TW// Descriptions of gore, body horror, bugs.
Living in a ravine sucked.
They barely had any tools, or food, or anything, trapped in damp, dark stone and cold hard crevices. His neck was always too tight on the left side, and his shoulder hurt. Like really fucking hurt.
He'd found a tiny village, through the forest, managed to buy basic medical supplies and food while Wilbur wallowed away in the newly crowned Pogtopia. He wasn't even grateful when Tommy came back either, just snatched the painkillers out of his hands and interrogated him about what he saw.
They'd tried their best to make it work, lanterns strung up on the ceiling and walls, warm glow cast over grey slate walls, oak wood railings and stairs, a little bridge that stretched over a nasty gap. They had a furnace, and some chests, a little hollowed out area on the surface. It still wasn't home though, wasn't L'manburg.
The biggest difference was how quiet it was, distant rushing water and strange sounds that set his teeth on edge in the dead of night, when all he had was tough rock and cold chills and aching wounds. There was no laughter, or yelling over stupid arguments that everyone forgot about in the end, no warm comfortable beds, no family at all.
Well, he had Wilbur, he always would have Wilbur, but something was slipping, something not quite right up in the old noggin.
He missed them all, even though he would never tell them that, lest anyone got the wrong impression about his manliness and what not, but he did. Tubbo and Rose and Niki and Jack. Maybe even Sapnap.
Well, maybe not Sapnap, but he's desperate enough to not want to stab his eye out if he saw the man again.
When. When he sees him again. Because that's what they're doing, biding time, getting stronger, then they'll take it all back, away from Schlatt, make everything normal again.
He'd watched the walls come down, he'd watched as Rose and Niki stood against them, watched Schlatt punch Tubbo, then Rose punch Schlatt.
He's pretty proud to admit that he's the one who taught her that.
Wilbur told him not to talk to any of them yet, that they could have been on Schlatt's side the whole time. They don't know who they can trust, not yet, not with Schlatt out for blood. So he watched, from the shadows like a very skilled ninja, watched the tax collections and time Rose broke down by the van.
He wanted to tell her, just let her know that they were alive, that they were okay and everything was going to be okay, because they had a plan, and they were going to get L'manburg back.
But Wilbur said to hide in the shadows, so he did.
Except for the last week. The last seven days have been a disaster.
Wilbur's leg and back are worse, and by worse he means fucking disgusting. Swollen and puffy, oozing foul pus from the gaping holes in his skin. Of course, Tommy can push through it, and he definitely did not throw up in the bush next to the entrance to their house.
And Wilbur, well Wilbur's about thirteen times worse too. He looks like shit, he reeks, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead, all shaky and weak and kind of pathetic. He talks a lot, but they're not really words, more like a string of seemingly unconnected words muttered under his breath.
Traitor, alone, betrayed, Tubbo, Niki, Rose seem to the running theme. Wilbur won't let him go outside, which is ridiculous, because Tommy's second in command and should be able to do whatever he damn well pleases, but Wilbur just about breaks his ankle with the force of his (rather disgusting) hand that grabs him before he can get out the door.
Finally, the combination of pain meds, infections and exhasution seemed to have knocked him out for good, not the half-zombie half lunatic state he was floating around in the last couple of days, and Tommy can finally get some fresh air, armed with a clumsy bow and wooden axe.
He heads towards L'manburg, because he knows he's missed tax day, and he should look over Niki and Rose, see if they need a hero too swoop in and save them. He knows guards are up at the perimeter, on the few tiny excursions he's been able to sneak in when Wilbur spontaneously passed out, but he's never been able to get through.
It shouldn't be an issue though, especially not for Tommyinnit of all people.
He loops around, far far out of the range, over by the edge of the north wall, quiet footsteps and flattening his body against the trees. He passes by a bush splattered in something dark brown, which makes him feel uneasy, stomach churning. He can't figure out why.
He keeps going, because feeling a little sick is not going to stop him from achieving what he set out to do, who does people think he is? Still, he drifts off to the west, away from the bush.
Purely tactical and completely unrelated of course.
But when his foot kicks something solid in the undergrowth and it squelches, well Tommy pretty much shits his pants.
What the fuck was that? What the fuck makes that kind of fucked up noise? What the FUCK is buried under a pile of leaves in the middle of nowhere, just outside the border of L'manburg. Tommy's not shaking, he's definitely not scared, he's just taking his time, assessing the situation, just like a good soldier, a smart soldier would.
There's this absolutely foul smell, death and disease, and more brown stuff dried on the pile, and it's all very confusing.
