The Year We Had (MCYT AU)

22: Conspiracy

"Hey, Tubbo." Dream called as he brought his plate of food over to the table and dropped it down. Nobody else was here yet. And for once, that was exactly what he was hoping for.

"Hey Dream." Tubbo said, glancing up at his arrival and looking away from his plate of off-coloured mashed potato. It was the best of a bad bunch of options. He gave his friend a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Have you heard anything from Tommy or his brothers?" Dream asked, lowering his voice. "I saw them leaving yesterday with some weird stuff going on."

Tubbo frowned, shaking his head. "No, not since he left English suddenly. He hasn't been back to the dorms or anything. I tried calling him, but I think his phone's off."

Dream's eyebrows drew together, and he shook his head slightly. "Wilbur and Techno are gone too. I think something might have happened."

"What's happened?" Sapnap asked loudly as he made his way over, taking a seat beside Dream with an obnoxious smile. "Don't tell me you're still mad about the changeroom incident, Dream."

Dream rolled his eyes, putting on a relaxed smile and dropping the previous conversation entirely. "Sapnap you are the only person that was mad about the changeroom incident."

---

Two days after the disappearance of Tommy and his brothers, Dream and the rest of his friends were brought up to the front office and put in a conference room with Hbomb and Sam. They were all building their own theories, some more outlandish than the others, but when they found themselves together in a room with their head teachers, they knew that something was very, very wrong.

"I don't understand why you can't tell us what's going on." Alex repeated for what had to be at least the fourth time. He leant back against the wall, his arms crossed tightly over his chest with a scowl on his face. He knew that this had to be serious, because nobody had yelled at him about his beanie yet. That was the first sign that something was wrong.

"Is it about Tommy?" Tubbo asked, fiddling with the bottom of his tie. "Did something happen?"

Sam gave him a pressed smile. "Just relax Tubbo, nothing's happened." Hbomb gave him a look, and Sam's smile fell away. Karl put a comforting hand on Tubbo's shoulder.

"This is bullshit." Sapnap muttered, pacing the small room. "First our friends disappear, and then you bring us all here and won't say why. What's next, are you working for the mafia or some shit?"

"Sapnap." George said, but Sapnap ignored him and kept on pacing.

Niki sat quietly at one of the chairs by the table. Sally had texted her asking about Wilbur's whereabouts. She had discovered one by one that each of the Watson brothers were gone, seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.

The door to the conference room opened, and all eyes in the room watched as four well-dressed men in formal suits stepped inside, the last one closing the door behind him. Suddenly, Sapnap's mafia theory was sounding a lot more likely.

"Okay, what the fuck." Alex pushed off the wall, jaw clenching as he sized the newcomers up. "What the fuck is going on!"

"Quackity, chill." Karl said softly, shaking his head at his best friend.

"Is Tommy okay?" Tubbo asked, trying to search the faces of the men for an answer. None of them seemed to give much away.

The one who had entered first clasped his hands together. "Why don't we all sit down, yeah? I know you have a lot of questions, and we have a couple too. We might be here for a while." He had an odd accent--Scottish maybe? Nobody tried to dissect it further than that.