//TW: Talk of death (no one dies, just words), talk of injury (a healed one), breaking of bones (just a description! No one really breaks their bones)

The next day, Tommy was grounded; quite literally grounded. Why? Because he swore too much and his luck was running too low and now he was forced to walk through the jungle with a broken elytra on his back. Seriously, out of all places his gear could break at, it just had to be over the jungle! In the dense part of it no less! At least, he had been low enough to the ground to only receive some minor knee and elbow scrapes. He swore that was a bad omen, even though he had not been checking the durability on the elytra frequently enough to prevent such a tragedy.

Fate was so damn cruel.

And he had stuff to do! Like giving Stress half the shulkers he had stolen from her back and finally starting to build his new home on the server. Secret bases in big bases just don't cut it, y'know? He wanted to return to the stables and do more horse riding, ask Stress about knitting, go to the Nether and explore the various tunnels of the Nether Hub, find his own diamonds, etcetera.

Killing phantoms and hoping to salvage enough of their membrane to fix his wings just had to be added on his to-do list.

So he trudged through the humid jungle, dragged his leather boots (courtesy of Grian's closet) over the muddy ground, having nothing better to do other than read the texts on his communicator and laugh when someone said an awful pun. That 'someone' being mostly Grian.

Tommy was learning more and more about the hermits by the day, he realized; their personalities and reactions to disasters and all that. Like how Stress would replace letters in some words with "f"s and "v"s and freak out over zombies and skeletons alike, how Keralis called others "pretty" or referred to them (affectionately) as "princess" (he had tried to stifle many startled laughs when he was at the stables with him and Bdubs and Keralis was being all sappy), or how Grian threw puns left and right from out of nowhere. It was really interesting and very funny.

It was fun to see shenanigans unfold as well. Chat shenanigans, because he was still in the mess of greenery and vines and chirping parrots. Wait-! no, nevermind. He shook his head; he could tame one of the birds after he sorted out his stuff. Then, in that small moment of weakness of debating over taming a bird, he bumped face-first into a tree, recoiling and falling on his butt.

For once in his life, Tommy did not cuss the tree out for being in his way, or reprimanded it to watch where it's going, because, I will punt you straight to the fucking moon, as he'd normally say. He was... surprisingly calm, only giving the tree the stink eye and rubbing at his face before groaning, getting up, dusting off his pants and continuing on his merry way.

That was a thing he had noticed while living on Hermitcraft. He swore less, got angry less, worried somewhat less. Especially when he was around others, he stuck to the small words like "hell" and "damn" (the exception being that outburst with Iskall). Whether it was the safety of the world doing this or the disappointed faces the hermits gave him, he didn't know.

The subconscious really is a mystery.

Then again, the server wasn't safe anymore, was it? Someone was trying to break in and there was nothing they could do to stop it. Dream could burst in at any given moment; at a slip of awareness; in a moment of weak guard. He could bring forth the aurora of the North and the South over the sky of the server and laugh like the maniac he was, he could spread fire in the wooden houses of Scar's village, he could bomb the shopping district down to bedrock. And he would bring death with him, not just destroyed buildings; the axe of netherite with the blood of the poor, innocent hermits swinging to cause it. It would be Tommy's fault if the server barrier was torn in half. No. Not if, but when, because Dream was that stubborn and if he needed to, the admin would not hesitate to pull strings to have others help him out.

They would all die because of Tommy; for him and he wouldn't have that.

Tommy had seen enough death. He had seen strangers die of old age, had seen them die of illness, could vividly recall them refusing their fate and desperately clinging onto their thread of life with claws and teeth until Atropos mercilessly cut it. Wild beasts, they were; hazy souls with shimmering, tearful eyes, afraid and scared. Tommy had had enough of those eyes.

He had also seen the wounded; the fighters and the soldiers. He had been one himself during the war of L'Manburg and the revolution of Pogtopia; he had sustained the worst of wounds, mangled fingers and holes in his body for the sake of independence that were a pain in the ass to overcome and heal. Tommy had lived through treachery, lived through the torture of life, the endless days in exile; in the end, he was a survivor. Technoblade had once told him that Lachesis had measured Tommy a long life; and his words were being proven true by the days and nights.

And Tommy had had enough of all that. On Hermitcraft, he had hoped to live peacefully. He had hoped to have his own house, his own land, no baddies coming to his doorstep and stealing his belongings. But Dream had to come and ruin everything again, like he always did. Xisuma kept him away, kept the world together, doing things only an administrator was capable of... and nothing bad had happened yet. But for how long? It would only take a millisecond for Dream to spot an opportunity; it would take him a second to invite himself onto the server.

