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“Tommy!” Wilbur calls out the second the door is open, stumbling into the apartment. Holy shit, he’s tired. “We’re home!”
For a second, there’s silence, and then rushing footsteps from the other side of the house, skidding towards the living room. Wilbur, Phil, and Techno share a fond look as the blond finally gets to the entrance.
And Wilbur suddenly forgets about how terrible his day was, because in the span of a millisecond Tommy is in the entrance, and then he’s barreling into Wilbur’s chest. The older only barely manages to catch him.
“Wilbur,” Tommy greets, voice muffled by the dark shirt Wilbur’s wearing. “I missed you.”
“I can tell, baby,” Wilbur snorts. He lowers his chin, so his face is buried in Tommy’s curls. Finally. He’s been waiting for this moment all day– the moment when he’s with his little brother and all the stress is worth it.
“Phil, Wilbur’s hogging Tommy,” Techno complains.
“Piss off,” Wilbur hisses. “You’ll get him later.”
“You always say that, you never give him to me.”
“He likes me more!”
Phil shakes his head fondly. “Boys,” he interrupts, chiding them lightly. “No arguing after work. I have enough of a headache as it is.”
But Techno is stepping forward, dried blood still in his hair from whatever hero they just got rid of. “I have supernatural strength, Wilbur. Just give me the kid.”
“Oh, you wanna spar, Techno? Alright,” Wilbur grins, lifting his face out of Tommy’s hair. He cups the blond’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb. “Do you mind, darling?”
“No, go ahead. I like it when you guys spar.”
“Tommy, you’re such an enabler,” Phil sighs. “Don’t–”
But Techno is already charging at him, so quick that Wilbur barely has time to counter the move, instead just swiftly moving to the side with Techno’s hand just grazing him.
While Techno recovers from the dodge, he takes his dagger out of his belt. It’s one of the prettier ones– not one he typically kills people with, but rather one that he shows Tommy to see the way the blond reacts.
Even now, he doesn’t miss the way Tommy watches with wide eyes, loving the spectacle. There’s a special glint when Wilbur spins the dagger in his hand before aiming it at Techno.
“Phil,” Techno whines as he sidesteps Wilbur’s attempted jab. “Wilbur’s using weapons again.”
“Judge rules,” Tommy calls from the sidelines, pretending to think. “I’ll allow it.”
“Don’t reckon you wanna spar, Tommy?”
“Phil, Techno’s threatening me!”
Techno hisses as he doesn’t move out of the way quick enough, the blade sliding against his lower arm. “Wilbur, ow.”
And, yeah, he should be sorry, but with the blood bubbling up, Tommy looks even more intrigued.
While he’s looking at Tommy, Techno retaliates, landing a strong enough hit to Wilbur’s gut that he folds over, the breath thoroughly knocked out of him. Techno grins, breathing heavily already. Blood trickles down his arm, and he wipes it on his already-bloody shirt.
Wilbur grins back. “Best you’ve got, Blade?” He croons. “You’ve lost your touch.”
Techno lunges again, but Wilbur is quicker, dagger in hand and ready to make another tear at his brother’s skin. It’s a game of pulling and pushing, and Wilbur is determined to push.
—
Phil went to bed already, claiming that he was far too tired to put up with their bullshit. Wilbur and Techno sit at the couch, both utterly beaten up and exhausted.
“-nd then, during chemistry, Ranboo burned his hand on a Bunsen burner, and I had to heal him, you know. What can you do?” Tommy rambles on while Wilbur combs his hands through the blond’s hair, feeling some of the energy shift back into him. He watches as a bruise on his arm fades slowly, til no trace of it is left. “And then Tubbo– you know Tubbo, his dad’s famous– he was all like Tommy no healing at school and I told him to fuck off, you know.”
“Mhm,” Wilbur drawls lazily. Techno moves a hand into Tommy’s hair, and the cuts on his arms gradually start to close back up. “Fuck Tubbo.”
“No, don’t say that, I love Tubbo,” Tommy defends hastily. “Asshole.”
“Which one is Tubbo again?” Techno asks.
Tommy lets out an annoyed groan. “He came once for dinner, remember? You scared him away with your animal skull collection.”
“The kid said he liked biology! I thought he’d find it interesting.”
“He cried!”
“Pussy,” Wilbur snorts, ignoring Tommy’s glare. “I don’t remember him coming over.”
“You were drunk,” Techno helpfully inputs, looking idly at his healing wounds. “Another reason the kid left. Kept saying how much you hate Governor Schlatt.”
“And? It’s true.”
