Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wilbur was doing the laundry, cleaning the blotched red stains out of his shirt when he was rudely interrupted. 

“What are you doing?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin, dropping the shirt, and turned to face the intruder. 

“Jesus fuck, Tommy. Why did you do that?”

“‘Cause it’s funny,” he glanced down into the washbasin, where the shirt lay. “What’s that?”

Wilbur stepped in front of him, “A shirt. Why do you care?”

Tommy narrowed his gaze, attempting to lean around his shoulder to look once more, “It’s obviously something you don’t want me seeing. That’s why.”

Wilbur leaned with him, blocking off all accessibility to his hands, “How about its none of your business?”

Tommy stared at him, an unwavering look in his eyes, “Move.”

“No,” Wilbur returned his stare.

“Wilbur.”

“Tommy.”

They glared at each other for another moment before Tommy acted, slipping underneath his outstretched arm and pushing him away. He reached into the sink, pulling out the soaked piece of cloth and staring at it. Wilbur fumbled to grab it out of his hands, Tommy holding it out and away from both of them.

“Give me the fucking shirt!”

Tommy stretched further away from Wilbur’s arm, hand pushing into his chest.

“It has bl-”

Wilbur acted quickly to press a palm over his mouth.

“Shut. Up.”

A look of understanding washed through his face. His arm drooped down to his side, still barely out of Wilbur’s reach. 

“Is that what it is? Is it from a-”

Wilbur dropped his voice, speaking in a quiet murmur, “Yes. Now do you want to wash the shirt or do you want to hand it over?”

Tommy stared at him blankly before surrendering the shirt to him.

“That’ll be five dollars.”

Wilbur looked at him incredulously, “To keep a secret? No deal.”

“Oh, please. I know you can spare it.”

“Just because I have it doesn’t mean I’ll give it to you.”

Tommy glanced behind him, through the doorway, back where the rest of the family was. He opened his mouth, “ PHIL!”

Panic seeped through his chest, Tommy giving him a wicked grin as he turned back around.

“You motherfucker. I’ll kill you.”

“And I’ll snitch. Make up your mind.”

The rush of footsteps was heard approaching them. 

Wilbur rolled his eyes to the back of his head before handing him a five-dollar bill from his pocket. Tommy quickly snatched it and put it in his pocket, leaving the laundry room.

“Nice doing business with you.”

Distantly, Phil could be heard, “What is it, Tommy? You called?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Tommy bluffed, “I was gonna ask if you got the mail yet, but I saw it on the table.”

Wilbur scoffed, turned back towards the sink to grab the detergent, tossing the shirt into the washer with the others. 

“There a reason you’re so interested in the mail all of a sudden, mate?”

“Not really. Just got curious.”

He pressed a few buttons on the washing machine, it making a small chime of recognition before whirring loudly. He roughly elbowed Tommy as he walked out of the room, heading towards the door. 

“Wil!” Phil scolded, “Why did you do that?”

Wilbur swung around the door, “Because he’s a fucking pest. I hate him.”

Phil put a hand on the counter, “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back in an hour. I have errands.”

The door slammed closed. 

_____

Wilbur squinted upwards at the bright neon sign that towered above him as its lightbulbs flickered on and off. Their warm orange glow spread over his face as he walked through the sand that covered the area.

A large casino appeared in his view, along with scattered restaurants and pools along the sides, but his business was not with them. He had plans with the man who owned it all. 

His footsteps echoed on the concrete as he approached the elevator that would take him to the top of the giant spike, where the meeting would be held. 

It didn’t take long before a booming voice called out to him as he stuck a single leg out onto the floor.

“Wilbur! Glad to see you again.”

Wilbur nodded silently. 

“Let’s get down to business immediately. There’s someone I want disposed of.”

“I’d sure hope so. I don’t think I was called here for a tea party,” Wilbur remarked, leaning against the quartz wall.

The man laughed drily, adjusting the tie on his suit. His smile faded quickly, gold tooth receding into his mouth. In the dim light, Wilbur could easily make out the pale scar that ran down his face. 

“I want you to kill a man by the name of  ‘Sam Nook’.”

Wilbur blinked, almost checking to see if he was serious.

“You mean- the prison officer?”

Quackity raised an amused eyebrow, “So you know him?”

Wilbur felt a frown tugging at his lips, “Yes. He was one of the officers I encountered while in prison.”

Quackity smiled once more, a sinister grin that Wilbur did not like the looks of.

“Well, that’s just fantastic, isn’t it? I get my man, you get your money and the payback.”

“...Yeah. Something like that,” Wilbur muttered, his heart sinking in his stomach as it overflowed with dread.

Quackity stared at him.

“Something wrong? You seem hesitant.”

Wilbur turned his gaze towards the wall across from him, avoiding eye contact.

“He was one of the better ones, I suppose. Didn’t act like a complete asshole.”

Quackity narrowed his eyes at Wilbur, “I suppose your dear Sam is only nice to prisoners, then.”

Wilbur turned his head towards Quackity, who was failing at hiding a seething glare, “What do you mean?”

“He came to my city. On my land. And was friends with me, if you could call it that. He tricked me,” Quackity gritted his teeth, hands curling into fists. “The betrayer. Left me behind. He’s caused so much damage to this place and if my secrets start getting out to the public-”

He sighed, taking a deep breath.

“It’s better if he’s dead.”

“I…” Wilbur’s words trailed off, unsure of what to say.

“Any details? What do you want to be done?”

The businessman smiled, knowing he’d won. “I’m glad you asked.”

~

Wilbur had met Quackity through illegal means. Obviously. 

They were both criminals. They were destined to run into each other at some point. 

Quackity had so many odd jobs that it took weeks for Wilbur to even discover what he did. He was a lawyer, a businessman, a mayor, a casino worker, sometimes even a weapon dealer. 

They’d met one cold night during the winter.

“You got business in this alley?”

Wilbur turned towards the sound of the raspy voice he heard in the pitch black of the night, “Do you?”

“Depends,” the voice approached him, and Wilbur felt the cool blade of a knife pressed against his throat. “You gonna do something about it?”

Wilbur closed his eyes, leaning further into the stone wall, the knife traveling with him. “I wouldn’t suggest killing me, man. I’m just here for a gun, not a fight.”

The knife was lowered, and Wilbur felt the indent of the blade still on his neck.

“You’re the one that wanted it?”

“Depends,” Wilbur repeated, mocking him, “You’re not gonna kill me, are you? Because if you are, then I won’t be taking the gun.”

The man scoffed, the moonlight finally washing over his face to reveal a part of it to Wilbur. “I don’t kill people myself. Don’t like getting my hands dirty.”

Wilbur raised an eyebrow, “If you don’t mind me asking, who does it?”

A pause. “You’re a brave soul, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think a weak soul would be looking for trouble with a gun in an alley at night.”

A moment of silence passed through them once more.

“Hitmen, usually. You looking for a job?”

Wilbur put a hand to his chin, “Maybe. How much do you pay?”

“Depends on the person. My lowest price will probably be at 3000 dollars.”

“Tempting. You got a name and a number?”

“Quackity. I got a business card and your gun on me.”

Wilbur took the card and gun from his cold hands, passing over the money in a quiet exchange.

“Pleasure doing business with you, Quackity.”

The man hummed in response, “You got a name and a number then?”

Wilbur took a pen out of his pocket.

“You got paper?”

A small crinkled receipt was passed over to him. With a few scratches, Wilbur handed it back over, slipping the pen back into his coat pocket, along with the gun and card.

“See you soon,” the man’s eyes glanced down to read what Wilbur’d written, “Wilbur.”

Chapter Text

The door closed an hour and 45 minutes later. 

“Nice for you to finally join us, Wilbur,” Phil greeted sarcastically as he placed a bowl of green beans down at the table. 

Wilbur shrugged as he hung his coat on the hook, “Errands took longer than I expected.”

Techno leaned back in his chair, “What errands, if you don’t mind me asking, could have possibly taken so long? Especially with you returning empty-handed.”

Wilbur turned to glare at him, “None of your damn business.”

“Wil-” Phil started to scold, but was interrupted by Techno.

“I beg your pardon? I think it is my damn business. You were gone for nearly two hours, the only explanation being ‘errands’.”

“Techno-” Phil tried again.

“You think it’s your damn business just because I held off dinner? I’m so sorry, Techno. Sorry to spoil your meal, now that it’s 5 degrees less warm,” Wilbur snapped at him.

“ Boys-”

“No, no. I just think it is my fucking business because you disappeared without a trace, just like you always do now. I would like to know where you’re going. All I know right now is that it’s a secret, which probably means it’s something illegal-”

“Oh my god-” Wilbur groaned, “Am I not allowed to have privacy? Everything has to be a show and tell to you all apparently.”

“I don’t care what you do as long as you tell me that you’re not going out every day to kill someone!” Techno protested, leaning forward in his chair and gripping onto the armrest of his chair.

“I might as well start killing again if that’s what you think of me!”

“How do I know you’re not already? What was your business with that guy at the court when he pulled you away to ‘speak in private’?” Techno shouted, air quoting with his fingers. “Surely something legal, right?”

“It was for a job opportunity!”

“For what?! Selling drugs? Being a hitman?”

“ BOYS!”

They both fell silent, an eerie silence taking over their voices. Their gazes burned into each other’s eyes, daring the other to look away first. 

Wilbur looked away. 

“I’m going upstairs. Eat without me. I’ve got to go plan out my next way to commit murder, according to Technoblade.”

He ran off, distantly hearing Tommy say something along the lines of “ now look what you did. He won’t be eating for a week now.”

_____

“ Wilbur, I brought you… uh… a banana.”

Wilbur scoffed, tossing the business card he was looking over back into his dresser drawer.

“I don’t want it. If you’re here to be the peacemaker, it’s not going to work.”

Despite Wilbur’s protests, the door opened, and Tommy appeared in the doorway, holding a banana (as promised) with brown specks on it. 

“I thought the banana would work, honestly,” Tommy remarked sarcastically.

“Haha, very funny,” Wilbur closed the door as Tommy stepped further into the room. “What do you actually want?”

“Well, a couple of things. First, Techno said he was sorry.”

“Bullshit.”

“He is, ” Tommy insisted, “He was just worried. He and Phil both are.”

“Did you tell them anything?”

“No.”

Wilbur exhaled heavily. 

“I just said I’d go up to check on you.”

“Anything else you wanted?”

“Yeah, actually. I was supposed to ‘ask you nicely where you got a job’.”

Wilbur stared at him like he’d grown an arm.

“Don’t look at me like that. That’s just what Phil asked me to do.”

“Next question.”

“What’d you actually do while you were out?”

“Next question.”

Tommy rolled his eyes, “You've already used your skip. Answer me.”

“No.”

“If you don’t I’ll spill the beans and actually tell them what’s up.”

Wilbur sat down on the edge of his bed.

“I went to go talk with Quackity.”

“Is he the one you’re usually hired by?”

“Most of the time, yeah.”

Tommy flopped down next to him on his back, “The one from the courthouse?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, alright. Continue.”

Wilbur bit his lip as he relived the events that went through his mind. 

“He wanted me to kill Sam. That one police officer from the prison-”

“The one that got you chips?” Tommy interrupted.

“Uh-huh. The good one.”

“And did you agree?”

Wilbur hesitated around the word. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. 

Tommy sat up, head tilting to look at him. Wilbur continued to avoid eye contact, staring at the floor.

“Well? Did you?”

“I…”

“ Wil . Did you agree to it or not?”

“Yes! Okay?! He might’ve killed me if I said no!”

Tommy grabbed his shoulders, turning him towards him, “I’m sorry, he would’ve killed you if you said no?!”

Wilbur shoved his hands away, “Maybe! I don’t know!”

“This is dangerous, Wil. Maybe you should stop-”

“Tommy, I need you to listen to me,” Wilbur commanded. “The world of crime is so much worse than what you were exposed to. There are people out there that will not care so much if they kill some random kid in an alley, whether he’s a threat or not. They’re selfish. They want money. They want power. And they want blood. If they don’t get what they want, they will do whatever it takes to get it.”

Tommy’s eyes widened as he spoke, Wilbur carefully rested a hand on his arm.

“I knew what I was getting into. I know the consequences. These people are vicious. I’m easily replaceable. Just leave the problems to me, okay? Some things just need to be sacrificed for the power I have right now.”

“Even people..?” Tommy muttered softly, staring at Wilbur’s collar. There was a scar there that he hadn’t noticed before, thinly running across his neck. Almost as if someone had held a knife there and tried to cut it open.

“Even people. Sam isn’t my friend. Quackity gets what he wants, unfortunately. That’s how the world is. The rich just get richer.”

“That’s not fair,” Tommy hissed angrily, his eyes appearing glassy. “ It’s not fair. ”

“I know, Toms, I know,” Wilbur soothed, pressing a hand to his back as Tommy leaned forward on his chest.

“Why can’t you just quit? Why do you have to-” Tommy’s words were cut off as he choked on a sob.

“It’s not that easy. I’m elbow-deep in it now. No going back.”

“ Wilbur-” he urged, “ Please.”

His pleas were met by silence, engulfed by his quiet sobs. 

A knock was heard at the door. Tommy didn’t even bother to look up.

“Come in,” Wilbur said softly.

The door creaked open, being greeted by a frowning Techno.

“Phil heard yelling, then quiet. What did you two-” he looked down at the sobbing Tommy on his chest. “Oh.”

“He’s alright. Just… overwhelmed. Tubbo’s been out of town with Ranboo and Niki for a week,” he lied through his teeth.

Techno nodded, “It feels like forever, doesn’t it? Wish that we could’ve had a vacation too if it weren’t for the office in desperate need of the only two major detectives there.”

Wilbur sighed, rubbing a hand up and down his back, Tommy’s stifled cries growing smaller.

Techno looked him up and down, “I really do apologize, you know. I’m just worried for you. I know that the stuff you were involved in is dangerous and the thought of us losing you is-” he paused, “Scary.”

Tommy exhaled shakily, his back rapidly moving up and down with each breath. A growing spot of wet tears was felt on Wilbur’s shirt.

“I get that. I’m sorry for acting that way. I didn’t mean to… talk down to you? If you know what I’m trying to say,” Wilbur tried subtly raising his voice to cover up Tommy. 

“Mhm. I know.”

They both stared at Tommy, one remorseful, one guilt-ridden. 

“I’ll go get Phil and tell him to make some of his hot tea.”

“That’s a good idea.”

The door clicked closed softly as feet padded down the stairs, and muffled voices filled the kitchen. 

“Even- Techno knows,” Tommy tried saying through his tears, “He’s- right. You’re acting stupid- and- if we- we can’t lose you.”

“Shh,” Wilbur hushed. “Don’t worry about that right now.”

_____

Hot tea so lved most problems, but not all of them.

Usually, it worked at dis solving any worries. Any anxiety, or anger that was built up in someone’s chest, mangled and twisted into knots.

But not for Tommy.

He just couldn’t shove down that last bit of anxiety that lingered in his stomach. He and Wilbur could keep a secret, but how long would it last?

Would Techno and Phil find out before something bad happened? Before-

Wilbur died with the secret?

He pressed the cup to his lips once more, the salt of his tears mixing with the sweet honey stirred into the liquid. 

It hurt to see Wilbur so nonchalant. As if his life was some match, carelessly tossed away when its light flickered out. 

He wasn’t a match. He couldn’t be. 

Tommy was going to do everything in his power to keep him alive.

Chapter Text

Tommy traced along the edges of buildings, footsteps perfectly in time with Wilbur's so as to not arouse suspicion. He will admit, after a few years of not being involved in the crime business, he was a little rusty.

He wasn’t able to keep up as quickly as he could when he was younger. Maybe he was just getting old.

(Though Wilbur was older, so that didn’t make much sense.)

Some birds could be heard around the buildings, squawking very loudly, almost mocking him. Tommy hesitated for a few steps before continuing when he saw Wilbur turn a corner.
Tommy knew that Wilbur had turned into an alleyway. 

“Wilbur.”

“Dream.”

Tommy paused once more. He tiptoed behind a few trash cans and hid, intently listening the best he could to the conversation. He could hear the shuffling of bills.

“He’ll never be heard from again.”

“Appreciate it. Here’s your money.”

Some more shuffling.

“You two! What the hell do you think you’re doing back here?”

A scoff, “Like I care, Sapnap. What are you gonna do about it?”

Tommy heard the scraping of metal and even more shuffling.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? It’s a damn knife.”

“A knife that’ll be impaled into you in a few moments if you don’t get out of here.”

“Tough shot. No.”

A cry of anger, and there was a lot of noise being made. It even seemed to silence the birds. Footsteps rapidly brushed against the pavement, and Tommy could barely make out the skin-on-skin combat. 

“I told you to leave!”

“Put the knife down- put the goddamn knife down!”

Though it could barely be heard, Tommy knew it had happened. The rushing of blood. A clean slice into the skin, Tommy only assuming it was a result of the knife. He hesitated upon moving, only deciding to start crawling out of the area when hearing a muffled cry of pain.

“You bitch!”

Tommy tried sneaking out from behind the trash cans. A loud clanging of a metal lid startled his adrenaline instantly, and he panicked. He was met face-to-face with three people, only one of which he knew. 

One wore a dark green hoodie paired with a black face mask. The other wore a black jacket and baseball cap.

And then there was Wilbur. 

Despite the long trench coat, it was easy for Tommy to see the dark red puddle that was forming around his left leg. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, kid?”

They were looking at him with varying states of shock. 

“How in the hell did he-?”

Tommy swallowed sharply, slyly inching his way around the corner.

Tommy?  Wilbur quickly signed. He was pretty good at keeping straight faces, but right now Tommy knew he was in shock and very panicked. Especially because that’s exactly how his face read. 

Tommy just stared at them all blankly. What could he say to ease the situation?

“Well. This is quite awkward, isn’t it?”

The two new ones exchanged glances. The one in the hat pointed to him.

“Get him.”

“Run, Tommy!”

Tommy’s legs startled in an instant, sprinting down the sidewalk as fast as he possibly could. He heard the pounding on the concrete behind him, not daring to turn around and look at how close they were.

His breaths grew quicker and heavier, and he was tempted to text Techno and thank him for all the times he’d spent sprinting on a treadmill for 30 minutes. 

Tommy felt his body start giving out though. And he was beginning to slow down. He couldn’t keep running. He had to stop. He had to breathe.

A figure suddenly caught up and kept pace with him, taking a sharp turn to the left and heading directly towards a roof. They grabbed the corner of it and heaved themselves up, a hand dangling down towards Tommy to help pull him up.

“ Get him!”

Tommy used his last burst of energy and grabbed onto their hand, pushing himself up onto the roof. He ran behind them as fast as he could until they reached a stopping point underneath a balcony. 

They flopped down, grabbing their left leg and pulling it to their chest. 

“Tommy, I hate you so fucking much.”

Tommy just stared at him. He was at a loss for words.

He put an arm over his mouth to muffle a groan of pain, screams eating into his sleeve. 

“First, did you not learn anything from the ‘crime is dangerous’ talk from yesterday?”

Tommy frowned, “No. Because I wasn’t planning on hoping for the best every time you left the house. And stuff like this happens,” he gestured to his leg. 

He gripped his leg tighter against him, wincing whenever it moved as he took off his coat. 

“And second, did you follow me?”

Tommy nodded slowly. 

They rolled their eyes, but the attitude quickly vanished as they tenderly wrapped the coat around their leg, screaming into their arm again. 

“ Fuck- that hurts.”

Tommy leaned towards the leg, where red still seeped out of the open wound.

“Is that where I heard the knife hit?”

He nodded weakly, tugging the leg closer to him.

“You didn’t have to run on it,” Tommy muttered softly. “You made it worse.”

“I did,” he protested. “I would rather die protecting your life than have to witness you die at the hands of those guys. Then mean business. They only gave up on killing you because they got bored.”

“What would Niki think?”

“She would think, ‘wow, Wilbur’s a bit of an idiot, isn’t he?’”

Tommy smiled grimly, “Something like that.”

Another cry of pain. The puddle of blood underneath him grew. 

“You’re still losing blood.”

“I know-” he winced. 

It was almost like watching the life drain out of him. Tommy was starting to panic.

“I need to tell someone-” he pulled out his phone.

“No! Don’t!”

Tommy threw his hands up in dismay, “I’d rather snitch on you to Phil and Techno than watch you bleed out on the rooftop, thank you very much!”

He laid backward, muffling his screams once more. 

“ Please , Tommy-” his voice seemed to grow weaker within only a few seconds. 

“I’m calling 911. Fuck this.”

The phone rang once and Tommy was immediately greeted by a voice on the other line before any protests could be made. 

Not like there could be any anyway. Wilbur was unconscious. 

_____

Tommy was a fucking idiot.

He knew that really well.

And each day, as he made more and more decisions, he was only proving that point.

This was especially one of those times.

He had no idea how he thought he’d be able to hide an entire hospital visit from the other family members at his house. There were so many things that would rat him out.
And yet-

Here he was. 

Ever since Niki, Tubbo, and Ranboo got back home, he’d been hiding out at their house. He called Phil to quickly tell him that he’d planned on staying over there with Wilbur for a week or so.
Despite the many questions, (especially the one about where they had both disappeared to all of a sudden) Tommy had managed to cover it up.

Sort of. 

“Are you fucking crazy?!”

Tommy just stared at Tubbo. 

“What happens if Phil and Techno find out we’re all in on this stupid jig?! All just to hide the fact that Wilbur’s a criminal? Why does it matter?! ” Tubbo protested, burying his face in his hands.

Ranboo had that same questioning look on his face. His mouth curved downwards into a large frown, “Doesn’t this seem to be a little much? Getting us all in on this plan of yours that will most definitely go down in flames? How easy would it be for Phil to come over here and realize that Wilbur is not here?”

Tommy sighed, “I know okay? I know this is stupid. But he’s trusted me with this secret and I’m not going to spill the beans because of this one stupid occasion that was partly my fault. It’s the least I can do.”

Niki just sat there on the couch, listening. Contemplating.

Tubbo turned to Niki, defeated, “Niki? Opinions?”

She looked unimpressed. And disappointed. 

“As the oldest person in this house, I’d just like to say that this is a very dumb idea,” she muttered. “It’s not that easy to hide an entire injury plus hospital visit.”

“Niki, please,” he begged. “How is this any different from when you hid what Wilbur did for however long you’ve known each other?”

Distant memories flashed through her eyes. A coffee shop. An old gray sheet. Pinkie promises. 

“Tommy-”

“Please, Niki. Please.”

After a moment, she sighed, finally caving.

“Fine, fine. But if you get caught doing this, do not pin it on any of us. Got it?”

Tommy nodded vigorously. 

“Understood.”

_____

Pain seared up his leg.

He’d never been treated by anyone other than Niki. Even though he definitely had the finances to do so now, it felt strange.

Wilbur didn’t want some random doctors all up in his business. 

It didn’t help much that he had no clue where any of his family or friends were. Passing out doesn’t leave much wiggle room with memories. It was all a blur. 

Wilbur was about to turn on the hospital TV out of boredom before his cell phone rang. His heart skipped a beat, and he didn’t hesitate to quickly grab it off the white table next to him. 

He took one look at the caller ID and had a finger over the red button. 

But something in him caused him to shift his finger over to the right and answer the phone. The deafening ring silenced and was replaced with a low voice. 

“What the hell happened?”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, though no one was there to see it, “One of the fucking goons from another guy that hired me stabbed me in the fucking leg. I do believe you both know each other.”

The voice on the other line hesitated, “ Sapnap? ”

“No, actually, it was my mom. Yes, Sapnap!”

“ Oh ,” the voice was less bold and more sorrowful, “ You know, I have no control over what my allies plan on doing. ”

“I’d be nice if next time you told them there wasn’t a need to stab me in the fucking leg,” Wilbur scowled over the phone line. “Just a suggestion.”

“ I’m sorry, Wilbur, I really am. ”

“And I’ll accept that apology when you pay my fucking hospital bills. Kiss my ass, Quackity.”

“ Listen,” a loud sigh was heard from the other end, “ I’ll pay 60 percent of it and have a talk with him. Are you happy now?”

Wilbur thought about it for a second, “75%.”

“ 65%.”

“70%.”

“Deal.”

“I’ll talk to you later, I have my own problems to deal with now.”

“ As do I. Make sure you’re still working on my mission when you’re free to walk. Can you check in at my office in two days?”

“I’ll try.”

“ ‘Try’ to make that a yes. That’d be great.”

“Uh-huh,” Wilbur muttered sarcastically, hanging up the phone before another word could be uttered between the two. 

He placed his phone in his pocket and slid off the bed, half-limping towards the door and out of the building. Wilbur was not going to be bedridden for multiple weeks at a time. 

Fuck that. 

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to keep being the hero, you know?” Tubbo tried informing him as he set a glass of water down in front of Wilbur. “There are times when you can just… step back.”

Wilbur pushed the cup away from him, “No, there isn’t. It’s do or die in this world, and I’d rather you see me live to the end of this.”

“For God’s sake, why do you have to be so stubborn?” Niki retorted, eyeing the cup in disapproval. “Just listen to Tubbo and sit down for a bit. Have some coffee. Pick up a hobby.”

“Like what?” Wilbur snorted, “Crochet?”

“You still have that guitar around, don’t you?” Ranboo chimed in. 

Wilbur put a finger to his lips in desperation, “No. We don’t speak of that.”

“Why? Are you bad?” Tubbo followed up immediately, leaning closer to him. 

“Yep.”

Tommy scoffed, “He’s a fucking liar.”

