Chapter Text
Your name is Thomas Danger-Kracken-Ishmael-Careful Innit.
And you have been afflicted with a most terrible, earth shattering, EVIL, world wrecking, life altering, horrible, disgusting, PAINFUL, treacherous, unacceptable, unpleasant, unfortunate, GOD AWFUL, pitiful, chicken shit, AGREGIOUS, MISERABLE, lamentable, abominable, DEPLORABLE, atrocious, disgraceful, dreadful, very bad very no good awful very bad bad bad terrible bad affliction called…
An overbite.
Now, see, this affliction would be terrible enough on its own, but you just HAD to have complained to your mum when you noticed and you got stuck with an even WORSE affliction…
Braces.
Terrible, isn't it?
No delicious chewy candies, no popcorn, no eating apples normally (you have to scoop them with a spoon), you ACTUALLY have to floss (it sucks ass), the little hook bits get stuck on your mouth and it HURTS, and you have to go to STUPID ORTHODONTIST CHECKUPS where they TIGHTEN THE LIVING HELL OUT OF THEM UNTIL YOU CAN'T EVEN EAT BREAD, and that doesn't even cover the SURFACE level issues. No, this is a whole damn ICEBERG, you have enough material for like, a 4 hour essay video. It's DEEP. Deeper than the Marinara Trench or whatever it's called. This shit is terrible and it sucks and you hate it and it's very bad, wouldn't wish it upon your worst enemy, except maybe Clay. He sucks and bullies you for having braces.
Which, like, what the fuck? His mouth is about as aligned as he is kind (bars). He probably kicks puppies and shoots kittens with REAL guns not BB GUNS. He's evil and terrible and sucks and you hate him. He DEFINITELY deserves braces, cuz he's dumb and sucks and is dumb. Genuinely terrible guy, stupid upperclassmen, hate those guys.
Year ten is an absolutely deplorable part of life, but it's what level you're currently on. Despicable.
You're very cool and very confident and everyone likes you because of how awesome you are (besides Clay and his stupid “Dream Team” of absolute GOONERS) despite your one singular flaw of weird teeth, in fact, you have TWO WHOLE FRIENDS! Probably more.
Your numero uno, bestie for the restie friend (as Harry would put it) Tobias, also known colloquially as Toby or Tubbo, has been around since, like- The BEGINNING. Since Thomas episode one, if you were in The Truman Show and you were Truman, so the Thomas (or Tommy) show, he'd be a fan favorite side character. He's short, and has weird hair, and he dresses like a loser, but he's SUPER fucking cool. His dad is very scary, Mr. Underscore, Schlatt, is truly terrifying, but you are a very strong, very big man and brave him to see your good friend. Tubbo is super cool and he likes bees, and he's very funny and makes music sometimes and he's got this weird little pet goose named Benson. Is having a pet goose even legal? You don't know, and Tubbo probably doesn't either, and if he does, he certainly doesn't care. Tubbo and law? They go together like peas and- You don't know, peas and- Peas in a pod- No- What's absolute shit with peas? This metaphor is going nowhere. To make things simple and short, Tubbo has never once cared about the law, if he did, he would not have a secret supply of various weapons in his arsenal.
Aside from Tubbo, you have another dear friend, Ranboo. Very stupid name, yes? But they're very kind. They're the type to sniff flowers and coo at kittens, a very pathetic and sad child that you took under your wing despite their many flaws.
(Gay, American, expensive, rich, forgetful, etc)
They're an unfortunately wonderful person that not even a big man such as yourself could ignore. Another, albeit, much smaller, balless, evil man also can't ignore them, and it's Clay.
Besides you, Ranboo is the most inhumanely treated victim of Clay, very rude, no? Clay is a complete asshole to the guy, steals their journals, takes their sunglasses and mask, just an absolute shit-head. Like, for what purpose? Ranboo wouldn't hurt a fly, why bully them? See, you're a threat because you're very big and scary and only use about 67% of your total power at any given moment, so why's Ranboo even on the target list? And Clay does the classic Disney Channel American bullying too, he like, steals their lunch money and shit! It's honestly embarrassing.
Now, see, year ten, or freshman year as your American, Texan peers would call it, is shit and bad and terrible as is, but, see, there's one, eeny weeny, tiny, little, very unimportant detail you've been trying to ignore, smaller than Clay's smeggy little pointer.
It's that, well, as of around… Maybe last month?
The world started its very quick decline to the end.
Zombies.
Walkers, the undead, prowlers, runners, stalkers, clickers, bloaters, shamblers (The Last of Us Fans have been going insane, but apparently it's not quite the same logic), whatever you want to call them, they're real. They're very real, and they're very nasty, very bad, hell, maybe even worse than braces.
