Chapter Text
‘Tommy’s going to kill us,’ Wilbur mutters, looking down at the scene in front of him.
Phil’s frowning. ‘We should have worked harder to translate it.’
Techno stays mostly silent, pacing the room. He avoids their bodies, lying flat on the floor surrounding the table. It’s reassuring to see that their chests are still rising and falling, even if they’re all standing over them.
‘Any ideas?’ Wilbur asks, glancing to his father, then back to his twin.
Techno crouches down, ghostly fingers passing straight through his own body. Wilbur’s tempted to copy, if only to see what it feels like.
Phil looks at the book, still open, on the table. It’s written in the language that they all struggle with, enchanting. It’s near-impossible to translate, which probably explains why they’re in this situation.
‘Without a solid form, we can’t hope to reverse the spell,’ Phil tells the two of them, like they haven’t been learning magic since they were young.
They know the rules. Clearly, it isn’t enough to stop the situation they’ve found themselves in. Magic was dangerous, especially the kind that the old grimoire contained. But Phil didn’t want to lock it up in one of the vaults just yet, so they decided to flick through a couple of spells.
It was Wilbur that tried translating the one that separated them from their bodies. He, wrongly, thought that it was a spell of transformation. He might have misread it entirely. Considering enchanting was an almost impossible language, he’s hardly to blame for this.
‘Tommy will be back soon,’ Wilbur offers, ‘He’ll see the book, and then probably call Eret or Puffy.’
Like them, Eret and Puffy were specialists in dealing with occult matters. Magic, as temperamental as it could be, was controllable by some. Phil, Puffy and Eret all went to school together, and then were hired by the government to deal with anything “magical”. To deal with a threat that might one-day arrive, a person with an uncontrollable amount of dark magic.
When Phil adopted Wilbur and Techno, he encouraged them to learn about the unexplainable. He was doing this to protect them, after all. To protect everyone.
They joined the business when they turned eighteen. Now, six years later, they had some experience in these kinds of issues. Although he’d never been removed from his body before.
That was definitely new.
‘Theseus won’t be impressed,’ Techno warns them, and Wilbur winces.
Tommy arrived at the Craft household four years ago, as a thirteen-year-old foster kid with an angry attitude. By the time they’d adopted him at fourteen, that hadn’t changed.
Tommy hates magic. Hates everything about it.
Wilbur never asked why. Magic is, to most of the population, a dangerous thing. Tommy’s practically in the norm, if a little over the top, about his hatred of it.
He never complained about their job, though. As long as the seventeen-year-old didn’t have to witness magic, he never said anything about it.
Leaving a dark-magic grimoire on the table, with three unconscious bodies around it, might go against that boundary.
‘I’ll make it up to him,’ Phil assures. ‘Take him to that theme part he wanted to go to.’
‘Bribery,’ Wilbur says with a laugh, ‘That’s bound to work with the gremlin.’
He can see it now. Tommy pretending to be mad, pouting at them as Phil apologises. Wilbur would go to hug him, but he knows that Tommy doesn’t like physical contact, so he’d settle for smiling over at his baby brother.
‘How long do you think Eret and Puffy will take to reverse this?’ Wilbur asks, suddenly realising that they might have a bigger issue than they first thought.
Phil seems to realise it, as well. ‘Wil, Tommy’s seventeen. He can manage a day or two by himself.’
Even as Phil says it, they all know that it’s not exactly true. Tommy, despite his aversion to touch, is clingy. The official term in his file was “abandonment issues”, which the kid went to a therapist for.
‘I’m staying by his side till we’re awake,’ Wilbur declares, flopping down dramatically onto the couch.
He’s mildly annoyed when it doesn’t sink at all, like he weighs nothing.
‘Does he even have Puffy’s number?’ Techno questions, abandoning his mission of staring at the book and instead walking over to where Wilbur’s sitting on the couch.
Phil shrugs. ‘It’s in my phone. He’ll figure it out.’
‘Bets on who he runs to first?’ Wilbur coaxes, to pass the time. ‘I bet it’ll be me. I’m obviously the favourite.’
Their father chuckles, shaking his head as he steps around his own body. ‘It’ll be me, mate. I’m his dad.’
Wilbur’s going to make a comment about how, technically, Tommy hasn’t called Phil dad yet, but he doesn’t get the chance.
The sound of the key turning in the front lock sounds, and Wilbur perks up.
Tommy’s home from school.
**
Tommy’s not having a great day.