As Wilbur sharply turned around to cover his mouth with a hand, Tommy hurried away and continued talking, “He’s really good at it, but he’s too embarrassed to tell anyone.”

Wilbur frowned, leaning further down into his chair, “I am not. I just don’t want you invading my personal life,” he pointed a finger at Tommy, “Speaking of which, stay out of my personal life.”

“I never-”

A loud ringing cut them all off. 

Wilbur glanced at the table, where his phone lay, face up. On the screen, he could make out the name in bare, white letters. 

He scrambled to pick it up, holding it close to his ear. 

“Yes?”

“ Are you out of the hospital?”

“I’ve been out.”

The others all stared at him in confused silence, all of them secretly trying to listen to the voice on the other end. 

“ Are you good at meeting me in my office today?”

“You said in two days.”

“ And that was two days ago, Wilbur.”

Wilbur leaned backward to glance at a calendar on the wall behind Tubbo’s head. In this motion, he also managed to catch a seething glare being shot in his direction. 

“So it was. I suppose, yeah.”

“ Great. I do want to add one request, can you bring the kid you had with you at the time?”

The room was already dead silent, but it seemed to grow even quieter after the sentence.

Wilbur frowned, “You mean-?”

“ Yes.”

“Why?”

“ Because I said so. Is this going to be an issue, Wilbur? Or are you going to bring the kid?”

“Are you going to harm him?”

“ Not as far as I’m aware. Is there a reason I need to harm him?”

“No-”

“ Then no. I’ll see you soon.”

The phone buzzed loudly into his ear, the call having ended. Wilbur just stared at his phone in disbelief. He didn’t even bother looking up, where Tubbo and Ranboo had surrounded Tommy like bodyguards.

“Tommy-” Wilbur started in defeat. 

“Oh, no you don’t,” Tubbo interrupted immediately. “You are not going to just take Tommy down to go meet some mafia boss for funzies, especially after your very recent hospital visit.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a fucking stupid idea,” Niki chimed in, having been silent the entire time. 

Wilbur buried his face in his hands.

“Would you rather have Phil or Quackity kill me? Because I’m dead either way. Pick your poison.”

“None of the above,” she protested, crossing her arms. 

“That’s not how this works. Either I go and take Tommy or I don’t and get killed. Which would you prefer?”

“You’re putting lives at risk either way.”

“And either way I’d still sacrifice my life for his. You think I sprinted half a mile and climbed a rooftop with a bleeding leg for fun?”

“Niki-” a quiet voice interrupted. “Just let me go. Please. It’s the least I can do.”

“Tommy, you don’t have to repay him-” Ranboo tried reasoning.

Tommy put up a hand to stop him and was already at the door.

“Are we going or what?”

Wilbur stared at Niki, then at him, then at the door. He quietly stood up and half-limped to where he was standing. 

“We’re going.”

_____

“I’m going to murder this Quackity guy myself if he doesn’t learn to back off,” Tommy muttered quietly as they walked towards Las Nevadas.

Wilbur sighed, “You can’t. He’s too powerful.”

“Says who? We’re all illegal here. Is the law going to stop me?”

“Actually, yes. He is a lawyer.”

Tommy rolled his eyes, kicking a rock on the pavement off to the side, “That’s bullshit.”

Wilbur paused on the walkway before stepping any closer to the city, putting a hand on Tommy’s shoulder. 

“I want you to listen to me, okay? Don’t wander off, stay right next to me, don’t talk unless you absolutely have to, and if there’s an emergency just sign it to me. Alright?”

Tommy seemed bored, but it looked as if he was hiding from his fear with boredom. 

“Okay.”

_____

 Red and brass blended together as the borders of the hallways like sugar mixing with water. It was almost like walking into a castle, if the uneven clacking of their footsteps weren’t so distracting. 

And at the end of the hallway was a large wooden door that read in bold letters, “ STAFF ONLY”.

Wilbur knocked twice, a muttered greeting emerging from the other side. He pushed open the door, fingers light on the gold handle, and stepped inside, Tommy right behind him. 

“Wilbur! I thought I was going to have to send someone out to personally escort you here if you hadn’t arrived by then,” Quackity opened joyfully, a beaming smile on his face, revealing a gold tooth.

Wilbur stayed silent. 

“I wanted to call you in for updates on a few things. One, Sapnap did say he was going to lay off, since at the moment we are partners-”

Tommy flinched. 

Partners.

“-and we’ve lost track of Sam.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s vanished. Like off the earth. No trace of him anywhere. Like he knew I was coming for him.”

“Fuck.”

Quackity leaned back in his chair, hands tucked behind his head as he chewed on the end of a toothpick. He made lingering eye contact with Tommy as he spoke, “So we’re putting a hold on that for now. I do have something else to settle with you.”

Wilbur was leaning on one foot, the other tucked behind him as he leaned against the wall, “Which is?”

“Your- kid. Whatever relation he is to you.”

“Brother.”

Quackity’s eyes seemed to light up at the comment. He pushed off his chair to stand up and leaned over his desk, hands planted firmly on it.

“Is that so?”

Tommy shuffled a little closer to Wilbur, trying to press himself into the wall. 

“I had a brother once. Killed him though. Should’ve kept his mouth shut.”

Wilbur stared at him blankly, knitting his eyebrows together, “And I killed my parents. What’s your deal, Quackity? What do you want him for?”

He ignored the questions, turning to Tommy, “And you know Wilbur’s a criminal?”

Tommy could barely suppress an eye roll, “Duh.”

Quackity’s lips started to form a small frown but immediately shot back up.

“And are you a criminal yourself?”

“A retired one, yes.”

Quackity glanced back and forth between them rapidly, landing on Tommy. 

“Come out of retirement. I want you working for me, kid. You can be a spy or an agent, or just keep track of the money. Anything you’d like.”

Wilbur took a few steps towards his desk, “Are you fucking delusional? Do you really think I’d let my little brother work for you? ”

Quackity sat back down, knitting his fingers together and resting his chin on top of them, “You work for me. What’s the difference?”

“One, he isn’t even a legal adult-”

“I’ll be 18 in four months!”

“ Shut up ,” Wilbur hissed. “Two, I know how you are. If I barely managed to get out of a situation with a hospital bill, which you still need to pay for by the way, then how do I know he’s going to be safe?”

“I’ll watch over him,” Quackity responded simply, “He’ll be like my own little brother in a way.”

Saying Wilbur looked disgusted wouldn’t even portray half of what his face showed. 

“I- no. ”

“Why not let the kid speak for himself, eh?” Quackity suggested, waving a hand towards Tommy. “What do you want?”

Tommy felt his mouth become as dry as cotton and sealed shut, only his eyes moving back and forth between the two. 

“Tommy-”

Quackity pulled out a gun from his desk drawer within the blink of an eye, aiming it at Wilbur, “Shut your mouth before I shoot you. Let him speak.”

This did not help Tommy with making a decision at all. In fact, it just made him more fearful. 

“I- don’t know. I’m not sure-”

Quackity stared into the depths of his soul, “I suggest you really think about this before making your decision, Tommy. Think of the money. ”

The money?

Truth be told, Tommy couldn’t give less of a shit about money. He was well aware that Wilbur was doing the dirty work for him of his own personal choice. They didn’t need that much extra money in the house. 

“No. I’m good.”

“What would make you change your mind?” Quackity responded almost instantly.

“Nothing,” Tommy declared flatly. “I don’t want the job.”

Quackity raised an eyebrow, and within a split second, pressed a finger down on the trigger to the gun, firing it directly at Wilbur’s head.

Tommy couldn’t even shout or protest before a loud bang rang through the room. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a figure drop to the ground. 

Tommy’s mind immediately shifted into a mindset he hadn’t thought about in a while. The knife hidden in his back pocket was removed immediately, and he vaulted over the desk. Quackity was pinned against the wall, knife pressed against his throat. He kicked the gun out of his hands and watched as blood slowly started forming around the edge of the blade. 

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t kill you right now,” Tommy snapped, digging the knife deeper against him.

Quackity held him his now empty hands in surrender, voice raspy, “Because your brother isn’t dead. I didn’t actually shoot him.”

Tommy only pressed further, “Nice try, dickhead. I’m not falling for that.”

“He isn’t,” Quackity insisted hoarsely, struggling to talk through the blood that was spilling from his neck, “It was a blank.”

Tommy paused, then released him from the blade of the knife. He slashed Quackity’s forearm as he pulled it away to further distract him, in case he was lying. He crumpled from the wall and slid down, hand pressed to his throat. 

Tommy saw Wilbur, in fact, on the ground. However, there was no blood. He was just calmly sitting there.

“Why are you on the ground if he shot a blank?” Tommy asked, confused.

He shrugged, “I forgot I was down a leg when I tried ducking. It’s not that easy to duck and stand back up on one leg, you know.”

Tommy rolled his eyes and helped him up, staring at Quackity in blatant anger. 

Quackity stood up shakily, “You got a good one, there,” he croaked out, finger pointed at Tommy. “Quick on his feet. Didn’t hesitant. Smart. I like him.”

“Yeah? Well, sorry, you don’t get to have him,” Wilbur retorted, brushing off his pants. 

Quackity ignored him, “Who taught you, kid?”

Tommy blinked, then glanced over at Wilbur.

A flash of energy burst through Quackity, “ Wilbur taught you?!”

“I never said-”

“That’s wonderful! Everything I’m looking for!”

“Listen-”

“You fit the job perfectly. I like how you act, kid. Why’d you ever retire?”

Wilbur stepped in front of him, blocking his and Quackity’s view of each other, “Because he’s 17 and still a legal teenager. He’s not working for you. End of story.”

“Who said it was your decision? He can talk on his own accord.”

Tommy blinked.

“I don’t want the job.”

He tugged on Wilbur’s arm, signing, Can we please leave?

Wilbur frowned.

Yes. Give me a moment.

“Quackity, I respect you, but Tommy had already said no. Is there anything else you need before we leave?”

A long pause, and a small huff, “No. I suppose not,” Quackity stepped to the side, looking at Tommy, “If you change your mind, tell me. I’d love to have you on my team.”

Tommy nodded slowly, and already had a hand wrapped around the door before quickly exiting, Wilbur immediately following. 

When he heard the lock click shut, Tommy exhaled loudly and leaned against the wall, the cool marble on his forehead. Wilbur hesitated next to him for a few seconds before quieting asking, “Did you at least clean the blood off the blade before you put it back in your pocket?”

Tommy leaned further against the wall, sighing, “No.”

Wilbur tsk-tsked at him, hand out in the air, waiting for the knife to be given to him. Tommy handed it to him with little hesitation, hoping the cool stone would just absorb him and he could disappear.

Wilbur handed back the knife to him with a lighthearted noise of disappointment, “No matter how highly Quackity speaks of you, there’s always some little thing that you forget about.”

Tommy finally turned to him, frustration plain on his face, “You’re the one that got me into this! Don’t start acting like it’s my fault he wanted to ‘recruit’ me!”

“I wasn’t- ”

“Then why are you acting so passive-aggressive about this?! I might as well accept his offer-”

“No!”

Tommy threw his hands up in the air, “See?! This is exactly what I’m talking about! Make up your mind. Do you want me to be a criminal or not?”

“I don’t know, Tommy. I just know I don’t want you working for him.”

“Then why do you work with him?!”

“Reasons!”

“Like what?!”

Wilbur pressed his fingers to his temples, speed walking down the hallway to the doors, “Just… because!”

Tommy quickly raced behind him, “Which are?! You don’t have to keep everything a secret! You’re not some street kid that has to protect his identity from every stranger he sees! You-” he paused, huffing out an angry breath, “You have a family for fuck’s sake!”

“We have history, Tommy! That’s it! Is that what you wanted to hear?!”

The doors to the exit burst open, the warm sunlight hitting their faces in a sudden change of atmosphere. 

“Care to explain further?! Or do I not get to know that too?!”

“The orphanage! Okay?!”

Wilbur stopped in his tracks, flopping down onto the pavement. He pulled his leg close to his chest. He swore under his breath as he checked the gauze that had been wrapped around it. 

Tommy stopped as well, staring down at him.

“The… orphanage?”

_____

Wilbur stared at Quackity in confusion. 

“Basketfield’s Children’s Home and Care Center? You know that place?”

Quackity scoffed, shuffling a few papers into a neat stack on his desk. He looked up at Wilbur with furrowed eyebrows, “Duh. I was an orphan there.”

“And you know Debra?”

“Miss Debra?” Quackity questioned, as Wilbur nodded in response. “Jesus, yeah. I was one of her favorites.”

“Must be nice,” Wilbur muttered, “She hated me.”

“She didn’t hate people for no reason,” Quackity said flatly, “What’d you do?”

“I wasn’t a ‘registered’ kid. I was just there because my parents left me on my own and were ‘planning’ on coming back.”

“Did they?”

“No.”

“Well, then, there you go. She just didn’t want to do extra work over a kid that wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Wilbur remained silent in response. 

“Did you know the one loser kid that escaped on his own after fucking up me and one of my friends?”

“...maybe.”

“He was crazy. Literally punched me to the ground and cut my face open on a stray nail that was on the floor,” Quackity complained, “That’s where this scar came from.”

He gestured to the one that ran vertically down his face, from his forehead to his chin. 

Wilbur didn’t say a word. 

“Did you know that kid? He was a severe loner and like nobody liked him. It was pretty funny.”

“...yeah. I did.”

Quackity leaned back in his chair, “He was weird. Were you friends with him or something? If you were both loners-”

Wilbur shook his head, “Not friends. I was him.”

Quackity nearly fell out of his chair. 

“No- really?”

Wilbur nodded his head quietly.

“So you were the fucker that gave me this scar?!”

“It would seem that way.”

An angry grunt, “Okay, then, Wilbur. You wanted to be a hitman, you’re going to work for me. Got it?”

“Sure.”

“If you even try to think about getting out of this, I will take you to court and get you convicted of murder. So don’t even think about it.”

Wilbur blinked. What had he gotten himself into?

God. 

He fucking hated lawyers. 

_____

“It’s… blackmail?”

Tommy nodded slowly, picking at his nail beds. He kept his eyes trained on the floor as he retold the accounts from earlier. 

“He’s a reckless bastard, that’s for sure, but I didn’t realize he was this reckless,” Tubbo murmured as he leaned against the wall. 

Niki had a far-off look in her eyes as she listened. Her lips were parted in a silent apology, no sound coming out. 

Ranboo waved a hand over her eyes, “Niki? Are you there?”

She took a second before responding, blinking her way back into reality.

“Do any of you think this is my fault?” she asked quickly.

The three of them exchanged confused glances, silently shaking their heads.

“No,” Tommy said tightly. “Why would this be your fault?”

“I never stopped him. I knew everything. I watched it all happen in front of me and I did nothing. I’m no less of a criminal than you are, Tommy.”

“But you said-” Tubbo tried reasoning.

“Those are all excuses!” she shouted, raising her voice to be much louder than it was before. They all exchanged worried looks again. They’d never heard her raise her voice at them.

“They’re goddamn lies that I’ve been telling myself! Just to make everything seem okay, but it’s not! Tommy’s being recruited to be a hitman, Wil’s being blackmailed, and he’s on the brink of one too many injuries before he-”

She sank to the floor, legs folded in half, and rested her head on her knees. 

“I think-” Ranboo started quietly, nervously. “I think we all need to stop taking the blame for Wilbur.”

Tubbo tore his gaze away from Niki, “Agreed.”

Tommy and Niki remained silent, in thought. 

“He’s an adult,” Tommy muttered. “But he still manages to find himself bleeding out on top of random rooftops.”

“He’s as much of a teenager as any of you,” Niki gestured towards them. “I just thought when we got older…”

The thought rang silent in the air, left unfinished.

Tommy stood up from the couch.

“I’m going to talk to Techno.”

Chapter Text

Tommy slammed Techno’s bedroom door closed behind him, pressing his back against the wood. 

“Where’s Wil?”

Techno raised an eyebrow from where he was at his desk, sorting through stacks of papers, turning to look at him. He straightened out an uneven stack before turning the rest of his body in his chair to look at him.

“Dunno. Thought you’d be the one keeping track of him.”

Tommy groaned, “Is he here or not?”

“Either of us could go check right now if you weren’t blocking both of us in here,” he said flatly, gesturing towards the door with one hand, tucking hair behind his ear with another.

Tommy rolled his eyes, “You’ve been at home all day. Did you hear him come home or not?”

Techno stared at him, almost in a silent challenge. He raised both of his eyebrows this time, tilting his head towards a wall.

Through the silence, Tommy could make out the muffled noise of a guitar being played two rooms down. A brief pause when a note turned sour, and then the music picked back up. 

“There. Can you get out of my room now?” Techno remarked, turning back towards the piles of paper on his desk.

Tommy turned towards the door, turning the lock to make an audible click, loud enough for Techno to notice.

“No.”

A loud sigh of exasperation, “ Tommy, please. What do you want?”

“I want you to listen- for god’s sake stop looking at those stupid papers and listen to me ,” Tommy demanded, leaning further against the door to prove his point. 

“I’m listenin’,” Techno muttered, flipping through a large packet and writing small annotations on one of the pages. 

Tommy frowned, biting his bottom lip.

“Do you want to know what’s going on with Wilbur or not?”

The shuffling of pages stopped. A pen was dropped onto the wooden desk, clattering against it. The guitar in the background stopped as well, a muffled string of curses being heard. 

“You know? For sure? And you’re not lying about it?” Techno asked, suspicion clear in his tone. 

Tommy nodded to each question.

He sighed finally, leaning back in his chair. 

“Spill.”

_____

Wilbur stared at the guitar. 

The few stickers that had been plastered along the smooth wood popped out at him like a 3-D movie, almost taunting him. All of them were put there without permission, but Wilbur wasn’t going to take them off. They had an essence that made the instrument his own. And no one else’s.

His fingers were starting to throb, turning red with irritation. Thin lines were pressed into the skin on his fingertip, indented there from him pressing so hard. 

Any intelligent person would’ve told him to take a break. With hurt fingers, it was making it harder and harder to hit the correct notes. But Wilbur continued.

He adjusted his grip on the guitar, eyes wandering off to the case it usually remained in until he was home alone or just in the need to get his mind off of things. Resting inside was a small guitar pick that Phil had told him would probably be nice to use, to prevent his fingers from hurting when he played. 

Wilbur was past that. There was no time for him to take a break or go collect a guitar pick. 

Readjusting his grip once more, he stared mindlessly at the strings as they sang a beautiful melody to a song that was nonexistent. A song that had been created out of thin air that could probably sound nice as a lullaby with the right lyrics.

He continued for some time, overhearing the low murmur of voices in Techno’s room. He obviously knew one to be Techno’s, and was confused to notice the other sounded a lot like Tommy. 

Tommy was still at Niki’s house when Wilbur left. Why would he come home? And to talk to Techno, of all people?

He got so distracted that his fingers tiredly drifted to the wrong string, not being able to strum the correct note in time to save the song. It rang through his ears like an old siren, something clearly off with the pitch.

He winced at the sound, trying his best to start off at a familiar location and continue onwards. The music was blissful, quiet, and sweet as honey until it turned sour again.

“Fuuuuuck me. I’m going to throw this guitar and myself off a cliff.”

He muttered a low groan of frustration before setting the guitar down next to him. Wilbur knew that if he continued his playing would only grow worse, and he’d find himself doing the opposite of relaxing. 

He needed to get himself a different instrument. 

_____

“And you promise not to tell Phil?”

“Does everyone know about this but Phil?”

“Yeah. You were the second-last person to know. Sorry. You are still the law.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to follow it all the time.”

“That’s illegal.”

“That’s the point.”

Tommy shook his head, heading towards the door to unlock it. The guitar had stopped ages ago, and though Tommy wasn’t in the best spot with Wilbur at the moment, he needed to go listen. 

“Promise me, Techno.”

A moment of silence. Possibly a moment of thought.

“I promise.”

_____

Tommy walked into Wilbur’s room to find him staring at the guitar next to him on the floor. The music had been on a long pause for a while, and for Wilbur to still be on the ground, looking at the guitar like it’d betrayed him, was confusing. 

“Wil?”

A hum of acknowledgment echoed through the awkwardly silent room, his eyes still piercing through the guitar. 

“Can I hear you play?”

A scoff, “No.”

Tommy didn’t hesitate, “You were playing before, why’d you stop?”

Wilbur lifted up his hands to glance at his palms and fingertips, irritated skin starting to peel away. He looked at them like they were covered with the blood of someone else’s rather than his own. 

“Hurt my hands,” he said quietly, sheepishly. 

Tommy glanced over at the open guitar case in the corner of the room. A light blue pick shimmered in the warm glow of the lamp from the black interior.

“You’re not using the pick?”

“Didn’t want to.”

“Well that’s certainly not helping your fingers, now is it?”

“Did you come here to ridicule me or what?” Wilbur retorted, whipping his head to face him.

 “I came here to listen to you play.”

“It sounds like shit. I don’t know why you’d bother.”

Tommy shrugged, stepping closer to him, “I heard you from Techno’s room. Didn’t sound that bad.”

“Why were you in Techno’s room?” Wilbur glared, squinting at him with accusations clear across his face. 

“Am I not allowed to talk to my own brother?” Tommy shot back, trying to distract him from the clear guilt that could be seen on his own face. 

It worked quite well. 

“...I never said that.”

Tommy blinked, “You’re changing the subject. Play a song.”

“If you’re expecting me to sing you’re thoroughly mistaken,” Wilbur huffed, at last picking up the guitar from the floor next to him. 

Wilbur adjusted his grip on the guitar, wincing as he harshly pressed his fingers onto the strings once more. He played a soft opening, the notes hanging in the air, purposeful pauses making it seem mysterious.

It sounded like a dark, yet sad song. It was calming and peaceful, no matter how somber the notes sounded. A lullaby that was played quietly for a reason. 

Tommy sat down next to him, leaning his head on his shoulder as the song continued. The song was amazing, nothing like what Wilbur had described it to be. The soft chime of notes echoed in his ears, pulling his eyes shut with it. 

A nice lullaby it was. And not a single note was out of place.

_____

Techno twisted open the doorknob to Wilbur’s room, not knowing what he was expecting to see when he walked in. 

The guitar strings were plucked in a repeated chord, soft enough to barely be heard. They danced under the fingertips of Wilbur, who sat slouched against his bed, head tilted back against the sheets. His scraggly brown hair dipping in front of his vision.

It gave life to some mysterious scene from an action movie. A man alone in a dim alley, playing the same uneasy chord on repeat as you prepared for the more upscale music to kick in. 

But it was only Wilbur. 

Based on what Techno had heard from Tommy a few hours earlier, Techno wouldn’t be surprised if what he was experiencing was straight out of a movie. It sure felt like it, with all the trouble being caused. 

Breaking his immersion was Tommy, who also sat slouched next to him, head balancing on his shoulder. 

“Wilbur?”

The music stopped, the strings coming to a pause immediately. 

“Yeah?”

Techno cleared his throat, “I want to talk to you about something.”

“You’re going to have to do it with the child present because he is not going to be getting up anytime soon,” Wilbur remarked, tilting his head towards where Tommy was, fast asleep. 

“In private.”

“Really? ‘Cause I don’t want to talk to you about anything. Especially in private.”

The music picked up again, that strange chord going on a loop once more. Techno rolled his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Wil, please.”

No response. Just the guitar.

“Wilbur.”

…

Techno sighed.

He didn’t want to do it this way.

“I know everything.”

The music stopped once more, its sound going bitter as his fingers fumbled to stop playing. He raised his head from against the bed, dark eyes peering at him with curiosity.

“What do you mean?”

“Quackity. Your job. The blackmail. I know it all, Wilbur.”

He opened his mouth to protest, and Techno could sense a lie about to be told.

“Don’t try to lie to me. The truth’s already been told.”

His mouth slowly closed. The guitar came to rest on the floor beside him. 

“So it would seem,” his dark eyes flashed, “And how did you happen to come by this information?”

Techno tilted his chin upwards in a small challenge, “You aren’t that dumb, are you?”

“I sure would hope not,” a ghost of a smile passed over his face, “That’d make for a mighty bad criminal.”

He continued, “Though it would be dumb of a criminal to share secrets when not told to.”

Chapter Text

“What are you gonna do about it? Scold me and ground me to a corner?”

“Wasn’t planning on it, but that’s a funny suggestion.”

Wilbur raced down the stairs, Techno following him in close pursuit. He paused and turned to face him, a fake smile on his face.

“Haha, very funny.”

Techno shrugged as Wilbur turned back around and continued down the stairs, making his way into the kitchen. 

“You’re acting like I went snooping for information when the only reason I know is because of your little partner in crime over there.”

He gestured towards the stairs, where Tommy was currently racing after the both of them.

“Hey! Don’t start blaming me for stuff I may or may not have done!”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, grabbing the newspaper from the kitchen counter. 

“Really? Who else would’ve told him?”

“Niki! Tubbo! Ranboo! Maybe Quackity found a way!”

“Yes, because the first thing on Quackity’s priority list is reaching out to Techno, who he definitely knows exists, and telling him about my secret job.”

Tommy threw his arms into the air, “Exactly! You get it!”

Wilbur turned to throw a harsh glare in his direction, “Stop the bullshit, okay? I know it was you.”

“Are you gonna do something about me telling him?” Tommy asked, hanging on the edge of the railing, “He was gonna find out eventually. I just skipped some steps.”

“Listen, Wil, I knew something was up. You couldn’t have hidden it forever,” Techno defended, crossing his arms. 

“But I could’ve damn tried.”

“It wouldn’t have worked.”

“But I could’ve tried.”

Techno just looked at him, “You’re hopeless.”

