Chapter Text
After another long, restless night, Wilbur grouchily slunk back into the house. Besides the safety concerns, he’d never really felt comfortable sleeping in homes, paranoid a human would return at any moment. And anyways, the outcome was obvious. He’d just destroy whatever valuables were cluttering up the place. Human lives were too fragile for a ticking bomb like Wilbur.
Detecting ominous rattling, Wilbur stilled. Someone was here. By the height his legs had adjusted to, shorter than Tommy. Didn’t tell Wilbur how many people there were, but by the general distribution of human heights, larger groups were more likely to happen to have someone taller. Hand splitting in half, he signed to a claw voidling. They silently slipped through the air towards the intruders. Closer, closer, the tendril of dark connecting Wilbur to the monster coiled with the tension of a pounce-
“It’s just us, dear,” a swarm of bees announced. Wilbur slumped, then sauntered over to where Tubbo perched on the kitchen counter. As they conversed about nothings, he wondered if their voice was wrong somehow. Eh. They were still speaking human. It must be insignificant.
But the fragile normalcy petered out. Tubbo frowned their disapproval. “Tommy hasn’t…told the others, yet.”
“I wouldn’t’ve gone off if I’d known he’d bottle it up!” Okay so maybe he’d run off to avoid that conversation. But, he’d thought it would happen. Imagining the gritted bars of Tommy’s teeth imprisoning the truth building up in his throat scraped gravel-bitter shame across Wilbur’s tongue.
“What? Oh, no, that wasn’t passive aggressive. We’re just worried.”
“Mnn. A lot was taken.”
“True. Yet we find ourselves more concerned with what was given. Lots of horrors can fit in five years.”
It didn’t compute. The Foundation was a black hole hollowing out every last thing inside them to be obliterated by malicious gravity. It gave nothing.
Wilbur’s thoughts scratched mercilessly. He suffocated them in the blank absent white of a cell wall.
Normally, Wilbur would be rushing everyone awake to start running again. Now…he wasn’t so keen to see them. Much safer to sit in the kitchen with Tubbo. They seemed comfortable, just like Tommy had in the store. Twisting the knobs of alien contraptions while covering a yawn. Impatiently reiterating a tattoo against faux marble in a ripple of their regrown hand. Not flinching as a torso-sized mechanical crescent screeched and urinated dark liquid into a waiting cup.
Tubbo raised the beverage to their gooey shreds of flesh mimicking a mouth. And froze rather oddly. “Hah. Forgot I can’t drink this anymore. Here, you can have our coffee.” They held it out to Wilbur.
The void exploded. Wilbur tore away quickly, clawing into shadows to hold them back. They ran wild with his nerves, taking longer than usual to calm with songs. All the while, Tubbo sat perfectly still. Wilbur couldn’t understand why they didn’t bolt. It would’ve been better if they had, and he crushed the small part of him cheered by their lack of fear.
“No. I don’t. I don’t do gifts,” Wilbur explained tersely. Especially not with the list of everything the Foundation had taken screaming cyclically in his mind. One more thing to lose. One more thing to be taken.
“Sorry! Sorry, it’s not a gift! We don’t want it, you might, nothing more than that!”
“Doesn’t work like that,” he nearly growled.
“Right! Right, sorry, that was presumptuous, trauma isn’t exactly logical to think we could debate it into disappearing." Like a dog, Wilbur’s lips curled at the insinuation that avoiding manipulative snares was illogical,
Tubbo glanced between him and the cup, then suddenly dunked the coffee into the sink. Instantly they regretted it. “Wait-! I can’t function without my—!”
Suddenly swept by the absurdity, Wilbur snorted. “You- you made a beverage you can’t have, tried to pawn it off at the first opportunity, and now mourn it circling the drain?”
“Oh. Ah. Hehe, that does solve the problem neatly. Our fault for offering coffee to Brits, really.”
A series of plates and a pot floated through the air, bees sorting them into the gullet of the drawer Tubbo wrenched down to open. A rack rattled as they pulled it out. Wilbur almost snapped about why Tubbo was unstealing the cutlery Wilbur worked so hard to acquire, but figured that was sleep deprivation cloaking an obvious intention. Was he supposed to know what this was? Probably. Say nothing. He’d figure it out from context clues, or he wouldn’t.
That philosophy dissolved when the drawer started growling. Starling to his feet, a whirlwind of voidlings burst out to contend with the threat. Tubbos’ snicker broke him from the battle stance. “What’s that for? Going to have a row with the dishwasher, are you?”
The forbidden, dark knowledge of what a dishwasher was neatly settled into his brain. That seemed extremely lazy, Wilbur decided uncharitably. (Then again, now he wasn’t cleaning only his own plates or, more efficiently, eating directly from a dumpster or carcass, constantly keeping up with five people was quite a hassle. For Tommy. Sucker.) Then again, why should Tubbo hold that knowledge over him? Tubbo looked even less human than Wilbur. And yet, like a thorn in his side was the fact they’d initially taken refuge in Tubbos’ house remained. It did not compute. It drove Wilbur crazy.
Suddenly, Wilbur had the realization that he wasn’t supposed to know Tubbo yet. That no one would notice a memory slip cause he wasn’t supposed to have memories with them in the first place. Tubbo wouldn’t feel any less loved for it.
In Tubbos’ short stint at the Foundation, they had lost more than Wilbur ever could in those five years. They had been well and truly free. And Wilbur was ravenous to know how.
“So how did you have a house?”
Tubbo gave a forlorn sigh. Then, they gestured to the dim twilight beyond and the silhouette of the ‘For Sale!’ sign. “When a woman and a real estate agent capitalism each other very much, they go off to the bank…honestly we wish it’d cost an arm and a leg. Amputation has been frankly easier than debt management ever was.”
Irritated at the non-answer, Wilbur gestured between them. “We’re anomalies. Humans have houses, not anomalies.”
An odd sort of understanding flickered in their compound eyes, but not an understanding Wilbur liked. Tubbos’ head tilted. “Why not?”
“I’m not saying I like it, it’s just the way it is. Humans didn’t make this stuff for us.”
“The people who built this house didn’t make it for someone in particular, did they? They built it so someone would have a home, no matter who they are or what life they lead. These stupid tall counters aren’t made for people with only half their legs, either, but humans have amputees, too. Sure, so much wasn’t made with us in mind, may not be a perfect fit, but why shouldn’t we enjoy what we can?”
“Because humans will enforce it. Violently. And you don’t get violent back, so, I’m just confused how you managed to keep a home.”
Tubbos’ brow quirked. “All humans?”
“All humans hate me, and I hate them right back. Seems fair to me.”
There was this odd glimmer across their insectoid eyes, grinning like Wilbur was toeing a bear trap beneath layers of pretty autumn leaves. “Do you hate us?” Well they certainly ̶̲̈m̶̨̿u̵̮̐f̵̳͋f̴̫͝i̸̗̚n̵͉̎ed him off sometimes. What Wilbur called being a ̸̝͠m̴̫̀u̵͎͊f̵̙̌f̶̤̕í̸̪n̸̰̒hole with a superiority complex, they called ‘morals’ and ‘being willing to inflict social consequences for reprehensible actions’. But they were predictable, and thus navigable. More than that, they were a miracle of survival with their surveillance and message relaying. And they made Tommy smile.