The question plagued Tommy like a mosquito in his ear. He felt like a burden all of a sudden, deadweight on a slow ship, easily picked up and thrown overboard just so it could go faster; unwanted and disposable. The hermits had helped him so much and what had he done for them? He had stolen from them; had lied straight in their faces that he didn't know where the missing shulkers were. He had given them nothing back, they had no reason to keep him on the server. He was unimportant there, just an extra person for the admin to check up on from time to time.

Except, Xisuma had said that he would be staying... but they hadn't discussed for how long he would be accommodated. Whether or not he liked it, whether or not the hermits wanted him around, the wisest decision would be to return home. It would be better for everyone involved. He could see Tubbo and Phil and heck, Techno, who had released withers in his city's streets, for a second before Dream would escort him back to Logsted -or whatever remained of it, Dream was pretty impulsive to leave the place in one piece. The hermits would continue to live their lives normally, unbothered, careless still, only paranoid about mobs appearing in dark places as they did before.

But then he wouldn't see Iskall or Stress or any of them for Prime knows how long! Tommy was sure that Dream would kill them or hold them as leverage if they tried to visit him on the server, and he would use them against Tommy to keep the teen submissive to his sick, twisted, little games. He would have to burn bridges; strike a match and tearfully watch the wood burn and the brick crumble. He didn't want to do it, of course he didn't -he would be a complete and absolute idiot if he wanted to separate himself from those wonderful people- but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make if it meant that they would be free of paranoia and anxiety.

He had sacrificed so much already on the SMP: his valuables, his wants and childish greed... one more thing wouldn't hurt, would it?

He didn't want to think about the subject but his walk alone left him plenty of time to think and the shadows of the trees mocked him, reminded him of the days he would be scrambling to find shelter; some sort of haven far, far away from all the chaos. He had found the peace he had been searching for now; he had jumped over every obstacle like a well-trained stallion and found it at the end of the race, in open, gentle arms and the warmth of a flower-filled home. Just a week and a couple days on the server and he was thanking that barrier glitch for occurring when it did. His mind swirled with anxiety and nerves, though; they loomed over in the sky and around him, hugging his body tightly, a grip of a vice on his throat. He was afraid that his newfound happiness would be the prequel to future mayhem.

And, there was the already brewing conflict between Xisuma and Evil X, who seemed pretty pissed off about being a bee, going as far as to threaten Xisuma, the server administrator, about the inconvenience. Tommy didn't know what to make of that. As funny as it was to hear a bee talk, whatever had happened between the two had obviously spilled bad blood -and if he had to guess, it had spilled a whole pool of it. Could he trust Xisuma when he said that Evil would help, after knowing all that?

Probably; Xisuma was the server administrator after all, he could ban Evil X with a flick of a finger, kick him off the server and be done with it in a second. Then again, so could Evil X.

Sighing in frustration, he moved his hand away from his mouth, his thumbnail chewed crudely at the edges thanks to his teeth. Everything was a mess, all tangled up like necklaces that have been dumped in a box and left alone for too long; many strings but all leading to the mass of chaos and confusion. He wiped his finger on his pants and continued onwards, a hand carding through his blond curls.

All he was doing was causing them deadly trouble.

But he still felt that urge to stay; to run back into someone's base and hide there, let someone else fight his war for him for a change. His very soul begged for that sort of peace and warmth reminiscent of the early days of the Dream SMP, when everyone around him smiled and laughed from dawn to dusk. But he couldn't risk the hermits getting hurt. His fingers still twitched around the hilt of a sword that was not there. Despite his wishes, he still expected to be called to arms in a moment's notice and fight for what he wanted to keep: the chirps of the birds, the serenity of the sky, the rest his body craved. He was tired of running around a battlefield, deflecting attacks and blocking arrows, though; he was fed up with death and war.

He did not want that- a splat of water on his nose pulled him out of his thoughts.

Looking up, he saw the sky darken, rain clouds doing their happy, little dance as thunder rumbled lowly yet loudly. He huffed. Even the weather wanted to make his life difficult, like his own thoughts weren't enough.

He grumbled, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth before spying a patch of low-hanging oak branches that would be good shelter until the storm passed. If it passed. At least, he was wearing boots that easily beat the mud and repelled the water. The rain cold seeped into his skin through the thin fabric of his shirt, yet his skin was burning and his blood bubbling hot.

Whether he left or not would not make any difference; Dream would find him in the end. He could only prolong the inevitable and take as less people as possible with him. And where would all that lead them? To chaos? To having a collar and a leash around his neck again? Place everyone in chains?

