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Now that he was no longer being haunted by paranoia around whether or not he was actually safe from Dream– and now that he knew his friends were all okay and free from that stupid server– Tommy was forced to acknowledge one thing in particular.
His bedroom in the lair was kind of… ugly.
It felt like it was missing something– maybe even several somethings.
Tommy stood frowning in the doorway (and that was another thing that could use some fixing. A curtain would be nice), framing the sight of his room with forefingers and thumbs.
Granted, it was also a bit of a mess on account of the air mattress taking up what little floorspace he had– Ranboo, Tubbo, and Michael had to sleep somewhere.
That didn’t change the fact that his walls were practically bare.
Bare and ugly and missing something.
He just didn’t know what to put on them. More posters?
Hm…
A genius idea hit Tommy all at once. Theft.
After all, he was a raccoon. Who would he be if he didn’t commit to the bit?
He spun around on his toes and took off running down the hall, filled with the incomparable glee of crime.
His first stop was, of course, the atrium– seeing as it was the literal first thing in his path.
Tommy peered over the ledge of the second floor and cursed internally at the sight of Leo and Mikey already hanging out, blocking easy access to the bedrooms.
Clever. Very clever.
Tommy would have to think smarter.
Ignoring the two invisibility potions sitting in his inventory, Tommy took a low stance and pressed himself against the wall for enhanced stealth.
He was going to have to find help. An accomplice.
Someone who wouldn't question him and could act as a decoy while Tommy committed great acts of theft.
There was only one person in the whole lair who fit that description.
Tommy found his target in the projector room, cooing and encouraging little Michael’s creative endeavors at the diner booth.
Tommy cast a furtive glance around the room, ensuring Splinter was still thoroughly distracted by his game show before hunching down on all fours and crawling rapidly towards the booth.
Ranboo did a double take as he approached, eyes going wide and startling so hard they slammed a knee against the table. “Jesus Christ, Tommy,” they hissed, a hand over their weak and pathetic heart. “Why are you crawling like that? Like, actually. Actually what is wrong with you, dude.”
Tommy clambered up from the floor into the empty booth across from Ranboo and Michael. “There is nothing wrong with me. I am awesome,” he established first and foremost.
The dubious look from Ranboo was generously overlooked in favour of getting down to business.
Tommy wiggled in his booth, getting comfortable as he rested his forearms on the table and steepled his fingers. “So… Ranboob. Ranboo. My– my lackey– no, no, my friend! Ranboo, my friend, I have a proposal for you. A- a- a mission, if you would.”
Insultingly, Ranboo sighed at him. “Mhm? Mhm, and what would that be? What would that be, hm?” they asked, leaning their cheek against their palm.
Michael looked up from his drawing with a curious little snuffle.
Tommy narrowed his eyes and considered the merits of recruiting children.
“I have–” Tommy paused, thought about being careful with his wording, and then decided that he didn’t care. “I have to commit crime– good crimes only, of course– but I'm going to need a– a decoy, if you will,” he explained.
Ranboo raised their brows. “Well, as long as it’s only good crimes,” they wryly conceded.
“The best,” Tommy affirmed with a nod.
Ranboo turned their attention to Michael, dropping a hand on his head with a smile. “Hey, Michael, do you wanna hang out with Splinter for a bit? You can watch shows together. How does that sound, hm?” Their voice was undeniably gooey and soft– but Tommy was willing to give it a pass this time because it wasn’t directed at Tubbo.
Michael’s snout scrunched up, brow furrowing. “I can help too?”
Tommy and Ranboo both blinked at the question that was really more like an assertion.
Well, Tommy certainly wasn’t about to complain about the extra help.
Two decoys were better than one.
Tommy tapped his fingers together, a grin spreading across his face. “Michael– Big M– you can absolutely help.”
Rightly delighted by this great honour, Michael clapped his hands together, eye squinting closed and chin raising as he beamed back.
This was going even better than Tommy could have hoped, and they hadn’t even gotten to the actual crime yet.
Seeing no further reason to linger in the projector room, Tommy slid out of the booth. “Come, young Michael, Boob Boy, to the atrium!”
