Cursed from Return || Fallen!Tommy AU

A Thin Thread of Faith

Chapter 2

"Watch your step," cautioned Dream as he guided Tommy away from his former home.  

Reluctantly, Tommy obeyed the faceless fiend, who promptly stopped in his tracks and directed his glance just beyond Tommy's shoulder. 

"Is he coming too?" he inquired.

Tommy questioned this. According to his understanding, he was the only one leaving the country. However, just as the thought had processed, he found himself mimicking Dream's actions to face the person in question. An impossible feeling flooded through his body. As if turning the proverbial knife in his broken chest wasn't enough, a cloudy, yet comforting figure stood in the distance with a gentle smile, providing Tommy with a small bandage of wholehearted kindness on a heavily afflicted wound. The pain masked itself in this oddly comforting sensation and Tommy attempted to gather the least of his bearings.

"Hey, guys!" The apparition's optimistic simplicity echoed from across the river.

His cheery outlook was contagious, and the air in Tommy's lungs sputtered out from his mouth as he wrestled to collect his absent thoughts. His mind was as if there were no clouds in the sky on a rainy day.

Dream sighed a breath of impatience and swung his neck around in an exaggerated eye roll.

He groaned, "If you're coming, then you've gotta come now."

With a delighted nod he chimed, "Okay, Dream," then adjusted his yellow sweater and trotted obliviously towards Tommy and Dream to accompany them on their journey.

Several minutes after departing from shore, time began to drift away much like the boat that Tommy had abruptly stopped rowing.  It felt as though something in the back of his mind was tugging at him to seize his advance. Discomfort from this nagging feeling lead him to dig his oars deep into the vast waters of nowhere and the sound of heavy resistance being heaved away grew soft. Tons of wooden needles embedded themselves into Tommy's hands as he tried to maintain control of the slowing boat.  The piercing sensation of the slivers sent thoughts jolting through his mind, but only one stood out to him:

'Why am I letting this happen?'

The slow swishing of Dream's boat oars in the water began to drown Tommy's hearing as it grew closer and closer.

Coasting aside him, the man himself inquired impatiently, "Why did you stop?"

"I..." he stuttered, although he was nearly certain that he was right, "I don't have to follow you..."

Dream let out a pitiful sigh and continued to row his boat, only to pivot it around once again and look directly at Tommy, expecting him to run his mouth some more.

Tommy assured himself aloud, "I don't want to go. I don't have to follow you. I don't need to go," and hesitated for a moment. 

Peering over his shoulder he saw the bright lights of L'manburg and all of its residents going about their daily business. The hollow glimmer in Ghostbur's glassy dead eyes became prevalent as he gazed reminiscently back at his former country, observing the rippling reflection of the nation on the distant water's shore. The sight of this hollow interaction emanated a sense of peace as Tommy's boat drifted further and further away from home. At the same time, the tranquil scene of his deceased brother and his once humble beginnings sent a bittersweet sting of old memories racing through his mind. Everyone was happy. All that he could think about was the fact that he couldn't experience them with all the people he cared about. Not anymore.