He started to turn away, to go into the living room when a phone started to ring. 

The three of them turned to look at where the noise was coming from on the kitchen table. 

Wilbur knitted his eyebrows together, “Whose phone is that?”

Tommy shrugged, “Not mine.”

“Mine,” Techno shouted, racing to grab it. He picked it up and shot both of them a concerned glance, “Any reason for Phil to be calling?”

Wilbur shot one back, “No? What does Phil need?”

“Just don’t pick up,” Tommy suggested. 

“He’s just gonna keep calling,” Techno muttered, finally answering. He put the phone on speaker.

“ Techno? Is everyone at home?”

“Uh- yes? Why?”

“ There’s been a bit of an incident that you might need to come in for.”

They all exchanged looks. 

“What would that be?”

“ A missing cop from a local prison has turned up. Dead.”

Wilbur bit back a gasp. It couldn’t be-

“Do you know the name?”

“ Sam Nook. Have you heard of him?”

Techno’s eyes grew wide with panic. Wilbur turned to Tommy.

Did you tell Techno about Sam?

I told him everything.

Wilbur turned back to Techno, nodding quickly. 

“Yeah. I have.”

“ A shame. He was a good man. I have no clue who could’ve killed him. He drowned in a lake from what I’ve heard.”

“Like… someone else drowned him?”

“ It was a murder, Tec.”

“Oh.”

Techno seemed to be at a loss for words, as were them all. 

“ Techno? Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothing at all. Just thinking. Do you need me to come in?”

“ The cops are requesting it. As long as Tommy and Wilbur will be safe at home.”

Techno looked towards them, “They’ll be fine. I’m on my way right now.”

“ See you soon then.”

“ Bye, Phil.”

A loud beep rang through the air, signaling the end of the call. Techno’s face was drawn in a taught grimace.

“Is it alright if I..?”

Tommy nodded, “Yes. Go on.”

With a brief nod and a goodbye, Techno was already out the door. 

Wilbur stood silently in the kitchen, the newspaper still grasped in his hand. His mouth hung open in shock.

“Sam..? Dead? Someone… killed him? But-”

Tommy walked towards him, a sympathetic look on his face. He took the crinkled paper from his hands and placed it down on the counter. 

“Wil… I’m so sorry.”

“He can’t be dead,” Wilbur continued. “He’s not dead. He was just missing. Just gone. I’d just talked about him a week ago. He was alive. He’s still alive.”

“Wilbur?”

“He’s alive. They’re lying. He’s still out there. I know he is. Tommy, he’s out there.”

Tommy frowned, eyebrows furrowing. He silently shook his head.

“Tommy?” Wilbur turned to look at him, eyes wide with fear.

“Go sit down and turn on a movie, Wil. I’ll be right with you.”

He slowly turned and headed towards the living room, silent as death. 

Tommy picked up the paper from the counter, unfolding it in his hands. His eyes scanned the paper and fell upon a large title in bold letters. 

“ Beloved Prison Warden Found Murdered in a Lake Outside the City”

Tommy tossed the paper in the trash can and headed towards the living room. 

_____

“Sam’s dead, Quackity!” 

Wilbur slammed his fist on his desk, knocking the paper Quackity was scribbling on out of his reach, onto the ground. Quackity looked up at him, unamused. He set down his pen and folded his hands over his desk.

“I don’t know if this is some poor attempt to get yourself off the case or what, but I’m not believing anything until I see it.”

“Are you joking? Do I need to go to the fucking police station and get a vial of his blood or something?”

Wilbur didn’t like the raised eyebrow and considerable expression that faced him at that current moment. His fingers drummed on the desk impatiently.

“That’s quite an idea,” he cleared his throat, leaning back in his chair. “Wilbur, your new mission is to go out and get a vial of his blood along with a photo as proof that Sam is actually dead. You’ve got three days.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“I don’t give a fuck if you watched him bleed out through a gaping hole in his neck or get run over by a truck. I want a photo and his blood as proof he’s dead. Then I’ll give you your money.”

Wilbur stared at him. He wasn’t even sure what to think of the situation anymore. It seemed too easy. Like a trap. 

“How much money?” he asked, voice still unsure. As if he was still questioning if Quackity was serious. By the threatening look on his face, the answer was already quite obvious. 

“20 thousand.”

Now Wilbur was seriously starting to question if he was joking.

“You’re not messing with me.”

“I’m not messing with you. 20k for the blood and a photo. Three days.”

Wilbur held out a hand. A cold hand returned the shake. The cool metal of his gold rings and gems could be felt pressed against his knuckles.

“It’s a deal.”

As Wilbur turned around, about to walk out, he paused. 

“Say I don’t return with the items. What then?”

A quiet chuckle. 

“Let’s say you don’t want to find out, should you fail. I’m trusting you. Don’t make me doubt it.”

_____

Wilbur threw his coat over a chair at the kitchen table. Tommy stared at him, curiosity clear in his eyes. 

“Well? How was the meeting with Quackity?”

Wilbur turned his head to face him in confusion. 

“How’d you know I went to go see Quackity?”

Tommy shrugged. 

“Just a gut feeling.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “Whatever. Moving on, it was fine, thank you for asking.”

Tommy innocently rested an elbow on his shoulder, “Did he ask for anything?”

Wilbur continued staring at him, unblinking. It was obvious something was up, but he never said anything about it. 

“He wanted a vial of Sam’s blood and a photo. Why?”

Tommy held his hands up in surrender, “No reason. I just wanted to know.”

Wilbur shot him one last gaze of intrigue before shrugging it off and heading upstairs.

Tommy waited until he heard his bedroom door click shut before grabbing the coat off the chair and racing out the door. 

_____

Techno leaned back in his chair and ran his hands down his face. He stared at the multiple file folders scattered across the table, photos, and paperclips thrown astray as the investigation went on. Phil was rummaging through a mountain of papers, hand pressed to his forehead.

“It doesn’t make any sense. Why was he 45 minutes out of the city? And near a lake?”

Phil sighed, not glancing up from his papers, “We have no clue Techno. We’ve been interviewing witnesses and policemen all day with no leads at all.”

Techno glanced down at his notepad, which remained blank except for occasional scribbles with his messy handwriting of things that could be considered “clues”.

(If you could even consider the sentence, “might have disappeared for a bit???” a clue.)

They didn’t have much information. The cops that went to the scene only found the body afloat in a lake in some other city 45 minutes away. Sam hadn’t reported to work in 2 weeks. No one checked to see if he had disappeared.

Suspicious.

He worked as a prison warden. 

Why would no one bother to go looking for him or file a report earlier of his disappearance?

The person who’d reported it was visiting family and was only going to be in the town for four days. Then was going to be on an airplane to go back home. 

There went their only witness. 

The whole case seemed like a dead end. There were so many random things that stuck out that just didn’t fit into the puzzle anywhere. 

Why had Sam been so far away?

Why did no one report him missing sooner?

Who could’ve killed him? And why?

Why were there no signs that indicated any struggle before he died?

“Techno! Do you have any notes from that one prison guard that worked with Sam?”

Techno startled at the sudden outburst from Phil, picking up his notepad and flipping through the yellow pages. 

He squinted at the messy ink, “Uhm- it just says something about a vacation.”

Phil slammed a palm on the table, “ Sam’s vacation! That’s why no one reported him missing and why he was out of town!”

Techno bit his lip, “You’re onto something, Phil. But we still don’t know why someone would want him dead. And whether it was someone close to him.”

He paused, putting a finger to his chin, “If it is someone close to him with a motive, that means it has to be someone that knew about the vacation if they were able to find him.”

“Exactly! Tomorrow we’re bringing in the prison guards that knew him and interviewing them.”

-2 weeks prior-

A vacation. That’s what the file has said. 

He was supposed to be out of town for a week on vacation. 

In Okonik, a place that was a long drive away from his current location. Maybe it was for a fishing trip. To take time away from the dark and stale rooms of a prison and see the outdoors. 

It tended to be quite cold in Okonik, which made it a great place for tourists to travel during the winter months and see the beautiful frost dripped trees and grass. Maybe that’s why Sam had chosen to spend his vacation in the most beautiful place in the country. 

A vacation he wouldn’t return from. 

He adjusted the black face mask he had on and approached Sam. He was recklessly leaning over the bridge that went over the rushing river down below, admiring the view. He would give Sam the benefit of the doubt. It was breathtaking, if he was actually focused on the scenery, rather than the job that had to be done. 

The lake was not yet frozen over, but if you looked closely around the edges, you could see specks of ice starting to form between the water and the land. 

It would be easy. A simple job.

Except he was going to be the one with the guilty conscience. 

All he did was give him a firm push, one that sent him toppling over the railing of the bridge. With a splash, and a few cries of protest drowned out by the sound of rushing water, Sam was dead. 

He watched in silence as the reflection of a body against the crashing crystal blue waves as he was carried downstream. It would most likely be some time before he was discovered in the lake the stream went out to. 

It was a shame, sure. 

But as long as Wilbur wasn’t the one who had to suffer. 

Chapter Text

Tommy stared out at the bright neon sign that was currently being covered with snow. The flickering light bulbs and vibrant colors called to him as he walked through the sand and made it to the concrete.

His footsteps crunched in the light snow that fell on the ground, and he admired the beautiful architecture that took up the town. There was a pool, multiple restaurants, a giant tower, and recreation of the Eiffel Tower, and-

And a strip club. 

...

Moving on.

He raced into the building he’d met Quackity last time with Wilbur, heavily exhaling as his feet smacked the marble floors. There, he saw the “ STAFF ONLY” door. He twisted the doorknob and found the man himself on the phone, writing something on a piece of paper. 

“Uh-huh, and you said they’re interviewing the guards? … Oh, because they’re colleagues. … Yeah, yeah. I know. … I just think-” he cut himself off, glancing off at Tommy. 

He pressed the phone to his chest, covering the speaker. “What the hell are you doing here?” he hissed.

Tommy closed the door behind him, “I can’t tell you if you’re on the phone, now can I?”

Quackity put the phone back up to his ear, “Hey, listen, Charlie, I’m gonna have to call you back. I have… company.”

He placed the phone back down at his desk and pushed the paper aside. 

“So… Tommy? Was that it? What do you want? What are you doing here?” a sly grin spread across his face, “Come to take that job offer?”

Tommy’s face twisted in a tight grimace, silently reaching into his pocket and pulling out a folded-up photo and a vial of a dark substance. He placed them onto the desk, watching Quackity raise an eyebrow as he stared at the items. 

“Is this what I think it is?”

“Sure is. Sam’s dead, Quackity.”

He continued staring at the items like they were going to grow legs and run away at any moment. He cautiously picked up the photo and unfolded it, eyes widening at the image. 

“Why do you have this? And how did you know..?”

Tommy stared at him blankly. 

“He’s my brother. Duh. Do you really think I’m not going to invade his personal life?”

Quackity squinted at him, shifting his eyes from the picture to Tommy. Though names weren’t mentioned, he knew exactly what Tommy was talking about. 

“And… why? I don’t understand why you’re bringing this to me.”

Tommy sighed, leaning against the desk, “Do you want the long version or the short version?”

Quackity raised an eyebrow at him, the scar over his eye tilting upwards as well. He leaned back in his chair (something Tommy tended to notice he did quite often), waving him on with one hand. 

“I’ve got time. Go on.”

Tommy hesitated, unsure of how to word his story. 

“Do you know who killed Sam?”

Quackity’s eyebrow seemed to rise further on his forehead, “No? Wilbur said he didn’t do it. Neither did any of my employees.”

“And are you a snitch?”

Again, the eyebrow continued judging him.

“Is this a pop quiz? No, I’m not going to snitch.”

“Okay, then you gotta promise something.”

Quackity glanced down at his diamond-encrusted watch like Tommy was wasting his time.

He was the one who asked for the long version. 

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

“Anything I say in this room cannot be told to Wilbur.”

A small grin found its way onto Quackity’s lips, and he picked up a small cup of water. 

“Whatever you say, kid,” he said half haphazardly, taking a large sip of the drink.

“I killed Sam.”

The man on the other side of the desk erupted in a series of coughs, sputtering from having choked on the water. He slammed the cup down onto the table, splashing water over the edge and onto the wood, and stood up. Though Tommy was quite taller than him, it was still intimidating for him to be staring at Tommy with such an accusing glare. 

“Are you being serious?”

Tommy nodded.

“Why would I lie?”

“I don’t fucking know-” he ran a hand through his pitch-black hair. “Maybe to like get back at me or-” 

Now it was Tommy’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“For what?”

Quackity stared at him in disbelief mixed with anger. 

“I don’t fucking know!” He glared at Tommy from across the table, his eyes burning a hole in his head. 

“First, I sent Wilbur out to kill him because I knew they were familiar with each other! I wanted Wilbur to have to do it. Second, Sam’s a highly trained prison warden! He doesn’t just-” Quackity snapped his fingers, “Die!”

Tommy tilted his head to the side in confusion, “Was pretty easy for me.”

Quackity stared at him like he’d gone mad. His eyes darted down to the objects on the desk once more, picking up the photo and rapidly scanning it. He held it up to the light, squinting at it.

“How-?”

“A murderer never reveals his secrets.”

Quackity’s face contorted in some sort of emotion Tommy couldn’t identify. His hands were tightly wrapped around the photo. 

“You’re a fucking joke.”

Tommy blandly pointed to the photo in his hands, a flat look on his face, “You’re gonna wrinkle the photo if you keep holding it like that. And I’m not going back to get another.”

Quackity sputtered incredulously, dropping the photo onto the desk. He took a minute to compose himself, inhaling deeply before sitting back down. He pulled the chair back up to the desk, wiping off the droplets of spilled water on it.

“Okay, fine. Whatever. Why did you even do it?”

Tommy rolled his eyes, “To help Wilbur. I know your stupid tricks. You knew Sam was important to him. And he’s still fucking injured! I’m not letting him go wandering off into some town nearly an hour away to go murder someone that saved his life with a wounded leg. Did you want him to die?”

Quackity mulled over the information for a bit, “That would mean I wouldn’t have to pay for his hospital bills or the act itself-” Tommy gaped at him, his mouth half-open.

“Is all you care about money?!”

Quackity grinned at him, that stupid gold tooth reflecting in the light again, “Yep.”

Just as Tommy was about to make another remark about his severe lack of empathy, Quackity interrupted him. 

“How did you even get the information about Sam?”

Tommy just silently blinked at him.

“We live in the same house, dipshit. It’s not that hard to go into his room and take the file you gave him.”

Quackity wrinkled his nose at him before returning to a casual expression. He looked like a toddler being forced to eat vegetables as he looked Tommy up and down. 

“With all the shit-talking you’re doing right now, I might as well tell Wilbur everything you’re telling me.”

Tommy held out a hand, “Okay, okay. Fine. Sorry.”

“I am curious though,” Quackity leaned forward, picking up the vial. “What are we going to do when Wilbur comes in here with the materials? Then we’ll have duplicates, won’t we? I don’t need two vials of my enemy's blood.”

Tommy shrugged, “I don’t know. Call him. And tell him that someone’s done the job for him.”

“Or you can tell him yourself.”

“Are you crazy? No way.”

Quackity dangled the vial between his fingers, “I don’t know, Tommy. You’re keeping a pretty big secret here. And Wilbur isn’t dumb.”

Tommy groaned, “What do I have to do for you to not tell him?”

Quackity dropped the vial back down onto the desk, eyes wide with sudden interest. He leaned closer to him, a dark shadow overbearing his face. He even fucking smelled like a casino. 

“What are you willing to do?”

“I don’t know.”

Quackity stood up, walking around the desk towards Tommy.

“How about this? I won’t tell Wilbur any of this, keep your big secret, call Wilbur myself, and pay you for your work.”

Tommy looked down at him with his slight height advantage. That was the only thing he had going for him at the moment. 

“For what in exchange?”

“You working as my assistant.”

“No,” Tommy replied immediately. “Something less… big.”

Quackity glared at him. “Fine. You have to go on one mission, just one, under my name. With no pay.”

Tommy glared back, “I didn’t want any pay in the first place.”

He grinned, “Just clarifying the deal. Do you accept?”

Tommy went through it all back in his mind.

Keeping the secret and getting the money for the original job he did of killing Sam, all for just one mission with no pay?

It seemed fair. Fair enough.

Quackity held out a hand, “Deal?”

Tommy hesitantly shook it, “Deal.”

Quackity smiled widely, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen, scribbling something down on it before shifting over to Tommy’s direction.

He glanced over it, looking up in confusion.

Quackity waved it off, “A contract. Just to make sure you’re agreeing to work for me.”

Tommy frowned, “For one mission.”

Quackity nodded, handing him a pen, “For one mission.”

_____

Niki stared at the ringing phone on the table. She placed down her coffee cup and stared at the name on the screen.

“Wilbur I swear to god-” she started, furrowing her eyebrows.

He glanced down to read the contact as well, frowning. 

“It’s fine! It’s fine, Niki. I just won’t pick up.”

She stared at him with distrust, seeing the phone still ringing out of the corner of her eye. In a flash, she grabbed the phone from the table and answered, placing it to her ear. 

“Hello?”

Wilbur tried grabbing it from her, reaching across the table to take back the phone from her. She pushed him away with one hand, using the other to put it on speaker, holding it close enough for him to hear it, but not close enough for him to grab it. 

“ Hello. Is Wilbur there by any chance?”

She gave him a death glare from across the table, putting on a fake nice voice, “Why? Do you need something from him?”

“ That seems to be the reason people call. I’m not dialing numbers for the hell of it.”

Niki frowned, “That’s a bit rude, no? I might as well hang up right now-”

Wilbur finally grabbed the phone for her hands, flipping her off before holding the phone in front of him. 

“Hi, sorry, it’s me. Someone took my phone. What did you need, Quackity?”

A muffled groan and a few murmured voices came from the other end. 

“ I wanted to talk business to you, Wilbur.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t need the blood or the photo from you anymore.”

While Niki raised a heavily suspicious eyebrow, Wilbur stared at his phone in confusion. 

“Why not? I thought you wanted proof-”

“ Yes, yes,” the voice cut him off. “ I got my proof. Someone else has done the job for you.”

“Who?”

A laugh came from the other end, “D on’t worry about it. Just know that you don’t have to give me anything. Though I do expect to see you tomorrow for other ordeals. You’re clear for this one.”

Wilbur exhaled a sigh of relief, “Thank god. Send whoever did it my thanks.”

“ Uh-huh,” the voice sounded bored. “ Sure. Bye.”

The call ended. 

Niki could barely wait for the receiver to cut off before she outburst in shouts and protests. 

“Are you fucking crazy?! A blood vial?! Who?! What?! Why?!”

Wilbur shushed her, “We are in a public cafe,” he said through his teeth, “I’ll explain it all later.”

She glared at him, “No. I want to hear it all now. From the beginning. Or I’m not giving you free healthcare anymore.”

Wilbur sighed, massaging his temples with his fingers, “Fine, fine.”

_____

Tommy crumpled against the desk, holding his head in his hands. 

“Why in god’s name did Niki answer?!”

Quackity fiddled with one of the many rings on his finger, seeming very uninterested in the conversation at hand.

“Niki? Is that her name?”

Tommy waved him off, “Whatever, long story.”

The boredom faded away, and Quackity stared at him with intrigue. He glanced up from his rings. 

“Who is this ‘Niki’ to you?”

Tommy stood up from the chair he was slumped over in, “A close friend of ours. She knows we’re criminals. Doesn’t approve of it. It’s whatever.”

Quackity hummed in acknowledgment. 

“I see.”

Tommy didn’t like his honeyed tone of voice.

“Anyways, Tommy, I suppose you would like to know your mission?”

Tommy nodded slowly.

Quackity dug through one of his file cabinets, flipping through it quickly. 

“Hmm… no… no… not this one… where? … Aha!”

He turned back around to Tommy, handing it to him eagerly. 

Tommy opened it cautiously, like it had some trap lying inside it. His eyes scanned the page and read the information over and over again.

Quackity bent over his desk, clasping his hands together to rest his elbows on the desk.

“As you can see, I want you to rob a bank for me. Very simple.”

Tommy threw the folder down on the desk. 

“I’m a murderer. Not a thief.”

Quackity stared at the folder, voice turning dark, “And I don’t remember asking. We made a deal. I fulfilled my half, now you fulfill yours.”

Tommy glared at him.

“I’m not robbing a fucking bank.”

“Oh, come on now. All you have to do is take all the money they have, kill the bank tellers, and leave. Easy peasy.”

Tommy shook his head, “I can’t do this alone. There’ll be at least multiple people on the shift! And I can’t get all that money alone!”

Quackity frowned, picking up the folder and handing it back to Tommy. 

“That sounds like a problem you’ll have to figure out yourself. Have fun!”

Tommy rolled his eyes, walking towards the door to exit. 

“Oh, and one more thing-” Tommy turned around to face him, a wicked grin on Quackity’s face. “I want it done by Saturday. You have five days.”

Chapter Text

~Day 1: Monday~

Tommy was so fucking screwed. He was fucking done. He was probably going to die in five days. Four, if he didn’t hurry up and figure out a plan.

A bank. A bank. 

How the hell was some random 17-year-old kid going to rob a bank alone?

No wonder Quackity had that horrible smile on his face. 

He had no clue what he was supposed to do. He didn’t even know where to start.

Looking over the file would only provide him with the same information he’d gotten yesterday. There was no point in looking over it again and freaking out. Again. 

He might as well just say goodbye to the world now. He didn’t know what Quackity would do if he didn’t complete the mission, but he was better off leaving that unknown. 

He couldn’t tell Wilbur. That would defeat the whole purpose of the deal and just make things way more complicated than they needed to be. 

God, he was so fucked. 

_____

Speak of the devil. 

“What’s got you all worked up?” Wilbur asked with a raise of his brow, dramatically placing his hands on his hips. 

Tommy tried shrugging it off, “Nothing. I’m not worked up.”

“Really?” Tommy nodded. “‘Cause you’re doing that thing you do when you get anxious.”

Wilbur tilted his head downwards at Tommy’s hands, where he was twisting the bottom of his shirt into a knot. 

Tommy released it immediately, “First of all, I do that all the time,” he rolled his eyes when Wilbur gave him a knowing look. “And second, I’m not anxious.”

“Uh-huh,” Wilbur looked him up and down, almost like he was sizing him up. “You look like you’re hiding something.”

Tommy tried pushing past him to go down the stairs, Wilbur leaning to the left to block his exit. 

Tommy groaned loudly, “Move, you dick!”

Wilbur smiled at him, voice coated with honey, “Not until you tell me what’s up.”

Tommy rolled his eyes again, pushing his arm out of the way and ducking underneath it. “Fuck off.”

Though Tommy knew Wilbur was just giving him a hard time, he knew that Wilbur was suspicious of his behavior. Being best friends for 8 years ends up with learning each other’s mannerisms and behavior, which was very bad when Tommy was trying to hide something. He was never that good at lying, and Wilbur did not help with this issue. Especially when it was about a fucking mission from Quackity. 

_____

Tommy flopped onto his bedsheets, going off a checklist in his head.

What had he completed today?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

He’d panicked, made himself look suspicious, and then ended up back in his room for the rest of the day. 

What did he need to do to prepare?

A lot. 

How much time did he have left?

Four days. Not even. 

He was confused. And anxious. 

Congratulations, Tommy, you have officially wasted an entire day. 

~Day 2: Tuesday~

Tommy woke up way earlier than he usually did. He needed to come up with some sort of plan or he was doomed. For real.

He stumbled downstairs to grab himself some source of caffeine to keep him awake when he ran into Techno in the kitchen making coffee. 

“Good morning. You look like you just woke up from a year-long nap,” he greeted flatly as he stirred milk into the mug.  

Tommy grumbled a reply in response, swinging the fridge door open and grabbing a can of soda. Techno took notice of this, wrinkling his nose at the sight, “Coke? At 5 in the morning?”

Tommy turned to glare at him, popping open the tab, a loud sizzle breaking into the air, “Is that what time it is? Gross.”

Techno checked his watch, “I have work. You, on the other hand, have no reason to be up.”

“I have my own reasons,” Tommy said quietly, setting the drink on the counter after taking a long sip. Techno raised his eyebrows in a silent judgment, raising his mug to his lips, but not taking a drink.  

Tommy fiddled with the tab on the can, “So… what’s going on with work?” He tried ignoring the pounding pain in his temples. It was probably just his brain complaining about waking up so goddamn early. 

Techno exhaled loudly, dropping the spoon he was using into the sink, “Horrible. We have to interview loads of prison guards to see who was with this Sam guy last. It takes so long because they all think they’re off the hook just because they’re a part of the law.”

Tommy squished up his face in annoyance, “All cops think they have some special privilege to be the most innocent people ever.”

“Tell me about it,” Techno muttered, finally taking a sip of his coffee. “And Phil’s supposed to be down here in five minutes because we have to go do more interviews because some people didn’t tell us the full story the first time around.”

“That sounds like fun,” Tommy remarked sarcastically, taking another sip of the Coke. He pondered the idea before setting the can back down on the counter. “Who do you think did it?”

Techno stared at him in confusion, “Well, I know Wilbur was supposed to take him out. So that’s who I thought it was initially. But then Wilbur told me he didn’t do it when I asked. So now we have no clue.”

Tommy nodded silently. 

“Huh. Weird. Don’t know who could’ve done it.”

“I know. This stupid case is going to go cold in a week, mark my words.”

Tommy gave him a messy salute as he grabbed his drink and retreated back up the stairs, “Your words have been marked. Have fun getting no more new clues.”

