Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

mm. 1

Sometimes, there are things that happen with no warning. Things like flash floods, heart attacks, the crash on the interstate that makes you late for your meeting; like J. Schlatt standing on a stage that isn’t his and yelling.

Sometimes, there are things that happen slowly. Things like death by poison, inflation, climate change, and like Wilbur Soot taking a shaking Tommy by the shoulders and laughing.

mm. 2

Technoblade is asleep.

The potato farm is empty, save the trickle of the irrigation system and the occasional bug buzzing by. The small, carved-out hollow that serves as Techno’s rocky excuse for a bedroom echoes with his heavy breathing. His sword is strapped to his wrist. He’s almost smiling, lips twitching around his tusks.

Wilbur leans against the cave wall, arms crossed, watching Techno’s chest rise and fall. His brother - not in blood, but with an affinity for the stuff - stirs, like he can tell Wilbur’s eyes have focused on the victor’s crown he keeps by his bedside.

Wilbur lost his long ago. He couldn’t care less.

Participating in those championships was at least good for one thing, Wilbur supposes. Phil may have left them long ago, Techno may be a heartbeat away from turning that sword on Wilbur’s neck, he may only have Tommy left, clinging to his leg while the world turns to quicksand - but thanks to the championships bringing them together, he really got the chance to know them.

He’s always known them, it seems, though that’s not true by a long shot. But when Wilbur counts the symmetrical seconds in between Techno’s exhales and the torch casts a shadow on his trembling eyelids, Wilbur knows he’s not asleep. When he calls for Phil in the middle of the night, desperately, everything he’s fought for burning in his memory, he knows there will not be an answer. When Tommy’s hands begin to shake and his expression falls flat, Wilbur knows - well. Tommy was always the most transparent out of them all.

When there is nothing behind Tommy’s eyes, Wilbur knows he’s afraid.

Techno moves again, dragging one leg against the wall with a gravelly crunch. Wilbur exhales a soft sniff, pushes off the wall, and decides it’s time for a walk.

Techno’s ice-blue stare follows him until he’s out of sight.

mm. 10

Over the comm, Quackity almost sounds inhuman.

“Good morning, Wilbur.” Wilbur can practically hear his lackadaisical grin through the airwaves.

“Why are you calling me?” Wilbur grits out. His footsteps fall to an even tempo, pacing from the portal to the farm entrance and up the stairs and back, one hand clenched tight around his communicator.

“Why’d you pick up?”

“What do you want?”

“Wilbur, honey, I know you’re all business, but sometimes I just miss your voice -“

“Don’t waste my time,” Wilbur says, balancing his way across a wood bridge.

Quackity laughs. Giggles, more like; it grates into Wilbur’s ears and he stumbles over a loose board. “Just wondered how you were doing.”

“Doing fine, Quackity,” Wilbur says. “Get to it.”

“I, on this lovely morning, am educating myself on the layout of my country.”

If only Quackity were standing in front of him. Wilbur turns his bristling sights onto the portal instead. “So late in your term?”

“Well, you see, there’s a whole series of underground tunnels I had no idea about. I’m standing in one of them now.”

Wilbur is well aware of them. A select pathway even runs from Manberg to their ravine.

The reason for Quackity’s call begins to set in.

From the other end of the ravine, Tubbo snaps his head around and bolts for the exit like a meerkat with a caffeine addiction.

Tubbo_: have a contingency. Follow

Hesitantly, Wilbur does.

“I’m also thinking,” Quackity purrs, “Schlatt and I have been a little distant, lately. We should take a walk, reconnect, ya know? And these tunnels are just lovely, this time of year.”

“Schlatt? Distant from you? What a surprise,” Wilbur chuckles into the comm, pouncing on the chink in the Vice President’s armor. Tubbo scampers down a wooden path laid down through the cave tunnel, Wilbur close behind.

There is a moment’s pause where Quackity tries to ignore him. “I think he’d be just as curious as I am to find out where -“

“He’s not one for bonding,” Wilbur says, smooth. Ahead of him, Tubbo ducks around a corner. “Or maybe he’s allergic to your sunny disposition.”

Tubbo motions to a caved-in section of the wall with one hand, typing furiously into his communicator with the other. The path shatters a few inches before the rockslide.

Tubbo_: built a dead end on the other side
Tubbo_: opening down here you can still get home

Wilbur nods at Tubbo pointing underneath the path. ‘Home?’ Is that what he’s calling Manberg, now?

“You’re jealous,” Quackity finally snaps through the phone, dripping capsaicin honey off the shaking edge of a blade. “You’re just jealous I’m the one -“

“I don’t care enough about you to be jealous,” Wilbur laughs, like he hasn’t a worry in the world. “Enjoy your getaway in Manberg’s sewers. Maybe Schlatt will even let you walk beside him.”

“See you soon,” Quackity says, almost a threat. He’s getting better at hiding the way his sentences stumble.

Tubbo is still standing under the path, looking up at Wilbur expectantly. What does he want? A pay raise? There are practically horns growing out of his head already.

Wilbur hangs up on Quackity with a click of his comm. “Make sure they don’t find us,” he says to Tubbo, and turns his back on him.

mm. 32

Tubbo likes to think he’s a hard worker.

He spends hours building and even more on planning. He weaves lies in his head and makes paths with no end. He farms resources until he’s so tired he can barely move, and tops it all off with more paperwork than should be possible at his desk job in the White House.