Zombies are very uncool and tend to put a stop to living and life and other such synonyms of the word, so school has been cut, yay! Still, though, big America decided that it didn't matter all that much, so healthcare has still mostly been up and running, until today.
Your mum told you like, two hours ago, and since then, you've been… Well, contemplating whether or not “blowing your shit smooth off” as Big Daddy Schlatt would say would be a good idea, because tomorrow?
Dr. Za, also known as Phillip, also known as Phil, also known as Philza, was FINALLY supposed to get your stupid evil mouth cages off.
The world just hates to see a white boy thrive.
The zombies hadn't gotten to your town, not yet, and you hadn't really cared about the whole “Wahhhh the world is ending :( noooo” thing yet, but, heh… Now? It's personal.
The world really hates you, doesn't it?
First dumb, then braces, then moving to America, then being in TEXAS of all places, then having to recite the fucking PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE???? TWO???????? WHY DOES TEXAS HAVE ITS OWN PLEDGE? DOESN'T THAT DEFEAT THE PURPOSE OF HAVING THE FIRST PLEDGE, BECAUSE YOU'RE PLEDGING TO AMERICA THEN YOU TURN AROUND AND PLEDGE TO TEXAS!
So much infedelity.
There's not even horses, or like cowboys, and no one says yee-haw, and the tea is SUPER sweet, and people don't just recite “The stars at nighght are big and briggght” or whatever. It's actually really boring, like? Fuck Stephen F. Austin or whatever his name is, he's a real bitch. Wasn't he racist too?
Actually that means nothing coming from you, you're very British and white. You don't know how many times that Colton kid has called you a colonizer. And then his dumb little Vicky friend giggles a bunch and they giggle at each other and it's all very annoying. Fuck that kid, for real. No cap.
Anyways, back on point, zombie apocalypse. Braces. No dentist. Very bad, how dare they?
So, yeah, that's how you got here. Sitting in your room, Tom Nook plush in hand, very contemplative, definitely not just doomscrolling and seeing people being ripped to shreds on your phone. Good god, your braces hurt. Yowch.
Finally, you make a decision, a very smart, very important decision.
You're gonna get your fuckin’ braces off, zombie apocalypse, clay, school, healthcare or not.
You're gonna go to Dr. Za's place of residence and get him to remove these stupid wires.
You run out of your room, leave a small note for your mum, that you'll be out with your friends for a while, just narrowly avoiding an encounter with her in the hallway, your first stop? Ranboo's house. They're your next door neighbor, after all.
“RANBOO! BOO! RONALD!” Your voice is pathetically pubescent and dumb sounding, “I NEED YOU!”
Geez, you've been throwing pebbles at this window for minutes now. It's been a while.
Finally, the practically nocturnal fucker emerges from their hide out.
They open their window, Juliet style, “Tommy? What do you want?” They sound perfectly confused, their hair is very messy, a big man such as yourself would never be caught in such a state.
“We need to drive up to Houston! I gotta get my braces off!” Very reasonable, very normal request. Obviously, this is an average thing to do at fourteen years old.
“...The clinics are all closed?”
“But the dentists aren't dead!”
“Some of them are.”
“Shut the fuck up, c'mon.”
And just like that, Ranboo is officially added to your party! Very nice!
Now, to grab Tubbo.
The walk is relatively short and quite peaceful, filled with chatter (Mostly on your end), just a great walk. Gee, you sure do love having friends you can just wander off with in a world shattering disaster!
“I'm not letting you guys go out during a fucking zombie apocalypse, how stupid are you two?”
God, Schlatt is such a buzzkill.
Now you're all cooped up in Tubbo's room, but Tubbo gets it.
He's all smiley and whimsical when he goes “Oh, I have a rifle we can bring!”
Ranboo is much more concerned about this statement than you are.
Being the brave, intelligent man you are, you decide to brave Schlatt's gaze so Tubbo can sneak into the garage and grab some weaponry.
“...So, uhhhhhmmmm. What's uh…” You glance around desperately for some topic of conversation, “...How did… How'd it feel being American. And from New York on nine, uh- On eleventy-nine???”
“Do you mean 9/11? The national tragedy?”
“Uhhhhh. Yeha.”
“Well why don't you fucking guess Tommy, I don't know? How'd you feel when the queen died?”
“Bad.”
“Ok so infer. How did I feel on Nine Eleven.”
“........Bad.”
“Jesus Christ you're fucking stupid.”
You nod awkwardly and look to the side to see Ranboo giving you a thumbs up, then you hear a very loud, very obvious clatter as Ranboo ducks away.
