Vermilion [Tommy painter au]

Prologue

Red.

It was a colour Tommy had become accustomed to, too accustomed to-, throughout his short life on this damned server.
Throughout the countless wars, deaths and betrayals, there was something common amongst them.

The colour red.

It washed over everything, seeping into every nook and cranny, like a great tsunami. Nothing was able to halt the pigments path. It coated everything...
And that included the blondes memories too. Or- Well- should I say, lack there of.

Truth was Tommy hadn't been able to remember much since.. well- he didn't have an answer for that really, his memories mainly consisted of blurs, they were coated with featureless faces and all doused in seemingly endless amounts of a viscous, deep red liquid.

What he did remember, however, was the 'start' of his new memories, which started two months back.

He remembered it like it was yesterday, he first found himself laid down on a wooden pathway, later finding out it was dubbed the 'prime path' for some odd reason, he still didn't know.
After sitting up, aching joints clicking into place as he did so. He woke up from his dazed state as panic washed over him like a thick blanket, as he realised he had no clue where he was.

God- he still remembered what that panic felt like today, it was a familiar emotion he had been subjected to, especially now after losing him memories.

Fortunately, two figures that had seemed to know the blonde had found him, in his semi-consciousness state. This being Tubbo and Ranboo, who were also quite shocked at the appearance of their friend after his disappearance.
Of course at the time Tommy hadn't known who the two were. Although, he had the faintest of feeling that he knew the two, something about them... it just seemed so... familiar.
It was hard to describe honestly, the feeling felt.. fuzzy perhaps? He couldn't explain it.

When Tommy had slipped into full consciousness, he was slightly wary of the pair. It took quite some convincing, especially on Tubbos part-, to try and get the blonde to follow them back to Snowchester.

You may be thinking, why would he trust a random pair of strangers?, even if they did claim they were old friends of his.
And well- the rule breaker was when Tubbo had pulled out a compass from his pocket, Tommy found that it matched the same one wrapped around his neck, baring similar engravings, except, his had 'your Tubbo'  neatly pressed into the iron.
Oh, that and- perhaps mixed with the fact he doubted he'd be able to survive alone.
From the looks of it the path he was currently standing on was side by side with a crater, at least- 100 blocks deep.
God knows what had happened on this server to warrant such a large crater- and quite frankly, Tommy didn't wish to find out-
So he quickly took the pair up on their offer and followed them back to their house.

That was a few months ago, Tommy had now thankfully, remembered a considerable amount of the two.
It took him a while, and quite some work, but he managed to remember a lot of, mainly happy memories of the two, so he was ever so thankful to know that they were the ones to find him passed out on the path and not someone else.
As allegedly, he found that he wasn't too popular amongst the other server members through Tubbo.

He originally pressed Tubbo for more information, about the servers past, What was his past? Did he have any other friends? What about any bad memories?, however, after much shutting down on Tubbos behalf, Tommy accepted that his friend wouldn't inform him on anything specific.
His argument? Well apparently Tommy had to "remember things at his own pace" and well?, well- Tommy couldn't argue with that.
He knew, deep down that his friend was correct, and that he didn't want to risk telling the blonde too much information and it overwhelming him.