than one. He is safe, safer than others, at least. Tommy doesn’t trust it, not at first. He thinks Sam Nook is reliable, he’s useful, he’s fun to be around, but Tommy has no reason to think he is harmless. Sam Nook can fight. He’s goddamn near invincible from how he was taking on the Eggheads and Jack Manifold, although Jack Manifold isn’t quite as impressive.

Tommy pushes. He always pushes, just to see how far he can get. It’s always better to know exactly what the consequences are.

He and Tubbo had returned to the hotel following the bomb going off. Tommy has grown to find his best friend both awesome and a little terrifying.

“It’s funny, you know? I did the count down and I pressed the button and all that, but it’s not like I heard an explosion. Did you and Niki hear it?”

“Don’t think we got close enough,” Tommy signs.

“Huh. Interesting.”

It grows harder to sign as Tommy makes his way back to the hotel to show Tubbo. Sam Nook is there to greet them.

<awesamdude> YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE HOTEL YES…

Tommy nods.

“Uh huh, uh huh,” Tubbo agrees.

<awesamdude> FOLLOW ME

Sam Nook shows them the entrance, where the front desk will be, and then optimistically says:

<awesamdude> THE FRONT DESK SHOULD BE MANAGED BY YOU TOMMYINNIT…

Tommy crinkles his nose. “No, that’s boring,” he signs. “How the fuck does a mute run a front desk? A very handsome and talented mute, but I can’t do much managing when no one can understand signs.”

Tubbo frowns at him. “What do you mean? You could work the front desk! I could work the front desk.”

Tommy gives him a look. “You’re a mayor,” he signs.

Tubbo laughs. “I’m– I’m a what?”

“Don’t know how to sign your job in… Snow Town,” Tommy signs uncertainly. There isn’t a sign for Snowchester either.

“I mean, I dunno really what I am either, but not a mayor. We’re a commune, not a government.”

Tommy turns back to Sam Nook. “Good job,” he signs. “We’re done for the day?”

<awesamdude> DO YOU THINK THAT YOU COULD DO ANOTHER THING FOR ME…

Tommy rolls his eyes. He wants to grumble, but he has yet to figure out how to do that using signs. He squares his shoulders, stepping up to meet Sam Nook, despite the robot standing about a head taller than him. “What if I say no?” he signs. He gives Sam Nook a sharp nod. “I pay you,” he gestures with his axe now, tapping the blunt of the weapon against its chest so it emits a hollow clang.

<awesamdude> YOU MAY HIT ME IF YOU LIKE TOMMYINNIT…

Tommy hears Tubbo laugh nervously and stares at the comm. He steps back. “Or what?” He signs, wary.

<awesamdude> DO YOU THINK THAT YOU COULD DO ANOTHER THING FOR ME…

Tommy loses some of the tension in his shoulders. He gives Sam Nook a begrudging thumbs up.

<awesamdude> I WILL NOT RAISE MY HANDS AGAINST YOU… I HAVE SPECIFIC INSTRUCTIONS FROM AWESAMDUDE TO PROTECT AND HELP YOU…

Tommy stares at the message. He gives Sam what he hopes is a scathing “okay,” sign, but he stares at his comm again. He doesn’t know why this of all things is what reassures him.

Tommy lingers at the construction site between tasks. He practices, mouthing words softly, never fully verbalized. When he signs, he thinks of it like he means to say it, even if he can’t. Tommy starts at a distance, murmuring to himself while alone on the prime path as he approaches the construction site. Each time, once he gets close enough Sam Nook is in sight, he falls silent. He gives himself goals. This time, he’ll try to keep saying something while Sam Nook is in his sight. Once he does that, he’ll try saying something once he approaches the gate. Once he does that, he’ll try to whisper something while inside the gate. Baby steps. Tiny baby steps. He keeps on cutting himself off, the moment he can hear himself, however soft, bitter sharp panic shoots through his veins like a bolt of lightning and Tommy finds himself frozen, unable to even continue approaching the site until Sam Nook messages him first.

<awesamdude> HELLO TOMMY INNIT… THANK YOU FOR THE SPRUCE LOGS… WE’VE MADE GREAT PROGRESS ON THE HOTEL…

Tommy can’t help but feel gloomy as he does so, as once more he fails himself. If he cannot say a fucking word in front of a fucking robot who has promised to never hit him fucking ever, then how the fuck is he supposed to say something in front of the man who very much had hit him for saying a single fucking word?!

He wishes anger were enough to set him free. It never has been.