“I’d say we’re semi-solid allies.”
Their eyes narrowed slightly, more curious than anything. “Ah. But we’re human, aren’t we? So you have to hate us.”
“No you aren’t.” It was an uncanny sort of prickling alarm sinking into Wilbur. Worse than that, it was oddly familiar, an echo of a memory he’d dismissed as unimportant. Though Tubbos’ claim was patently untrue, the bid alone was disturbing.
A hint of scrutiny laced their multifaceted gaze. “We already told you, practically the first day. Don’t you remember?” Tubbo snickered as Wilbur braced. The sweet sound died as the void slithered out.
“Of course I do!” he snapped. White-hot panic shot up Wilbur’s spine. Remember. What was he meant to remember? What could possibly explain what was happening? Surely it was recent, not that hazy swath preluding those hellish five years.
Tubbo’s palms floated in the swelling penumbra. “It’s perfectly fine if it slipped your mind. We know you’ve had some rough revelations recently. Can you take deep breaths for us?”
“M̷̛̞̝̬̓̋ű̶̝͌f̷̧̩̈́̓f̵͙̜͂́͠i̸͎̽n̸̡̈́ off!”
“Sorry. We shouldn’t have teased considering everything, we meant to lighten the mood. That’s on us. The actual explanation is we’re a hivemind. The human Rosalind bought that house before joining Tubbo. While I faced redlining, it was for race, not species, reasons. Tubbo said they’d mentioned it, but, I don’t remember that conversation either, so don’t worry!”
“Single handedly dealing with a house invasion is a tad distracting,” Wilbur defended grumpily. It did rather explain a lot about Tubbo, if they thought they were a human. That rigid adherence to pacifism against the species that made everyone’s lives hell more reasonable when it was one’s own.
But only to a very twisted logic. “You aren’t human. That doesn’t count.” Maybe Tommy had been human before, but that status and all that came with it had dissolved. Tommy deserved to seize back everything he’d lost, but the world wouldn’t see it that way. Wilbur wanted to. Wanted. “The Foundation proved it; stole y- her home the moment she was ‘corrupted’ by an SCP. You can’t be both.”
“Why not? What’s so special about humanity? The Foundation wants to make a clean line between human and anomaly so they’re ‘allowed’ to hurt us. Why should we let them?”
“And the rest of us unlucky sons of ̣͝m̷̞̄u̵̯̽f̴̙̀f̶̗͛ì̵͚n̷̫̈́es that can’t stretch the definition enough?” Wilbur asked with a raised brow.
Tubbo shook their head. “That’s literally not what we said?? We-” And they cut themselves off, re-evaluating. Suddenly, Wilbur got the impression that he was under a scientist’s scalpel again. Tubbo almost really did feel human. “Tubbo made that divide, recently. Tried to cut us all off, keep everyone separate so the line between vict- so it was easier to cast blame. I’m told usually the hivemind is merged, but my addition redrew those faction lines. It’s only recently Tubbo relented to letting us out, let alone this sloppy half merged attempt you caught this morning. They were scared to let us out around “dangerous anomalies.” Funny how Tubbo thought that, and not us humans. I’d just finally convinced them that, of anyone, you were the safest to open up to.”
It lodged like a fish hook beneath his ribs. Tubbo had trusted him with truth. But it was one he didn’t want.
“I get it, though. I was young and angry once. I wanted the world to change, for me to change it, and it ki- changed me, used me against others. I thought I was a force of progress but was blind to the oppression I contributed to. So, I don’t think I have a right to condemn an encompassing loathing of your oppressors. But for a strategist like yourself, doesn’t it pare down your possible allies to miniscule numbers?”
Wilbur worked his jaw. He searched for the poison in Tubbos’ argument, pity or accusation or anger. But the words were a soft explanation, as if Tubbo- as if this fragment- reverse vessel- collected quasi-human felt sorrow for him.
“I don’t think of it as cutting off allies. I think of it as only relying on anomalies I am absolutely certain I can trust.”
“Do you still trust us?”
“I don’t think I understand you,” Wilbur said eventually. Their wings drooped.
Tubbo hopped off the counter. Swarms pooled around a ghostly trace of their legs, mimicking strides as they brushed away towards Tommy’s room. Yet a thin covey orbited Wilbur even as they vanished behind a cheery violet door. “Maybe it’s cause you’ve accepted too many things as impossible. Just, if you’re so angry at humans for enforcing those boundaries of who deserves what…why would you enforce their oppression for them?”
Wilbur’s knee-jerk recalcitrance only produced splutters.
——
Instead of ruffling his hair, Philza grinned as bright as he could the moment Tommy blearily woke. Instead of shepherding him to breakfast in the fold of a wing, Philza blithely chatted as Tommy stumbled to the dining room without support. Instead of wrapping him in an embrace, Philza heaped extra griddle cakes onto Tommy’s plate. Instead of clapping his shoulder, Philza clenched his fork as he praised Tommy for such a good haul. To all, his Tommy morosely shrugged, if he acknowledged it at all.
Philza hadn’t realized how generous his physical affection was until learning it was unwanted.
Tommy pushed aside the plate he’d been picking at, and acquiesced when The Blade asked to poach his breakfast. Philza longed to ask what was wrong, but he knew the answer. His arms stung with the refusal to take Tommy into them. The obstacle short-circuited Philza’s accustomed Tommy-tailored comfort. He knew Tommy needed a hug. And that was something Philza couldn’t provide.
The clink of Tommy’s fork against the table demanded attention, cutting through the unenthusiastic attempts at conversation. Philza was rapt on the grim determination in Tommy’s expression promising an announcement.
“Me and Wil figured something out yesterday.” Tommy’s cheeks puffed out like holding breath before a plunge into the deep end, like clamping down on a truth fighting to get out. “We were in the Foundation for five ̷̘͔̯͕͒͛m̴̡͕̙̳̃͒̃͝ù̵̻͈͌̔͐́f̷̭͓̦̾͆͆͠f̸̖̰̦̈́͂̑í̷̫͗̿͋n̸̮̈͑̍ing years.”
The Blade glanced at Phil, confusion marring his boarish face. The collectively held breath broke upon his tentative, “uh……yeah?”
“Yeah? What do you MEAN yeah?!”
The Blade fled Tommy’s gaze, guilt welling. But of course he would know. The Blade was the only one to have- Philza’s mind burned the thought. With the way his stomach lurched, he nearly felt grateful. “I just, uh, I kept track I guess. Sorry, I didn’t realize you didn’t- I would’ve said something.”
Desperate, Tommy whirled upon Philza, who glanced between his Collected. “...I can’t tell how bad that is. I mean, ̸̯̑m̶̦̿ụ̸̌f̷͌ͅf̷̻̾i̴͉̚n̸͖͋ing atrocious, but- The Blade is well past a pig’s lifespan and gods know how long voidkeepers live.”
