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Tommy wakes up to the sound of screaming. A lot of it. Or maybe it's laughing. Or maybe– no, no– if he's perfectly honest - which he isn't often - he can't really, actually tell. There's just a lot of violent shrieking and echoing screeching, and maybe a bit of wild sobbing mixed in there, too. It's a mess, and it's going on and on and on.
A relentless loop. A never-ending howl. It sort of reminds him of one of his disks - one of the ones that had gotten a little more scratched than it probably should have; one of the ones that like to repeat on a particular chunk of the song for a good few hours; one of the ones that are just pretty crap.
Tommy sort of wants to bash his head into the nearest stone wall. Maybe retake his own last life, or whatever amount of lives he has left after Dream had thought it would be the funniest fucking thing to kill him and kill him and then kill him–
Well, the point is, though, is that it's loud - the screaming, that is. It's loud, and it's piercing, and it's digging relentlessly deep into his mind, curling against his pale, pale, pale skin and prodding far too close to his eyes for it to be alright - for it to be normal. (Nothing about his stupid life is 'normal' anymore, but Tommy likes to pretend it is. Often. Very, very often.)
It's just fucking– it won't stop. It won't, it really won't, and Tommy had no idea why the inhabitants of the SMP they all live on are letting this just happen at God knows what time in the fucking morning, because surely nobody else is managing to sleep through this. Surely nobody heard this atrocious wailing and decided everything was completely fine.
Surely not.
(Though, then again, Tommy is well aware that the other people he reluctantly shared the land with could be pretty… slow at times. Wilbur - newly revived Wilbur - wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed anymore, not with his head so far up his own arse, at least. And he was pretty sure that Captain Puffy didn't even have basic education skills, so–)
"Off with his head!" Is the sudden break in the shrieking, a loud, powerful (and vaguely insanity-bound) order that was crashing ruthlessly through the cool air.
Tommy shot up from his bed - but it wasn't his bed because why was it blue and where were his blankets and why was this not his house and what the hell was going on - just in time to watch Ponk's head roll across a multicoloured floor.
Oh dear god. What the fuck? What the fuck? What the actual fucking fuck?
It was– oh god, oh fucking hell, it was leaking a rancid blue fluid, smearing trails of cerulean over shades of a glass rainbow. Its lips were still moving, and Tommy was pretty sure that it– the head– Ponk's eyes were still blinking. Blink. Blink. Blink.
What in the ever-loving fuck.
What in the ever-loving fuck.
Tommy threw the sheets off of himself - the blue, blue, blue sheets (why was everything fucking blue?) - and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn't wearing shoes, for some reason, which– okay, he wasn't entirely certain that he'd gone to bed wearing his shoes anyway, but he wasn't wearing socks, either. And that was weird. Tommy always wore socks. He got too cold, otherwise.
His jeans weren't even– he didn't have his usual jeans on, either. The ripped ones with the faded beige and the undone buttons and the occasional bloodstains that he'd never been able to properly wash out. They were just– gone, replaced by these– these– monstrosities.
Puffy and wide, starkly white pants with dark checkers and lines of a brilliant gold spanning across the length of them. They were high-waisted, pressing against his skin with diamond-encrusted buttons. The bottoms had fucking frills on them. Tommy was going to lose his goddamn mind. What the hell was happening?
Maybe this was his limbo. His purgatory. His hell. Maybe Tommy had died peacefully and quietly in his sleep, and this was his punishment for not perishing like a war-ravaged hero - just as Technoblade had always wanted him to do.
Maybe there was a god, somewhere up there, laughing and laughing and laughing at Tommy's awful predicament - putting him in stupidly frilly pants with no socks or shoes, paired with his stained red and white t-shirt and a pompous, fuck-off hat that he was just realising was perched on his head.
If it was a fucking bonnet- dear lord, if it was one of those stupid, old-lady bonnets, then Tommy really was going to kill somebody. Maybe himself. Probably himself. Or maybe he'd just go after Ponk's head again because that was still, for some reason, fucking rolling around the floor like a marble that had been unceremoniously dropped and left to swirl.
Tommy stared at it. It– Ponk stared back. And stared back. And stared back. And– and then started rolling again, rolling and rolling and rolling–
"Off with his head!" The cry is closer, that time, much closer, and Tommy only had about a second to leap out of the way before a glinting, wooden axe was thrown down beside him - splitting his bed, but it's not really his bed, right through the middle.