An agitated noise came from him, “Yeah. Sure. So much fun.”

Tommy nearly passed out from relief the second he got back into his room. Techno knowing that he killed Sam was a story for a different time. No one needed to know. 

_____

A series of quiet knocks could be heard on Tommy’s door a few minutes later.

“Come in,” he called, shoving papers from the file folder under stray books and papers, out of sight.

The door slowly creaked open, and Tommy was met with the concerned face of Phil.

“Any reason you’re up so early? I heard Techno and you talking.”

Tommy shrugged, placing an elbow over the book that lay on top of the file Quackity gave him, “No reason. Just felt like it.”

He nodded, “Alright then. Techno and I are off to work. Wilbur is probably still asleep. Tell him to eat something when he wakes up.”

“Cool. Bye, Phil.”

“See you later, mate.”

He closed the door behind him, and Tommy could hear the steady rhythm of feet traveling down the stairs. When Tommy was sure he heard the front door close, he moved the books and papers he shoved on top of the file and got to work. 

_____

How the hell does Wilbur do this shit.

Tommy had been going over the stupid map layout of the bank for the past hour, and all that the paper was filled in with random scribbles and question marks over random symbols.
Clearly, no one had taught this map maker to use a map key for their stupid fucking symbols. 

On Thursday, there would be 7 bank tellers working. On Friday, there would be 6.

Tommy had no clue why Quackity included the number of people working for Monday and Tuesday (10 and 4 by the way). As if he would even have the time to plan out that quickly to rob a bank.

Side note: why were there only four people working on Tuesday? Was there some strike against pay or something?

Tommy sighed, staring at the blueprints once more. There were only two entrances and exits, one in the front (where customers usually entered), and one in the back (where the employees entered). The one in the front led straight into the lobby and ATMs. The back door led to the employees-only area, and down the hallway, Tommy could easily get behind the counter. 

Did he want to go behind the counter to rob the place though?

Fuck. 

He had no clue how any of this worked. 

He rubbed his hands down his face, the throbbing at his temples increasing.

If he had to read the room labeled “break room” one more time he was going to break his fucking head on his desk.

Tommy groaned loudly in frustration. He was going to need some serious help.

~Day 3: Wednesday ~

Breaking his skull on the desk was starting to look really tempting by the third day. Tommy had gone to bed last night, hoping to be able to wake up the next morning a new man (without a headache) and be able to actually accomplish something. To brainstorm a plan to possibly put into action. 

But here he was.

Back at his desk.

Staring at the fucking break room again. 

“I swear,” he told himself out loud, “When I go into that fucking bank the first place I’m targeting is the break room.”

_____

Wilbur came down the stairs a few minutes after 11, seeing Techno perched on the kitchen counter scrolling through some social media on his phone, and Phil sorting through a small yellow notepad.

“Has anyone else in this house noticed Tommy acting off recently?” he asked, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. 

Techno glanced up at him, setting his phone off to the side. “Yeah, actually. I have. He came down here yesterday at like 5 in the morning, grabbed a Coke, and left.”

Phil sighed from the kitchen, “That’s not acting strange. That’s just how Tommy acts.”

“ Still,” Wilbur urged. “A few days ago I saw him anxiously standing in the hallway, like someone was about to jump him or whatever. I can tell when he’s lying, and he was hardcore lying to me about not being worried about anything.”

“That is weird,” Techno agreed. “I mean yesterday he didn’t leave his room at all. And when we came home I tried checking in on him and he scrambled to hide some papers before I could see them.”

Phil finally looked up from the notepad, “What’s he got to hide from us? There’s nothing new going on around here. Besides the Sam case, but Tommy doesn’t know about that.”

Wilbur and Techno exchanged a look. Phil’s face fell. 

“ Why does he know about Sam ,” he said, more as a rhetorical question than actual curiosity.

Techno shrugged, “News spreads fast.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “Fucking Fox News.”

Phil pursed his lips, “Well, with that new information, maybe he’s hiding something about Sam?”

Techno shook his head, “There’s nothing for him to know. I talked to him about it yesterday. He’s got no clue about any of it besides the fact that we’re interviewing people.”

Wilbur pointed a finger in his direction, “He can be sneaky sometimes. Maybe there’s something he knows that we don’t.”

“No, I doubt it. He seemed pretty lost when we were talking yesterday,” Techno rebutted. 

“It was 5 in the morning, to be fair,” Phil chimed in. 

“ Still,” Techno continued, “I don’t think it has anything to do with Sam.”

Wilbur stared off into space, “I agree. He never acts this way unless something’s really bothering him. Sam’s case wouldn’t cause that.”

“Then what would?” Techno asked, none of them able to provide an absolute answer.

Phil waved it off, “Maybe it’s nothing. Wil tends to overthink a lot-”

“Hey!”

“It’s true.”

“Fair enough.”

“And,” Phil tried again, “There’s nothing he can really hide from us that would cause this mass amount of panic. I’m pretty sure he’s fine.”

_____

“ Why are there like four fucking break rooms?! Who needs this many break rooms for a fucking bank?!”

Tommy ran his hands down his face. 

Two days.

Tommy had two days.

He banged his head against the table.

It didn’t help his headache.

_____

They all glanced up at the ceiling upon hearing a loud thud. 

“That didn’t sound like nothing,” Techno commented, staring up at where the noise came from.

“We’ve got to remember,” Phil explained, “It’s Tommy. Anything out of the ordinary for most is a daily normal for him.”

Wilbur pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, “He probably fell out of bed or something.”

“Or cracked his phone screen,” Techno suggested.

Phil sighed loudly. 

“Let’s hope that it was none of those options and he just dropped a book or something.”

Wilbur pressed the unopened water bottle he grabbed to his chin, “Will you two tell me if anything else seems out of the ordinary? Something just… feels off to me.”

“Sure, Wil.”

“Fine by me.”

_____

“Quackity?! How the fuck did you get my number?”

“ Doesn’t matter,” the familiar unfriendly voice responded. “ I’m here to check on your progress with my mission. You got two days left, Tommy.”

“I know that, asshole. I’m trying to come up with a plan so I don’t just go in and get arrested, thank you very much.”

“ Well? Trying to come up with a plan isn’t good enough. Either do it or don’t.”

“Just out of pure curiosity,” Tommy started cautiously, “What would you do if I didn’t complete the mission?”

A beat of silence. 

“ First, I would tell Wilbur everything. The secret can’t be kept if you can’t complete my mission. Then, as punishment, I would probably make you work as an intern for me for a month.”

Tommy frowned, “That’s a bit much. How would you even force me to work?”

“ Let’s just say, blackmail is a bitch,” Quackity laughed. 

Tommy scoffed, “What blackmail do you have on me?”

“ You killed Sam. You’re one of the uncaught lawyer killers. You’re connected to Wilbur, whose life I can put on the line if you don’t do as I please.”

“You don’t have any evidence.”

“Let’s not play this game, Tommy. Either you complete the mission, and your secret’s safe. Sealed away. Or you don’t, and I make your life hell. Easy decision to make.”

“Fine, whatever. Just leave me alone. I don’t need you to be my fucking countdown timer.”

“ Suit yourself.”

Almost instantly, the phone beeped, and Quackity had hung up the phone. 

A sassy bastard, that’s what he was. 

_____

Tommy had a plan. A plan that didn’t involve him crushing his skull on the desk or dying to Quackity.

He needed help. 

And he was going to get that help from the two best engineers he knew. 

Tubbo and Ranboo. 

~Day 4: Thursday~

Okay. Fuck. Tommy needed to figure his shit out. Now. 

He had one day.

And he still needed to catch up with Tubbo and Ranboo on the entire thing, as well as give them time to prepare. And making an actual plan of robbing the place. 

But it’s fine. 

He had it covered.

Probably. 

_____

Tommy raced down the stairs, catching a glimpse of the TV out of the corner of his eye. He noticed Wilbur was on the couch flipping through a book, barely glancing up to actually watch the program.

“I’m going to Niki’s! Be back later,” Tommy called out to him as he threw on his coat and headed for the door. 

A quiet, “Yeah, sure. Whatever,” could be heard from the living room. 

Tommy knew he was barely listening to what he was saying.

But that didn’t matter. It only made things easier for him. 

_____

Tommy panted as he approached the doorstep, having sprinted the entire mile to get to Niki’s house. He pounded on the door, trying to fix his obviously disheveled hair before it opened. 

Ranboo’s face peeked through the crack in the door.

“Tommy? Why-”

“No time Ranboo. Emergency. I need to talk to you and Tubbo.”

Ranboo pushed the door open immediately, a concerned frown growing on his face after every word. 

Tommy threw his coat on the hook, shaking the snow off of his feet. 

“Is Niki home?”

Ranboo shook his head, closing the door tightly behind him once Tommy’d stepped inside, “No. She got stuck on overtime and assisting with some patients.”

Tommy swallowed, “Good, good. Can you get Tubbo? We can talk in your room.”

_____

Tubbo flopped down on Ranboo’s mattress. 

“You’re in a panic. What’s going on?”

Tommy inhaled heavily, “I’m going to tell you a lot of information, so please try to keep up.”

Tubbo nodded for him to go on.

“So I did a job for Wilbur and killed someone so he didn’t have to and it turns out that I forgot how hard that is to hide when the guy that hired him can snitch on me so we made a deal where he’d keep the secret from Wil in exchange for me doing a mission for him and it turns out that mission was robbing a bank and it needs to be done by tomorrow or I’m probably going to die.”

Tubbo and Ranboo just stared at him, mouths agape, silently staring at him.

“Is this a joke?”

“Nope. I need to rob a bank and I need some favors from you.”

Ranboo just stared at him, unable to move.

Tubbo calmly stood up from the bed, walked over to Tommy, and then shook him violently, “ ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! ARE YOU STUPID?!”

Tommy pushed his hands away, “Oi! Chill. It’s fine. I have a plan,” he paused, “Well- I mean- kind of. I sorta have a plan.”

“You don’t have a plan yet?!”

“I never said that. I said I have a sorta plan. It’s a half plan. But I need your help.”

Ranboo finally was able to talk, “What help do you need from us? What are we going to do?”

“Help me rob the bank. And build some stuff for me too.”

Tubbo crossed his arms, “In exchange for what?”

Tommy gave him an overexaggerated smile, “The best friendship ever?”

Tubbo stared at him gravely.

“I’ll give you the money from the mission I did.”

Tubbo, at last, nodded, “Deal. I want all of it.”

“Hey!” Ranboo protested.

Tubbo waved him off, “I’ll split it with you.” He turned back to Tommy with a glint of mischief in his eyes, “So what do you want us to do?”

_____

Wilbur suddenly closed his book. He glanced at the door, which had been slammed closed a few hours earlier.

Realization flooded through him in a wave, and he smacked a palm to his forehead.

“ Oh my god-” he muttered. “I just let him go to Tubbo’s and Ranboo’s without permission.”

He sighed deeply, picking up his book to read again before he was struck with another wave.

“Why was he in such a rush?” he asked himself out loud. Of course, no one responded, which led him to call Techno.

“ Hello.”

“Hey, Techno. I have a dilemma.”

“ Okay?”

“Tommy just left the house in a hurry and sprinted out the door saying he was going to Niki’s with no further explanation. And I just realized what he did.”

A pause came from the other end, “ Why is this a problem?”

“Because,” Wilbur rubbed his temples with one hand. “It just feels off. There’s no reason for him to be in a hurry. It’s a gut feeling. Something’s wrong.”

“ Go to Niki’s then,” Techno responded blandly, “ See what’s up.”

“Niki’s not home,” Wilbur muttered.

“ So? That doesn’t mean you can’t go and see what’s up.”

“Yes, actually it does. It makes things very weird.”

“ How so?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Wilbur started sarcastically, “Probably because it’d be a grown man walking into some playdate between three teens to see what they’re doing!”

A low grunt, “ Fair enough. Just leave it then. Ask him later.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “Thanks for the help.”

“ No problem.”

_____

The three of them were sitting at the table eating dinner when the door finally closed, Tommy stepping into the house after it, shaking the snow out of his hair. He didn’t even notice them until he turned to place his coat on the hook, nearly jumping out of his skin.

“Jesus fuck-” he cried, fumbling backward.

Phil raised an eyebrow, “Where have you been?”

Wilbur had a smug grin on his face, “And why did you get so startled over us sitting here?”

Tommy kept his head, simply staring at Wilbur with an ugly frown, “Because you were all fucking silently sitting there. Like a cult. Obviously, I jumped when you started making noise.” He turned to Phil, “I was at Niki’s. I would’ve thought Wilbur told you.”

Phil turned to him, “Is this true?”

Wilbur shrugged.

Tommy hit him over the head, “You dick! I told you before I left! Stop acting like I didn’t.” 

Phil rolled his eyes, “Don’t hit him, Tommy. I’m sure you were, I was just checking. What were you doing at Niki’s for so long?”

“Talking. With Tubbo and Ranboo.”

“For 7 hours?” Techno chimed in.

Tommy crossed his arms, “Yes. Am I not allowed to socially interact with people?”

“I never said that-”

“Exactly,” Tommy defended, “It’s fine. We were just hanging out.”

And with that, he turned on his heels and went upstairs.

Phil shook his head, “I’m not even going to bother trying to get him to eat.”

_____

Wilbur pressed his ear to Tommy’s door, cautious to not make a sound as he listened to the voices that filtered through the door.

“Okay, so I finished the smoke bombs. Tubbo just came back from the store with black clothing. Anything else?”

He recognized that as Ranboo. He and Tommy must be on a call.

Smoke bombs? Black clothing?

Wilbur leaned closer into the door. 

What were they planning?

“You know the plans right? I have the layout of the bank and the weapons.”

“ Yep. Plans are ready.”

That was Tubbo’s voice filtering through the phone. 

“Okay, great. See you both tomorrow at 7, yeah?”

“ Yeah.”

“See you then.”

Wilbur slowly backed away from the door. A bank?

Were they all planning on robbing a bank together? But why?

~Day 5: Friday~

Robbery day. It was robbery day. 

Tommy had luckily been able to avoid a second call from Quackity, warning him about his limited time frame, but that didn’t erase all of his worries. There was so much that could go wrong. Tommy had never robbed a bank before. Or done anything as insane as this without at least telling Wilbur. 

But telling Wilbur would defeat the whole purpose of robbing the bank in the first place. That would be extremely counterproductive. 

So here Tommy was, with a giant knot in his stomach and taking his two best friends (who’d had a clean record until they ran into him) with him to rob a bank. 

He picked at his food all through breakfast. He’d even managed to eat less than Wilbur, sparking some comments.

“Why aren’t you eating? Is something wrong?” Phil asked, cleaning up his own dish as he finished his food. 

Tommy shrugged, scraping a fork across his plate as he moved the food from side to side, “I’m just not hungry today.”

Phil frowned, “You didn’t eat dinner yesterday either.”

“I had dinner at Niki’s,” he lied, dropping the fork. 

“Really?” Techno stared at him like he knew he was lying, “What’d she make?”

Tommy sighed, “Pasta.”

“Uh-huh,” Techno replied, still not completely convinced.

Wilbur simply stared at Tommy the whole time with a look on his face that indicated he was trying to see into his mind or something. Tommy shifted under the weight of his gaze. 

“Can you stop looking at me like that? It’s weird.”

Wilbur blinked, his gaze slightly turning back to normal.

You’re lying, he signed nonchalantly, standing up from the table to go do god-knows-what.

The knot in Tommy’s stomach grew larger. 

_____

Tommy checked the time on his phone. 

6:57 it read. 

It also vibrated, notifying him of a text from Phil. 

Remember to be careful. Don’t want you three getting kidnapped again.

Tommy rolled his eyes, quickly typing back, It’s the mall, Phil. We’ll be okay.

Have fun, love you. When are you planning on coming back?

Tommy glanced up into the darkness, hearing the sound of footsteps and crunching snow coming towards him. He put his phone back in his pocket and squinted at the figures coming towards him. 

“Tommy,” they greeted, “Are you ready?”

Tommy nodded, “You have the smoke bombs? And the computer?”

Tubbo held up the computer with Ranboo holding the smoke bombs, “Yep. You have the weapons?”

Tommy nodded again, pulling the blueprints out of his pocket.

“Tubbo, you go in the back entrance with Ranboo and disable the alarms and cameras. Ranboo, you take all the money you can from behind the counter. I’ll protect your backs with weapons in case any bank tellers are still there.”

Ranboo fumbled to pull up his hood, “I thought the bank closed at 6:50?”

“Just in case,” Tommy shrugged, taking two knives out of his pocket. He handed them to Tubbo and Ranboo, “Also just in case.”

They took them anxiously, shoving them into their pockets.

Tommy pulled up his own hood, pulling up his black face mask. 

“Let’s go. If things start to go wrong, just text me.”

They both nodded. 

“Ready whenever you are bossman.”

_____

Tommy was stepping over dead bodies, rapidly spilling crimson blood onto tile when he felt his phone buzz in his pocket. It was a text from Tubbo.

Police otw already. Employee got to the phone. Hurry.

Did you kill him?

It was too late. Distracted me from stopping cameras faster. 

Tommy scowled, throwing his phone back into his pocket and cocking the trigger on his gun. He jumped the counter and ran to the back rooms, waving his hand at the smoke filling up the hallways. 

He needed to get them out of here.

“ Boo?!” he cried out through the smoke. 

“ Here! Help me!”

Tommy followed the sound of his voice through the thick white fog, eventually seeing the outline of his friend. He was pinned to the ground by an employee, Tommy not hesitating to shoot them.

The body went limp, and Ranboo quickly sat up, pulling a bag of money with him. 

“Tubbo has the rest,” he said breathlessly, “We have to tell him to get out of here. But he’s stuck in the break room.”

Tommy pulled out his phone again, Tubbo. Get out. 

Can’t, the response was immediately. Employees locked me in back here. 

Tommy groaned in frustration, “Ranboo, go find the exit. Take the money. And hide. Somewhere. We’ll meet up later.”

Ranboo nodded, turning the opposite way to get out the back. 

Tommy turned down the hallway, seeing three employees pressing a door closed. He heard banging from the other side. 

He fluidly cocked his gun, hoping the smoke was enough to cause the employees to not see him.

He shot at the three of them as they all dropped to the ground. Tommy kicked their bodies away as he tugged on the door handle.

“ It’s locked!” Tubbo’s voice called out to the other side. “ You need a key!”

“No I don’t,” Tommy muttered, shooting at the lock on the door, watching it pop open in satisfaction, being greeted with a very startled Tubbo. 

He waved him out, “Go! I’ll get the computer, you get the money.”

Tubbo hesitated, pulling out his phone. He glanced up in fear, “It’s Ranboo. He says the exits are blocked off.”

“All of them?” Tommy grunted, though his heart was racing.

Tubbo nodded rapidly.

“Oh god, okay,” Tommy put a hand to his temple. “We can- uh- shit. What do we do?”

Tubbo opened his mouth to reply, then paused.

“Do you hear that?”

Tommy stared at him like he’d been asked to eat a bag of marbles. “Are you serious right now? Does it look like I can hear whatever you hear?!” he hissed.

Tubbo rolled his eyes, “There are police sirens approaching us, dipshit. And we’re stuck inside.”

Tommy’s eyes widened, “Oh fuck. Oh shit. Fuck shit shit fuck shit bitch pussy dick shit fuck- ”

Ranboo was sprinting towards them before Tommy could continue, “We’re so screwed. What do we do?”

Tommy blinked. He hadn’t had a plan for this.

The police sirens got closer. They must’ve been outside.

“Surrender,” Tommy eventually concluded.

The two of them gasped. 

“We can’t just give up-”

“Yes, we can!” Tommy shouted. “What else do we do?”

“Not be fucking idiots.”

The three of them turned to a voice that answered the question from the smoke. As they approached, Tommy nearly passed out. 

“ How the fuck did you get here?!”

They shrugged, “We’ll worry about that later. The issue right now is that I opened the back door and now we have to haul ass over there before the police catch us. Got it?”

Tommy nodded, “We’ll keep pace. Just go.”

They started running down the hallway, money bags, computer, and gun in their hands. They ran across some cops that had gotten in before the others, but they were quickly disposed of due to the gun the newest member of their team had. 

The back door was still open, the cool winter air hitting their face, along with the red and blue lights from the cop cars.

They carefully held up a finger to their lips, “ Be as quiet as possible.”

He slinked around the building, motioning for the rest to follow until they got to an all-black car. They tossed the money in the trunk, Tubbo and Ranboo climbing into the back while Tommy got in the front.

They smoothly backed out of the parking lot, speeding away as Tommy watched more police start filing into the bank.

“Slow fuckers,” he muttered under his breath.

The man in the driver’s seat grinned, “Always have been.”

Tubbo furrowed his eyebrows at him, “Since when were you a part of this plan, Wilbur? I thought Tommy purposefully didn’t-”

Tommy gave him a glare, and Tubbo stopped talking.

“I should be the one asking the questions here,” he answered. “Number one, is anyone hurt?”

“Only minor injuries,” said Ranboo, staring at the cuts on his arms. Tommy assumed it was from the scuffle. 

Tommy and Tubbo nodded in agreement. 

“That’s a miracle, but also good. Second, why the fuck were you three robbing a bank?”

Tommy put his face in his hands, “Long story. I- can’t tell you.”

Wilbur frowned deeply, the red light from the traffic lights washing over his face. “Why?”

“I just can’t. I made a deal.”

The tension in the car was unbearable.

“Fine, then. Techno, Phil, and Niki will love to hear about all of this then, won’t they?”

A series of protests and cries erupted in the car. 

“ No!”

“You really don’t have to do that!”

“What the fuck?! No! Don’t do that!”

“Well, then,” Wilbur continued, drumming his fingers on the wheel, “I’ll keep your little secret if you tell me yours. What have you been hiding for the past few days?”

Tommy paused.

“I-”

Tubbo and Ranboo interrupted him loudly. 

“ Tommy!”

“‘He’ nothing! Nothing at all!”

“For sure!”

Wilbur continued tapping his fingers on the wheel. Tommy stared at the road in front of them as if he was the one driving. 

“I’m waiting,” Wilbur commented.

“Fine! I’ll tell you. I- got involved with Quackity.”

Wilbur froze, nearly hitting the car in front of him before slamming on the breaks.

“ Why?” he asked darkly. 

“I made a deal with him. I was the one who killed Sam. And I didn’t want you to know. So I made a deal with him to keep the secret and he made me go out on a mission for him in exchange and I-”

“Agreed. You agreed,” Wilbur finished for him in disbelief. 

Tommy nodded slowly.

A long sigh, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you didn’t want me interacting with Quackity- which now that I think about it isn’t the best way I could’ve handled it-”

“You fucking think?!”

Tommy threw his hands up in protest, “I didn’t want you to have to go through killing the person that helped save your life, okay?! I wanted to help you!”

Wilbur bit his bottom lip. 

“What?” he asked, voice soft.

“I did it for you. To help you. I didn’t want you knowing about it so I just- you know.”

A long moment of silence went through the car. 

“Tubbo, Ranboo, you’re going home. And if Niki gets curious, just tell her that it was too dark out by the time you were done and I came out to come get you.”

They mumbled quiet responses and they continued the drive in silence. 

_____

“I don’t know, boss, it really looked like him.”

A voice grumbled back to Charlie through the phone, “ That doesn’t make sense! He didn’t want him to know! Why is he in on the plan?!”

“I don’t know, Quackity. All I know is that Tommy left the building with three people.”

“ That’s bullshit, Charlie. Just come back.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow, though no one was there to see it, “You gonna watch the news too?”

“ Planning on it.”

“Be right over.”

_____

As Tommy and Wilbur got out of the car, Wilbur slammed the door.

“Follow my cover story. Leave the money back there for tomorrow. We’re going to see Quackity.”

Tommy glanced at his dirty hoodie tossed carelessly into a plastic bag, gesturing to Wilbur’s as well. 

“What about the clothes? And weapons?”

Wilbur stared at his own hoodie, “Leave yours in the car, you can’t see the blood on mine. I’ll take care of it later.”

Tommy nodded in silence, trailing behind Wilbur. He opened the door, and Tommy was starting to get flashbacks to the first time they both left the house and neglected returning until midnight.

“Wil? Tommy? Is that you?”

Tommy tensed up, remembering he forgot to text Phil back. 

“Yeah,” Wilbur replied, voice moderated, “Tommy got stuck at the mall and I went to go pick him up. Lots of people tonight for some reason.”

“And a lot of long lines,” Tommy chimed in.

Phil stepped into the hallway, lips pressed together. 

“You didn’t buy anything?”

Tommy shook his head, “As I said. Lines were too long and there wasn’t anything good.”

Techno appeared in the hallway behind Phil a few seconds later.

“What’s the point of going shopping if you didn’t get anything?”

Tommy rolled his eyes, “Shut up.”

Wilbur glanced at Techno. 

“I have to talk to you. Upstairs.”

Techno raised an eyebrow, then nodded immediately afterward in understanding. They both turned towards the stairs and engaged in a series of quiet whispers. Tommy was yet to figure out what Wilbur was so eager to talk to Techno about. Surely-

Phil turned to look at Tommy, “And you’re going upstairs to go to bed, right?”

Tommy tilted his head, “Sure. Let’s go with that.” 

“Goodnight, Tommy.”

“Night, Phil.”

Tommy raced towards the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

_____

“ Hello?”

“Hi. I did it.”

“ So I’ve heard,” the voice on the other end sounded amused. “ I expect to see you in my office tomorrow then, right?”

“Yeah.”

“ Uh-huh. Cool. I have a few questions I need to ask you then too.”