He heard Ranboo give a resigned sigh at the nickname, but Michael was already pattering after Tommy, and Ranboo wasn’t far behind.
Tommy gave them the low-down on the short walk to their destination. “Leo and Mikey are skulking around the atrium right now. You two are gonna keep ‘em distracted while I sneak around behind them to do dirty crime boy things, got it?” he explained, keeping his voice at a whisper.
Michael nodded seriously, unlike Ranboo, who looked like he was beginning to reconsider his decision to help.
Ranboo’s ears angled warily back. “You know, I’m suddenly remembering how bad things went last time we did crime together.”
To which Tommy tipped his head back with a groan. “Ugh, you would fucking bring that up, wouldn’t you, you fucking–” he suddenly remembered the child in their presence and shot a sharp look to Michael. “You didn’t hear that. Erase that word from your memory,” he ordered.
Michael smiled innocently up at him, saying nothing.
Suspicious.
Ranboo looked somehow more pathetic all of a sudden. “Don’t bother. Don’t even bother. Tubbo swears around him all the time. I don’t think it matters anymore,” they admitted, slumping miserably.
Ah, the incredible joys of being a teen parent. Tommy couldn’t relate, nor did he want to– as cool as a hypothetical TommyInnit Junior would be.
He would have to make do with subtly influencing Michael to be the coolest version of himself.
By committing mild crime.
It was good for the cranial development. Source? Tommy committed crimes all the time as a kid, and he’d turned out perfectly fine. Anyone who said otherwise was lying and jealous of his success. Never doubt him.
As they came up on the atrium, Tommy shifted forms for stealth purposes.
He darted ahead a few paces before turning around to face his lackeys. “Alright, before we jump in, we need to have a– a code. Some way to communicate without them knowing what we’re doing. Like… like banana,” Tommy explained with incredible wisdom.
“Bananana,” Michael repeated sagely.
Ranboo pursed his lips. “...Okay,” he started slowly. “How about… How about I’ll start talking about… I don’t know, the weather if it looks like they’re starting to get suspicious, and then you can just wave at us whenever you’re done whatever it is you’re doing.”
Tommy committed the plan to memory with a brisk nod as he turned to the atrium entrance again. “Right. Operation is a go,” he whispered, sinking into a crouch and letting Ranboo and Michael head in before him.
He kept his ears raised and alert.
Tommy took the sounds of Mikey cooing over little Michael as his cue to enter.
He chanced a careful peak over the ledge and found Michael wobbling on Mikey’s skateboard.
Notably, everyone’s eyes were glued to the little piglin.
Perfect.
Just barely holding back from humming a sneaky tune under his breath, Tommy snuck his way down and into one of the bedrooms.
His first target just so happened to be Raph’s room.
Tommy perused his options, crossing any of the plushies off the list right away because he wasn’t evil.
He very briefly considered one of the weights lying around, but just as quickly decided they were all stupidly heavy and he wasn’t that interested in them anyway.
Just when Tommy was starting to think there wasn’t going to be much of anything actually interesting in Raph’s room, he found the ball.
Well, ball was a generous term for it seeing as it wasn’t really round, but that was the closest term he could come up with, so that was what he was calling it.
Tommy put his paws on the American football wedged between a line of weights off their pole and the wall. The rough texture felt weird against his palms, it wasn’t the worst thing though.
With a couple of good tugs, Tommy managed to release it from its prison and into his arms.
The weights clunked as they fell into place against the wall.
Tommy froze– and then quickly ducked behind a cardboard box.
He tuned more fully into the conversation outside, certain he’d be hearing about the weather any second now.
…Only, it never came up.
Instead, the topic seemed to have moved on to Tubbo, Donnie, and their regrettable bonding over a lack of care for things like ‘Geneva Conventions.’
Tommy peered suspiciously over the cardboard box.
Aside from a quick glance from Ranboo, no one looked his way.
Huh.
Tommy turned his attention to his prize.
The ball had a red bandana tied around it, complete with cut out eye holes. A squiggly frown had been drawn on the ball with black sharpie.
Sure, it smelled kind of rank, but that just added character.
Tommy tucked it into his inventory.
He hadn’t heard any mentions of the weather yet, so Tommy made his way to Mikey’s room next.
