Ivory - An Eburnean Tommy AU

lvi - ur just a boy..u are no man..and nobody u know will understand..🐈‍⬛

This didn't feel contagious..it felt forced - mechanical.

Yet beneath those ivory curls..widened eyes and soulless face..he's still here.

Talking..right in front of him.

When Tubbo couldn't say anything, Tommy sighs,

"People change, Tubbo. It's natural to us. Its not by the power of that silly shitty revival book that fucked me up like this. People can change..whether by people or circumstances. Tubbos and Tommys have lived and died before us just so we can see another day..it needn't be a corpse..it needn't be a sign..."

Tubbo frowns and looks away, unable to accept it.

If that's how easy it is, then Tommy has died a long time ago. Before the series of revivals, before the prison, before the Confrontation, Doomsday, Exile..hell even his exile. If that's the case, he himself must have died a long time ago too..when he lost Ranboo..when he thought he'd lose Michael too..when Ivory existed.

...Has Tommy missed him when he had changed?

When the bubbly, peacemaking Tubbo has become so blue, distrustful and aggressive?

When his youthful look was plastered with scars from war, his heart plastered with holes of those that destroyed him..hurt him..left him?

When..he became like this?

Has Tommy missed who he was before, the same way he missed his?

"I'm sorry I'm no longer the Tommy you want to save..the Tommy you want to protect, and to take care of. Your friend..sidekick..whatever you refer to me as. I'm sorry..that I have lost my quarrel with him that has felt like an eternity. I couldn't keep myself together...when nothing longer mattered..I have lost..so many, Toby..it hurts. It hurts."

He then sits down, like what he just admitted never happened at all, "I don't know what you want to do now but if you'll stay here..eventually you'll get back to your limbo. As horrible as it is."

Tubbo blinks, remembering the festival, that fake Schlatt hosting the show, the audience, the crowd - everything, "So that was my limbo?" He asks, as Tommy nods,

"What limbo is like depends on the person that inhabits it. It represents something..what you're afraid of, what you hate..something that makes hell hell."

Tubbo laughs, both in lament and by his explanation, "Well it is hell alright..now I get why Wil wants to stay alive after everything's that happened..I'd get why you were so terrified after what happened back in the prison.."

Tommy nods a little, appreciating that Tubbo is trying to understand such substantial information,

"But honestly, both are hellish don't you think? My limbo is shit..same as my situation up there..but- you're making it sound like I could come back..I'm dead aren't I? I used up all my lives..I can't go back."

Tommy blinks, "Dream revived you, Tubbo. And he has yet to have an explanation to reassure himself as to why you're still not conscious."

...

"I'm..revived? How- Why- Why did he-"

Tommy shrugs, "Anything is possible. He either has unfinished business with you, or..he has a bit of heart. Anyway, your choice changes everything: Stay here and bear your hell for eternity, or face hell from the living. Both are shit yeah..but..I guess you have to make a choice this time not for people for once..but for yourself."

For yourself this time?

But..whether to choose something or to choose nothing..

Nothing brought him good.