To start off his Thursday, Tubbo was ill. Which was, quite frankly, rude. Tubbo definitely wasn’t allowed to get sick and miss school, especially when Tommy needed him at all times.
Ranboo did try to console him, to which Tommy firmly denied missing his best friend. He didn’t care that Tubbo was ill; he wasn’t worried. He was just annoyed that he had left Tommy to deal with high school by himself.
Then, he got his maths test back.
He was going to have to hide that from Phil.
The only redeeming part was art, where he worked on his recent oil painting. Even then, he was wary of the fact that Tubbo wasn’t there to keep him check.
Arriving home, a new issue became apparent.
The Craft house sat in a pretty flashy suburb, on the edge of Manburg. A nice city, and one that Tommy had dashed in and out of growing up. Living here, he found, was actually alright. Especially with the friends he’d made, and the family that had adopted him.
So, walking up through the front garden and towards the door, Tommy hadn’t been expecting the sudden wave of terror that struck through him.
His first instinct was to check over his shoulder. When he had managed to assure himself that he was alone, he quietly yanked his sleeve back and checked his left arm.
Nothing.
Which meant it wasn’t him. That left the conclusion that there was something magical inside the house.
Hardly unexpected. His family worked for the government, as part of an organisation that dealt with the unexplainable. Occasionally, over the years, Tommy has been aware of items in their household that have more power than Phil might realise.
Whatever’s sitting in their house currently, is dangerous.
He huffs. Trust his idiotic family to not realise they were hosting something so powerful right under their nose.
Ironic.
Figuring he’ll hide in his room till they take it to the vaults, he unlocks the door.
‘Afternoon, gentlemen. I require nourishment,’ he calls, kicking his shoes off and dumping his bag at the base of the stairs, rounding the corner and walking into the living room.
His foot hits a solid boot, and Tommy’s gaze snaps down to the ground.
The first thing that catches his interest, strangely, isn’t the bodies of his family.
It’s the book sitting on the table in the centre of the room.
A book in enchanting.
Well, at least that explained the terror he felt outside the house.
His next issue was obviously the people on the floor. Wilbur was the one he’d walked into, with his laced-up boots nearest to the exit of the room, and his face smashed into the carpet. Phil had fallen slightly more elegantly, with his back sliding down the wall and his head resting at a strange angle.
Techno was the furthest from the book. Like his twin, he was on his front, but his head had turned to the side so that Tommy could see his face.
Peaceful.
Out of his three family members, Techno is the one that has the least potential to be a conduit for dark magic. Tommy recognised that within his first couple of days at the Craft household, and it made him trust the man first.
That’s the only reason he steps over Wilbur’s body to go to Techno, crouching down.
‘Techno?’ he murmurs, quietly reaching out for the twin but halting before touching.
He’s still breathing, which is good. Really good.
Tommy then glances back to the book.
‘Fucking magic,’ he growls out, peering at the enchanting.
His heart sinks. Not only was this dark magic, but it wasn’t easily reversible either.
Tommy’s not actually sure what to do in this situation. He could probably work on a reversal, with time, but that would mean… well, it wouldn’t be good.
Meanwhile, he still has three bodies to deal with. The reversal will take him a week without help, minimum, and he obviously needs to make sure that the magic is preserving their bodies while he does it.
Reluctantly, he abandons Techno’s side to move to Phil, fishing into his jacket and pulling out the man’s phone.
It rings twice before she picks up.
‘Hey, Phil. I was going to call—’
‘It’s me, Puffy,’ Tommy cuts in, and hears the momentary surprise.
‘Oh! Hi, sweetheart. Is everything okay?’
‘Could you come over? They’ve managed to knock themselves out with an altum somnum spell,’ Tommy says, not really bothering to explain how he knows the spell type.
Puffy sucks in air. ‘Of course. Do you… can you tell if the spell is stable? Is the book—’
He understands what she’s trying to do, but he doesn’t need it. ‘The spell’s stable. Front door’s unlocked.’
He hangs up on her, and then goes back to staring at the grimoire.
Then, before Puffy gets here, he takes out his own phone and snaps a photo of the spell.
Just in case.
**
Puffy calls Eret, who calls Sam back at the office, and that’s how Tommy ends up with three adults standing in his living room.
They’ve moved the three unconscious men onto the couch. Tommy hovers, flicking in and out of the room as he tries to reassure himself that they’re still breathing.
‘This… this isn’t great,’ Puffy says, glasses perched on the bridge of her nose as she looks between the translating papers and the grimoire. ‘What was he doing? This is dangerous magic.’
Sam clears his throat, glancing to Tommy.