The splinters go everywhere. Tommy lands in Ponk's– whatever the fuck the blue stuff is supposed to be. He thinks that he might just vomit everywhere if he's not careful. (Maybe that will be blue, too.)
There's an affronted cry from the side, one that sounds vaguely like the horrendous shrieking from before, and Tommy groans. He'd nearly been beheaded, and yet somebody else is the one whining and crying? In what fucking world is that fair?
"Hey, man! That seriously wasn't cool of you; I didn't even–" Tommy starts, loud, exasperated, and totally done with everything that's been happening. He turns his head to look to his would-be-beheader, only to find– to find–
Is that Tehcnoblade? Technoblade?
Oh, and isn't that rich? Isn't that bloody hilarious? The victim became the executioner, after all that he'd preached about unethical means of getting rid of somebody and how immoral the butcher army had been– oh, isn't this just amazing!
Tommy wants to laugh. He wants to laugh and laugh and laugh, but Techno looks just about ready to swing that axe again, so he starts crawling backwards instead, waving a hand around in front of him in what he hopes is a placating manner.
"Come on! Come on, look, I don't know what weird, shitty purgatory universe this is that I've been dropped into, but I'm not in the fuckin' mood, alright? Can't you go bother somebody else!?" He shouts.
For god sake, hasn't Tommy already had enough bullshit? Hasn't he already been put through enough - enough torture, enough hopelessness, enough pain and meaningless brutality? Hasn't he already had his karma? Hasn't he?
This– he doesn't need to deal with this, deal with this stupidly colourful world, with the rainbow floor and the blue blood - the rolling heads and the sky that looks to be on fire. He doesn't need to deal with Technoblade, a deceitful, cowardly piece of shit who doesn't know anarchy from downright savagery, and his stupidly large axe.
Tommy just doesn't! He doesn't; he doesn't, he–
"Tommy?"
Technoblade freezes, Tommy's head snaps towards the side.
His gaze is frantic, for a moment, all wide and blue and filling with fury, and then it softens - or at least, the craze momentarily slows down in its rapid acceleration.
George is stood there. Georgenotfound, lover of sleep and lazy dickwad who couldn't be bothered showing up to the elections on time. Except– he doesn't really look like George. Sure, Tommy hasn't seen the guy in a long, long while (he'd gotten his psychotic best friend locked up, after all), but surely this wasn't– this wasn't George.
Georgenotfound wore blue (common fucking theme, this colour) t-shirts, ugly goggles and a fake crown. He had jeans - that were definitely way too long - and fingerless gloves. That was Georgenotfound. He was pretty plain. Easily dismissed and easily missed.
This– this guy, this guy with the long, long locks of brown hair, the crown made of sharp thorns and– and the mushrooms, actual, live mushrooms growing from his pale skin. This guy, with the grass cape and the thick boots and the violent bloodstains– he could not be the George that Tommy knew, or had known. Surely not. Surely fucking not.
"George?" Tommy breathes out in both disbelief and gripping suspicion.
George, or this– this George imposter (Jack would have definitely laughed at that one), throws up his hands with a gasp. "Tommy! Oh, deary-doodles, I am so, so sorry– I didn't realise it was you! Technoblade, stop it; you can put the axe down now."
George turns to face the piglin brute, waving his dainty hands around as he speaks, but Tommy is– well, Tommy is just gaping.
That's– "You don't sound like George."
"Huh?" George turns back, head tilting to the side slightly– and honestly, how that weird, thorny, ugly crown hasn't fallen off yet is seriously concerning. "What could that possibly be alluding to, my dear friend?"
"Oh my god. You sound like a right fuckin' imbecile. What are you saying? What's going on– hey! Are you the one who was shouting 'Off with his head!' earlier?"
George taps his chin. "Ah– yes, I suppose I did mutter something like that, although–"
"You were going to kill me?" Tommy shrieks, as if that's the most important thing that's happening right now - and honestly, it might've been at one point, but oh dear god, why is George speaking like that- "You killed Ponk!"
"Well I certainly did no such thing," George clarifies with a roll of his - fiery, wild, glitching - eyes, "That was my dear pal, Technoblade."
Tommy gapes. “Technoblade is definitely not your pal. Was that a joke? It wasn't funny."
"I do not jest!"
"You do not what now you fuckin' loony–"
"Brothers in arms, we are!" George cries out and then stomps his boot against the ground. There are definitely cracks growing in the glass. Tommy is sure of it. "You're ruining it, Tommy!"