Tommy paused. 

“Like what?”

“ We’ll get to them tomorrow, won’t we? I’ll see you then.”

The phone was hung up.

_____

Wilbur quietly entered and closed the door behind himself, Tommy glancing up from staring at the folder he’d been given what felt like eons ago. He closed it and turned towards him. 

“Yeah?”

Wilbur sat down on the edge of his bed, motioning for Tommy to sit beside him. Tommy didn’t move.

“Why did you lie to me?”

Tommy turned his gaze to the ground, already feeling a knot in his throat. He blinked rapidly as his vision grew blurry and hot tears welled up in his eyes. 

“ I don’t know ,” he whispered hoarsely, barely managing to get the words out. 

“Aw- Tommy ,” Wilbur comforted immediately, “Come here.”

Tommy wiped furiously at his eyes, finally standing up to fall into Wilbur’s warm embrace. 

“Did you think I’d be mad?” Wilbur questioned gently, like he was talking to a toddler. 

“A little,” Tommy murmured, pressed up against Wilbur’s shirt, which had luckily not been covered in blood. 

He squeezed him tighter. 

“I- just didn’t want you to go through what I had to,” Tommy explained softly, feeling his tears burning against his face. “You made Quackity seem so horrible- and I just-”

Wilbur shushed him, rubbing a gentle hand down his back.

“I know, I know. I was never going to be mad at you for trying to help me.”

“But you-”

“I know, Toms. I know what I said. But I don’t want you putting yourself in danger for the sake of me. What would you have done if I didn’t overhear your conversation with Tubbo and Ranboo yesterday? I would’ve had to watch you go through the same thing that happened to me.”

This only made the tears flow faster. Wilbur hugged him tighter.

“My first priority is you. It always is.”

“I’m a fucking hypocrite,” Tommy mumbled. “I made you promise not to leave me and there I was- robbing a bank for some guy you’ve been blackmailed into working for.”

“I’m sorry, Tommy.”

Tommy looked up at him, “Why are you sorry?”

“I got you involved with him in the first place. It’s my fault.”

Tommy shook his head, resting it against Wilbur’s chest. 

“I was the one who made the stupid decisions here. Don’t blame yourself. It’s my fault.”

“Don’t be like that.”

“I want to. Let me have the blame here.”

Wilbur scoffed, “No. You’re being difficult.”

Tommy smiled sadly, quietly shoving the part of his brain that told him to lean closer into him into the back of his head, “It’s what I’m best at.”

They both paused for a minute, Tommy closing his eyes as he felt a pounding in his head. God, he’d been so stressed the entire week that he’d forgotten about the constant headache. It echoed into his skull, and Tommy broke again from the hug to press a hand to his temples. 

“You alright?” Wilbur asked, voice thick with worry. He placed a light palm to rest on his arm, a tight frown on his lips. 

Tommy winced, it felt like someone had smacked his head on the concrete, “I’ve just had this stupid headache for the whole week and it’s just gotten worse.”

Wilbur stared at him hesitantly. “Do you need painkillers or something? We can go see Niki tomorrow-”

“Wil- I really don’t want to see any of them tomorrow. Give things some time to cool off, okay?”

Wilbur nodded, but his hand stayed firm on his arm. He used his other to check his forehead. Though Tommy would usually protest at any unprovoked contact, he was too tired to care.

“You don’t have a fever. It might just be a stress headache.”

Tommy put his hands back on his forehead, “You think so?”

Wilbur sighed, “I don’t know what else would cause it. Why it’s been going on for a week I have no clue, but if you really want help we’ll have to go see Niki.”

Tommy groaned, “Whatever. I’ll be fine. I don’t want to see Niki.”

Wilbur patted him on his arm consolingly, “I’m sure things will be okay. I’m not that worried.”

Tommy stared at the floor, finally lifting his eyes to him.

“Can you-” Tommy made some various hand gestures, waving his hands around. Wilbur simply stared at him in confusion. 

“What do you want?” he asked, poorly mimicking Tommy’s frantic gestures. 

Tommy rolled his eyes. Wilbur was giving him an even bigger headache than he had before. He wrapped his arms around him before it finally clicked, and Wilbur returned the gesture, hugging him. 

“You could’ve just asked me if you wanted a-”

Tommy shushed him, “Don’t.”

“Okay.”

Tommy took the opportunity to shield his face from the streaming moonlight that came in through the window in his shirt, pulling them closer. 

Chapter Text

Tommy unbuckled his seatbelt, staring at the backside of the giant sign as Wilbur put the car in park. They climbed out of the car, grabbing the bags of money out of the trunk before approaching the building. 

Tommy adjusted the bag’s weight in his hands, “Are you sure you should be coming? I mean if Quackity-”

Wilbur cut him off, “I’m going. I’m not letting you in there alone to deal with his questionnaire.”

Tommy had told Wilbur about the semi-threatening call with Quackity the night before. He had a disgusted look on his face as Tommy spoke, and insisted that the man was delusional. He also insisted on going with Tommy to see him.

Secretly, Tommy was very glad he didn’t have to go alone. He probably would’ve lost his mind having to go back in that horrible office to explain to Quackity the aftermath of the godforsaken robbery. Alone.

They walked down the glorified hallway, not even bothering to knock before stepping into Quackity’s office. As they entered, they noticed that Quackity wasn’t the only one in the room. He was accompanied by a man with glasses and brown hair. The weirdest thing was that Tommy saw him covered in bits of what looked like green slime. It stained his white shirt and dripped off his glasses, the rug around him covered in green spots. 

Tommy raised an eyebrow before meeting Quackity’s harsh gaze, immediately forcing a blank facial expression. 

“Ah. Well if it isn’t the little robber.” He glanced over to Wilbur in disgust mixed with intrigue, “And his accomplice.” 

Quackity rubbed his hands together, “We had a deal, Tommy.”

“And I completed it. I have your money.”

Quackity stared at the bags in their hands, “Uh-huh,” he turned to the strange man next to him, whispering a few things behind his hand. The man whispered something back, and Quackity nodded.
“Slime here is telling me that you broke your own half of the bargain. A bit redundant, no?”

Tommy frowned, “I didn’t go out of my way to tell him.”

“So you’re just a lousy criminal? Having to recruit three other people to do this?” Quackity said plainly. The man next to him, Slime apparently, must not have understood the tone of the room, because he was giving them a friendly smile. 

Tommy tried and failed at taking his eyes off Slime, “What’s done is done. I give you your money, you give me mine.”

Quackity shook his finger, “See, that’s what I figured you’d do. Get everything over with and brush past the questions. I want to know who your accomplices were,” he glared at Wilbur, “Besides the obvious one here.”

Wilbur elbowed him in the side. Tommy turned to look at him, and he signed don’t do anything stupid. 

Tommy pursed his lips, speaking cautiously, “Friends.”

“And they’re criminals too?” Quackity responded immediately.

Jesus, it felt like he was testifying in court.

Well, to be fair, Quackity was supposedly a lawyer. That would make sense. 

He’d be a damn good lawyer. 

Fuck.

Anyway. 

“No,” Tommy answered quickly. 

“Well, they are now. Since they helped rob the place.”

Tommy shook his head, being reminded of his headache, “They’re not. Not regular criminals at least.”

“They must be. No one goes out of their way to help their friend do something illegal. Especially a robbery.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Maybe I do,” Quackity raised his eyebrows tauntingly, “I might even know your friends.”

“You wouldn’t. That’s a lie.”

“Is it?”

“Quackity will you stop causing issues and just finish off the deal?” Wilbur chimed in. His voice sounded a bit irritated. 

Quackity turned to him, “Ah, Wilbur. I almost forgot you were here,” he leaned closer, “Did you know Tommy came to me first when admitting he killed Sam? He told no one else. Not even his own brother.”

Tommy could tell Quackity had struck a nerve, based on Wilbur’s expression. The man was a tactical genius, Tommy had to admit, and it was annoying as fuck.

Quackity continued, “And he decided to work for me! Look at that. He works for me, Wilbur.”

“I do not work for you,” Tommy stopped him. “It was to pay off one deal-”

“Really, Tommy?! Are you sure about that?” Quackity protested, pulling out a piece of paper from his desk that looked oddly familiar. “This says otherwise.”

He handed it to Wilbur, who snatched it from him and rapidly started scanning over it. After each sentence, his face grew more and more with concern. He must’ve gotten to Tommy’s signature when he turned to look at him. 

“You’re joking. Please, Tommy. Tell me this isn’t yours.”

Tommy stared at the paper, “I-” he started weakly, his voice cutting off.

“He technically works for me. For a while,” Quackity clarified. “But after this, I doubt I’ll want to ask for your help. But you can fucking bet I will be holding you to it.”

“Back the fuck off, Quackity. What do I need to do for him to not work for you?”

Quackity put a finger to his chin, “Do you want to make a deal? You know how well this went for your poor brother last time-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Wilbur interrupted. “Just tell me.”

“Wilbur-” Tommy tried.

“ Tommy. Stop. I’m not in the mood,” he held up a hand, not turning away from Quackity.

“Well, I could shorten the amount of time he’s under contract. But I would extend yours.”

“How long is he under contract?”

“15 years.”

“And mine would be extended to?”

“Well, you’ve currently worked off 1 year, and adding on 13 years from Tommy’s would get you to 27.”

“The other 2?”

“That’s non-negotiable. I still want him working for me for some time.”

“ Wil-” Tommy tried again, tugging on his arm.

“Deal.”

“Wilbur!” Tommy protested, “No! You’re not doing this for me. I’ll be under contract. You’re being stupid. Just let me live it out.”

“Until your way past your crime days? No,” Wilbur finally turned to look at him, shaking off his hand. “I care for you and your future. I want you to go to college and get a normal job. I don’t need you at age 17 worried about having to be a criminal until you’re a proper adult.”

“And I don’t want you stuck in debt to be forced to do this until you die! I’m not letting you do this.”

Quackity held out the contract, “Well?”

Wilbur nodded, taking the pen out of Quackity’s hands. Tommy protested loudly.

“Charlie,” Quackity waved at the man (which, why did he call him Slime?), “Hold him back.”

Tommy wriggled against Charlie desperately, but he held him in place as he watched Wilbur sign his life away to him. He set down the pen and shook hands with Quackity, and Charlie released Tommy. He dropped to his knees, sobbing. 

“Nice doing business with you. I’ll take the money from the robbery and hand you the money from Sam.”

They exchanged items, Wilbur handing him the bags and Quackity handing him the bills. Wilbur counted through them idly, like he’d done so many times before, and nodded.

“See you soon, Quackity.” He waved to Charlie, “You too.”

Charlie waved a happy goodbye to him and Wilbur pulled Tommy out the door. As soon as the door closed Tommy shook him violently.

“What the fuck?! Why did you do that?!”

“I’m protecting you. I’m not letting you get as involved in this as I am. Two years is nothing compared to what I’ve got. It’s more like a job anyways.”

“A job you can’t quit!”

Wilbur shrugged, “I get paid well. No reason for me to quit.”

“It’s dangerous!”

“My best friend’s a doctor. I’ve been doing it since I was 15. Being a policeman is dangerous. It’s fine.”

Tommy pressed a hand against his growing headache that had noticeably gotten worse since they’d visited Quackity. 

Wilbur tightly tucked his hands into his pockets, continuing on.

“Come on. We’ve got to go before things get suspicious.”

Tommy involuntarily followed behind him back to the car. 

_____

Niki brushed the hair off his forehead, Tommy shrinking away from her in response.

“You’ve got blood in your hair, love.”

Tommy pushed it back over his forehead, chuckling nervously while side-eyeing Wilbur, “Really? That’s strange.”

Niki raised her eyebrows at him, turning to look at Wilbur, “Care to explain why there’s blood in his hair?”

Wilbur put his hands up in surrender, “Beats me. I don’t do a daily inspection on his hair.”

Niki rolled her eyes, “I’m trying to ask one thing. Is it his blood or someone else’s?”

“Someone else’s,” Tommy added in softly, staring at the floor. “Don’t blame Wil for this. It’s my own doing.”

“Tommy-” Wilbur warned before Niki cut him off.

“What were you doing? Who’d you kill?” she turned to Wilbur, placing a hand on his arm, “I thought Tommy was out of the business. You said he’d stay out of it. You promised me-”

He shook her hand off, lowering his voice and speaking through clenched teeth, “I know what I promised you. But I can’t keep every single promise we make.”

Niki looked at him desperately, keeping her voice low, “I wanted him to be able to go to college, Wil. Not be stuck doing the same career path as you. He’s a teenager-”

“ I know, Niki! ”

The room sat in an uncomfortable silence. The tension between the two of them was obvious. Tommy could clearly tell that Niki did not approve of Wilbur’s latest job. Or decisions.

In the past, from what Tommy had seen, she didn’t seem to mind too much. Maybe it was because he was younger, or because Wilbur had a legitimate reason for what he did. Maybe it was because she still saw him as that innocent kid he was when they met.

Now, Niki seemed tenser. More on edge. 

It seemed like she actually wanted to put a stop to what he was doing. They’d made a promise to have Tommy go to college-

A heavy feeling of guilt weighed in his chest as Tommy thought about the meeting with Quackity. He was going to be doing this for two years. Wilbur for 27. 

27 years.

It was going to be a pain in the ass to work for the prick for two years, let alone 27. He couldn’t even begin to imagine what Niki would do if she found out what happened. They were both fucked. 

“Tommy,” Niki started softly, “Take this washcloth and go get the blood out of your hair. I want to talk to Wilbur.”

Tommy nodded. He knew the matter wasn’t up for debate. He took the cloth from her hands and headed towards the bathroom, being careful to leave the door cracked behind him. 

_____

Niki paused, her back facing him before turning around. She looked exhausted (both physically and mentally). 

Wilbur tried opening his mouth, she beat him to it.

“What the fuck?”

“Niki- I tried. I was doing the best I could to leave him out of it and it just-”

She bit her lip, blinking quickly, “It what? Backfired? Like I said it would?”

Wilbur remained silent. What could he say, really? 

“And-” she continued, her breaths getting shaky, “I didn’t want you to put yourself in danger to protect him. I wanted both of you out of it. It’s not just Tommy’s future I’m concerned about.”

Wilbur sighed, “It’s too late for that now. I’ve…” 

His voice trailed off. She raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to go on.

“My contract with Quackity was extended.”

Niki’s mouth hung open in shock. 

“Please tell me you’re joking,” she demanded. “I don’t know if I can deal with- that right now.”

Wilbur shook his head.

“Tommy got involved. I did what I needed to do.”

“How long?” she asked hesitantly. 

“27 years.”

“ Wil!”

“I had to!” he insisted. “Tommy unknowingly signed a contract for 15 years! I wasn’t about to let you down like that.”

“But you could’ve-!”

“No, Niki! I got it down as much as I could. I will sacrifice anything for that kid, and if I have to work there the rest of my life, so be it.”

“Bullshit!” she cried. “I’m not letting either of you work for him anymore! He’s a fucking horrible person!”

“I don’t have a choice!” he argued back. 

“I’ll go speak to him myself then,” she remarked, turning towards the door. 

“You are not about to do that,” he grabbed her arm, “Quackity is dangerous. More dangerous than me. He will do whatever it takes for him to win.”

“So?”

“He’ll kill you. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill Tommy and Tubbo and Ranboo and anybody else you care about in this hell of a world. He doesn’t give a fuck, Niki. I’m not letting you see him.”

That seemed to be the thing to convince her, as she paused in her tracks, putting her hands over her face. Her shoulders shook and he could hear muffled sobs coming from behind her palms.

“I’m sorry, Niki. But I’ll promise you this. From now on, I’ll do anything I can to protect myself and Tommy from Quackity, okay?”

…

Silence. 

Then a hushed, “okay.”

_____

The duo arrived home a little later that day, Tommy having secretly slipped the money into Tubbo and Ranboo’s room before he left. Niki seemed to agree with Tommy having a stress headache, and said it would go away in a few days. 

They weren’t completely off scot-free yet. Phil was home early. 

“Where were you two? Last time you two went off on your own I’m pretty sure it was for illegal matters,” he asked in suspicion. 

“Niki’s house,” Wilbur responded simply. 

Phil raised an eyebrow, sipping on a mug of tea.

“For what?”

“Work.”

Tommy stared at him, getting a small eyebrow raise in response. Tommy wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to mean.

Phil set down his mug, “I’ve actually been meaning to talk to you about that. What is this job exactly?”

“An assistant. For a casino,” Wilbur responded immediately. 

Tommy blinked.

Oh. So that’s what he was going with. 

Tommy could only pray Phil was stupid enough to believe it. 

Phil pressed further, “Where?”

“Las Nevadas. A city a few miles from here.”

“Run by?”

“His name’s Quackity.”

“Why a casino?”

“Just felt like it.”

“What’s Niki got to do with this?”

“She’s an old friend of his. Just dropping off some papers he wanted to give her.”

“Why is a casino man friends with a doctor?”

“Don’t ask me.”

Phil drew his face in a tight frown. 

“Why was Tommy with you? I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to bring a teenager to a casino.”

“The casino wasn’t open. He was just coming with me for the hell of it. It was an errand.”

Tommy’s head whipped back and forth as Phil continued asking questions. How Wilbur had an excuse for every single one of them was a little astounding. 

Sure, he had been in the criminal industry for a while, and trying to prove yourself innocent was a big part of it, but it was still strange. 

“And you’re telling the truth?”

“Yep.”

“You wouldn’t be lying to me, right Wil?”

“Not at all.”

Phil sighed, going back to his mug. Wilbur kept a placid facial expression. 

“Fine. I believe you. But please just tell me if something’s up,” he lowered his voice, “Don’t think I don’t notice the times you pull Techno aside without an excuse.”

Wilbur nodded slowly.

“ Right ,” he drew out, “I’m gonna go, actually. I’ve got paperwork to do. So. Uh. Bye.”

Phil held up a hand, “And before you two disappear on me, Niki, Ranboo, and Tubbo are coming over later.”

They both nodded.

“Cool.”

“Nice.”

“Bye, Phil!”

Wilbur turned and rushed towards the stairs, Tommy quickly following behind him. 

When they were out of earshot, Tommy hissed, “Like sprinting up the stairs isn’t suspicious at all!”

“You made it look weird by sprinting behind me!”

“I always sprint up the stairs,” Tommy protested as he followed Wilbur into his room. “You’re the one who started running!”

Wilbur closed his door behind him, eyeing Tommy up and down. “Why are you in here too?”

“I technically work with you again, no?” Tommy grinned, “We’re partners in crime again.”

Wilbur sighed loudly, burying his face in his palms.

“Yeah. Because this ended well last time.”

Chapter Text

The living room was full again. It felt like a real family, if Tommy were to be honest. The warm fill of voices helped brush out the cold chill in the air. They were all spread out on the couch engaging in a few different conversations. One would occasionally blend with another, switching topics like a light switch.

Though Tommy could tell something was off. Maybe the lighting was too bright. Maybe it was too dim. Maybe the room was too stuffy. Maybe the movie they were playing in the background was making too much noise.

No, that wasn’t it. It was none of that.

It had to be- no, it was the big secret they were all hiding. Niki and Phil didn’t know about the robbery. Phil didn’t know their real jobs. Tubbo and Ranboo didn’t know about Tommy’s contract. 

Tommy barely caught himself frowning before someone questioned it. 

They were going to be so disappointed if they found out. The robbery might’ve been enough for them.

Tommy could tell that they weren’t built for the criminal industry. And neither was he. Yet there he was. With that stupid fucking contract. 

Everyone seemed to be acting normal. But every time Tommy tried side-eyeing Tubbo or Ranboo they would immediately look away. Like they were ashamed to be looking at him. 

Something was definitely off.

Tommy tried turning back into the conversation. To get his mind out of the gutter.

They were joking about Tubbo not being able to recognize a cheese grater. By the looks of it, everyone was smiling and laughing. They all seemed to play the parts of an innocent family pretty well. All while Tommy sat in silence. 

“Tommy? You seem awfully quiet. Is something wrong?” Phil asked out of nowhere.

Tommy panicked. It was very obvious. His eyes grew wide, and he sprung up from leaning on the couch. 

“Oh- uh- no. No reason. Just a headache,” he lied through his teeth.

Well, technically it was the truth. He still had that dumb headache, even if it wasn’t as prominent as before. 

Tommy was a horrible liar. 

What made it even worse was the growing pressure of everyone looking at him. Why did they all have to go silent?

What the fuck, Phil?

He forced a fake smile, and they slowly turned away. Tubbo shifted the conversation back onto a nature documentary he’d watched about dolphins recently. 

Tommy wanted to thank him, but was well aware he’d be ignored.

It stung. Why was everyone acting… off? 

His thoughts were interrupted once more by the doorbell ringing. Tommy was half-convinced it was his head that was ringing before Wilbur stood up to get the door.  

Oh, great. Always good to know he wasn’t going crazy. 

Tubbo continued, but Tommy tried focusing on the hushed conversation Wilbur was having with the person at the door. He saw Wilbur’s panicked facial expression and felt his stomach drop. 

There was nothing good at the door. Tommy would actually much rather prefer to hear the ringing in his head. 

Wilbur hurried back to the couch, slightly nudging Tommy to go to the door. As he stood up, he could barely hear Wilbur’s awful excuse.

“ Just a package I ordered online for him. I just needed Tommy to make sure it was right.”

Tommy knew very well whatever was at the door wasn’t a package. He could only pray it was some really scary girl scout. Even though the scariest thing about them was the high carbohydrate intake they had on those fucking cookies.

Seriously, though. One serving size was 4 cookies?

What did they have in them? Drugs?

Anyways.

As he approached, he stepped outside, closing the door behind him, upon seeing the person at the door. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Quackity laughed, avoiding the question, “I was hoping your father would open the door. That would be a fun secret to spring on him.”

Tommy gritted his teeth, “What the fuck do you want?”

Quackity held out his hands playfully, “Chill out, will you? I just have business matters.”

“ What .”

Quackity’s smile dropped, “Fine. If you’re going to be a bitch about it, I will be too,” he cleared his throat, “I have a mission for you tomorrow. I need you to go out and murder one of my competitors for me.”

Tommy bit back a sigh, “Alright. Is that all you wanted?”

Quackity narrowed his eyes, “No. I wanted to let you know that you’re working with a partner. And give you your case file.”

Tommy’s heart skipped a beat as he took the file from Quackity. 

“Who?”

“One of my good friends. His name’s Sapnap.”

Tommy stared at him blankly. He honestly had no words. Except for the name sounding oddly familiar.

“And- why am I working with a partner?” he asked, trying to get his mind together. 

“Your last performance wasn’t the best,” Quackity said flatly, “I want to give you a chance to redeem yourself.”

Tommy stepped back towards the door. He wanted to get back to the uncomfortable living room now. 

“And if I don’t prove myself?”

“You and your what-ifs,” Quackity laughed. “Sapnap will make sure that doesn’t happen. See you tomorrow for your mission.”

And like a flash of thunder, he was gone, off into the night. Tommy rushed back inside, putting the file in a junk drawer. He would grab it later. 

“Everything alright?” he heard Phil ask.

He opened his mouth to respond, but stopped himself. The world went fuzzy. Tommy blinked rapidly, rubbing his eyes as black spots clouded his vision.

His head was pounding as he tried going back into the living room. He tried grabbing onto a wall for support, but couldn't place his hand against it in time. 

He couldn’t take another step before he collapsed onto the floor. 

_____

Tommy sat up quickly, pushing the blanket off himself. He stared at the pitch-black room around him.

How did he get back in his room? He didn’t remember coming up there.

“Hello?” he called out, voice scratchy. 

He pulled himself out of bed, feeling as if he weighed a thousand pounds. He quietly crept down the stairs, the entire house dark. Niki, Tubbo, and Ranboo must’ve left. 

He saw one light on, a single lightbulb above the kitchen table. Phil sat at the table quietly, his hands folded in front of him. Next to him sat Quackity, holding a case file. Tommy let out a confused noise, and their heads snapped towards his direction. Phil was frowning, Quackity was grinning like a madman. 

“Glad to see you’ve awoken. I thought you’d died, Tommy. What would I do without my star assistant?” he taunted, the grin never falling off his face.

Tommy shuddered, “I am not your assistant. And why are you here?”

He glanced back and forth between him and Phil. 

Quackity’s grin finally fell. Tommy wasn’t sure whether to be happy about it or not. 

It was replaced with a dead stare. He looked at Tommy accusingly. 

“Phil knows what you did. I told him everything.”

Phil nodded slowly.

“Why, Tommy? Why would you hide this from me?”

Tommy swallowed thickly, his mouth dry as cotton. He tried opening his mouth to respond but found no sound coming out. 

Quackity tsk-tsked at him, eyes scanning the folder, “I can’t believe you, Tommy. You know you put your entire family at risk with this secret.”

Tommy stared at him in uncertainty, “What are you talking about?”

Quackity gave him a doe-eyed look, “I’m sorry, Tommy. I couldn’t stop it.”

“Stop what?” Tommy questioned, stepping closer. 

Quackity ignored him, “Them,” he responded simply. 

He took a bony finger, still covered in gold jewelry, and pointed to his left. 

Tommy gasped. It was a pile of bodies. Not just any bodies. His family. 

Niki, Tubbo, Ranboo, Techno, Wilbur-

“What the fuck-” he stammered, stumbling backward. 

He looked towards the table. Phil was lying facedown in a pool of his own blood.

Quackity was now pointing at his hands. 

Tommy looked down.

His hands were covered in blood. He was covered in blood. He was holding a bloody knife. 

Tommy dropped it immediately.

