Chapter Text
“You should know better than to sneak fourteen-year-olds off campus.”
“You literally asked me to come pick you up.” Tommy gives the girl a playful whack on the back of the head. She ducks easily and elbows him in the ribs instead.
“How far is your house, Drista? I’m fuckin’ tired.”
She points vaguely up ahead. The neighborhood they’re in is an average Indiana suburb, worn-down picket-fence houses, the sounds of dogs barking, the sound of someone’s beer bottle smashing on the floor, the thick smell of corn wafting from the cornfields across the road. Almost all the houses are identical. Each block bends into another row of achingly bucolic buildings. Tommy resorts to just following where the blonde girl goes.
He’s surprised that he managed to sneak her out of school, despite having done it many times before. It’s always a challenge - middle school teachers seem to be a lot more strict than high school ones, which is understandable, considering middle schoolers are just slightly less depressed high schoolers with the attention span of a two-year-old. His excuse was that he was her mom’s friend (he’s not sure how the hall monitor believed it - yes, he was tall and yes, he had hastily scribbled out a forged note, but he looked nothing like an adult). He let a deep exhale escape his mouth as he trailed out the door behind Drista, who was skipping like she didn’t have a care in the world, the fucker.
She stops short, nearly making him run into her. “Over there.” She jabs a thumb towards a house that looks much similar to all the others, except for the fact that there are about six soccer balls kicked on the roof and a sparkly pink toy car on the lawn, the kind that little kids sit in, push the pedals, and run over people’s feet with.
“What’s that for?” He points to the car.
“That’s the Penis Wagon.” Drista makes her way down the sidewalk.
“The fucking what?”
“The Penis Wagon. Dream named it, not me,” she scoffs. “Although I did have a lot of fun with it when I was little.” If Tommy didn’t know better - and he knew better - he’d say her tone was almost nostalgic. He shakes it off and follows her down the driveway.
She yanks a house key out of her pocket, jabs it in the door and wrangles it open after much jingling and swearing under her breath. Then she shoves it back in her pocket and struts in, Tommy following, the edges of his skin alight with apprehension. (Not that he knew what apprehension meant. And if you explained it to him, he would violently deny it).
He almost trips over a large jacket that’s been conveniently placed directly in the doorway. “Why is this thing in the doorway?”
“You sound like my mom,” Drista says bluntly, easily avoiding all the random objects that happen to be littered all over the hallway. Tommy grumbles incoherently. It’s not my fault she decided to ransack her whole house before I came here. I’ve never even been here before. I don’t -
His train of thought is interrupted by a deep, rough, slightly confused voice. “Drista, why are you home?”
He jolts, thinking it’s her dad at first. Then he remembers her dad’s at work, and this guy is much too young to be her dad. He’s got slightly wavy blond hair, just a bit darker than Tommy’s, and his tanned face is lightly spattered with freckles. He’s tall, a bit taller than Tommy, and he’s dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants.
Drista sets down her mom’s phone, conveniently placed on the countertop, and sets her other hand on her hip. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I had a free day at school. Tests,” he says bluntly.
“No you didn’t. You go to the same school as Tommy and he didn’t have a free day.”
For the first time the man - who he presumes to be Dream - catches a glimpse of Tommy, and his eyes light up in semi-recognition. “So you’re the Tommy Drista talks about?”
He means to say something along the lines of Yeah, that’s me or You’re Dream, aren’t you? but what comes out of Tommy’s mouth is, “Did you really lock your sister in a car with a spider?”
Dream wheezes. “That was, like, five years ago and she still won’t let it go.”
“Asshole.” Drista kicks him in the shin, and he lets out a yelp.
“Why are you home, though?” he says, rubbing his leg and watching his sister’s foot warily. “And don’t say you have a free day,” he adds when Drista opens her mouth. “I checked the calendar.”
“Of course you did,” she mutters. “Also, none of your business.”
He shrugs nonchalantly. “Guess I’ll just have to tell Mom and Dad, then.”
“No you don’t!” She chuckles nervously. “I…the thing is…I…”
“She forgot her lunch,” Tommy butts in, and for a moment he thinks he’s saved the day as Drista lets out a barely audible sigh of relief and Dream’s face relaxes. Then the man’s brow creases again, and Tommy winces internally. “Okay, so why are you here?”
