Chapter Text
Tommy considered leaving.
It wasn’t as if he had never considered it before—it’s been in the back of his mind ever since Techno had left, had disappeared and never returned and only sent one letter a year, but even that had dwindled before eventually disappearing—but this was the first time he had dug out his luggage that had been stored in the attic for five years, had emptied his closet and drawers and desk and zipped up the suitcases and stared at his door, praying for something to tell him he could stay.
Nothing happened, no one walked through and announced themselves, and Tommy stood and stared at his room.
It wasn’t empty, not by any stretch of the imagination and certainly not like the rest of the house. There was no dust on top of the bookshelf, the bed was slept in, and the door creaked and groaned due to years of constant use. Not like the rest of the house, with an almost empty pantry and closed doors and echoing hallways, because the house was always big for four people but for one person it was a mansion.
Tommy stood in the doorway of this mansion in the woods, the previously pristine flowerbeds adorning the windows now overrun by weeds because Phil wasn’t there to take care of them, the guitar sat in the kitchen untuned, the strings loose and if a tuning attempt was made, would probably snap because only Wilbur had the golden touch with instruments, the training dummies in the backyard still, not swaying back and forth with the force of Techno’s blade before eventually collapsing only to be replaced the next day.
Tommy stood in the doorway of this mansion in the woods, luggage in hand and an ache in his heart, and he didn’t cry, because he had no reason to, but he did hurt because he might never find his family again and despite the abandonment, there were still good memories and Tommy missed them despite it all.
Tommy stood in the doorway of this mansion in the woods and took a deep breath before slamming the door closed and turning his back on his family, on his past because he hadn’t seen any of them in months and that’s what they were now, the past, not the present and never the future because they had left him and he never wanted anything to do with them ever again.
Eventually, months, years later, Techno and Wilbur and Phil will return, expecting to see the youngest welcome them with open arms. Eventually, they will come across a dark, uncaring, empty house, and they will mourn the loss of their brother and their son, but they will not reach out, because to them he is dead, and to him they died the moment they left.
And Tommy is happy.