Tommy feels as if his mind just might be splitting in half. “Ruining what!?” He shouts back, "I don't even know where we are! I don't even know what's happening!"
Seriously. He has no fucking clue about what's going on. Tommy remembers– well, he remembers going to bed. He remembers saying goodnight to Shroud, pulling up his rather scratchy, red blankets and getting comfortable. But after that– he was pretty confident that nothing crazy had happened but–
And then here he was, waking up in a weird bed, with weird blue sheets and weird, puffy clothes (and that stupid fucking hat.) With Technoblade almost beheading him, George looking like he tumbled straight out one of Ranboo's freaky, nonsensical stories and Ponk's head still literally rolling around the damn place.
Tommy was high. He was definitely high.
"This!" George exclaims, waving his arms theatrically around as he speaks, "All of this! This is meant to be my SMP now! Not yours, not Dream's– mine! You're meant to do exactly as I say!"
"Have you lost it?!" Tommy shouts in retort as he pushes upwards slightly, kneeling. “Your SMP!? Since when!?"
"Since now! God– don't you see? Don't you see it all?" George laughs– and he's laughing now, letting out manic, shrieking bursts of high-pitched laughter - it's disturbing and mesmerising all at once. "This whole place!" He gestures.
Tommy looks– like, really takes a moment to look around.
At first, he'd– well, he hadn't really known what was happening. He'd just woken up, and there had already been so much happening, so it wasn't like he'd– he'd fucking taken the time to closely analyse his surroundings or something. No, he'd been thrown into panic and confusion and a little bit of everything else, really.
But now. Now, as he glances around with wide, wide, wide eyes. He can see that he really is on the SMP, still. Even though there are glass floors and blazing skies; even though there are burning buildings and screaming voices; even though everything is so, undeniably wrong, all ruined and glitching and bad– it's still the Dream SMP.
Or at least, it had been. At its base code, maybe.
Tommy slowly turns his head back towards George, and it almost feels comical with how wide his jaw has pulled apart in shock. "Dude," he whispers (or is he shouting?), "What the fuck have you done?"
George's face splits into a wild smile, and it's so unlike him, but so like him at the same time that it's nearly comical. "I'm fixing things, Tommy. Don't you see?"
"It looks like you're breaking things, actually–"
"What? What? I thought you'd like this!" George frowns, "You're all for– for griefing, aren't you, Tommy? For destroying the things that people love? For bringing chaos to a peaceful land? That's practically your motto!"
Tommy gapes, "It is not–!"
"Like when you decided to rob me and burn my house! Or– or when you started that stupid war against Dream and everything went to hell! Or how about every single time that L'Manburg–!" George rants.
Tommy hadn't– he hadn't intentionally done that stuff! Or at least some of it! He wasn't– he wasn't completely fucking crazy; he didn't go around burning and breaking shit for the fun of it! Not always, at least! He– he had some morals, okay? He wasn't–
"Shut up! Shut the fuck up! You're being an arsehole! I can't–"
"I'm kidding."
Tommy swallows, he gasps, he– he– he frowns. "...What?"
"I'm kidding," George repeats slowly, and there's his smile - all blinding and bright and downright deadly. "I'm only messing with you, Tommy. I don't care for any of that anymore. Not when I have the whole world in the palm of my hand."
Tommy stares. And stares some more. "George–"
"Come on, won't you? I'll show you– I can show you what I've done! What I've accomplished!" George explains, excitement clinging desperately to his words.
"I'm not– I'm not sure, I don't even know– I don't even know what's happening, I just–"
"Loosen up, won't you?" George pouts, pink bottom lip jutted downwards. "I get that dying might've made you a bit more stuck up, but surely you're not a total stick-in-the-mud, are you?"
Tommy’s gaze burns. "Hey! That's my fuckin' trauma you're using there, you complete dickhead–!"
"Oh boo-hoo, get up." The man– the lunatic orders. And then he scowls. “Get up, Tommy. I won't repeat myself again."
Technoblade's still stood stationary to the side, expression eerily blank and wooden axe looking a little too threatening to be normal. Tommy doesn't want to get on the wrong side of that guy any more than he usually does, so–
Looks like he only has one option, really.
"Fine– fine," He huffs, pushing off of his knees, so he's standing, "But I swear to god, man, if I see any more weird shit, I'm out of here."