Tiring as scurrying from Pogtopia to Manberg at the beck and call of Wilbur and Schlatt is, Tubbo doesn’t mind. It’s worth it, he thinks. He’s grateful for this opportunity. Why wouldn’t he be? Schlatt hasn’t hurt him too badly, and Tommy still trusts him with his life, his home. Tubbo’s kept his job and his friends.

It is more than he can say for so many of the others.

The times grate on everyone. Niki is stormy, Fundy is frustratingly happy, Eret’s shoulders hunch over and Tubbo never saw him slouch before Schlatt stood at the mic. Quackity is bright and acidic. Schlatt is humidly suffocating. George - well, Dream’s right hand man hasn’t been seen anymore than the big man himself has.

Technoblade both works and drives himself into the ground, tilling soil, carving eyes off of potatoes, rigging water to fall from the ceiling. He’s an imposing figure. Tubbo steers clear of his sweeping cape and gleaming sword.

Wilbur looks tired, these days, a far cry from the man Tubbo had first met. The circles under his eyes are smears of charcoal. His eyes get darker with every day spent in the caves. His trigger finger twitches when he thinks no one is looking, greasy hair casting his face into shadow. And Tommy’s starting to worry Tubbo, if he’s being honest, with the way his face hardens at Schlatt’s name, how his hands always hold a weapon, how he spits on the cave floor and yells about how much he wants to fight.

It’s not that Tubbo doesn’t want to fight. He does, which is why he’s risking life and limb and soul running the resistance under Schlatt’s nose. It’s just that Tommy speaks loud and recklessly, gripes about things Tubbo can’t relate to anymore, and he’ll never say it out loud but he wishes Tommy would stop bringing it up. It’s exhausting. All his speeches do is add to the weight crushing Tubbo’s shoes into the mud where his home used to be.

Home. He’s tired of trying to figure out what that word means to him.

He’s tired.

And he never, ever stops.

mm. 36

The problem with Mellohi is that it’s broken.

The record itself is damaged from months of passing from hand to violent hand, and as a result the melody warps and howls quarter tones over minor seconds, a sad waltz amplified by their stone cage.

It means so much to Tommy. Wilbur doesn’t see the appeal. It’s out of tune. It’s out of time. It’s broken.

If this were a normal place, Wilbur could pretend that like any teenager, Tommy likes playing music too loud.

If theirs was a normal life, Wilbur could imagine that like any older brother, it’s his job to roll his eyes and yell for him to turn it down.

Tommy never does.

And Wilbur is getting tired of yelling.

mm. 41

“It’s like this,” Quackity says. “I just think as your second in command, we should be on the same page.”

As they walk down the path, Schlatt notes his companion’s footfalls. Quackity trips on the unfamiliar terrain and steps down hard on a hollow board. Behind him, Tubbo doesn’t make a sound.

“Yeah?” Schlatt says. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“I mean I think it would be nice if you made your plans more, uh, transparent to the cabinet, y’know?”

“More transparent?” Schlatt enunciates, cocking an eyebrow at his Vice President.

“All I’m saying is that in our time here, our Administration’s time, we haven’t done very much,” Quackity says, hands held out.

“Oh, is that what you think?” Schlatt asks, pitching it low. His own chuckle bounces back at him.

“Not to say,” Quackity is quick to add, “that we haven’t done anything. It’s just that we could be doing more.”

“Well,” Schlatt says, clasping his hands behind his back. “I woke up this morning planning to give a speech, but thanks to someone’s insistence, my important plans for doing more have been delayed by...” he trails off. “Why are we in the sewers, anyway?”

“I have reason to suspect these tunnels could lead us to Pogtopia,” Quackity says, puffing up defensively.

Funny. Really funny. He chuckles, flashes a look at Tubbo, whose face is neutrally interested. “Really?”

“Yeah, I -”

“And you checked this out earlier.”

“I did.”

“And you found them. Solid proof. You stepped into their base. Did you take a picture of Wilbur for me? You know I collect them.”

Quackity’s momentary bravado splinters. Schlatt would laugh if it wasn’t so sad. “No.”

“No?”

“I thought - you’d like to be there,” Quackity says, shoulders tight under his suit jacket.

“Mr. President,” Tubbo pipes up from behind. “This tunnel’s a dead end. Look.”

Sure enough, the cave ends abruptly several feet ahead of them. Quackity splutters something unintelligible.

To their left, something rustles. Schlatt snaps his attention toward it, only to be met by a rockslide and a broken segment of path. Tubbo’s blinking one too many times a second.

“Mr. Vice President,” Schlatt smiles, dragging his flask from his side and taking a long drink to hide it. “What did I tell you about wasting my time?”

mm. 51

Tubbo is something of an archivist.

Wilbur admires him for it. His library is well hidden, the few books he owns displayed proudly on lecterns. It’s tangible history, and Tubbo guards it with his life.

Wilbur smiles down at him and hands over a few pieces of parchment. Glue and leather and ink - what use does he have for that?

The problem with history is that it traps you. Wilbur drops his past into Tubbo’s arms and feels dangerously free.

Later, Tommy raises his crossbow, eyes narrowed in rage at the election podium below. Schlatt is shitfaced at the mic, a disgrace to his office, to his country, to himself. His slurred words blur through the microphone.

Wilbur leans on the railing with one arm pushing down Tommy’s crossbow. His eyes drift to a pocket of disturbed land leftover from the revolution. He thought they’d filled in all those craters.

.

.

.

