Tommyinnit Oneshots

November 16th

This is a short one

"I'm cold."

The words are far too quiet to be coming from him. It's a whispery noise held under the tremblings of a shaking man. It isn't even louder than the fire that cackles before him in mocking laughter. This flame has lived a short life of less than a day, but even it knows to make fun of his pathetic ramblings that belong to anyone but him. Except, pathetic is the right adjective. He is pathetic. From the day he sold his soul to war just to pretend that he had a loving brother, from the day that he had given up his mental stability for the scraps of a clearly abusive one-sided friendship, from the day he gave up everything for people who didn't even want him because he was scared of so many things that involved the people who might have given a rat's ass about him, he had been pathetic. He was a worthless child that whispered remorseful words that were simple in surface level vocabulary but complex in deeper meaning.

"Do you want a blanket?"

It was a soft voice that carried an almost always anxious tone. It was words said to be polite, but everyone could tell that the speaker wanted to appease those around him. Like he didn't really care about anyone as long as they weren't upset with him. If no one tried to speak emotionally to him, he would be fine. At least, that's what the tone sounded like, but when were things ever so simple? In truth, the speaker cared deeply about a few specific things. Three people, really, and everyone else could die for all that it mattered to him. It just so happened that the person he was talking to was part of the group of three. He may not have always been (there had been a time when relationships were frayed over distance and misunderstandings), but it was safe to say that if anyone dared mess with the people he valued, they would face a side of him that wasn't quite as docile as he tried to be.

"Not that fucking kind of cold, ya prick." A beat of silence. "I mean... that deeper cold, y'know? When everything's shit and everyone sucks and you want to keel over on the side of the road but it's cold and you can feel it getting colder by the second and fucking hell, give me the damn blanket."

The ramblings of a boy that couldn't have a coherent thought. If his former elder brother was the artisan of words, he was nothing more than a forceful stream that continued to run long past it being necessary. A lot of the time, he had so much to say without any idea how to express that. In his mind, everything could be described perfectly, but once his mouth opened, it was over exaggerated truths and plains lies. There was a lot to say with little time to actually say it. Even when he had an entire day to mutter a single sentence, he would overcomplicate it because he needed to get his point across before someone interrupted him in some way or another (almost certainly violently. Probably deadly).

"Come here."

The other voice said instead of handing over the blanket. The original boy complied, finding himself held in a comfortable hold. The weight kept him from panicking like one of those weighted blankets, and the consistent warmth coaxed him into a state of relaxation. Added with the hand carding through his curls, he was almost forgetting what happened a year before, to the day.

Of course, he couldn't forget. No one could. The memorial today proved that not everyone had completely moved on. They all left a piece of their soul in L'Manberg. When it went up in flames, they all died a little inside. As someone who had canonically died three times, he knew more than most how excruciatingly painful that was.

Still, for a moment, as the seconds steadily ticked down to midnight, when the wretched day would be over, he was allowed a respite. A tiny bit of comfort. The universe owed him a lot more, but he would take what he could get.

A brief moment of silence for November 16th, a day of infamy and tragedy that will never be forgotten by the truest of DreamSMP fans.

On a brighter note, fluff is coming soon!