Wilbur barked a saturnine laugh. “I never thought I’d make it to adulthood. Big assumption on your end, that any of us aren’t dying young.”
“Not on my watch,” Philza replied grimly. “And by that metric, it’s about 5% of Tommy’s lifespan. You get a sliver of time, and they tarnished so much of it. But time will continue, carrying you further and further from this painful moment. Every moment of freedom spits in their face.”
Only, the more he soothed, the angrier Tommy got. Chair shoved back. Scarlet pooled from the splayed hands slammed onto the table. “No Phil. What you feel.”
“Worried.” His fingers laced together, refusing to reach out for the moment Tommy flinched. “It’s a shocking realization, and it’s clearly troubling you.”
“Not what I feel. Not in relation to us at all.” For all Philza longed to fill his demand, he hardly knew what would appease Tommy.
“Without you I am nothing. A constellation exists only in the patterns imposed upon it. Torture doesn’t mean much to me. I’ve faced far, far worse. You all haven’t. My vicarious suffering was a byproduct.”
Tommy sought comfort, but not in a way Philza understood. “I don’t need my pain soothed, Phil. I need to know you feel it too.”
Wilbur buried his head in his hands. “Toms, when I said it's easier hurting together, I didn’t mean plant that angst into someone.”
“I’m not. I know how he’s feeling right now, but he won’t let himself feel it.”
For all The Blade had meant to diminish his presence as much as thousands of pounds of ham could, he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “It’ll fester, Phil. Gotta let us know about the wounds long before then.” Philza shouldn’t have expected the sleeves to hide anything from him. His heart ached with the sweet worry of his Collected. It wasn’t right of him to inflict that upon them, not in the wake of learning just how much of their lifespans had been stolen. This was but a bad night in Philza’s eternity.
Tubbo was oddly gentle when they teased, “Come on, mister hypo ‘repression is bad’ crite, open up.”
There was nothing to open up. The amnestics had erased how he felt.
Or…no. They’d tried to. The blur of fear and pain and rage rage rage that haunted him hadn’t been purged at all. Memories and emotions could swirl together all they liked, but they were separate components of the soul at the end of the day. And what was he meant to make of those fragments, unmoored war ships adrift hunting phantom enemies? Long had it been his policy to not act on the all consuming passions of a god.
Philza had lost five years. Philza had lost decades. Philza had lost nothing. Philza had so nearly lost himself. But he hadn’t.
And in that mire of time swirling the drain, Philza had felt…nothing. Or rather, he’d tried to. If ever his feelings had grown too chaotic and enormous for the tiny, flimsy mortal doll he wore, unraveled into the anger he felt, he would’ve broken his promise. Would have broken himself. He’d spent so much time in a comforting haze of meditation, a sea of cultivated detachment broken by the skipping stone of precious visits skimming past the surface. Between the apathy and amnestics, memories were almost…meaningless.
Time wasn’t, though. Philza had kept a very careful track of time. And the more his mind seared with recollection, the more it didn’t add up. “I’m feeling confused, I suppose.” That was a non-concerning choice. “By my calculations, I thought we were…a little past two years. I knew I had a conservative estimate from all the cancelled visits, but I didn’t think it could possibly be that far off. I made ̸̯̑m̶̦̿ụ̸̌f̷͌ͅf̷̻̾i̴͉̚n̸͖͋ sure I counted the days, to catch the Foundation breaking the Collected Covenant.”
Philza caught himself before carelessly interrogating if Tommy was sure. Tubbo, oddly, picked up the slack. “Prolly cause the Foundation was lengthening your days. Dunno how, but you adapted to something like, forty hour cycles or something.”
They’d broken their promise from the very start.
And yet, the fury wasn’t with the Foundation at all, for it acted entirely predictably unto its nature. He’d known they were. He’d dedicated every second of those five years to catching them in a lie. But he hadn’t.
All that suffering could have ended five years ago. No wonder Tommy burned under his touch. When had Philza ever been any sort of safety? Philza could have saved them. But he hadn’t.
The boiling rage surging up cooled before it reached the surface until only a thin thread of smoke escaped Philza’s lips. He longed to hate the Foundation for this. But he didn’t.
“You’re still denying yourself.” Tommy leaned across the table, swallowing Philza’s vision even as a careful chasm spanned between them. Philza couldn’t bridge that severed love. Wounds wept in the privacy of buttercup sleeves.
“I have to, my Tommy,” Philza explained simply. “A star unleashed burns…” all it holds. It became trapped in his throat. “There is no use compounding your grief.”
“Tubbo taught me you’re allowed to be hurt for someone you love, not hurt by them. A relationship goes both ways, you can’t just give and give and call that love. Let me feel for you. You are still my Philza.”
Tommy knew. Oh he knew. He begged Philza for scars that he may measure the coals to fling upon his crown. When he’d denied Tommy that guilt, he’d never thought it would be misinterpreted as a barrier.
Tommy wasn’t scared, then. Something else was wrong, but it wasn’t that.
Philza looked between his Collected, each begging him in their own unique way. “....it makes me feel like I failed you all deeply.”
“Wrong answer. It wasn’t your fault.”
At the platitude, Philza’s rictus was all fangs. “Mate. I am a destructive god. There were no chains but my own arbitrary snares to stop me from saving you.”
“And why did you have to save us?”
Did he doubt Philza that deeply? Hadn’t he every right to? “Y- you’re my Collected. In what world would I not-”
“Wrong answer!” Tommy flicked a glob of Red that splattered on Philza’s cheek. “You had to save us cause they endangered us. You did what you could in ̵̧͊m̵̺͒ū̸̺f̶̠̕ḟ̸͜i̴̳͆ṋ̷͛y circumstances. You didn’t choose this.” The mantra frazzled like a sparkler in Philza’s head. Stray embers caught on string trails in all directions, burrowing into so many memories of Tommy chanting the mantra. “So?” Tommy prompted.
“They deserve what’s coming to them,” Philza completed tentatively. There was no hesitation at the thought of vindictive recompense, only that Tommy wanted to hear that. Tommy had never asked rage of Philza. Was this what he needed? What would heal him? Perhaps Tommy yearned for the assurance that Philza would fight for him. And Philza was more than amenable to ensuring Tommy was never abandoned to the Foundation’s clutches ever again.
Projecting your wants onto another again, are we? Philza’s subconscious mused. After that clumsy confrontation with The Blade during that haphazard escape, Philza wasn’t so self unaware as to immediately use another to serve his own wrath. Assuming what Tommy wanted was what got him here in the first place. Tommy would tell him what was wrong, on his own terms, in his own time.
“And you? How does it feel to be Tommy right now?”
Tommy offered a fleeting grin, and accepted the reciprocation. “I…still feel like a kid.”
“Because you are, mate. I’ve heard a dozen different numbers for when humans are considered grown, and all of it is just approximating a clean number on messy humans running different races at different speeds. You haven’t gotten the adulthood experience you expected. Those milestones of driving, voting, going to war, drinking, you never had them. So why should you feel like one? The world hasn’t treated you like an adult, they treated you like a monster.”
