Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On the precipice, stood a young boy with blonde hair that was plastered to his temples with mud and sweat. His dull eyes were locked with the mass of moving minerals far below, glowing an intimidating pattern of red, orange and yellow between the cracks of ash that had formed on its surface. Heat like none other radiated from it and filled the entire area, the miles and miles that stretched from end to end of the Nether Realm. The air in the closed-off area, accessible only through an obsidian portal gate, was heavy with smoke and the longer one stood there, the harder it became to breathe.

As he stood there for a long while, he undoubtedly became more and more tired, oxygen hardly reaching lungs after so long, and that was telling through his raspy breath. As he inhaled, his throat rattled painfully, and he wheezed as he exhaled. Just the sound of it unsettled the person who stood by the portal, body framed by the magenta light cast by the rippling screen. His hood was dark green, history smeared into the fabric in the form of dark patches of different shades, and threads poked out of the seams. If he wasn’t in the gifted position that he was in, he would be worried about always tearing his clothes, but that wasn’t a problem for a man with access to Creative Mode. Of course, it was still never as fun to cheat, but some things had to be handled through such means.

Situations like that weren’t common; Dream remembered days when he could peacefully roam his land with his allies, exploring and idly mining without the stress of any riots. However, since TommyInnit showed up, life got just a little bit more annoying, and the obnoxious little brat definitely took advantage of that realisation. Years upon years of rebellious acts, many of them just out of spite for his host, but that had come to an end, a finale that Dream had awaited for so long. It felt so good to have achieved all that without the use of cheating. It just proved that even his mortal body was strong enough to defeat any obstacle, no matter how persistent.

The sight of Tommy on the edge of the Nether was unnerving, however. That boy, who had formerly been such a nuisance as previously stated, had finally submitted himself to Dream with whatever false hopes his broken mind had formed. After being exiled by his best friend, it was a quick descent into captivity and Dream finally had the pest locked in a cage, and there was no key. Still, there he stood. Staring at the lava. What was going through his head? What was he planning to do? An idea suggested itself to Dream and the man stifled a grunt, squinting at the thought: no way, no way this boy could ever - he was way too perseverant for that. He had years of playtime ahead of him, that couldn’t just go to waste.

Tommy hung his head, shuffling closer to the tip of the ridge. He didn’t even lift his foot, only dragged the sole of his shoe against the coarse red stone. Dream squinted. Surely. The boy didn’t blink - the next breath he took was much bigger, cut into raggedy spurts, but it was long and patronising. Was he preparing himself for something? Foreboding tugged at the back of Dream’s mind. He didn’t believe it, but he had to be sure.

“Tommy.” His voice was clear and unbothered, carrying across the distance between them. He took a step along the blackstone bridge. “What are you doing?” Dream’s tone didn’t have the questioning inclination as normal, but rather the commanding constant of someone who didn’t care, or at least tried to seem uninterested. Tommy didn’t respond, unlike how he always did. Classic Tommy would’ve looked up and yelled out his name, with his legs apart in a childish stance; the Tommy that Dream shattered would’ve flinched out of a daze and looked up with wide eyes, softly whimpering out a response. This wasn’t either. The silence worried Dream.

“Tommy, step away from there,” he hissed, a hint of frustration in his voice. After a moment’s pause, working on the tension, he adds, “now.” This time, Tommy moved ever so slightly, his head tilting at a tiny angle, his chin now tipped up and his throat visible to Dream, but he stayed facing the magma, like a moth trapped in the trance of the light. Dream was beginning to convince himself that if the boy had wings, he’d be down there hovering over the heat. He swallowed, pulling the corner of his mouth back in discomfort - he might try that despite his limitations.

Dream inhaled carefully, taking an audible step forward, making sure the clash of his heel against the stone would carry towards Tommy’s ears. He didn’t like repeating himself, especially not to a boy who never listened. “Step. Away. From the ledge.” He wasn’t ginger with his words, as most in his situation would be; he could imagine how someone like George or Sapnap would handle this, gently urging the person in danger to come over and talk to them, or pull them away sharply from the brink of death. That’s not how Dream operated; he was superior to that.

Silence arched between them like the bridges that Tommy built to return home, saturated with the ambience of distant pig snorting and stone rumbling. Dream curled his nails into the pads of his gloves, scathing the material with his quickly rising agitation. Sense purged his tendencies out of his muscles and he barely refrained from seizing his axe and hurling it into the base of Tommy’s skull; patience was not his strong suit. Eventually, Tommy responded, slowly peeling his gaze from the beauty of the magma and he stared with glazed eyes in the direction of Dream. Dream flinched slightly, stiffening despite having stood still. The blue of his irises flickered back to life for a moment, and his pupils veered upward, at the mask on Dream’s face.

“Dream…” he breathed out with a painful smile, his brows raised in a subtle plea, and he looked back down at his feet. One was raised over the emptiness before he moved his entire body onto the blank space and fell forward.

The world narrowed into a small circle that focused on the ledge where Tommy had stood seconds ago, everything outside the importance of its circumference blurred into insignificant darkness.

"No," Dream choked out through the smoky air of the Nether, his voice catching on his tense throat. "Not yet!" His tone rose to a more panicked pitch as he lunged forward, skimming the length of the bridge in a second and looking over the ledge of the Netherrack where Tommy had just smiled at him. As he peered over the edge, a wave of heat instantly crashed into his face, maliciously draining his features of sweat and moisture. In the endless expanse of bubbling, crackling magma, a black figure stood out against the bright orange. It got gradually smaller and smaller as its body plummeted at a frightening pace toward the magma; Dream already knew what it was.

“No, wait, wait, not yet!” he hissed, half to himself, as he jumped back, instantly swiping his palm over the width of his arm and looking up at the screen that flipped open. Accessible by all, usable in a way that matters only by him. Into the tab that appeared, he typed in commands that only he would understand, only he could utilise, and commands that he hoped with every fibre of his disgusting, selfish being would work in time to save the boy that jumped.

/kick Tommyinnit

Dream slammed the command to a close; below, in the distance, a body twitched in the tumbling folds of the magma.

TommyInnit tri̷e̴d̴ ̷t̵o̷ s̴w̶i̸m ȋ̴ͅn̶͚͝ ̷̼l̶̰̀ä̶̲́v̵͖̍a̵̞̓.̶͉̎.

The death sentence flickered off.

Tommyinnit left the game.

Nothing existed in Dream’s chest. For the next few moments, he experienced an emptiness in his chest he could only describe as a void opening up inside him and sucking out all the matters of his existence. All the blood that formed a creature, all the emotions that formed a human, it just vanished. The limbo within him was quickly submerged by intense relief, so overwhelming against the contrast of the emptiness that it felt almost painful. Dream staggered backwards, falling against the blackstone bridge with a grunt, clutching his abdomen.

Heavy breaths. Calm down. The abomination of relief and panic felt foul on his mouth, something he hadn’t accustomed to, and he was glad when it finally subsided and he could breathe properly again. With the end of the unknown emotion, came the peal of hilarity and his lime eyes shone with insatiable avarice, choking down his laughter with a grin.

“No, not yet Tommy. Playtime isn’t over yet.”

Chapter Text

The musky scent of spruce trees and sap lifted Tommy from his slumber. The familiar forest stretched out across his blurry field of view, tall bark figures coated in conifers and needles dotting the area. Tommy blinked, trying to pry his eyelids open despite the sleepy crust that he formed, but gave up and rubbed the base of his palm against his eyes. His head was still lying in the grass, golden locks furling among the dark grass of the shady woods, and he was staring up at the shards of blue sky, visible among the silhouetted branches arching across the canopies. Yellow light dappled the forest floor where the sky could be seen between the trees, and, as Tommy slowly sat up with a heaving breath, he squinted against the light.

He said nothing, only smacked his lips sleepily and emitted tired hums and sounds. In the tranquillity of the spruce grove, enveloped in warm winds from the East and the neutral aroma of mushrooms and fungus sprouting among the spruce trunks, Tommy was a little confused. Even in his stupor, he was convinced that something wasn’t right about this situation he was in right now. Let’s see: he was in a spruce forest, and he recognised the formations of the sweetberry shrubs and the slopes and ditches as the spawn point of the world. This was where people always waited for their first time in the area, waiting for someone who was more familiar with the land to show up. Usually, that person was one of the founders of the Greater Dream SMP, such as Sapnap, George or Sam, or even Dream himself.

Tommy had been here before. This was most definitely not his first time in the SMP territory, and he couldn’t recall losing his respawn point anytime recently; had he gotten into any arguments recently? That sounded like something he’d do. He probably just got his bed destroyed, yes yes.

“Hmm,” he hummed, frowning suddenly and looking to his right with a suspicious expression. That did not sit right with him; a gut feeling told him that wasn’t the reason he was here, and that wasn’t the problem. He couldn’t think of anything else though. “Ah, whatever,” he sighed deeply, pushing himself up to his feet and wincing at the pain in his muscles as he did so. That also confused him, and he once more tried to remember the past few days.

He paused when he was upright, staring ahead into the trees. That’s awfully strange, he thought to himself; he couldn’t remember anything from the past few days. There was nothing, he tried to think back to the previous night, what he’d eaten, what he’d talked about with Tubbo, but he just couldn’t pinpoint anything. Tommy squinted again, subconsciously looking over his shoulders and into the shadows, as though danger was watching him and it knew the answer to all his questions.

Nothing.

A moment of silence. The birds stopped singing for a second, pausing to listen in on the cloud of thoughts that closed in on Tommy’s mind, then resumed their melodies. Tommy blinked a few times, trying to adjust his vision to the dark, then decided to forget it and leave spawn.

After walking for a few minutes, making his way over fallen logs, dips in the ground, the cobblestone walls that sheltered all charted land from the dangers of the unlit forests, he finally found himself in a place that he could already feel melted away his worries. Walking along the oak wood of the Prime Path, making his way through the land owned by all, and he found himself unintentionally approaching the one place that meant more to him than any other in the SMP.

The bench was a safe place for Tommy. He had spent countless hours on this little hill, overlooking the Greater Dream SMP with the music of his discs in his ears, laughing with Tubbo over their next childish schemes, relaxing in the light of the dying sunsets, contemplating a plan to recover his discs from the hands of Dream, crying over a tragic loss of something dear to him. He trudged up to it tiredly, gazing fondly at the hanging leaves, the green curtain draping over the curves of the wooden bench; he then lowered himself onto the left side of the bench, leaning back, and as his spine met with the cross rail, lights flashed before his eyes.

Suddenly, he was submerged in a dream-like state, with blurs obscuring everything before him, and he could barely recognise the faces he saw fade right by him: Tubbo, by his side, smiling as he handed him a gift; staring at the sunset mournfully, with a dark structure blocking the golden light from reaching his face; hunched over on the bench, with his legs brought up to his chest, burying his knees in his damp cheeks. Voices that he couldn’t distinguish called his name, yelled at him to do something, to move, to go, to leave, do something, to help. Darkness arched over his vision from the corners of his peripheral, and before he could turn around to see who was looming over him, he was back on the bench in the present. Behind was just the Prime Path, wedged into the grass as it always was.

Tommy blinked, his chest echoing the sound of a frightened heartbeat into his ears. His breathing was quick, etched with sharp cuts and hesitant pauses where he was unable to pass oxygen. The breath he had taken lodged itself in his throat, unmoving, before he shuddered it out with an audible sigh. Everything was fine.

“Goodness,” he muttered to himself, lowering his gaze and untwisting his body back to face the view of the SMP; then he pounced out of his seat with a shrill shriek at the sight of a face right beside his, and the boy with brown hair giggled at the reaction of his friend.

“Tommy!” Tubbo exclaimed, straightening out from his position, which had been bent over to put face closer to Tommy’s. “Tommy, guess what Sapnap just told me.” Judging by his tone, it didn’t seem as though he was going to wait too long for Tommy’s response, but Tommy tried anyway.

“Tubbo, what is it, Big Man,” he forced out with a raspy voice, still not fully registering the world around him. He tried to look at his friend, but his lime shirt looked so bright and abnormal against the natural green of the grass and leaves, and his eyes twinkled with such visible gaiety that, despite such descriptions often being metaphorical, Tommy still couldn’t look at his face for more than a second before shying away.

Tubbo began a vehement explanation that Tommy wasn’t too interested in. He tried to listen to it, to rub away the sleepiness, but it was impossible to shake off. It was very strange, the only thing he could really focus on; he couldn’t remember ever being this tired. Seriously, what had he done yesterday? Did he get drunk? Was this a hangover? Was this how Wilbur always felt whenever he’d had too much vodka.

“So, in short, Wilbur is coming with Fundy!”

Tommy flared a nostril and sniffed loudly.

“Huh.” Wilbur. “Wilbur? Wilbur!” The blonde snapped to consciousness and stood up abruptly, looking down at Tubbo with wide eyes. “Wilbur? Seriously? Wilbur is coming over?”

Tubbo nodded vigorously, sitting himself down politely on the other side of the bench and following Tommy’s eyes as the taller boy lowered himself back down, back to where he was eye level with Tubbo.

“He’s not just coming over, Tommy. He’s moving in! Can you believe it? We’ll finally get to see him after so long. Remember how he used to write us those letters about how he hated living in that one city because of the pollution? He decided that moving in somewhere less developed would do him good, especially Fundy!”

Fundy. Wilbur’s daughter, whom they had not seen in years since she was a young toddler; the thought of seeing the young girl still made him feel a bit awkward. Even now, he could feel it. It was his own personal thing, just the fact that Wilbur already had a child was a bit strange to him, that he was an uncle. Tommy often joked about how much of a mature Big Man he was but he still didn’t feel responsible enough to be a guardian to someone. What if she looked up to him?

“Hey, are you ok?” Tubbo’s voice eased itself into his mind, and Tommy looked up from his muddy Converse. He nodded, and Tubbo continued with no further interrogation, which Tommy was grateful for. He didn’t really know the answer, either.

“Well, anyway. So Sapnap said that they were gonna be here sometime this week and that one of the Veterans were gonna make sure they arrive at Spawn Point Forest, but I’m still not sure when exactly that’ll be. Maybe we should spend a lot of time there so that we can be the first ones there?”

“That won’t be necessary anymore!”

A bright voice called out to them from behind, and both boys whipped around, grabbing a hold of the bench for support in their own characteristic ways, and they saw three people there.

BadBoyHalo had called out to them, waving at them and smiling sympathetically from under his dark hood, which couldn’t conceal the lustre of his smile, and beside him were two other people that Tommy and Tubbo knew.

“Wilbur!” Tubbo cried, the corners of his eyes lifting up in joy as he climbed over the bench and threw himself across the gap between him and his adoptive brother, swinging his arms around the chest of the taller man. “You’re here! You’re here right now! Sapnap said you were gonna be here sometime this week, I didn’t expect you to be here this early.”

The curly-haired Wilbur grinned fondly at Tubbo, looking down his nose at the boy who was currently swinging from side to side as he buried into his warm yellow knit sweater. “Well, today is sometime this week, isn’t it?” He patted the back of Tubbo’s head, smoothing down a few stray locks that had furled up in his frivolity.

“Well, we didn’t actually think that you’d be here this early. George predicted that you wouldn’t arrive till Tuesday, but I guess he was two days off,” Bad informed them, the round white circles of his eyes bouncing in the shadows as he blinked.

