3.3.22

As Tommy lay awake from his sleepless night, he stared up at the makeshift ceiling in his tent. Everything felt as though it passed so quickly like a flash of images in his mind. He wondered how both Ranboo and Micheal were doing. Were they having fun? Were they safe? The more he thought about the detriments of how things could've gone when they left, the more paranoid he would get. He decided to temporarily push it aside and check the clock he had placed on his crafting table prior to laying down last night.

Assuming it was close to the end of curfew, despite there being no consequences for going out earlier than that, he decided to break his own rule. "06:12" the clock hands explained silently, soon being thoroughly stuffed back into the worn out bag which had been slung over his left shoulder as usual. He breathed in. He breathed out. He sighed in relief. Although sometimes his goal was to never feel the fresh wind on his skin or ever be brought into his lungs so gracefully, he felt at the same time that he should let it do what he didn't want. It was peaceful, even though it wasn't exactly perfect, the sea waves crashing against the wet sand repeatedly annoyed him whenever he focused on it too much. The leaves blew in the wind and got into his hair a lot, which leads Dream to brush them out with a comb so they don't tangle. He liked when Dream was like a brother figure for him. It made him feel safer, but not too much. He's learned that Dream takes advantage of attachments. Attachment to his good moods might be even worse than that of the discs.

But, Tommy digresses! His head was full of thoughts but there wasn't any thought of helping around the exile island. He breathes the fresh air of the outdoors again, sharply this time, and sets out to harvest crops, collect the animal products from the gate farm, and attempt to clean his tent.

- - -

"Hello."

A voice calls out in the distance, it's distorted yet has an eerie tone to it. He calls out to it, but no response is heard in the distance. That is, if there was one to begin with. Everything he sees is pitch black, he can only see the silhouette of his hands, yet he knew they weren't his. These were someone else's. He stumbled along the unknown dark floor of wherever he was. He was moving, but it wasn't him. He didn't tell himself to move. He didn't want to move. He doesn't want to know what will happen when he does.

"Ranboo." The voice calls out again, more recognizable than before, yet not enough to make out who it actually was.

He made a guess, "Wilbur? That was your name, right?"

No response.

"Techno?"

No response yet again.

He swallowed as he spoke, there was only one person he could think of that was left with a bone-chilling voice such as them, even though he's never heard Wilbur's.

"...Dream?"

No response, but it was different. A ringing in his ears sounded as he coughed dryly. Smoke seemed to have drowned out his vision, clearing up slowly while it drifted upwards. When he saw the state of the land around him, everything in his body froze.

Everything was in shambles. The community house was burning, the primepath was missing massive chunks of wood, and the atmosphere was just filled with smoke. Millions of TNT bundles were used to create a vast crater where L'manberg once stood, and some landmarks outside of it. This time he chose to walk forward, skipping over the holes in the prime path he tread on. He neared the edge of the humongous dip in the land and spotted a very familiar face. Not much of a face per say, but a mask. Dream. He stood turned away from the teen's eye view. His clothes looked very beat up and... were those horns? Sharp, semi-long, black horns protruded their way out of the ripped hood. Almost every inch of his person showed enough blood to fill a bathtub, soaked and very prominent to contrast his iconic vibrant green hoodie.

Ranboo was too shocked to say anything to him, yet he still got what he wanted to find out from the beginning of the encounter, what he looked like from the front. He regretted being so curious when his eyes saw what could be considered looking at a mythical creature of some sort, except it wasn't all sparkles and rainbows as that of unicorns or a pegasus. It looked like his original face was taken and replaced with a much more disturbing feature festering upon the skull. He had eyes, 6 to be exact, and nothing else. The rest was blackened out and the only thing he heard was, "you weren't supposed to be here." Everything went dark.

Ranboo gasped and sat up like he had just heard someone scream. But that someone was himself and the scream was more of a shaky fail at his own reassurance than anything. Tubbo was immediately awakened by the sound and movement of the other, sitting up with his husband and trying to calm him down the best he could. "Boo, it's okay... it was just a dream, my beloved, you're okay", Tubbo reassured while his hand was busy rubbing tiny circles on the enderman hybrid's back to calm him down," ...do you want to talk about it?" Ranboo shook his head no and Tubbo understood, nodding.

