"I'm sorry, murdered?" Dream asked, looking over at Tommy. Though he was dead, Techno's stomach did an odd dip at the thought of it. Murdered? No, no one else was in the house with them that night, and he knew how he'd died. There was no way anyone had dropped that ceiling on him. No one locked Wilbur in his room, but himself, and Phil had been torn between saving the two. No one had physically slaughtered them.
Tommy nodded, and pulled himself up into the attic. "Well, yeah," he said. "You all said that you didn't leave the stove on, like everyone was told and whatnot--so if it wasn't your fault and the world just wasn't having a hissy fit with lightning and such--how'd your house burn down?"
Techno opened his mouth to answer, even if Tommy couldn't directly hear him anymore, but stopped. How...?
Movement caught his eye and he looked at the ground beside Tommy. Wilbur's head phased through the wooden platform, and for the first time in a while, Techno's brother wasn't smiling. Wilbur tried to keep everyone else happy, a smile of some sort always trying to remain on his face. But...his eyes were wide and scared, he'd pressed his lips into a line and was shaking his head slightly. "No," he finally said. "That...that can't be right, right?"
"I..." Techno started, and shook his head. Normally, he'd have a quip for this sort of thing. But he just couldn't make one of the situation. "I don't know Wilbur."
Having not heard the conversation between the two ghosts, Dream was still trying to wrap his head around the suggested basis. "Tommy," he started and ran a hand through his hair. He had no idea how to start this. "I know that you mean well, but...that doesn't really seem like a solid idea. This isn't a large town, I know practically everyone here," He said and gestured with his hands. "And...well, I can't think of anyone that would torch three people--that we all knew, no less--in their own house."
Tommy frowned. "Well, a murderer isn't just gonna be like 'ha ha, you all trusted me but I killed three people'--have you never seen a movie, man? The bad guy is always either someone super obvious, or someone that's really trusted and then, BOOM! You've just been Hans-ed from Frozen, and he's the bad guy."
"He's right!" Tubbo called from the bottom of the attic stairs, and started climbing up himself. "It's always either the ones you suspect, or the ones you never do," He said ominously as he entered the area and sat beside Tommy.
Phil came up behind him, giving Techno an odd, but obviously grave, look. "Well--who would do that?" Wilbur asked, looking between the two other ghosts. "Who--Who would want us dead?"
Looking at the window, Phil closed his eyes and thought of how to go about this the right way. What if Tommy and Tubbo were right? He himself couldn't think of anyone who held that sort of hatred towards them, any one of them in fact, but that didn't mean it wasn't entirely impossible, right? There were always victims of random, uncalculated murders--he just didn't want to think that he and his family had been those said victims. "I don't know Will," He said finally, and turned his attention back to him. "I really don't."
Dream looked back to his journal to see if anything else had been written. Since Tommy had entered the attic, Techno had since stopped writing. He glanced down at his watch and bit back a curse. "I...shit, I have to go," he said and started standing up. He gathered up his journal and pen, looking around the room. "I am...firstly, so very sorry for what happened to you three. And, I do miss you guys, lots of us still do. I'll come back as soon as I can, but, I gotta run," He said regretfully, and sped his way over to the attic ladder. He began climbing down, and paused to once more stick his head through the open entrance. "I'll be back."
With that, everyone watched him disappear back into the house below. Techno stuck his head through the floor, just in time to see his friend rush out the door, in a hurry as always. It kind of...hurt, he supposed, to have just that little bit of familiar interaction gone so soon after it had come back in his life. But, Dream had promised to come back. And maybe, he'd believe him on that.
He'd pulled his head back into the attic after hearing Tommy give one of his sharp awkward laughs. "Well..." the teen trailed off, and clapped is hands together once. He looked at Tubbo and shrugged his shoulders. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to dead people Tubbo."
Tubbo nodded in agreement, he felt just about the same way. "Well...we are, really, really sorry to hear about your possible-murders," he said.
"And all around, the dying part of your life," Tommy added.
"Yes, we're also very sorry to hear about that," Tubbo said, nodding his head enthusiastically to agree with Tommy.
They waited for some sort of answer...before realizing that even if the Watsons were responding to them, they'd have no idea.
Tommy's eyes widened and he leaned over to the entrance of the attic. "Oi! Dream! You still--" he started, before noticing that the man was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was the small black box sitting on the coffee table downstairs. Even from up there, Tommy could tell that Dream had left his spirit box.
"He left his box," Tubbo noticed from over Tommy's shoulder, and began heading down the stairway to get it. Tommy and the ghosts watched him go down, walking all the way almost out of sight to retrieve the box.
"What're you gonna do with that?" Tommy called, leaning forward to try and see Tubbo more. He felt a chill on his shoulder, something holding him firm from falling over. He looked over, and half expected to see a dead man standing there beside him. But there was nothing but empty, chilling air.
"I wanna see if we can talk to the ghosts!" Tubbo answered, already walking back up the staircase with the box in hand. The screen wasn't on, and the ever present crackling had seemingly stopped. He didn't really seem to notice as he climbed back up the ladder, holding the box out for Tommy to take so he himself didn't fall over.
The room only seemed to dip in temperature, getting slightly colder by the second as Tommy tried to turn on the box himself. Admittedly, he hadn't really been paying attention when Dream had done it, and was now only slightly regretting it. "Have you tried turning it off and then on again?" Tubbo suggested.