However, when he flicks away the rotting leaves and dry dirt with the tip of his boot and sees a fucking hand, the brown on the bush makes a hell of a lot of fucking sense.
Blood. Hand. Body
It's a fucking body. And he just touched it.
His butt collides with the ground in his haste to scramble away, shuffling back wildly because that's a body and he just touched it , and oh my fucking god he needs to get away from it as soon as goddamn possible, which is not happening as fast as it fucking should be.
He screams, high pitched and so loud his throat hurts when his back collides with someone's legs, and he probably just almost shit himself for the second time, jumping forward so violently, he nearly flung himself out of his own skin.
"You found Jack then." A deep voice says sadly, and it sounds a hell of a lot like a traitor he knew.
"Eret?" He pushes as much hatred and confidence in his voice as he can muster, well as much as anyone can muster when they've just been caught flailing on the ground and screaming like a girl .
"You're alive." Eret says, like he's surprised, like he didn't believe Tommy was capable of it.
"Of course I'm alive you fucking bit-" Tommy spits, interrupting himself halfway through. Wilbur would be calm, he'd want to talk, he'd be dip-lo-matic. "What are you doing here?"
Eret looks down. He looks tired. Serves him right. "I was looking for Jack."
Even though it confuses the hell out of him, Tommy doesn't let his face betray surprise, just like Wilbur taught him, never play your pieces- or cards to your enemy or whatever.
Okay, so maybe he doesn't always listen to everything Wilbur says. Can you blame him? Wilbur talks a lot.
"He's probably at the ponds by the south-west corner, he likes fishing there" He says confidently, dusting off the back of his legs, and slinging the bow back onto his shoulder.
Eret looks even more defeated. "I just found him Tommy."
Is Eret alright in the head? Tommy would suggest some therapy, or maybe just a good lie down and some water because he's talking like an insane person.
"Jesus did you go mental while we're away as well as stupid Eret? We're the only ones here."
The moment the words leave his mouth, he wishes he could swallow them back down, because everything fucking connects and it's awful.
"That's Jack."
"No- no you're wrong Eret, Wilbur's right, you are working with Schlatt! this isn't real it's a trap right? Right?" He hates that his voice falters like that at the end, but he's getting desperate here.
"This isn't a trap Tommy, this is real." Eret says sorrowfully, kneeling down behind the mound and sweeping off the foliage.
Tommy wants to vomit. The smell is putrid, like the steak he chucked behind a pot plant hat he didn't want to eat at dinnertime then forgot about for three days, and rotten eggs and like- literal fucking shit. Eret reels back, both of them pulling their shirts up to cover their noses, the stench so horrific Tommy's eyes are watering.
He should have left it at that, really, but he had to go and be nosy, he had to be sure.
It's a head, and a face, eyes closed like they could be sleeping, if it wasn't for the gash line of blood across their throat, dried dark red-brown coating every inch of bloated skin, thick, deep cut down in their windpipe.
It's also unmistakeably Jack's. Despite everything, Tommy knows who this it. Despite the mottled grey face, splotched with varying degrees of colours that can only be described as death themselves, stiff and puffed up horribly in the wrong places, like someone had inflated and deflated the skin on his usually clear cut cheeks.
Dark veins trail up the skin, spider legs sprawling up over the jaw and across the cheeks, like vines curling over trees, except very, very wrong, poking the edges of his lips. There's the tiniest bit of movement in the corner of Jack's eye.
Tommy leans in, when the fucking maggot crawls out of his fucking eye socket.
Then he does vomit.
They're all over Jack's body, wriggling little white worms, crawling down under his skin, in his ear, in the knife wound, burying themselves under his eyelids, pushing past his rigid lips into his mouth. His whole body is infested, crawling with maggots. He didn't know how he missed the flies, buzzing around in the air, landing on his nose, his forehead, his throat.
"What the fuck!" Tommy spits, coughing next to the trunk of a nearby tree. "What the fuck is that!"
Eret stands back up and comes next to Tommy, offering out his hand. He doesn't take it, pushing himself up on shaky hands and trembling knees.
"Jack attempted to escape L'manburg with Ro and Niki six days ago, but he was caught by Schlatt and executed for it." Eret says emotionlessly, like if he let himself feel anything for it he was going to lose his mind. "We couldn't find the body because they moved and hid it."
"Escape? Wha- Wait are Rose and Niki okay? Eret what the fuck is going on?"
"Rose and Niki are fine, Schlatt didn't get them. He put a new rule in place, no one is allowed to leave L'manburg because they could be finding and helping you."
"He knows we're alive?"
"He doesn't want to take a chance, and he isn't stupid, he won't get cocky like that. It's also just to control people, all he needed was an excuse."