“You were there, though,” Wilbur noted with a slight raise of a brow.

Bad grinned proudly, clasping his hands behind his back politely. “I like to be early.”

Wilbur nodded, then he glanced back toward the bench and locked eyed with Tommy; the moment their eyes met, dark brown with an unfocused bright azure, a grin formed on his lips. “Tommy! Where’s my favourite biological younger brother?” He called out, tilting his head and placing his hands on his hips playfully.

Tommy, who had been trying to process the fog that had encased him the moment he saw Wilbur, didn’t utter much. He stammered meaningless gibberish, then shook his head to try and clear the mist, then decided to ignore it and smiled up at Wilbur.

“I’m your only biological younger brother,” Tommy chuckled, resting his cheeks on his cupped hands, which he’d positioned over the cross rail of the bench.

“Oh, ok, I’ll be honest then. Tubbo is my favourite younger brother,” Wilbur retorted with a slight tilt to the corner of his mouth, trying to hide his smile. “And you’re my least favourite biological younger brother as well.” Tommy scoffed, pushing himself off his elbows and taking on an ‘intimidating’ position.

“Now you’re just being mean!” he yelped with his iconic high-pitch voice, then he jumped over the bench and threw himself at Wilbur, who had finally been freed from Tubbo’s embrace.

As his hands met with the soft wool of the sweater, he felt a fierce wind drag all the warmth out of his body and he looked up to see Wilbur still there, but with scruffy stubble dappling his jaw, unkempt hair and an intensity to his eyes that Tommy had never seen from him, and it sent a knife of freezing fear tearing down his back. The wool that his hand clutched was not comfortable and cosy but rather dilute brown leather, stitched together into a trenchcoat with a collar that curved around his neck protectively.
“Tommy?” Wilbur hissed, tipping his chin down so that their eyes met, and the blonde tried to pull away, his fingers stiffening into fists, and he gasped. “Tommy!” The man repeated, this time louder with a sharper tone until all the fog dropped away and melted into the sunlight, and Tommy was back in the embrace of his concerned older brother. “Tommy, can you hear me?”

His voice was worried, not irritated and slightly amused as it had been in whatever Tommy had just experienced. Tommy blinked, pulled his gaze from the safety of the sweater and looked back into Wilbur’s eyes. Through the clear lenses of his copper glasses, worry and comfort reflected in his brown irises.

“Huh, Wil-” the blonde boy uttered, and at the sound of his voice his brother wrapped his arms under his shoulders and lifted him up for a moment, leaning back to support the weight he had picked up.

“Goodness, thought we lost you there for a second,” he murmured, with a hint of humour lacing his tone, but Tommy could tell he was just trying to cheer up Tommy from his panic. “Not what I expected from you on our first day; you always told me in all those letters that you were a Big Man!”

Tommy wiggled around, indicating that he wanted to go down, and Wilbur dropped him back onto the grass. His breath escaped his lungs almost silently as he regained his balance, back in control of where he stood. “Ah, um.” He scratched his elbow. “Nothing. Hey, why are we still doing all this soft hugging and shit, look at Fundy!”

All eyes turned to the young shapeshifter in question, and she paused whatever she had been doing, seemingly quietly listening in on the family reunion. In the background, Bad whispered something under his breath, but nobody could make out what it was under the peal of everyone’s voices as they began complimenting Wilbur’s child.

“Hey, Fundy!” Tubbo started, kneeling down to be at eye level. “Hi, remember me? Tubbo? Aw, you look so cute! I never thought you’d end up finding your animal so quickly!” He smiled at her, flicking a glance at her large perking ears and impressive russet tail; once he mentioned them, Fundy shifted her shoulders and tucked them all away. They all twisted and shrunk and vanished, in a matter of a split second, and Tommy and Tubbo gaped at the motion.

“Uh, thanks,” Fundy chipped in.

“Would you like to tell them how you found yourself?” Wilbur offered, kneeling down as well to look at Fundy with a questioning look. The shapeshifter nodded with a meek smile.

Everybody fell quiet. “Well, I don’t know how it works, really. But some people say that foxes represent great change and adaptability in difficult situations.” Fundy paused, eyes unfocused for a second before she looked back up at them. “Um. There is something important about that, too. I’d like to mention…”

“Sure, Fundy, go right ahead!” Tommy encouraged, and everyone nodded. Wilbur squinted slightly.

Fundy didn’t respond for a little while. She looked down at the grass for a bit, tracing the curves of the slope as though trying to avoid the subject, but then she took a deep breath and looked up at them; a watery gleam shimmered in Fundy’s eyes. “I’m not a girl. I- I don’t feel like that was the right body for me to be born in. It didn’t sit right with me. I think that…'' The shapeshifter paused again, looking around as though searching for something, then biting his lip when his large eyes met with Wilbur’s. Wilbur smiled, tilting his head for silent support.

“I’m a boy. I’m a boy, and I’m a fox. That’s that.” He looked directly at his family when he said it, staring with slightly knitted brows at Tommy and Tubbo, communicating through his expressive dark optics. Hope glimmered in their depths.

“Of course you are,” Tubbo expressed as soon as Fundy finished. “I’m sorry for misgendering you, Fundy. I’m proud of you, and we’ll all support you through your decisions!”

Tommy nodded vigorously, “of course! We’re all proud of you.”

Everyone appended their own cheers, continuously letting Fundy know of his independence and maturity, and the little fox boy choked back a wail, tears pooling at his eyelids. He lifted his chin up to prevent them from dripping, and Wilbur leaned down to wipe them away.

“It’s alright, Fundy. Men cry, too,” he soothed, and Fundy smiled the brightest smile at him.

For the rest of the next few hours, the family conversed together, catching up on their stories that they missed out over the couple of years they had been apart, laughing and joking and cursing. That last part BadBoyHalo didn’t enjoy as much, especially considering a child was among them, and he jokingly accused Wilbur of bad parenting, with the latter waving him away with a scoff.

“Please, I am the world’s best parent,” he taunted, reaching his hand out to ruffle Fundy’s already messy curls. “Isn’t that right, fwuffy? All mothers and fathers are dwarfed beneath my glory. This man right here is the paragon of perfection.”

Tommy wrinkled his nose with conviviality, then turned to Tubbo, “he’s speaking in old people language and shit,” whispering into his ear. Tubbo giggled, and in front of them Bad pricked up in alarm, his sleeves buffeting with motion.

“Language!” he repeated for the tenth time that day, yelping in distress when Tommy proceeded to ignore him completely and released an outpour of curse words, words that Fundy listened to with great interest. “STOP YOU MUFFIN HEAD. FUNDY, look away, you should not be around people like that until you’re 18.”

“Oh, ok then, that’s not too long,” Fundy shrugged, tucking his fuzzy hands into the pockets of his jacket.

Bad scrunched his brows in utter bewilderment, and Tommy glanced at Wilbur for confirmation of anything he might’ve missed out.

“Shapeshifters who’ve discovered their animal age quicker than normal. Because Fundy found his at such a young age, he’ll technically be 18 in just a few years.”

“That-” Bad started.

“Is so pogchamp!” Tommy declared, gazing down at Fundy with admiration. Fundy smiled. “Think of all the women he could get. All in just a couple of years! Ooooh, I wish I was a shapeshifter.” Wilbur and Tubbo laughed.

“Ack, no!” Bad cried, bringing his hands up to his head in apprehension. “No, I don’t even want to- no! Wilbur, that doesn’t even make sense? Someone who’s alive for just a few years isn’t 18 in just those few years!” His words rushed out of his mouth in rapid worry, but Wilbur shrugged.

“For us, sure, it would be really really really really weird and illegal, but Fundy’s not a human. He’s a shapeshifter. Especially because his animal is a fox: foxes are mature adults by the time they’re just over a year old, and the same would go for Fundy if he stayed in his animal form all the time. That’s why my brother, Techno, aged a bit faster than I did. He didn’t find his animal until we were about, I’d say… 12 years old.”

Bad narrowed his eyes at the remark but questioned it no more.

“Hey, I wanna know what animal I’d be if I were a shapeshifter!” Tommy bellowed all of a sudden, turning to his brother and nephew. “Oi, tell me, give me the manliest animal you can think of.”

Wilbur tipped his head in wonder, lifting his glasses back up the length of his nose before smirking with delight. “I think you’d be a bitch.”

“A heh?!” the blonde screeched, his eyes widening and his expression compressed with exaggerated ire. “In whatever universe that is in, you’d be a- pussy! What a pussy you are, oh look at you, purr for us, Wilby!”

Wilbur didn’t seem bothered by the idea, though, he only shrugged, tilted his head lazily to stare at Tommy with half-lidded eyes, lifted a hand elegantly and purred, “nya.”

Tubbo burst with laughter, Tommy roared in success in his eyes, Fundy giggled to himself, while BadBoyHalo seized the horns on his head and pressed his hands to his eyes, emitting vexed grumbles to himself.

“Tubbo would be a bee,” Tommy suddenly suggested, pointing at his best friend.

“He like’a da bee,” the dark-haired boy in question snickered.

“Hm,” Wilbur hummed thoughtfully. “Well, if your Dad’s part of the family could shapeshift, what animals do you think we’d be?” he turned to Fundy gently, a playful gleam in his eyes.

Tommy and Tubbo turned to look back down at Fundy, and the shapeshifter pulled a confused face. “But I don’t know them all that well,” Fundy complained.

“You’ve spoken to Bad, and I’m sure you could figure something out based on these guys’ appearance. For example, Tommy is all ugly and shit, what does he remind you of?” As he finished, Wilbur slid his gaze over to meet Tommy’s, whose glare was sending daggers at his older brother. As expected, Bad mumbled something beneath his breath, while Fundy analysed Tommy and Tubbo.

“Uh. I think Tommy would be a raccoon. He just seems a bit annoying like that,” he started, and immediately the family erupted into guffaws and choking on their own saliva, with Tommy following in pursuit after scoffing at the idea for a moment. Fundy didn’t seem certain whether that meant that they liked his proposition or not, but he decided to continue. He pulled a paltry smile. “Ah, Tubbo could be a sheep. You’re soft and kind, and-”

“Domesticated,” Wilbur interrupted, and Tommy cuffed Tubbo’s chest with his elbow, sneering with glee.

They continued their bonding for another hour or so, slowly making their way around the perimeters of the Greater Dream SMP and peacefully strolled along the winding Prime Path, talking under the lamplight as the sun slid down the amber sky and the lustre stained the sauntering clouds with ruddy flavours. BadBoyHalo had had to depart, claiming to have to attend a meeting with the Dream Team at the Community House, and the relatives were left alone. By the time they had patrolled around the entire territory, only a tangent of the sun, which was now an orange disc, was visible poking out over the hills, casting its final shafts of yellow light onto the world before all colours fell mute, and symphonies of crickets broke out across the land.

The final few notes of Tommy’s music disc, Cat, waned into the euphony, but the people continued talking.

“Oh, Wilbur, if only you were there to see it. It was ridiculously scary, especially for how silly the whole situation was, but we eventually managed to make the Ender Chest and Tommy hid his discs inside!” Tubbo chattered on, accentuating his words with active hands and expressions. “Dream was surprisingly powerful, seeing as just a few days prior his best set of armour was just enchanted Iron. He had all these potions and everything, and it didn’t help that he is more experienced than us in general.”

“To us it was just a game,” Tommy added, “but I think he took it seriously sometimes. He looked so mad a few times!” He laughed, and Tubbo confirmed his opinion with his own titters, but Tommy’s smile faded. They had been talking about Dream for the past hour now or so, describing all the details of what they had called ‘The Disc War’ to Wilbur and Fundy; while Fundy had seemed interested at first, he eventually fell asleep and was currently curled on the bench with his head resting on Wilbur’s lap, who hadn’t been that interested at all throughout.

“Sounds fun,” Wilbur yawned, stretching out his shoulders and grunting as his muscles flexed, hidden beneath the sweater. His spine creaked.

Tommy sniffed. He remembered the fog he’d seen when he first hugged Wilbur that day, the weird errors in his vision that had morphed the face of his brother into that of an unstable, alternate Wilbur. Since then, he hadn’t seen it’s enigmatic form, at least not in reference to his brother. Every other time he’d glimpsed it, gathering in the corner of his vision, was when he talked about Dream, especially the Disc War, which was a real issue since that was the topic that they had been commenting on for the past hour.

At first, it was mostly just perplexing to see, but after closer examination, or as rigorous as it could be without washing it away with his attention, he realised that everything within it seemed strange. The grass was charred and stamped down into the dirt, stones had blood trickling in rivulets down their gravelly slopes, and the Prime Path had splinters and whole planks missing. A few times he’d captured Fundy within the mist, and the Fundy he saw was someone he didn’t want to meet again: first of all, older, with torn ears and a battle-scarred muzzle; he’d also been holding torches and flames, burning down fabric he hadn’t been able to identify.

“Oi, Tommy,” Wilbur’s voice once again brought him back to consciousness.

“Hm?”

“You seem out of it today,” the brother noted and he lowered his brows seriously. “Anything going on in that big head?”

“Oh, no it’s nothing, I’m fine,” Tommy laughed it off, narrowing his eyes to express himself.

A pause from Wilbur. “Well, just saying. Usually, you would’ve called me an old man or something if you heard my bones sound.”

“Did they?”

“When I stretched, yeah.”

“Oh,” Tommy mused, looking down at his lap absently. “You’re getting old,” he put simply.

Wilbur chuckled, then exhaled deeply. “I see. Well, on another note, I like what you guys have done with the place.” He leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms behind his head, shuffling his body lower down so that he was comfortable. Fundy squirmed in his slumber and shifted down onto Wilbur’s stomach. “It’s pretty well lit, relatively safe from any hostile mobs, and it has quite lovely people here. I haven’t talked with Dream since we signed my agreement to move in here, but I bet he’s still a nice guy.” He glanced over at Tommy silently, with a calm look, but Tommy felt challenged by his glare.

As though Wilbur was asking him a question.

“Uh. Yeah, Dream’s a pretty nice lad. I mean, he’s not too serious or anything, which is nice for us younger folk, because without that keenness to play Tubbo and I would be more bored than we are. He’s also experienced and capable, we’ve seen that, even in his play fights. We could tell he was holding back a bit, but sometimes I think his anger got the better of him and he lashed out a bit. That’s when we truly got a taste of his strength.”

Wilbur blinked, no real emotion on his face. What was he thinking? Tommy cleared his throat.

“He’s not bad, it’s our fault if anything. He is a great leader. But um… yeah, that’s all, really.” Tommy finished, hoping that could be the end of that conversation. He scratched his wrist.

His brother just nodded, looking away as though he wasn’t really paying attention, then turned his eyes back to the sky.

“Sounds ok. Do you think Fundy would enjoy it?”

Tommy glanced to his right, where Fundy was currently snoozing, comfortably resting in his half-animal form, where his small round snout was speckled with darker patches that already had little whiskers poking out from them. One of his ears was pressed flat against Wilbur’s chest where his head rested against the yellow sweater like a pillow, while the other bent casually to the opposite side.