When the idea finally hits him, he places the call right there and there.

mm. 55

“Of course I’ll do it!” Tubbo chirps. “I love decorating.”

“It’s not too much to ask?”

“No, Mr. President.” Yes. Prime, yes it is, Tubbo is so tired. He doesn’t think he’s written a speech before in his life, but he doesn’t think anything he wants to say could ever leave his mouth, anymore. And Schlatt is easy to lie to, if you look him in the eyes for long enough.

Schlatt steps closer, expression a cross between pity and wonder. His breath is hot and heavy with the stench of alcohol. It takes Tubbo’s whole being not to flinch.

Slowly, the President cups Tubbo’s face in his too-large palms, staring down and down at him, broad shoulders blocking out the sun. His fingers clumsily interlock at the back of Tubbo’s head, pulling at his hair.

“I’m proud of you,” he mutters like he’s discovered electricity. He laughs, disproportionately loud. “I’m proud of you, Tubbo.”

Tubbo, the key on the string of the kite, shudders through his innocent smile. “Thank you, Schlatt.”

There are seven flecks of gold in each of Schlatt’s eyes.

mm. 63

The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie.

Fundy thinks it’s his birthright. Schlatt thinks it’s his dues. Dream thinks it never left his possession. It’s every man’s land; they fight and quarrel over it endlessly, the coin is thrown up in the air and it never comes down. First Dream, then Wilbur, then Schlatt, it doesn’t matter - who next, Eret? Niki? Technoblade?

Tommy?

Wilbur has fifty-one sticks of dynamite. Dream hands them over with a laugh louder than fate and wishes Wilbur good luck on blowing the ground out from under his own feet.

The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie.

Wilbur’s going to set that straight.

mm. 70

Things fall into place, as they always do.

Sunrise, sunset. Tubbo writes his speech, and Eret helps him hang pink and blue streamers from the podium. Fundy and Niki bake until their storerooms run dry. Quackity and Schlatt oversee it all.

Sunrise, sunset. Tommy sharpens a sword. Technoblade farms potatoes.

Sunrise, sunset. Redstone dust cakes like blood under Wilbur’s fingernails.

Sunrise, sunset, seven times over; there is yellow concrete powder coated over Schlatt’s hands.

mm. 77

Sometime during the week, Tommy is struck with the wild, burning realization that all of this really is his fault.

Schlatt’s arrival and subsequent takeover, as Wilbur had made very clear, certainly weighs on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. But he’s known that for quite a while. No, no, the explosion of a thought that tears into his stomach and leaves his eyes watering and his lungs frozen is that maybe, this is all his fault for - for bringing on Wilbur.

He dreams of the end, most nights, and it is always the same.

Once the shockwave is past, Wilbur shouts, cheering to the heavens. Dirt rains down. Rubble scatters at their feet.

“Yes!” Wilbur screams, and grabs Tommy by the shoulders, cackling. “Tommy! Yes!”

Tommy can only watch the air clear on nothing. And then he can’t even do that - Wilbur pulls him into a tight hug, suffocating him in his musty trench coat. His hands dig like claws into Tommy’s back.

Tommy closes his eyes and tries to push away. Wilbur either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

When Tommy thinks about how Dream had destroyed his home, he remembers running under flaming trees, remembers someone screaming loudly. When he thinks about how Dream had destroyed his home, it cements itself in his memory as the worst feeling in the world.

There is no burning treeline. there is no treeline.

There is no one screaming. there is no one.

Somehow, this hurts more than anything he’s ever known. He wakes up and falls back asleep and dreads the day it won’t all reset when he opens his eyes.

mm. 82

The sun sets.

The problem with history is that it traps you. The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie. The problem with Mellohi is that it’s broken.

The problem is that there is no double bar line. A broken melody is all that’s left. Names mean nothing to the march of time.

Wilbur and Schlatt live another day. Pas de deux - a dance for two.

History repeats itself.

Everybody says this.

Chapter Text

The ravine is small. This is the first thing Niki learns.

There are a total of five people in Pogtopia, both far too few and far too many. The new place they call home is a narrow, closed off cave system; because of this, everyone is on a collision course with each other at all times. The walls are jagged to the touch and the space is claustrophobic, but there isn’t anything she can do about that except close her eyes and pretend she can still see the sun.

Wilbur shows her around, shows her the farm, the portal, the tunnels in and out. He shows her where the food is. He rigs her up a hammock from the ceiling. He smiles at her, and she is glad to see it.

“It’s been months,” she says, hopeful even through everything she’s seen.

“I’ve got work to do,” he says, and crushes it.

“What can I do?” she asks.

“Help out with these tunnels, would you?” he does not ask, but orders.

The ravine is small, and it is cold. The only heat comes from the pool of hissing lava next to the portal and the hanging lanterns, and no one except Wilbur spends enough time in the rafters to really get warm from them.

It’s freezing during the day and worse at night. Niki shivers herself to sleep in her flimsy hammock, most times, and doesn’t talk about the others. Everyone’s breath mists like cotton candy. Their pacing footsteps echo a funeral march.

Her palms form calluses around the handle of a pickaxe. Her arms ache and her joints complain but she never does - she works side by side and day by day with Tubbo, shoveling debris back into the tunnels to Manberg that he’d worked so hard to build. She pretends not to see when Tubbo’s hands shake from exhaustion. She does not let hers start.

The ravine is small, and they are all moons with the same orbit. Niki finds herself crashing into her comrades more than she thought she would.

