on temporizing || Dream SMP Timeloop Fic

Chapter 31

151. (credit to Lyrmony)

Dream opened the door of his house and paused.

His Tommy-senses were tingling. The other looper had been through here at some point, which inevitably meant. . .

He surveyed the foyer. Yup, there it was - a tripwire, hair-thin and barely visible in the light. Tommy should have known better than to try such primitive pranks by now, but maybe he hadn't felt like being too high-effort this loop. Or maybe-- nope, there weren't any pressure plates or traces of redstone beyond the wire. It was just a tripwire. A bit disappointing, but at least Dream could avoid it.

With a sigh, Dream stepped over the tripwire-- only to freeze when he felt something brush against his hair. A second wire, even thinner than the first, suspended at just the right height to tug at his hair when he walked past it.

Dream had one second to feel mildly impressed before a bucket of glue and feathers was upended upon his head.

~~~

"Technoblade?"

"Hey, Phil," Technoblade answered. He did not turn away from the bonfire in front of him. "What brings you here?"

Philza eyed the torch in his hands. "Are you. . . burning down your house?"

"The animals are safe," Technoblade assured him. "I already moved my valuables to my backup house."

"Okay, but why. . .?"

Technoblade fixed him with an inscrutable stare. "Tommy did some breakin' and enterin' while we were gone. I'm decontaminatin'."

"By burning the house? Seems a bit. . . excessive, mate."

"He plastered the walls with bacon-themed wallpaper. Strippin' it will be a waste of time if he can just break in again, so I'm burnin' the abomination down and movin' on."

". . . Ah." Philza took a moment to digest that, then blinked. "Wait, bacon-themed wallpaper? Where did he even get that?"

"Looked handpainted to me. Whoever drew it was pretty good." Technoblade relit a piece of wood that had died down to a smolder. "Shame it's gettin' burnt."

His tone made it very clear that he didn't think it was a shame at all.

~~~

"You too?" was the first thing out of Tubbo's mouth when he opened the door. A rather glittery Quackity stared back, a bristling (and bright pink) Fundy at his side.

"Too?" the duck hybrid demanded, only to do a truly impressive triple take when he caught sight of Tubbo's living room. "What the fuck? How--"

"Dunno." Tubbo shouldered his way past the two of them and shut the door, concealing the thick layer of googly eyes covering his walls. "I do know, however, that I need a new house. Whoever did this used some sort of superglue - I can't hack away the eyes without hacking away the wall, and I'm not sleeping with that monstrosity staring at me."

"Shit, it's in your bedroom too?"

"And my kitchen. And my basement." At Quackity's wince, Tubbo nodded. "Yep."

~~~

"Hm," said Ranboo. "This. Might be a problem."

The chickens crowding his halls seemed to collectively stop and shoot him a look of 'no shit'. Or maybe Ranboo was hallucinating now. This certainly felt close enough to a fever dream.