He hadn’t known the little fox for a long time; he’d met him before for a day or two before, way back when he was still young and censored by baby vocabulary, when he couldn’t control his shapeshifting. Tommy remembered how he would often shift at random intervals throughout the day; they’d be playing games and suddenly Fundy would morph from a human into a full fox, and he’d be trapped in his own fallen bundle of clothes, barking helplessly; he also shifted once when Wilbur was feeding him, accidentally biting down with sharp canine teeth on Wilbur’s finger with a snout that was longer than a human’s.

Today, Fundy had demonstrated something Tommy never expected of a young child, maturity and understanding of the world he didn’t even find in some adults. He could even name a few who lived in the Greater Dream SMP like that. This child was special, he knew that. He was smart, cunning, witty, and playful as a cub. Was this the right place for him to be raised, to live in a way that he could experience the freedom of childhood and learn the morals that everybody should know?

“Yes,” Tommy smiled, “I think he’ll enjoy this place.”

“Interesting.”

Wilbur hummed curiously; Tommy followed his gaze up, up, up to the dreamy starscape above them, where constellations arched over the navy canvas, sprinkled with countless hopes and truths.

“Cause I had an idea.”

Chapter Text

“I’ve been thinking about this for a little while now,” Wilbur began, tipping his chin up and smiling up at the morning sky.

Pale trails of clouds arched over the deep azure ocean above them, brimming with still life; white birds drifted on the wind currents, occasionally flitting their wings to stay aloft; the zephyr carried the dandelion seeds and the smell of clover leaves from the wilderness toward Tommy, Wilbur, Tubbo and Fundy, who were heading out of the Greater Dream SMP to an undisclosed area where Wilbur had supposedly left something of importance. When asked about why he left something so valuable in such a random spot, Wilbur insisted that it was out of necessity and that everything he was doing was planned.

Now, the eldest man, who was only a few years older than his teenage brothers, led the way along the Prime Path, casually swinging his puffy-sleeved arms and breathing in the fresh leafy air as though he had walked that way hundreds of times before. Confidence was apparent in every step, and Tommy could tell that he was trying to hold back his excitement, but he was lacking a bit as he could still see his teeth behind a mouth with tense corners.

“I believe that both of you will quite enjoy this,” he continued with, casting a glance over his shoulder as he said so. His brown eyes didn’t focus on anything, as though he was just making sure they were still following, and then he looked back forward. “This sort of idea is right down your alley. Rebellious and all that.”

“I’d like to actually know what it is, Wil,” Tommy pressed with a slight chuckle, finding the almost childish frivolity of his brother quite amusing. “Just get along with it already.”

“I have to hype it up first, I know what I’m doing,” he hissed in response, but there was no annoyance in his voice, only happy impatience. The next moment he spoke, his voice was once again regal, and his words emphasised by his hand gestures. “As you know, I have recently made the decision of moving into the Greater Dream SMP along with my son, Fundy. Most of the reason why we decided to come here is that you two, Tommy and Tubbo, are here. It is a very quaint place, I must say, adequate for many, but I believe that it isn’t the ideal place for me to raise my son.”

As Wilbur explained, their surroundings gradually changed, from the more urban area of the SMP, with taller, more frequent buildings, to farmland and hanging lanterns, until finally the Prime Path cut off at the foot of a hill and the rest of the way was lit by torches rather than by lanterns. The light wasn’t necessary at the time, with the sun still crawling its way up the scape of the sky, it would be a long wait before darkness became dangerous again. The group followed the torch rows, veering deeper into the oakwood hills and strolling beneath the green canopies, occasionally having to push through low-hanging leaves, before the trees thinned out abruptly into a sunny glade.

“Which is why I plan to live somewhere else,” Wilbur finished, just as Tommy caught sight of something, sitting silently in the shadow of a tree in order for the sunlight not to overheat the object: a caravan. Wilbur said something, but Tommy instantly felt a sickening intensity fill his chest and he stared at the caravan for a long, long time. Wilbur kept talking, showing the others his plans and explaining his ideas, ideas Tommy couldn’t hear but had a feeling he’d heard before, anyway. 

It was still, leaning against the shadows, the tyres on that side pressed down from the weight. It didn’t look intimidating at all, it was just a stupid little vehicle with an old license plate and pawprints over the windows, and yet as he kept staring, unable to tear his gaze from it, a strange mass of emotions stalked Tommy. There was a lot of pain, there was a lot of suffering and anger when he looked at it, but there was good, too, happiness and sentimental fondness that held the entire package together with a deceitful bow.

“I’m not sure how Dream would feel about that,” Tubbo’s mildly worried and thoughtful voice cut through the thick sickness. The boy had approached the van, inspecting it from a few metres away, while Wilbur fiddled with keys in his hand, standing beside the sliding door to the van. “I mean, it’s a nice idea, yes! I like it, I’m sure Fundy would enjoy this, it’s very pretty here,” he added nervously, pausing to look around. He stopped when he saw a bee in the sky, quietly making its way from a pale, dripping mass in the tree branches to the flowers that lay at the tree trunks like a colourful skirt of petals.

Wilbur didn’t respond, calling out to Fundy, who was running around the glade happily, shifting into his half-animal form and inhaling deeply to take in the smells of the clearing. Once he’d found the correct key and finally opened the door, after a few heaves, Wilbur turned to Tubbo with a smile and wide-spread arms. “Come in, come in! Come take a look!”

Tubbo hesitated, looking over his shoulder at Tommy, who had broken free from his paralysis and was approaching the vehicle. He stopped beside Tubbo, and they stood in silence for a second. Fundy laughed in the background, pointing at a ladybug in the grass.

“Dream won’t like this, will he?” Tubbo murmured with uncertainty, weaving his fingers together for comfort.

Tommy took a deep breath. “I don’t know, Big Man.” After a second, he appended, “I wasn’t exactly listening for half of that so you’ll have to catch me up on everything.”

Tubbo just chuckled to himself, though his expression was still worried, but the two friends entered the van.

Inside, there was a small space where Wilbur must’ve sat by wheel and a pair of birch doors. The doors were already open, as Wilbur had just entered, and behind them was a small space with an island in the middle, with various papers, crayons and cups with old coffee placed atop it. Wilbur was on the other end of the space already, dragging a finger along the surface of the counters, muttering at the dust which had collected on his skin, then rubbing it away with his thumb and turning to his brothers.

“So this is it! The ‘Camarvan,’ as I like to call it,” Wilbur exclaimed, gesturing with his hands. “What do you think? I think it’s great, and it has a bunch of potential!”

Tommy and Tubbo gazed for a while, walking around the island in the middle and inspecting the various features of the room, which wasn’t a lot really: there were layers of dust on the counters, more dust on the papers and crayons, more dust settled onto and within the old coffee, dust in the air, glowing in the sunlight that was cast inside by a small stripe. 

On the papers, a few of them documents of things Tommy didn’t care for, like taxes and bills and shit, were drawings, likely drawn by Fundy. Tommy glanced outside at the little fox playing in the grass, leaping from one patch of daisies to the other, burrowing his nose within the fronds and flicking his whiskers as the grass tickled his muzzle. The happiness he portrayed was reflected in his drawings, which were mostly things Tommy didn’t know about, such as a house in a city. In the drawing, Fundy looked quite content, but Wilbur appeared to be coughing, or whatever, clutching his stomach and holding a hand to his mouth.

In another, the setting was different, a tent in the woods with a little campfire lit, cooking beef and mutton; he didn’t know that because the drawing was good, but because arrows pointed at the red blobs with beef and mutton sticking out of them

Again, Fundy appeared to be quite excited with a big pink arc of a grin on his face, while Wilbur was “zzz”ing off in the tent. Irresponsible old man, Tommy thought to himself with amusement, scoffing. 

In the final drawing, it was just of Wilbur. The page, in fact, was split into half with a crease down the middle, one half a drawing, the other words. The drawing was of someone, probably Wilbur, holding papers, a blue frown on his face, blue lines under his eyes and papers in his hand. The written half seemed to be an explanation: “
Dad has been working on those papers for a while now. He always says he’ll come to sleep soon but he never does. He forgot to tell me a bedtime story again. I’ll write myself one.

Once upon a time there was a little fox who didn’t have a home. He and his dad would always go from place to place, sleeping under tents or in dirty houses. They lived in a city, and the little fox liked it but the dad coughed a lot so they left. They lived in a tent in the woods and the little fox liked it but the dad always went to sleep with bruises and wounds so they left. The dad fought off zombies and creepers. He was very brave. He decided to build them a home where they could be happy. The fox was very happy, the dad was very happy, and their friends were very happy.

They         The end.”

Tommy blinked, turning over the page to see if there was more on the other side, as though “the end” wasn’t a good enough indicator that the story was finished, but he couldn’t be sure. They? Huh?

But there was nothing else. Maybe Fundy wanted to write more but, Tommy assumed, that he ran out of space. It definitely seemed that way, as the words and lines got more cramped and squashed the more the story went on.

“What’s this?” Tommy said out loud, not exactly asking anybody in particular, and he looked up to see Wilbur standing there, gazing at the paper with half-lidded eyes. Tommy was about to repeat himself, this time aiming the question at a person,but the words dried on his tongue when he realised the expression on his brother’s face: he couldn’t identify what it was, it seemed like a conflicting emotion that warred over his facial features, with a slightly tensed lip, squinted eyes, subtly furrowed brows, a tired look. “Wil-”

“That’s one of Fundy’s drawings,” Wilbur responded quickly, pulling his eyes away from the paper and up at Tommy with a completely different face, a small smile but dull eyes that didn’t match the content frame of his face. “Talented, isn’t he?” Tommy didn’t say anything, just watched as Wilbur left his propinquity with a flinch he thought he imagined.

“WOAH, what’s all this?” Tubbo yelped all of a sudden and both of them looked up to see him clutching a paper with surprise in his round dark eyes. Tommy couldn’t see what he was gawking at but Wilbur must’ve recognised the page even from the back because he immediately ran up to Tubbo with a smile.

“Exactly, that’s what I’m planning!” he gushed, one hand up to grip at the paper and spread out a few folds and creases, the other pointing at sketches and labels, “See, at the moment the Camarvan is a bit run down, as you can tell, but Fundy motivated me to design this and it’s like-” he halted, struggling for words. He looked rapidly from Tubbo to Tommy, arms up in restlessness, then he spat out, “the future! Basically, I told you guys that I want to build a home for Fundy here near the SMP, and this is the place and the van that I will build it around. You can see that here I want to build a bedroom on the second floor, refurbish the counters and smelt new panes, and build a swing over here outside on one of these trees-”

Tommy listened to the flood of words, and images flashed in the back of his head, desaturated and unclear against reality, various pictures he couldn’t distinguish, but piling up with each new idea that Wilbur presented. Unlike other times when he experienced this, he didn’t feel any perturbation warning him of danger, and even if he did, he wasn’t sure it could overpower the contagious hope that illuminated Wilbur’s face.

As he described the future he had prepared for himself and his son, the fox that played out in the woods with the sunlight reflecting off his russet fur like gold, aspiration lit up Tommy from the inside. Despite the darkness that had haunted him for the past couple days, blurring the days before he woke up in the spruce forest in a daze, all memory of that escaped him as ambitions spread out before them, so easily accessible, already organised for them to perform. 

“Will there be drugs?” Tommy burst out all of a sudden. The obvious question was stalking everybody.

“O-” Wilbur stuttered, pausing to look at Tommy in confusion. “Drugs? Tommy, for once I’m being serious here.”

“He means potions,” Tubbo offered, casting a glance in Tommy’s direction, who just grinned with a smile of braces. “You’ve read the rules - Dream doesn’t allow people to make potions, you need a permission pass from him.”

Wilbur nodded slowly, slightly squinting in a period of thought. “Ah. Well, in that case,” he informed, planting his hands on Tommy’s shoulders and looking down. “Yes, Tommy. There will be ‘drugs.’ “ In response, the blonde cackled with a loud screech of almost disbelief.

“Now don’t tell Fundy.”

The gang had made their way throughout the Greater Dream SMP, asking other people questions with inspired thought and their opinions on ‘drugs.’ With a few of them they had had to be more careful, namely George and BadBoyHalo, who were both either loyal to Dream and would tell him any suspicious schemes or were against any possibly illegal behaviour. It was poor judgement to ask them in the first place, they had instantly become weary, but it only got worse when Tommy continuously pressed them about drugs and potions.

“What are you planning?” Bad had mused, squinting at them from under his hood. It didn’t take a lot of lying from Wilbur to get him off their trail, but it had still been stressful.

“At this rate, I seriously doubt we’re gonna find someone who would like to help us,” Tubbo murmured, scratching at his scalp through his bushy brown hair. “Everybody is extremely loyal to Dream, they would give us away without a moment’s hesitation.”

“We could try and do this all on our own, but it would be difficult seeing as none of us here have a Potion Pass, nor enough trust to try for one,” Wilbur mumbled, appearing mildly despondent, contrasting his son who held his hand with a bright smile, enjoying yet another trip around the SMP and exploring the paths. “Getting into the Nether Fortress unnoticed would be awful.” He sighed. “Things would be much easier if we had Invisibility Potions. See how much despair the country empire is in because of the Potion Ban? Ridiculous.”

Tommy whipped around to face them all, spreading his arms out to accentuate his words. “Hey, we haven’t spoken to Sapnap yet! I know Sapnap on a very personal level, I know he’s a free spirit and he is a likely candidate to help out in building our drug empire.”

“Country,” Wilbur corrected with a hint of exasperation, rolling his eyes and pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “We’re building a country, not a drug empire.”

The blonde glared at him, tensing his brow. “Wilbur, if there are no drugs I want no part of this.”

Wilbur cringed. “At least stop calling them that. What if someone heard you?”

“No drugs equal no TommyInnit,” Tommy repeated himself in simpler terms, “and nothing is successful without TommyInnit. That is just a fact.”

The curly-haired man inhaled, closing his eyes and pinching his nose bridge, releasing his breath shakily. He hummed in forced agreement, refusing to have this conversation with his brother right now, and they continued their search. 

For a while, they scanned the land, asking around for Sapnap, until finally, Sam told them, after already being asked various questions the previous hour and the last, that he had gone to the Nether with Dream to gather some blaze rods from the spawners. Tommy instantly acted all offended, gripping his shirt in exaggeration, and they had to hold him back from jumping Sam for no reason other than answering him with something he didn’t like.

“Oh, no, wait, he’s out to get blaze rods. He’s probably making drugs right now!” the blonde declared after realisation hit him, a smile cracking his dramatic expression. “Why else would he be getting blaze rods? Nobody’s allowed to go to the End Stronghold so there’d be no need for Eyes of Ender! I’m so smart!” 

“Tommy, everybody else had figured it out the moment Sam said it,” Tubbo giggled, and the blonde cursed him out, knowing the truth full well but deciding to make the situation less boring by pretending, as he often did.

They messed around for a bit, poking at the other and grabbing tufts of hair, pulling playfully but not enough to hurt. As they fought, setting a bad example for Fundy, two people approached from behind, conversing casually and chuckling every so often. Tommy pulled at Tubbo’s shirt, the latter yelping as he lost his balance and fell to the ground. The people got closer, catching sight of the ruckus. Tubbo managed to grab Tommy’s arm and pulled him down with him, grunting as his body met painfully with the grass. 

“Tommy?”

The voice penetrated through the blur of hilarity that was coating Tommy’s view, tearing it straight down the middle and casting aside the husk of his joy. His breath caught in his throat and he stared for a moment at Tubbo, who didn’t look as shocked as he did. Why didn’t he look scared? Surely he did? Surely he remembered? Remembered what. What was there to remember? He didn’t remember anything, he just had a terrible feeling.