She quickly discovers that Technoblade, for example, is not all he’s hyped up to be. He’s a formidable warrior, a dedicated man, but she blinks and sees fireworks behind her eyelids and knows she will never be able to see him as anything more than a coward.

And, Tommy and Tubbo have grown. Tommy towers over her, almost rivaling Wilbur and on equal footing with Techno. There’s more to his shoulders and stance than she remembers. This isn’t the same boy she watched get run out of the country, but she hadn’t expected him to be.

The times have changed everyone, after all, Tommy perhaps the most visibly - but Tubbo she’d been blind to, in his dress-up suit and tie, running to please everyone with a smile. That was rather the point, she thinks. She’d fallen for his child-like lies. She’d thought Schlatt had, too.

She’d been wrong.

As for Wilbur? She is running for her life when he greets her at the top of the stairs and she is reminded of a time when they had nothing but each other; then she spirals down with him to learn there were always explosives under her feet and it is only because of Tubbo’s execution she is still here to hear about it.

When he tells her, Wilbur laughs. She does not. She clutches Tubbo to her side carefully, as there are shoddy bandages wrapped bloody around his ribs, and watches Technoblade win yet another fight.

Wilbur writes rules - “the Pillars of Pogtopia, if you will” - one night, and demands they gather around the fire as he announces them.

“Rule Number Seven: Don’t get tired,” he reads.

“Wilbur,” she says, thinking back to her and Tubbo’s long hours working at their slow, painful pace.

“Yes, Niki?” he asks.

“If you don’t want us to get tired, we could use your help with the tunnels,” she suggests.

“Eight,” is all he says after a too-long pause. In the glint of the fire she can finally see the chip in his smile.

A few minutes later, Techno teaches her how to wrap her knuckles with the remains of her revolutionary coat. Some meters away, Tommy does the same to Tubbo.

“I don’t know how to fight this way,” she says, like that is any excuse.

“Neither does he,” Techno grunts, and ties the blue fabric off. Wilbur watches her climb down into the pit. Tubbo skitters to the far corner, eyes bright with anticipation. She stands at the wall, unsure.

“Will, please,” she says, not for her own sake.

“You’ll do fine,” he says, leaning down to grip her hand reassuringly.

“I don’t want to fight,” she begs.

“You will,” Wilbur promises.

One: The ravine is small.

~

There’s so much to do, these days, but Wilbur doesn’t mind.

He rather likes the drive, the purpose, the active fire of knowing who you are, of knowing you’re finally unstoppable. He giggles sometimes, listens to it echo off the walls.

This is his kingdom, a shitty cave system, a few chests buried in the side of a hill. This is his kingdom, a country with no border, a country with no leader. This is his kingdom, the four people who look at him with fear and desperation, so lost, so confused.

This is his kingdom. He’ll blow it all to hell.

If the others have a problem with that, it’s not his to deal with. He showed Niki the exit. Tommy and Tubbo have known how to escape since the beginning. Let them leave, let them - he doesn’t fucking care. It’s beautiful. He laughs again - somewhere on the ground below him, Tommy flinches and runs into the furnaces with a yelp.

It’s so nice to be free. And here’s the thing, he supposes, about why he keeps them around at all - he knows they’ll inevitably turn. They’ll stab him in the back. He knows, he’s not stupid, and history repeats itself; someone with a god complex and a smiling mask says this.

No, he doesn’t keep them around because he trusts them. Tubbo’s a fucking coward, he’s prying Tommy away from his side with a torch and a crowbar, Niki has never been weak but she’s never taken a step he hasn’t told her to, and not even Technoblade would stick by him no matter what. He saw what happened at the festival. He’s not stupid. History repeats itself; someone with white eyes and a traitor’s crown says this.

The others are here because they trust him. That is a lie, but it rings true. They trust General Soot, not Wilbur. They’re here because they’ve always been here, because they always will be. They’ll be here until he can prove to them he’s poisonous, they’ll be here until he smashes through their pathetic bonds, they’ll be here until he burns the countryside and if he has to take them with it, so be it. There are some things stronger than blood, there are some things stronger than water, and Wilbur’s not stupid. History repeats itself; someone with bright orange fur and a dusty family portrait says this.

“Wilbur,” Tubbo says, startling him.

“What?” he snaps, turning with a shark’s grin.

“We think Tommy stole from my storage,” he mutters.

“You know what to do,” he says, leans down, lets his laugh bark too loud.

“Sorry,” Tubbo flinches. “I just thought -”

“Rule number two, Tubbo,” Wilbur says.

“Rule number two,” Tubbo repeats, and his tone is nothing short of broken.

Two: Don’t disturb Wilbur when he’s working. Wilbur is always working.

~

There is blood on Technoblade’s hands, and he likes it that way.

His cape is made of poppy-stained wool. When he bites down on it to stitch his own wounds it tastes like copper. He wears gold on his tusks, brass on his knuckles, he’s adorned to the teeth, he’s a king. Fantasy - he is the most feared emperor in the land. Reality - his kingdom is one person strong. This is what he thinks about when Schlatt first gives him an order.

Let it never be said Technoblade has no flair for the dramatic, he thinks wryly. The world is made of similes and metaphors, he says when he’s talking to himself, because something in him has always liked words. Fantasy - he trains himself to be just as strong with his tongue as he is with a sword. Reality - his words rust in his mouth and he never pulls them out. This is what he thinks about when he cannot do anything but raise his crossbow at Tubbo’s chest.