Puffy’s concerned look lessens. ‘But we can fix it! It might just take a little while.’
Tommy doubts they’re going to have much luck. To begin with, they’d need a rune-stone of some sort, or a ley-line to tap into. Or an object from the vault. Something with enough magical energy to help them act as a conduit. If they managed all of that, they’d still need to be able to find a reversal spell that was strong enough to beat a dark grimoire.
‘What’s the first step?’ Tommy asks, perching on the edge of the couch and ignoring the fact that Wilbur’s body half-slumps towards him.
‘Working out if the magic is preserving them. Think of it like a coma—’
‘I get it,’ Tommy snaps, anxiety pooling in his gut. ‘You don’t have to… I’ve lived here for four years. I’m not blind to magic.’
Puffy smiles softly. ‘It’s okay, Tommy. They’ll be alright.’
It’ll take a while, if they do it.
‘This instrument will check if their body condition is stable. Once we’ve done that, we’re going to hold a crow-stone to the spell. It’ll tell us how strong it is.’
Tommy, when he was learning dark magic, ranked power on a simple one-to-I’m fucked scale. Puffy, and the rest of the organisation, do it on colour.
He prefers his method.
He watches Eret approach with the strange instrument. Tommy knows they use them because they don’t have the ability to conduit spells like he used to, but it still unnerves him to watch as he presses the metal box against Phil’s forehead.
‘Stable,’ Eret says, looking pleased.
Tommy relaxes, just a little bit.
‘Now, the crow-stone should give us an indication of how long it’ll take to break the spell. Do you know what the colours mean?’
‘Yeah,’ Tommy replies bluntly, even if his family never explained it.
If this comes back as one of the darker colours, they’re screwed.
‘The stronger the spell, the more power we’ll need to break it. I’m hoping this is somewhere around a red,’ Puffy says, pulling out the crow-stone.
Tommy makes sure to stay far away from it. He knows what colour it’ll turn if it presses against his skin.
‘A red result should take a week to fix,’ Eret says, taking the stone from Puffy’s hand and moving towards the couch.
Tommy’s already debating what to do next, when the stone gives its reading.
Puffy swallows. Eret swears under their breath, and Sam stops writing his recordings to stare.
The dark-blue stone stares back at them.
**
‘We’ll be here first thing in the morning,’ Puffy promises, staring at Tommy with concern. ‘Are you sure you don’t want one of us to stay?’
‘I’m fine,’ he assures, fingers itching to tap against his thighs. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
Sam wraps the book up securely, and Eret sends Tommy a smile.
Puffy lingers. ‘Are you completely sure? I really don’t mind—’
‘I’m okay, Puffy,’ Tommy promises, shrugging slightly. ‘There’s leftovers in the fridge.’
And three unconscious bodies upstairs.
‘We’re going to work through the night to figure out a solution,’ Puffy whispers, before she hesitantly offers out her arms.
Tommy pauses.
He’s always afraid of what might happen if he spends too long in contact with one of them. They’re operatives trained in detecting magic, and he’s definitely got magic in him.
Regardless, he’s tired. He steps forward, noting the way Puffy’s eyes widen in surprise when he willingly moves into her embrace.
Careful arms wrap around him, and a kiss is pressed to his forehead. ‘It’ll be okay, sweetheart. I promise.’
Puffy leaves, and the house is empty.
Dark magic lingers, reminding him of the curse upstairs. Tommy ignores it, heading to the kitchen and rummaging through the fridge for the leftovers.
He’ll wait, he tells himself. Just till the morning, where Puffy will return with some brilliant news about how she’s sorted everything out and it’s fixed.
He eats cold pizza, before heading upstairs. Checking Phil’s room first, the man hasn’t moved. He’s in bed, with his shoes off, looking like he fell asleep. Techno’s room is next, with pink-hair spilling out across the pillow, and one foot sticking out from under the covers.
Tommy hesitates outside Wilbur’s room.
He doesn’t go in.
**
They come back just before lunch. Tommy skipped school, figuring Phil can forgive him considering the circumstances.
‘Hey, guys. Good news?’ Tommy asks, as he invites them in.
The bags under Puffy’s eyes, and the glint in her eye, tells him all he needs to know.
‘We… we ran some preliminary experiments on the spell, to see if there were any loopholes,’ Puffy offers, as Tommy moves to the kettle.
He knows what they’re going to say.
‘It’s not looking… great,’ she finishes lamely, and Tommy tenses.
Sam, seeing his tense frame, quickly takes over. ‘It’s not impossible. It just might take a few more weeks than we expected.’