Now this was a room filled with cool stuff.
Most of it wasn’t stealable, unfortunately, considering the coolest parts were the graffiti and paint spatters decorating just about every available stretch of concrete.
Tommy caught himself staring slack jawed at the graffiti for a few seconds too long and had to physically shake himself to focus up again.
He was here for a reason.
And that reason was light theft.
A lot of what filled Mikey’s room was cans of spraypaint, sketchbooks, and various different caches of art supplies. Which was wicked cool, but also not at all what Tommy was after.
There was also a boombox– tempting, but perhaps a bit too noticeable of a steal…
So anyway, Tommy ended up cramming the boombox into his inventory.
Oops.
If Mikey didn’t want Tommy to steal it, he shouldn’t have left it right there in the middle of the room.
Continuing counter clockwise, Tommy snuck into Donnie’s room.
It was disappointingly bare of knick knacks to knab.
All the good stuff was probably kept in the lab.
Boring.
He poked around, but ultimately came up empty for the first time.
There was nothing around for the taking unless he wanted to steal a computer monitor or–
Tommy paused with one paw already raised with the intent to leave.
He looked up at the desk housing several monitors.
Perhaps there was something here to steal afterall…
His eyes darted between the potential witnesses in the atrium and the innocuous rolling chair pushed half under the desk.
Everything was still in the clear, so Tommy crept forward, put a paw on the base– and promptly stashed the entire chair in his inventory.
Tommy trotted silently out of Donnie’s bedroom, feeling rather accomplished, if he did say so himself.
Last on his warpath was Leo’s room, and Tommy already knew exactly what he was going to take this time.
Ignoring the dozens of comics and action figures on the shelves, he padded straight to Leo’s bed, hopped up onto the mattress, and dragged back the covers until he found his mark.
The fabled light blue space blanket. The very same Tommy had claimed in his early days staying in the lair.
Tommy’s tail thumped happily against the bed as this too was tucked into his inventory.
He just barely remembered to remake the bed before his great escape.
The top blanket was a bit more wrinkled than it’d been before, but he figured it was good enough.
Tommy finally hopped off the bed and slunk out of Leo’s bedroom.
He waved at Ranboo, waiting for them to spot the movement before darting off, getting away unseen by his targets.
The minute he was out of sight and in the hall leading to his bedroom, Tommy shifted forms, a giddy spring in his step.
He pulled the space blanket from his inventory. It was even softer than he remembered.
All but skipping, Tommy slipped into his bedroom–
Only to jump half a block in the air with a screech when he discovered Leo already sitting on Tommy’s bed, nonchalantly turning the page on a Jupiter Jim comic.
Tommy looked wildly between Leo and the hallway, and then down at the space themed (Jupiter Jim) blanket in his arms.
“Uhhh…” Tommy bit the inside of his lip, frozen. “This isn’t what it looks like,” he tried.
Leo arched a single brow, eyes lifting from his comic. “No?”
Oh this motherfucker.
Tommy trudged the rest of the way into his room with a groan. “How’d you even know? I was being stealthy!”
“Eh, you weren’t bad, but you’ll have to try a little harder than that to fool me. Also, Ranboo kept glancing over in your direction, so.” Leo shrugged.
“You could have at least pretended not to notice,” Tommy grumbled, lightly kicking the discarded clothes piled up beside the air mattress.
Leo shut his comic and leaned back. “Right, and let you steal my limited edition Jupiter Jim blanket– again? Not happening.”
Well, this was regrettable.
But, if he was only asking for the blanket back…
Puffing up his cheeks with air, Tommy reluctantly handed the blanket over. “There. Are you happy now?” he asked flatly.
Leo’s shoulders shook with quiet laughter as he slung the blanket over one of them and stood up. “Nice try, dude. Time to go put everyone’s things back where you found them, come on, chop chop, vamanos!” he directed, walking with irritating grace over the unstable surface that was the air mattress monopolizing the floor space.
Tommy scowled, but didn’t resist when Leo planted a hand on his back to push him out of the bedroom and down the hall.
Just because Tommy wasn’t fighting it, didn’t mean he wasn’t going to complain. “You are such a killjoy, you know that? What’s so bad about a– a– a little crime between friends, huh? I didn’t even take anything out of the lair!”
