Chapter Text
Tommy was stretched out completely on his bed, stomach facing the bed. He could hear footsteps approach him.
“You know that laying like that is bad for you, right?” Sam asks.
Tommy groans, pushing the palms of his hands into his eyes, “Yes, Sam, yes I know. You’ve only told me 3 million times since coming over.”
Out of the corner of his vision he sees the way Sam looks at him--the sad way. It’s always the sad way. Well, he could take his puppy dog glances to Tubbo or something, he lost the privilege of being upset when he refused to let Tommy out of the prison--resulting in his death.
“Tommy-” Sam starts, but there’s a knocking on the shitty door Tommy had crafted in a minute. He was quite proud of the thing actually, but he did admit it was terrible at keeping out the cold air.
Tommy gets up to open the door before Sam can, and is surprised to see four-eyes standing there, along with Tubbo, of course.
“Hey Big T!” Tommy greets, waving them in. He eyes Slimecicle wearily before letting him in as well, but it was more out of precaution since he barely knew the guy. “So… what brings you to the coolest place on the server?”
“Is that what you’re calling it now?” Tubbo teases, and shoves him a bit. Tommy freezes, flashbacks of Dream’s fists pounding him fresh on his mind as if they had just happened. He shakes off the flashback quickly. He’s been getting better at that--ignoring the flashbacks, the feelings in general, honestly.
“You dare insinuate that my party palace is not the coolest place to exist?” Tommy jokes back, hoping Tubbo, Sam, and Charlie didn’t notice the way he had tensed before. Speaking of which, he turns his gaze to Charlie, just watching the interaction with a guarded look. “No offense big man, and by that I mean take full offense, but why are you here?”
Charlie laughs a bit, “I’m just here to check up on you. I uh, heard what happened. Sorry.” Tommy highly doubts that’s why he’s there. He’s had 3 weeks to check up on Tommy. Not that he was letting anyone else visit him besides his closest friends those first 2 weeks, but the point still stands.
Tommy lets his eyes roam over Charlie for a second, enjoying the uncomfortable look that flashes over his face, before nodding. “Sure.”
Tubbo and Tommy chat about nothing important, while Sam stares daggers at Charlie. Good, Tommy wasn’t the only one thinking it was strange of him to just show up unexpectedly. Tommy takes a final glance at the two, and finally asks the question he had been dreading.
“What’d you talk to Dream about at the prison?” Tubbo seems startled, and Tommy rolls his eyes. “I’m not blind, Tubbo. Just because I… don’t leave the house much… doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on on this bloody server. It was practically all anyone could talk about today. ‘What do you think Tubbo’s gonna do to him?’, you know, the standard rumors. Just thought I’d hear about it first hand.”
“First hand…” Tubbo mutters. “Well, I don't really, uh, want to talk about the bad parts of it.” Tommy expected this. He didn’t expect the way Tubbo’s eyes suddenly lit up, though. “Oh! But I did learn one thing, and, and it-”
Charlie sighed and dropped his head into his hands. “Not this again.”
“What do you mean by ‘this’-” Tommy started to ask, but got interrupted by Tubbo practically foaming at the mouth. Tommy knew this face. This was his theory face. This face was never a good face.
“I mean,” Tubbo continued, “I was talking to Dream, and he said this, like, super out of context thing. We were talking about, uh, how he was just as much of a god as DreamXD was-” Tommy shuddered. He knew the rants well. Very well. “-and anyways, he gets like, worked up about it and he says, ‘I just wish I could shove it in that stupid God’s face who just walks around--like he’s- normal! He isn’t! But I know how much I’m worth. I could totally shove it up his-' and then he said a bunch of curse words.”
Tommy spies Charlie’s face drain of color for some reason, and notes the way he quickly whispers something to Sam. Sam nods, and gets up, “I should get going. You two can handle yourselves, right?”
“Two? What about Charlie?” Tommy asks.
“I’m pretty tuckered out. I think I’m gonna turn in for the night,” Slimecicle explains. Tommy knows this is a lie, he didn’t even look at them when he said it. “Maybe you guys should sleep on the whole god thing. Come to your senses.” Charlie’s awkward grin contrasts the rest of everyone’s neutral faces.
“Yeah, whatever. I’m a big man. I can handle being alone.”
“See you tomorrow, Tommy,” Sam salutes and exits the hut. Charlie follows suit, nodding as he leaves. Tommy notices he left goop on the doorknob. Gross.
Tommy and Tubbo sit in silence for a couple of seconds before Tommy asks, “What’s up with four-eyes?”
Tubbo stares at him with a questioning look. “Four-eyes? Who’s--oh. You mean Charlie.”
“Four-eyes is practically his name at this point,” Tommy counters. The dude literally had two sets of eyes, he swore it, although no one else seemed to notice.
Tubbo chuckles, “Sure. Even though I’m pretty sure it’s bullying, I’ll let it slide.”