“But I also don’t feel like a kid.”
Tubbo glanced around the living room. “You know, there’s an awful lot of excess pillows in this house. You thinking what we’re thinking?” Wilbur glanced at them from where he was busting open a white slitted ceiling circle to avoid all of that. He didn’t know why every human house had them, but stole batteries from them every time. He went through a lot of flashlights.
“Pillow fort!” WIlbur wracked his brain for what that could possibly be. Magical polyglot and all, he technically knew by definition, but he honestly couldn’t say he was familiar. Pillows hardly seemed an impenetrable buttress. Wilbur shrugged and acquiesced, saying as much. Tubbo at once became performatively outraged. “We will not stand for this! How could you be missing such a fundamental part of your childhood!?” Uh…because he didn’t have one?
Despite Wilbur’s urging to hit the road, apparently they couldn’t. As the perpetual meal cleaner, Tommy threatened mutiny should they prematurely stop the dishwasher. Thus, the group was stalled by the stupid human machine holding their cutlery hostage. That had to have been planned. Unimpressed with Tubbos’ blatant ploy to inundate him with the softer, inoffensive pieces of humanity. Looking to build his tolerance, were they? “Mirthradaism is the fastest way to poison yourself, y’know,” he replied dryly.
“Huh?? What the ̷͈̈̉m̵̝̜̌̓u̶͎͋̒f̶̖͔͗f̶͉͐i̴̤͚̅n̴̠̽̒ is mither- murthie– huh?????”
Wilbur rolled his eye. They weren’t slick. “Besides, now everyone’s awake we need to be running. Don’t you want to see your family in Chicago?” Wait. M̷̧͕͐͘û̸̻̟͑f̷̪̲̈́f̷̞̊ȉ̸̲̤̌n̵̨͛̂. After their most recent conversation- was Tubbos’ family human? By the fact they had a stationary enough life to be tied down to a singular city, Wilbur wagered that was exactly it. Rather suddenly, this whole thing felt like a trap.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t. Tubbos’ bleeding hearts saved even The Blade, even the Foundation. They wouldn’t throw everyone to the wolves. Tubbo wasn’t really human.
“A few hours won’t make a difference. Now- Phil! How could you fail him like this?”
Philza blinked. “Well. Well it can’t be fundamental, pillows weren’t invented for ages.”
Evidently, Tubbo would only truly consider rebuttals within this silly framework. Wibur could play that game. “Be fair to him, Dad only got me as a teen. I would’ve thought they were lame.”
“False. Pillow forts are for everyone!”
Tommy frowned, looking at his hands like the rest of them were fragile humans instead of threats in their own rights. Scarlet curled around his wrists. “…yeah, that’s probably not true, Tubbo.”
Wilbur’s cynicism splintered beneath Tommy’s wistful dejection. All Wilbur’s rationality dissolved under the simple need to make Tommy happy. And if these human trappings were what it took to give him a semblance of his old life, then it must be worth it.
“‘Course it is,” Wilbur dismissed. “You just have to build a rival pillow fort and then we’ll do wars on each other.”
Tommy split into a smile, competition flashing in his eyes. “No you won’t. Mine will be too cool and powerful and you won’t ever think of attacking it. The best pillow fort in the world, actually, god told me so himself.”
Each group shot off, scrambling to find every possible construction supplies. As Wilbur deferred to Tubbos’ experience, he muttered, “̴͙̐̃M̴̥̓ư̵̹͑f̴̦͑f̴̹̺̒͠i̴̧̫͗n̷̮̍it, you win this round,” without any heat.
“We’re on the same side?” they hummed innocently. Yeah right. It was obvious this spontaneous event hid ulterior motives.
Wilbur, evidently, was actually really good at pillow forts. The void shot out, seizing various assets. Or rather, seizing everything that wasn’t bolted down, which Tubbos’ discerning expertise swiftly parsed into categories of ‘valuable’ and ‘what the ̷͙̑̐m̷̹̫̏u̸͇͚͊̓f̷̟̞̕f̶̻̺͐̚i̴̧̒ñ̵͔̱̃ Wilbur’.
Perhaps Wilbur was too efficient in his scavenging. Tommy’s jaw hung open, outrage plastered on his features as he clutched a single blanket. A few unraveling eldritch tessellations attempted to wrestle him for it. Tommy tugged with all his strength, and ended up toppling into The Blade. Tommy whined, “That’s not fair! You’ve claimed all the couches! How am I supposed to support my structure now??”
“You could use the bookcase,” The Blade offered. He’d already scavenged it, and lay close by with a novel in hoof, perched not entirely unlike a loafing cat.
Tommy held up his quilt. Er, fortress wall? “I need more than one support.”
“Lamp,” he suggested, cracking open to the first page.
“What about the third? I need a third for a good roof.”
“Not my problem.”
“I think it is your problem, actually. Hold still.” And with that, Tommy hooked the corner of his blanket around The Blade’s tusk, stringing the other ends around furniture and making a ceiling.
“And what happens when I move?” he threatened, bemused.
“You won’t, you’re busy doing nerd ̷͈̈̉m̵̝̜̌̓u̶͎͋̒f̶̖͔͗f̶͉͐i̴̤͚̅n̴̠̽̒ instead of being cool like us and starting wars.” The Blade sighed, quashing the longing in his expression. Probably best he was never involved in anything remotely resembling a war ever. As Tommy set about the pillow fort, The Blade tried to feign disinterest, broken only by the occasional critique subtly coaxing Tommy to have greater defense. For all that he performed apathy, mocking, and derision, The Blade was ultimately betrayed by his own body. Tommy appeared positively delighted. “You purr?!”
“Absolutely not.” The Blade flicked a page as he rumbled pleasantly. “It’s a growl that quakes the hearts of men.” His words wavered strangely, trilled.
Tommy burrowed into thick fur, snuggling into the warm vibrations rumbling in The Blade’s chest. “Mmmm. Kitty.”
The purring ceased abruptly. “I am NOT a cat.” Tommy playfully whined for the purring to come back while The Blade tried to salvage dignity from the debacle.
“You LITCHERALLY are. Cats purr, therefore, cat.”
“Nuh uh. This is a super secret pig technique, and it translates to things I can’t say in front of you.”
“OHHHHHH you’re just mad that you are an ABSOLUTE m̷͈̖͑u̴̠̽f̷̮̬̲̚f̶̲̦̰̎i̷̝͝n̴̛̼̈́̚cat. You are a ̶̧̘̮͊̕m̷̬͆̈́̊ủ̴̜̪͝f̷͙̆͒f̴̙̎̎ḭ̴̇n̴͔̖̮͝. A ̴̛̯̀̈́m̴͔̉u̶̥͉͛̇f̴̖͎̈̆̋f̴̲̤̫͒i̴̮̋n̷̨̩͝. A– puddycat.”