Leo shot him an unimpressed look. “Uh-huh, and if somebody snatched one of your things without asking?” he drawled back.
Tommy felt himself bristle, a defensive, fluttering anxiety squeezing around his lungs at the thought of someone taking his things away from him.
Leo pat him once on the back before retracting his hand. “Get it now?” he asked, voice airy and light as he tilted his head by a slight margin.
The anxiety lingered, leaving Tommy feeling restless and uneasy as he rubbed the pads of his fingers against his gloved palms. “I don’t want anyone to take my things.” The words came out hard, with a shaky quality he hadn’t quite been able to keep out.
Leo nodded. “Right, and none of us will. But that has to go both ways, y’feel?”
Regrettably, yes, Tommy did feel.
Feel like he was going to break out in hives.
He opened and closed his hands a few times. “I guess,” he muttered.
“We’ll work on it,” Leo magnanimously decided.
Tommy’s unease was quickly forgotten when they got back to the atrium.
A surprised laugh burst out of Tommy at the sight of Mikey carrying Ranboo and Michael on either shoulder while on his skateboard.
Mikey looked over at the noise, expression brightening. “Oh, hey, Tommy! Wanna join the stack? Bet I can carry you too,” he boasted with unwavering confidence.
Ranboo gave Tommy a wide-eyed stare, shaking his head minutely and mouthing the words ‘help me.’
Yeah, he was having fun.
Tommy started towards Mikey, eager agreement on the tip of his tongue– only to falter with a quick glance towards Leo.
A dreary sigh escaped his lungs. “Just a minute, Mike. Gotta drop some shit off real quick.” Tommy pivoted, stopping by every room other than Leo’s to return his stolen goods.
He didn’t look at the atrium’s other inhabitants until the last object had been put in its original place– er, more or less.
The American football ended up beside the weights instead of wedged between them in the wall because Tommy hadn’t quite been strong enough to move all of that himself.
Regardless, the deed was done and Tommy was only moderately grumpy about it.
Ranboo had apparently convinced Mikey to put him down and Michael had moved to Mikey’s shell, little arms wrapped securely around the teen’s neck.
Leo, having already dropped off his own belongings, gave Tommy an approving nod.
It was actually kind of annoying when that really did make Tommy feel better about the whole thing.
Oh fuck, he was being positively reinforced.
Tommy narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “I’ll fight you,” he warned, just for good measure.
Leo half threw up his hands with a slight shake of his head and bemused exasperation pinching his expression. “Why?”
The emphasis in his voice was so genuine it took Tommy completely off guard.
He choked on the unexpected laugh it pulled out of him. “Sorry. Sorry. Force of habit.” Tommy rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish grin.
And then he noticed Mikey frowning at him.
“Wait, did you take my boombox?” Mikey asked
Tommy froze. “Uh…” Shit, shit shit.
Leo, the dickhead, slid over to Tommy and slung an arm over his shoulders. “And my limited edition Jupiter Jim blanket again, can you believe that?” Leo gestured to Tommy with a thumb, tone rife with amusement.
Did that mean he wasn’t actually mad about it?
Tommy cleared his throat pointedly. “And Donnie’s chair, and Raph’s ball,” he tacked on, because if he was going to have his crimes revealed anyway, he might as well just admit to the whole shebang.
Something weird flashed across Ranboo’s face. “I– uh, I was in on it too, it wasn’t just Tommy,” they hurried to insist for some reason.
Mikey’s frown vanished as he shrugged in a sort of ‘oh well’ manner. “No harm no foul. I didn’t even get the chance to notice it was missing until it was already put back,” he reasoned, even sounding close to disappointed about it.
He then did a sick kickflip on his skateboard that had little Michael giggling from atop his shell.
Woah… Tommy wished he could do kickflips.
He pointed at Mikey’s board. “Could I try that?”
While Mikey hadn’t looked at all unhappy before, he completely lit up at the question. “Sure! I can teach you! Leo, get this man a board!”
Leo saluted. “Aye aye.” He peeled away from Tommy’s side and ducked into his bedroom.