“That’s his dad,” Tommy laments miserably. Techno slides an arm over the blond’s shoulders, tugging him close. He smiles smugly at Wilbur when Tommy’s out of the other’s hold.
“It’s okay, Tommy,” Techno coos, the new proximity making the healing faster. Wilbur’s own bruises have stopped healing without his brother at his side. “Wilbur’s a dick, we all know that.”
Tommy nods sleepily as the other’s nails scratch lightly at his scalp, going boneless. “Wilbur’s a dick,” he mumbles, eyes falling shut.
"Wh-- how is Techno off the hook?" Wilbur complains. The other two ignore him.
“And I’m your favorite, right?” Techno grins, all teeth.
“Okay, that’s enough!” Wilbur interrupts before Tommy can say something he’ll regret. “If you don’t mind, I’m taking my darling little brother to bed. Techno, you still have to shower.”
He tugs Tommy up, letting the boy slump against him. Wilbur curls a possessive arm around his shoulders, glaring at Techno, who smirks back. “Goodnight,” the other sing-songs.
“I hope you choke in your sleep.”
—
When Tommy wakes up, he’s already bouncing with energy, almost tripping over his sheets as he fights to get out of bed. There’s a light snowfall at his window, and the apartment smells like cookies– it’s Christmas.
He rubs the sleep out of his eyes dutily as he dashes out the door and into the living room, where–
“You’re joking,” Tommy groans.
Tied to a chair in the center of the room is a beaten-up bloody man, eyes half-lidded and unfocused. He’s missing an ear, and subsequently red is flowing from that very spot. He looks at Wilbur, Phil, and Techno, who pause their interrogation when Tommy walks in.
“I thought we said no villainy on Christmas,” Tommy pouts. “That was my one request.”
Wilbur approaches him, hands bloody and raised. To his credit, his expression is remorseful. “I’m sorry, dear. It’ll be over soon, don’t worry.”
“I don’t want it to be over soon, I want it to be over now,” Tommy protests, arms crossing over his chest. “You guys promised no murder on holidays. You already robbed a bank on Valentine’s Day–”
“Does that really even count as a holiday?” Techno asks as he carves something into the man’s arm with his tattoo gun.
“It– of course it– Valentine’s–” He cuts himself off with a frustrated groan. “Phil ,” he whines instead.
Phil laughs, stepping closer until he can cup Tommy’s face, inadvertently coating him in blood from his latex gloves. “We’ll be done so soon, sweetheart. Then we’ll celebrate Christmas as a family. And,” he adds, “because your brothers are the ones who decided to kidnap a hero on a holiday, they’ll take you shopping in the afternoon. How’s that sound?”
“Okay, fine,” he relents with a smile. “I’ll be in the kitchen. You guys want pancakes?”
“I could go for pancakes,” Wilbur answers as breaks the guy’s hand. “Blueberry?”
Tommy shrugs. “If you want– oh, Wilbur, you missed a–” A resounding crack spreads across the room as another joint is dislocated. “Yeah, there you go.”
“Go have breakfast, doll,” Phil says. “We’ll be there soon.”
Tommy hums happily and turns to go to the kitchen. The apartment smells like a mixture of blood and cookies. Snow falls outside the frosty window. Muffled sounds of breaking bones come from the living room.
God, he loves Christmas.
—
The sharp knocking at the door is enough to scare Tommy so bad he almost drops his mug. Thankfully, he’s able to place it down and not spill his hot chocolate as he makes his way to the door.
He prays it’s a concerned neighbor or a salesman, but when he peers through the peephole–
“Open up,” a muffled voice from the other side demands. “It’s the police.”
Tommy can see that. There’s four of them, all wearing identical uniforms and coincidentally bald. Maybe it’s a bonding thing. Maybe.
“If you don’t open the door, we will break it down,” the police warns, loud enough that Techno can definitely hear it from his room. Tommy hears shuffling from Phil’s room, too. He can only assume they’re sneaking out the window.
Tommy takes a big breath in, trying to stop his hands from shaking. He doesn’t live with murderers, he doesn’t live with murderers, he doesn’t live with murderers.
He opens the door with a wide smile. “Hi there!” He chirps as cheerfully as he can. “What can I do for you?”
“Oh,” one of them says disdainfully upon looking down at Tommy. “Hey, kid. Are your parents home? Or your siblings, maybe?”
Tommy shakes his head. “No, sir. They’re at the store.”
A different one, this guy sporting a pair of dark sunglasses for some reason, pipes up. “What store?”
“I don’t know,” the blond shrugs. “They didn’t say.”
