Work Text:
Tommy knows he’s not the most… perceptive person in the world. He’ll miss some cues, or just ignore one thing in favor of another. It happens. It’s not like he’s intentionally oblivious, or anything of the sort. He’s happy to help when the need arises, especially when it comes to his family.
And that’s why he’s following Wilbur through the forest in the middle of the night.
Because something is clearly wrong, he just… doesn’t know entirely what. Sure, the easy answer is “my brother snapped and wants to blow up our home”, but it doesn’t really answer anything. It’s just… what’s going on currently. He doesn’t know why it’s happening.
There are several things he doesn’t know the cause of, 99% of which revolve around his older brother. He knows he’s not doing well, but nothing that Tommy says is helping . Sure, their situation is far from pleasant, but they can fix it! They’ve still got allies and friends, and Wilbur’s acting like they don’t .
So no. Wilbur isn’t making any sense, and Tommy has no clue why outside of the obvious “stuff’s bad”. Which doesn’t seem to be the entire cause, because no matter how many other options they have, Wilbur only sees one : exploding L’manberg. And Tommy is not subscribing to that.
But it’s fine . Because he knows Wilbur, he knows his brother. Even if Tommy’s not entirely sure what he’s thinking, he’s still by his side. They had each other, and that wasn’t going to change. He just needed to focus on getting L’manberg back, and then Wilbur would be fine. And getting some sleep. He’d like to do that sometime soon.
Alas, that wasn’t going to happen until Wilbur went to bed. And they were in the middle of the gosh dang forest so that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon .
Tommy isn’t sure for how long he follows Wilbur quietly through the woods, but it’s long enough that he almost misses when something does happen. More specifically, it takes him a second to realize that Dream has enderpearled into the clearing Wilbur just walked into. Tommy freezes, and quickly steps back. He knows Wilbur hadn’t caught onto him, but he’s not sure if Dream saw him and is just ignoring him.
“Several stacks, just as ordered.” Dream places a large chest down, and flicks open the lid. It’s dark, but not so dark Tommy can’t tell that’s goshdang TNT in there . Not that he should be surprised , since he knew Wilbur wanted it, but-
“Hand me the TNT.” He’s speaking and moving before he’s considering it, stepping into the clearing with a loaded bow and arrow. Wilbur turns around and smiles . As if Tommy’s not aiming a weapon at him. Not that he’s intending to shoot it , but… It’s unnerving, so he’s not going to think about it.
“Tommy! I-”
“We didn’t agree on this plan, Wil.” He’s not… he’s hurt that Wilbur went and got Dream to gather TNT, but it wasn’t unexpected and it could’ve been worse. He’s upset , definitely, and that’s probably why he’s still aiming the bow at Wilbur. Because he’s serious and he wants Wilbur to understand that. “Give it to me, big man.”
“I was going to tell you in the morning,” Wilbur says instead, and at the very least he looks sincere as he says it. Tommy’s willing to believe Wilbur just… genuinely didn’t think about how this would look. Yeah, he can do that. “But… I’m not- I can’t give you the TNT, Toms.”
He tenses up. “Wil-”
Dream steps between them, but only partially, drawing an axe in his hand. “Tommy, I’m going to have to step in.” And Tommy cannot read the man’s expression at all, but he steps back because he is absolutely not letting Dream kill him again. The bow’s just for show, regardless. “Let him take the TNT, and you both can go back to your ravine.”
“Like heck I’m- I’m not letting him do that!” Tommy protests. “We’re not blowing up L’manberg, Wil. We don’t need the TNT.”
“I put all this work into gathering TNT, and no one’s going to use it? I’m hurt.” Dream chimes in, and Tommy momentarily aims the bow at him instead.
“Stay hurt! You shouldn’t have given it to Wil, anyways.” He huffs. And okay. ‘Stay hurt’ was not one of his finest lines, but it’s better than just shooting Dream like he wants to. Because Dream is absolutely enjoying this and he hates it.
“I asked him, Tommy.” Wilbur says, like that’s going to make anything better.
“And you should’ve known better! Both of you! Wil, we don’t need the TNT, because we’re not blowing up L’manberg.”
“It’s the only way to-”
“It’s not the only way to get it back, Wil! We just- we just need to get the rest of our friends and figure out a plan.”
“That’s not- We don’t know that for certain.”
“Why do you- Tubbo’s not going to betray us! Niki’s not going to betray us! We can trust them! We just- Techno’s already on our side, we just need to gather everyone!”
“Even if we do , it’s not going to fix-”
“It literally will! We get L’manberg back, and everything’s fine! There’s no need to blow it all up!” And this is why he doesn’t get what Wilbur’s thinking anymore. Because things are going to be fine once they get their home back. Wilbur’s just being worried over things he doesn’t need to be, and getting explosives for plans that aren’t necessary. And Tommy is worried about Wilbur , because none of this is right, and he doesn’t want to debate with his brother on this when all he wants is for Wilbur to just hand him the dang TNT .
“Honestly, Tommy, it’d be easier to just let him have it.” Dream shrugs casually.
“Wha- no!”
“I’m just saying, you’re being a bit
difficult
, Tommy.” Dream adds. Wilbur steps forward immediately.