‘What’s the biggest issue?’ Tommy asks, allowing Eret to softly step pass him and take over making drinks.
Puffy grimaces, taking a seat. ‘There’s a lot.’
‘Puffy—’
‘He’s almost an adult, Sam. This is his family, he deserves to know.’
Tommy sits opposite her.
The white-haired woman looks up. ‘We need a power source that can beat a red-spell. That’s not easy, but we could combine multiple objects of a lower power if they were compatible.’
Tommy understands that, easily enough. Combining objects isn’t easy, though.
‘What about ley lines?’ he asks, and Puffy startles slightly.
‘That brings us on to our next issue. A conduit strong enough to harness the power.’
‘And if they were both solved?’ Tommy pushes, trying to confirm his own knowledge.
‘A reversal spell. The vault has hundreds of dark grimoires, but it could take a while to translate them all, and find a spell.’
All things he’d expected.
Eret places a mug of tea in front of him. Tommy glances to it, then looks back at Puffy.
‘I can possibly help with all three of those,’ he reluctantly says, and Puffy blinks.
‘Sweetheart, we don’t need you to worry about—’
‘Do you have the crow-stone on you?’ he asks, looking to Sam.
The man takes his backpack off, rummaging around till he finds the crow-stone. It sits in its box, nestled in silks as he places it down on the table.
‘This… just don’t freak out,’ Tommy mutters, and before he can talk himself out of it, he picks the stone up.
Puffy drops her mug of tea all over the table.
The black stone sits on Tommy’s palm, pulsating under the energy radiating out of Tommy.
‘What the f—’
‘Tommy,’ Eret cuts in, staring at the stone. ‘What… how are you a magical object?’
‘Crow-stones detect anything with magic. Not just objects,’ Tommy corrects, focused on the stone that’s in his palm. ‘I’ve got enough strength to reverse the spell without a conduit, although a ley-line might help.’
Puffy blinks. ‘Absolutely not. Dark magic can corrupt—’
‘I’ve done it before,’ Tommy cuts in, refusing to meet her gaze. ‘I just need the reversal spell. Give me access to the vault, and I can find your spell.’
‘How?’ Sam asks, as he cautiously takes the crow-stone back from Tommy’s palm.
‘I can read enchanting,’ Tommy says, figuring it might be worth it to get that out now.
‘That’s not possible, it’s a dead language.’
He just stares blankly at them.
‘You can spend months trying to break the spell on your own, or you can let me help. If you don’t let me, I’ll do it without your help,’ Tommy snaps, and Puffy narrows her eyes.
‘I’ll get us access to the vault.’
‘Sam—’
‘You said it yourself, Puffy. The kid’s almost an adult.’
‘We’re not letting a teenager walk into the vaults.’
They’re interrupted by a phone ringing, and Sam apologises quietly as he takes it. Whatever is said, it makes him frown.
When he hangs up, he looks back at them.
‘That was the boss. He wants us back on base.’
Tommy watches the three of them rise up, before Puffy turns back to him. ‘We’ll discuss this later.’
That’s a no Tommy, you’re not coming to the vaults if he’s ever heard one.
There’s no hug for him this time. The three adults leave, and Tommy is left in the kitchen by himself.
‘Fucking shit ass, dickheads, I fucking hate magic,’ Tommy swears, bringing his fist down onto the table.
The vase on the kitchen windowsill explodes.
Tommy stares at the fragments, then swallows.
‘Fine. Fine. I’ll do it myself. It’s not like this is the first time dark magic has tried to fuck me over.’
**
‘Why are we here?’
‘You’re convincing me not to do something stupid,’ Tommy says, pacing the living room as Tubbo and Ranboo both stare at him from their position on the couch.
Tubbo hums. ‘Depends what the stupid is, Tom. Like the time we set fire to the bike shed at school? Stupid, but cool.’
Ranboo blinks at them both. ‘That was you two?’
Tommy holds both hands up placatingly. ‘I plead the fifth.’
Tubbo grins. ‘He used his magic hands.’
‘Can we stop calling my deadly curse magic hands, please,’ Tommy begs, sitting down cross-legged on the floor.
After a couple beats of silence, Ranboo speaks up. ‘So your family is unconscious because of a really powerful spell from a dark grimoire, and you could break it if you have access to the vault to find more grimoires, but the rest of the organisation won’t let you in?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Sucks,’ Tubbo chirps. ‘I thought you hated magic?’
‘I do.’
‘But you’d use it to break the spell.’