“Kid, what’s your na–?”
“You guys are very bald,” Tommy points out, smiling. “I think that’s cool. Is it like a group costume for Halloween? Are you guys dressing up as bald men?”
Sunglasses Man blinks slowly at him. “It’s… it’s February.”
“Oh,” Tommy tilts his head. “It is. Why are you guys dressing up as bald men for Halloween in February?”
“No,” another one responds, annoyed. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “No, that’s not– we’re not dressing up as anything, we’re just all bald.”
“Surely you guys have to be connected in some way, shape, or form, though, right?” Tommy says. “I mean, you think it’s just a coincidence that you’re all bald and got put on the same police force?”
The first guy shakes his head. “Listen, kid, we have a job to do. When are–?”
Tommy looks at their badges. “All of your names start with the letter ‘B.’”
Bernard’s nostrils flare. “Another coincidence,” he grants through gritted teeth. “But there are more pressing matters at stake, kid. Your family–”
“Bernard, Boris, Ben, Bart,” Tommy lists aloud, just to interrupt him. He wonders if Techno, Wilbur, and Phil are at a safe distance yet. He looks empathetically at Bart. “Are you often upset that your parents don’t love you?”
Bart reels back, adjusting his sunglasses so that they’re instead pulled up to the top of his head. “What? ” He furrows his brow. “How– why–”
“Well they gave you a terrible name, man, sorry to break it to you,” he shrugs. “If I shave my head, can I join you guys?”
“Oh, kid, don’t shave your head,” Ben tuts. “Your hair’s pretty. My hair was a rat’s nest.”
“I like rats,” Tommy smiles softly. “They’re my friends. They bring me pinecones sometimes.”
Boris looks between all of them. He’s by far the youngest of the officers– probably in his mid-twenties. “Um, guys?” He asks, “Aren’t we looking for the Syndicate?”
Tommy’s heart freezes over. Oh, no. They know. They know, they know, they know. He can feel his eye twitch, can feel every single beat of his heart. Do they hear it, too?
No. They must’ve gotten away by now, because the window has a firescape and the firescape ends by a subway and the subway can go anywhere.
Anywhere.
Anywhere. Far, far away.
It’s then that Tommy realizes that his family has left him behind. The subway goes on for miles and miles and miles. They won’t come back for him. It wouldn’t be safe.
“Kid,” Bernard snaps his fingers in Tommy’s face. “Kid, you have to answer.”
Tommy refocuses. Right. The police, the reason his family abandoned him. Five minutes ago he was at home with his family, and now he’ll never see them again. “Huh?”
“He asked you if you knew when your parents would be home,” Ben supplies.
Never, Tommy thinks dully. “Any minute now.”
“Mind if we step inside?” Bart asks, but he’s already shouldering past Tommy and entering the apartment.
“No,” Tommy mumbles. “Not at all, I guess.”
“Nice place,” Boris whistles approvingly, looking at the white leather couches. “Your parents must make a lot of money. Say, kid,” he says as nonchalantly as possible. “What do your parents do for a living?”
Tommy knows what they’re doing. They’re trying to dig for evidence that Tommy’s family is the Syndicate, but he won’t give it to them. But now they’re all looking at him expectantly, and Tommy doesn’t know what normal families do to get rich.
He remembers Techno ranting about billionaires and how unethical they are, but he can’t quite remember what any of those billionaires did. But there was a word he kept using. Something with an ‘M,’ something like–
“They have a monopoly,” Tommy blurts out. Boris looks confused. “Like– like the game, I think.”
Bernard narrows his eyes. “A monopoly on what?”
“Usually the blue bits,” Tommy answers. “Dad likes to start off by buying the trains early-game, cause he know that that’ll mess everyone else up. Then he goes for the utility companies–”
“No, not Monopoly the game, kid,” Bernard groans. “Monopoly the– the–” He looks at his team. “How do I explain what a monopoly is to a ten-year-old?”
“I’m eleven,” Tommy corrects lightly. “And I know what Monopoly is. I play it with my dad, I just told you.”
“No, not Monopoly, a monopoly,” the officer emphasizes.
Tommy stares him down. “You just said the same word twice.”
“Well, yeah, the word’s the same, but the definition–”
“Bernard,” Ben sighs. “Do you really think this is the most effective use of our time?”
“The kid says they’re not home,” Bernard shrugs. “We’ll just have to wait for them to come back.”
Tommy is hit with another pang of they’re not coming back. He tries to smile through the void forming in his chest. “Right. In the meantime, do you guys wanna play Monopoly? I have it in the closet.”