Tommy throws his hands up in mock anger, “It’s not bullying if it’s true, you dickhead! And you didn’t answer my question. Why’d he come if he was only going to stay for a couple minutes?”
“I don’t know,” He shrugged, “He just asked to come.”
“Well, he looked awfully uncomfortable about it,” Tommy says. “It was like he came here just to observe or something.”
“I don’t know what he does with his free time! I’m pretty sure this was the first time we’ve talked in, I don’t know, maybe a month?”
“He needs a hobby besides watching children,” Tommy says pointedly, and then remembers what they were talking about before. “So, what’s this about a God on the server? Besides me, of course,” He laughs at his own joke.
“Oh yeah!” Tubbo says, and excitedly starts his rant about what went down in the cell today. “So after he said that, he just continued as normal. As if he didn’t just drop like a huge bomb on me and Sam. But Sam doesn’t think it’s important. Just another ramble.”
Tommy wasn’t really sure what to think. On the one hand, Dream was extremely delusional and self-absorbed, of course he said something like that. On the other, well, Dream wasn’t one for admitting his control had been ripped away. He was the type of guy who could literally be surrounded by more than 20 people and still thought he could manipulate his way out of it. Tommy knew this from experience. *Cough cough*, January 20th. All this to say, he really wouldn’t admit there was someone who could probably kill him out there, because he most likely didn’t think they existed.
“So who do you think it is?” Tommy asked, shaking his internal monologue from his mind.
“Oh I have no clue,” Tubbo laughed, “I don’t even think I know them, actually.”
“Of anyone on the server though, who would you guess?” Tommy was more just trying to get back into a joking manner. Even though Dream wouldn’t really lie about that sort of thing (well, maybe he was. Somebody who beats a child to death is not totally right in the mind), he couldn’t really fathom the idea of a genuine God.
“Well, I guess I would probably say Dream. Or Techno.”
“See, now I know it’s not Techno because he’s an idiot,” Tommy says. “Although I guess he doesn’t ‘ever die’. I could probably take him though.”
“Tell that to the pit,” Tubbo said.
“It was rigged,” Tommy grunted, and they dissolved into laughter. Almost just as normal, almost like before L’manburg, before exile, before his final death and revival. At least Tommy could pretend.
~*~
Charlie walked with Sam back home from Tommy’s, and Charlie was pretty sure it wasn’t out of charity. The guy clearly didn’t trust him. Was it something in his teeth? He almost chuckled at the idea. Charlie just wasn’t sure what he did. It was perfectly normal to check up on a kid who had just died 3 weeks prior. Checking up on them was a common courtesy.
Of course, he hadn’t actually gone to check up on Tommy. That was an added bonus, of course, he still worried about the kid even if he had threatened him with a map of vikkstar for 20 minutes, but no, that was not the main reason he went. He felt like a dick, just going over to see what they knew about Dream, but to be fair, his life was on the line. His finally normal life. He had worked hard for it.
Going to visit Tommy wasn’t completely necessary though. All Tubbo had said was a repeat of what he had told him earlier, except it was an exact quote this time.
It still gave him shivers, thinking about it. How the fuck had Dream figured out who he was? Charlie was so close to just ignoring it, pretending it was about some other god he had never heard of. And that would work just fine, except for the fact there were literally no other new members. Nobody could go undiscovered this long without being found out.
“So you want to go to the prison?” Sam finally asked.
“Yeah, to see Dream,” He could slap his face right there. Who else would be in there, Wilbur Soot?
“Why?” Sam asked. He had asked the same thing the moment they had exited Tommy’s dirt shack.
Charlie repeated the same thing he had said then, “Personal business,” He shrugged, trying to make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal.
“What could you possibly have to talk about with the prisoner?”
“I don’t know--” He tried to come up with an excuse that made sense, “--cookies?” Yeah, real great response there, Charlie Slimecicle, “What he does in there all day? I’m not friends with the guy. Maybe I’d just make fun of him for being in jail.”
“Those aren’t great reasons,” Sam pointed out.
“I can tell, Sherlock,” Charlie says, “Look it’s personal. I wouldn’t go if I didn’t have to.” And while that probably made him even more suspicious, it worked.
“When do you want to go?”
~*~
So maybe, Dream was a little harsh on Tommy. Maybe he shouldn’t have blown up all of his shit.
Dream paused for a second and thought about his actions, reflecting on them deeply.
...
Yeah, Dream wasn’t convinced of it. Tommy needed to learn. And he ran away? They could’ve rebuilt Logestire together! A bonding experience, or something.
Whatever. He just needed someone powerful on his side, prime knew Dream XD wasn’t. And he’d get them on his side, willingly or not. He just needed to figure out where to start.
Immortal Figures; Volume 1.2 caught his eye. He picked it up and grinned, not that you could tell from under his mask.
This could work.