And despite what the world seems to be trying to tell him, that there’s a fragile balance between fantasy and reality, Techno thinks they can be one and the same. Fantasy - Wilbur is going to blow up L’Manberg. Reality - Technoblade will take care of the stragglers. This is what he thinks about when he pulls the trigger.

He did his job and can still sleep at night, though he rarely does. Yeah, it would be easy to pretend like he’s remorseful, but he doesn’t bother. Tommy is angry at him. This isn’t new. Wilbur is proud of him. This is.

He feels a little uncomfortable with fighting Tommy right after killing his best friend, but Wilbur carves out the side of the wall with such vigor and Tommy is looking more and more aggravated with each passing moment, so he does what any good older brother would do and shows him how to throw a real punch.

Tommy started it, after all. What choice did Techno have?

After that, the others don’t talk to him much. Tommy’s gaze still harbors resentment, despite the motto now carved delicately over the entrance to the pit. Tubbo goes so far out of his way to never come into contact with him, it’s funny. Niki stares at him with an awful blanket of pity and indignant confusion.

Wilbur tells him with sparks in his eyes of his plans for destruction. Techno has never felt closer to him. Wilbur writes down rules. Techno laughs and doesn’t understand the grief in the others’ eyes. Wilbur is proud of the job he’s doing. Techno takes this and runs it into the ground.

Let it never be said Technoblade isn’t a hard worker. He builds and he runs supply missions and he makes and smelts and plants until he thinks he might collapse and he keeps going, he always does.

“Techno,” Niki says once, hand on his shaking shoulder. He’s all about numbers, and she knows it. He’s been awake for thirty-nine hours. She knows it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Techno says.

“Niki, remember,” Wilbur smiles from across the map of the land.

“Rule number three,” she relents softly, ducking away with tense shoulders before he gives another order, and he doesn’t see her again.

Three: Don’t disturb Techno when he’s working. Techno is always disturbed.

~

Tubbo wonders, sometimes, if his life is always going to be like this.

He thinks it can’t get worse than joining a war for independence and getting blown sky high by someone he considered his friend. He thinks it can’t get worse than winning. He thinks it can’t get worse than losing. He thinks it can’t get worse than filling the traitor’s spot from both angles. He thinks it can’t get worse than hands scraping on concrete, begging for help. He thinks it can’t get worse than Technoblade’s dry apology.

Well, you know what they say about that, Tubbo thinks bitterly - he should learn to monitor his thoughts, because it hasn’t ever stopped getting worse.

Currently, his situation consists of mindlessly picking the gravel out of an unconscious Tommy’s hair, and Wilbur laughing without a care in the world as Techno eagerly tells him more and more creative ways to destroy Tubbo’s home.

There was a time when Tubbo didn’t know what home meant to him. Even just yesterday, he doesn’t think he could’ve answered.

Tommy mumbles something incoherent in his sleep. Tubbo shushes him on instinct. It was bad to raise your voice in the White House. Quackity had proven that to him many a time. He sits back on his heels and thinks about it.

The marble halls and doors that lock from the outside were never his home, not really - he may have felt like there was something there for him, once upon a time. He may have thought he was a better liar than he was. But he sees Schlatt’s horrible grin, hands bigger than his face shoving him into the concrete cell, horns curling over his ears; he hears Schlatt’s howling laughter, the gleeful order to Techno, and knows none of that was real.

Come to think of it, how much of his life has been? Eret says he’s happy to help him prepare, and spits in his face with the push of a button. Wilbur says he won’t get hurt, and the first rocket doesn’t even do the simple mercy of knocking him out. Tommy says he’ll protect him, and Tubbo sits alone and wraps his own burnt ribs.

It’s not Tommy’s fault, is the thing - Tubbo thinks it might be his own for going along with it for so long. Like Wilbur said, he’s a yes-man, he’s a coward, he’s pulled every which way and he never complains. If he were really smart, he’d get up and run and never look back, he’d put his skills to use building something for himself for once. If he were really smart, he’d know that the Wilbur he knew is long gone. He’d know that Tommy is running full speed after him. But Tubbo has never been smart, he thinks - not in the way that really matters.

Because home, he’s decided, is sitting by Tommy and picking rocks out of his hair.

Wilbur calls him a traitor, among other things. Wlibur drags Niki down the stairs and tells her he was going to blow the ground out from under her feet, a smile on his face. Wilbur throws Tommy into the pit and sends Technoblade after him. Wilbur pops his head into the nook and orders him to fill in the now-discovered tunnels to Manberg. Home is not Wilbur.

Tubbo stands anyway, “yessir,” and winces at the smug look on Wilbur’s face.

He skids to a halt in the middle of the storage section, bright pink and royal fur flashing in his vision.

“Tubbo,” Techno says, tilting his head, crossing his arms.

“Please let me by,” Tubbo says quietly, watching his hands, remembering how naturally they curled around a weapon.

“Just lemme get in that chest behind you,” Techno says.

“Okay,” Tubbo says.

Techno leans around him for exactly seven seconds. The click of the chest’s latch is a firing mechanism. Tubbo swears in that moment he could claw through solid concrete in fear and is proven wrong in a burst of red, white, and blue.

“Alright, be on your way,” Techno smirks, waving out an arm.

“Thanks,” Tubbo says, and in his haste to run doesn’t see Wilbur pursing his lips on the bridge above him.