“Hey! Don’t talk to him like-”
And maybe it’s because he’s tired. Maybe it’s because he’s frustrated, and upset. Maybe it’s because Dream having an axe out puts him on edge. Maybe it’s just simply his hands were sweaty from holding the arrow back for so long. Regardless. The moment Wilbur moves, Tommy redirects his attention towards him.
His hand slips.
Dream was nudged aside by Wilbur. The arrow strikes his brother right in the chest, flaring with magic from the Power V enchantment on his bow. There’s a moment of silence.
Dream just takes a step back. Tommy stares at Wilbur, hoping something will tell him that he didn’t just do what he did. Wilbur stares into space, like he hasn’t fully registered what happened.
Then Wilbur collapses. Tommy tosses the bow away like poison and rushes over to Wilbur’s side. He pulls Wilbur into a sitting-up position with most of Wilbur’s weight against his.
“ Wil! Wil, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he rambles. Wilbur wasn’t wearing any armor. Tommy is avoiding looking at the arrow but he knows it’s- he doesn’t know how to fix that. He doesn’t have any potions, and he knows Wilbur doesn’t, either. “D-Dream! Potions! Something! Help him! ”
Dream looks down at them, infuriatingly calm. “Sorry, I don’t have anything.”
“ Liar! You-” Tommy cuts himself off as Wilbur coughs, a bit of red beginning to trickle from the corner of his mouth. “ Shoot . I-”
“ S’ fine, Toms. Didn’t… mean to ,” Wilbur chokes out, clearly trying to focus on Tommy. He appreciates it, but that only means Tommy can clearly tell how his brother’s gaze is constantly unfocusing. “ S’okay. ”
“I- it’s fine. I- I can-” Tommy falters. He wants to say that he can fix this. That he can help . But there’s absolutely nothing he can do here. He can only watch as Wilbur’s breathing becomes more labored by the second. He grabs Wilbur’s hand and squeezes it, like how Wilbur had done for him in the past. “I’m sorry.” He repeats.
“ M’ srry . Ta-take care of yourself ,” Wilbur mutters, almost too quiet for Tommy to properly make out. A fresh wave of alarm shoots through him as Wilbur shudders and closes his eyes.
“W-Wil? Hey! No, no! Stay awake, Wil!” As if help is coming. As if Wilbur keeping his eyes open will actually mean anything.
But it doesn’t. Because Wilbur stops breathing.
And Tommyinnit screams .
Because he could handle getting kicked out of his own home. He could handle being separated from his best friend. He could handle living in a cold ravine for the foreseeable future. He could handle watching their country’s flag burn.
What he refuses to handle is his brother dying because of a stupid mistake . Over a stupid argument that didn’t matter because he’d much rather have let Wilbur have some TNT rather than not have Wilbur at all. It had been an accident. It had been a flipping accident and he hadn’t meant for any of this to happen at all.
He didn’t know what Wilbur was thinking before this and he certainly isn’t going to know now. Or ever. He’s never going to know what Wilbur is thinking ever again. Because he’s gone . Gone because he did something stupid and he just wants his gosh dang brother back, please and thank you.
Because heck , Wilbur was his brother. They were in this together and that’s not true anymore. Wilbur’s never going to talk to him again, Tommy’s never going to see Wilbur again. That was it. That was their last interaction. That was all Tommy’s ever getting. He can’t undo that. He can’t go back and fix it and let things continue on.
He’s not even sure what he’s supposed to do , now. Go back to Pogtopia? Without Wilbur? Because as much as he tried to make Pogtopia “home”, there was no home if Wilbur wasn’t ever going to be there. He’d rather stay where he was and never move again, but Wilbur wouldn’t want that so he has to do something.
It’s stupid. What he and Wilbur were arguing about before seems flipping trivial now. He doesn’t care about the TNT, or Dream, or whatever else. At this point, he’d just like to take Tubbo and leave , because there’s nothing else worth it on the server anymore. L’manberg wasn’t worth Wilbur’s life .
No- Wilbur didn’t die for L’manberg this time. He died because Tommy messed up.
His throat hurts, and he realizes he’s stopped screaming, and at this point is just sobbing against Wilbur’s corpse like it’s going to change anything.
“Wow,” Dream says, completely shattering the dang mood, “good luck explaining that to everyone.”
“Shut up.”
“Maybe if you turn in Wilbur’s body, Schlatt will let you back in Manberg.”
“I said shut up , Dream.”
“Or go back to Pogtopia, find a way to start a revolution when you killed your ex-president.”
“Shut the hell up before I shoot you too!” He snaps, and it has nowhere near the amount of fire he wants behind it, but he’s tired and hates the threat anyways. He just wants Dream gone .
“As you wish,” Dream says, as if he hadn’t heard him the first two times, and vanishes with another enderpearl.
And heck , Tommy can feel his communicator buzzing. He doesn’t want to look. Not in the slightest. He just…
“What am I supposed to do , Wil?” He whispers, voice strained.
He doesn’t have the energy for this. If nothing else, Tubbo will trust that it was an accident, and that’s all he needs.
For tonight… Tommy’ll figure out how to bury a body. Then he’ll worry about tomorrow.