Having determined the pair was successfully distracted, Wilbur pinched Tubbos’ earlobe and lightly tugged them towards the depths of the fort. He’d meant it more as a signal, but their ever-hovering body was easily dragged down with a slight note of surprise. Wilbur leaned in till elongating, crooked fangs could have sliced their ear. “Between the two of us, this scheme of yours doesn’t prove anything. Just cause you dangle human normalcy doesn’t mean I’ll take the bait, even if Tommy will. Get it straight: I’m only playing along for his sake. And I’m not enforcing human rules; I just know the consequences when they’re broken.”
Tubbo just blinked at him very, very slowly. “Wilbur. Well and truly, we literally wanted to goof off. Like, just have a day to chill and rest and be happy. It’s not…human propaganda?? Whatever that means?”
………………oh. Wilbur clumsily recovered, “Resting is just another word for letting down our guard. We really can’t afford this.”
“Wil, there are no Foundation guys in a 10 kilometer radius.” Instead of the defensive snap he expected, it was soft. Suddenly, he realized Tubbos’ frown wasn’t confrontational, rather, worried. Tubbo lifted a pillow. “Here. Call it training…?
Wilbur stared at the olive branch. And found he didn’t need it. He huffed through a forced lopsided grin. “Nah, it’s useless training. Call it play. Besides, in the unassailable buttress of blankets, the Foundation hasn’t a prayer of attacking us.” Tubbos’ smile was all writhing bugs and shadows, met in kind with a shrinking hazard of teeth. In the dark, Wilbur groped around until snatching a pillow. Half the fort toppled down with it, and a web of shadows braced a cage above his and Tubbos’ heads to repel the avalanche. Clutching the pillow too tight, Wilbur asked, “So, all I got to do is hit Tommy with this?”
“Softly, but yeah.” Tubbo popped their head out of the tangle of collapsed fort and voidlings repairing it. “Tommy! Get ready for besiegement!”
“Does ‘let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night’ mean nothing to you?” The Blade asked plaintively.
“Means you're a nerd. Time to engage in warfare! We can’t wait to commit war crimes.”
“Can’t. If I throw pillows at you, you’ll just get Red’d.”
That was a setback Wilbur hadn’t planned for. “Hey President Tubbo? Have I ever told you how much I hunger for power? See I have this most lovely knife here,” he said, presenting his cushion weapon to the insectoid hovering beside him, “and I think it would look wonderful lodged in your spine.” And with that, he swung it as hard as he could into Tubbo.
A few miscalculations were made that day. Chiefly, that of Tubbos’ weight, because they had basically none and went literally flying across the room, shouting inarticulately.
Philza walked in, carrying steaming cups of hot chocolate. “Hey so if anyone needs an arms dealer, I do fully intend to assist both sides of the war, egging you on for my own mercantile gain—oh.” As if in slow motion, the whole room watched as the rag doll body of Tubbo arced towards him, trajectory sure to have a terrible collision.
Tubbo yelped and desperately beat their wings, managing to reverse seconds before landing on the dragon. Huzzah for the avoided collision. But the gale they kicked up sent the contents of the cups spewing over the startled Philza. He stood there, blinking as the scalding liquid drenched over him dripped down. A moment, and the liquid curled into fire, evaporating. “Um. Sorry,” Tubbo offered belatedly, slowly drifting down from the ceiling. Then, remembering their immense loathing, half-heartedly corrected, “no we aren’t.”
Debasingly, Wilbur crawled out of a flap in the side. “Daaaaad you have to join us. I am lost without your protection.” Wilbur could see the way Phil’s ears picked up, could practically feel the fireworks of love and excitement and tenderness bursting in his chest. Gotcha, Wilbur smirked. It wasn’t as if Philza didn’t know it was blatant manipulation, but it mattered little to a love-stricken fool.
“But I’m adorable!” Tommy interjected. M̴͙̗̹̀ṷ̷̅͂͂f̵͔͔̥̌f̷͖̀̈͝ì̸̹̜n̷̮͔̟͐̉́it he was. They didn’t have a chance! Tommy’s face was the picture of pleading, timid pools of sapphire glancing up through the golden curls that fell around his face. And was that— sweater paws? Curled up to his chest? That devious devil, he was a tactical genius! Wilbur cursed. “I’m so lonely,” Tommy opined. “They have each other, but me? I’m all alone. Unloved, unwanted…but you could be the one to change that. Pretty please? Become my henchmen?”
Tubbo glanced at him. “…m̷̬͆̈́̊ủ̴̜̪͝f̷͙̆͒f̴̙̎̎ḭ̴̇n̴͔̖̮͝, if we were able, we’d abandon you in a heartbeat.”
“Same,” Wilbur muttered. Morale was down in the ranks, and the war had only begun. They were doomed. “Philza is a goner for sure.” He could see the ancient dragon weakening, eyes going soft. Curse his lover’s hearts.
But surprisingly, Philza managed to hold out. “You have The Blade right there.”
Tommy elbowed the boar behemoth. “Say something to convince Phil to join us!” he hissed.
The Blade glanced up. “Eh? Sure, we could use some old geezer on our team.” Checkmate. Wilbur beamed as Phil crossed over to his fort. Tommy squawked in utter betrayal, howling about firing his terrible no good goon. “Alright,” The Blade accepted affably, still feigning absorption in his book. “Does that mean I can stop being part of the fort?”
“No!”
With Tommy’s distraction, it was the perfect moment. Philza’s pillow soared through the air. But its trajectory was suddenly smacked down by The Blade’s backhand. “Nahhh. Let’s not start a fight right next to where The Blood God can catch shrapnel.” Philza got halfway through the word training when The Blade interjected, “I ain’t risking it.”
“Excellent work!” Tommy covered. “Now their superior numbers mean nothing.” The boy cackled as he revealed his claws: sweater paws were part of his dastardly scheme to safely pick up pillows and hurl them down upon the rival fort. Without fear of retaliation, Tommy was merciless, brutally assailing their fort. Desperate, endless voidlings and bees tried to buttress the failing architecture, but it was to no avail. “Hah! We won by a landslide! Your fort is no match for mine!”
The boar behemoth didn’t look up from flipping a page. “You mean: your fort is no match for ours,” he corrected absently. Or, he tried to appear aloof, he couldn’t quite stop the cruel smile peeling back his snout.
Wilbur didn’t have time to finish muttering ̴̛̯̀̈́m̴͔̉u̶̥͉͛̇f̴̖͎̈̆̋f̴̲̤̫͒i̴̮̋n̷̨̩͝ under his breath before a sudden gust of wind from the broken window pushed a pillow at the top, shifting its angle. Wilbur and Tubbo blinked at each other. The entire thing wiggled, then stood still. Then Wilbur whipped around, triumphant. “Hah! Your sabotage failed! The Blood God cannot even begin to contest—”
The top pillow fell down. Ok. Well, one pillow wasn’t too big a deal, right? But apparently the topmost cushion had been serving as a keystone, and the entire castle came crumbling down around their heads. Philza threw up his wings, sheltering them as the avalanche bombarded them. A menacing growl rumbled through the house as the world collapsed inward, The Blood God’s laughter oddly distorted.