‘Obviously,’ Tommy says, flopping back onto the carpet. ‘Don’t you ever tell them this, but I prefer having them able to, yanno, talk to me.’
He’s got a headache. Pinching his nose does nothing to help.
Ranboo slides off the couch, coming to sit by Tommy’s side. ‘Is there a way of doing it without the grimoire?’
Tommy swallows. ‘Yeah,’ he croaks.
‘I’m guessing it’s worse than breaking into the vault?’ Tubbo asks, joining them on the floor.
‘Define worse,’ Tommy jokes.
Tubbo narrows his eyes. ‘Does it have anything to do with the things that happened before the foster system?’
Tommy nods.
‘Then you’re not doing it,’ Tubbo answers, easily, and Tommy slumps.
‘But it could help—’
‘No, Tommy. You’ve not even told me what happened, and I know it’s a bad idea.’
Tommy rolls over onto his stomach, looking up at the two of them. ‘It could take them months to break that spell.’
‘Hey, I never said we weren’t going to help. Is there a way of getting access to the vault without going through the organisation?’
‘No,’ Tommy says, annoyed. ‘Access is controlled by the President, Schlatt, and he’s not going to listen to… oh!’
‘You’ve had an idea?’
‘A brilliant idea,’ Tommy declares, jumping to his feet.
‘Dangerous?’
‘Slightly,’ Tommy says, already pulling out his phone. ‘But infinitely better than going back to a dark magic cult and asking for help.’
‘Huh,’ Tubbo says, ‘Then I guess we’re all for it.’
**
Tubbo elbows him in the side.
‘Ow!’
‘Do I want to know why you know the owner of Las Nevadas?’
Tommy supposes it’s a pretty good question. The limousine that’s transporting them is empty, save for three of them and the driver that they can’t see.
Strangely, Tommy’s convinced they’re not alone. He can almost feel Phil’s disapproving stare on the back of his neck as he looks at his best friends.
‘Uh, we met through a mutual… friend.’
‘I see,’ Tubbo says, clearly not seeing, and Tommy goes back to nervously picking at his jeans.
It doesn’t take them long to arrive at Las Nevadas. The entrance to the enclosed city-state is through a large skyscraper, which Tommy leads the other two up too without hesitation.
The foyer is empty. White walls, marble worksurfaces and an empty reception greet them.
‘Are you sure he’s expecting—’
‘Thomas of Purgatorium!’
He’s never been so happy to hear that voice in his life.
‘Charlie Slimesicle!’ Tommy cheers, turning in time for the half-zombie to throw his arms around him.
Glasses squish into his cheek, but he hardly cares when the zombie pats him on the back, before pulling back. ‘You’ve aged, Thomas of Purgatorium!’
‘That’s what us mortals do, Charlie,’ Tommy jokes, grinning at the man.
Charlie nods very seriously. ‘I know that, because I am obviously a mortal.’
He then glances to Tubbo and Ranboo. ‘Who are your companions?’
‘This is my best friend, Tubbo. And Ranboob is here too, I guess.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ Ranboo mutters quietly, while Charlie offers his hand out to both.
They stare at the half-bitten hand, looking rather hesitant to shake it.
Tommy cuts in. ‘Where’s the boss, Charlie?’
‘Oh! Quackity wanted me to bring you up to the penthouse.’
As they walk to the elevator, Tubbo elbows him again. ‘What’s Purgatorium?’
‘Later,’ Tommy hisses back.
‘And you let him hug you? I thought you didn’t do hugging!’ Tubbo whispers so loudly that Ranboo sends them both a look.
Tommy doesn’t respond to that.
The penthouse is the same as it was when Tommy last walked into it.
The man standing at the bar, however, has changed. Dark hair has grown longer, and the scar stretching over Quackity’s bad eye has faded.
When he sees Tommy, though, the smile is the same.
‘If it isn’t my favourite bruja!’ Quackity cries, and Tommy allows the hug he gets pulled into.
‘Nice to see you too, Big Q!’
‘Look at you! Where’s that annoying little twelve-year-old, hmm?’ Quackity questions, poking at one of Tommy’s cheeks.
He huffs, batting his hands away. ‘Shut up, Q. I was a big twelve-year-old.’
Quackity snorts. ‘A tiny little man. Anyway, what can I do for my favourite nephew?’
The family term has both Tubbo and Ranboo shooting Tommy an unreadable look, and the air getting considerably colder.
‘I need access to the vault,’ Tommy says, bluntly.