“No-” he cried, “No no no- this can’t be real. This is a dream-”

Quackity shook his head slowly, “You killed them, Tommy.”

Tommy screamed.

~

Tommy sat up again. He was in the living room this time. The house was dimly lit. Better than before.

He glanced around rapidly, looking for any signs of a pile of bodies. Or Quackity. He checked his hands, which were clean. 

He exhaled heavily. 

“Oh, thank god, it was just a dream,” he said quietly.

He sat up from the couch and walked towards the kitchen. He grabbed the case file out of the junk drawer. Finally opening it, he stared down at the image inside. 

He gasped. 

“Me?”

“That’s right.”

Tommy nearly jumped out of his skin. The case file flew out of his hands. He whipped around behind him where the voice came from.

He nearly screamed.

“What the fuck?!”

It was- him.

He was talking to himself. Literally. 

The weird copy of himself continued, “You’re the person in the file. You need to die.”

Tommy backed up, pressing himself against the counter, “I’m not- why am I-”

He let out a shaky breath. 

“Why the fuck do I need to die?”

The other Tommy shrugged. 

“You’re the murderer here. You need to be punished for what you did.”

Tommy shook his head.

“No. That’s not- I didn’t-”

“You did,” the copy assured him. “You killed those people. Now you have to die.”

Tommy watched in horror as the copy slowly lifted a gun up to his face. 

He was trapped against the counter. He couldn’t run. 

Tommy screa-

~

Tommy woke up. 

He glanced beside him, where Tubbo and Ranboo were sitting.

They were in the living room.

He sat up as quickly as possible. 

“Oh thank god you’re both here,” he sighed in relief. “I was so worried-”

“Worried about what?” Tubbo cut in. “Worried you’d killed us?”

“You did kill us, Tommy. We’re dead,” Ranboo added. 

Tommy blinked quickly. 

“I- wait, what?”

They both snapped their heads towards him.

Tubbo had a gunshot wound in his forehead. Blood dripped down his face, sprouting from the giant hole in his head.

Ranboo had his mouth cut open, blood spilling down his face like rainwater. They stared at him through the blood.

“I hope you’re happy.”

Tommy scr-

~

“Oh thank god you’re awake.”

Tommy opened his eyes. A blood-soaked Wilbur stood above him. 

“What the fuck?!-”

Wilbur shushed him, “It’s okay. I’m dead. No need to panic.”

“Why?!” Tommy screamed, ignoring him. “Did I kill you too?”

Wilbur smiled, “You’re getting it now. You’re starting to understand.”

Tomm-

~

Tommy sat up quickly, ignoring the ice pack that had just fallen off his head. Blinking quickly, he noticed the crowd of people standing around him.

He backed himself further into the couch, “Don’t tell me you’re all dead. Don’t.”

They all exchanged confused glances.

“Dead?” Niki asked.

Tommy nodded. 

“Please. I didn’t kill you.”

“Oh, Tommy, we’re not dead,” Techno assured. 

Tommy breathed out heavily. It was fine. It wasn’t a dream this time.

“We’re here to kill you,” Tubbo finished.

“Wait- what?”

Tommy looked at them all holding a gun to his face. 

To-

_____

Tommy screamed, sitting up quickly. He noticed the crowd of people around him. He squeezed his eyes shut. 

“No!” he shouted. “Don’t fucking do this again!”

They all stared at him.

“Tommy what on earth-”

He tried evaporating into the couch. He had to run away. He needed to leave-

“You’re all trying to kill me! I didn’t fucking kill you!”

Niki and Wilbur exchanged a look.

Niki bent down in front of him, almost pleading, “Tommy, honey, what’s going on?”

Tommy’s eyes darted around the circle. Even Tubbo and Ranboo were looking at him with concern. No blood coming from either of them. Phil was alive. Not slumped over the table. 

He looked at her with panic, “You’re all- I’m- this isn’t-”

Niki placed a hand on his shoulder, “Calm down. Just tell me what happened.”

“You were all dead. You kept saying I killed you,” Tommy looked down at his clean hands, “I didn’t. I didn’t kill you.”

“No, you didn’t kill us,” Niki told him softly. “We’re all right here. See?”

Tommy’s eyes shifted from person to person. They were all alive. Like she said. Tommy wasn’t about to fall for the stupid waking-up shit again. 

“What the fuck? What happened?”

“You passed out on the floor. I think you might just have a small flu. I’m sure you’ve probably had a stressful week, and you need to probably catch up on some sleep-”

“No!” Tommy screamed. “I am not going back to sleep! That’s where-”

Niki raised an eyebrow, “Why can’t you go back to sleep?”

“I’ll have those horrible dreams again.”

“So… those were dreams? You ‘killed’ us in your dreams?”

Tommy groaned, putting his head in his hands, tugging at his hair, “No! I didn’t! That’s what I was trying to tell you-”

“Niki-” that was Wilbur’s voice, “I think he’s pulling a ‘me’.”

For some reason, she seemed to immediately understand this. 

“Ah-” 

She and Wilbur switched spots. Tommy found himself face to face with Wilbur. It was like the dreams, but with considerably less blood. His hair wasn’t red.

Unless-

“Listen, Toms, I know what’s going on in your mind right now,” he started quietly. “You had guilt dreams, and now you’re freaking out. I promise you that’s not real. You’re just overwhelmed.”

Tommy stared at him blankly. 

He lowered his voice to a whisper only they could hear, “I know the Quackity visit was a lot, right?”

Tommy nodded. 

“Yeah, I figured. You don’t have to go back to sleep right now. It’s fine. I can call Quackity tomorrow if you’re still feeling like shit, okay? You’re my number one priority, right?”

“Yes.”

“See? There we go. It’ll be alright.”

Niki turned away, “I think it's time we get going. We had fun, see you all later.”

Tubbo and Ranboo seemed to hesitate behind her, almost tempted to not follow. Tommy was tempted to wave to them, but couldn’t find the energy to lift his hand. They left without looking back. 

Techno watched Phil go see them out before turning to Wilbur, “Who was actually at the door?”

Wilbur shook his head, “Quackity. Tommy’s under contract.”

Techno whipped around to look at Tommy, “Are you fucking joking?”

Silence.

“ Wil-” he scolded, his original monotone drawl turned frantic. 

“I know you’re technically related to us now, but that doesn’t give you permission to fucking try and kill Tommy.”

Wilbur scoffed, “Like I was the one who put him under contract! I was the person who got 13 years off his contract, thank you very much!”

“Tec, it wasn’t Wil’s fault-” Tommy tried to say, but couldn’t be heard over the argument.

“And how long is it right now?”

“2 years.”

“He should be getting a normal job! Not working for some fucking guy!”

“I took off as much as I could! I don’t have the blackmail points here!”

“This never would’ve happened if you hadn’t gotten involved in the first place!”

“I am not responsible for keeping an eye on Tommy all the time!”

“You sure do act like it, considering you were the one who took care of him for his whole life!”

“He doesn’t need me to keep an eye on him 24/7! He’s 17!”

“Exactly! A teenager!”

Okay, rude. Tommy was going to be an adult in like two months. 

“What the fuck are you both arguing about?” Phil broke in. “I could hear you from outside!”

They both went silent. Tommy looked back and forth between them. 

“Me,” he said flatly. He turned to Wilbur before leaving, “Don’t bother calling him. I’m going.”

And with that, he went up the stairs, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter Text

Tommy snuck out of the house early the next morning. He’d been able to read the case file before he left. Techno and Phil hadn’t even woken up yet.

He’d also taken Wilbur’s coat with him. As far as Tommy was aware, it had multiple secret pockets in it that weren’t visible from the outside. Thus, giving him easy access to extra weapons, if need be.

He could only pray that no one questioned his disappearance. The last time he’d gone missing, it ended up in a kidnapping. Tommy was not very keen on that happening again. 

As he approached Las Nevadas, Tommy was starting to seriously question his life. 

One: why the fuck did Quackity require the missions to be done at 4 in the morning? 

Not cool. 

Two: why the fuck was it snowing in February? That was reserved for December and maybe January. Not whatever the fuck this was. 

He’d much rather prefer the heat of Satan's asscrack than being frozen to death. 

Three: Quackity was a bitch. 

…

That’s it. 

He shook the snow out of his hair as he stepped inside one of the white and red restaurants that lined the city. He was not very enthusiastic to also be met with the smiling face of Quackity and another man present.

“Tommy! Glad to see you,” Quackity greeted with way too much liveliness for 4 in the morning.

Tommy looked at him scornfully, giving him a very obviously fake smile. “I wish I could say the same!” he replied with the same vivacity that Quackity had. 

Quackity rolled his eyes, grin falling off his face in an instant, “I’d like you to meet Sapnap. Your partner.”

Tommy didn’t like the idea of having to work with anyone except for Wilbur. That was off-putting. They were the Crime Men. Not… the Crime Man plus Sapnap. That had a horrible ring to it. 

The man, Sapnap, (stupid fucking name by the way), squinted at Tommy.

“Is this the same kid that we saw the night-”

Quackity interrupted him, “Yes, yes. He is. He works for me now.”

“For two years,” Tommy corrected.

Quackity waved him off, “Time isn’t real,” he turned to them both. “Anyway, the man should still be in his home. The address is in the file I gave to you both. I’ll send you on your way as long as there aren’t any questions.”

Tommy raised his hand.

Quackity looked at him with disinterest, “What?”

“Yeah, uhm, quick question. What do you have against this guy, anyway?”

He scoffed, spinning one of the golden rings on his finger. “Why do you care?”

“I just want a motive. I’m a simple man with a simple question,” Tommy answered simply. 

“He owns another casino in the area. I want the competition gone. For now.” Quackity stared at him in exasperation. “Does that answer your question?”

Tommy shrugged, “I mean, sure. But aren’t monopolies illegal?”

Quackity ran an annoyed hand down his face, “What?”

“You don’t know what a monopoly is? Yikes,” Tommy grimaced, “It’s this thing where only one person has complete control over one type of product or supply-”

“I know what a fucking monopoly is!” Quackity yelled.

Tommy put out his hands in surrender, “Woah, chill out. I’m just making sure that the man I’m working for isn’t stupid. I still wanna know why you think this is the best course to pursue. Did some girl scout get on your bad side? I bet it was those gluten-free cookies-”

“ Tommy!” Quackity screamed, interrupting him. 

“Sorry. Were the gluten-free cookies too far? I mean they taste like old cardboard but I didn’t think-”

“Just-” Quackity exhaled heavily. “ Go. Do the mission or I am going to kill you myself.”

Tommy only smiled innocently, “You seem like the type to like your Savannah Smiles. I’m so sorry for your loss. Discontinuing them was for the best though. They tasted like ass. I’ll leave you to ponder your cookies in peace.”

With a low groan of frustration, and Sapnap practically dragging Tommy out of the building, they were off. 

_____

“Wil.”

Wilbur glanced up from the book he was reading. He saw Phil in the doorway looking no less than very panicked.

“Tommy’s out. I think he left early this morning.”

Wilbur placed down his book. 

“All alone?”

Phil ran a hand through his hair, “I think. I didn’t want to call Niki and ask yet, but he’s out alone as far as I’m aware. I mean, you’re here. He’s not.”

Wilbur bit his lip. 

He did say he was going out. And not to call Quackity. 

Wilbur could only assume where he was going. 

“Did he take anything with him?” Wilbur asked, trying to remain calm. 

Tommy was going to be fine. He had been trained for six years. He knew what he was doing. And he had a partner. It would be okay. 

Phil paused, “I think he took your coat with him.”

Wilbur nodded slowly, chewing on his lip.

“I’ll call him in a few minutes if he’s not back yet. I’m sure he just went on a walk. Or to Niki’s house.”

Phil sighed, “I really hope he didn’t get kidnapped again. God, I’d be a horrible parent to let that happen. Again.”

“Hey, Phil, I’m sure he’s okay. We’ll find him,” Wilbur tried placating. “I’m sure he’s alright.”

_____

Tommy was fiddling with the door handle as Sapnap ran a hand down his face. 

“Could you go any slower?!” he hissed frantically. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but the house alarms are going off!”

Tommy rolled his eyes, “Maybe someone should’ve made sure the door wasn’t locked shut with a key before we entered!”

Sapnap groaned, “For god’s sake-”

He turned towards a window and kicked the glass, causing it to shatter into pieces. He jumped through the window.

“Come on!” he insisted. 

Tommy pivoted to face away from the door and jumped the window behind him, cutting his hand on the shattered glass. With a hiss of pain, he sprinted behind Sapnap as the house alarm faded into the distance.

Tommy took this time to wipe the blood off of him with his non-injured hand while Sapnap pulled his hood further over his head. He turned into an alleyway, crouching against the bricks. 

Tommy tried rubbing the blood off his palm, but cried out in response to touching the cut. It was deeper than he thought. 

That was going to be a bitch to clean, that was for sure. 

Sapnap pulled out his phone, presumably calling Quackity to tell them they’d completed the mission. Tommy didn’t particularly enjoy the idea of him being the one having done the killing for the mission. He was perfectly aware that Sapnap had the power in him to probably slaughter whoever he wanted (considering he stabbed Wil in the leg). So why did Tommy have to do it?

At least he’d wiped the blood off his knife this time. Wilbur would be so proud. 

Tommy sighed, slouching down against the brick wall. Looking at the scenery, it looked oddly familiar to him. An alley Tommy had been in before.

Hm. 

Tommy took a moment to step outside the alley to look at the surrounding buildings. A craft store, a barbershop, and a large grocery store. 

Hm. 

He remembered running past that grocery store and taking a sharp turn into the alleyway. He remembered crouching behind a box, watching Wilbur hide right next to him as the cops searched the area. 

This was the alley that he’d met Wilbur in. It had to be. 

( Footsteps ran towards them.

Tommy sank further into the wall, hoping it would absorb him. He watched the very strange teenager scoot closer to him as the police got closer. 

He slowly picked up an empty soda can that lay next to them and launched it in the other direction. Tommy watched in relief as the cops ran in the direction of the can. The teenager turned back to him with a small grin on his lips.

“Your family won’t find you here.”)

Tommy stepped back into the alleyway, feeling the rush of memories as he glanced around the place. It was… a little sad.

Sapnap wasn’t his partner. The whole story was out of place. Tommy wasn’t supposed to be in this alleyway with some random guy. 

Tommy stifled another sigh and wrapped Wilbur’s coat closer around him. 

_____

“So, I have a question.”

Sapnap kept walking forward, not even bothering to look at him when responding. “What?”

Tommy tucked his hands further into the coat pockets, “You’re the guy that chased me down that one night, right?”

Sapnap paused, “Yes. What about it?”

“Why did you break into the deal they had going in that alley?”

Sapnap shrugged, “They weren’t supposed to be there.”

Tommy scoffed, “What? Why? Did you claim the alley as yours?”

“Quackity sent me out to find Wilbur. He was working for Dream. Quackity didn’t like that. He told me through any means necessary to stop them,” Sapnap replied simply.

Tommy scrunched up his nose, “And that means stabbing Wilbur in the leg?”

“Any means necessary means any means necessary. It got him out of the alley didn’t it?”

Tommy pointed a finger at him, “ Technically I got him out of the alley because he was running after me. So. I basically did your job. You’re welcome.”

Sapnap sighed dramatically, “I’m not thanking you for running away.”

Tommy frowned, “Why not? I literally did your job. You just made things harder.”

Sapnap elbowed him, “I did not. You made things harder by being there in the first place. Who invited you?”

“Me! I wanted to know where he was going,” Tommy declared confidently. 

“Well, then you’ll be glad to know that because of your dumbassery, Quackity knows about you in the first place,” Sapnap taunted.

“Dumbassery? That’s disrespectful.”

“Who’s the one that got him pissed off over Girl Scout cookies?”

Tommy laughed, “Is he still mad about that?”

“Over the phone, he was a little grumpy. I could tell,” Sapnap joked.

Tommy grinned at his remark but found his smile quickly fade away. Sapnap wasn’t that bad. But Tommy still didn’t particularly enjoy being his partner. 

It wasn’t the same. 

_____

Tommy quietly closed the door behind him, placing Wilbur’s coat back on the hook, right where he’d found it. Though he’d managed for the most part to avoid getting blood on it, his bloody palm had managed to dye the pocket a little red. 

Wilbur was quietly reading at the kitchen table, not glancing up to notice that he’d arrived home. 

“Wil?”

Finally looking up, he exhaled heavily, “Oh thank god you didn’t die. Phil was looking for you and I had to pretend I didn’t know where you were.”

Tommy pursed his lips, glancing down at his cut palm.

“Yeah,” Tommy paused. “Hey, Wil?”

He hummed in acknowledgment, looking back down at his book. 

“Remind me to never partner with someone else ever again.”

Wilbur laughed softly, “Can’t handle change, can you?”

Tommy shrugged under his arm, leaning his head on his shoulder, “We’re the Crime Men. Sapnap is not a man I wish to commit crimes with.”

Wilbur scoffed,  “Am I someone you wish to do crime with then?”

“Duh.”

“I’ll make sure to tell Quackity then,” Wilbur remarked. He glanced down at Tommy’s arm, “Any reason why your arm is covered in blood?”

Tommy held up his palm, “Cut it on a window. I blame Sapnap.”

Wilbur sighed. 

“Apparently you do need me present to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Tommy grinned, “See? This is exactly why we make a good team.”

“Uh-huh. Because my only purpose is to be your bodyguard.”

“That’s the most important job, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Just go clean your hand. I don’t want your blood on me.”

Tommy patted his arm, “Don’t worry. I already got it on your coat.”

Wilbur pulled his arm away, wiping at the blood Tommy had purposely gotten on it.

“You’re so gross. I hate you.”

“I hate you more!” Tommy called as he turned on the sink.

_____

“ It was pretty impressive. Except for the door situation. Besides that, I think he did well ,” Quackity’s voice filtered through Tommy’s phone. Tommy was barely listening, he was more focused on messing with the gauze Wilbur had wrapped so tightly around his hand. Rather, he had handed the phone off to Wilbur to talk to Quackity the second he saw who was calling him. He didn’t want to have to talk to him multiple times on the same day. 

“That’s good. Do you really think he needs a partner for the next mission though?” Wilbur responded nonchalantly, as if he wasn’t casually talking about murder over a fucking phone call. 

“ Probably not. But I might still have someone around to keep an eye on him for the next few ,” Quackity answered.

Tommy frowned, looking up from the gauze. 

“I’m not a fucking child,” he called out so Quackity could hear him. “I don’t need your workers to spectate me. If anything, I’d rather Wilbur be there.”

Quackity snorted, “ Yeah, sure. That’d be a great idea. Is Sapnap not good enough for your standards?”

Tommy tilted his head to the side in thought, “To be fair, he did stab my brother with a knife.”

“Thanks for paying those bills, by the way,” Wilbur chimed in. 

“ Fair ,” Quackity finished for them, “ But I don’t see how it’s relevant that you two need to work together. I’d rather just have Charlie around to watch. ”

Wilbur visibly grimaced, “No. Do not send your weird spy slime dude out to watch Tommy.”

“ I mean ,” Quackity’s voice trailed off, “ I could make some sort of deal with you if you want to work together. Maybe if one of you wanted to work longer, or go on a big mission for me…”

“Nope,” Tommy responded instantly, “Neither of us are working any longer than we have to. I’d like to hear about this ‘big mission’ though.”

“ It’d have to be difficult. I’m sure I have something that would be worth it ,” Quackity informed them, obvious amusement in his voice. 

Tommy opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by the sound of Wilbur’s phone ringing. They both turned to look at the phone, even Quackity asking who it was.

Wilbur turned to him, signing Niki. 

Tommy took his phone back from Wilbur and held the phone to his chest. He did not need Quackity listening to the conversation at hand. 

Wilbur finally picked up, “Hello?”

“WILBUR!”

“Oh god,” Tommy muttered, hearing and ignoring Quackity’s confused voice. 

“Uhm. Yeah?” he questioned hesitantly. 

“ WHEN WERE YOU PLANNING ON TELLING ME ABOUT THE ROBBERY?”

“Uh-”

“ WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“Niki, please listen-”

“ LISTEN TO WHAT?! HOW YOU ALL WENT AND ROBBED A BANK WITHOUT TELLING ME?”

Wilbur gave Tommy a desperate glance, Tommy giving him a very nervous one in return. Even Quackity had gone silent, presumably trying to eavesdrop on the conversation. 

“Niki, I was trying to help. If I hadn’t been there-”

“ WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?”

Tommy placed his phone down on his bed and grabbed the phone from Wilbur.

“Niki, please listen. It was my fault. I was the one who decided to ask them for help. And accept the mission from Quackity.”

“ Wait. What? The mission from Quackity?”

Tommy swallowed, “Yeah. I was the one to accept it from Quackity. We made a deal where I’d have to go on a mission for him and he made me rob a bank. I was worried I’d be able to do it so I asked for help. Don’t blame anyone but me.”

“ Wilbur, you promised-”

“Well,” Wilbur dragged out. “This happened before I promised anything. The one reason I was there was to stop them from getting hurt.”

Niki sighed from over the phone.

“How did you even find out?” Tommy asked, then paused. “Did Tubbo and Ranboo spill because they felt guilty?”

“ Yes. They told me everything a few minutes ago because they felt bad about hiding it from me.”

Tommy groaned.

“So that’s why they were avoiding eye contact with me.”

Wilbur stared at him, “Is that why you were acting weird yesterday?”

Tommy pursed his lips, “That was part of it.”

“ I’m literally just in shock right now. I don’t even know what to say. Does Phil know?”

Wilbur scoffed, “No chance. We are not dropping any of this on Phil until we absolutely have to.”

“ Wilbur you know-”

“Yeah yeah yeah. It’s fine. I’ll figure it out.”

Tommy held a finger over the hang-up button. 

“Well, that was a nice conversation. Sorry about that Niki. I promise I won’t do it again. Okay thanks have a great night and tell Tubbo and Ranboo I forgive them. Partly.”

He quickly hung up the phone before Niki could get another word out. 

Wilbur exhaled heavily, then froze. 

Is Quackity still on the phone?

Tommy’s eyes widened.

“Oh shit.”

He ran over to his phone, noticing the call was still active. 

“Uh, you didn’t hear any of that,” Tommy insisted. 

“ Is that the one girl that doesn’t approve of this? Niki?”

They both exchanged glances.

“How does he know about Niki?” Wilbur hissed.

“She answered your phone the one time, remember? I accidentally mentioned her by name. Whatever. It’s fine,” Tommy whispered back.

Tommy turned back to the phone. “Uhm. No.”

Quackity laughed. 

“ Wow. She’s really pissed about that, huh?”

Tommy shook his head, “Changing the subject, you were talking about that mission.”

Quackity cleared his throat, and it was unsettling how eager he was about the idea.

“ Oh, sure. I’ll drop off the folder tomorrow. But I want you two to take down a gang that’s been bothering me for a few weeks now. None of my employees have been willing to do it.”

Tommy looked at Wilbur for approval. He nodded slowly. Tommy took that as a yes.

“Alright. We’ll do it.”

“ See you two tomorrow. I’ll have more information then.”

The call ended and both of them sat there in silence. 

“Well, Wilbur,” Tommy broke the tension, “It looks like we’re back in business.”

Wilbur smiled coyly, “Crime Men?”

Tommy laughed, “Crime Men.”

Chapter Text

Tommy adjusted his hand’s position against his face, staring blankly at the folder in front of him. He’d never really considered the consequences of his actions until after they happened, did he?

“These people are extremely dangerous, Wil. There’s a reason none of Quackity’s workers wanted to do this.”

Wilbur scoffed, eyes scanning the folder, “I know. But we’ve already gotten this far. I think we just need to catch them off guard.”

Tommy nodded, “There’s a lot of them. But if we can sneak attack and take down the majority of them before they notice us we might be able to take them all down.”

Both of them stopped talking at the sound of the door closing. They turned to look and saw Techno standing by the door, hand still hesitantly gripping onto the doorknob.

“Hi, Techno.”

“Hey,” he said, staring at them in confusion, “What are you doing?”

“Where’s Phil?” Tommy asked, changing the subject. 

“He dropped me off and went shopping. Will you tell me what you’re doing now?”

Tommy could tell Wilbur was still on edge from the argument a few days ago. They’d never formally apologized (to Tommy’s knowledge) and were at a bit of a standstill in their relationship.

Tommy bit his lip, “Nothing.”

Techno stepped over to the kitchen table and glanced down at the folder before Wilbur or Tommy had a chance to hide it.

“‘The Invisibles’?! Are you both crazy?!” That was the most emotion Tommy had ever heard in his voice, so much so that Tommy barely recognized it as Techno’s voice.

Wilbur stared at the table like it owed him money, not daring to look up or say a single word. Tommy followed suit.

Techno continued, flabbergasted, “This is the most dangerous gang in the country! The police have been working on taking them down for months!”

“You know this Techno. I am not mentally stable,” Wilbur muttered quietly, finally turning his glare to Techno.

Techno rolled his eyes, “Go back to therapy.”

“I had an appointment yesterday, prick,” Wilbur argued back instantaneously. 

“ Anyways,” Tommy broke in, “It’s too late. We’ve already been assigned to it.”

“You two have a fucking death wish,” Techno insisted, voice dark. “You better pray nothing bad happens. I’m serious.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “I’ll make sure to die then, just for you Techno.”

_____

Tommy crouched behind a trash can, nervously glancing to his left, where Wilbur was hiding as well. Eventually, Wilbur signed for him to move forward. 

Tommy pulled his knife out of his pocket, putting a gloved hand over the mouth of one of the members. He watched as they struggled against him, but quickly stopped moving the second his blade made deep contact with their skin. 