He returned with a board in his hands and a twinkle in his eyes. “Here–” Leo thrust the skateboard into Tommy’s hands, “–with my express permission, you may borrow my board,” he decreed.
Tommy accepted the board and turned it curiously in his hands, inspecting the light green zigzaggy underside and the blue sticker plastered on reading ‘curb carver’ in sharp letters.
When he raised his head again, Ranboo was wordlessly plucking Michael from Mikey’s shell, taking him into their own arms and retreating to the sidelines. Specifically, they moved to sit on the small metal bridge connecting Donnie’s room to the atrium over the moat of water.
Yeah, that was probably one of the safer places to be if they wanted to avoid an accidental skateboard to the head. More stable than the wooden boards and ladder that the other rooms used as makeshift bridges as well.
Tommy set the board on the ground and stepped a cautious foot onto the rough surface. It wobbled strangely under his half applied weight.
Leo tilted his head. “Do you want, like, knee pads or something?” he offered, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards his bedroom.
Tommy hummed shortly, shaking his head. “No thank you. Knee pads are for pussies. I am simply too powerful, the ground will– it will simply repel me if I fall,” he staunchly declared.
“If you say so,” Leo acquiesced, however dubiously, heading over to sit with Ranboo and Michael.
Mikey pushed off the ground and rolled over to Tommy’s side. “Alright, let’s get this party started, baby! First things first is finding your balance…”
—
Skateboarding, Tommy decided the next day, was not his thing.
His feet belonged firmly planted on the ground, not on wobbly boards of death.
The worst part hadn’t even been when he fucked up another attempt at a kickflip and banged up his knee– which was still bruised and achy a day later, by the way.
No no, the worst part had been when he’d accidentally shot himself straight into the stupid moat and wound up smelling like wet dog for the rest of the day.
Being covered head to toe in fur fucking sucked sometimes.
He sighed heavily at the memory, mentally swearing to never ride a skateboard ever again as he fished Leo’s torn hoodie from the pile of clothes he kept on his bed.
At least most of the tearing was along the seam. He’d probably be able to fix it up good as new.
Just as soon as he found himself a needle and thread. Maybe Splinter would have something he could borrow…
Tommy’s ears twitched at the sound of approaching footsteps and… crinkling plastic, maybe?
The footsteps were definitely Leo’s, so Tommy was quick to stash the hoodie away again.
He made himself look busy by pulling the first thing he brushed over in his inventory.
Oh, it was his quirky little noise box! Hell yeah.
While it had originally just been a ploy to look busy, by the time Leo got to his room, Tommy was very legitimately enthralled with pressing the buttons of his fake, colourful gameboy and listening to the audio struggling to keep up with his frequent and repetitive inputs.
A crisp knock on the doorway snapped Tommy out of his unintentional daze, head snapping up to see Leo with a crinkly white package under his arm. “Heads up!” Leo chucked the package at Tommy like he was shooting a basketball at a hoop.
His aim was true, and Tommy was subsequently nailed in the head by a flimsy, yet unexpectedly hefty package before he could think to react.
“Ow,” Tommy complained out of principle even though it hadn’t actually hurt at all.
But he couldn’t deny his curiosity about the package– regardless of how rudely it’d been handed to him. “Why did you do that?” Tommy asked plaintively, even as he put his noise box away and began tearing open the packaging.
“Find out for yourself,” Leo unhelpfully prompted with a gesture to the package in Tommy’s lap.
Pulling apart plastic, Tommy was treated to the sight of more plastic. This plastic, however, was clear and see-through.
Double packaging… This was truly an act of evil.
Beyond all the plastic was a bundle of soft teal fabric.
Tommy shook it free of the packaging and the fabric unfurled into a blanket. He rubbed his fingers against the fabric. The texture was identical to Leo’s Jupiter Jim one.
He lowered the blanket to stare in disbelief at Leo.
Leo waggled a finger at him. “Now I don’t want to see you stealing my blanket again, you hear me? You’ve got your own blanket now.”
A huff of laughter left Tommy’s lungs as he pulled the blanket close to his chest. “Yeah, we’ll see about that one, mate. Sleep with one eye open, I’ll be– I’ll be stealin’ it for the love of the game,” he warned– about ninety percent joking as he said it.