It was then that he heard branches snap and leaves crunch under a heavy weight somewhere nearby. He twirled around, a hand ghosting over where his sword would be at his hip -now replaced with an axe.

"Who's there?", he instinctively shouted into the darkness of the jungle, and for a mere moment, the word "Dream" flew through the front of his mind. It couldn't be Dream though, because the sky was dark and not bright, no perplex phenomenon of bright greens and violets had occurred other than the clouds pouring water over the land.

Immediately realizing his mistake -calling into the darkness- he hurried to find a good hiding spot behind the oak trees. That sound could have been a zombie or a skeleton or worse, a creeper; all three deadly things that were, sadly, not deaf and that could easily sneak up on him and seriously mess him up.

There was a scrape of something against stone, a claw maybe, or something sharp. Tommy sighed in relief; it was probably just a stray spider, nothing he couldn't handle if it found him. But then, he was wrong, because he could make out dark brown fur peeking out of the ferns and ground foliage right there, dimly shimmering in the little light the clouds and rain let through. What is that?, he wondered. The fur was moving; or was it not fur but some sort of jungle plant? Maybe the dark was playing tricks on his eyes -yeah, that was probably it because he was pretty sure the section of jungle he was in was void of ocelots.

And then, there was a head; a fluffy, furry head of a wolf with floppy ears and predatory, shining eyes. Tommy did not scream at that, nor did he scare away all the birds and animals in the vicinity. It was a wolf, just a wolf; a rare one with a brown coat by the looks of it and thankfully, wolves were passive. He was safe.

Tommy just stared at the creature for a while, slowly becoming aware of the blunt nails that were somehow cutting into his palm. They held a staring contest that the teen refused to lose but lost anyway after only a few seconds. The wolf patted closer very carefully, tail wagging from side to side, its paws barely making a sound as they grazed the soil and carpet of leaves, and suddenly, Tommy realized that that was not a normal wolf. It was taller than him sitting, too bulky with muscles that were defined even on its clean, brown coat, its ears way too pointy and droopy to be considered normal and its eyes too human-looking to be some wild beast.

The wolf barked. Barked. Since when did wolves start barking? Maybe it's a wolfdog, Tommy tried to reason; he remembered one of Techno's hounds was such a crossbreed. Perhaps he had imagined the sound. But no, the creature's jaws had moved, its cheeks had huffed in a breath and barked it out. He had seen it do it and it's maw was full of sharp teeth and two sets of deadly canines at the front.

The teen hurried to pull up the chat on his bracelet.

tommyinnit: guys there is a huge wolf in the jungle
tommyinnit: it's looking at me all weird
tommyinnit: what do I do

The wolf moved closer as if to peer at the screen. Tommy shuffled away and it stopped with a tilted head.

Grian: is the wolf brown?
tommyinnit: yes, very very brown, now what do I do?
tommyinnit: I don't want to be mauled to death, i'm too young to die
Docm77: Oh, that's Ren, don't worry

Tommy looked up with lightning speed, startling the wolf who jolted a good foot off the ground. This wolf is Ren? Tommy narrowed his eyes and furrowed his eyebrows scrutinizingly. He- He could make out a small similarity, he supposed; like the floppy ears that prickled and flinched at the many sounds of nature, and the tail, though it looked a little more fluffed up than usual.

The wolf approached and sat by him, a paw coming up and right as Tommy was about to shout and yell, it pat down his hair, sharp claws gently scratching at his scalp as the wolf chuckled. Chuckled....

What?

"Ren?", he asked, eyes widening to the size of saucers as he finally faced the unbelievable but indisputable truth.

The wolf nodded, a silly grin on its muzzle.

"What?! How?! How are you a wolf? Aren't you a dog hybrid?"

Instead of answering, Ren grabbed hold of Tommy's sleeve and pulled. He pulled until the blond was up and sputtering nonsense, and then led him through a dense thicket of lean oak saplings and jungle trees. Tommy noticed that Ren came up to his shoulder in that form and he had a better look at how bulky he was; a beast of muscle and power.

"Okay, where are you taking me?", Tommy finally asked after he calmed down. His sleeve was let free; he could stop, turn and go the other way if he wanted to, but he walked along Ren's side anyway.

He noted how Ren was taking most of the downpour on his back, the fur matted with dirty rainwater, as he assured that Tommy stayed under the cover of tree branches and wide leaves, like a parent pushing their kid off the road and onto the sidewalk. "You'll catch a cold like that, Ren"

The only response he received to his worried observation was a tail wag to the leg, as if to say "Hush and keep walking" -he could almost hear the man say it in that happy and excited tone of his. With a raised eyebrow, Tommy did just that. He continued to follow Ren through the jungle, through the cold rain, his hand finding purchase on the wolf whenever he tripped over a rock or root, until the trees became fewer and scarcer at a noticeable treeline.