"He- he killed Jack." Tommy whispers, blue eyes glued on the rotting corpse before them, and he feels sick all over again, his pitiful breakfast is threatening a dramatic reappearance. "He fucking killed Jack." His mouth just stutters out words while his brain seems to just collapse.
Eret grips his shoulders, shaking him slightly, bringing his face close into his. "Fundy murdered Jack Tommy. Jack is dead." He says, raising his voice. Tommy blinks, once, twice, then stumbles, knees buckling.
"No, no no no no-"
"Yes. He's dead Tommy, come one, I know how strong you are, you know the truth."
"Stop! Stop saying that! You don't know me! You're a traitor, you betrayed us- fuck you! Shut up!" Tommy screams, pushing Eret's hands off of him and covering his ears, like the words haven't already drilled their way into his skull.
"I'm not lying Tommy, you know that."
"Why are you saying this shit? Jack's dead what the fuck is wrong with you? You're fucked up man, you're fucked up! Stop!"
"Because I saw Ro and Niki go through this!" Eret roars, louder than he's ever heard. "I watched them go around in circles pretending like everything was going to get better, and the fall apart, and you can not do that, not now!"
"I'm not!" Tommy yells back. "I'm not going to fall apart!" He stands up, wiping his eyes and straightening his back out. Eret backs off slightly.
"You can't Tommy, because Rosie and Niki did and no one is there to pick you up if you do."
"I have Wilbur." Tommy says stiffly.
"He survived too?" Eret says hopefully. Tommy nods.
"Let me help you guys, I can give you resources, anything you want. Where are you living?" Eret says enthusiastically. Tommy stares at him with his lips pressed firmly into a line.
"Thank you for the offer Eret, but we can't trust you."
"Let me talk to Wil-"
"I said no, we can't trust you again, not after everything."
"Okay, okay but I'm on your side Tommy, and I'm looking after Ro and Niki, I'm making sure they're safe."
"Are they okay?"
"It's- it's weird. They weren't, they really weren't and Niki still isn't, but Ro- Ro seems to be fine now. Like she lost it for a few days and is back to normal. It's scary."
Tommy can't bring himself to look at Jack- Jack's body, still lying decrepit, hours away from being unrecognisable on the forest floor. "I can't believe Schlatt would do that."
"Schlatt is insane, he's breaching all the treaties, Dream's really, really angry at him. I think there might be another war, the way everything is going."
Tommy grins at that. "There is going to be a second war Eret, and we're going to win L'Manburg back."
"With what? The two of you-" Eret looks down at the messily wrapped bandage on Tommy's shoulder. "in the state you're in? You don't stand a chance."
"Fuck off as if you'd know anything, you just run to whatever side gives you the most." He spits back, bristling under Eret's stupid comments, as if Eret has any idea, like Eret even fucking cares about L'manburg. "I need to bury Jack."
"We already have a place to bury him."
"You can't move him like this." He says in disgust. "He'd fall apart or some shit, and that's not right man, you can't do that to someone's fucking dead body."
"I'll bury him then, but you need to go before Schlatt's men see you and kill you too. It's not safe here."
He's right, even though it physically hurts him to admit that fact, but he also can't just leave Jack here, all alone with a man he barely knows to say the final goodbyes.
He screws up his eyes, puffing in and out of his mouth and kneels down by Jack's head, opening up his eyes and focusing them on the tree line, because if he looks at Jack's decomposed bug-infested face he's going to throw up again.
"Jack- I um I don't know how to do these things, but I wanted to say thanks, uh thank for everything. And um, I'm going to miss you big man, I'm really going to miss you, and don't say that too a lot of people, so yeah, yeah I'm sorry and we're going to make Schlatt pay for this okay? I promise you that. He's going to pay, and I hope that where ever you are, you're having a good time."
When he gets up and leaves, it feels like a piece of him rips out and attaches itself onto the very ground that Jack lies on, one that he'll never get back. And as much as it pains him to admit this, not that a single sole would ever be privy to this information, he balled his fucking eyes out the whole way home.
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A/N Yeah...I'm sorry guys, he's gone.
I've never delved into kinda gross/creepy/horror descriptions before so I took the opportunity, not sure how I did (I think it's pretty tame) but it was interesting to try and research! Also apologies for the delay, I've been swamped with school work and it's meant I've had to put writing on the backburner! I actually got around to writing this because I got an industrial piercing this arvo and it wants to hurt and not let me sleep so I decided to write instead.
I have a little feeling you guys are going to enjoy Rosie's character development over the next chapters...well at least I know I'm going to love writing it! (wink wink)
I hope you enjoyed!
Oopsies x