a series of sbi oneshots

vacation

phil/mumza visits tommy in exile

or

mumza finds out the invitations that were never handed out because of dream

“Maybe,” Dream snarls, the mask nearly brushing Tommy’s nose as Dream hauls him close by his shirt, “next time I’ll throw you in the--”

“Yoo~hoo~!”

Dream freezes. Tommy freezes. They both stare at each other, as if wondering if they were the only one who’d heard--

“Yoooooo~hoooooooo~!” 

Tommy licks his lips once, twice, and asks. “Was that…was that Philza Minecraft?”

Dream slowly lowers him back to the ground. “It….sounded like his voice?” Tommy stumbles a bit before he finds his feet.

There’s--there’s a feeling on the air. Like the heaviness before a storm, like static electricity gathering before lightning strikes. Like the little voice that whispers in the heads of every animal before an earthquake comes and tells them to run.

Tommy takes a tiny step closer to Dream.

Dream’s hand is on the hilt of his sword, his muscles tense.

A bird calls, shattering the silence. Another bird answers it, but these aren’t song birds. They’re like crows, but deeper, with a strange rattle to them, like a dead man’s final breath.

“Hel lo?” Phil calls, but his voice is…wrong. Higher pitched. Whispering at the edges of it, somehow. Feathers rustle and a bird lands on the top of Tommy’s tent.

Its like a crow, but four times the size, there’s a ruff of feathers at its throat. Its eyes are black, but it tilts its head at them and they flash bone white. No, the eyes aren’t bone white. There are no eyes, that’s just bone. 

“Dream?” Tommy croaks. He takes a step closer, until his hand brushes Dream’s sleeve. He doesn’t have a weapon. He feels the lightness at his hip more than he ever has before.

Even if the bird-- is it a bird?-- shouldn’t be able to see him-- because it has no fucking eyes-- he can feel the weight of its gaze. It opens its beak again, and it makes the rasping croak, but there’s something else in the sound. A whisper, a voice, that Tommy almost swears he can understand, but he has no idea what its saying.

“Philza.” Dream’s voice is hard, short. He jerks his sleeve out of Tommy’s grip. “What do you want?”

Tommy drags his eyes away from the bird and flinches. Phil is there.

Isn’t he?

Somehow he’d arrived, silent, sudden, he wasn’t there a second ago, but now he is.

If it is Philza.

He looks pale. There’s a veil hanging down from the brim of his hat, something dark and thick, Tommy can only catch glimpses of Phil’s face through it. He looks pale. Too pale. His hair seems to hold too tightly to the shadows, making it seem darker, black instead of blond.

Phil holds out an arm and the bird flutters off the top of the tent. The air stirred from its wings is ice cold against the back of Tommy’s neck. He flinches, bumping into Dream. Dream doesn’t yell at him for it. He just keeps watching Phil.

Phil’s head tilts. “Is this the beach?” he asks, his voice too high, like the bird, there is a quality to it. Like whispering in a language just this side of wrong. 

“....its… a beach,” Dream says warily.

Phil sighs dramatically and takes a swig of a bottle in the hand the bird isn’t perching on. “Finally,” he says, “I’ve been looking for this place for ever. Its been a thousand years since my last vacation, and ya girl is gonna have a good time.”