The blonde dragged his gaze out of the comfort of Tubbo’s eyes and looked up at Dream and Sapnap, the two older men looming over them with blaze rods glowing like living embers in their satchels, which had likely been reinforced to be fireproof. Tommy stared at the smile of Dream’s mask. The mask smiled back. He traced the curves of the grin. It stayed still. He stared into the dead hollows of its beady eyes. It didn’t blink.

For a moment, Tommy remembered. He remembered something, a lot, so many important things, and his ribcage coiled around his lungs like snakes, choking him out in horror. But like a dream he’d just awaken from, the past escaped his head. Mist remained, confusing and malignant. For whatever reason, he was certain Dream could see it, too, whatever he had seen. 

“C’mon, get up, you two,” Dream ordered coolly, and Tommy immediately bolted up to his feet without hesitation. Tubbo followed more slowly, casting a quick concerned glance at the blonde, but he didn’t catch it. “You're setting a bad example for Fundy. He’s supposed to learn that childish fights like these shouldn’t be happening in my SMP.” Dream looked up from Tommy and at the fox, who didn’t seem that concerned by the mask that stared at him, but Tommy’s mind practically begged for Fundy to look away, for Dream to turn back to him, to leave the innocent child alone.

There was an awkward silence, and judging by Dream’s voice, Tommy could tell he was smiling; there was a lilt to his tone that hinted at a grin.

“Hey, Dream, I’ll go take these blaze rods back to the base,” Sapnap chipped, breaking the quiet, and Dream dipped his head. Tommy stared at the dark-haired man as Dream handed him his portion of the blaze rods, momentarily distracted by their amber glare, then back at Sapnap. No, they were supposed to ask him about their plan for the potions! The blonde opened his mouth, trying to squeak out a complaint in his usual cheerful tone, but the words died on his tongue.

“Hey, Sapnap, actually!” Wilbur called out, lifting a hand up. Sapnap spun around, his packed satchel swinging against his flank. “We wanted to talk with you for a moment. Mind if you waited here?”

Relief melted away Tommy’s apprehension, only to be replaced with yet another coat. They couldn’t ask Sapnap about a plan Dream wasn’t supposed to know about if Dream was standing right there! They would have to ask him to leave or just tell Sapnap another time.

“OK, I’ll take the blaze rods back, then,” Dream offered, giving out his hand to his friend. Sapnap paused for a second, then thanked him and dropped him all the rods. Tommy stared once more, enraptured by the potential within those golden blaze remnants, then looked up at the mask when he felt a trickle down his spine. Maybe he was imagining it; in fact, he was definitely imagining it. There was no way he could tell if Dream was looking at him or not. With the mask hiding his face from the public, only one person in the SMP having ever seen it so far, there was no telling what that man was thinking. Occasionally, he would tease them by shifting his mask a little bit higher, only to do what he always did: smile maliciously and drop it back down, to the disappointment but no surprise of others.

Yet as he eyed the curve of the mask, the tiny black pits of the eyes, his foggy brain warped the image to make it seem like they were looking down at him, studying him intensely with the void in their depths.

“Meet you back at the Community House once you’re done,” Dream uttered, waving at Sapnap as he departed down the Prime Path, one hand clasping his satchel, and he didn’t give Tommy another worry as he walked away. Another ripple of relief shimmered through the blonde and he released his breath, one he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

Once Dream was out of earshot, everybody circled Sapnap in an unintentionally aggressive manner and he stiffened his shoulders unsurprisingly, casting them all weary looks. “So, uh, what’d you need me for?”

“We’re gonna create a drug empire, and we need your help with it!” Tubbo exclaimed and Wilbur melted in exasperation, lifting his hands to his head.

“Tubbo, we agreed that Sapnap would probably agree to it, but that doesn’t mean we tell him everything right off the bat!” the curly-haired brother whined, leaning over and bending his knees to regain his balance at a safer level; after a moment of clutching his temples and rubbing his thumbs across his skin, he cleared his throat and hopped back up. “Yes, Sapnap, we would like to offer you a deal that we believe you will not want to disregard.”

Sapnap was already all relaxed now, had been since Tubbo spilt pretty much all he was supposed to know and was gazing up at Wilbur curiously. “You’ve got my attention. What are the details.”

Tommy rubbed his palms against his eyes, then pulled the tiredness away from his voice. “Yes! Dream declared a Potion Ban on everybody except you guys which I think is discrimination against the British, which is why all of us Br- Europeans have decided to rebel against him and create a drug empire! We will be brewing potions, selling potions, drinking potions, all that fun stuff. Our industry will prosper so much we will be unstoppable! We will build factions all over the world, the entire globe can get a taste of TommyInnit and Co’s Drugs!”

“You say that like Fundy is going to be involved, as well,” Sapnap pointed out with a slight giggle. “He’s only half British, and you made sure to correct yourself: ‘Europeans.’”

“I do not discriminate against children,” Tommy retorted. “I know how miserable it must be to not be a Big Man yet, so I will teach him to the best of my ability. Uncle Innit will mentor you,” he added, kneeling down and turning to Fundy.

“No, he’s good, we’re good,” Wilbur interrupted with a disturbed tone and expression, seizing Fundy and stepping back. “He doesn't need your tutelage, thank you.”

“Well, anyway, tell me about this potion scheme, Wilbur,” Sapnap demanded curiously, reeling the conversation back to what it was supposed to be. Tommy frowned at Sapnap, insulted that his explanation was not satisfactory.

“Well, we were thinking that, of course, we would brew potions outside of the SMP in order to make up for what is illegal without the Potion Pass. None of us have the Potion Pass, so we need someone who does have it or does have Dream’s trust to get one, to provide us with the blaze rods needed to brew them all. And that’s,” Wilbur paused, his gaze unfocusing for a second as he considered the plan. “Yeah, that’s all.”

“So what do you think?” Fundy broke in, looking up at Sapnap with curious eyes, his long ears flicking as he tilted his head.

Sapnap looked them all in the eyes, studying them for a moment. Tommy had a confident expression on, his hair ruffled by the playfight; Tubbo was mostly curious, with an odd smudge of dirt and mud on his nose and cheek; Wilbur had a neutral expression, but there was intensity behind his eyes, half-covered by his curls of dark chestnut hair; Fundy’s almond-shaped eyes, glimmering with interest.

He lowered himself down to his knees, reaching out to ruffle the fur atop Fundy’s head.

"Yup, I'm in."

Chapter Text

The sunlight was warm on Tommy’s skin — it carried the heat of the sun, filtering between the bushy branches of the spruce trees, but also characterised the morning coolness. He could imagine himself laying on a beach, taking in this perfect light all day without worry of sunburn. A relaxing day like that would definitely do him some good after so much work in the past week; everyday he’d been gathering resources for the potions as the demand for them got higher, but they were still just in the production stage. Tommy really didn’t understand why they had to make so many in just the first week. He knew he’d joked about making this an industry but maybe Wilbur was the wrong person to bring that up with; he could take it seriously.

Right now, he was on a mini expedition to the spruce forests of the Spawn Point, where he was expected to find sugar cane, rabbits and mushrooms for the next batch of potions. That irritated him. Wilbur wouldn’t be especially pleased if he only found two of the needed ingredients, but how likely was it that he’d find mushrooms in a spruce forest? The fungus barely grows there. At least he hadn’t had to walk far; the only reason for that being that Fundy was with him.

The young fox had been very determined to go on as many expeditions as he could — whether he was planning on actually helping out with the resource-gathering was still a question that lingered, but he certainly seemed to enjoy the exploring. It made Tommy wonder about how much of the world Fundy had explored already. Considering what he’d learnt from his story and from Wilbur, he could assume a fair bit.

“Wilbur,” Tommy grumbled to himself, with his hands low in his pockets. “Thinking he can order me around like I’m just a little kid. ‘Take care of Fundy while you’re out there’ yeah no shit, I was planning on leading him directly to a lava pool, actually!” He kicked a stone in his path, his breath pummelled out of his chest as his foot realised the pain, unable to flick the seemingly light rock off his path. He keeled over and curled in his fingers, pressing the base of his palm hard against his shoe.

In the distance, Fundy giggled and danced, hopping in and out of ditches, shapeshifting between his forms mid-leap and letting out a cacophony of sounds that were a blend of fox screeches and human laughter. It was a truly disturbing thing to hear. If he was alone and it was dark, he’d most definitely be weary of whatever the source could be. Not that he was scared of it. Just cautious. He was a Big Man, he wasn’t scared of anything.

Tommy narrowed his eyes, mildly envious of his nephew’s freedom, before pushing himself back to his feet and shaking out the pain from his toes.

“Just don’t get lost, Fundy,” he called out, tilting his foot to examine it quickly. No harm done to his converse shoe, thank god “If anything happened to you Wilbur would kill me,” he added quietly to himself, looking up briefly to make sure Fundy was still in his field of view.

Currently, Fundy was running ahead, chasing after a feral fox that he had miraculously spotted from many yards away and within the shadows of the woods. The fox perked its ears up, let out a startled scream as it caught sight of the boy and pelted away. Fundy followed.

“No, wait, Fundy!” 

Tommy instantly surged forward, breaking through the layer of ferns lining the forest and racing after him. Fundy didn’t listen, continuing his chase after the fox like a dog off-leash. At first, Tommy appeared to be gaining on him and he felt relief earlier than he should’ve, for as soon as they approached a mass of sweetberry shrubs, Fundy dove right in without any issue, shifting into a fox as he met with the thorns and leaves.

Tommy skidded to a halt, teetering on the edge of the bushes reluctantly and his feet drumming on the grass in panic. What was he supposed to do? He couldn’t follow Fundy into the bushes, his legs would get all torn up and he’d harm himself. But what else could he do? Fundy would get lost if we didn’t go in the next few seconds, but it would take a lot of mental capacity to force himself into the thorns.

He planted both feet down into the ground, his brows knitted and eyes wide in a slightly irritated, slightly frightened expression, his breath heavy, and he was about to leap in after his nephew before he heard something in the distance.

“Hey, be careful!”

Tommy swung his arms to regain his balance, careful not to fall in face-first and he took a step away from the sweetberries.

“Phew, that was close! You could’ve fallen in. It looks like a long drop. Are you alright, little guy?”

A stranger was speaking, but after listening closely Tommy doubted it was to him. Little guy. That couldn’t be him. He choked on air.

Fundy.

A stranger was talking to Fundy.

Tommy looked around, gravitating around the edge of the bramble tendrils uncomfortably before deciding to take a longer route around them, ensuring he still could still hear whoever was speaking. The person had a deep voice, almost rumbling, and the bass of it could be heard from a fair distance, thankfully. By the time Tommy had found a safer path and raced across it, Fundy was already back in his human form, looking up curiously at the stranger in question.

He had dark brown hair with subtle curls, a kind face and fairly simple clothes: dark blue jeans with a few burrs caught along the calves, a grey shirt with a blue, pink and purple pin over the left breast, and dark sunglasses that blocked out his eyes. Tommy stared at them, a soft wheeze escaping him at the sight of someone he could’ve sworn he knew. The stranger looked up from Fundy, then smiled and waved at the sight of the blonde.

“Ah, hello!” they called out, standing up from their kneeling, where he had been eye-level with Fundy. “You must be this boy’s guardian. You should be a bit more careful, he could’ve fallen into this ravine right there.” He pointed without looking back, remaining close.

But Tommy couldn’t exactly process what they’d just said. If he could, he would’ve reacted to the fact that a stranger had just told him how to care for a child, but he was too occupied with the lack of oxygen in his lungs. Why couldn’t he breathe? Why was this happening again? Everytime he got stressed out it was when he saw someone he hadn’t seen in a while, or when Dream was mentioned, and most of those times resulted in a panic attack like this. What the hell happened to him? He was never like this before

The blonde took a step back, pulling out his diamond sword from its sheath and holding it defensively in front of him, though his grip was clumsy and feeble, and the blade shuddered violently in his hands. It almost fell a few times in just a few seconds. He looked down at the sword, then up at the stranger, at Fundy, who stared at him in confusion.

“Tommy, calm down, I think thi-”

“Fundy!” he interrupted with a yell, his heart leaping into his throat. He swallowed the lump back down, trying to breathe in and out. “Fundy, get away from them!” The peal of explosions drowned his ears, and all he could hear was the crashing of TNT as he glared at the stranger in horror. They approached cautiously, and he shook the sword threateningly; they didn’t seem too phased by it, he just stopped to think.

Tommy shook out a breath, trying to blink away the images that obstructed his vision — he didn’t have time to think about crowns or secret obsidian rooms or TNT, though the images did elevate him into almost senseless hysteria. He gasped when he saw Fundy beside him, having left the stranger’s side. Tommy blinked again, then nodded vigorously and raised the sword back up.

“O-ok, you- you-” he struggled to speak. Meaningless sounds fled his mouth like a flood, and he had to shut his mouth to stop embarrassing himself. He hummed out nervously, flicking a gaze at Fundy. “Fundy. Do not go near him.”

“I-” the stranger offered, then stopped, quickly shaking their head. “Look, I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to help you. You’re clearly having a panic attack.”

Tommy bit his lip, flaring his nostrils. “No. No I’m-” he choked out, then inhaled suddenly and fell back. His spine hit the bark of a spruce tree painfully and scraped against the coarse surface and he slid down, the sword falling out of his hand and toppling away. Fundy gaped at him in horror, yelling out something that Tommy couldn’t hear. When he didn’t respond, Fundy turned to the stranger with watery eyes, his hands at his chest nervously.

He turned his head to stare at the stranger, his chest heaving up and down against the tree trunk, and he pressed against it painfully as he approached him. “S-stay-” he tried, then hissed between his teeth when he saw the stranger gently kick away his sword from his reach. “Ah, no-” and he shut his eyes, trying to block out the deafening sounds and the vignette that encapsulated his vision in blurry darkness.

This is it. This is the end. I’m going to die.

Tommy didn’t know why the thoughts remained so clear in his head. He had just met this person, he bore no connection to them whatsoever. So why, again, so many times, why did he have to have a panic attack? It made no sense to him, and as he tried to kick out with his legs to scare the danger away from him he felt despair clog his lungs.

If this guy doesn’t kill me, my own body will, he thought to himself within the growing black, the world narrowing down into a single pinprick of light before he was lost in an abyss of echoing sounds. Somewhere, Fundy was shaking the stranger’s leg to get him to help. Somewhere, the stranger was trying to get to Tommy without hurting himself. Somewhere, Tommy was slouched against a tree in a forest, struggling to breathe, far away from any comfort. Tubbo was far away. Wilbur was far away. He was alone.

“Tommy,” a deep voice pierced the dense emptiness.

The stranger. Fingers seized his arm and pressed hard into his skin, and he wheezed at the feeling.

“Tommy, you’re...listen to my voice, alright? This… own good,” he spoke gently but with urgency, his words getting carried away by the bright silence in his ears. “Here. I’ll try and bring you back, ok? Don’t stop listening, whatever you do.”

“How do you know my name,” he growled out, rolling his head back against the tree, but he didn’t feel the scrape of the bark against his scalp and cheek.

