Away ~ SBI royalty au

2 (short)

TW// talk of drugs, talk of past abuse, talk of neglect

Tommy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. What time was it? Why was he on the floor? Questions he didn't have answers for. Why was he in a van? Did he get kidnapped? Still no answer. Who was that in the front seat? Where was tubbo?

Oh yeah-

The last day came flooding into his mind. He sat up with a yawn. Where was tubbo? Then he registered the van's open door. He couldn't see the moon, but it was dark out. It must have been the middle of the night. He kicked the itchy blanket that he didn't have when he went to sleep off him and crawled to the open door. He didn't see tubbo instantly, so he stepped out of the van and looked around.

"Up here," a quiet voice said from behind him. Tommy turned to face the van and tubbo was leaning over the side of the roof. "There's a ladder on that side," tubbo said and pointed to the back of the van.

Tommy pulled himself up the ladder and sat next to tubbo. After a second tubbo handed Tommy an apple juice Capri-sun. The two sipped on their Capri suns in comfortable silence. After a while, Tommy spoke up.

"Why didn't you beat me up.. You could have and you should have." he pointed out.

"I- my dad, he used to hit me like that. Whenever I get in fights I try to be the bigger person now, because he never was," tubbo answered. The wind ruffled the boys' hair as if encouraging them to talk more. "Why were you so eager to leave earlier?"

"Um, i- my family needed me so-"

"Don't bullshit me," tubbo cut him off. Tommy let out a sigh.

"I'm not entirely sure. It's not like I would've had anywhere to go to wait out the hail, the door to the house stays locked until my father gets home at 9. Other than just being anxious from being inside for too long and you guys being halfway strangers, there's no reason."

"You get the indoor anxiety too?"

"Wait, you do? I thought I was the only one."

"Not me, ranboo. He's an ender hybrid, so he's one of the new "experimental" hybrids the government came out with last year. It's a mix of trauma and his species just not being domestic," tubbo explained. That made sense. He'd heard of hybrids of undomestic species 'going feral' because of bad socialization and trauma from young ages.

"Why did you want me to stay earlier?"

"Well, what I said about the hail was true, but I also got the sense that sending you home wouldn't be a good idea. And I wanted to get to know you more. How come you were stealing apples?"

"Uh-uh, I'm done with the depressing questions, there's been enough tonight. What's your favourite colour?"

"Hmmm... maybe green. Have you ever been off the island?"

"No, but my mom works off-island. Why do you live in a van?"

"Me and ranboo bought it off a druggie for real cheap. It came with like 5 baggies of cocaine, but we sold it off instead of doing it. Do you like painting?"

And the two boys went back and forth asking each other question after question, and sharing anything from their past pets to their stories of being chased by cops and salesmen. Tommy found that talking to tubbo was easy. The night wouldn't last forever, and the morning would be hard to navigate, but Tommy was okay with that. For once he looked up to the sky and decided that he was going to be okay.

That night, they drank all of ranboo's Capri-suns.

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short chapter but I didn't want it to be long. I wanted to make sure to really capture the feeling of waking up in the middle of the night after going to bed too early and having a dreary conversation with someone that you won't quite remember in the morning.

700 words