#you can pry platonically intimate clingyduo out of my cold dead hands

[painless-innit-colourful]

‘Come Home’

A TommyInnit & Clingyduo Fic ahead of the final showdown tomorrow - spoilers for today’s (19th) Tommy stream.

tw for events of Exile Arc (skippable if you miss out the entire middle section of the fic, marked by three dashes on their own separate line)

The rush, the high. He’s been chasing this feeling since forever. It’s not a perfect replacement for the real thing, which he hasn’t felt in such a long time. It’s not a fluttering but an explosion, not the strumming of the guitar but the crash of the drums, not the rain but the thunder and lightning, though even that’s become fraught for him recently. He remembers the last time, a wonderful five minutes sandwiched by pain and chaos and destruction. His best friend standing on a stage, new leader of L’Manberg. A fresh start, the promise of peace and prosperity for all around them. But then it was all over, all brought down so quickly. The Tommy that cheered at his best friend’s inauguration is unrecognisable now.

But Tubbo is not, and between the scars and the new outfit and all the words, both spoken and unsaid, it’s still them. Tommy tastes the potion they’ve just made and hears his best friend’s laughter, and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend for a few fleeting seconds that nothing has changed at all. If he opens his eyes, he’ll be back in the camarvan, and Wilbur will walk in through the door with more blaze rods and laugh at the two of them and ruffle his hair. The discs will be in his ender chest if he wants to listen to one with Tubbo. There’s a lake outside the door and a forest and a whole wide world to explore, and Tommy’s only worry is that Punz will yell at him if he sees him for having a ‘Fortnite build battle on his front lawn’ a little while ago. He opens his eyes and then takes another swig of potion to dampen his disappointment.

“Aye careful,” Tommy’s vaguely aware of Tubbo pulling the bottle away from his face before he accidentally upends it on himself. “Don’t want you looking like Sapnap earlier.” Tubbo’s grin is brighter than the sun on snow. “I have no idea what was happening with Cracknap other than he still needs help.” Tubbo’s laughter is soft, “He’s not the only one anymore.”

“Too shay.”

They drift upstairs, and then eventually out the door. It’s around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and there are clouds drifting on the edge of the horizon. They’re dark and heavy-looking, but for now too far away to block the pale winter sunlight keeping the outside temperature a stubborn 10 degrees C. “I should go back to Snowchester.” Tubbo looks restless as they step onto the Prime Path. Tommy knows the feeling. Suddenly tomorrow can’t come soon enough.

“You’ll come back though, right? Tonight, one last ride?” They embrace, squeezing tightly as Tubbo hums an agreement. “Of course. One last ride.” And then they withdraw, and Tubbo gives a small wave as he disappears down the hill towards his highway, and Tommy watches him go. And when he finally looks up, alone with his thoughts once more, he realises he is leaning on the back of his bench; here again, always retreading the same ground. He briefly entertains the idea of putting on a disc and staying a little while, but he doesn’t have any music to live up to the occasion. Not Far, nor Pigstep or Wait, and he still hasn’t sorted out his complicated feelings over his version of Blocks. Besides, he still has things to sort out before the showdown. He walks away to prepare, humming Mellohi lightly as he goes.

---

‘Home’ is a fraught word for Tommy now. Every home the boy has had in this land is either steeped in blood and bad memories, or blown to bits beyond repair. Somedays Tommy wakes up alone and forgets that L’Manberg was wiped off the map, and it comes as a nasty shock when he rounds the corner by his home to see a crater that stretches all the way down to bedrock. Pogtopia never really felt like home, but it was bad enough when it was only soulless stone walls and bashing your head on the lanterns hanging from the ceiling that its inhabitants and visitors had to contend with. After the Manberg Festival, there was an entire room in there that’s sole purpose was to remind Tommy that he didn’t save his friend and couldn’t have if he’d tried, dried blood on the walls and all. Then there's the fact that it’s practically server tradition at this point: if you want to send TommyInnit a message, leave it on signs in his house. Don’t forget to blow up the house first though! Tommy forgets how many times he’s had to put his abode back together; probably about as many times as he’s had to reconstruct himself.

That leaves Logstedshire. Sometimes he agrees with himself that that place doesn’t deserve to be considered a home of his. He sure as hell didn’t want to live there, barely survived his stay, and the place is mostly blown up, the awful icing on the dreadful cake that was his second exile from L’Manberg. He supposes it could be considered weird that he finds himself stepping down a path he never wanted to walk again, but today… Today is about closure. And if he can look Technoblade in the eyes with a belt-full of potions stolen from his chests, he’s brave enough to face his fears in Logsted. As he arrives at the portal, he hesitates, his gaze drifting away from the swirling purple and to the bubbling orange, much further below. So many times has he been here, only then his mind was a much worse thing to own, a clouded mass of hateful thoughts, most of them not his own. Where the bridge meets thin air there are patches of a shimmering wind where the heat takes the place of the nothingness, and if he squints Tommy can imagine himself standing on the edge, wondering what would happen if he'd just let go. He’s glad now that he was in the Overworld when he made the pillar, even if it seemed like he had nowhere to go.

Logstedshire is haunted, even more so than the Nether path. It’s exactly how Tommy remembers it: the broken Nether portal missing a single piece of obsidian, the craters untouched, the pillar still stretching skyward. He can see himself again; on the beach, repairing the chests, standing at the top of the tower. It’s like being in a haunted house where all the ghosts are yourself. But Tommy isn’t afraid. The ‘Drista’ sign makes him laugh, the ocean where he’d wake up drowning (trying to make it home to where? A country that no longer exists) gets a small wave, even the pillar gets a smile, because he’s here to look at it from the ground. It was a bad time in his life - possibly the worst -  but he made it out the other side. And that’s what matters.