He didn't even know how to explain his own dream, it was all becoming fuzzy and he wasn't able to identify much of the events already. Even if he did, he wouldn't be able to get many words out due to the shock. He figured this was all about his paranoia, that he was too scared to even face anything as serious as mass destruction because, really, no one should have to anyways. He proceeded to calm down, but never went back to sleep. The clock that hung against the wall read "06:14", pretty much a normal time to wake up for a mentally stable person, yet he wasn't exactly that so it was at most abnormal to him. So, with that, he decided to climb out of bed. "You want to start the day already? At least wait like... 2 hours, Boo," Tubbo grumbled, rubbing his eyes. Ranboo turned back and expressed towards the ram hybrid that he could continue sleeping as Ranboo got ready with his own day. The brunette just nodded sleepily and flipped on his side to fall asleep once again.

Once Ranboo got into the main part of the house, he stretched and pulled up his communicator. Since the chats were flooded by many useless messages a day, the people decided that only direct messages through the communicator were accepted for fooling around and the general messages were for main announcements. He typed out to message Tommy," Hey, want to hang out again? I know it's really early and stuff but y'know," he paused for a second before he sent out the message. He heard a slight rustling sound, then a loud thump on the floor. When Ranboo went to check out what the mysterious noise was, he found Micheal sneaking some carrots in the kitchen. "Aw, Micheal... Got yourself some breakfast, huh silly little guy?" Ranboo chuckled at seeing Micheal nod vigorously. Picking up the zombie piglin in his arms, he gasped and asked," Would you like to see Tommy again, Micheal? This time I hope it won't be so tiresome." Micheal couldn't understand much of the last sentence uttered but nodded regardless.

Ranboo smiled softly and set Micheal down onto the table, his hooved feet dangling from the surface. Ranboo continued to message the other, but added something onto the existing one, "Micheal also says that he would like to see you again!" He then sent it to be read, closing the communication tab and continuing to get ready for the day. A ding was heard and he immediately pulled up the tab in front of him again.

TommyInnit whispers to you: Ayup! That woudjwdiwjskfeiuvdf fks.f, .'1

Ranboo was confused to hell and back until another ding came.

TommyInnit whispers to you: Goddammit, I almost fell on my face a number of times there. Sorry, I was gonna say that would be cool. Also, why are you out of all people awake right now? Don't tell me you're actually a goodie-two-shoes that has a sleep schedule and a routine.

Ranboo typed back," Lol, I might be. But, don't be afraid to tell me when Dream comes over there so I won't be intruding on anything." A few minutes later after getting his cloak and empty basket with the small blanket inside, another ding was heard.

TommyInnit whispers to you: I'd have to talk about that with you when you get here. Cya, RanBOOB haha!

He scoffed and hid his chat log, grabbing the basket really quietly since it was still in the shared room of him and his husband. He brought the basket up to where Micheal sat, explaining to him that he couldn't be seen by any of the other people on the way to the exile area. Micheal just nodded and laid inside the wooden basket. Micheal finally spoke up, giggling," Papa look like Red Riding Hood!" Ranboo chuckled alongside the piglin and reassured him," At least there aren't any big, bad wolves we're ever gonna come across, little piggy!" Micheal stifled a giggle, pulling the blanket over himself and snuggling up to it. They both then left the house and began their trek back to the exile area through the nether portal. Ranboo glanced down at the basket, the cornflower peering back at him at the very end of the blanket. It seems that it hasn't wilted yet, which is surprising. It looks to be freshly picked still.

- - -

Tommy sighed and collapsed his chatlog, he was only done with the farming and he had two more things to do until Ranboo came along. He needed more time, at least a little bit more. Walking over to the farm he had to harvest, he noticed something catch his eye. It stood out amongst the grass, the petals of it the most familiar, or so, the bloom of the overall flower. An allium has made its way to his land, not just any spot, the ring of rocks that had "protected" the cornflower and reminded him to give it to the other. He stared at it for a moment, his feet gliding him over to meet eye to... flower with it.