“Okay, let me rephrase that; steal my blanket again, and next time I’m pushing you into the moat myself,” Leo countered, though there was no missing the good-natured amusement colouring his tone.
“Fuck off, you’ll throw me in the moat.” Tommy scoffed, leaning back against the wall.
He pulled his legs up, drawing the blanket around himself and setting his chin on his blanket-covered knees as he looked Leo in the eyes. “Seriously though, um, thank you. I… this is nice. Thank you,” Tommy expressed, the gratitude in his chest filling him with even more warmth than the blanket itself.
Leo waved him off with characteristic nonchalance. “Don’t even mention it, bro. You gotta have something for movie nights.”
Tommy just barely didn’t roll his eyes at Leo’s aloof demeanor. “Oh my days, Leo, just accept the thank you like a normal person, you twat.”
“Wha– oh, come on, that was a totally normal response to have! And besides, I’m not a normal person anyway, I’m a turtle,” Leo attempted to posit.
Tommy scrutinized Leo in silence for a few seconds, before ultimately decreeing it insufficient.
“No.”
The corner of Leo’s mouth twitched, a mix between amusement and annoyance that spelled imminent danger. “Oh ho, ho-kay, that’s it. Get over here, you jerk!” Despite his phrasing, Leo then immediately lunged across the air mattress on the floor to reach Tommy himself.
Tommy shrieked in self defense as Leo caught him in a headlock and started noogieing him. “Leo, you bastard! you’re gonna make my fur get all– all fuckin’ frizzy and horrible!” he complained, trying to flail for freedom and instead finding himself entangled in his new blanket.
He screeched again, louder this time. “A trap!” he accused, “The blanket was a trap!”
Using the only viable strategy left at his disposal, Tommy shifted forms to escape– and then quickly shifted back again once he was free to tackle Leo himself.
For all of about five seconds, Tommy basically had Leo pinned.
But only for five seconds.
Tommy’s face was pushed into the bed while Leo parked his stupid heavy butt on Tommy’s back, undeterred and unmoved by his many fruitless attempts to get up.
Tommy sighed in defeat. “A’righ’f, I yiel’.”
Leo’s weight shifted as he leaned forward. “Sorry, what was that? Can’t hear you,” he teased like the smug little twat he was.
Using his immense willpower, Tommy finagled enough wiggle room to shoot Leo his least impressed glare, channeling as much of Donnie into the expression as he could muster.
Leo laughed, bright and carefree.
He finally let Tommy up. “I think Mikey was making mac and cheese with little Mike. Wanna see if they’ll share?” Leo asked, already hopping off the bed and headed towards the doorway.
“Cheese,” Tommy agreed, ever the eloquent speaker.
He rolled off the bed, onto the air mattress, and then continued rolling until he reached the great floor beyond, at which point he stood up to follow Leo.
With one foot out the door, Tommy glanced back at his room.
It was somehow even messier than it’d been before. There was plastic strewn across his bed and everything that wasn’t an active mess was still pretty bare.
His eyes were drawn to the singular photo from the early days of L’Manberg taped to the wall above his bed.
Maybe his plan to redecorate his bedroom hadn’t quite panned out yet, but…
Tommy’s gaze drifted down towards his new blanket, a cheerful splash of teal amongst the noise. A gift from a friend.
A smile bloomed across Tommy’s face, unbidden and impossible to tamp down on.
Well, maybe this wasn’t the kind of thing he had to rush. Donnie’s chair would have clashed with the vibes of his room anyway.
“Tommy, you coming? I’m gonna eat all the mac and cheese if you stand around in the door all day,” Leo warned, pulling Tommy from his thoughts.
Tommy’s head shot towards Leo, practically stumbling in his haste to follow. “Don’t you dare, you fucking dickhead. I’ll fight you. Round two, motherfucker. This time, I win,” he decided, shaking his fist as a sign of what was to come if Leo dared to cross him.
Chasing Leo down the hall, laughter ringing in the air, Tommy found a now familiar sense of gladness settling into place.
Out of all the places Drista’s portal could have sent him all those months ago, Tommy was really, really happy it’d sent him here.