A Rift Through Worlds (A Dream SMP x Hermitcraft AU)

Traverse the danger zone, come back alright

The days that followed were peaceful for Tommy. Day was like night, both calm and quiet as he went about and did his chores around the server. He took care of Shroud, he sparred with False, he went to Cleo's for help on some Maths homework, he even helped Grian restock his barge shop and helped Stress carry crates of glass to her own.

It was so peaceful that it was scary. Sometimes, he joked about it being all fake but the fear that always threatened to swell and swallow him whole was gone the moment he heard familiar voices -good familiar voices that cared and laughed- and all would magically be fine. Stress, Iskall, Grian, Scar with his clumsiness. That man fell out of a tree once and he actually survived with nothing more than a scratch on the knee.

Tommy could only remember a few instances in his childhood that he had felt like that. Happy, peaceful times of carelessness those years had been.

When he was younger, about four, he would cause chaos left and right. It was a wonder how his parents kept up with him (Phil told him years after that they'd be wiped out before toddler Tommy would agree to go to bed). He'd run around, trip over everything and in turn he'd trip other objects. He'd be chided and scolded, sometimes he'd cry for things he now thought were meaningless; mere embarrassing moments that he'd rather not have to look back on. Phil's happy tone would always cheer him up, as well as his mum's constant worry about his well-being when he'd scrape his knee in the midst of playing with Wilbur or the neighbor's kid.

The hermits and his family were similar in that sense. The only difference was the size of each family and the way they handled things. He chuckled to himself when he recalled the time he'd been shown to the turf war mini-games and the capture-the-flag battlefield. In comparison to the real wars, those were like a slap on the wrist.

He sighed and pressed his forehead on the glass of his bedroom's balcony door. He could open it and let the fresh air in; the humidity was threatening his cold cheeks but at the same time, the rest of him was being kept warm by the knitted blankets that hang off him like a superhero cape. A hiss came from behind him and he hummed in acknowledgement. Right, he should get Shroud's food first.

Slashing down a zombie in bright daylight was pretty easy, though he could've done it with a bit more grace and much less noise. The amount of rotten flesh he harvested from its undead corpse was little but Shroud's diet wasn't limited to just rotten flesh like Cleo and him had first thought. When the spider would get hungry and its stomach would start rumbling like a machine, he'd dig through the chests until he found something -anything- that's edible. Regardless, zombie flesh was considered the healthiest thing on the menu.

"Here you go, bud", he pet the spider on the back because there were too many eyes on the head and he didn't want to damage Shroud's vision. He dug through the chests in the storage room and threw him a few juicy apples. That much should do for a day.

Shroud chitered and hissed in gratitude, rubbing his fangs together adorably before digging into his food. It's perhaps the most disgusting thing Tommy had ever witnessed right after Dream but this one he would not change for anything. Not after Henry died.

Opening the balcony door and trusting that Shroud would not attempt to escape, he left. He had a prank spree scheduled and he had to go pick up Grian to start.

But of course, not all things could go his way. As he was making his way to the G-Mansion, he bumped into Xisuma. He didn't know what the admin was doing flying around above the jungle trees but he was beckoned over to him. So they stopped on the thick canopy of a tree and Tommy immediately caught on the anxiety that seemed to be radiating off the man. It made his curiosity pique and his stomach to churn and twist.

"I was looking for you", the bee said, putting a slightly-trembling hand on his shoulder.

"Is everything okay? You look a little off", Tommy questioned. Whatever had happened, it was clearly not good, jugding by the way the hand on his shoulder squeezed and trembled at random intervals.