The rain clouds thinned with the trees on the sky, to the point of there being any rain at all. It was just small droplets, small, annoying sprinkles on the face; innocent enough -calming, even! Tommy could smell the faint scent of watered ground, he took a small whiff of it as they exited the jungle to a desert.

And then, he was wet. Wet from head to toe, soaked to the bone as if someone had dumped a bucket of water on him.

He slowly turned his head to look at Ren, whose fur was all puffed up, looking like an electrocuted sheep, as he had shaken off all the water. Tommy narrowed his eyes accusingly.

"You dog basta-", Tommy cut himself off before he could finish that insult, instead choosing to express himself through a long, angry grunt. "You will pay for this!"

It was a promise, and now, Tommy had to think of a way to get back at Ren for that shower.

Ren chuckled, shrugged his shoulders, and then Tommy heard a crack. He wondered what it was, flinching when he heard it again. It had come from the direction of the hybrid and he found his answer. His eye widened when it clicked in his brain.

The wolf in front of him shifted and morphed, small cracks and crooks sounding muffled from under the skin and muscles. Tommy let out a shout, taking a couple of steps back before tripping and falling onto his butt for the second time that day.

He swore he closed his eyes for just a second; a mere second. And when he opened them again, Ren was standing over him, back to his human form with a hand held out for him, a small grin on his face. Gasping in surprise, Tommy took it and Ren lifted him up.

"I think you're the one who's gonna catch a cold", Ren said with a chuckle, his grin turning smug for a bit, before giving Tommy a pat on the head.

Tommy grumbled a few words (mostly curses) towards the other under hi breath.

"Come on, let's get you a change of clothes!"

Φ

The city of Tatooren was big. Built within the ravine of a desert, in the divots of grand, sandy dunes, were small and big houses made of sandstone and gravel, red tents held up above the ground on stilts. The pillars holding up balconies were thin and thick, leaving plenty of room for a person to pass through underneath, and weird letters and words had been chiseled into each base. The sun had a smell in the desert; that overwhelming, stuffy, suffocating smell of a heated up room that has been left locked for too long unfolding tenfold amongst the grains.

The roads were discrete, made to be simple paths from house to house, from district to district, opening small valleys, with just a few lamp posts here and there. There was no one roaming about, not even a ghost or a cat. It was completely empty, save for the tumbleweeds that rolled in the wind.

Ren had taken Tommy to one of the bigger houses, one he had furnished with the basics: a bed and closet in the bedroom upstairs, a furnace and a table with chairs in the kitchen that was connected to the living room, a small bath in the basement, comfy couches and a thin, red, woolen rug at the door.

He had Tommy sit at the table as he went to fetch him fresh, dry clothes from upstairs.

And as he did that, Tommy looked around the house with his eyes, arms outstretched on the table, and for once, he didn't mind his clothes being all clingy and buddy-buddy with his skin. Even inside the house, the heat was blistering and almost unbearable.

He was pretty sure he would die of a heatstroke. He was pretty sure he would melt into a puddle and be cursed to move around like a slime with two eyeballs just sticking out of the ground.

And honestly, he should've been feeling trapped. He was in a foreign house with only two options: either stay seated where it was somewhat cool or leave and deal with the sun for however long it would take to walk back to the jungle.

He chose the former.

Even though it wasn't his house, it felt comfy and homey, the heat of the walls lulling him to sleep when he was meant to stay awake and alert. Somehow, it felt right, and Ren hadn't asked for anything in exchange for the comfort of shelter.

"Tommy, catch!", the fabric that hit him in the face dragged him out of the hazy train of thought in his mind. Tommy jolted with a muffled 'oomf!' before reaching up and removing the shirt from his face.

It was a slightly faded flannel, he found, with really eye-catching black and orange stripes running along the red fabric. Ren threw him some jeans and underwear and told him that he could go have a bath in the basement.

That was not creepy at all.

And even though the sirens in his mind were blurring loudly and shining bright reds every-which-way, he went downstairs anyway. He had sweat tons anyway, and he needed to get the grime off his face and palms before actually changing his clothes.

The water was surprisingly cold when he turned the little valve of the bath; a pro of the plumbing being underground rather than out in the heat. As he sank into the tub, his mind went from hazy to full, and from full to blank. The cold felt heavenly on his skin, especially after being in the sun for so long. He didn't panic when he felt the water rise above his cupid's bow, tickling his nose and threatening to get into his nostrils and make them feel all weird and sticky.