He moved on to the next couple, repeating the same procedure as he worked his way down the alley. As he started to approach another one of them, he heard scuffling take place behind him. 

Not good. It was supposed to be a silent takeover. 

Tommy took the risk of looking behind him and saw a man on top of Wilbur, both of them struggling against each other, fighting over the control of a knife. Fear bubbled up in Tommy’s throat as he watched Wilbur barely manage to fight back against him. 

Before Tommy had time to even react, he was knocked to the ground, the wind being knocked out of him. He flipped on his back and found himself face to face (or rather mask to mask) with the member he was trying to approach. 

His body ached in a dull pain already, and he hadn’t even been there for 2 minutes. He tried sitting up, but found himself still struggling to catch his breath from the fall. 

“ Hey! A little help over here!” the man called out into the alley, and Tommy tensed up with alarm, still trying to get his breathing back under control.

Footsteps came pounding towards them as Tommy pushed the man off of him, standing up. Throwing his knife, he watched as it sank into his stomach. The man didn’t hesitate in pulling it out and holding it up to Tommy. Scarlet blood glistened and dripped from the blade as he approached. Tommy tackled him to the ground, going lower against his legs to avoid the knife, pulling out his gun to fire a shot to his heart. 

No matter how quickly he went limp, he still managed to nick Tommy’s arm. He bit back a cry of pain and took the knife back. The dull aching pain had now turned into an intense pulsing. It was slightly lowered by the adrenaline in his veins, but prominent enough that Tommy already felt exhausted. 

Tommy didn’t have many intermissions between the fights. Member after member came charging at him, various weapons alike. Knives, brass knuckles, pepper spray, guns, sometimes just fists.

(He could fucking see their muscles as they got into physical fights Tommy knew he couldn’t win without a weapon.)

Tommy shoved one man back as another approached. He could taste crimson in his mouth, and barely found time to wipe the blood from his face. 

He was kicked to the ground and held up his gun to fire aimlessly into the air, hoping it’d hit someone. With a small shout, he’d figured he’d at least hit someone. 

Unless that was Wilbur. In which case, uh oh. 

Gasping for air, he stood up and continued making his way around the area, trying to secretly jump as many people as he could without getting seriously injured. Wilbur must’ve managed to take down the ones with guns pretty quickly, leaving Tommy, well, everything else. 

By the time he’d finished off another four members, Tommy’s body was burning with pain. He was completely covered with blood, the majority of it being his own. He had bruises and scratches up and down his whole body from physical altercations. He’d been beaten to a pulp by one member before he’d managed to get a good hit on them to make them stumble, giving him the perfect opportunity to stab them. He must’ve gotten at least five nosebleeds within the span of a few minutes. 

Tommy did not have much (or any) experience with physical fighting, and he could tell it was practiced daily for the men he encountered. But he managed. Kind of.

By using weapons, that is. 

He was extremely injured, and his entire body throbbed with pain. There were open wounds that stung every time he moved, and he just had to suck it up and keep going. His whole body felt heavy, and he just wanted to collapse onto the ground right there. And there were still so many members he had to go through.

God, how big was this gang?

He had no clue how Wilbur was handling himself, but could only hope it was better than he was at the moment. Tommy sighed as he watched two more men with muscles rippling down their backs approach him, even the motion of sighing sending a spike of pain in his shoulders. 

He dodged multiple punches, but was off on one, stumbling backward with the sheer force it had. He groaned, holding a hand over his (now probably black) eye as he pulled out his gun and fired, watching them both fall to the ground. One tried grabbing at him to pull him down with them as he tried running past them, but Tommy shot at their hand as he continued. 

As he went down the alley, he saw Wilbur next to him. 

“Wil?”

“Oh thank god you’re okay,” Wilbur mumbled, dropping his guard briefly to run a hand down his face, wiping away blood Tommy didn’t even know was there.

(“Okay” was a bit of an overstatement, but as long as either of them wasn’t dead.)

Tommy pulled him into a tight hug.

The moment very quickly ended when a flock, yes, a flock , of members came charging at them. Tommy turned away, watching more men approach with knives in their hands, held up and aimed at Tommy. He ducked out of the way as one of them launched themselves at him. A couple of others tried getting into a fistfight with him as Tommy quickly put an end to it, sliding under their legs and stabbing them from behind.

While Tommy was distracted with stabbing people in the back, more men were able to kick him down to the concrete. Tommy roughly landed on his already bruised arms, pulling down his mask to spit out blood. He rolled over (much to his back’s dismay) to be looking up at a group of men surrounding him. 

Tommy scooted backward, ignoring all the new points of pain, and watched in horror as one swung back his arm to launch a punch at him. Hands covering his face, Tommy waited for impact, but there was nothing.

He put his arms down to find Wilbur in front of the man, his knife digging into the man’s chest. By the looks of it, Wilbur had taken the brass knuckles the man had on to the face. Wilbur quickly stood up, jumping out of the way as another person tried throwing another punch. He wiped some of the blood off his face as he dodged it, and left Tommy alone once more to fight off the rest of the group. 

Tommy rolled backward to stand up and held up his gun to their faces. He only managed to get a few shots off before they all came to their senses and tried fighting him once more. Tommy dove underneath them once more and watched them flip around, allowing him to directly take his knife into their chests. 

Tommy turned around to see another man from the shadows sprinting at him. Tommy delivered a sharp kick to his chest, watching him flop backward onto the ground. He stabbed him and moved to the left where Wilbur was still struggling with a few men. 

He harshly shoved them, all of them falling like dominoes. Wilbur quickly took to action, killing the rest of them off as Tommy watched. 

Wilbur exhaled heavily as the last member stopped moving, and removed his knife. You couldn’t even tell it had been silver in the first place. Tommy pulled him up from the ground as his shoulder screamed in protest, both of them barely able to catch their breaths before being approached by the leader. 

“Fuck,” he heard Wilbur say under his breath.

They both watched, frozen, as he approached. Wilbur stiffened as he eventually saw who it was. 

“Dream?”

The man smiled, pulling down his black face mask, “I see you’ve been plagued by Quackity, Wilbur. Following his every order. You’re just like Sapnap.”

Tommy scoffed, “It’s not like we wanted to work for him.”

Dream held up a finger, “Ah. See, that’s what Sapnap told me too.”

Before Tommy knew it, they were plunged into another battle. 

Dream was swift to knock Tommy down, even more harshly than any of the other members. His back erupted in a fiery pain as he landed, and a strained cry of pain slipped through his teeth. Dream stepped on his chest to keep him on the ground as he turned to Wilbur. As Tommy weakly struggled under his weight, he watched the two.

Dream had a disadvantage being stuck in one place (with Tommy under his heel) and looked like he was struggling to fight effectively. He and Wilbur fought with knives like they were swords, each movement being quick and calculated. He ducked under any blows Wilbur tried making and pushed him back. 

Eventually, Tommy was able to push himself up when Dream got a little too focused on the battle at hand. He turned towards the two to try and intercept something, to try and help, but it was too late. He couldn’t even try to step in before he watched Dream bring his knife down and make a giant slash across Wilbur’s chest. 

He watched in fear as blood dripped from his mouth and he wrapped an arm around his chest, falling to the ground. Blood quickly stained his sleeve and seeped through his shirt as he fell. 

Tommy was fucking losing his shit. 

Wilbur might be dead.

And now he had to fight Dream on his own.

Oh my fucking god. 

Tommy held up his own knife as they faced off, circling around each other as they waited for the other to strike. Dream was first, but Tommy was faster. He dodged the blow and managed to swipe at his legs, cutting them in the process, making Dream stumble backward. 

“You bitch ,” he spat, approaching Tommy once more, and sounding a lot scarier. 

Tommy stepped backward, “Shut the fuck up. You stabbed Wil.”

A mocking laugh, “And I’ll stab you too.”

Dream dove towards him, knocking him even further back as the two scuffled, each trying to avoid getting stabbed with either knife they were holding.

Tommy circled around him, getting behind him, but not for long. Dream was quick to change direction, holding up his knife and bringing it down without hesitation. 

Tommy cried out as it slashed across his face, and dropped to the ground, dropping his knife with it.

He grabbed at where he could feel the blood rushing out of his face, which seemed to be a long diagonal cut, from one corner to the other, and scooted backward with his other arm. The exhaustion and pain caught up with him all at once, and he tried focusing on moving backward. He watched Dream step towards him in trepidation, kicking his knife out of reach. Tommy couldn't even find the energy to reach for the gun in his pocket. It was out of ammo, and there was no way his shaky hand would be able to hit anything.

“You killed my men, and that means I’m going to kill you too. Don’t think that you and Wilbur can commit such heinous acts and get away with it.”

Tommy swallowed the bile that was building up in his throat and tried moving away from Dream even more, but he continued approaching. Tommy couldn’t escape him. 

“It looks like your time has come to an end,” he smirked, holding up his knife once more. Tommy squeezed his eyes shut as he realized there was no escaping the situation, the pain on his face going with him.

Wilbur was out. He was alone. On the ground. With a bleeding face. And no weapon.

Again, there was silence. No hit. No rush of pain. Just nothing. 

Tommy opened his eyes to find Wilbur poised over Dream, a hand still wrapped tightly around his chest. He held up a knife dripping with blood, the blade reflecting in the moonlight. Tommy looked down and saw Dream dead, unmoving. Multiple stab wounds were seen in his back, going through to the front of his chest. 

Wilbur wiped off the knife on his very bloody shirt and tucked it back into his coat, pulling Tommy off the ground. Both of them groaned in pain at the action. 

“Maybe we should stick to lawyers.”

Tommy laughed weakly, his face stinging with every movement, “That’s a good idea.”

He watched Wilbur pull out his phone and dial an old number quickly, as if it was old and practiced (which it was). 

“I know you hate me right now, but we might die if we don’t go to a doctor. Like right now.”

_____

Bloody towels were scattered across Niki’s office. Tubbo and Ranboo rushed around the room like madmen, fetching gauze and water and even more towels to be covered with blood.

“Jesus,” Ranboo remarked, “You both are just covered in blood.”

Niki glanced down at her notes sheet, “Tommy has a major cut across his face, Wilbur has a major cut across his chest, and both of you have various cuts and bruises all over you. There are also some serious open wounds on the shoulders, arms, and back.”

Tubbo sighed, “Oh my god.”

Ranboo pressed a wet towel to Tommy’s face, “What were you both even doing this time? Fighting an army?”

“The Invisibles,” Tommy corrected quietly. 

All of them stopped in their tracks, whipping their heads around to look at him.

“Are you joking?!”

“Those people are fucking deadly!”

“They’re the most dangerous people in the country right now! The police have been trying to catch them for months!”

“So I heard,” Tommy mumbled. He tried leaning away from the wall, because fuck, he’d really cut up his back. 

Tubbo adjusted his gloves, “So… like… did you win?”

“I mean, like, I killed Dream. Does that count?” Wilbur meekly responded from the floor.

“ HOW?!” Tubbo shouted, awestruck.

Ranboo’s jaw dropped, “You both are insane.”

“You both lost lots of blood. I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt like shit for a few weeks,” Niki interrupted. “I think you’ll need to rest for a while.”

They both groaned. 

“How are you going to explain this to Phil?” Tubbo questioned.

“Especially the giant cut across Tommy’s face,” Ranboo added. “That’s going to scar for sure.”

Wilbur pulled out his phone and held it up to his ear. Tommy didn’t like the look on his face when the phone was picked up. 

“Phil! Oh my fucking god,” Wilbur started, his voice immediately shifting to sound very panicked. “Tommy and I were out for a walk, and this fucking mob just appeared out of nowhere.”

Tubbo and Ranboo both looked at Tommy with concern. Tommy shook his head. 

Phil’s worried voice filtered through the phone.

“Yeah... Yeah... It’s bad. We got help from Niki and shit, but it’s not good.”

Tommy’s heart crumpled at Phil’s barely audible, “ Do you need me?”

“No. We’ll be okay. I promise. We’ll be back home tomorrow… Alright.”

Wilbur put his phone back by his side.

“What the fuck were those acting skills?!” Tubbo exclaimed the second Wilbur took the phone away from his ear. 

Wilbur shrugged, “I’ve dealt with Phil.”

“Don’t you feel bad lying to him?” Niki asked with a large frown on her lips. 

Wilbur hesitated. 

“Yeah. But- it’s to protect him. He can’t know. Not yet.”

_____

Phil sighed, running a hand down his face.

“Techno,” he turned to him, terror filling his face, “They’re seriously injured. Oh my god. They were out all alone. This is horrible.”

Techno paused, then slowly nodded.

They were lying. Wilbur was lying. 

“I’m sure they’re okay. We’ve got Niki, and both of them seem to rebound quickly.”

Phil put his head in his hands, “I’ve got to pay her back for this time for sure. I can’t believe this. It’s all my fault.”

Techno placed a hand on his shoulder, “It’s not your fault, Phil. They’ll be okay. I swear.”

“God, I hope you’re right.”

_____

“I mean, Jesus, Charlie! They took out an entire gang within an hour! An entire gang of them!”

Charlie adjusted his glasses, “They were very efficient with it too. Even taking down Dream.”

Quackity scoffed, “That’s hella impressive. Even Dream?” he shook his head in disbelief, “I knew both of them were very good, but putting them together makes them unstoppable.”

Charlie stood up from his chair, “What’re you gonna do with them now? We could get them to work together again, but their duo will only last two years.”

Quackity paused. Then turned to Charlie with a wicked grin. 

“They’re good, Charlie. Too good. Maybe there’s a way to possibly extend this contract we have?”

Charlie turned to him, his voice creeping with anticipation, “What’re you planning on doing?”

Quackity laughed, “I’ve got some blackmail up my sleeve. And ideas. I’ll wait for some time until I put them into action. But something’s coming for them.”

He paused, his smile dropping as he leaned back in his chair. 

“And I will be getting what I want.”

Chapter Text

Tommy opened his eyes to the sun blinding him through the open window. Though he could’ve sworn he always kept his curtains closed. So who-

He blinked slowly, forcing his heavy eyes open as all the memories from the day before came rushing back to him. A hand tentatively reached up to his face as he realized that it wasn’t a dream.  Yesterday was real. He had a giant ass cut on his face. 

He groaned softly and reburied his face away from the sun, back into Wilbur’s shoulder. He felt like shit.

It hurt to move. Everything ached. He could feel each individual wound, fresh on his skin, no matter how much gauze covered it. His face stung.

God- why did he ever agree to go on that stupid fucking mission?

He heard the door softly squeak open and the murmur of two voices flooded the peaceful silence. 

“I told you they’d still be asleep.”

“Then fucking wake them up!”

“I can hear you, dickheads,” Tommy muttered, his voice muffled by Wilbur’s sweatshirt (which was borrowed from Ranboo). 

The two voices stopped immediately.

“Oh. Good morning,” Ranboo said hesitantly. 

Tommy rolled his eyes, eventually sitting up to glare at the two of them. The motion was even too much for him, and Tommy tried grabbing at his back towards the source of the pain. Then that motion was too much for him, and he gave up on the whole process altogether. 

“It’s a bit ironic that you’d be able to hear us, no?” Tubbo questioned.

Tommy resisted the urge to sigh, “With the volume you were talking at, it’s not that hard to not hear you.”

“Oh my god, do any of you ever stop talking?” Wilbur’s groggy voice entered the conversation with a quiet huff. 

Tubbo stared at him blankly, “No. Never.”

He slowly sat up with a groan of pain, clutching his arms to his chest.

“Jesus- fuck, I hate that green bastard,” he complained.

“I second that,” Tommy agreed, sliding off the bed. He barely managed to catch himself on the bed frame as his legs gave out from underneath him. Tubbo’s hand twitched at the action, like he wanted to catch him. 

He ran a hand through his messy hair, despite the pain and stitches that they must've put in his shoulders, and raised an eyebrow at his friends. 

“What are you two even doing here?”

“Well, one, it’s our house,” Tubbo explained drily. “And two, Niki sent us to see if you were awake. She made breakfast.”

Wilbur was already up and moving about, making the bed and grabbing his phone from the nightstand. For the amount of pain Tommy could guess he was in, it was very impressive for him to be in such a hurry. 

He was already pushing past the two of them and heading out of the room before either of them could respond, “No thanks. I’m good.”

Tommy sighed and quickly followed behind him as he raced down the stairs, legs filled with lead.

“Coat,” he called out to Niki, getting to the first floor as Tommy tried catching up to him.

“Don’t you want something to eat?” she asked as she handed it to him. 

Wilbur shook his head, “No.”

Tommy hesitated by the stairs, then rushed over to Wilbur. 

“You need to eat something,” he whispered. “You can’t just lose half of your blood and be on your feet and ready to go back out into the wild.”

Wilbur smiled at him sarcastically, “Bet.”

The doorknob was already underneath his fingertips before Tommy could protest any more. 

“Stop,” Niki yelled at him. “You are in no condition to be driving right now. Or walking.”

Wilbur’s head lolled to the side, “Why?”

“Because you have a very thick layer of gauze around your chest. And many bandages around your legs and arms. No.”

“Fine,” he drew out, “Take us home, taxi.”

_____

They could barely get through the doorway without being wrapped in a tight hug from Phil. 

“You’re alive. Thank god.”

Wilbur bit his lip, pausing before lightly returning the embrace. He squirmed around Phil’s arm to prevent him from touching any of the deep wounds he knew he had. He made eye contact with Techno over his shoulder, sharing a knowing glance.

He mouthed a small “sorry” over Phil’s shoulder. 

Techno averted his gaze to the floor. 

Wilbur had no clue why, but his heart sank in his chest as he watched Techno step out of his view. 

He was still supposed to be mad at Techno. They were in an unforgiven argument. 

But-

He couldn’t find it in himself to be angry. 

He eventually shrugged out from Phil’s hug to go towards Techno, who’d gone to hide in the kitchen. Without thinking, he’d wrapped Techno in a tight embrace, despite his entire body complaining against it. He owed it to him. 

Techno surprisingly gave in and returned the hug. Wilbur took small notice in how he was careful to avoid places he could see bandages poking out of, and made sure not to hug tightly. 

“I thought I told you both to-” he could hear Phil’s scolding voice start to say before cutting off. 

They both ignored it.

Their petty argument had been forgiven. 

_____

The doorbell rang.

All four of them, all idly spaced out in the living room, turned their attention towards the door. Wilbur was about to nudge Tommy’s head off his shoulder, (of course, he was the one person who had an uninjured shoulder, which Tommy was using to his full advantage) and stand before Phil beat him to it. Tommy started to protest against it, but Wilbur put a hand over his mouth, stopping him. 

The three of them exchanged nervous glances as they heard Phil politely greeting the person at the door. 

“Wil? There’s someone here for you that I’m inviting in,” they could hear Phil call from the kitchen. 

“Wait, no-” Wilbur tried stopping him, panicked, “You really don’t have to-”

Charlie walked into the living room before he could object any further. Tommy’s mouth dropped open.

“Charlie? What the hell are you doing here?”

Phil appeared behind him, “Tommy, that’s not very nice.”

Charlie, with an oblivious grin on his face, cut him off, “No! It’s fine. Quackity just requested me here to ask when you’d be ready for another assignment.”

Wilbur put a fake smile on his face, standing up to guide Charlie towards the kitchen.

“Well, you see, not for a while,” he started calmly. Once he left the presence of everyone else behind, his demeanor changed quickly. “Have you lost your fucking mind?! Why did you come into the room?!”

Charlie's face dropped to one in confusion. 

“Do they not know about-?”

“No!” Wilbur hissed. “And tell Quackity that it will be a bit. No one fights a gang and heals within two days.”

Charlie tilted his head to the side, “He wanted you to be back within a week.”

“He’s fucking delusional, that’s what he is,” Wilbur rolled his eyes, leaning against the counter. 

Charlie frowned, “He told me to tell you that he expects you back within a week.”

Wilbur put his fingers to his temples, “Yes. I get that. But we need time to heal.”

Charlie shrugged, “I’ll tell him. But I can’t promise longer than a week for a break.”

Wilbur pursed his lips together, “Okay. Thanks, Charlie.”

“And the same goes for Tommy?”

“Yes, Charlie.”

“And you understand this isn’t guaranteed?”

“ Yes, Charlie.”

“And I’ll tell him everything that we said.”

Wilbur ran a hand down his face, “Okay, Charlie.”

Charlie pulled out a phone, “See you in a week then, Wilbur.”

Wilbur didn’t even bother trying to correct him. It was enough effort trying to convince him that he and Tommy needed to wait to heal, and that it wasn’t instantaneous. A week was pushing his luck. 

How Quackity managed to put up with Charlie was a wonder.

Wilbur saw him out, closing the door behind him and making sure to lock it.

He was lucky it wasn’t Quackity, but Slime wasn’t much better. He needed to text Quackity about not visiting his house at random times with no invitation or warning beforehand. 

Now he needed to explain it all to Phil. Fantastic. 

_____

Phil chuckled, not even bothering to turn around, “Wil, why are you hovering?”

“No reason,” Wilbur lied through his teeth, still not moving from standing behind Phil as he made dinner. 

Phil muttered something under his breath as he reached to turn on the stove.

“Can one of you come collect Wil?” he called out into the living room. “He’s hovering.”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, but neglected to listen to Phil. He continued standing in the kitchen, watching closely as Phil took out a pan and dropped pieces of chicken on it.  

“ Wil, stop hoverin’,” Techno’s voice could barely be heard from the living room. “ Sit down.”

Phil stepped around where he was positioned in front of the stove. 

“I’m trying to cook here, mate,” he said lightly. “What are you anxious about now?”

Wilbur sputtered, backing away from the stove and moving towards the counter, positioning himself on top of it, the sudden movement sending a jolt up his spine.

“What are you talking about? I’m not nervous.”

Phil looked him up and down, raising an eyebrow.

“You hover when you’re nervous about something.”

“For god’s sake, I’m not hovering,” Wilbur protested heavily, crossing his arms, then lowering them when they made contact with his chest. 

“Next are you gonna tell me that you’re not clingy either?” Phil joked, turning back to the stove. 

Wilbur furrowed his brows, ignoring how his face turned a light shade of pink and flipped him off, “Shut the fuck up. None of those statements are true.”

They sat in silence for a few moments before Phil continued, “ Wil . What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” Wilbur said after a second of hesitation. His eyes dropped to his lap as a small glint of guilt flashed across his face. “It’s fine.”

“You can tell me anything, you know,” Phil insisted as he continued frying the chicken. 

Wilbur bit his bottom lip.

He knew very well that it was a lie. 

It wasn’t until after Charlie had left that the overwhelming feeling of guilt settled into his bones. The major injuries he’d inducted on himself and Tommy. His fake stories about his job. Keeping it all from Phil hit him at once like a ton of bricks. 

That’s what was making him anxious. He was hovering. He knew that. 

“Can I?” Wilbur muttered weakly. The second it came out of his mouth he took a tight inhale, biting his lip harder. 

Phil had most definitely heard it and turned away from the stove with a concerned look on his face. 

“Wil, what is wrong? I know you’ve been hiding something for the past few months. I don’t understand why you won’t tell me.”

“I-” Wilbur’s voice caught in his throat, and he sighed before continuing. “I…  just can’t tell you.”

Phil just stared at him. 

He had that look that he always had when Wilbur mentioned anything that had to do with his parents. And crime. And murder. And lawyers. And prison. 

Basically, anything that could be worried about by Phil.

Wilbur had grown familiar with that look. He’d always tried to ignore it, and it usually worked. But the burden he’d been carrying suddenly dropping on him combined with Phil’s extreme concern was making things a lot harder.

He just wanted to drop the bombshell. To fucking tell him. To get the weight off his shoulders.

But he knew that wouldn’t end well. It would put everyone in his family in danger. That’s the last thing he wanted. 

“Why?” he uttered, like Wilbur’s words were hurting him. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his breaths growing shallow. He dropped his chin to his chest, trying to avoid that fucking stare. 

He wasn’t answering the question. But Wilbur knew that no matter what he said, he’d be avoiding the question.

God, he wished he didn’t hover when he was anxious. He could’ve avoided this entire situation if he never stepped into the kitchen. He could’ve made that a problem for future-Wilbur, not present-Wilbur. It fucking sucked. 

“Wilbur please-” Phil started, trying to get some answers out of him. 

“You’re gonna burn the chicken,” Wilbur interrupted quietly. “Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to ruin your food.”

“It’s your food too,” Phil insisted, seemingly still unsettled about the sudden topic change. “I’m making you eat something. I don’t care what you say, but that giant cut across your stomach is telling me all the information I need to know.”

Wilbur’s hand dropped to cover his stomach, even though the gauze around it was already hidden behind the thin hoodie he’d gotten from Ranboo. 

God, just another thing Wilbur had done. Stealing clothes from a child.

Might as well add that to the things to cross off on his bucket list of guilt. 

Though Phil was hesitant, he turned back towards the chicken and added, “I feel like you’re doing something I wouldn’t necessarily agree with. Your sudden errands at ungodly hours of the night. Your constant need to drain our stain removers,” Phil exhaled darkly, “There are spots of blood on black hoodies I knew weren’t there before.”

Wilbur almost broke down right then and there. He almost admitted to all of it, not pausing to maybe think about his actions, and how telling Phil would be the end of his life. And probably his family as well. 

And goddamn, he’d just gotten a real family. He couldn’t keep losing them like this. 

But he wasn’t that stupid. He almost did all of that. But he didn’t. 