“Listen to me.” This time, their voice was a bit more authoritative, and Tommy snapped into attention, his entire body pausing to listen. His lungs inflated with trapped air. “Breathe. Alright. Inhale, hold it in… exhale. OK? You’re doing great. Cmon, do it with me. Breathe in.” Cold oxygen poured in through his ajar mouth and held his lungs open. It felt cool against the scalding heat of his stress, and his brows lifted in slight relief. “Hold it.” The cold melted with the warmth, forming a comfortable feeling. The pressure grew and he felt the need to release it, release it now, or he’d burst, his lungs would burst. His eyelids twitched. “Breathe out.” His breath passed through his neck and he felt it leave, released into an open environment where he’d never feel that same again.

“Come on, focus,” the stranger cooed, bringing Tommy back to his comfort zone, and he guided him through the panic, his hand still clutching his arm. His skin tingled where he could feel it, stark against the emptiness of his void. Gradually, as he breathed into safety, he could feel a soft zephyr brush his blonde locks onto his cheek, curling over his nose. “Here. You’re here with us, Tommy. You’re safe.”

Tommy’s eyes, still closed, tensed against the light as his brain realised his surroundings. The first thing that returned was his hearing: he could hear the stranger’s voice, a distant rumble, approaching and matching to where he actually stood, he could hear the quiet sniffling of Fundy a few feet away, the birds that kept singing, singing through their joy and misery, through the wind and the rain. Then he could feel again, the tickle of his hair on his nose, the stranger’s fingers on his arm, slowly retreating away, the grass stroking his ruddy elbows, the spruce wood pressed uncomfortably against his cheekbone. He could smell, the tree sap and the poppies and the sweetberries not so far away, a mushroom patch nearby. He could bring it back to Wilbur, then he’d be happy.

Finally, he pried open his eyes, instantly narrowing his eyelids against the brightness of the world. Even in the shadow of the spruce tree, everything was so bright and colourful compared to the darkness he’d seen, it felt like an eye seizure to look at what was normal. He tipped his head down, chin pressing against his neck, and he could see the stranger kneeling close by, their eyes still covered by those dark glasses and Fundy, sitting patiently and worriedly just behind him.

“Tommy!” he wailed when he saw his bright blue eyes, launching himself across the gap and landing in Tommy’s lap, sitting up to hug his neck. “Tommy, you’re OK! Eret saved you!” He pulled back, smiling at Tommy for a second before going back for another hug. Tommy patted Fundy’s back absently, locking eyes with the stranger.

The stranger nodded curtly. “I’m Eret. I go by any pronouns.”

Tommy nodded slowly, glancing away. Saved him. Eret saved me? A stranger… but why? He furrowed his brows, and a glint in the shadows caught his gaze. His sword! Tommy sat up abruptly, accidentally throwing off Fundy, and he scrambled toward his sword, pushing back the bracken and tendrils, instantly feeling a wave of relief at the familiar feeling of his handle in his hand.

“Oh, yes. And uh…” he looked up, hesitantly looking back and forth between Eret and the ground. “Yeah, sorry about that, Eret. I just kind of- have panic attacks sometimes. I’m not exactly sure why but, um. Thank you for helping me through it.”

“Yeah, no problem, it’s just what any decent person would do,” he replied, waving his hand dismissively.

Tommy nodded slowly, then stood up, making sure the resources he’d previously gathered were still intact and safe in his satchel. He patted the bag fondly when he checked. “Yeah. Well, we ought to get back now. I see some mushrooms over there, and once we get those that should be enough foraging for today, don’t you think, Fundy?”

Fundy, who had been admiring Eret from his low position, pulled his gaze back down to look at Tommy. The glowing eyes instantly dulled into confusion and Tommy couldn’t help feel a twinge of envy.

“Aw, but I wanna stay here with Eret! I like talking to her, they’re very nice, and I like exploring as well,” Fundy exclaimed, leaping up to grab onto Eret’s arm, and once he had a firm grip he picked his legs up and swung like on a branch, barely a few centimetres off the ground but still finding incredibly fun in the simple action. 

Tommy squinted. “I figured that out already. Well, fine. You can talk with Eret, while I go grab those mushrooms.” He turned away bitterly, then glanced over his shoulder back at Eret. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

“No, no, it’s fine! Fundy’s quite a nice kid, I gather.” she gazed down at the fox that held onto her arm, smiling back at him. Fundy smiled back. “Respecting pronouns, I like that about you!”

The blonde walked off, shoving his hands in his pockets crossly for just a moment before immediately pulling them back out to swipe at the sweetberry bushes with his diamond sword. He could’ve done that as well a few minutes ago when he was chasing after Fundy, he did it so naturally and thoughtlessly now, but he had to excuse his foolish behaviour as “lost in the heat of the moment.”

“Why did that happen. It was never that bad before,” he mumbled to himself, his gaze unfocused on the ground as the bright blue blade cut back and forth across his field of view. “I don’t know what would’ve happened if I was alone. I guess I wouldn’t have had a panic attack, then.” He frowned for a second, then shrugged. “Well, if you caused a mess you should always clean it up.” The moment he finished that sentence he bit it back, regretting it, deciding to ignore the fact that he never cleaned up after himself.

Tommy glanced up from his sweeping edges, noticing the mushrooms growing at the base of a slope, and he bent down to pick at them. Far behind, he could hear Fundy and Eret talking casually, sharing uninteresting things about each other. Tommy rolled his eyes and looked back down at his hands, where his fingers were quite carelessly tearing the brown and carmine-spotted fungi out of the earth.

“-Dream doesn’t allow us to make potions, which is why we’re gonna make a country where we will make as many potions as we want! Sapnap will help us-”

His heart dropped. That was not uninteresting.

“FUNDY, WHAT are you doing?” Tommy screeched, whirling around and accidentally kicking over his satchel, dead rabbits, sugar cane and mushrooms rolling all over the place. He was too occupied to realise.

“What? I was just telling Eret about our super-secret plan!”

“Your super-secret plan?” Eret asked, with a hint of amusement and guilt in their eyes.

“Mhm!” Fundy hummed excitedly, a thick red tail unfurling from his body and wagging in frivolity. “Nobody is supposed to know about it!”

“Nobody?” Eret flicked a small glance up at Tommy. Tommy fumed.

“Not a soul.”

“Interesting.”

“Gahhh, Fundy, now look what you’ve gotten us into now,” Tommy whined, waving his irk and stepping up to his nephew. He extended his arms to emphasise his words. “What if they tell Dream? Maybe he doesn’t know Dream but what if he does? Even if he doesn’t, she clearly likes being a ‘decent human being’ so telling him about illegal crimes being done in his land would be the first thing they’d do!” He flicked a narrow-eyed glance at Eret, who tipped his head curiously with a meek grin. The sight of it sent a mess of emotions through Tommy, noticeably irritation with he doesn’t know what and a touch of anemoia. “ We’ve gotta go before she finds out where we live.”

“Wait,” Eret yelped, her eyes going wide as he surged forward, then caught himself to not appear aggressive. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to find out about all this.”

Tommy sighed, looking down at Fundy for a moment. They locked eyes, with Fundy’s fox-like almond-shaped eyes shimmering up at him bleakly. They held emotion that Tommy couldn’t capture, hopes he didn’t understand. He held his gaze for a while, then blinked it away, with a pain in his eyelids as though onions were in the air. “Nope, it’s fine, I just don’t like strangers knowing about my secret plans. I’m glad you.. helped me and everything but it’s really important that nobody knows about this, so if you could just- forget it, that’d be greatly appreciated.”

And then Tommy grabbed Fundy’s hand, the boy’s little dark toe pads pressing into his human palm, and he pulled him away with a small “let’s go.”

“Hold on, just let me speak.”

“Let her speak,” Fundy chipped in, ears sprouting out of his ruffled russet hair and he tilted them back towards Eret.

“Fundy, you do not understand politics and all that so you don’t get involved in this, ok?” Tommy said, looking down at Fundy with an almost scrutinising look.

Fundy furrowed his brows crossly. “You clearly don’t either, this has nothing to do with politics,” he grumbled in response, wrinkling his nose.

“Wait, Tommy! Oh, for goodness’ sake. Look, I know this might annoy you and everything and you’re clearly quite worried about your plans being leaked, but you barely know me!” His voice was raised in a slight plea, but Tommy didn’t feel comfortable hearing it. It made his head hurt, and he didn’t want to look too deep into that, cause whenever he thought too much he’d start panicking again. “So, please. I just want to say that I don’t plan on telling anybody about this and that I am actually interested in helping you out!”

“Huh. Helping us?” This caught him off guard. A part of his conscience told him that he should’ve known, it was obvious for unknown reasons but, again, he didn’t look into it. He turned his head slightly, to show his attention had been noted, but not enough to look behind him.

“Yes! Right now I don’t exactly have anything better to do. I was planning on moving into the Greater Dream SMP, I’ve heard about it, which is the reason I’m in this forest anyway, but apparently, you need all this paperwork and citizenship stuff that I don’t really want to meddle myself with, so this idea you’re developing intrigues me.”

“And you don’t just wanna- like, blackmail us or anything?”

“No, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Eret assured, a slightly relieved note to their tone. Tommy’s facial features softened from his scowl. “Look, I work for my own benefit, and there is no benefit in telling Dream about your plan. There is, however, a benefit in me joining you and helping you.”

A benefit for them joining us and helping us, Tommy thought to himself, his eyes absently following the trail of a ladybug as it scuttled over a sapling stem. What good does it do for us to take you in, though? He hummed his pondering out loud squinting. On one hand, having another person to help them start a nation would be good, everyone is a help. On the other, he wasn’t keen on hanging out too much with Eret, mainly just because of his panic attack and the images that he would’ve paid attention to if he hadn’t been fighting off his fear.

He sighed.

“Alright, well, I’ll think about it. It’s not up to me though. I’ll have to make sure Wilbur is ok with this,” the blonde mused, turning around to face Eret, pointing directly at his glasses. “That’s very sus.”

“Thank you, you won’t regret this.”

Returning home from expeditions was always quite relieving. Everybody’s feet hurt, everybody was complaining, it was just a bunch of children whining and moaning and constantly taking breaks and leaving each other behind. In the end, despite their irregular break patterns, they’d all get back at, give or take , the same time, so Wilbur never realised that they misbehaved a lot. It was a relief, though. They’d hate to have to go on an expedition with an adult. They may be in pain after their own expeditions but at least they have the freedom to sit down and rest whenever they want and for as long as they’d like. That would be impossible with Wilbur, who just had longer legs and the mentality of a grown-up.

“UGHHHH, TUBBO, HOLD ME,” Tommy groaned, staggering forward with his three satchels, bursting at the seams full of resources for the week’s batches of potions. 

Tubbo responded with incoherent babbles, barely holding himself up on his own two feet, and he would’ve fallen the moment he pushed himself under Tommy’s arm had the latter not given his words an ounce of thought and instantly dismissed him, his tone changing drastically in a second. “No, wait, Tubbo don’t touch me…” Then he went back to groaning about Wilbur.

Meanwhile, Fundy, who had grown a little taller over the span of the month since his first expedition with Tommy, was joining in on the noisy symphony of noises. It was almost amusing to Tommy, how much he’d changed in so little time. He could still remember when he’d be the only one complaining while Fundy would hop around happily, running all over the place and making sure to explore every little nook and cranny.

“Tubbo, c’mere, I need assistance,” the fox wailed, pinning his ears behind his head dramatically and tipping his chin up and hunching over. The stark contrast was something Tommy would point and laugh at if only he had the energy. Tubbo didn’t reply in a language any of them could understood, Tubbo himself probably was wondering what he was saying, but seeing as he wandered over to Fundy and grabbed his young nephew’s clawed hand, they could assume his speech went something along the lines of “I’m tired but I sacrifice myself a lot for the sake of others so here I go.”

Eventually, after a few more random stops and screeches in the night as they called for each other’s help as they were pelted by skeleton arrows, creeper explosions — which they didn’t patch up — or other mob threats, the three arrived at the Camarvan Clearing, where yellow light poured out of the now cleaned windows. There were a few cracks in the glass, where brewing had gone wrong, usually at the hands of Tommy or Sapnap, but they still did their job in keeping out the mosquitoes.

The moon was a silver crescent in the sky, casting scattered white light in the river ripples, but the torchlight, of many torches which had been placed in the Clearing and around it to fend off mobs, was much brighter than the waning moon. Tiny dots of light twinkled across the entire sky, broken only by the silhouettes of trees, towers under construction and nocturnal birds.

“Almost there!” Tubbo croaked, hurrying over to the Camarvan. Tommy refused to let him be first. Absolutely, never gonna happen.

Competitiveness boosted Tommy with temporary adrenaline that he instantly used by lunging forward, flinging Tubbo to the side, who fell onto the grass with a surprised, slightly tired, yell, and he clambered up the steps into the van.

“FIRST, BITCH,” the blonde sneered at his friend, who lay comfortably on the ground, his back against the grass. He just mumbled gibberish in a reply to Tommy, before reaching out his hands like a zombie into the air. Fundy paused, hovering over his uncle for a moment, before grabbing Tubbo’s hands and pulling him up, almost falling over himself.

“Good boy,” Tubbo cooed — Fundy narrowed his eyes, then followed Tommy up to the van.

Inside, things already looked much different than they had from the first time Tommy had been there. The steering wheel had been all scarred and notched, but now the leather boasted the gleam of rich cowhide. The windshield wasn’t even a windshield before, just a massive hole in the front of the vehicle, but now the glass was stained a posh white, probably not the best idea for safety purposes, but it was an aesthetic bonus, not that Tommy cared for it. It wasn’t as though they were gonna take it for a ride any time soon, anyway.

Suddenly, a grey mass crashed against the little glass pane of the iron door separating the driver’s cabin from the rest of the van, and Tommy, Tubbo, and Fundy all flinched in unison, each with varying levels of motion, almost breaking that new windshield Wilbur cared for so much. Tommy choked out his well-known screechy gasps of laughter before pushing against the door and opening it.

Inside, Wilbur stood on the right side of the middle island, coughing as heavy grey smoke rose from the brewing stand where he was situated, the blaze rod glowing a dangerous pale yellow and damp ashes piled inside the slightly melted bottles were water and ingredients were supposed to be brewing. On the left, Eret was running back from the storage area, carrying buckets of water and dumping them on the inferno which had captured his stand. 

“WHAT HAPPENED?” Tubbo tried to yell over the peal of the fire alarm but it was of no use. Tommy squared himself in the doorframe, refusing to allow anybody to pass. “Tommy, what are you doing? Let us in to help!”

Tommy didn’t budge. “Tubbo, my friend, let the grown-ups handle this,” he grinned, his braces reflecting the incandescent ire of the flames. And Tommy was right; by the time he finished admiring the chaotic fire, it had already been put down to just a memory as water spilt over all the counters, and Wilbur and Eret slid open the windows to release all the smoke that had gathered by the ceiling. Wilbur, almost choking, scrambled over the counter and heaved as he stuck his head out the window, gasping in cold air. Wafts of the freshness of the outside blew in and out the other windows, clearing any traces of smoke.

“Phew, that was a failure!” Eret chuckled to themself, lifting his hand to his temples. He caught sight of Tommy and waved a little. “Hey, Tommy. Were you just standing there? You could’ve helped Wilbur and I put out the fire.”