It cut off suddenly. The Blade lurched to his hooves, crown slamming into the ceiling. Bowed into a hunch by human design, he made a quadrupedal escape. Philza swiftly tailed him.
The anomalous intrusion might have initially spurred Wilbur to gloat. But he wasn’t too keen on being proven right, in the wreckage of a peace that had The Blade purring. Didn’t matter if Wilbur had no memories of it prior, because he certainly hadn’t heard it of late.
Tommy thrashed in the avalanche left in The Blade’s wake. A tantalizing opportunity to recover the joy. Wilbur’s throat curled into nothingness, dissolving as he whispered out anti-words. At once, a reticence raven soared out of his head, lighting upon his shoulder. Silence seeped into the world, eerie, crackling almost. Wilbur uttered a never-was sentence, and the corvid leapt into the air, circling over Tommy’s fort and letting the world fall into deadly silence. “I’m gonna prank the ̷͖̮̋̚m̷͎̭͑̂u̸̡͐̽f̸̮̅̌ḟ̸̣͎̮̓i̵̧̤̘͂ṅ̶̠͋ out of him,” Wilbur announced.
Tubbo grinned devilishly. “Be quick, we detect early signs of life.”
Wilbur crept close behind him, careful to make sure his shadow didn’t cross over and alert the teen. Then at once, he pounced, scooping Tommy up in a tangle of blankets that destroyed the fort completely. Tommy screeched at once as Wilbur laughed, flipping him around until he was hopelessly tangled. He stepped back to admire his work. Panicked thrashing only succeeded in making it worse.
“You know, throwing a blanket over them is a common test for problem-solving and intelligence for dogs,” Tubbo commented as Tommy struggled, shouting suppressed by the circling crow. Wilbur chuckled, crossing into the ring. Sound burst out, revealing itself not to be the delighted uproar of a false-outraged variety, but instead a blood-curdling scream.
“Oi! I didn’t do anything! Please, I was being good!” he protested a little too desperately. “Let me out I didn’t—” Tommy managed to find a break, his head popping through. His hair was distinctly frazzled, and he twisted to stare at Wilbur wildly, panting. Wilbur’s snickers stilled at the intense expression fleetingly caught on Tommy’s face. It gave way quickly enough to an embarrassed shame, and just as quickly he turned away, still collecting his breathing. Panic. That had been genuine panic. Carefully, he crawled up to Tommy, picking his way over tumbled pillows and cushions. The abyssal avian hopped their way over, perching on the teen’s lap, head canted and dozens of eyes blinking. Wilbur himself didn’t have the courage to look him in the face, though, carefully out of sight behind him. He held out a hand to stop the others.
Wilbur picked over his sentence. “No one would’ve heard it,” he offered to Tommy’s back. The raven took off, stealing the words moments after Tommy heard them. “Still won’t. But you don’t have to say anything.”
“I don’t-” he gasped down air, and finally seemed to have steadied himself. “I don’t like being suddenly enveloped in darkness.”
“Are you alright?” He nodded, and Wilbur dismissed the raven. Tommy pulled the blankets a little tighter around his shoulders, nearly lost in the mound covering him. Wilbur wondered what the Red level was beneath it all. He wanted to say sorry. He wanted to never say sorry, because he wasn’t sure he could ever stop once he began to. He wanted to hold Tommy tight and never let the world ever hurt him again, but Wilbur couldn’t.
He could. Envelop, cover, hold. The verbs that had been used suddenly clicked into place in perfect epiphany. A want buried deep he hadn’t known it was there until the opportunity lay before him, tantalizing and golden. It felt like a vice in the moment before he gave in. A vice, a vise. Wilbur folded at once. He struck like a viper, seizing Tommy and pulling him close into a crushing embrace. The fabric bunched in his hands, and he hated that separation, but beneath it all he could feel the soft warmth of Tommy.
More importantly, he could feel the way he immediately went rigid. His heartbeat slammed against Wilbur’s own, and Tommy’s head whipped around. He couldn’t quite manage with Wilbur pressed so close, but a flash of a blue eye caught him, unmistakably terrified. “Wil-”
“Blankets’ll absorb the Red.”
Tommy went still with the revelation, ensnared in it almost. “Oh,” he breathed softly, as his world shifted. “I didn’t– I never thought of that. It’ll…It’ll still bleed through eventually, you know that right? It’s still not safe, shouldn’t be risked. And you should’ve warned me.” He sounded unhappy, but that didn’t change the fact he sunk into Wilbur’s arms. Like he was trying to convince himself to break the contact, the fear stitched into him too deeply to allow even this respite.
These comforts, they didn’t belong to people like him. Nothing did. His life was taken in stolen fistfuls, and it always, always crumbled to dust in his fingers. But maybe Wilbur wanted to pretend. Pretend he was a human, just for a little while. Pretend he had a house and food on the table and a family. Why shouldn’t he steal the trappings of humanity? Who could stop him?
Why couldn’t he pluck Tommy’s anomalous heart from the body and history infested with humanity?
“Sorry,” Wilbue murmured, burrowing in. But he wasn’t, not really, not for this. He was sorry it had become like this, that he hadn’t stopped it. But he would never apologize for the love so thick in his chest that he thought he’d choke on it. “I just suddenly realized I’d never hugged my- you, and I couldn’t help myself.”
Tommy melted in his arms, and Wilbur drew him all the closer, as if by his embrace he might keep Tommy safe. Wilbur knew it to be impossible, but he tried all the same, pressing him tight to his chest, so close their heartbeats tangled together, pounding. Tommy leaned in to him, and then it wasn’t leaning at all because Tommy was pouring at him, hungry for contact. Wilbur, well familiar with starvation, wrapped around him, squeezing so tight they were almost one. Even beneath the layers he swore he could feel the ridge of his spine pressed against him, feel the indent of every scar he’d failed to stop. It wasn’t enough, this meager contact, it couldn’t make up for all the time they’d spent separate and scared. Tommy just kept pushing, rough almost, and Wilbur was almost sure their ribs must be cracking from how tight the embrace was. It was almost painful, but it would have been more painful to hold themselves back, not when they’d already spent so long doing so. Fierce protection and love peeled out of his throat in a wild, jubilant laugh.
The laugh weakened his bastion from where he’d been holding the both of them up, and the force of Tommy’s desperation bowled the both of them over. Wilbur was crushed beneath his brother’s weight. The shoulders wrapped in his arms were shaking with hysterical joy, laughing up at the ceiling. Tommy was heavier than he’d imagined, sturdy unlike the slight kid in Wilbur’s head.
“I can’t breathe,” Wilbur wheezed.
Tommy’s head fell back over his shoulder, leaning against him. Wisps of hair tickled Wilbur’s jaw. “Don’t see how that’s my problem.”
“You’re gonna kill me. That’s fratricide, you know. Little Cain.” Cain being a well known tyrant of the Archipelago of Vork’ton’s Torments, naturally. The thousand year war in which they single handedly bested all other spawn of The One Who Rends The Scarlaptron were legendary.