Tommy gave himself a break from assaulting the box and gave his friend a deadpan stare. "No, Tubbo. I haven't tried that, on the off machine that I can't turn on."
"But the button's right here," Tubbo said and leaned over, flicking a small switch on the side of the box. "The wires are all still plugged in and stuff," He explained as the machine began to hum to life.
Tommy watched the box begin to crackle, the screen waking up to show the reading dial. "I knew that!" He said, only somewhat defensively. "I knew exactly what I was--" he started.
He was cut off by the sound of crying. The box was pulsing with the staticky sound, the dial jumping up to signify that it was hearing something. Both Tommy and Tubbo looked at the box, neither of them were expecting that.
"It's okay," They could hear. Phil was comforting whoever it was on the other side, which at least meant that the ghosts were still inside the room (not that the cold alone couldn't tell the boys that). The crier sniffled in response, trying to keep themselves quiet.
"But did we do something wrong?" They asked, and since Tubbo had been trying to match voices to names, he now knew the ghost that had been crying was Wilbur. "I didn't think we did anything wrong. All I did was write songs. And make friends. I-I'm sure I did some things wrong, but...why did we deserve this? Why do I deserve this?"
The audio sparked and cut out for a moment. By the time it returned, Techno was already speaking. "--deserve it. We didn't. Certainly not you, and not Phil either. No one's perfect, but we were good people. So...don't think like that. And, don't cry...there there," he said, somewhat awkwardly. Despite the awkward factor, it was still obvious that he did mean what he'd said. They had been good people.
They didn't deserve that.
Tubbo had been looking at the ground. It must have been awful. It must have been awful being dead, even more so having no idea why you had to go. He knew that if anything like that had happened to him, he would have wanted to know why he had to leave. Why he wasn't given a chance at a "nice long life", like seemingly everyone else deserved. He would have wanted to know why he'd have to leave his parents and sisters, why he'd have to leave Tommy and his friends. The Watsons didn't know why they had to go, and that just...it wasn't fair.
They deserved to know.
"Y'Know..." He said after a moment, he decided to be respectful and take it easy since obviously, this was a sensitive subject. "I think that no one deserves this sort of thing. No one--except maybe really, really bad criminals, and not even really then either. Because this is awful, and it isn't fair that you guys have been left here with, with practically no answers. There has to be an answer, surely."
"And Tubbo and I are gonna help you guys find it," Tommy said, deciding that on the spot. It made him...kind of angry, if he'd admit it, to think about how they had just been left in that house alone for years, with no one trying to figure out what really happened. It annoyed him, no one deserved to be forgotten about.
Tubbo turned his head quickly to look at him. In all honesty, he hadn't expected that answer from Tommy--at least, not so quickly. A smile spread across his face and he nodded. "Yeah! We'll look around the town, investigate for clues! And, we can talk to you guys now, so, you can help us and all that!"
From his spot floating next to Wilbur, Techno blinked in surprise. That didn't make any sense. These kids didn't know them, they weren't family or old friends--hell, they didn't even know they were sharing a house with ghosts until half an hour ago. What was this? "Why do you want to help?" He asked, frankly a little suspicious.
"Because. You did not deserve this," Tommy said, serious. Techno knew that the kid couldn't see him, but it felt like he was staring at him directly.
"And besides--we're practically roomates now! Tommy and I don't have any plans to leave soon, we just got here. We might as well all get along, and don't you think a great way to do that is to...oh, I don't know. Solve your guys' death?" He asked.
The box fell silent. For a moment, Tubbo wondered if he'd accidently offended them. He looked to Tommy, whom looked just as clueless as he was, and then around the room. It was certainly warmer now, the late afternoon sun warming up the room with a nice glow. Did that mean the ghosts had left?
The sound of Phil's laughter through the spirit box proved this theory wrong. Despite the fact that it was laced with static, both boys couldn't help but smile at the infectious noise. "You boys are crazy, you know that?" The older ghost chuckled. "You find out your house is haunted, and one of your first instincts is to make friends with and help them."
Tubbo nodded. "I've heard of Undertale," he said with a confident nod. "I know how the love versus hate thing works."
Tommy nodded. "But then again, we're just super helpful and interesting, 'breed: different', someone would say," he rambled, obviously joking, but enjoying the way that it all seemed to be running.
"Did you just verbally say 'breed: different'?" Wilbur asked after a moment, and began laughing. He no longer sounded sad like before, instead, he sounded excited. Hopeful, even.
"Damn right he did," Tubbo said, smiling.
A cold breeze passed between the two boys. "And you guys actually want to help us? For real?" Techno asked. If Tommy would believe it, even he sounded slightly interested.
He glanced over at Tubbo and made up his mind. There wouldn't be peace this summer, no, no. There would be justice, and an adventure that frankly neither of them had ever thought was possible. "Damn right we are!" He declared, grinning wide. This was going to work, they were going to help the Watsons.
"So," Tubbo grinned. "Where do we start?"
(Hello lovelies! I am so sorry about the 1 day delay, I'm trying to refrain from doing that, and be on a normal schedule for you all. Thank you guys so much for supporting me, I can't wait for the following chapters to come out!! Stay safe and have a wonderful day or night!)