Thus Always to Tyrants

Every tomb, every sea (spit the bones from your teeth)

Tommy quite likes flying.

He's in the sky, and he's flying. And he's happy and he's free. And he remembers when he was little, and he'd fly with his father.

His father has large inky black wings that stretched for what Tommy felt like miles. They stretched through time and they cut through the nightmares Tommy was plagued with as a child. Scooping the child up and holding him close till the inky blackness of the feathers absorbed every bad thought Tommy could feel.

Tommy is flying with his father again, and his brothers are with him.

Techno, with his Blood abilities, healing and manipulating the blood in people's bodies and their hearts. Tommy always admired him. He wishes he was as confident and powerful as him. He loved him.

(he loves him)

Wilbur, with his siren voice. He's singing, Tommy thinks. He's singing and Tommy is calm. Because that's what Wilbur wants, and if Tommy listens hard enough he can hear the happiness in Wilbur's voice as he sings. It makes Tommy happy that Wilbur is happy.

(Why doesn't he hear that in Wil's voice anymore?)

But then he isn't flying.

Then he's falling.

His father had dropped him. And as he fell he could only stare as his father's disappointed face simply let him fall.

He's plummeting to the ground and when he falls it's into the water.

He sinks like a rock to the bottomless pit of the cold bleak black waters.

He's suffocating in the inky blackness. Not the blackness of his father's wings, the kind that sucks up all the badness. This is the badness. This is the cold, damp, gross feeling those wings are meant to keep out.

And Tommy is drowning in it.

Alone.

Tommy wakes up, gasping for air, flailing around. He must have hit something- a lamp or vase on his nightstand, because Techno bursts in, sword out, looking around wildly. "What's wrong? Did someone break in?"

Tommy almost wants to laugh. His oldest brother, caring about him? Now ? Why not earlier? Why now of all times, when Tommy is humiliated that he was awoke so violently by a childish nightmare? Why must the pink haired boy decide that now he must rush into Tommy's aid?

"Fuck off." He mumbles, sleep still apparent in his voice. rubbing at his eyes.

"What's wrong ?" Techno asks softly, so, so softly that Tommy almost doesn't realize it's Techno in his room. He forgets he isn't six again, begging for Techno to read to him. Forgets that Techno, at one point, actually gave into Tommy's pleas. At one point had actually pulled out the dusty book and walked Tommy to his room and read to him.

Tommy stares. And then, his shoulders sag slightly, once again rubbing sleepily at his eyes. He gives a defeated sigh. And he gives in to Techno's question, patting the end of his bed for Techno to sit, because, in the lighting of the darkness, Techno looks almost menacing. And he'd much prefer to see the tired expression on the older's face rather than the menacing shadowy figure he thinks might be his brother in his doorway.

When his brother sits down, Tommy reasons to himself that he isn't giving in because he likes his brother, but because Tommy is tired. And people are delusional when tired.

"Nightmare." That's all he manages to mumble out. And Techno gives him an apologetic look. And it's different than Wil and Dad's. Maybe because Wil has dad's eyes. And Techno had their mother's. It doesn't say "I pity you" like Wilbur and dad's. It says "I've been through what you have." And it feels nicer.