Chapter Text
A backpack, all tommy needed to find was a backpack, turns out he didn't have one, why didn't he have a backpack? Would he have to buy one? It was only a weekend, it probably wouldn't matter,
It would be fine, he decided, he'd been planning on making ranboo pack enough for both of them anyway,(he hadn't been)
___
They met up at the park entrance later that day, ranboo had not packed anything for tommy, he hadn't been asked to, but he'd been the one to bring food anyway, so it would be fine.
What ranboo had done, was pack everything in a pastel blue and white unicorn backpack that tommy doesn't know why he has. He looked stupid actually, in his dress shirt, floral pattern button up, jean shorts with a silly backpack, beaded bracelets tommy'd made him when they were little, and of course his black-and-white mask, and was he WEARING A TIE?
Tommy came to the conclusion that his best friend was a madman
Tommy on the other hand was dressed fairly normally, red and white baseball shirt with jeans, he would seem normal to anyone that didn't know that his wardrobe was filled with nothing but replicas of these clothes.
They greeted each other with a not-very-secret handshake, it was probably the most average secret handshake they could have chosen, but they'd used it since they were little, they couldn't stop now.
___
"Why are we going camping?"
"For fun? Adventure? To see the great outdoors?"
"Video games are fun, they also have adventure, and I have a big backyard, why do we have to be in a forest?"
"You agreed to this?!" Upon speaking those words ranboo tripped, and fell face first into... nothing, there was nothing there
There was no ranboo.
"ranboo? . . . Ranboo!?"
He was gone, ranboo was very much not there, what. the. fuck.
Ranboo had tripped forwards, so what if tommy did the same? Tommy picked up ranboo's fallen backpack, stepped forward cautiously, and immediately fell through the ground, landing in a completely different forest.
Ranboo was in the new forest staring at the almost-blue leaves. Tommy collapsed because, apparently, falling through mysterious forest portals feels like being turned inside out."where are we?"
'not home?'
Theres something glowing behind him, something Very bright. Tommy stood up and spun around, oops, that was a mistake, ow. He fell on his knees and finally saw the portal.
A blue-purple swirl in front of him distorting the view of the park back home, Tommy watched as it faded, they were stuck.
"Ranboo? . . . R-ranboo?" Tommy turned around, ranboo was still there, his eyes were unfocused, it didn't look like he was breathing. "Ranboo!"
"W-what?!" ranboo flinched "what happened?"
"The swirly home window thing is gone"
"T-the, the what?"
"The thing you fell through, its gone"
"What does that mean?"
"It means we can't get home!"
"Oh. . . T-that, thats not good"
_________
Of course, as soon as they'd calmed down from their initial panic, something else came to scare them.
"Ranboo?"
"Yeah?"
"Theres a big spider" there was, Tommy was pretty sure it was bigger than his head.
It stepped closer, and blinked all of its eyes.
"Ranboo! Its getting closer!"
Ranboo finally turned around, but all he said was "have you considered running"
"Yes!"
"Why haven't you"
"I don't wanna leave you behind! I'll run if you run with me!" The spider took another step towards Tommy.
"Well i see some not sun light over there"
"Over where?!"
"Behind the spider"
___
They made it past the spider, eventually.
But it didn't leave, it kept following them, until they found the source of the light,
There were lanterns in the sky, chained to the ground so they don't fly away.
And there was a town, there wasn't anyone there, from what Tommy could see, but there was a van with a giant flaming hotdog on top, and a flag, a flag that was hung high above the lanterns, and hung with pride, for this supposedly empty town.
"Should we. . . go in?"
"No. It looks like a ghost town" just as Tommy said it, the town burst into activity, a woman left a building to deliver a basket to someone's house, a bald man waved at her from his house, a man in blue appeared to be doing laundry, a guy with goat legs left his house to sit on a bench with a man in a yellow sweater, and a small redhead is suddenly sitting on the pier.
"Ghost town, right"
"Well if you want to, go ahead, but i'm staying here, where there aren't goat people."
"Your staying with the spider?"
"The spider hasn't killed me yet, and we don't know if those people are friendly, so yes, I'm staying with the spider."
"Okay? I'll be back soon, hopefully. . ."
And with that ranboo walked away, towards the strange town. There was something unsettling about it Tommy realized, but he wasn't sure if it was the people themselves, or that they appeared to synchronize their chores.
The spider sat next to him, it hadn't made any sounds yet, weren't spiders supposed to hiss?
Ranboo still hadn't come back after half an hour, so tommy started to talk to the spider, because he's not very smart when he's scared, the spider started to respond, hissing in response to Tommy's complaints.
It was another hour before ranboo returned,
Tommy had been talking to the spider for longer than seemed reasonable, but ranboo didn't need to know that.
"Good news! We can leave! Bad news we have to wait a few days"
"Why?" Tommy realized it was probably a good time to stop petting the spider.
"The only person that can have the key to the portal is the president, but the first election is in a few days"
"Oh, so we just, wait? And they'll let us go home?
"Pretty much"
"Cool!"
"If you wanna come with me, we could go ask for a place to stay"
"Nah, I'll stay here"
"You like the spider now?"