“She couldn’t leave without a permission slip.”
“And you forged it?”
“Oh, c’mon. I know you skip class all the time and forge notes too,” Drista scowls.
“Yeah, but I’m a senior and you’re an eighth grader.”
“Which means your grades matter more than mine,” she counters, and folds her arms.
He glares. “I’m still telling Mom and Dad,” and whips out his phone.
“You’re a dick, you know that?” Drista kicks him in the shin again and reaches for his phone, which he waves out of the way, arms flailing. Tommy steps backwards as they fall to the ground, tussling over the phone, limbs flying and whacking each other. He knows from painful experience that the fourteen-year-old is stronger than she looks.
He jolts out of the way as the phone clatters to the side, and on instinct, he sweets it up. The screen is locked, but two notifications show up, one from a guy reading George 404 and the other Sappitus Nappitus. “ ‘What song are we doing for karaoke?’ from George, and ‘I’m doing your mom’ from Sapnap.”
Drista lets out a wheeze of laughter eerily similar to her brothers’. “Karaoke? You do karaoke?” Tommy has to stop himself from adding a wounded I do, too.
Dream scrambles to his feet and dusts himself off, a dark flush spreading across his cheeks. “It’s not a big deal. And it wasn’t my idea,” he snaps as Drista continues to laugh, “I’m just imagining you belting Katy Perry with your friends in front of everyone at Puffy’s.”
She finally stops giggling and faux-wipes a tear from her eye, leaning back against the counter. “Okay, okay, here’s a compromise. You don’t tell Mom and Dad that I skipped, and I don’t tell everyone we know that you do karaoke.”
“This isn’t a fair deal,” Dream grumbles. “It’s not like I do it regularly. I’ve never even done it before anyway.”
“Or I could just tell all of your football team friends that you sing Katy Perry at Puffy’s every Friday.”
“You are such a little shit,” Dream sighs through gritted teeth.
Drista holds out her hand. Her mouth is twisted into a crooked, mischievous grin. “Do we have a deal?”
There’s a beat of silence. Then he reluctantly reaches out and shakes her hand. “Fine. Deal.”
“For the record, I think Katy Perry is a shit fuckin’ singer.”
“No duh.” The girl lets go of her brother’s hand to roll her eyes at him. “That’s why I’m gonna tell everyone that my idiot brothers likes her music.”
“We had a deal!”
“Relax, I’m just joking! Okay, okay, put me down -” She dissolves into a fit of laughter as Dream swoops her up from the floor and begins tickling her, her squirming in his grip.
Tommy lets his mouth crack into a smile at them and pulls out his phone to hide his expression. He sees seven unread texts from Tubbo and eleven from Ranboo, which is enough to make his stomach sink again, because neither of them text him that many times unless it’s important. He opens his phone and scrolls to messages.
bee boy: tommy cfmon we have a science test
bee boy: tommy
bee boy: TOMMY
bee boy: tommy hurry up and get back
bee boy: YOU CANT STILL EB AT DRISTSA SCHOOL
bee boy: i will boil your skin and drink it like a smoothie
bee boy: HIRRY THE FUCK UP
He winces and opens Ranboo’s.
Ranboob: tommy we have a test
Ranboob: in science
Ranboob: r u back yet
Ranboob: tommy
Ranboob: seriously its gonna start in like ten minutes
Ranboob: tubbos says to tell you to hurry the fuck up or hell dismember you for ruining my grade
Ranboob: DANM RIGHT THEYVE WORKED SO HARD FORE THIS CMON
Ranboob: sorry that was tubbo he stole my phone
Ranboob: pls hurry up tho
Ranboob: its a group test hURRY UP
Ranboob: toMMY WE HAVE FIVE MINUTES
Tommy cringes and shoves his phone back in his pocket. “It was nice sneaking the bitch girl home and meeting you, Dream, but I actually kind of have to go now because I’m about to ruin my friend’s grade on a test and they’ve been working really hard on it and I should stop fuckin’ rambling shouldn’t I, well, either way, I’ll see you both,” he babbles, backing out the doorway.
Then he turns - and makes a fucking run for it.