Four: Tubbo doesn’t like crossing paths with Techno. See Rule Number One.

~

Tommy has never been one to keep his mouth shut. This is a widely known fact.

He used to be proud of it. When they were kicked from their country, he’d shouted. When Wilbur had started to give up, he’d shouted. When Wilbur took dynamite from Dream’s hands, he shouted. But as things shift, as Wilbur takes the tides and slams them upside-down, he finds he has less and less to say that he hasn’t already said a hundred times. He simmers down, lets Wilbur do what he wants, tells himself he isn’t going along with it.

It’s easier to lie to yourself when you don’t have to speak it into truth, so he doesn’t - he stands by with his shattered ideas of good and evil and the color grey and doesn’t bother talking to Wilbur, anymore. After all, he’s been with Wilbur for months, for years, long before this, and he knows he’ll be in the same place long after. Even with everything on the line, he chose to stay. Even knowing everything he knows, he’s choosing to stay.

When Technoblade stabs them in the back both metaphorically and literally and Wilbur orders him to run, Tommy does. Tubbo’s scream echoes in his ears and Tommy’s hands are full and he can’t stop and he can’t think; Tubbo should never forgive him, and his body hurts with the knowledge that he will anyway.

They run home, the four of them, chased by no one thanks to their so-called ally. Wilbur is laughing too hard and Techno is looking far too pleased with himself. Tommy is stumbling over tree roots and ferns, and Tubbo’s hand is clenched white around his wrist, eyes wide and shell-shocked. Tommy can only imagine what his own look like.

He’s afraid. He’s terrified. Nothing went according to plan, for neither villains nor heroes - though who’s to say those words even apply anymore - and all he knows is that Tubbo is wheezing through teeth clenched painfully shut, all he knows is Techno’s hands are dirty and Tommy’s scared, afraid, angry, angry, angry. They race down the staircase. Tommy vaguely sees Wilbur reach for his communicator and run back up.

His attention zeroes in on Technoblade, and with a horrible intake of air, he begins to shout again.

Technoblade defends himself stubbornly, stalwartly, all selfish pride and unwavering apathy, and Tommy doesn’t realize how loud he’s become until Wilbur reappears by his side with a cackle.

“Tommy,” Wilbur hisses, grabbing onto his arm with a withering grip.

“He, he, he,” Tommy splutters, and he’s shaking, and he’s not crying, not yet.

“Think about it,” Wilbur says, and drags him to the edge of the pit.

“I,” Tommy says.

“Take your shot,” Wilbur says.

“Wilbur,” Tommy begs, begs him for an answer he’s already giving.

“Do what you know is right,” Wilbur says gleefully, and with barely a shove Tommy jumps down the steep incline and into the pit.

“You,” he says to Techno, weakly, awfully.

“What else could I do?” Techno shrugs, and squares his shoulders.

“Throw the first punch,” Wilbur laughs, asks, demands.

“It stays in the pit,” Techno grins.

Tommy can still hear Tubbo screaming.

Five: Tommy likes to disturb people. See Numbers Two and Three.

~

Niki adjusts to life in Pogtopia seamlessly. She, after all, is not unaccustomed to living under a dictator.

Wilbur delegates her charge of the place, saying he and Techno are too busy planning their attack to make sure things run smoothly. In return, she works hard, makes sure Tommy and Tubbo are safe and as happy as they can be in such circumstances. The boys flock to her like she’s an oasis in the desert, and she finds she enjoys their company.

She helps them into the pit when they inevitably clash, helps the winner hoist the other out, tries not to hurt them when they face her in the stone arena. She learns to bandage wounds and kick someone’s legs out from under them simultaneously. Perhaps most importantly, most horribly, she is beginning to learn to lie.

Time goes by - her hands grow rough, she does not. It’s her strength, she tells Tommy once - some people, like Technoblade, grow strong physically. Some, like Wilbur, grow strong mentally. She, Niki whispers so no one will hear, is strong enough in her convictions to outdo them both.

Tubbo is incredibly dutiful. She tells him to be kind to himself. Tommy feels the guilt of a thousand lifetimes on his shoulders. She tells him to focus on his own. She teaches them all the recipes she knows how to make with their limited supplies and it is her favorite pastime, watching them laugh and smear flour on each others’ clothes.

She decides that her favorite thing is baking, now. Her favorite thing has not been Wilbur for a very long time. She wonders if it ever really was.

This twisted pantomime of domestic tranquility can’t and doesn’t last forever. She is careless, she has been careless ever since she arrived, and it is of course someone else’s head on the chopping block.

Wilbur, the madman she thought she knew, pulls her aside on the way to the tunnels. She thinks once again of the bombs below Manberg and wonders if he ever would have told her.

It crosses her mind that she’s not sure why she stays here. They wouldn’t welcome her in Manberg, but she would be better off away from Wilbur and his destructive tendencies. Why doesn’t she take as much as she needs and run?

“What did they do?” Niki asks, watching Tommy and Tubbo climb into the pit with a sad, crushing guilt.

“They needed a reminder,” Wilbur says.

“Of what?” she asks.

“I think you know,” he says, eyes staring through her.

“Rule number six,” she starts.

“Rule number seven,” he interrupts, giggling a manic pitch she wishes she’d never heard.

“I suppose,” she says miserably.

“You’re doing a great job here,” he reassures, drowned out by Tommy’s losing howl.

Under Wilbur’s watchful eye, she does not help Tubbo out of the pit.