“Oh, I wanna play!” Boris lights up. He looks to Bart for permission, but the other just sends him a disapproving look. Boris wilts. “Or not.”
“But you guys like Monopoly,” Tommy tilts his head, acting confused.
“No, we don’t like Monopoly. Or, well, we don’t not like monopolies, but Monopoly isn’t a great reference to how a monopoly truly works.”
“You’re contradicting yourself,” the blond points out. “You realize that, right?”
“No, I’m not. There’s–”
“Bernard,” Bart says, trying to stop whatever rant the man’s about to go on.
“–a difference between the two, obviously. One of them is a game, and the other is a real thing that came to be because of our country’s free enterprise ideology. You see, there used to be this oil tycoon–”
Bart’s voice grows tense. “Bernard.”
“–named Rockefeller, and he had this oil company–”
“Bernard.”
“–the Standard Oil Company, actually, and then this train guy called–”
“Cornelius Vanderbilt,” a voice from behind them helpfully inputs. Tommy spins around, and standing there is Technoblade, flocked by a snarling Wilbur and impatient Phil. Tommy scrambles to Wilbur’s side. “Though, an oil tycoon is a really generous name. I prefer to call him a robber baron.”
Wilbur’s hands flit over his face, cupping his cheek and moving it side to side in order to properly inspect him. “Are you okay?” He’s whispering, “Did they do anything to you, sunshine?”
“No,” Tommy mumbles, leaning into the touch. “I thought you guys left.”
“Left?” Wilbur echoes, sounding incredulous. “We would never leave you behind. We were hiding in the vents til they were distracted– which, thanks to you, they were.”
“Like Among Us,” Tommy nods sagely.
Wilbur laughs. “Yes, Tommy, like Among Us. Now if you don’t mind,” he taps Tommy’s nose lightly with a smile. “We’ve got a couple of pigs to roast.”
Tommy glances over to where Phil and Techno are absolutely kicking the police officers’ asses. “Start with Bernard, please? And don’t kill Boris, I like Boris.”
Techno looks over, landing a critical hit to Bart’s gut without even seeing. “Which one is Boris?”
“The bald one.”
“Tommy, they’re all bald.”
“Okay,” Tommy scrutinizes the men, then adds, “The one in the uniform.”
Wilbur snorts. “Tommy. ”
“Fine, whatever, just kill them all, see if I care.” Tommy huffs, tucking himself under Wilbur’s arm. The brunet brings him close, pressing a kiss to the top of his head as screams sound throughout the apartment. “You guys really weren’t gonna leave me?”
“Never,” Wilbur vows. “Never, ever, ever.”
Tommy hums happily. “Good.”
Techno finally finishes knocking out his two officers, and helps Phil do the same. Then they come close to the circle, letting Tommy heal the few bruises they’d gotten from the encounter.
“Say,” Tommy starts, content and loved, “do you guys wanna play Monopoly?”
Wilbur groans. “Absolutely not. Techno is such a pain to play with, he always goes on and on about the late eighteen-hundreds and–”
“Well that’s where monopolies started, Wilbur, I’m teaching Tommy the lore. ”
“Games don’t have lore,” Phil laughs.
The other three spin to look at him. “Oh no,” Tommy gasps. “He’s never seen Game Theory.”
Wilbur’s already on it. “Phil, finish disposing of those guys and sit down on the couch, we are binging.”
Tommy makes his way to the kitchen. “I’m getting popcorn and a mop for the blood.”
“Good,” Techno’s at his side. “I’ll get the Skittles and bleach.”
Wilbur sighs. "We're so aesthetic, guys, aren't we so aesthetic? Hashtag murder hashtag marathon!"
"Phil," Techno calls, "can we kick Wilbur out of the Syndicate, please?"
The brunet shoots him a glare. "Phil's not gonna--"
Phil just shrugs, though. "If he loses Monopoly the next time we play, sure."
"Phil!"
Tommy sits on the couch, idly connecting his phone to AirPlay. "Hello internet! Welcome to Game Theory!"
"Tommy don't start without us!"
"Hurry up!"
Phil groans while dragging Bart's body. "I'm trying, but these guys are heavy."
"Don't break your back, old man, I've got you," Techno swoops in, taking the unconscious body like it's nothing. Supernatural strength must be great.
Phil shoves at him, laughing. "I'm not old."
"Denial," Tommy and Wilbur chime at the same time.
"I hate it here."
"Can I start now?" Tommy asks, not waiting for an answer as he starts the video. Matpat's voice rings out through the living room as it plays.
"Tommy!"