There are some craters though, some specific memories that Tommy can’t face yet. The smiling mask of the green man, snatching items out of Tommy’s hands to then force him to watch as he blew them to bits. How he specifically said “I want you to watch.” when he blew up everything Tommy and Ghostbur had managed to scrape together for themselves out there alone. The two-by-two hole in the centre of the largest crater, and how just glancing at it summons Dream’s voice to his mind, taunting him as he grabbed him by the front of his already ripped shirt and hoisted him over the short drop, “Why don’t you get in the hole, Tommy?”

Those still sting. There’s a reason, he supposes, why Wilbur went mad after losing L’Manberg. Why he asked Philza to kill him instead of facing the wreckage all around. But Tommy refuses to be just another repeat of history. Tommy looks into the pit made by Dream’s TNT where scraps of happiness were burned, and he spits at it.

No more.

TommyInnit heads home.

---

Hours pass. Tubbo returns from Snowchester soaked through to the skin but smiling. Tommy helps him peel off several layers of frozen clothing (he decides not to ask in regards to the hazmat suit), finding out that the nukes project is going well but they are presented with the usual issues of living in a frozen tundra: cold.

After Tubbo’s showered and changed, they share a dinner giggling about really dumb topics like Tommy pulling a fast one on Technoblade, Jack Manifold being weird and unhelpful again, and good old GeorgeNotFound. The hours fly by, and it's much later that they’re getting ready for bed when the heavens finally open, and the sound of a heavy downpour seeps in through the cracks of Tommy’s dirt house. Tommy can feel the smile crossing his face until he remembers his house is a dirt shack at present, and mud houses aren’t generally known for being the most watertight. Tubbo gets a good laugh out of his expression when he comes bustling down the stairs dragging his bed behind him, crying out, “Our clothes! Beds! Tubbo-” Their plans changed and they put their beds in the storage room, the room voted Least Likely To Have a Leak by a grand majority of two. The sound of the rain is somehow less muffled down there, and it clatters against the ceiling almost melodically.

Tommy picks up the crossbow from the pile of clothes and other bits and bobs he grabbed from upstairs when the downpour started. ‘Chekhov's Gun’. Wilbur’s gun. As in, actual Alivebur’s weapon, from before he blew up L’Manberg. It feels heavy in his hands. Too heavy. Wilbur’s voice echoes through his head, not the usual line he hears in his nightmares, but similar. 

“You’re never going to be president, Tommy.”

It doesn’t hurt anymore. Wilbur gave him that choice, and he declined. He wonders, with a certain detachment, how it all would’ve turned out if he’d chosen to take the presidency. He certainly wouldn’t have exiled Tubbo.

Tubbo, who’s looking at him with a lopsided grin, standing by his bed and holding his covers aloft, one leg already in bed. It seems like an invitation. “You alright?” Tommy nods and sets down the crossbow and clothes on top of one of the chests, “Yeah… Goodnight Tubs.”

“Goodnight Tommy.”

In the split second before either of them can commit to getting into bed, Tommy hears Wilbur again. This time though, he doesn’t mock him, nor does he sound too far gone to be saved. This iteration of Wilbur Soot wears a captain’s hat instead of a beanie, and speaks with soft conviction, and puts his hands on Tommy’s shoulders like he can shield the teen from the choice that he’s made.

“I want you to do whatever your heart says you should do.”

“Tubbo wait,” Tommy catches his best friend by the arm. Two pairs of blue eyes meet briefly as Tommy pulls him into a hug, putting one hand on the back of Tubbo’s head and messing with the hairs at the nape of his neck. Tubbo’s surprise doesn’t last long, and he hugs back, burying his face in Tommy’s shoulder and balling Tommy’s shirt into his fists. Tommy breathes a deep sigh, trying to make the moment last, but knowing no one lives forever. Eventually they split, and Tommy ruffles Tubbo’s hair as they grin at each other with tired eyes and heavy limbs. “Okay, goodnight Tubbo.”

The older boy in question takes two steps back and sits down on his bed, shuffling back quickly and holding the covers open, smiling invitingly. “Tommy,” His voice sounds like honey, so sickly-sweet it shouldn’t be nice, but is. There’s also a heavy undertone of teasing going on to start with, but it becomes more genuine suddenly. “Come home.” And Tommy understands and climbs in beside him, and they tease each other for being clingy and sappy as they try to get comfortable, and then they quiet to the odd remark as they find the right place, Tubbo’s head resting on Tommy’s collarbone, their arms wrapped around each other and Tommy’s head leaning on Tubbo’s. Tubbo drops off first, and Tommy is waiting in the noisy quiet for sleep to claim him too, listening to the rain pattering on the roof and his friend’s breathing beside him. And in the quiet, he realises a couple things.

He realises he rather likes the rain without the thunder, and that maybe the guitar is better than the drums, and that the fluttering in his chest is more uplifting than the explosion of a vibrant heart. It’s not the triumphant high he’s been chasing. It’s quieter, it’s comforting, it’s a warm feeling in his whole being. It’s just as good as the victorious moment. It’s perfect.

The second thing he realises is that he’s been wrong since the beginning. Home was never Logstedshire or Pogtopia, but neither was it L’Manberg or even the building they’re currently in. Home was the togetherness L’Manberg brought, sitting around a campfire singing the national anthem and putting more effort into the ‘fuck Eret’ part every time it came around. Home was listening to Wilbur’s guitar echoing through the caverns at Pogtopia and complaining about eating Technoblade’s potato stew for the third day running while your comrades laughed. Home is right here, wrapped in the arms of your favourite person, belly full of good food, listening to the rain as sleep slowly takes you. He sees that now.

TommyInnit is home.