Work Text:
Tommy’s still not sure how he got here.
One minute he was at Tubbo’s old house, working on his safe base, the next he found himself wandering near the prison. The prison, now an abandoned shell of what it had once been, a grim sight and a reminder of a failed experiment. A prison without any prisoners. They had all either escaped or been locked up without cause, had died, and/or been brought back to life again within its walls…
Tommy braced himself hearing the crunch of grass, readying his axe, no longer the axe of peace but still made of a sturdy netherite, and prepared himself to face the worst criminal on the server with his endless taunts and mind games… But instead he found a harmless ghost floating around the bank of the water, planting some familiar purple flowers.
“Ranboo?” Tommy dropped his axe at once, wandering over to the ghost to see what he was doing.
“Oh hey, Tommy! What’s up?” Ghostboo cheerfully called back to him, still placing down the many flower bulbs that he had uprooted from afar and started to replant around the coastline. “What are you doing here? I thought you HATED the prison.”
“Just out for a walk…” Tommy lied through his teeth, gripping his sleeve a little tighter. His eyes slowly roved over the ghost of Ranboo between narrow slits, a frown on his face. “…What are YOU doing here?”
“I-“ The ghost drawled out the syllable in a singsong manner, planting more of the alliums in a straight line. “Am just planting these flowers! They’re my favorite, you know!”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Tommy snorted, “I mean what are you doing HERE? Why are you planting these flowers by the prison?”
“It’s kind of a funny story , actually.” Ghostboo replied, now moving from the tip of the line he had created and spiraling the flowers down into a curve. “This is where I died.”
“Oh, that’s right…” Tommy blinked, recalling the moment now.
He remembered Sam running to his door to warn him of Dream’s escape, running out with the rest of the server to try to stop him. He remembered how Sam had held Ranboo hostage suddenly, backs to the water, sword at his chest, and threatened his life in exchange for Dream’s return. Dream of course only cared about himself, and had run anyway, and Sam had sacrificed Ranboo for nothing. There was no glory in his death, no real purpose. There was nothing humane or reasonable about the warden’s actions, nor Ranboo’s submission. Tommy looked up at the ghost again, a deep frown settling on his face.
“Awww, common.” Ghostboo floated over to him suddenly, holding out one of the purple flowers. “Smile, Tommy! It looks good on you, much better than that awful scowl you’re so insistent on wearing nowadays.”
Tommy looked at the flower for a moment, just a brief pause, before whacking it away, clearly unamused. “It’s not funny, Ranboo…” He growled, looking up at his late friend. “You’re dead.”
“So?” Ghostboo merely shrugged, continuing to plant the flowers along the water’s edge, zigzagging where the grass ended and the sand began, making strange patterns and curves all along the coastline.
“Well, I know you said you’re happier this way…” Tommy began, before he was promptly interrupted once more.
“Oh, I am! I have no idea how on Earth you put up with me before! Now that I have all my memories back, now that I remember everything I said before and all the stuff that you put up with, I can finally see why you hated me so much!”
“I never really hated you…” Tommy protested, but Ghostboo continued, undeterred.
“Not ONLY did I steal Tubbo as your best friend, your words not mine,” he interjected chidingly, “but I also caused a LOT of problems for you and everyone else on this server!”
“Yeah, maybe but, I still don’t think you deserved what-“
“Oh and don’t even get me started on Tubbo and our relationship together.” Ghostboo drabbled on, planting the flowers more sporadically now, in no clear pattern or rhythm at all. “Man, he must really hate my guts after what happened with Las Nevadas and everything…”
“Let me finish! Please!” Tommy yelled, and Ghostboo finally paused, looking up at Tommy in shock.
“…I know YOU might be happier this way.” Tommy continued, looking at the ghost with sudden emotion. “But… you died for NOTHING!”
“It wasn’t all for nothing.” Ghostboo tried to justify, moving down from the curve into a diagonal line.
“YES IT WAS! Sam fucking KILLED you!” Tommy shouted. “He used you to try to get Dream back, and of course Dream didn’t fucking care, so Sam just KILLED you for no goddamn reason at all!”
“Sam had Micheal...” Ghostboo said simply, continuing to plot the flowers. “And Dream had me. It was a trade off, Tommy, a hostage situation on both sides. One of us had to die for it one way or another… I’d rather lose myself than lose my son.”
“But…” Tommy still looked dumbfounded at how easily Ghostboo was taking this. “But Dream didn’t even care! How are you supposed to come back if Dream won’t even revive you like he revived me?”