Quackity takes a sip of his drink, raising an eyebrow. ‘And you’re not asking—’
‘No. No, I want access to Manburg’s vault. Not… not the other one.’
The mafia-leader looks thoughtful. ‘I suppose I could convince Schlatt to let you in.’
Tommy relaxes.
‘With a condition, of course.’
Tommy tenses. ‘Big Q, I’m pretty sure you owe me.’
‘I think I owe Purgatorium. And from the fact that you’re refusing to use their vault, I suspect you’re no longer with them.’
Tommy stays silent.
Quackity shrugs. ‘I like you, pequeño bruja. My only condition is a simple request.’
When Tommy does nothing other than gesturing for the man to continue, he does.
‘I want you to ask someone a question for me.’
‘Who?’
Quackity sends him a look.
Tommy tenses. ‘No.’
‘Then you have my answer. It was nice seeing you, Tom—’
‘What’s the question?’ Tommy cuts in, hating how desperate he is to have his family back by his side.
Quackity smiles. ‘I just want to know he put it.’
Tommy hesitates. ‘Do I want to know what it is?’
‘Definitely not.’
He considers his options. Tubbo is sending him a look, an unreadable one, but Tommy ignores it.
‘I’ll ask the question. I can’t promise you an answer.’
‘That’s acceptable.’
‘In return for access to the vault.’
‘It’s a deal. I’ll make the call now,’ Quackity offers, stretching his hand out.
Tommy takes it.
‘Charlie, see to it that Tomás has everything he needs for his end of the deal.’
**
He’s not done this in a while.
‘I’ve never seen you do magic before,’ Tubbo says, staring at the arrangement Tommy’s making.
Ranboo glances over at them. ‘I thought you set fire to the bike shed?’
‘Tommy wouldn’t let me see. I’m pretty sure he used a lighter.’
It’s never been a secret that Tommy had magic. He told Tubbo within two weeks of knowing him.
He’s also right. He used a lighter for the bike shed.
‘I’m trying to concentrate, here,’ Tommy mutters, letting old habits guide the arrangement of the candles.
‘So you’re summoning a dead person—’
‘A suspected dead person.’
‘—and asking them a question.’
‘Yes.’
‘And this person is, according to Quackity, his brother.’
‘Yes.’
‘And Quackity called you his nephew.’
‘You could have skipped all these questions and just asked the one you wanted to,’ Tommy bluntly says, keeping sage at his side as he pulls out the Ouija board. Simple, yet effective.
‘Are you about to summon your potentially dead father?’
It’s an interesting question.
‘He’s not actually my father,’ Tommy replies, ‘More like an older brother. He was only my father on paper.’
‘Right,’ Tubbo says, not sounding very sure on anything. ‘Is he going to be happy about being summoned?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Cool. Cool, that’s… that’s cool.’
‘If you stay out of the circle, you’ll be fine. He can’t hurt you,’ Tommy offers, then stretches his hand out towards the light switch on the side of the room.
It turns off.
Ranboo squeaks, and Tubbo just stares. ‘The first time I see you do magic, and it’s to turn a light switch off?’
‘Shh, I’m concentrating,’ Tommy mutters, lighting the candles with a glance.
‘Don’t you need a connection to summon a ghost?’
‘Not if you can cross the astral plane to find them,’ Quackity says, appearing in the doorway.
It’s the last thing Tommy hears before his head jerks back, soul separating from his body.
**
Summoning the dead is never fun. Tommy first did this when he was barely old enough to understand the risks, but it never got any easier.
Now, for example, he sticks to the edge of the astral plane and tugs on the summoning spell.
‘I know you’re out there,’ Tommy says, staring into the misty fog that stands between him and death.
Behind him, his body is jerking. Eyes rolling into the back of his head, blood already trickling from his nose.
It’s not easy without a tether, but Tommy is stubborn.
‘Come here. I need you to listen to me,’ he demands, taking a step further away from his body.
The bigger the distance, the more his body is at risk. His leg flails, and one of the candles almost gets knocked over.
Just as he’s about to give up, he feels eyes on him.
‘You called?’
He pulls himself back into his body, pulling the soul with him.
The first thing he does is almost throw up. He rolls onto his side, careful not to break the circle as he heaves in air. ‘Fuck, fuck I hate that stupid shit,’ he hisses, then stops when the familiar sound of the Ouija board sounds.
T-A-L-K
‘No. You speak through the board, or I send you back,’ Tommy snarls, shaking.
Tubbo and Ranboo have crept forward to watch the board.
T-A-L-K
He relents.