His shoulders slumped and he let out a small sigh that ended up as bubbles in the water. It was quiet, the only sound in the small bathroom being the water as it sloshed around when he lifted a hand to turn off the tap.

It wasn't long until he was clean and dressed and headed upstairs to find Ren waiting in the living room, prepping a list or something like that. The man turned to him with a twitch of a floppy ear and beckoned him over with a calloused hand.

"Are you feeling better now?", Ren asked, who had changed his clothes as well -only the fact that his shirt was not dump gave that away. Tommy narrowed his eyes as he sat near the brunet.

"I should be asking you that, you were in the rain for like- ten minutes!"

Ren just laughed.

"I'll be fine, my dude, don't worry!"

Tommy shrugged and went to sit on the opposite end of the couch. All that was around him, was bound to be destroyed; the hard work of a builder who had spent hours upon hours grinding for supplies, all of it gone the moment Dream would break through. He worried his bottom lip for a second, a hand fiddling with a black button on his new shirt.

"Ren...", he hesitantly started. The man let out a hum and leaned forwards towards him, urging him to continue. "I'm... thinking of leaving"

"You are free to leave the house whenever you want, Tommy", the other responded in a confused tone. Tommy looked to the side to avoid the man's chocolate gaze, letting go of the button. Ren's eyebrows raised as he seemed to connect the dots. "Wait, do you mean- Leaving the server? Hermitcraft?"

Tommy nodded.

"I mean, it's only reasonable, innit?", he gave the man -who had now stood up- a sheepish smile, "I just brought you all a bunch of trouble", he brought them Dream. It would be the most reasonable thing; to leave before a second doomsday could occur in Hermitcraft.

"No, I don't think it's reasonable", Ren said with a shake of his head, ears dropping, "Where would you go?"

"Back to the SMP"

"Now, that, is the stupidest idea I've heard today"

Tommy's head snapped back to him, "What?"

"You're being hunted, aren't you? The person trying to get into our server is here because of you", he said matter of factly. Tommy's lips pulled into a line; the way he spoke reminded him of Techno for some reason -he had mixed feelings about that. "And Xisuma said that things are bad over there. Wouldn't it be safer if you stayed here?"

Tommy shook his head. "It's not safe, Ren! The moment that person breaks through, he will kill everyone! I'm not the only one in danger!" -he saw how Ren's eyes widened just the slightest bit- "If I go back before that happens, everyone here will be spared-"

"Now, wait just a second-", Ren quickly cut him off solemnly, a crazy contrast to the goofy person Tommy had witnessed before, "My dude, what do you mean 'kill'?"

"He'll kill anyone he has to in order to get hold of me", Tommy replied, "If you try to protect me, you'll only get your head chopped off"

And he could vividly imagine it. Right where they were standing, he could see a mighty axe come through his peripheral, the holder known and unknown at the same time, and he could see and almost hear the blade as it dug into Ren's neck with a spray of blood.

Ren shook his head at the words, disbelieving surely.

"Tommy", he started and his tone begged, or demanded, his attention. "Mark my words, that will not happen- ever! Xisuma is one of the best admins I have ever had the pleasure of meeting, and in the scenario that something does happen, we can protect ourselves, okay?"

"If something does happen- ", Ren cut him off with a pat on the head.

"If something does happen, you will not have to worry. We can and we will protect you, Tommy"

Tommy hadn't realised that he had hunched his shoulders up until the moment Ren said that they would protect him; some sort of built-up tension was vanquished from his body and he could feel it in the way his muscles relaxed and he found reassurance in the way Ren pet his hair. He quickly swatted the man's hand away, turning his head to hide a small blush of embarrassment.

"...Do you promise that?", he asked in a small voice, loud enough to be near a whisper as he looked at his feet.

"Of course I do", Ren answered without a second thought. Tommy looked up and found a grin on the man's face, ears twitching up and down, his tail resting with an occasional sway. The teen nodded and that grin must've had been infectious, because Tommy found the corners of his lips tugging up into a grin of is own. "Now that that has been cleared, I think I should drop you off at Stress', yeah?"

After a minute, Tommy nodded, "Yeah"

"I can lend you-", Tommy quickly cut him off.

"No! I can get my shit sorted myself!"

Ren gave a chuckle before leading the kid to the awful sun outside.

Riding a wolf through the jungle was an experience to remember.

=======
This took way longer to write than intended xD
Anyway, I might be publishing another fanfic soon, so keep an eye out for that!

Man I have been watching EVO SMP and I am in the mood for Grian angst and I have been reading superhero AUs... I think we all know where I am going with this.

Ugh, too many ideas, too little time!