“Well time has proven I Cain and I Wil lay on you, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Guess not.” Wilbur smiled into his hair, content to be killed. The world was so wonderfully warm. “Never thought I’d die peacefully.”
“...wait. WAIT. Are you calling me fat???? I’ll fat-icide you! Ohhhhh you will NOT be getting away with this just because I’m all cozy and aw-farming.”
Wilbur spluttered a laugh, but eventually was forced to confront the fact not everyone was a magical polyglot. And more so, that he’d been relying on that fact. As if subterfuge was the only way he could trick Tommy into love. But Tubbo was right about something, and Wilbur was tired of denying himself everything humanity had stolen. He would seize fleeting grasps of safety and freedom and happiness.
But this wasn’t something that could be stolen at all. It had to be given.
“It, eh, means. Killing one’s brother.”
“Oh.”
“Oh…?”
“Okay,” Tommy grinned. They stayed like that, together. The void seeped out, coiling and cooing. His heartbeat tangled in with his brother’s, and existence was perfect.
Well, for a time. There was this annoying buzzing noise overhead. Wilbur cracked an eye open, glaring at Tubbo for the interruption. They hung over, impatient, head cocked. “Our turn.”
Wilbur held on possessively. “Mine. Get your own.”
“Well he’s our Collector.”
“There’s enough of me to go around, you know,” Tommy mumbled. “Plenty of Tommy for everyone.” Tubbo smiled brightly and dropped out of the air, landing with a thump. It wasn’t really much weight, but Wilbur groaned and complained without any heat as they curled up on Tommy’s chest. Tommy’s arms rose tentatively, drawing blankets across their waist.
It was sweeter than Wilbur had been. No less desperate, but gentler. Content to soak into one another’s warmth, instead of wringing out every drop of heat. Vibrations rattled, stirring from within Tubbos’ chest like electricity, a chest which rose and fell in tandem with Tommy’s breathing.
“Better than last time, kiddo,” Tubbo hummed.
“I couldn’t’ve done this, if you hadn’t insisted it’s safe at low levels.”
“Do you feel safe?”
“...no. But I want to.” Everyone untangled briefly. Tommy critically picked over the layers, worried how much had soaked through. “I don’t know. It’s getting close.”
“Not there yet. But it’s your choice.” Tommy frowned, weighing fear and love against each other. His decision was announced as he scooped up Tubbo, pulling them into an embrace. They burrowed in at once, humming contentedly as their head tucked beneath Tommy’s chin, nearly as lost to the blankets as he was. Nestled together like they were always meant to fit in that way.
There was a look in Philza’s face. Pained, he supposed, was the best descriptor. It wasn’t enough to stop his soft smile, that glowing love in his chest, but kept him very still. Not daring to impose despite the yearning plastered over him. Torn in half no doubt. Wilbur didn’t understand it, the way Tommy so clearly needed touch to the degree that he would subconsciously lean towards you in conversation, a sunflower drawn to the sun, yet flinched from one of the only people who could offer it. He didn’t think Philza understood it either, half looking lost. Philza would never cross that boundary if he could help it, determined to do whatever Tommy needed. Or, what he thought Tommy needed. They were both only hurting for it, and so Wilbur decided to breach that line. He held out a hand expectantly. Philza dithered, but Wilbur huffed and gestured him over. Philza hesitantly reached for Tommy, palm blistered with bruises.
And then his pain grew to a smile. Softly, Philza padded away.
——
They sat before the washer, blankets spinning around and around. They’d used every single one they’d found in the house, stretching out till the last of towels and curtains were contaminated. Now he had to wait, and it was agonizing. Wilbur wasn’t sure how he’d survived before. Or, more accurately, he wasn’t sure how Tommy had. The machine clunked, spinning round and round. Bees fluttered in their hair, dancing carefully. Tubbos’ pain was acting up again, so they’d claimed a couch.
Wilbur scratched under the chin of the quiet corvid, fingers nicked and scared from a lifetime of encounters with the void slipping through shadow pretending to be feathers. The bird released a happy little vacuum, soaking up some of the rattle of the washer.
Tommy glanced at him from where he’d been intently waiting for the second the load was done. Technically it was about twenty minutes from clean and would have to be dried after that, but everybody was acutely familiar with waiting and didn’t want to miss it. “You mean what you said?” Tommy asked quietly, nearly drowned by the sound of the machine. The raven glanced up, hungry, but Wilbur bopped their beak in warning. “About me being your…”
Wilbur gave him a lopsided grin. “Why? Looking to get rid of me?”
“No! No. That’s not it. Just, was that real?” Wilbur leaned back against the small freezer he’d already raided for food, half biting his tongue as he thought about how he wanted to say this. He wanted it to be perfect. Maybe he thought a little too long, his mouth beginning to taste like blood.
“It’s ok if it was a joke,” Tommy eventually said, to fill the quiet. Wilbur frowned, not aware his pause had been taken for hesitation. For whatever reason, Tommy didn’t believe to think him sincere. Alright, fair, he was a fairly sarcastic individual. Tommy was dead intent on watching the washer. Around, around, around. Quietly, the bees slipped away to give them privacy.
“I didn’t have a family, Tommy.” Clunk. Clunk. Blue eyes stopping themselves right before they darted to him. There was a tension in him almost, bracing for a hit. Wilbur’s mouth grew sour, when all he’d wanted was the words to taste sweet. “I’d caught glimpses of it, sort of. When entangling with humans. I was caught up in trying to survive, but even then it stuck out to me. I couldn’t understand it though, because I was so lonely I didn’t even know I was.
“It was something the humans did, you know? Not meant for me.” That old loathing feeling had burbled up in his chest every time he’d seen it. “I kind of hated it. Would glower at the other kids. It was jealousy pure and simple.” Hadn't it always been? “It was just another thing I didn’t have, and I didn’t have a lot. I’d been alone so long I didn’t know I needed it.
“Philza did, though. He saw me and realized how desperately lonely I was. I heartily disagreed, of course, since I was a brat. I didn’t know how much I needed love. He needed me too.”
Around, around. Such a mundane thing. Wilbur never thought he’d get to have this. Normalcy was beautiful to him. Waiting for laundry. Having excess enough to have a full load in the first place. The safety enough to sit off guard.
A pillow fort. He’d never imagined that. It was novel and wondrous. Could you have nostalgia for a thing you’d never had? It felt like an echo of a childhood he’d only dreamed of. “I was jealous of you, did you know that? Back so long ago, when we first met?”
Tommy glanced at him curiously. “Who wouldn’t want to be me? I’m Tommy.”
Wilbur snorted, suppressing the urge to completely attack his hair and knock him down a peg. “Naturally,” he replied drily. “I mean, at least from my perspective you had the perfect life, right? You hung out with humans easily, had a house and stability and everything. A carefree life, able to do anything it felt like. I always wanted to go to school,” he said longingly.
Tommy made a face. “Trust me, Wil, you were lucky there.”