“I don’t need to be revived, Tommy.” Ghostboo insisted again. “My story is over. I don’t need to come back. I’m happier this way. Everyone is.”
“No we’re NOT!” Tommy insisted back, grabbing Ghostboo’s hands and throwing the clutched flowers to the ground. “No one is happy right now, Ranboo! It’s just you! You and your stupid purple flowers!”
“Look around, Tommy!” Ghostboo simply laughed at him, gesturing across the landscape. “There’s nobody here! No one is here to mourn me, or build me statues, or plant flowers around my grave! Nobody is doing ANYTHING!” Tommy stepped back in shock as Ghostboo chuckled hysterically, then watched as the ghost of his friend broke down into tears. “Maybe I’m NOT happier this way, alright?! But don’t try to claim that you still care about me, when you didn’t even bother to plant flowers around my house, or find out what happened to me or Michael, or do all the things that I did for YOU when you died!”
“I…” Tommy paused, taking the sudden outburst in with shock. “I’m sorry, Ranboo… I didn’t realize…”
“…It doesn’t matter anymore.” Ghostboo sighed, finally facing Tommy with sincerity, showing his true emotions at last. Sorrow and grief wallowed deep in his eyes, and the cut across his heart bled through his tattered clothing. “I just wanted to make everyone happy. I don’t want anyone to worry about me anymore, I don’t want anybody to cry over my death. You’re right, though. It was pointless. But my whole life was pointless, Tommy. So maybe it fits…” The ghost settled down among the allium flowers, head to knee, arms cloaked around his face.
Tommy blinked in shock. “Your life wasn’t pointless, Ranboo…” He said, sitting down beside him. “…You wanna know the real reason why I hated you? Ever since we met, I’ve been jealous of you.”
“Why? Cause I’m older and taller than you?” Ghostboo sort of smirked for a moment, but his eyes were still daggers.
“Well, sure. Admittedly, that was the first bad impression you left on me…” Tommy chuckled. “But no. The real reason I was so jealous of you was because of how happy you always were. How you could just… forget. You could forget every little bad thing that happened to you and still walk around the server with a smile. You always focused on making other people around you happier, and you did make them happy. You were always… good. Maybe you were the best of all of us.”
Ghostboo was silent for a moment, looking at Tommy with a solemn face. Then, he simply stood, and grabbed Tommy’s hand to pull him up to his feet.
“Thank you for trying, Tommy.” Ghostboo said quietly, his eyes hollow. “But if that’s really what you think, then you clearly didn’t know me at all…” The ghost started to hover away, leaving Tommy to grapple with the emotions left behind.
“THAT’S IT?!” Tommy yelped, racing after Ghostboo, catching up and walking beside him. “I’m over here telling you my feelings and shit, and you’re just gonna walk away?!”
“Well, it wasn’t the truth.” Ghostboo simply replied, shrugging him off. “I know the real reason you hated me Tommy. I annoyed you. I tried to help people, Tommy, but all I ever seemed to do was make things worse. I put you all in danger! I was the reason why you-“
“Stop,” Tommy halted in his tracks, glaring up at him with sterned eyes. “Don’t you fucking say what I think you’re about to say…”
“You want to know the truth about me, Tommy?” Ghostboo simply laughed, “you want to know why Sam put me in the prison?!” He threw his arms wide. “I blew up the Community House! I was the security breach! I worked with Dream! I was the cause of everything!”
“You’re wrong.” Tommy spat, “You’re a fucking wrongun…”
“You were right about one thing, Tommy. I did try to help people. But when I fell asleep, I would sabotage them. And then I’d wake up and forget, over and over again. I started to experiment on myself, to find out the real reason why I forget, and you know what I found out, Tommy? The Enderwalk had all of my memories! And now that I’m dead, its like I’m constantly asleep!” He threw his arms wide, a mad grin on his face. “I AM the Enderwalk! THIS is the real me!”
“You’re insane!” Tommy backed away from his friend, in complete dismay. “You asshole! You can’t just DIE and then make me wish you were DEAD!”
“You’re right! I am an asshole! But does it even matter anymore?” Ghostboo chided, gesturing to the vacant prison building. “The prison has no prisoner! Dream has escaped! I’m dead! I can’t cause any more problems for anyone anymore! This is good! This is great! Oh, this is wonderful! I can finally live without fear, Tommy. I don’t have to hide everything anymore, or write everything down…” The ghost began muttering to himself again as he floated away, and Tommy realized that his friend had finally truly lost his mind…
“I’ve got to wake him up somehow…” Tommy muttered to himself, his blue eyes wide with horror and fear of what his friend had become. “I’ve got to get the real Ranboo back…”