George grins. And grins. He claps his hands. "Sure thing, Tommy."
The pair of them– or, well, George, Tommy, and then Technoblade's weirdly stiff, unspeaking body, begin to walk across the land together. (They leave Ponk's head behind, though he doesn't seem too annoyed by that.)
Tommy thinks that they might be walking along the prime path - well, what had used to be the prime path, at least.
It's– it's sort of normal. For a little bit. Tommy still doesn't know what's going on; he's still pretty sure that they're in some weird, alternate universe where Tommy has been placed and punished for his many, many, many crimes back in his original world. But. But. What does he fucking know?
He could have twelve eyes right now, and– no, yeah, that would probably be the most standard thing that was going on, honestly.
"Where are we going again?" He asks, watching as George sets fire to the jungle trees as they pass underneath them. Tommy barely dodges a falling ball of leafy blaze. He sort of wishes that it had hit him.
"Las Nevadas," George hums, clicking at his blue flint n' steel with a pleased hum. Everything is on fire. It matches the sky.
"Cool, cool–" Tommy nods, "Why?"
"I'm going to blow it up."
"Oh." Tommy's still nodding, "Makes sense."
It doesn't. At all. Las Nevadas is– Las Nevadas is, well, Las Nevadas. Defended by Quackity and Fundy and Purpled and– probably some of the other fuckers that Tommy could care less about. He doesn't even know who's still genuinely there– maybe Fundy's been turned to stone already, maybe Purpled died out months ago–
But, surely there's gotta be some people who won't let George just rock up and blow it to smithereens. Surely.
George doesn't even have armour, for fuck sake! He's walking around in his weird, little hobo get up and just destroying everything! Sure, Technoblade is there– but Technoblade isn't– wasn't he retired? Maybe he just had a vengeance against Ponk, and that's why the whole 'beheading' thing had happened.
He couldn't be working for George. Not George. Anyone but George.
Tommy ends up standing to the side, feet downright burning on the stupidly hot sand, as George blows up the front sign. Quackity is stood to the side, as well - partaking in a downright pathetic one-man-army - squawking and shouting and flapping his feathered arms up and down.
Tommy would probably laugh if he hadn't just gotten hit right on the forehead with a chunk of smouldering clay. It had hurt. He's pretty sure that his face is deformed at this point. It just has to be. He's gotta be so ugly.
"George!" Quackity cries, affronted and shocked and– yeah, Tommy feels the same way. "What are you doing!? Why are you doing this– what's– what the hell is happening?!"
"Having fun!" George grins back, raving, raving, raving.
Tommy watches as George leaps forward, dashing TNT across the ground - along the road, between the buildings, inside of the strip club, and damn that had been a pretty nice place. He doesn't hold back, not in the slightest. It's a little bit funny.
It's not funny, though, when the TNT is set off, right then and there, and Tommy watches as Quackity - powerful, dangerous, smart Quackity - is blown to pieces. Body parts go flying. Gore is strewn across the sand. Everything is blue. Tommy is beginning to hate the colour blue. (Ghostbur wouldn't be proud.)
It's gross. Very, very gross. And sort of anticlimactic in the end. Thankfully, Tommy doesn't get hit by any of it. He does throw up to the side, though, with Technoblade standing awkwardly next to him. He thinks that he should feel a bit embarrassed, a bit shameful, but– well, Tommy is having an awful bout of karma with the whole thing, so he's just going to take it one step at a time and hope for the best.
Probably.
"George!" He calls, and wow, he seriously can't believe that he's been going along with this– has he lost his mind too? Why isn't he saying anything? He just watched Quackity get decimated. Into pieces. Literal pieces. "Do we– do you need to blow that one up?"
"Why wouldn't I?" George asks, as he plants TNT around the base of the needle.
"Well– it's, y'know, it's like a landmark."
"I don't care."
"Okay–" Tommy nods slowly, "But– but, it's pretty cool, right? You know– all fuckin' tall and shit."
"I still don't care."
"Oh, c'mon, man– just this one thing? I mean, you already took out like– literally everything else. It could be a grave header for–"
George sets off the TNT and beams. Tommy chokes on dust and sand and everything fucking else when the monument is completely blown to bits. Las Nevadas is no more; that much is clear. (But his massive hat is still there on his head and how it's survived Tommy has no fucking idea but oh dear God it is so ugly–)
"What now?" Tommy asks as George walks back to him and Techno. He kicks sand over his pile of vomit. It doesn't do much. "What's the plan, Gogy?" (How is he still going along with this?)