Wilbur left Phil’s word to hang in a tense silence, only proving the point Phil made to be true. He was up to something he wouldn’t approve of. And was it really that obvious? Or was he just horrible at being sneaky?

“Hey, Wil, I just got this weird text from Sa-” Tommy barged into the kitchen unannounced, eyes glued to his phone. He only stopped his sentence upon looking up and noticing that Phil was also present. It was plain on his face that he’d almost spilled a secret. 

Wilbur frowned at the scar that was starting to form across his face, lining from his right eye to the middle of his left cheek. 

( Wilbur had caused that.)

Phil looked over to Wilbur with the worst facial expression he’d ever seen. Worse than the fucking “look”. It was just pure disappointment. Tommy was only proving his point that Wilbur was up to something. 

It was clear as day that Wilbur was doing something illegal. Something that involved harm. Something that involved weapons and death. 

And that look, that fucking face of sorrow, fucking broke his last shred of dignity. He buried his face behind his bandage-wrapped hands, (he couldn’t fucking escape his actions), and just broke.

Tommy stared at him with worry, but didn’t dare say anything. The issue was clearly between Phil and Wilbur. He’d stumbled into something he didn’t need to see. 

“Whenever you’re ready to tell me what’s up, I’ll be waiting,” Phil told him calmly.

Wilbur could barely make his words out through his desperate sobs. His head was tucked into his knees, wet spots quickly growing along his pants, back shuddering with every move.

God, he needed past-Wilbur to knock some fucking sense into him.

Criminals don’t cry. Murders don’t show weakness. Anyone willing to take another’s life shows no emotions. 

And here he was, fucking sobbing on a kitchen counter. He wasn’t sure if the warmth that engulfed him was Tommy’s hug or his imagination, but he could only pray it was real.

He knew he was very lucky to be where he was. Phil didn’t have to go through all the trouble to keep him around, legally too. But something about Phil not even bothering to try and assure him stung.

Just a simple, “I’m waiting”.

Waiting for Wilbur to spill every single thing he’s been up to in secret and withheld from him for the past few months.

It told him everything he needed to know about his family. 

_____

“Wilbur, what happened in the kitchen?” Tommy inquired. He had clearly been buzzing with interest since he’d walked in on his conversation with Phil. He had also noticed that Wilbur had been purposefully avoiding Phil. “Did you tell Phil..?”

“No,” Wilbur answered firmly, “But he knows something is up. I don’t know how much longer I can hide this secret.”

He put his head in his hands, trying to focus on the surprisingly cool air around him and not the tight bandages. It was one of those random days in the month where the temperatures rose, allowing you to comfortably go enjoy the outdoors without having to worry about freezing to death. While he would’ve very well preferred to go on a walk, rather than sitting outside on the steps of the porch, Wilbur would take what he could get. Even walking or standing for long moments of time caused black spots to appear in his vision.

Maybe Niki was right about that whole blood loss thing. 

At least he could blame some of it on Phil. He didn’t feel very hungry after his (mild) breakdown in the kitchen, and it definitely did not make his life any easier. He hadn’t eaten in two days. Puffy would be at his neck if she heard him say that, but Puffy wasn’t here right now. He was free from her watch for at least another couple of days. 

Tommy rolled back his shoulders at a sudden gust of wind, flinching in pain, “When do we tell him?”

“Well…” Wilbur pondered his options.

For one, if he wanted to make up with Phil and clear the air, he could simply do as he requested. Tell him what was up. Spill the secret. And granted, that was probably not the best idea. It would severely alarm Phil, and considering Wilbur couldn’t do anything about his 27-year contract, would only have him living on edge for a few decades. 

He could also just be a stubborn bitch. He didn’t have to make amends if he didn’t want to. It was probably the safest option. If Phil had really known for that long, he could’ve come forward about it sooner. Or tried to punish him (he still hadn’t forgotten about training at the gym). The option would make things a bit awkward between the family, considering Wilbur couldn’t just leave the house. He could barely walk a few steps before his path grew wobbly. 

“I don’t think we should tell him until we absolutely can’t hide it from him anymore. Like, the last result, ‘it’s an emergency' situation.”

Tommy didn’t seem to agree or disagree with him, remaining silent and emotionless at his side. He pulled out his phone, past memories coming back to him at once. 

“Oh! I never showed you the text from Sapnap,” Tommy startled, quickly pulling up his messages and shoving them in Wilbur’s face. 

“What does he even-” Wilbur started to say before reading the screen. “What the fuck?”

Please show this to Wilbur whenever you get the chance, his eyes skimmed, Warn him. ASAP. Quackity is planning something. I don’t know what it is. But it’s going to put Wilbur in danger. Tell him to prepare himself. For anything. 

Right below in blue, Tommy’s texts filtered through, What? Wdym? Prepare for what?

I can’t explain, Wilbur could almost hear the desperation through the screen, But I know he’s going to do something bad. He’s out for Wilbur. I don’t know why. Just be careful. 

Wilbur furrowed his brows, looking up from the phone screen to stare at Tommy in confusion, who looked about as unsure as he did. 

“Warn me?” he repeated, still unbelieving what he’d just read. 

Tommy shrugged, putting his phone back in his pocket. 

“I honestly have no clue what he means. Or why he’d want to warn us, er- you, about something Quackity’s planning?”

Wilbur glanced down at his stomach, currently being squeezed with gauze, “Prepare me for what? An unplanned birthday party?”

Tommy frowned, not seeming to take the joke well, “He seemed very panicked. Like he walked in on the wrong conversation and felt like we needed to know,” Tommy scoffed, “Whatever it is, it’s Quackity. So you just have to prepare for any scenario. A mugging? An assassination attempt? A kidnapping?”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, “Why would he kidnap me? Or mug me? It’s his money anyway. I work for him.”

Tommy sighed, “I’m just saying. I don’t think Sapnap is joking. It can’t be good.”

Wilbur shook his head, pressing his fingers to his temples. 

“He must have a motive,” he concluded. “If he’s planning something, he’s doing it for his own self-benefit.”

Tommy scoffed, “A motive? For what?”

Wilbur frowned, the pieces slowly clicking into place. He took a sharp inhale, a stabbing pain from his stomach bursting in response. Quackity had many things against them. He had blackmail. He had proof. He had evidence. What he didn’t have, though, was Tommy working for him for longer than 2 years. 

“Tommy, I need you to pay attention to me,” Wilbur started seriously, unsure of how to phrase it. “No matter what Quackity does, no matter what he bribes you with, or any deals he tries making with you. Do not agree to any of it.”

Tommy wrinkled his nose at him, “What? Why? What if you’re in danger-”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Wilbur cut him off. “I don’t care if he has a gun to my head. Do not make any deals with him to try to save me. Don’t make any deals with him period. Or sign any contracts,” he added after a moment, “Okay?”

“Wil I’m not going to let you die-”

“Yes. You are,” Wilbur insisted, grabbing his shoulders loosely, careful to avoid the cuts, and Tommy startled in surprise at it. “You have my permission to be selfish. Do anything it takes to make ‘you’ your main priority. No one else.”

Tommy pushed him away, leaning backward, “Where is all of this even coming from?”

“Quackity is smart,” Wilbur explained. “He knows your weaknesses. He knows my weaknesses. And he knows that we are each other’s biggest weakness.”

Tommy grimaced, knowing very well that Wilbur was right. Their close bond, when easily separated, made way for great blackmail. Or ransom.

“He’s going for me to get something from you,” Wilbur told him gently, trying to ease the fear out of his own voice, “And I have a pretty good idea that it’s increasing the amount of time you work for him. So do not agree to any of his deals. Prove to him that he doesn’t know you as well as he may think.”

Tommy took a few steps towards him, an irresolute look on his face.

“If he puts your life on the line, I may still have to-”

“No,” he demanded. “You will not. Encourage him to kill me, even. Just trust me. Please.”

“Not when you’re talking like that,” Tommy muttered.

Wilbur dramatically crossed his arms, “Talking like what? What’s wrong with it?”

“You’re talking like a loon, Wil. And you’re not sounding very trustworthy.”

“ Tommy ,” Wilbur said with exaggerated fond endearment, “Trust me. I promise that everything will be okay if you just listen to me.”

“Well now you’re being too convincing,” Tommy grumbled under his breath. “How am I supposed to blatantly ignore you when you put it like that?”

Wilbur gave him an innocent smile, ruffling his hair as he stood up to go back inside. 

“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

As the porch door slammed closed behind him, Tommy hesitantly stood outside, going over the conversation in his head. 

Quackity had a motive. He was planning on doing something to harm Wilbur. Or to get Tommy’s attention. And he was supposed to put himself before Wilbur?

Tommy sighed, staring at the door. 

“Stupid fucking criminals and their plans,” he said out loud to himself before reentering the house. 

Chapter Text

Avoiding responsibilities and worries was something Tommy was familiar with. It tended to fall under many things, including homework, chores, missions… the list goes on. It helped keep his anxiety at bay, as well as being able to slip into a different routine where he could easily forget about things for a while. He might binge TV, go on a walk, or hang out with Tubbo and Ranboo. 

But this time, things had gone a little off the rails. After about a week, Phil made a comment about his recovery speed, saying he recovered well and quickly from the injuries he sustained. 

Wilbur, on the other hand, was a different story. 

(He still refused to eat. Puffy had pulled them aside and insisted they keep a close eye on his poor appetite. Recovering from blood loss and severe injuries, apparently, requires you to actually eat things. Who would’ve known?)

Anyway.

“You know, Tommy, I’ve been thinking,” Phil started.

Tommy groaned, placing his cereal bowl in the sink, “What now?”

“What if you considered getting a job?”

The three of them all whipped their heads in this direction, all with seemingly different levels of alarm.

“Uhm… why does Tommy need a job?” Techno said awkwardly, an eyebrow cocked in suspicion. 

Phil tilted his head to the side, “It’ll get him extra money for college tuition when he goes. Give him something to do. It’ll be good for him.”

Wilbur frowned, “I can pay for his college tuition. What is a minimum wage job going to do for him?”

“Give him his own money,” Phil insisted, glancing at Wilbur with a superior look in his eye. “And have him learn to not rely on you and Tec for everything. He’s almost an adult.”

“Don’t remind me,” Techno rolled his eyes. 

“ Anyway, ” Phil butted in, “I think it’s a good idea. You can go around town and see which places would be a good fit for you.”

Tommy rested his hand against his cheek begrudgingly, lighting flinching, and adjusting it when it caught the side of his scar. 

“And where would that be?”

Phil took a minute to ponder the question, “The grocery store, a restaurant, fast food places, movie theaters, cafes-”

Wilbur snorted, “Like Tommy wouldn’t find some way to burn down any of those buildings when given the chance. No way in hell.”

Phil shot a warning stare, Wilbur lightly faltering. Their kitchen conversation still hadn’t been settled it seemed.

“I say it’ll give him something to do today. Get him out of the house.”

Tommy stared at him blankly.

“Are you serious?”

“The sooner the better,” Phil insisted, “Just text any of us if you need anything. Techno and I will be at work, and Wilbur ,” Phil briefly turned to scold him, “Will be resting . And eating .”

Wilbur rolled his eyes, Tommy’s shoulders tightening when Phil turned back to him with a warm smile. 

It seemed Tommy had no choice in the matter. He needed to go find a job.

_____

The first woman he talked to was a rude bitch. She kept peering at him over her red square-shaped glasses every time she asked a question. Almost like she was waiting for him to say even the slightest wrong thing. 

“And where do you expect your future to be with this store?” she croaked, judging him with her every move.

Tommy, frankly, was getting sick of her bullshit. His nice persona that he’d put on wore off, and he narrowed his eyes at her. 

“It’s a fucking grocery store,” he said blatantly. “I expect to either be stocking shelves or be as far away from here as possible.”

Her judgmental gaze dropped immediately, and she leaned backward in surprise, sputtering over her own words. Finally coming to her senses, she spat, “Young man, that is no way to behave. You can consider this interview over. You didn’t get the job.”

Tommy breathed a sigh of relief. He quickly stood up, scooting back from the uncomfortable chair he’d been forced into. Making his way to the door, he called after her, “Oh thank god. I fucking hate this place,” he paused for a second, “Those glasses make your eyes look fat.”

The woman reached up towards her glasses, before huffing and putting her hand back firmly at her side. 

“ Out.”

“Bye, bitch.”

_____

He tried being a barista next, which went as well as you’d expect. He spilled an entire carton of milk on the floor (he would neither confirm nor deny if it was on purpose or not), and managed to get some employees to slip in it.

He also had zero experience with coffee. He loved caffeine, and was the main thing he used to get through his day, but making coffee was never simple. He always made it too sweet, or too bitter, leaving him with an uncomfortable mug of coffee. It was easier to stick to Coke.

The interview was definitely over when he dropped a cup of hot coffee on the woman interviewing him. (Again, it may or may not have been on purpose). 

She wiped the hot substance off her arms as quickly as possible, running her hands under cold water. Tommy tried his best to hide a snicker as he watched her nearly slip on the spilled milk as she raced over to the sink. 

So.

There went working at the cafe. 

_____

The next place of interest was the local cinema. 

The interview had to be the most average of all the jobs he’d applied for that day, also making it the most boring. They must’ve grabbed some poor chap from behind the snack counter and told him to interview Tommy for the position, as he really didn’t want to be there.

He looked half-asleep, trying to read prewritten questions off a sheet of paper. He had a pen next to him to take notes, but never picked it up once. He literally started scrolling through Twitter while Tommy responded basically to a question. 

“Anything else?” the man drawled, staring at Tommy with half-closed lids. 

“No?” Tommy looked at the man in confusion.

Did he really get through that entire interview? Impressive. 

The man looked back over the sheet of paper, glancing up at Tommy one final time, “So, uhm, we’re so glad you came to apply working at the cinema,”  he looked back down, reading the thing on the paper word for word, “and thank you for your interest in the position- but I don’t think you’re the best fit for our team.”

Tommy’s jaw dropped. This interview was rigged. He’d managed to get through it without any injuries or mouthing off. He should be accepted for just being forced to listen to the man talk to him. 

“Why?”

“You said for one of your previous occupations, ‘criminal’.”

Tommy shrugged, “At least I was honest?”

The man gave him an exhausted look and pointed to the exit. Tommy gratefully took it. 

_____

Tommy glanced up at the sign on the building. It looked like a fancy Italian restaurant. Looking down at his outfit, he definitely did not get the memo. He tried straightening his sweatshirt, brushing off stray pieces of fuzz. 

Then his phone rang. 

Regretfully, he took one look at the name, scowled, and answered.

“What the fuck do you want, asshole?” he grumbled into the phone, stepping off to the side of the crumbling brick wall. The dull pain he’d managed to ignore for the majority of the day was immediately brought back into his mind at the thought of talking to him.

“ Woah, starting off aggressive today, are we?”

Tommy rolled his eyes, even though no one was actively in front of him. “Yeah. I’m busy. Tell me what you want before I hang up.”

“ Slow down, my wonderful employee,” Tommy scrunched up his face, knowing he was being a dick to mess with him. “ I just wanted to call to ask if you wanted a job at my restaurant?”

Tommy paused, trying to collect his thoughts as his brain parted in fifteen different directions.

“Uh- what?”

“ You don’t have to go scavenging for jobs around the city. You can come work in my city, a place familiar to you. You already know your boss.”

Tommy laughed bitterly, “You make a great point. I do know my boss,” his sarcasm dropped, “And I hope he fucking dies. Stop fucking spying on me.”

“ Now Tommy, what makes you say that?”

“Oh drop the bullshit, Quackity. I know you made Charlie follow me around town. How else would you know what I’ve been doing all day?”

“ Maybe Wilbur told me.”

Tommy clenched his phone in his hand, almost to the point of crushing it to pieces. 

“Shut the fuck up.”

“ Oh, since when did Wilbur become such a sensitive subject?”

“Fuck off, you prick. Stop being a creep and spy on some other fucking teenager,” Tommy snapped back at him instantly.

“Now, Tommy, listen-”

Tommy hung up the phone, shoving it back into his pocket. Quackity acting all innocent wasn’t fooling him for a second. Maybe he shouldn’t trust Sapnap, and they were all working together on some elaborate scheme to scare the shit out of him. Or maybe Sapnap was really trying to warn them, in which case, gave Tommy the complete right to be a dick. 

Especially since he was spying on him for the past few hours? The whole time? Creepy as fuck. Sapnap definitely had to be right if he’d sent out Charlie to watch over his every movement.

Maybe Charlie was out to see if anyone had left Wilbur alone. And vulnerable. Leaving him the perfect time to strike and-

Tommy’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. Before he knew it, he was pulling his phone out of his pocket again and calling home. 

“ Hm?” a groggy voice mumbled over the phone. 

“Are you okay?” Tommy asked, flushing the panic out of his voice the best he could.

“Huh? I mean- yeah? I guess?”

God, he was talking so slow that Tommy wanted to punch him through the phone. 

“Nothing happened yet? No signs of any danger?” Tommy pushed further.

“ No? ” he cleared his throat, “ Tommy, did something happen? Why are you calling? ”

“Quackity sent Charlie out to follow me around town all day. It’s creepy as shit and I was worried that because you were left at home-”

A tinny yawn came through the phone, “ I’ll be fine. ”

“Not when you haven’t eaten anything and you’re trying to recover from a serious injury,” Tommy rolled his eyes, and even though Wilbur couldn’t see it through the phone, he made sure it was prominent in his voice.

“ Hey, listen. I’m following one of Phil’s requests. I’m resting. Which you’ve actually interrupted. ”

“I’m trying to make sure you’re not dead!” Tommy hissed into the speaker.

“ Uh-huh,” the unamused voice echoed back to him. “ I’ll call you back when I get kidnapped, yeah?”

“Not funny, Wil,” Tommy muttered as we watched some people exit the restaurant. 

“ And then you can have a whole rescue mission to come save me,” Wilbur mused, his voice still obviously sleep-ridden.

Tommy frowned, mustering no response. 

“ And that’s my cue to go. See you soon. Tell me where you start working. I’ll call you if I get kidnapped. Bye.”

Tommy couldn’t even get another word out before he hung up.

The cheeky bastard. 

Tommy shoved his phone back into his pocket and raced through the doors, the smell of garlic and tomato sauce flooding his nose. He was already late for his interview.

_____

Okay, maybe the Italian place didn’t work out, but the fast-food restaurant/cafe might. To be honest, it was pretty modern looking, not like any fast food place he went to. He couldn’t really make any other comments besides the look of the place, but the best way to phrase it was a fancy McDonald’s.

Tommy fidgeted in his seat while he waited for the manager to walk through the doors. An employee had taken him into the back and told him to wait. So he did. For a good 10 minutes already.

The job better be the best fucking thing ever for waiting that long. 

Finally, after a million years, a guy that looked to be around Wilbur or Techno’s age walked through the doors. He had a navy blue apron tied to his chest with curvy lettering on the front that read, “Foolish’s”. Tommy said the name in his head a couple of times before deciding it was a stupid name for a restaurant. 

“Hi!” he said brightly, as if the name of the fucking place he was employed at wasn't a fucking pain in the ass to pronounce. “Thank you for applying for a job at Foolish’s. I’m the manager and owner, Foolish. Let’s start with a simple questionnaire. How did you find out about us?”

Tommy blinked. 

He didn’t want to lie.

That wouldn’t be good.

“It’s my favorite place to get food when I’m in a rush,” Tommy explained, “Love the food.”

He had never stepped foot inside the restaurant until today. 

That was a complete lie. 

The man smiled brightly, “Oh, that’s fantastic! I’m glad to see a loyal customer applying to offer their service here.”

Tommy bit the inside of his cheek as he waited for the awkwardness to subdue and for Foolish to ask the next question. 

They went on in this pattern for a while, Tommy managing to tell the truth (on the majority of them) and completing the interview. Foolish seemed to crack a wide smile anytime Tommy made a sarcastic remark, rather than yelling at him or kicking him out. 

“Well, Tommy, based on what you’ve given me here, I’d say you’re a perfect fit for our team,” he glanced down at a notepad, “Based on your preferred work hours I’ll be sure to add you into our schedule next week, starting Monday. How does that sound?”

Tommy gave him a fake smile, “Great.”

By the time Tommy had walked out of the restaurant, everything hit him all at once. He had just lied through an entire interview, got the job, and started next week. 

“What the fuck?”

_____

Despite it getting harder and harder to find clothes that didn’t have red stains on them, Tommy managed. He managed to find a simple navy blue shirt and made his way down the stairs, almost ready to head out the door when he was stopped. 

“Tommy! Are you forgetting something?” a voice called from the kitchen.

Reluctantly, he made his way into the kitchen.

“Jesus, is this a whole family gathering?” he muttered under his breath as he grabbed a piece of toast from the plate Phil held out to him. 

“Where’d you even manage to find a job?” Techno asked, ignoring his question.

“Foolish’s,” he and Wilbur answered at the same time. 

Techno scoffed, “Oh, so he gets to know but I don’t?”

“To be fair, Wilbur asked me first. He gets to know first,” Tommy reasoned, taking a bite of the bread. 

“I think that’s favoritism,” Techno insisted drily, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear and out of his vision. 

“I can’t help the fact that he likes me more,” Wilbur taunted, though his face was flat when staring at his plate half-filled with food. 

“And this is where I leave,” Tommy called out as he slipped through the doorway. “Bye!”

He grinned as he left the kitchen in shambles, the two brothers quickly getting into a petty argument.

_____

As Tommy stepped through the doors, a cool breeze hit him in the face, along with the pleasant smell of freshly cooked food and coffee. It felt more modern looking than the last time he was in there. It had the looks of a homely cafe that you’d find on the street corner of any rich neighborhood. Or a really fancy McDonald’s mixed with a Starbucks.

“Tommy!” a joyful voice shouted, startling him and a few other customers in the place.

He spun around to face where the voice had come from and was face-to-face with Foolish. 

“Oh, uh, hi,” he managed to get out, trying to compose himself from the jumpscare.

“Welcome back! Follow me to the back and I’ll get you situated.”

Tommy nodded, carefully following behind him and they went through a large wooden door and ended up behind the counter. With a sharp right, they turned into a very large room. It was filled with aprons, ingredients, and equipment. 

The smell of all the food grew stronger, and it was mouth-watering. God, why hadn’t Tommy eaten here before? The food smelled good as shit. 

“I assume you know that all of our food is made from scratch, considering you’re a loyal customer,” Foolish said with a wink. “We agreed on you working the closing shift, correct?”

Tommy nodded, “I believe so.”

“Fantastic,” Foolish grabbed an apron off the wall, “I’ll get you started with training and we’ll have you working independently in no time.”

_____

A few hours of working had Tommy wondering why he’d never decided to work in a restaurant before. It was so much easier. There was also the added bonus of no chance of death with everything you did (besides working the oven). 

The only real issue Tommy had were the entitled customers, which had him impulsively reaching a hand down to his pocket before realizing that using knives against customers was illegal. He usually gave them away to Foolish to deal with. 

It also had him wondering why he hadn’t bothered to eat there before. It was easy to realize why the place was so well received. The food was good.  It had literally everything you could think of. Grilled cheese, croissants, bagels, salads, smoothies, coffee, sandwiches- 

How Foolish managed to make fresh food for every single customer's order was astounding.

When the sun set in the sky, casting a golden light on the tan-tinted walls, it made the place even more homely than before, which Tommy hadn’t thought was possible. 

As Tommy mopped the gray linoleum tiles, he instinctively glanced up at the sound of the door chime. He groaned.

“Oh fucking hell,” he muttered to himself, placing the mop back in the bucket and pushing it back towards the storage closet, emptying the soapy water in the sink. He stepped back out to the dining area and walked behind the counter, rolling his eyes.

“I apologize for the wait, what can I get-” he started to say in his customer service voice before being cut off.

“That’s very nice of you, Tommy,” a playful voice echoed back to him, “We’ll just have one order of large fries.”

Tommy sighed, punching in the order to the register, “That’ll be $1.50.”

“Thank you, sir, for your wonderful service. You’ll be getting a five-star review from us,” they snickered, handing him the money.

Tommy glared at them as he handed them the receipt, “Drop the act. What are you two doing here?”

“What? Are we not allowed to order food from our best friend?” 

“No,” Tommy responded flatly, “I never told you I worked here.”

“ You didn’t. Techno did.”

Tommy groaned, running a hand down his face, slightly flinching as it hit his scar.

He’d forgotten about that. 

He went back to gather a white paper container, scooping the still hot fries into it, and handed it to them, “Just take your food and leave.”

An exaggerated gasp, “That’s no way to treat a customer. Or your best friend. We want to sit down with our food.”

“ Tubbo, ” Tommy exasperated, “I just mopped. If you make a mess I swear-”

Tubbo handed the fries to Ranboo, “Oh, shush. We’re just here to support you on your change of career paths.”

“Haha,” Tommy said blankly, “Go sit down.”

“If you insist,” Ranboo teased lightly, grabbing Tubbo by the arm and finding a table close to the counter.

Tommy rolled his eyes once more, turning away to find Foolish standing behind him with a small grin. 

“Friends?” he questioned simply.

“That’s a bit of an overstatement,” Tommy answered scornfully.

Foolish laughed, “Don’t worry, I have friends that come in all the time to make fun of me for my business.”

Tommy gaped in confusion, “What?! Why? This place has the best fucking food I’ve ever had!”

Foolish shrugged, “Running a restaurant tends to not be the main choice of career paths for most people,” he stared off into the distance, “They did get off my back about being a lawyer after those murders though.”

Tommy startled, clearing his throat awkwardly, “Uh, yeah. Being a restaurant owner is a lot more fun than being in a court all day though.”