“It was more fun watching. I like to look at fire, not cease it,” he joked, looking the two men up and down with an amused look. Smudges of ash and dust were smeared all across their clothes, making their little aprons quite pointless as the singed tips of the fabric only reached down to their waist anyway. They were probably originally made for children like Fundy.

Wilbur fell back inwards and leaned against the island counter, brushing his fingers through his hair and pulling any stray locks out of his eyes. His glasses lenses were all stained with vapour and steam. “I think I’ve had enough fire for today. I’m going outside, I need some fresh air.” He quickly ruffled Fundy between the ears as he passed. Fundy held in his breath.

Then his eyes lit up as though remembering something and he glanced around the room, locked eyes with the ladder to the upstairs cabin and kinked his bushy tail. “Ah, dad, I actually wanted to show you something!” he called out as he hurried around the island counter and up the ladder to get something from the upper level of the Camarvan, where they all slept.

Tommy, Tubbo and Eret followed Wilbur out to their campfire logs, where Wilbur was currently striking his flint and steel against the coal and dry leaves in the centre. Eventually, it caught fire, much smaller and more pleasant than that in the Camarvan, and he sat back with a heavy breath.

As the flames crackled, slowly wrapping around the pyramid of charred sticks and rising higher, releasing puffs of smoke downwind, everybody took their seats on the logs. Wilbur made sure to sit in the opposite direction of the smoke trail, simultaneously pulling out his inhaler from his pocket. Tommy and Tubbo sat together on one log, their legs splayed out in front of them, knees battered and calves covered in dirt and plasters from their many expeditions. They pointed at each other’s wounds and scars, taunting how “my scar looks cooler than yours” and “your scar looks like a villager’s nose, mine is way cooler!”

Eret sat alone on the opposite side, their knees bent politely in front of them and a cloak wrapped around their shoulders, with sheep wool lining the collar. Wilbur had offered her a spot beside him before but he declined, claiming that he was comfortable with where he sat.

Eventually, Fundy came running out of the Camarvan with a paper folded in his padded hands and he ran up to the campfire, sitting on the same log as Eret but further along so he was closer to Wilbur. His expression was giddy, with slight apprehension lacing his features, such as the subtle Southward tilt of his ears or his wide almond eyes. For a while, they all sat in quiet, the only ambience being the sparking fire and the laughter-cut whispers of Tommy and Tubbo.

Fundy gazed expectantly at Wilbur, who was leaning back, his elbows against the wood and the rest of his body resting on the cool grass. His eyes were closed, breathing even and relaxed. His son blinked at him, then looked away, lowering the paper to his lap. 

Tommy poked at a scab on Tubbo’s knee and pressed his arm into his mouth to hold back a holler as the dark-haired boy yelped, then stifled his giggles at his own reaction.

“Hey, Wilbur,” Eret called out, eyeing Wilbur from their comfortably hunched over position. Wilbur tilted his chin up to acknowledge him. “Fundy wants to show you something.” 

Tommy and Tubbo fell silent, holding their hands back.

Fundy furrowed his brows, then looked up at Eret in confusion. Eret smiled and motioned at Wilbur with the movement of his head, and Fundy held back a grin before turning to face his father, the smile fading away.

“Uh, yeah, I drew this- this, um. Idea I had,” the fox-boy started, breaking eye contact to look down at the paper, which he had unfurled with his thumbs. “I was thinking that - y’know, we don’t have a way to represent ourselves. And I understand that that could be a bad thing. Maybe we don’t want to have a symbol, that would expose us to Dream, right?” Fundy gazed at Wilbur, who had sat up and was smiling; his eyes shone. Fundy’s glistened back. “Um. I designed a flag. For our country.”

His eyes widened as everybody shifted closer to see what he had drawn, and he almost shrank under all the eyes. He paused for a moment, thinking, then allowed them a look at the paper.

It was indeed a flag design, with horizontal stripes of blue white and red, with a black arch lined in yellow overlapping the stripes from the left; three crosses dotted the horizontal centre, all drawn in the same carmine as the stripe, but the one in the black overlap was instead drawn in yellow.

Looking at the design reawakened something within Tommy. It felt like all the other weird things he’d been experiencing for the past month at least, but it felt different that time. All other times he’d seen flashes in the back of his mind they’d been accompanied by a terrible foreboding qualm that gnawed at his stomach like a wolf on a bone. This, though… this felt good. As Tommy, as all of the new citizens of this country admired Fundy’s flag, he felt a happy sentiment bring him closer to them.

But someone had to phrase out what they were all thinking.

“I really like it!” Tommy burst out, and Fundy looked up at him with the brightest smile, it made his heart tighten.

“Yeah,” Tubbo agreed, “it looks very cool, with the crosses and everything.”

“I just liked the idea of crosses, I’m not sure where it came from,” Fundy admitted, hunching his shoulders in a way that portrayed his happy shyness to the compliments.

Eret nodded, reaching out to lay a hand on Fundy’s shoulder. “You’re very talented, Fundy. We’ll wear this flag with pride.”

And Fundy acknowledged all the comments with pleasure, but he still ended up turning to Wilbur with a longing look in his eyes. His ears swivelled forward, awaiting a sound.

Wilbur glanced up from the paper, his eyes soft and welcoming, and he lifted a hand to point gently at the details on the page. “The blue stands for freedom and liberty,” he started with a smile that grew. His finger hovered. “The white stands for peace. The red-” he paused, narrowing his eyes for a moment. He whispered, “ I’m not quite sure yet. And the crosses are your own original design. Your own inspiration.”

Fundy gazed at his father, his brows raised. “Do… do you like it?”

Wilbur lifted his hand to ruffle Fundy’s hair affectionately. “I love it.” He then stood up, pressed his hands against his spine and stretched, arching himself backwards. His body sounded as he did so. He peered down at his younger brother.

Tommy came prepared. “You old man.”

So did Wilbur. “This old man is making a country,” he purred back, groaning as he finished his stretch and then pointed at the paper. “And it already has a flag! Now, all it needs is a name.”

A word came into Tommy’s mind, one that he didn’t think he’d heard before, but simultaneously it seemed so familiar to him, so much raw emotion packed into a single name. He could already feel pressure building in his chest as he struggled to spit it out in his own surprise.

“L’Manberg.”

The name rolled off his tongue perfectly, as though he had said it thousands of times before. It just made sense. He didn’t know where it came from, why it was so important, but he knew that no other name would fit. It was meant to be: L’Manberg. 

“L’Manberg?” Wilbur scoffed, failing to stifle a laugh before he broke into high-pitch guffaws, followed by Tubbo, then Fundy, and eventually Eret even cracked a low chuckle. “Oh, Tommy, trust you to come up with something like that.” He wiped a tear out of his eye.

Tommy scrunched his face, insulted on behalf of L’Manberg. He’d known the name for what he thought was only a minute, but he already held a connection to the name that spanned years into his brain. “It’s a good name! If we are to represent ourselves correctly then we better have ‘Man ’ in the name, and ‘Manberg ’ just sounds too American, doesn’t it?” He’d said the word by accident, but somehow Manberg sent chills down his spine. He ignored them, in honour of the nation.

Wilbur raised a brow at his little brother. “And you had that entire thought process in two seconds? Right, ok.” He laughed again, and Tommy huffed. He stomped away back to his log and sat down aggressively, glaring daggers at Wilbur, who managed to contain himself. He straightened his posture. “Well, I never said I didn’t like it

Tommy looked up from his half-exaggerated sulking, blue eyes glittering with interest.

Wilbur smiled. “This is officially the People's Republic of L'Manberg.”

Chapter Text

“I really don’t know why you would need so many blaze rods,” George ridiculed Sapnap as they stepped off the threshold of the Nether Portal. “Every week you just get more and more. What could you possibly do with all of these?”

Sapnap ignored him for a second, pretending to still be bothered by the nausea of teleportation via the portal, clutching one side of his face with his wide hand as he contemplated an answer to give to George. He obviously couldn’t tell him the truth, George would tell Dream and that was something he and Wilbur couldn’t have; he’d been lying to everybody in the Greater Dream SMP for a couple of weeks now about his ventures to the Nether, and while he always managed to convince himself that what he was doing was a good thing, it still felt wrong to lie to them. Perhaps there was a small chance that George wouldn’t mind? Maybe, if Sapnap talked him into a good mood, he wouldn’t go to report to Dream?

That wasn’t likely. It wasn’t just George, either. Everybody on the SMP were friends, the original few who created this town in the first place, but they still were bound by Dream’s protocol to report any misbehaving and code-breaking to him. As his best friends especially, Sapnap and George were expected to be his eyes into where he couldn’t see.

“Well,” Sapnap started, dragging out his thought process as long as he could. “I like collecting things, and I’ve recently become interested in the, uh- the glow of blaze rods. They’re really nice decorations. If you hadn’t known better, you’d think they’re, like, limited edition or something.” 

“Uh huh. You just don’t seem like the type to care about the aesthetic of an item, is all,” George replied casually, seemingly not picking up on the awkwardness in Sapnap’s response. Thankfully, George wasn’t known for his intellect and ability to empathise. He brushed a dusting of ash off his satchel, then motioned for Sapnap to follow him. “Well, I’ll help you take them back to your base, then.”

Sapnap nodded slowly, then shook his head furiously. “No, no, that’s fine, I can take them back myself,” he pressed, peeling his black hair and white bandana off his sweaty temples. He hurried over to George, seizing his satchel and lifting it off his shoulder. George turned around, one hand flitting forward and grabbing the shoulder strap with a narrow-eyed look. “Um. Please. It’s fine, I don’t need help.”

“Are you sure? It’s quite the distance from here,” George pressed, but his voice had a tense edge to it, as though he insisted on going with him for a reason. Sapnap didn’t want to give anything away to feed into that reason and insisting.

“I insist,” he forced out, countering George’s remark with his own one, though it wasn’t as effective. George only was more confused, and people asking questions was the last thing he needed. Before he could even respond, Sapnap pulled off his satchel and swung it over his own head, muttering a quick goodbye and rushing off.

The weight of two full satchels on his shoulder was fairly painful, straps pressing into his skin, but even moving one onto his other shoulder to try and evenly distribute the weight wasn’t much help. Now, there were two bags of scalding sticks on both his sides and he occasionally had to push them off his skin so that they didn’t burn him through the fabric. 

Other than that, Sapnap was relieved. I made it, he thought to himself with a small smile, his breath coming out in a happy little “whoo!” as he ran along the Prime Path. Then he furrowed his brows and bit his lip, glancing over his shoulder to see George, still standing where he’d left him, flabbergasted. “Sorry, Gogy,” he mumbled in quiet guilt before turning back to face where he was going. You can’t know about this one. No one can.

Soon, he took a turn off the Prime Path, stepping onto the clear patches where trees had been cut down but no buildings had been erected yet. Eventually, he did reach the woods, and then he slowed down, panting in the forest air. He stopped completely, leaning over to support his palms against his knees.

Sapnap stood, heaving. He was alone now, almost at the Camarvan. He tried to shake off the culpability that weighed down his chest, even dismissing it as irresponsible of him to feel that way, but he failed to ignore it. It was a common occurrence, only growing more frequent the longer he was involved in this whole “potion business.” Last week he’d stood like this, regaining his breath for much longer than he needed, just thinking over his decisions, leaning against the trunk of an oak tree.

Man, he grumbled internally, raising his hand to his head and clutching it, peeling his hair out of his eyes. It folded over the rest of his hair in an unnaturally furled strand; it felt quite uncomfortable. Should I be doing this? He walked up to the closest tree and fell back against it, looking up into the dense green canopy. An apple grew on a twisted branch just out of reach, shiny and gleaming in the filtered sunlight. 

Sapnap pulled the corner of his mouth back in disdain, pushing himself up to grab it; his fingers touched the apple, then pulled it violently off the branch with a swinging motion, leaving it shuddering in surprise. He blew on it for a moment instinctively without looking, rubbing a thumb over the surface before biting down into the apple nervously, blinking unfocused eyes into the distance.

“Dream really shouldn’t know about this,” he complained out loud, anxiety lacing his words. “Nobody can know. They’ll just tell Dream, and if he finds out he’ll just ban them from the SMP. He’s a cool guy but he doesn’t tolerate rule-breaking..” His foot began tapping against the dirt. “But Wilbur wouldn’t be pleased. He needs these blaze rods.” His mouth couldn’t keep up with the barrage of thoughts in his head, “I can’t tell them. Could I? Maybe I should just tell them. Are the potions even worth it? I should go tell Dream. I don’t seem to benefit from this. Wait, hold on-”

Sapnap brought both his hands to his face and rolled his head up, exhaling through his teeth into his calloused hands. “What am I doing? Why am I considering this? Dream is my friend. Why am I lying to him?” He inhaled. “I’m not lying to Dream. He doesn’t suspect anything.” He kicked the tree behind him, striking bark off the wood and sending it flying over the forest floor. “WHY AM I SO STRESSED OUT ABOUT THIS. Just give Wilbur those blaze rods, and then call it off. This will be the last batch.”

With that, he picked himself back together and headed in the direction of the Camarvan, shifting the satchels around so that they didn’t hurt so much, even through his shirt and sweater. After a while of walking, occasionally stopping to look over his shoulder or contemplate his decisions, Sapnap reached the river bend that would lead to the Camarvan. Walking along the riverbed, following its pebbly banks and staring at the shimmering ripples, noting every salmon that darted in the waters, every wild sheep that he passed drinking from the opposite side, a memory that he’d forget by the end of the day.

In the distance, he could hear voices, and he knew he was approaching the Camarvan. However, when he looked up, he didn’t see what he had expected. Instead of the van, visible from afar in between the trees, he saw blackstone, just a few feet away, glaring ominously with yellow concrete lining the surface. He stopped, looking it up and down as foreboding blossomed in his ribs, stemming through his bones.

The voices were excited, childish screams that didn’t appreciate the severity of the occasion. Sapnap recognised them as Tommy and Tubbo, and as he walked up to the wall, lifting a hand to trace his fingers along the black brick ridges, he found a small gap where bricks hadn’t been placed yet, and there he could peer into the clearing. Inside, Tommy was pointing at the river and yelling something Sapnap couldn’t comprehend, while Tubbo struggled to hold the fishing rod in his hands correctly, constantly dropping it when the tip of it bubbled in the river. The walls curled around the Camarvan in a wide square, definitely at least 500 feet wide. To be fair, they were only a couple metres high, but something told Sapnap that this wouldn’t be their peak height.

He stared in bewilderment for a minute, before seizing his pickaxe from his belt. No, he thought furiously, half the ire aimed at himself. He swung the pickaxe at the blackstone, watching it crumble piece by piece under his strength. No, no way. Of course not. Deja vu taunted him from the sidelines, and that was a confusing emotion to experience at that moment, but he ignored it, entering the clearing through the gap he had mined away.

Inside, without stone obstructing most of the area, he could see everything, the people, the plans, the betrayal. A flag was mounted onto the head of the van, rippling maliciously in the breeze, and staring at it made him sick. Tubbo had a little blue and white headpiece that Sapnap wasn’t familiar with, and he could see from a distance that damp wool currently on display on a clothing line, drying in the vicious glare of the sun.

How was this possible? It had only been 6 weeks. They’d only been out here for that long. It had only been a week since he was last here. Already, walls and flags. What was this? What was happening? Why hadn’t they told him? Did they know? What did they know?