It takes days more of gearing himself up, of pushing himself over and over, to finally break through. Tommy had tried practicing, tried mumbling, “fuck, shit, pussy, asshole, fuck, fuck, fuck…” long enough to get through the gate, but once he got that close, once he feared Sam Nook might hear him, he choked. It was the strangest thing, how physical it felt. His words stopped, not by choice, but as if something were holding him by the throat and keeping his voice captive.

Tommy gets inside, he shuts the gate, and he turns around to face the robot. He hasn’t moved yet, the black scanners serving as his eyes will register Tommy’s presence soon, and that gentle chattering of his voice will be followed by a message in chat via Awesamdude’s comm ID. Not yet. Tommy is going to greet him first. He will not step closer, nor allow Sam Nook to speak first. Not until he does this. Tommy feels dizzy, or like he might vomit, but instead he just stands there, hands balled tightly into fists at his sides.

He will not hit you. Even if you hit him, he’s not gonna hit back, he will not fucking hit you. He’s not gonna hit you. He said he wouldn’t. He told you he wouldn’t. He won’t let anyone else hit you neither he said, so fucking do it. He will not hit you.

A whisper he can barely hear, one he assumes Sam Nook won’t hear, and therefore these words are safe, finally, he manages to voice something aloud. “Hi, Sam Nook.”

A pause, the machine turning to angle towards him. The incomprehensible chatter, followed by:

<awesamdude> HI TOMMY INNIT…

Tommy jumps back, goosebumps making him shudder. “Oh, what the fuck–” He squeaks hoarsely, running down the prime path until he’s well outside the construction site. He sees Sam Nook hasn’t followed. He hasn’t raised a hand against him, as he had said he would never do.

<awesamdude> DO YOU HAVE THE SUPPLIES I REQUESTED TOMMYINNIT…

“N-” Tommy starts to say no, but he would have to get a lot louder for Sam Nook to hear him from back here––although perhaps not, as Sam Nook apparently has fucking super hearing––so instead he just shakes his head.

<awesamdude> I CANNOT RESUME WORKING ON THE HOTEL WITHOUT THEM…

Tommy nods shakily, before heading back up the prime path, still trembly and with a racing heart. It is the first time Tommy has spoken in front of a being capable of responding in… Tommy can’t remember how long. It’s been a long time since exile, he supposes. Not long enough. He hates that he knows the last person he spoke aloud to was undeniably Dream. This is progress, though, because surely that’s no longer true. Even if Sam Nook isn’t quite a person, Tommy thinks it should count enough that his last words spoken in conversation are now hi, Sam Nook instead of… whatever he’d said to Dream last. Right. It had been sorry. He doesn’t know if pleading counts as speaking in conversation, especially when the other person had no intention of listening to him. Actually, his last words spoken to another being are technically, oh, what the fuck, which Tommy can at least appreciate.

<awesamdude> ARE YOU ALRIGHT TOMMYINNIT…

Tommy nods quickly. He’s not talking now, so he can safely go back to the build site. He hates that that logic endures, but it’s the only thing that gets him back through that gate.

“Fine, Sam,” Tommy signs. “I don’t have it.”

<awesamdude> THAT IS OKAY… I WILL WAIT FOR YOU TO FINISH SO I CAN RESUME CONSTRUCTION…

Tommy nods again. He did it. He had said something. Only a few words. He doesn’t know why that’s made him feel worse somehow. He stands there for too long.

<awesamdude> ARE YOU SURE YOU ARE ALRIGHT TOMMYINNIT… HAS SOMETHING HAPPENED THAT UPSET YOU… REMEMBER AWESAMDUDE HAS TASKED ME WITH YOUR PROTECTION… I AM HERE TO HELP…

Tommy exhales something almost like a laugh, to Tommy it sounds more like a whimper, but maybe he should be proud it’s a sound at all.

“You help me already,” Tommy signs. He wavers, before signing, “I’m trying,” despite knowing he won’t really understand what Tommy’s referring to.

<awesamdude> YOU ARE DOING A VERY GOOD JOB SO FAR TOMMYINNIT… THE HOTEL IS COMING ALONG NICELY…

“Thanks, Sam,” Tommy signs. He wishes he could say it. He wants to say it. Two more words, said to Sam Nook’s face. He could do it. Sam Nook is built not to hurt him. Built to do the opposite, in fact. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Sam. Thanks, Sam. “T-Th–” Tommy stops. He’s started the panic now, the bouts of adrenaline from his first go of it. He cannot push back against the fear, not as it’s had time to build into a wall in front of him. He could barely manage it before the terror set in. He’s got no fucking shot, not like this. Maybe he’ll try again tomorrow. Until then, Sam Nook treats the signs just the same as words. He’s alright like this, even if he wants it back. He wants all of it back.

#my writing #wahoo this is a long one #dsmp #benchtrio

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