Six: Niki is the one you go to when you’re tired.

~

If Tubbo stops and thinks about it, his day to day routine hasn’t really changed.

Wake up, eat something, see Tommy, work, avoid Wilbur, work, lie, work, eat, visit Niki, work, try to sleep and fail. It’s just that now, instead of lying to Schlatt, he’s lying to himself and Tommy when he says he’s happy here. It’s not like it’s bad. There are worse things, like a ruler who makes you plan your own execution, like a rebel who answers your screams for help with a crimson colored promise.

At least he’s getting better at fighting, if he cares to dig for a silver lining. He can hold his own against Tommy, even Niki, and once he managed to knock Technoblade into the wall. He can thank Wilbur for that - it’s important to know how to fight. It’s not like it really hurts. There are worse things, like the ground ripping away beneath your feet, like gunpowder burning through the suit you never wanted to wear.

He doesn’t miss Schlatt. He doesn’t miss Quackity. Why would he miss a President who orders public executions? Why would he miss a Vice President who - who -

Well. He got more sympathy out of Quackity, humiliated tears running down his face as he distracted Schlatt’s anger, than he’s ever felt from Wilbur.

No. He doesn’t miss that. Why would he?

There are things he does miss, though, like the sun, like air that isn’t filtered through miles of rock and dirt. Clean clothes. Running water. Food that isn’t starch-based. Laughing.

He doesn’t let it show. Wilbur is always watching, always ready with an order and a point towards the pit.

“Rule Number Seven,” Wilbur says, reading out his pillars with a proud smirk.

“Wilbur,” Niki dares to say, and it results in her standing with her fists raised across from Tubbo, six feet down in a stone cage, both of them afraid and confused and so, so tired of fighting.

“It stays in the pit,” Techno crows.

“It’s just the rules,” Wilbur simpers.

“Yes, Wilbur,” Tubbo says, and nothing has changed.

Seven: Don’t get tired.

~

Technoblade thinks that digging the pit was the smartest thing Wilbur’s ever done.

The Pit, proper noun, is a fifteen by fifteen square, six feet deep, lined with jagged diorite walls and a sloped ceiling. It’s just wide enough for a two-person brawl. Wilbur really outdid himself, given the fact that he carved it out in less than an hour. He even made a wooden sign to hang over the entrance, like he’s a middle aged mom, or George.

Cute, Techno thinks. Gives it a real homey feel while you’re punching people’s lights out.

Wilbur’s made good use of the pit since he first built it, treating it like a courthouse and a therapy session all in one. It began with Techno and Tommy, something Techno feels proud of, but now, every little exchange is monitored and debated. Every conflict ends in the pit. Wilbur has explained it to him - if they start infighting, they’ll be torn apart just like the corrupt governments they’re destroying. The pit allows for emotions to be fought out and left behind. Wilbur’s doing them a mercy, really.

The real genius of it is that once you jump in, the only way out is a hand from the outside, and Wilbur refuses to help you unless you’ve settled your scores. It stays in the pit, Techno recites, and snorts, unbuckling his cloak. He folds it carefully and drops it onto his mat.

“Are you ready?” Wilbur asks, leaning against the entryway of what Techno calls his room.

“Yep,” Techno says, stretching down to his toes one final time.

“Go get ‘em,” Wilbur snickers.

“Maybe you should do it, instead,” Techno suggests. He feels a little bad - Tommy’s black eye still hasn’t healed from the last time Techno caught him in the Nether - but it’s the kid’s own fault, really.

“Why do you say that?” Wilbur asks, and Techno sees his expression harden like concrete.

“I mean, you’re the one who wanted him to stay outta the -”

“Techno,” Wilbur interrupts, cold.

“Yes,” Techno says, jutting out his jaw - two can play at this game, and Techno has been doing it for much longer.

“It’s really for your sake,” Wilbur decides on saying.

“My sake,” Techno says, dry.

“Yeah. We both know you love the chance to show off,” Wilbur smiles.

“True,” Techno says. He does enjoy the exercise and the opportunity to teach his skills to the others.

“Remember what we’re doing,” Wilbur says, and turns away.

“Right,” Techno says, walking after him.

Same wavelength, he thinks dryly, pushing down the creeping thought that he’s Wilbur’s prize pitbull, and jumps into the pit again for the sake of anarchy.

Eight: If you have a conflict, take it up in the Pit.

~

Tommy doesn’t know if he’s tired of fighting.

On one hand, he’s been fighting for months. On the other, if he’s not fighting, he’s not sure he’s anyone at all. Right-hand man, that’s him. Tommy, Wilbur’s second in command. This is what he is, whether he likes it or not. Tubbo shrugs when he brings it up one night, curling his arms around himself. He says he shouldn’t worry about it right now. He says it’s really not so bad - and he would know.

Tommy mutters an agreement and wonders just how much longer Wilbur’s gonna keep him around.

Life in Pogtopia is different, now. There’s more people than before, which Tommy’s thankful for. Niki and Tubbo are a breath of fresh air after just Wilbur and Techno for so long. They’re closer, somehow, and despite the weight of everything around them, there’s an atmosphere of family he hasn’t felt since - since Phil left.

There’s a bad side, though, because there seems to be one to everything these days; Wilbur’s gone off the deep end, even worse than before. Tommy doesn’t know what to do with it.

There had been a moment during the festival when Tommy was so sure he’d changed his mind, but everything had gone to hell not long after. And, well. Tommy doesn’t recognize the Wilbur that walked away from Schlatt, that night.