“Sapnap!” Tommy yelled, waving at him from the riverside. Sapnap tore his eyes from the horror of the scene and he glared at Tommy, his brows knitted slightly in concern and wariness. From the way Tommy didn’t come to get him, he probably expected Sapnap to approach them first, but he didn’t feel comfortable taking one more step deeper into this mess. He wanted to leave the blaze rods, have a talk with Wilbur and leave without returning. Now he suspected he might have to return later with backup…

“We were just fishing!” Tubbo informed Sapnap as he advanced slowly, glancing over his shoulder to greet him. Sapnap didn’t hold eye contact for longer than he felt necessary out of politeness, instead turning to look at Tubbo’s fishing rod. The tip was bobbing in the water, and just as the boy twisted back around to face it, it started wobbling and droplets splashed out of the centre. He yelped and called over Tommy, who instantly ran over, screeching words of aggressive support and he grabbed his fishing rod, yanking it out of the water; Tubbo wailed in dismay as the blonde fell back, no fish captured on the hook.

Sapnap didn’t have time for this. He had to go speak with Wilbur. Whether he’d express all his emotions about the situation was circumstantial but it would happen soon; he better prepare himself mentally. Without another word, Sapnap headed for the Camarvan, where he presumed Wilbur would be.

Inside the van, where Sapnap had only been a few times, he noticed a few changes. There was a lot of wool strewn about all over the place; the main room with the brewing stations was mainly clear of such flammable material, probably under Wilbur’s strict orders, but there were a couple of sheets of papers hung on the walls. Under closer inspection, those turned out to be a chart of potion recipes and designs for, what Sapnap assumed to be, uniforms. The sight of them grew a rotting qualm in his stomach, further evidence that suggested what he didn’t want to be real.

He stepped away from the counter, only to hit his hip against the island counter, and he flinched, looking down with narrowed eyes at the brewing stands. The blaze rods of their frame glowed dimly, not nearly as bright as the fresh batch that he had bought today, or was supposed to bring.

Irritation tightened around his throat like a viper and he turned to face the ceiling with a scowl, lifting a hand to bang against the panels, barely stifling his anger enough to not punch a hole through the loose structures. “Hey, Wilbur, come down.”

Something shifted in the upper level of the Camarvan. The panels shifted, floorboards above creaked, and someone walked toward the ladder. Sapnap followed the sound with his eyes, watching as Wilbur dropped down the ladder, dipping his head as a greeting to Sapnap. He didn’t return it.

“Hello, Sapnap,” Wilbur added, widening his eyes slightly as to pressure a polite response from his acquaintance, but he didn’t say such a thing. Instead, Sapnap dropped the contents of his satchels onto the island counter, the golden rods, which had been bound by spider silk into bunches, tumbling out with a hiss.

“Wilbur, I want to call off our agreement,” he grunted. Wilbur narrowed his dark eyes, flicking a quick glance in the direction of the wall. The papers? He ignored it. “I’ll give you these rods, but this will be my final contribution.”

Wilbur nodded slowly, his expression eerily neutral, and Sapnap felt apprehension claw at his lungs. He had prepared for a bit more hostility from the man, whether that was realistic for his personality he wasn’t sure but that’s what he was used to. 

Sapnap cleared his throat awkwardly, then added on to his statement. He hadn’t planned this far. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t want to continue lying to my friends about my sneaking out as well as my frequent visits to the fortress to get blaze rods.” As he spoke, Wilbur made his way toward the right counter, reaching out to pick one of the papers off the wall and he folded it neatly, tucking it into his jean pocket, lowering his eyelids almost tiredly. “Today I had to tell George that I collect them for aesthetic purposes. That was one of the worst lies yet.”

“That is a shame, but I understand,” Wilbur mused quietly. “I would hate to have to lie to my close ones as well, and it must be especially difficult for you. You are one of Dream’s closest friends.” He looked up with bright eyes, and Sapnap felt like squirming under the glare.

“I- do have a couple questions,” he quickly changed the subject. Wilbur’s small smile fell back and he squinted again. “Those walls. They’re a bit of a problem, honestly. Uh, they’re a bit aggressive? Don’t give off very friendly vibes, and I mean that as in–they could be viewed as a sign of hostility and Dream wouldn’t take too kindly to that. That–flag. Another problem. Do correct me if I’m wrong, and I’m still resigning from this business partnership either way, but are you trying to... rebel against the Dream SMP?”

Wilbur hesitated for a moment, glancing off to the side before fixing his collar and locking eyes with Sapnap intensely. "I wouldn't call it a rebellion, no. We're simply distancing ourselves from your 'empire-" 

"And making your own," Sapnap retorted with sudden hostility in his voice. "You know I'll have to tell Dream about this, don't you? I can't just let this slide."

A flash of discomfort passed through Wilbur's features. He peered down at the paper in his hands, unfolding it to gaze at whatever was drawn on it. Fondness reflected in his eyes, and when he looked back up at Sapnap they were softer. "I am aware of that."

Without another word, Sapnap left the Camarvan. Crossing the courtyard of the drug empire was unpleasant, it felt as though he was in enemy territory. Seeing as Wilbur was planning on creating an independent faction from the SMP, he was in fact on stranger land. Maybe once he was welcome here but no longer. The people didn't even know it yet – Tommy and Tubbo dragged their damp bandanas and handkerchiefs from the river, shaking water droplets from their own bodies and hair. They waved at Sapnap as he went, and it took a lot of willpower to look in the other direction and keep his hands strictly in their marching motion. Eret and Fundy were sorting through ores in their satchels, nodding up at him. He dragged his eyes away, staring intently at the hole he had mined in the wall not long ago. 

I don't wanna be here, he thought to himself brusquely, dragging his hand across his nose. This is all wrong. This should never have happened, I should never have helped them. He crouched as he passed beneath the jagged overhang of the blackstone wall, shuffling the loose bricks back into their place. The way he placed them looked rough and unkempt, but he didn't care. This wasn't his problem anymore. It never should have been. Those walls are built from the blackstone I supplied them, no doubt. Of course they used me. It started off as just blaze rods, now I’m helping them separate from the SMP. Sapnap dragged his hand through his hair, exhaling roughly. This is all my fault. 

With a final glare over his shoulder at the shadowcast black and gold walls, Sapnap left the country behind. 

Walking back to the SMP was a strange experience. He felt liberated from the struggles of juggling responsibilities in the drug empire and his fidelity to Dream; cutting ties with one of them would make life much easier. He could finally enjoy strolls with Dream like he always had, messing around and exploring uncharted lands with George as they had months ago, before Tommy arrived. It was stressful having to dodge conversation topics in a very suspicious way just in case they ever strayed to Wilbur, Tommy, or the Potion Ban. Sapnap tended to lead better conversations when he didn't have to hold back on words. 

He was surprised when Dream never caught on to his stiffness. They were friends of over a decade, he would've thought he'd see the difference between his lying and honest self. Unless he did. Maybe he just never pressed the suspicions any further.

"I'm going to have to tell Dream." That was certain. He'd said it to Wilbur, he'd convinced himself, but now he just had to forge a plan to tell Dream all he knew without ruining their close ties. "How am I supposed to tell him? He'll figure out that I've been working behind his back for all this time. This is terrible. Because I have been working behind his back! For fuck's sake, why did I do that? Fucking potions, worthless, stupid potions!" 

Sapnap seized his axe in his frustration and swung it at the nearest tree, sinking the diamond blade deep into the oak wood. With the momentum of his vigorous marching, he pulled it out with effort fueled by his irk, leaving a deep notch in the trunk. 

"Whatever. I'm just stupid, it's my fault. He deserves to know, I'll just pay the price," he grumbled, latching his axe handle back onto his belt without looking, fumbling around with the ring links for a moment. 

Eventually, after a while of walking, he made it back to the SMP. Entering the fenced off land without feeling discomfort was something he never realised he missed so much, and it only further convinced him of his disloyalty. He trekked along the Prime Path till he finally reached the slope in the earth where Dream's base was hidden beneath the dirt, recently uncovered by Tommy's childish games. 

"Dream, hey," Sapnap called as he slipped into the underground pocket through the once-secret entrance. Inside, the base looked as usual, but the chests that lined the sides of the walls were all flung open, the treasures and resources visible inside, and there were trinkets scattered on the shaved wood floor, like string, sticks and sugar cane. Sapnap's brows lowered I'm concern as he examined the space, looking around wildly. "Dream?" 

He paused for a moment, waiting for a response. Silence. "Dream?" he called out again, this time with a hint of worry in his voice. He let go of the ladder and dropped down to the floor, dust billowing at his feet. Moments later, he heard clattering from nearby, through the walls, and he looked up, shoulders braced. "Dream?" 

A strip of cobblestone in the walls began to shudder, and stones poured out as a pickaxe impacted the ruined surface. Behind the heavy layer of dust, a green haze appeared and out stepped his best friend, tilting his head up to see who it was. 

"Sapnap!" he cheered, his voice light and slightly muffled by the mask on his face. He reached up to pull the ceramic to the side and revealed a scarred face, smiling at his friend. A scar curled from his jaw to his cheek and over his nose, where Sapnap remembered blood once pooled over his skin, green eyes surrounding them both. His dirty blonde bangs curled messily over the mask, slightly dusty from his meddling underground, and there was a smear of blood on his nose. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”

“Are you alright?” Sapnap avoided the question swiftly, suddenly unsure how to open up about his betrayal. Dream shrugged, squaring his shoulders in a quick stretch.

“Eh, nothing much, just went mining quickly, got lost-” he added, looking behind him at the shattered wall. “I’m not that great with directions, especially in caves. But yeah, how about you?”

Words dried on Sapnap’s tongue, and he struggled to choke out anything coherent. Dream waited fairly patiently, those he narrowed his eyes in subtle suspicion that Sapnap didn’t catch. “Well, I um-” he huffed forcefully, avoiding eye contact. He exhaled, deflating of all tension. I’ve gotta tell him. It’s not fair on him if I don’t. “I just came back from Wilbur’s new place. We had this-”

“Oh, Wilbur!” Dream interrupted, almost comically. “Yeah, I’ve been wondering where he ran off to. He said he wanted to join the SMP but I haven’t actually seen him since we last discussed it. So you’ve seen him? Where is he?” There was an edge to his voice that Sapnap couldn’t understand; it was almost sarcastic, as though Dream was playing with his food before striking.  Sapnap looked him up and down, then continued.

“Exactly, about that… he actually left almost as soon as he arrived to create his own settlement. He took Tommy and Tubbo with him, and someone who supposedly planned on coming here but chose them instead. Eret, his name is,” Sapnap explained slowly, pausing a couple of times to test the waters and examine Dream’s expression. It didn’t change much — he didn’t react at all to points that Sapnap expected would at least make him twitch, or ponder on, or perhaps even laugh at, anything! He didn’t move, only listening intently to Sapnap. He wondered how people could stand talking with Dream without knowing the expressions he hid behind the mask, the bold thoughts that he kept hidden by just a piece of smiling ceramic.

There was a pause as both of them waited for more from the other. Sapnap fiddled with his thumb, glancing off to the side at a stash of leather and rabbit feet. Dream tilted his head, then grunted as he pushed himself off his knee and to his feet, standing up to his full height. He was taller than Sapnap, and usually it only jokingly bothered him.

“Wilbur is creating his own country?” Dream asked, lowering his chin to look at Sapnap directly with piercing lime eyes.

Sapnap nodded slowly, then furrowed his dark brows in confusion and looked up from the floor to look at Dream. “You think they’re making a whole new country? Why?” Dream glanced away for a moment, then shrugged and brushed some dust off his sleeve, walking forward.

“Just a hunch,” he murmured as he crossed the distance between them, narrowly missing Sapnap’s shoulder. Then he chuckled, so close to his ear that it sent a blade of cold running down his spine and he whipped around frantically. Dream slowed as he reached the other end of the room, and he turned around with a smile. It was uncomfortable to look at. “I just find it funny, y’know? This British guy comes along, asking to live in my SMP so that he has a place for his son to grow up in . He arrives, steals a couple of my population and runs along to create his own little drug empire.” He tilted his head back, bringing his arms up to accentuate his words. “That’s awfully rude of a posh culture, no?”

Sapnap flicked a glance at the exit to the base — Dream stood by it, standing on the opposite side of where the cylinder of light beamed down from above. “I never mentioned a drug empire…” Sapnap mumbled worriedly, suddenly aware of how his fingernails dug into his palms. Why was there a sweat on his brow? This was his best friend Dream, a buddy of many years. It was normal of them to have conversations and just - talk things out. But this didn’t feel like a normal conversation. Something felt off.

“Oh, did you not?” Dream paused. “Ah, well. Don’t worry about it anymore, Sapnap, there are no more secrets to keep.”

“But how did you know?” Sapnap pressed, taking a hesitant step forward, then retreating back. Why did this feel like he was speaking with a stranger?

The blonde exhaled audibly, then came up to him and patted his shoulder, looking him clear in the eyes. There was no way to avoid eye contact, he was too close. Everywhere Sapnap could look he’d see Dream; his dirty hood, the sheen of his enchanted axe, the buckle of his shield on his back, his mask. A smile from him attempted to break the tension of the proximity. “I just do, aight?” He didn’t wait much for Sapnap’s response, but he patted his back again before letting go and hovering over to the ladder exit.

“Let’s pay the Brits a visit, shall we?”

"This officially sucks," Tommy muttered, his chin resting on his knees from where he sat on the damp grass beside Tubbo. His best friend was staring intensely at the rippling water of the river, his hands clutching his fishing rod so tightly Tommy could see they were turning white. The pair had been instructed to go fish in L’manberg's river, despite Tommy's complaints that neither boy knew how to fish. "Oh Tommy! I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out! Fishing is sooo easy!" Tommy repeated Wilbur's words in a mocking tone, earning a chuckle from Tubbo. So far the pair had only managed to catch a couple of fish, and Tommy was sure they'd been at this for hours now.

"Do you think Sapnap's mad?" Tubbo wondered out loud, a hint of worry in his voice that Tommy had no trouble catching. This was his best friend after all. 

"Whaddya mean?" 

"Well, you saw how he looked when he came out of the Camarvan. What if he calls Dream?" Tommy flinched at the mention of the masked man, a hollow husk of dread seeping into his bones. He forced the worry back, electing to ignore it. This was no time to feel scared of someone so far away. It's fine. They're fine.

"I bet we can take on that green bitch again." Tommy had to force the confidence into his voice. 

Tubbo opened his mouth to reply, but was distracted as a sudden force pulled on his fishing rod, and he shifted his attention to pulling the rod back with all his strength as Tommy cheered him on, only to stumble back as the fishing rod flew out of the water. The two boys quickly recovered and checked what they had caught, as Tommy let out a sigh of frustration. "The fish escaped again!"

"How are you so bad at fishing?" Fundy remarked from his place next to Eret, under one of the oak trees in L'Manberg. They were holding something, with looms pushed up against the tree trunk and blue and white fabric streaming out off the strings. Yellow sunlight filtered on them between the oak leaves, gold dappling Fundy’s russet fur and setting it abright. 

"Shut up, Fundy! Why don't you give it a try?" Tommy jumped to Tubbo's defence, not noticing how Fundy's smile grew. 