Part of him wants to hear his voice.
‘Okay,’ Tommy murmurs, and then stretches his hand out. ‘Come forward, but you’re not leaving the circle.’
Tubbo yelps when the ghost forms.
Dream cocks his head to the side, hand firmly linked with Tommy’s.
‘Hello, baby brother,’ Dream says, and Tommy shudders.
Wilbur.
‘Hi,’ he replies, dumbly. ‘How are you?’
‘I just got pulled through the astral plane using dark magic. I’m delightful,’ Dream mocks, eyes never leaving Tommy despite the fact that his actual brother is standing behind Tommy.
‘You’re not alone,’ Dream adds, glancing to the side.
The side where nobody stands.
Tommy doesn’t doubt that some spirits would follow him. His name is well-known in the afterlife.
‘Quackity has a question,’ Tommy says, ignoring that entirely.
‘Are you living up to your title, Tomathy? Was it everything you dreamed of?’
‘Where is it?’ Tommy asks.
‘Answer me, first,’ Dream coaxes, leaning closer. ‘Did you miss me, little one? I know I missed you.’
‘I told you he wouldn’t answer,’ Tommy says, impatient.
His hand is shaking where it’s connected to Dream.
Quackity huffs, before leaving the room.
Tommy goes to release his hold on Dream, but his brother doesn’t let go.
‘Dream—’
‘What’s wrong, baby brother? You’re not afraid of me, are you?’
His heartrate picks up. His body is cold, hovering halfway between the real world and the astral plane.
Tommy couldn’t lie, even if he wanted to. ‘Terrified,’ he murmurs, staring into Dream’s green eyes.
He grins. ‘Good luck with your curse, baby brother.’
The ghost vanishes, and Tommy rocks forward with a gasp. The Ouija board splits, and the candles all extinguish at once.
‘What the fuck was that?’
**
He returns home that evening, after promising Tubbo and Ranboo that he would tell them before he went to the vault. The moment the door shut between them, Tommy turns the lock and rushes to the downstairs bathroom, throwing the door open and making it to the porcelain in time to throw up.
Black blood stains his lips when he sits back, groaning.
‘Fucking shit,’ he groans, letting his forehead rest on his arm.
Dream had messed him up. His body was still shaking from having the soul tethered to him.
He gags again, then forces himself to stand. Flushing away the evidence, he rinses his mouth and looks into the mirror.
It’s cold. Frozen at the edges.
‘If a spirit followed me back,’ Tommy quietly says, staring at his reflection, ‘Then I’ll only give you one warning. You know who I am.’
The ice doesn’t retreat, but Tommy can’t sense a dead person, so he turns away and walks out of the room.
He debates food, before deciding that exhaustion wins the war. Climbing the stairs, he hesitates in the corridor.
The loneliness takes over his fears. Besides, they’ll never know.
Tommy slips into Wilbur’s room, crossing over to the bed and snatching a pillow from his sleeping brother, before putting it down on the floor and grabbing a blanket from the cupboard.
Sleeping next to his unconscious brother doesn’t stop nightmares from waking him mere hours later.
**
Puffy stares at Tommy, then to Schlatt.
‘Sir, he’s seventeen—’
‘Enough, Puffy. It wasn’t my decision,’ Schlatt says, turning back to the door to the vault. ‘It was called in for a favour.’
Puffy changes her tactic. ‘Tommy, we can work this out a different way. The vault is dangerous.’
He ignores her. Schlatt unlocks the door, and the magic wardings dim for a moment.
He steps inside.
‘You’ve got four hours until I lock this door. If you’re not out, I’m shutting you in,’ Schlatt warns, and then he turns to walk away.
This vault is not that different from the one he grew up with. A spiral staircase leads down to an entranceway, with three doors.
Puffy and Eret are both following him, which he expected.
‘Library is—’
‘This way,’ Tommy finishes, heading in the direction of the library in his own vault.
Sure enough, the corridor opens up into a circular room, stretching upwards towards the top of the vault.
Books surround him. Grimoires filled with magic.
Books about him.
He glances around.
‘It’ll take months of translating to get through all of them,’ Eret says, and Tommy stands dead in the centre.
He shuts his eyes.
Tommy has a name. One besides the one he was given for the foster system. More of a title, if he’s honest with himself. He rarely uses it, but as the grimoires on the shelf notice him, they begin to call his name.
‘Enough,’ Tommy hisses, out loud, ignoring the way Puffy and Eret startle. ‘All of you are going to give me a headache. I’m looking for one of you in particular.’