“My mum had a- A cat in ninety-nine.”
That seems to grab Schlatt's attention.
“Kid, what the hell are you on about? Don't you dare.”
“What?”
“Nothing- God- Tommy, go, I need a drink…”
With that, you squeeze yourself out of Tubbo's bedroom window and give him all the info he needs.
“His name is Phillip Za, and he works at the ‘Toothagator Dentistry and Orthodontic Clinic’.” You state, you truly know everything you need to know about the guy.
Tubbo looks him up on a couple websites, and boom. You've got an address.
The three of you mosey to Clay's residence, they're probably at some party, and with a bit of time, well, Tubbo's got their shiny red Cadillac hotwired.
Issue, none of you know how to drive.
So, you pull up a WikiHow.
Very reliable.
It takes some trial and error, but soon enough, Ranboo's driving and you're on your way.
You sorta crash the car two hours in.
Ok, not the smartest, so now you're on foot, which makes the three- Maybe four hour endeavor… Five hours.
It's dark out by the time you get to Philza's, and you're getting very hungry, and honestly?
A bit… Scared?
See, you're all very big men, but you're also teens in a zombie apocalypse traveling on foot. It's dark and you hear lots of odd noises, and you may or may not have cried a little bit when your phone died? Because you got lost for a bit and had to stop at a gas station to find a charger so you could navigate safely, and you heard some… Rather gruesome stories. You hadn't seen… Anyone, really during your journey.
Still, though, you make it to Philza's flat at around midnight.
Braces, you think to yourself, this is all for the braces, it will all be worth it for the braces.
You, Tommy Innit, are not dying with braces on.
So, you knock on the door because it's Philza. Dr. Za!
You and your rather… Physically incapable friends are not walking into the flat of a… Of an adult man you don't really know all too well who- Well, it'd be completely absurd for him to be a weird pervy nonce or something, right? Like, that'd be an absolute shit turn of events.
No, you know this guy good and well. He's very kind and not a perv- Really, you shouldn't even consider it a possibility!
Everything is fine, and you're gonna get your braces off, and it's not that dark out, and it's not that scary, and you're not about to pass out on your feet- No, that's stupid! You're fine, your friends are fine, and you're all alive! Yay!
So you knock again, a bit- A bit quicker. A bit more frantically, because- Well- Shut up!
And now Tubbo is tugging at the door handle, and Ranboo's yelling, and it's all just a miserable time, really.
Finally, though, the door opens and there's a fucking fire poker in your face.
WHO THE FUCK IN AMERICA WHO LIVES IN A FLAT JUST- HAS A FIRE POKER?
“Who the shit- Tommy?”
Oh thank the lord, finally, you're saved!
“Who- Why are you here?”
After all these years! No more braces! It's been so fucking long!
You all reply at the same time.
“Wouldn't YOU like to know, weather boy?”
“I don't even know at this point- I just wanna go home now…”
“I want my fucking braces off!”
The three of you are tugged into the flat and the door is shut and locked behind you, finally, Philza, your savior, your DENTIST, speaks- His voice is so kind and wonderful and great- And not confused or nervous at all!
“Tommy- What?”
“I want my braces off finally! We went on a whole quest, it was long and terrible, just to get to you! We've been on the road for hours, but it's all worth it now! I'm gonna get my braces off! I'm sure my mum will pay for it, but I came over just to make sure it'd happen!” Your voice is shaky, yet oh so hopeful, you're finally free!
Little to your knowledge, Phil is confused. Very confused.
“Tommy… I don't just- Have the tools to take your braces off at home… Did- Did you think I just… Had them on hand????”
What.
What the shit.
Years, it's been years of these wires tugging at your bones and making them more “Conventially attractive” or whatever. It was all cosmetic. There'd been no need!
It was all supposed to be over!
Tubbo looks mildly annoyed, more focused on looking around, Ranboo looks almost as devastated as you do.
“What- You're an orthodontist! Orth- Orthodontists don't have fucking lives! Of course you should have stuff on hand! That- It's probably unprofessional not to!”
Phil only has the energy to look mildly offended by the statement.
“Thomas- Where's your mum?”
“Who cares! We came all this way for my BRACES!”
“Tommy… I can't just take off your braces. It's not something I can just do, y'know?”
Tubbo absentmindedly pats your back.
“Jesus Christ, you can.. I suppose you three can stay here for the night? I'm not just gonna… Send you back out, I guess…” He leads you and your friends to a bedroom, at least the bed is big.
Life is shit, Ranboo is too long and takes up most of the bed, Tubbo kicks in his sleep, and worst of all?
You still have your fucking braces.