"Alright." The shapeshifter shrugged and approached the water, shifting into his fox form and leaping into the river before Tommy could even say a word. As he disappeared into the pebbly depths, a splash of water cascaded over Tommy and Tubbo and they leapt away, shorts and shoes damp.

"Should we call Wilbur?" Tubbo said with uncertainty, staring into the river and attempting to track the small fox's form.

His concern was lifted as Fundy popped up to the surface and paddled to shore, dropping a salmon from his jaws right in front of Tommy with a satisfied squeak. 

"Bitch." Tommy hissed as Fundy shifted to his human form, a smug grin on his face.

"It's a good catch, Fundy!" Tubbo chimed in, as Tommy glared at him. "Tubbo! You're supposed to be on my side here." The blonde hissed, causing Fundy to laugh before turning his head as Wilbur stepped out of the Camarvan. 

"Dad!" Fundy beamed, grabbing the salmon from Tubbo and running up to his father, holding the fish and staring at his Wilbur expectantly. Wilbur took a small glance at the salmon before smiling and ruffling Fundy's hair proudly. "Great catch, son!" Wilbur turned his head to Tommy and Tubbo, who collected the rest of their catches. "See Tommy? I told you fishing is easy."

Tommy glared at his brother, who just chuckled. "I fucking hate fish." He decided. 

"Why? Fish are great." Wilbur tilted his head slightly. 

"Makes sense coming from the salmonfucker himself." Tommy sneered, causing Eret to stand up from where he had been resting.

"I'm sorry, the what now?" She asked a look of horror on their face that Tommy could recognize even with their eyes being shielded by sunglasses. 

"Well you see-" Tommy began before Wilbur covered his mouth with a hand. "Shut up, gremlin child."

"Unhand me at once, salmonfucker!" Tommy snapped as Wilbur smiled at him, Fundy and Tubbo erupted into laughter, and Eret stared at him in confusion. Tommy began yelling and cursing, struggling in the hold of his brother, a bright smile on his heavily exaggerated expression; Wilbur guffawed with light laughter, managing to keep a firm hold on the blonde as he fell backwards, almost pulling Tommy down to the ground.

The harmony ceased at the sound of footsteps. 

The group fell silent, Wilbur releasing Tommy and pulling himself together. The blonde winced at a sharp felt pressure in his chest, a deep feeling of dread and panic spreading through his body. He couldn’t even see who it was who entered, but his senses were acutely aware of the distinct presence.

Dream walked through L'Manberg's gates, his enchanted netherite armour glowing and Sapnap at his side, a blank expression on his face. Dream's expression was hidden by his mask, but Tommy felt the lifeless eyes of the porcelain on him as if Dream was picking him apart just by staring in his direction. As if the man could smell the fear inside of him. 

Tommy stiffened, flinching as he felt Tubbo walk to his side and gently grab his hand, squeezing it slightly and giving his friend a reassuring smile. Tommy stared down at him, trying to keep his panic at bay as Dream approached.

"Gentlemen, welcome to our nation of L'Manberg." Wilbur greeted, dipping his head slightly. Dream didn't return the gesture. 

"L'manberg." He repeated the name simply, and Tommy almost shuddered at how unnatural the name sounded on his tongue, nothing like the pride that swelled in his chest every time it was said by one of his friends. His grip on Tubbo's hand tightened as he attempted to ground himself.

"That is correct. We are seceding from the Greater Dream SMP. This land is ours now." Wilbur spoke so differently to how he had just a minute ago, the playfulness in his voice replaced with a cold and professional tone. Tommy looked up at his brother, who didn't meet his gaze, too focused on Dream. 

Dream tilted his head, and Tommy could sense the smile behind his mask. "Really?” he put with a touch of hilarity to his tone. “What if the rest of the server decides to take your land?" His voice was calm, but the threat was clear. 

"Well, they can't do that," Wilbur said through gritted teeth, clenching his fist. Tommy could see that his brother was forcing himself to appear confident. Despite the act, the way he set his jaw and tucked in his lip was familiar to Tommy as a way to cope under the pressure. Wilbur was a proud man and he held relatively high power in L’Manberg, but Dream was a whole other entity. His mere presence overshadowed any glimmer of authority, and it seemed that the masked man was aware of his advantage. Of course, he was.

“I don’t see what’s stopping them,” Dream posed with a light-hearted chuckle to his words, one that sent fire flashing through Wilbur’s expression. “At the moment, you only seem to be a pitiful little union that has decided to rebel against the harmony of the server. We think it’s selfish.” He moved in a way that reflected how confident he was, even in just the subtle gestures that he did without taking another step in this land he despised. Dream didn’t hold back from looking around, tilting his head dryly at Wilbur’s remarks and digging the soles of his boots into the grass. It crooked under the impact.

“Not only selfish,” Sapnap hissed suddenly, grabbing everyone’s attention. Till that point, Tommy had barely focused on him — admittedly his presence wasn’t nearly as intimidating as Dream’s. “But also cruel! Your plan was to exploit my foolishness for your own benefit and get all the resources for your country that you couldn’t get yourselves! You were using me, weren’t you.” The final sentence didn’t end in the inclination of a question; instead, it held a demanding, accusing tone, gravely with a hint of hurt.

Wilbur glanced away momentarily, unable to withstand the piercing eye contact with Sapnap; his eyes were almost gleaming, with bright light from the slowly setting framing him and Dream in gold. Tommy felt a stab of guilt in his stomach. If he had known how much this would impact Sapnap, he wasn’t sure whether he would have gone through with the idea of hiring him. Then again, who was he kidding — he was Tommy. The blonde was known for refusing to acknowledge the consequences others may face as long as he gains benefit from a situation. Sapnap’s accusations suddenly felt more real.

“Now you can’t talk, huh? How convenient. Before you wouldn’t shut your traps about how many times you wanted me to go to the Nether, how many more blaze rods you wanted, how blackstone would also be needed for the next week’s batch.” His voice broke for a second, and he paused, flicking a pained glare at the grass. He inhaled a sharp breath through gritted teeth, then tore his eyes back up at Wilbur. The curly-haired man faltered once more. “I know it was stupid of me to fall for all this. I’m a fucking idiot, I know that; I betrayed my friend so that I could be included in a prize that mattered nothing. Potions? Who gives a fuck! The reason the Potion Ban was put in the first place was so that people would get too overpowered and risk causing chaos by splashing them all over the place and potentially hurting other people!”

Dream didn’t look at Sapnap as his friend vented out his steam. Maybe under the mask, he was sympathetic for him, wanting to comfort his friend for being exploited like a labourer. That could be a lenient perspective, however, as Tommy couldn’t keep still under the still gaze of the white mask. Was Dream looking at him, instead? Were the dots for eyes actually tiny peepholes? Who was to say; they were so dark and deep it was impossible to tell, even from closer proximity. Just imagining what the dirty blonde must look like under the mask, what history must be carved into his face, what his eyes look like, the eyes that always stare and never blinked, sent a chill through Tommy.

“You are just breaking the peace!” Sapnap’s voice cut through the mental fog.

“You don’t care about other people, do you? You just wandered off and created your own little country without considering the consequences, and brought me into it because I’m the only person who’s that much of a fucking jackass to fall for it!” The cracks in his voice became more frequent now, and it was at that point that Dream raised his hand and firmly but gently grabbed Sapnap’s shoulder, startling him out of his phase. The dark-haired man hesitated, glancing up at the people of L’Manberg with heavy eyes, then he picked himself back together and stepped back behind Dream, a shadow crossing his face.

In the silence, nobody dared speak. It wasn’t their turn. Tommy could only manage to tear his gaze from the two ahead of them and he glanced quickly at Tubbo, his heart racing in his chest. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears, but looking at his friend, who remained sternly calm throughout, his eyes directed in front of him with a cool expression, eased some of the tension within him. If only Tommy could remain so composed.

Beside them, Wilbur dropped his head and stared down at his feet, his fringe of dense hair falling over his face like a curtain. From his position, Tommy could see parts of his face, and his expression was guilty; brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, mouth pulled back in discomfort. They all realised that they should’ve treated Sapnap more like a human, considered him and his emotions, what it must’ve felt like to betray his best friend for the sake of selfish gain. Sapnap had awoken and lashed out finally; they were all still sleeping.

Dream then cleared his throat, an audible croak from his place beside Sapnap, and everybody turned to look at him. Sapnap remained unseen. “Gentlemen, this was a lovely encounter. I’m glad to hear that you have been prospering up until this point, but unfortunately you’re now going to have to put on your big boy boots and get out into the real world, do some work of your own. OK?” Tommy felt a blaze in his chest at the almost taunting tone in his voice. It remained polite, but they all knew what he was thinking. Out of decency, they said nothing. “Time to grow up and become men.”

A pause as nobody replied to his words, only harsh leering all directed at the mask on his face.

The man didn’t appear bothered. “I’ll come back to check at some point when I feel the need to put you back in your place. Rebels like you must be contained before you become a real threat.” With nothing else to say, no more fire left to smother, Dream nudged Sapnap in the direction of the blackstone walls. There was an entrance archway just a few feet to the side, but the dark blonde instead brandished his pickaxe and swung at the stone, crumbling it into dust and leaving behind a jagged gap.

Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. They all remained standing, pondering over Dream’s threat. Tubbo glanced up first, at Tommy, with large round eyes, mild worry shimmering in his dark irises. Tommy returned the glance, a smile breaking the monotony of his face when he saw his friend. In a response that he couldn’t hide, Tubbo also smiled, and Tommy had to look away. It was important to remember the people that he had beside him, those who he could rely on if he ever needed help. His brothers, his nephew, even Eret, who he’d now warmed up to a bit more.

Still, nobody said a thing, until Fundy whipped around and dashed for the Camarvan, his tail trailing behind like in a massive red plume. Wilbur turned, concern in his eyes for just a few moments before Fundy returned carrying something Tommy wasn’t familiar with. Wilbur seemed to be — his eyes warmed at the sight, and Fundy slowed down as he reached them, contentment on his face.

“No matter what Dream thinks, we are united together, with or without the SMP.” He said with poise, his almond eyes reflecting a seriousness that had been developing as he aged.

Tommy remembered when he first met Fundy: a quiet night, Tommy hadn’t moved into the SMP yet, he was living with Tubbo in an ugly oak wood house that Wilbur absolutely despised, but a fond memory was made there. Wilbur had sent out a passenger pigeon with a letter, stating that he would come over for a few nights to talk to them about something really important. The important thing turned out to be the birth of his child, whom Sally named Fundy. Tommy and Tubbo had had no idea who this ‘Sally’ was, but Wilbur claimed that she was the mother of his son, a shapeshifter who he had met years ago and hadn’t seen since Fundy’s birth. He brushed off her absence as “just a shapeshifter thing. Certain species tend to leave behind their families once they’ve mated,” but his younger brothers could tell that it still pained him to talk about. Fundy was a tiny ball of brown fur, with a little black nose and eyes that wouldn’t open. Sometimes Tommy would wake up to a fox kit in the crib, on others he’d see a baby, and it was quite a jarring experience for a while, but he had gotten used to it eventually.

He’d grown so much since then. Even in the past couple of months, he’d gone from a short stubby child to a slightly taller and lankier kid, not a teenager but getting there soon. It surprised Tommy how shapeshifters work, how they grow so much faster than humans, and he had expected Wilbur to be at least a little bit shocked, but he didn’t mind. He loved his son exactly as he was, his perfect little fox.

Now, he stood with uniforms folded neatly over his outstretched paws, rich royal blue blazers laced with golden braces and shoulder pads, white blouses tucked into the blazers and deep red belts crafted from a comfortable-looking fabric.

“I designed it with Eret. We spent some time choosing the resources that we had available as well as the ones that we would need, and then as well a couple weeks actually sewing it all together with looms, but I think they turned out great,” the young fox explained, lifting the clothes up to give all the taller boys a closer look. Wilbur delicately picked one uniform from the pile and examined it with wide eyes, letting it unfurl to its full beauty. He stared for a long time, admiring the glint of the sunlight on the gold braces and the belt. Everybody took one for themselves, gingerly poking and brushing one piece at a time. The belt was soft to the touch, like silk, and the blouse was delicate with intricate detailing in the front, a white puff tie pinned to each collar.

Wilbur didn’t speak for a while, but when he looked up from the uniform in his hands, his fingers curling into it intensely, there was immense pride etched in his expression and, if you’d believe it, tears in his eyes.

“Fundy,” he whined, and Fundy’s eyes instantly flitted from joy to humorous worry. “AWWW, FUNDY.” And the father fell to his knees, wrapping his arms around his son’s shoulders and bringing him down to the grass. Fundy appeared to melt at the touch, his ears tilting and his chin resting on Wilbur’s shoulder. “It’s perfect! They’re all perfect, I love them all…” his voice trailed off as he pulled away from the short embrace, looking into Fundy’s almond eyes for a moment, then back at the uniform folded and creased between them. He lifted it up and poked at the golden elements on the blouse. “It has a little knob , I like the little knob… ”

Tommy watched them fondly, then gazed back down at the blazer. “Should I try it on?” he turned to Tubbo, who expressed his agreement with an excitable “yes!” The blonde unpinned the buttons and lifted it up, passing the blouse, belt and trousers to Tubbo, before slipping the deep blue uniform onto his arms, watching in awe as the sleeves puffed up. He fixed the collar around his neck, then stretched out his arms and looked down at himself. It looked great, the fabric was comfortable and the seams were shut tight, woven properly. The boy had talent.

“Mememememe,” Tommy suddenly burst out, ruffling his locks to fall over his face in an imitation of Wilbur, and he propped one hand up to point with a finger, putting on a proper tone. “Tommy, my favourite and most valued brother, you are now the Vice President of L’Manberg, mememememe!” Tubbo cracked with laughter, and Fundy giggled against his father’s chest, with Wilbur looking up at Tommy with a grin. 

“Hm,” he mused, looking the blonde up and down. “I’ll consider it.” Tommy’s expression collapsed into gaping, and he stared at Tubbo with a wide mouth, screeching in excitement. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. Eret seems like the best option at the moment.”

Tommy tore his gaze away and glared at Eret, lifting his arm out straight and prodding her with a finger. “Back off, bitch! Who do you think you are!” Eret only shrugged him off and chuckled, adjusting their dark glasses.

“Who’s to say? We’ll just have to see who’s the better person for the job, and if I become the Vice you’re on cleaning duty for the rest of my term!” He laughed, and Tommy commenced a bout of yelling, which was barely coherent, especially with his distinct accent, but it didn’t matter whether anybody could understand even a word he was saying, they could assume it was just a spew of playful aggression.

The sun continued to lower in the amber sky, the clouds fading from a clear white to rich mulberry with accents of bright yellow where the beams of the half-disc of the sun filtered through. On the other side of the skyscape, the blue sky deepened and stars sprinkled the abyss directly above. In L’Manbergs walls, the few people who would go down in history as those who created the first opposing country on the land laughed and played, messing around with their newly sown uniforms, already inspiring future battles and bloodshed. Just miles away, Dream and Sapnap finally returned to their home, the united safety of the Greater Dream SMP, and a plan was forging among them. A plan to purge the pests that disrupted the harmony, that didn’t take their peace seriously and instead chose to rebel. But they had to be patient. Patience would bring them success, and all good things come to those who wait.

Dream was a very patient man.