George is still smiling. "The world."
"The world," Tommy nods slowly, digesting that for a moment or so. He's quiet in his contemplation, testing it along his tongue until– "Hold on– the world?"
"That's what I said, isn't it?"
"Right, but like– the whole world?" Tommy stares.
George giggles. Fucking giggles. “What else would I want to go after?"
"You can't be serious."
"I'm deadly serious, Tommy."
Tommy's not– he's not– hadn't George just been preaching about how the SMP was his now, and not anyone else's? Why would he want to destroy it all of a sudden? That didn't make sense. It didn't make sense, right? Tommy wasn't completely losing his mind, was he?
(He probably was.)
"But what–" Tommy swallows, "Isn't there like, a God or something? Won't he stop you?"
"A God?" George tilts his head. He looks suspicious; he's going to say something dodgy, isn't he? Tommy's certain of it; he's– "God is my pet."
Right. There it is.
"Oh," Tommy blanks, "Right– right, that– yeah, yup. That makes a shitload of sense; thanks for that one, big man."
George nods and then claps his hands together. "Now, come on! We've got things to do, and I don't have all day!" He pauses, "Well, I do, actually, seeing as I control time now, too, but–"
Tommy just can't bring himself to be surprised anymore.
The prison is their next victim– or George's next victim. Tommy watches the side of it blow up. And the front. And then a bit of the back, too, because why the fuck not, right?
A part of him feels relieved seeing it, honestly. It makes him feel sort of grateful - a little bit pleased and a little bit glad, that his– the place that he'd died, the place that he'd been locked up and trapped in, was being torn apart right in front of his eyes. It made him almost want to smile.
But then he's confused. Confused because surely the prison was built to withstand a little bit of TNT, surely. Right? How was that– how was the whole thing happening, then? It didn't make sense. It didn't make sense, and Tommy's head was really hurting.
He didn't have to think long about it, though, as George was soon skipping back towards him - Technoblade in tow. (The prison is leaking blue shit.)
"Come on, Tommy!"
"Again?"
"Again."
Tommy gets to watch Ponk's lemon tree burn up in flames (though, considering what had happened to Ponk earlier on in the day, Tommy isn't sure that he'll care that much anymore anyway.) He gets to watch the Community House collapse in on itself, breaking into the water and sending crashing waves against the land. He gets to watch George dance and prance and laugh at everything that happens.
Maybe it's therapeutic. Maybe this is George's heaven and Tommy's hell. Maybe George has just completely lost the plot. Maybe Tommy's genuinely just high on a shitton of laced drugs. So many possibilities and so few answers.
Tommy could ask. He could ask, possibly make a request to George - the George imposter - about bringing his– his pet over to have a little chat. Surely this God, whoever that may be (Tommy only worships her lord and saviour Lady Prime, so what does he know), is just ignorant to what's going on.
Surely a God wouldn't be allowing this to happen.
This destruction. This madness. This downright ludicrousy that's tearing up the SMP everyone's supposed to love and cherish. Well– it had been blown up a few times already, destroyed on a couple of others, but still. Still. What George was doing was just– senseless violence.
Did Ponk really have to die? Did Quackity really have to die? What had Las Nevadas done? What had the Community House done? Not much, all things considered. Tommy– Tommy missed his house. He missed his house and his bed and his pet spider, Shroud. He missed waking up to a world that was quiet and calm and vaguely trauma-filled but still better than this.
Tommy pulls off his hat - the large, vibrant, fuck-off hat - and lets it fall to the ground. The grass seems to morph around it, pulling it into the growling dirt and the snapping gravel. Tommy kicks at it a couple of times until it all goes back to normal. His hat is gone. Everything is blue.
His pants are ugly. He wants his jeans back, too.
"George?" He calls out, voice quiet and tight but determined - hopeful.
George, in all of his unhinged glory, glances up from where he was pinning Eyes of Ender to the mushrooms sprouting from his skin. It looks ridiculous. It looks fucking sick. “Hm?"
"Don't you think–" Tommy clicks his tongue against his sharp lower teeth, "Don't you think we should maybe– stop this, now? Like– you've done– you've done a lot, man."
George blinks. He blinks again. "What are you talking about?" Choose your words carefully.