"Now, how the hell did you grow so fast on such short notice? Are you here to commit tax fraud or some shit because I don't even have any of those anymore, you're all out of luck for that," Tommy laughed at his own joke quietly, brushing a hand over the soft petals of the flower. Yup, it was an actual allium. He looked around to see if anyone was pranking him for whatever reason, which, to no surprise, found no one around. He bit his lip nervously and pivoted on his heel to continue his work. He figured letting it stay there would be okay with him, especially since alliums were the chosen flower of a certain enderman hybrid.

Once he was finished with harvesting the crops and collecting the animal products, he quickly sprinted over towards his tent to clean it. During his cleaning, he found the picture of the Christmas tree back in the SMP with all the people surrounding the lit up tree, his broken compass labeled "Your Tubbo", and a patch that reminded him of a soft blanket of snow. Despite all of these found things, there was one that stood out the most to him. An allium, yet again. Not just any allium like the one he found just a few minutes ago, it was the first allium given to him from Ranboo, the first time they've ever interacted with each other too.

The weirdest thing about the flower was that it hasn't wilted yet, despite it being possibly months old. "What the hell..." Tommy mumbled while touching the petals delicately. The petals felt as silky as it did when it was first given to him, making this discovery feel even weirder. Setting it down on his crafting table, he heard an oink outside and a few rushed footsteps. He walked out of his tent and was immediately greeted by a certain zombie piglin hugging his leg, a smile making its way to his face as he peered up to see Ranboo not too far away from the two. "Ello, Ranboob," Tommy teased the other, making Ranboo roll his eyes and scoff playfully. "I swear, you keep calling me that and I'll kick you in the face." Tommy laughed and stated," Now I know how much time you've been spending with Tubbo."

Ranboo snorted quietly and dug through his basket, picking out the cornflower that was given to him yesterday. "By the way, before we talk about the situation with Dream," Tommy nodded his head to the side in a way that made it look like he almost forgot about that," this flower hasn't wilted one bit yet, they normally do after a few hours... or maybe I'm overthinking it?" The blonde teenager's face lit up in surprise, told the enderman to wait just a second, and grabbed the allium from his tent. "The same thing has been happening to this allium you gave to me the first time we met, you know... the day of that incident, and it hasn't wilted yet either... that's especially weird." Tommy expressed confusedly, chewing the inside of his cheek as he thought discreetly. His eyes made way to the circle of rocks and spoke up again," And the weirdest thing is that an allium grew in the place of the cornflower just overnight. I haven't even seen a sprout of it begin before today..."

"Are we becoming detectives now or something? The... investigation of the miraculously living flowers?" Ranboo jokes, but Tommy barely got the point of the joking tone. "Yeah, maybe. It's just really confusing right now... how would picked flowers live so long, especially when one has been picked more than a month ago?" Tommy thought again, his head hurting from all this thinking, including how unrealistic it might be. Ranboo saw he was obviously getting stuck on this, trying to think rationally in an irrational situation, he took this as his cue to change the subject for the blonde. "Anyways... the conversation about Dream, anything bad with the message idea?"

Tommy immediately moved his focus onto the new conversation that struck forth," Well, normally when Dream is on, he's in my proximity and I wouldn't be able to type that without him jumping over to ask me what I'm doing. That green bastard..." Ranboo thought about it and pulled up the text hologram to display their recent messages. But then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Dream's an admin on the server and he can pull up these messages through the logs.

Panicking, Ranboo explained his thoughts to Tommy and that struck another big problem. They didn't know how to delete any of the messages. It was evident that they hadn't thought of Dream ever seeing these messages, especially since they weren't even directed towards him. Micheal was still stuck to Tommy's leg voluntarily, not really paying attention, but felt enough negative energy from the panicking to become more clingy to the blonde's limb hoping he didn't mind. Tommy reached down and patted the toddler's head as they both searched for ways to at least hide the messages from Dream or perhaps any admin that would likely tell the people that Ranboo was hanging out with Tommy. Not like anyone not involved in the situation would care much about it, but just to be 100% sure.

The panicking evolved into paralyzed shock as they both realized that the entire time they were trying to delete the messages, one message displayed on their holograms. It was a simple message, yet made them lose the color to their faces, spoke volumes of fear mixed along with adrenaline.

Dream has joined the game.

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