Chapter Text
“tubbo! hurry up!” tommy shouted, waving at the older enthusiastically. “we’re gonna miss the show if you don’t move yourself!” he continued, when the teen made no effort in acknowledging his friend’s shouts. instead, he seemed to be more focused on the person next to him: chatting away despite having to look up at the person (which would’ve made tommy laugh). “tubbo!” he tried again, getting glared at by an old woman ushering two kids past.
this time tubbo noticed tommy, and finally turned his attention away from his new friend. “what?” he shouted, squinting towards tommy.
“we are going. to. miss. the. show.” the younger stressed, gesturing at an invisible watch on his wrist.
“oh shit!” tubbo responded, before grabbing the person's wrist and dragging him down towards the teen, “we gotta watch it!”
“i’m well aware, so come on.” tommy sighed in response, latching onto tubbo’s wrist when he had gotten close enough, “we aren’t even going to get good seats…” he muttered to himself, setting off towards the open stadium-esque seating.
it surrounded half of the ‘pool’ — wrongly named as it was bigger than a lake — and staggered upwards to give everyone an easier view. the two (now three apparently) were trying to get good seats, either half way up so they were in eyeline with the top of the ‘pool’, or at the bottom so they could see through the glass barriers. neither of those they were going to be free now, since tubbo had taken his sweet time.
“it’s fine, we’ll just stand.” tubbo said, stopping in the flow of people.
“we won’t stand here, dickhead.” tommy exclaimed, wincing as someone shoved passed him, “yeah! fuck you too!”
“we are in the way.” the guy, who tubbo had dragged along, finally spoke. he was american — ew — and had a much deeper voice than what tommy was expecting, but his already apparent lack of backbone made him much less intimidating.
“yes, Random American Guy, we are in the way.” tommy deadpanned, raising one eyebrow as the speakers crackled with: “reminder: if you’re in the front four rows you are indeed in a splash zone, i advise you move if you don’t want to get wet. before the show starts i will be giving you a briefing on our newest dinosaur—”
“and look at that! we’re missing the start of the show.”
“it’s not my fault.” tubbo sighed, pulling his hand away from tommy’s now that they’d finally stopped. although, he did keep his hand attached to the Random American Guy’s wrist. maybe the guy was as much of a hostage than tommy was: maybe the two could escape together and get away from the evil hands of tubbo—
“no i did not kidnap him, and i’m not going to chase you around the park if you run away.” tubbo glared.
“the fuck? i didn’t even say anything.” tommy responded, trying to make himself look innocent. fuck tubbo, and fuck the fact that he could practically read the other teen’s mind. “you can’t read minds, stop acting like it.”
“i can too!” tubbo argued, as if he had some kind of magical mind-reading power. ha, he didn’t have a magical mind-reading power, he just knew too much about tommy. sixteen years of friendship will do that to ya, right? right? yeah. yeah… “stop thinking about it too much toms.”
fuck! oh he so could, this wasn’t even funny and— “stop laughing tubbo.”
“it’s funny, getting in your head like that.”
“it’s fuckin’ not funny!” tommy responded, running his forehead to try and stave off an oncoming headache. “tubbo, Random American Guy, shut up and just watch the show.”
“my names—”
“ok tommy.”
— — —
in the lab, it was certifiably hell. they’d only reopened recently after a break, but the park itself had been running for almost thirty years. so, of course, everyone expected it to be easy.
it was not.
philza was well aware of this as he watched everyone rush around in an attempt to get themselves together. apparently engineering new dinosaurs wasn’t a good idea! who would’ve imagined! phil would’ve. phil did — the amount of people he told “no, inventing a new dinosaur is not a good idea, god knows what will happen and the whole prehistoric food chain would basically be set alight!” was probably in the hundreds.
still, no one listened to him, and then got themselves stuck running dips into the labs floor as they collected data and loaded syringes in preparation for another test. god, they’d already made one, and by phil’s standards that was definitely enough.
“phil,” wilbur — the elder’s ‘student’ — panted, shoving a pile of papers into his hand. “you told them this wouldn’t work, and you’re right.”
“of course i’m right wil.” phil laughed, but not in his normal, humorous fatherly way. it reeked of struggle and desperation, knowing that whatever wilbur had shoved into his hands was not going to be pretty.
“no, but, we’re putting too much effort on keeping the tests in.” he elaborated, waving his hands in the way he always did, “we’re not diverting enough to the enclosures themselves, the ones out for viewing!”
“they’re…” phil began, flicking the page that he was looking at, “they’re diverting the energy from the public enclosures to continue experiments.” he stressed the word ‘public’. despite it not being a question, wilbur nodded with a sheepish grin. “don’t grin at me you fuck.”
“phil!” wilbur exclaimed, hands flying to his heart as if he was wounded, “i’m not grinning! i just knew this was going to happen — we both knew this was going to happen.”
“yes we did.” phil responded, slamming the papers onto his desk, “ok, this is an issue-”
beep! beep! beep!
“-oh, a really big issue!”. he shifted to his computer, almost knocking the flask he’d set next to it. the beeping continued as he rushed to type in his password, slipping into the wheely-chair that he used. wilbur followed his lead, throwing himself back into the chair next to phil’s. it was also wheeley, he observed, as he pushed himself from wall-to-wall with a dramatic spin each time. “stop wil, you’re giving me a headache.”
“tell the chair company to stop making chairs so moveable then.” wilbur snarked, repeating the back-and-forth from the two walls. “maybe i wouldn’t do this if the chairs didn’t have wheels.”
“sure you would mate.” phil replied, distracted. he was much more interested in typing away on his computer, which, personally, wilbur thought was quite rude: shouldn’t he be focusing on his favourite student? phil sighed, and wilbur decided maybe something was actually more important than him — especially with the down-low panic the science team was having. scooting himself forward, the younger peered over phil’s shoulder to glance at the computer screen.
‘47% charge to the outdoor electric fences, reportedly not causing any effect on most of the dinosaurs that seemed to have touched it. after touching it once, many of the animals continued in their actions (5 minutes ago, e. storf.)’
huh, that wasn’t good.
‘43% of total power sent towards the lab, in tests for the new ***-***, as well as production of tranquillisers and preservatives to make sure ***-*** thrives in its current situation. hopeful for increase of power and energy to create better results (3 minutes ago, dr. held).
that was worse!
— — —
“that was so cool!” tommy laughed, shaking his head, consequently flinging water over everyone. “i can’t believe we managed to get in the splash zone!”
“me neither.” tubbo deadpanned, his voice hoarse as if he’d swallowed gallons of water.
“tubbo did you keep your mouth open to try and catch the water again?”
“…yeah.”
“that can not have been healthy.”
“wait— again?” Random American Guy interrupted, looking back and forth between the two teenagers, “this has happened before?”
“kinda,” tommy shrugged in response, tubbo glaring down at his shoes, “tubs once drank a handful of log-flume water before. fucker almost got rabies or something.”
“you can’t get rabies from water. actually, who knows at this point.” Random American Guy sighed, his eyebrows pinching together as though he was in pain. personally, tommy thought that having him and tubbo as company would basically be a painkiller — tubbo knew they were the complete opposite.
“well i didn’t get rabies!” tubbo announced, “and since i’m clearly the better of us three, i get to decide where we are going!” he skipped off, correctly assuming that the two were going to follow him.
“oh Random American Guy, it’s not too late to escape.” tommy bumped shoulders with him, “i’ll jump him right now, and you run in the opposite direction.”
“i don’t think i’d ever get far enough away.”
“true.” and with that, the two followed after the shorter teen with mock-enthusiasm and subtle headaches.