"I mean, c'mon! You've– you've fuckin' blown up pretty much everything! Quackity's literally in pieces! Ponk's just a head! And God knows where everyone else is– I haven't even seen Tubbo! Don't you think this is a bit much now?" Tommy tries.
George– George looks as if he can't believe what's being said. His hands - his bloody, scorched hands - clench into tight fists. “This is my SMP, Tommy–”
"I know!" Tommy interrupts, "I know! You've said! You've said it so many times, big man, and I– you're just– you're fucking– this isn't you!" None of this is you.
George stomps his foot against the ground. Once. And then twice. And then a third time. Everything is going wrong. "Shut up! Shut up! This is me! This is me! This is my SMP, and my rules! What I say goes, and if I want to kill God, then I'll do it!"
"George–!" Too late, too late, too late, too late–
"Off with his head!" George cries, and it sounds even more comical than the first time, even more ridiculous and absurd. But Tommy can't laugh. He can't fucking laugh. "Off with his head! Off with his head! Off with his head! Off with his head!”
The sky is burning. Techno’s axe is swinging. Tommy’s world is going dark.
Tommy wakes up to screaming. A lot of it. Or maybe it's laughing. Or maybe– no, no– if he's perfectly honest - which he isn't often - he can't really, actually tell. There's just a lot of violent shrieking and echoing screeching, and maybe a bit of wild sobbing mixed in there, too. It's a mess, and it's going on and on and on.
A relentless loop. A never-ending howl. It sort of reminds him of one of his disks - one of the ones that had gotten a little more scratched than it probably should have; one of the ones that like to repeat on a particular chunk of the song for a good few hours; one of the ones that are just pretty crap.
Tommy sort of wants to bash his head into the nearest stone wall. Maybe retake his own last life, or whatever amount of lives he has left after Dream had thought it would be the funniest fucking thing to kill him and kill him and then kill him–
Well, the point is, though, is that it's loud - the screaming, that is. It's loud, and it's piercing, and it's digging relentlessly deep into his mind, curling against his pale, pale, pale skin and prodding far too close to his eyes for it to be alright - for it to be normal. (Nothing about his stupid life is 'normal' anymore, but Tommy likes to pretend it is. Often. Very, very often.)
It's just fucking– it won't stop. It won't, it really won't, and Tommy had no idea why the inhabitants of the SMP they all live on are letting this just happen at God knows what time in the fucking morning, because surely nobody else is managing to sleep through this. Surely nobody heard this atrocious wailing and decided everything was completely fine.
Surely not.
(Though, then again, Tommy is well aware that the other people he reluctantly shared the land with could be pretty… slow at times. Wilbur - newly revived Wilbur - wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed anymore, not with his head so far up his own arse, at least. And he was pretty sure that Captain Puffy didn't even have basic education skills, so–)
"Ranboo! Give me that back, you fuckin' dickhead!" Is the sudden break in the shrieking, a loud, powerful (and vaguely frustrated) order that was crashing ruthlessly through the cool air.
Tommy shoots upwards. He shoots upwards in his bed - his bed with the scratchy, red blankets and the wooden fixtures; the pillows covered in blonde hairs and the occasional mud print; the sheets that smell so much like himself.
Tommy threw the covers off of himself - the red, red, red covers - and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He wasn't wearing shoes, for some reason, which– okay, he wasn't entirely certain that he'd gone to bed wearing his shoes anyway, but he– oh. Oh. He was wearing socks. He was wearing socks because without them he got too cold. He always wore socks.
His jeans were– his jeans were there, too, the ripped ones with the faded beige and the undone buttons and the occasional bloodstains that he'd never been able to properly wash out. They were there.
(Tommy wasn't wearing a hat. He wasn't wearing a fucking hat.)
"Ranboo! I'm being serious! Give me that back before I fuckin' nuke you, boss man!" The shout was closer that time, and Tommy had about 3 seconds max to jump out of the way before Ranboo and Tubbo came barrelling in. Or, Ghostboo and Tubbo, but same thing, really.
It's them, though. It's really them. There's no crazy King with a crown of thorns and wriggling mushrooms; there's no rolling head leaking blue blood and blinking rapidly; there's no axe-maniac or blown up land.
Just Tommy, Shroud, and his two idiot best friends.
Tommy lets out a breath.
"You fuckin' arseholes. Waking me up like that!"
"It wasn't me! He stole my–!" "You can't blame it on the ghost!"
He's home. He’s really, really home.