Wilbur shrugged. Maybe. He wasn’t dumb, obviously, and he’d pieced together a lot between what he’d caught glimpses of and forbidden knowledge, but he really felt it sometimes. When the group was chatting about things he had no idea about and he was left guessing if it was something he’d forgotten or something he’d never known in the first place. Maybe having the luxury he’d grow annoyed or bored of it, but envy was never tempered like that. There were other things, too. Food on the table every day, never having to worry about being destroyed simply for a lack of humanity. Never worry about doing the destroying, for the very same reason.
“And you had this family,” he sighed. “It seemed so easy. Just given to you. Natural. I wanted that so bad.”
“I do, too. I want them back so much it hurts.”
“I’m going to see you back to them. I promise. Vow it, even. You deserve to never be parted again.” To have all of it returned, all the safety and love. To prove that it could all be fixed back to the way it was. To assure that five years could be recovered. To deny Wilbur’s guilt its merit, that despite it all Tommy would be ok. That he would have his normal life again.
(That Wilbur could ever have something like that.)
“Thanks, Wilbur.” His voice cracked on the delivery.
“But in the meantime…for me at least, family is something you find, and something you make. And it’s something you never let anyone take from you, no matter what. And that’s what you are to me.”
“Is family something you never abandon?”
Wilbur’s throat constricted. Every time Wilbur had slipped away for the night, had Tommy wondered if he’d ever return? “Never, Toms.”
“What about Tubbo?”
“Um. What about them?”
“We’re a packaged deal!”
Wilbur tried to puzzle out the complicated tangle of Collected status and exactly how Tubbo reacted to Philza’s vicarious Collection. They clearly didn’t hate him, though. “Uh sure whatever. You’re my sibling (s)? too. M̵̪͍͛̈́ȕ̸̺̎f̵̳̼̾̚f̴̙͔͂i̴̓ͅn̵͇̙͂ out of luck, though, I ran out of grandiose eloquence.”
“What!? Tubbo aren’t my siblings. I’m like their father figure, Wil, that’s just weird. Tubbo is your honorary nephew— niece— niecephews?”
“What the ̸̻̜̏m̶̢̭̀u̴̹͆ḟ̴̬̚f̴̮̈́ĩ̵̯͓̈́n̷̡̓. bossman!?”
“Heh. You’re right I am your boss. They’re my goon, Wil, you gotta love them too!”
Wilbur laughed, bright and clear. This strawberry glow wouldn’t have happened without their intervention. Without proving that somehow anomalies really could live like humans. “Y’know, I think I’m starting to.”
——
The voices were at a quiet simmer, churning with unease. A few whined about missing the pillow fort and were quickly swallowed into the nervous sea. Like a flinch, the tide rescinded with each pass of The Blade’s strict patrol.
The Blade’s sides ached from squeezing through the tiny doorway of the for-sale house. Unfortunately, the barren room offered no semblance of a barricade to even pretend to trap himself inside. There was only one reason The Blood God would seek freedom around his friends.
This wasn’t sustainable, was it? Time and again, The Blade had proven himself an intolerable threat. And yet he remained. He loved them too much to leave, loved them too much to stay. And so he was a captured moon circling from afar. Ears straining for the laughter and merriment rooms away.
Five years, huh. He’d known that, sure, The Blade had been DESPERATE to never spend another second imprisoned. Philza and Tommy had glimpsed him briefly, gasps of the drowning before succumbing to the depths once more. But Wilbur only knew the The Blade of five years ago. And increasingly, The Blade was sure that version didn’t exist anymore. He had been peeled back, year by year, to The Blade of before Phil and Wil. Those early, rocky years of ill defined personhood, more monster than man.
He curled up in the tight room, arm thrown over his head like he could trap The Blood God inside. The voices crooned that he could trust them. He didn’t heed so blatant a trap.
Goofily, Philza’s horns popped into view, slowly encroaching until golden eyes peeked past the door trim. “Mind if I join, mate?” He hesitated, but had to admit he wasn’t keen to be alone with his thoughts. Philza flumphed into him, wriggling into a comfy spot against his ribs. It was a little harder to mope with a toasty dragon snuggling against him. “Avoiding people again, are we?”
“Brooo like you’re any better.” The Blade adopted a terrible British accent. “Ohh let me pop off to the kitchen to make hot coco for over 15 minutes, mate, if only I was a muffining fire dragon who could instantly boil water!” Philza snickered. “I’m guessing…another Tubbo spat?”
“Mnn. Something like that.”
“Not even remotely???” Tubbo piped up from where a swarm drew curtains closed. “Come up with a better excuse.”
“I think I’m tired of excuses, actually. Recently, I’ve made erroneous assumptions of what my Collected needed. To horrific results. Repeatedly. So even if you just tell me to stick my prying up my ̴̼̊̈́m̸̡͙̓u̴͎̾f̵̱̙́f̵̛͉̽i̷̞̳̅ñ̵̞, at least that tells me you want space. I have to ask: What do you need, my Blade?”
“I think I need to stop touching Tommy,” The Blade admitted. “I know he likes it, but Red makes the voices so, so much worse.” It wouldn’t be enough, he already knew. It was merely a last hope that this wasn’t an internal fault.
“...I think, right now, that would be catastrophic for Tommy.” The Blade hummed an inquiry, but Philza didn’t elaborate. “But, I can’t begin to assess the scale’s balance because I don’t know the weight of either side. I can merely see the outline of what crushes each of you. And trust you’ll let me know when you’re ready.”
“Ah, well, I would, totally, but like, Tubbo is here…shame.” The last thing he wanted was a discussion. Much kinder to desperately distract until he couldn’t remember why he was upset at all. He swept his tail to tangle with Philza’s.
Philza knew it was a lousy excuse, but accepted it. Tubbo, uh, didn’t catch that. “Sorry. We’d get out of your fur, but, we were actually hoping to talk to Philza. For. Advice.”
“Heh?” Ok, wow, that was a perfect excuse to escape Philza’s loving attention. Was…Tubbo manufacturing solitary respite for him? That didn’t make sense at all. But, them asking Philza for help made even less. “Sure, I can give you privacy.”
“Honestly, your input is also helpful. We got bad news to break.”
“And you don’t care if it ruins our day,” Philza mused dryly.
“Hmm. Okay maybe. But it’s going…really, really good right now.” Their voice softened to an unfamiliar honey-sweet tenderness. “We were at the Foundation like two months before escaping. And for all our desperation to never go back, it didn’t feel like an impossible trap. Realizing you all were in the Foundation so long made us far more cautious with keeping you safe. But, Wilbur and Tommy really needed this. And we don’t want the Foundation to intrude after you all have lost so many moments together.”
The Blade almost wished Tubbo had continued to not say anything. Quiet ignorance erupted in gleeful bloodlust. But it rang in his ears unfamiliarly. For the first time, it was not eagerness that drove the roar for violence, but desperation.
Philza sighed, and peeled away from The Blade’s side. The ghost of his Collector’s lost warmth chilled him. “If we need to run, we need to run. We’ll have more time for levity if we ensure freedom.”
“No. No, we can’t run,” Tubbo rushed out, as their hidden panic finally broke through. “The Foundation has issued a town-wide manhunt.”