The books hum, content to watch him.
‘What do you want?’
‘A book on deep sleep. I need a reversal,’ Tommy mutters, keeping his eyes shut as he spins the room.
Some of these grimoires are powerful.
‘How strong?’
‘The spell is mid-level. The reversal can be as powerful as it needs to be,’ Tommy replies, focusing on the voice that keeps speaking.
He stretches his hand out, and the book flies from the shelf into it.
His eyes flick open, staring at the leather-bound grimoire.
‘Thank you,’ he says to the shelves.
They hum in return.
He looks back to Puffy and Sam. ‘This is your book.’
He kneels down, opening the book straight down the middle and then hovering a hand over it.
The pages flicker beneath his power, more than happy to assist.
It’s not difficult to fall back into dark magic, he thinks.
The spell sits on the page where it lands, perfectly offered up.
It’s a dark-magic spell. A nasty spell.
‘Is there nothing lighter?’ he questions, looking back to the other books.
They stay silent.
‘Fine, be stubborn. You just want to see a good performance,’ Tommy scolds, then looks back at the spell.
‘There’s a reason these vaults were created,’ Puffy says, randomly.
Tommy doesn’t look up.
‘They were first designed for magic-wielders to put their knowledge in one place, so when their leader came, they had all their history in one place.’
His fingers dart over the words of the spell, soaking it in.
‘They called him the Harbinger of Darkness. He’s written about in multiple grimoires. A witch with the ability to draw upon dark magic.’
Tommy raises his head, looking straight at Puffy.
‘Your organisation wants to stop that?’
Puffy stares back at him. ‘That’s what we were founded for. To guard the vault from the Harbinger.’
He shuts the book, tucking it under his arm.
‘Then you’ve got a breach.’
**
He’s careful. The spell is complicated, and Tommy does not have an unlimited of energy to weave into it. He’s offering no sacrifice, only his own energy.
‘How do we know this’ll work?’ Tubbo asks, rearranging Wilbur’s limbs.
Tommy watches, then pulls his gaze away.
Getting three bodies into the middle of the woods at night was strangely not the weirdest thing Tommy had ever done for dark magic.
‘It has to.’
‘Where’s your energy source coming from?’ Sam questions, writing notes as he watches Tommy prepare.
‘Me.’
‘For a top-level dark spell?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right.’
Under the moon’s watch, Tommy ushers Ranboo and Tubbo away from the centre of the clearing.
The three bodies are on the floor, connected by their hands. Tommy paces around them, making sure he’s happy with the connection, before he glances back at the grimoire that’s seated in the middle of them.
‘Okay. I’ve got this,’ he whispers to himself, curling his fists.
He’s got this.
He steps over Techno’s sleeping form, entering the middle and kneeling down with the grimoire.
Puffy guides Sam to take a step back.
He picked the forest on purpose. A ley line runs under, just in case he starts to lose his hold.
‘Are you willing to cooperate?’ Tommy quietly asks the grimoire, that flicks open to the page in response.
He places both hands on the book, palm down, and shuts his eyes.
The spell is familiar on his tongue. He doesn’t need to look to speak it, because it’s his natural tongue.
When he was younger, he’d blend his natural tongue with English all the time. It became frustrating for others in Purgatorium to understand.
Now, he doesn’t need to worry. He can speak, tilting his head back as the markings under his skin begin to develop. Black ink itching through his veins, looping around him as the spell promises to work.
He hears someone murmur something that sounds like a prayer, and wisely ignores it.
There’s no space for Prime here, where Tommy calls upon the darkness for his energy.
The darkness responds. The tether inside him snaps, and when he opens his eyes, he knows they’re burning golden.
Thank you, he thinks, as he sits on the floor with his hands stained in the dark mist, eyes burning with sunlight. From there, he just has to watch as the threads of his magic wrap around each member of his family, tugging them back from deep sleep.
He watches, and then smiles when he sees the curse surrounding them begin to recede.
Wetness drips onto his lip, dribbling down over his chin, and he responds by placing both hands to the forest floor.
The ley line lights up under his touch. Harbinger, Harbinger they sing, listening to his power.
Just a little more, he pleads, and it listens.
Wilbur’s the first to wake.
He gasps, clutching at his chest as he sits bolt upright, and then scrambles to turn over and look at Tommy.
Tommy stares right back, unable to break his concentration on the spell and go rushing to his brother like he wants to.
Instead, he shoves his last burst of energy into shattering the spell, and then lets the darkness swallow him whole.
His head hits the forest floor right as the other two wake up.