"No. fuck off"
"Okay, I'll come get you in a bit"
Tommy returned to his place next to the spider, and wonders if the town people will let him bring the spider in, then realizes that thats probably stupid.
'tommy'
Tommy looked up, had someone said something?
'tommy'
'i'll find you'
What? Who said-
"Hello?"
'hello, you want to go home?'
The voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once, or from inside his own head.
"Y-yes?"
'i'll open the portal for you, if you follow me'
That seemed sketchy, but, Tommy had to follow, they'd promised him a way home, he couldn't just ignore it.
'follow my voice'
The voice was only coming from one direction now, and it sounded, almost ethereal, as if a god had come to guide him.
Tommy followed.
'keep walking'
'i wouldn't lead you astray'
'not much further'
Suddenly Tommy was back in the clearing he and ranboo had appeared in a few hours earlier, with no recollection of how he'd gotten there.
'good kid, don't trip'
He stepped over to where he'd seen the portal before, the ground began to swirl, and the park from before was visible, Tommy stepped through, having forgotten ranboo.
'good job, i'll see you soon'
___
Tommy was not home.
The forest around him looked nothing like the one back home, it wasn't nearly as magical as the first, a mix of black and white spruce. The voice was gone, but it was clear that he was still not home, not even close.
The spider was still there, had it followed him? It started to walk away, Tommy followed. If the spider would walk through a portal to stay with him, he'd walk through a forest to stay with it.
They walked for almost an hour before finding a rock that hung over the ground below. The spider got itself settled under the rock while Tommy gathered sticks to try to make a fire, if he could remember how, then settled down to see if ranboo had packed matches.
Long after the fire was lit, and now nearly gone out, the spider got up from its rest and appeared to stand guard for Tommy, who could barely keep his eyes open, he drifted off to the sight of a spider, and woke to the sight of a net.
__________RANBOO___________
"Okay? I'll be back soon, hopefully. . ."
Ranboo stepped cautiously into the town, and was greated by confused stares, and reactions that seemed unreasonable. The woman chatting with her neighbor retreated to her house, the man she'd been talking to gave him a weird look and followed her, the redhead on the docks hid in the van, and everyone else either returned to their homes or moved on with their day. The only people supposedly left for conversation were the men on the bench, one on which looked younger than Ranboo.
"Hello?"
The bench people looked up from the book(?) They were reading,
"hello"
"Um.. y-yeah, hi. W-would you happen to know how to open maybe interdimensional portals?"
"Yeah, why?"
By this point, the man in the yellow sweater had lost all interest in Ranboo and the goat kids conversation.
"Who are you."
"I-um I'm Ranboo, uh you?"
"Wilbur, welcome to l'manberg, do you plan on staying?"
"N-no, I'm a little um. . stuck, I fell through a swirly portal and now its gone"
"Well in that case I'll let you talk to tubbo, he knows a lot more about technical things like that than I do" wilbur gestured to the goat kid who'd spoken earlier, then picked up his book and returned to his house.
"Hi! I'm tubbo, I can probably help you with your portal problem!"
"Thank-"
"Was it a regular nether portal or another kind?"
"A-a regular portal?!" Did these people have magic portals everywhere? Where even was he?
"Yeah? Nether portal, lets you travel to fire dimension?"
"Thats. . Not normal"
"Did you come through a portal?"
"Y-yeah. ."
"And your from somewhere without the nether?"
"Yeah?"
"Oh! I always thought the nether was like a dimension travel hub or something, or- Did you go through a fiery place with lots of lava?"
"N-no. Definitely not, I was at a camping spot near home, then I was hear, I fell through a purple and blue swirl thing"
"I've never seen something like that, but it seems more magicy than sciencey, and Wilbur's a lot better at stuff like that"
With that tubbo walked off, stopped, and made a face at him.
"You were supposed to follow me"
"O-oh!" Ranboo slid down the hill and almost bummped into him
___
They found Wilbur sitting in an armchair reading the same book, he aswers their questions pretty quickly, the swirly portal can be opened with a key, and the key is in a box, the key belongs to wilbur, who is president. But it came with some bad news, the first election in the country was in two days, and then the key would belong to to the new president, there was a good chance that wilbur would win, but ranboo was advised to stay a few days incase, he wasn't told why. Maybe the portal needed a few days to work, or something.
Thats what he told tommy when he got back, tommy was petting the spider.
Ranboo asked him if he wanted to go with him to ask for a place to stay.
"No. Fuck off"
"Ok, I'll come get you in a bit"
Ranboo returned to the town -had he forgotten to ask the name- and asked tubbo if there was a place to stay,
There was,
There were a lot of places actually.
The red head -fundy was glad to show him around the hotel.
Not long after, he went back to the forest to get Tommy,
Problem,
Theres no Tommy,
The spider is gone too.
He searched around the forest for a while,
He couldn't have gone far,
But there was no sign of him.
___
He found tubbo on the bench again,
And told him that his friend was gone.
Tubbo nodded sagely, apparently people went missing in those woods sometimes, but they were usually found after a bit.
He decided not to worry (he still worried) Tommy would be back soon and everything would be fine.
Wilbur visited his room -it was more of a house than a room but tubbo had called it a room- to make sure he was settled in, and left when he was sure of it.
Ranboo woke to a knock at the door, and the smell of fresh bread