Dark SBI & Fluffy Oneshots

The Cost of Years

A/N 

IM BACKKKKKKK

its been a month guys. more than a month. long story short the depression hit and I didn't write a single thing for a month, then got inspired today and wrote this entire fic in one sitting. its a little chaotic, but I hope you guys enjoy :D

these fics of mine have a habit of starting in one direction and going a complete different one, and I'm simply along for the ride lmaooo

TWs: mentions of death and violence, tommy at one point describes some graphic details about a guy's throat being slit, but its less than a sentence long

Synopsis: Five years ago, Tommy ran away from his family after witnessing them kill. In an attempt to fix the damage that they caused, Wilbur finds him again

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5 years was a long time.

A long, long, time.

You could do a lot in five years. Tommy knew this was from experience. You looked different, you acted different; you knew more, you knew less; you were stronger, you were weaker. Five years could shape you beyond repair, yet it could fix you all the same. It could heal, or a split decision could make you crumble.

Time was a patchwork of decisions and mistakes. Small, seemingly inconsequential choices that eventually embodied your future. One wrong turn could change your life forever, or, in the luckier cases, could fix it all in a heartbeat. Truly, the wear of time was the ultimate testament of the soul.

In Tommy's case, five years was enough to rejuvenate him.

He'd changed. He'd bought an apartment and shared it with a mix of friends, filling the nights full of movies and muffled laughter as his friend tried to study in the other room. He'd picked up a job at a local cafe, working alongside Niki, who soon became the mentor in his newfound freedom. He even bought a cat, who had a habit of falling asleep on his lap in the midst of writing college admissions, purring up a storm and stripping the frown from his face with the smallest gesture of trust.

It was almost funny, how much stolen money could change your life as a runaway. Even at such a young age, still in the beginning of his teens, a few bundles of cash beneath the table were able to hide everything he wanted to keep beneath him, all in exchange for a few suspicious deals. He got a new identity, using it to enroll in the occasional online class, all in hopes of picking up a life beyond waitering shifts. He dragged his best friend, Tubbo, along with them to his shared apartment, each full of older, yet equally struggling kids.

Tommy, at the beginning of his freedom, even burned the photos he hoarded of his family, pitching them into the fireplace as Tubbo passed him a tissue to wipe his eyes. He'd watched the three faces–a once cheery image, now stained with knowledge of their actions–char and fall apart, fading into nothing but tall piles of ash, the once-vibrant colors streaked with brown and flickers of flame. In a matter of minutes, they were gone. A father and two brothers, forever missing from his mind.

His memories, his faltering image of their cheeriness, and, most of all, their facade of love; all gone in a matter of minutes.

But that was only minutes.

Ranboo–one of the younger kids in their ten-person apartment with a scar running down the middle of their face–once told him there were 2,628,000 minutes in five years. At the time, at only thirteen years old, there were still 2,496,600 left.

"If you really do want to turn your...murderous ex-family in five years, nobody'll blame you for it," the kid had assured him at the time. "But I wouldn't think about it right now. You still have plenty of time to make that decision. Remember-"