This is what the war’s done. This is what fighting has taken from him. He sees it take from everyone, and he sees it take from himself, and here’s the problem, here it is - Tommy needs to know if he’s tired of fighting.

If he chooses not to be tired, Wilbur is happy. This is clear. He claps his hands when Tommy jumps in the pit, and every dirty look and snide comment gets him a heaping of praise. When he fights, it’s to stay by Wilbur’s side. If he’s not tired of it, they’re both happy, and things stay normal.

If he chooses to be tired, he’s not sure where he’d go, because he’d sure as hell not be welcome here.

Wilbur’s made his plans clear. He conspires openly with Technoblade, and Tommy ignores the jealousy burning in his chest at the sight. He can’t be replaced, he won’t, Wilbur can’t just leave him like an old accessory. The first time Tommy said he wouldn’t help was under a completely different set of circumstances. They both know it.

This time, Wilbur doesn’t even bother to ask.

Here is the question - what does he choose? His morals are so far gone he’s not sure he knows the meaning of the word, anymore - he wants to do the right thing and he wants to burn the White House to the ground - he wants to save Tubbo and he wants to never get stabbed in the back - he wants to be able to trust Techno and he wants Wilbur to sing again and he wants Phil-

Fuck Wilbur and his rules, Tommy thinks bitterly. Number seven, especially, number nine - hell, number one and two and three and five and everything, everything -

Tommy’s bones ache and his mind whirls and he’s young and he’s loud and he’s ruled by his emotions, Wilbur was right all along -

And Wilbur is always, always, always going to be what he chooses.

Nine: If you don’t want to fight, don’t disturb people.

~

“Rule Number One,” Wilbur says. “The ravine is small.”

This is a fact. Small spaces means contact means conflict - the meaning behind it is clear. There is no hiding in Pogtopia.

“Rule Number Two,” Wilbur says. “Don’t disturb me when I’m working. I’m always working.”

This is a precaution more than a rule. It’s not a lie, either, not an excuse - he’s got so much to do if Manberg is to die.

“Rule Number Three,” Wilbur says. “Don’t disturb Techno when he’s working. Techno is always disturbed.”

This is a joke. He laughs. Shouldn’t everyone stop to laugh, now and then? God, he’s so fucking funny, and all the best jokes are true, or something like that.

“Rule Number Four,” Wilbur says. “Tubbo doesn’t like crossing paths with Techno.”

It’s a shame Tubbo was in the way, but it worked out for the best. It’s pathetic, the way the kid seems afraid, like Techno’s the only one capable of pulling a trigger. It’s sad - doesn’t he know they’d all do the same?

“Rule Number Five,” Wilbur says. “Tommy likes to disturb people.”

Tommy. His perfect little soldier, his toy, his loudmouth fireball. He can’t wait to dunk him underwater.

“Rule Number Six,” Wilbur says. “Niki is the one you go to when you’re tired.”

Niki Nihachu, strong, kind, always on the right side of history, and he has tied her to his cause. Doesn’t that make him powerful?

“Rule Number Seven,” Wilbur says. “Don’t get tired.”

She is infectious, contagious, she spreads like a disease. If they aren’t tired, they will never go to her, and Wilbur hasn’t been tired in months. Doesn’t that make him powerful?

“Rule Number Eight,” Wilbur says. “If you have a conflict, take it up in the pit.”

Here’s the thing about this, here’s the great thing about the pit - Wilbur will never step foot inside and he will never, never, never get tired of using it.

“Rule Number Nine,” Wilbur says. “If you don’t want to fight, don’t disturb people.”

Here’s the thing about this rule - someone will always break it, because humans are small and weak and tired.

Here’s the thing - Wilbur is not small, Wilbur is not weak, Wilbur is not tired, he’s not distrbed, not angry, not fighting, not anything at all. He’s alive. He’s never felt better. Wilbur Soot, president, has died and so has Wilbur Soot, villain, and Wilbur, just Wilbur, is here to fucking stay.

“Rule Number Ten,” Wilbur says. “God help anyone who’s caught in the crossfire.”

Chapter Text

“George,” Quackity says.

Footsteps come up behind him, crunching over concrete debris. He keeps his gaze locked on the setting sun as George settles next to him with a huff.

“The festival’s over,” he says. If it comes out as bitter as he feels, George doesn’t react.

“Looks like it was fun,” George monotones. “What the hell happened?”

The podium reeks of gunpowder. There are cracks in the cobblestone - Quackity traces them with his eyes. His breathing stutters. “A public execution.”

“What?”

Quackity side eyes George’s pristine suit and looks down at the burns and tears spotting his own. “Tubbo was executed for treason. Technoblade attacked the audience.”

Audience, read: everyone but George. Funny, how Dream’s right hand man is never around when things go to hell. It’s almost as though he knows what’s going to happen before it does, like he never left Dream’s side.

“Well. I’m sorry I missed it,” frowns the most useless member of the Cabinet, adjusting his glasses.

There’d been a time when Quackity trusted George. There’d been a time their days were spent together, preparing for debates and making excited plans for the future.

Then George didn’t come to the election. Then he didn’t show up to the festival. He never crosses paths with Quackity in the White House, and when he does, it’s from behind those god-awful tinted shades. Quackity thinks, horribly, that maybe it was all a ploy from the start, that George has never cared about anything to do with him, not really.

But Quackity doesn’t have the energy to drag out the accusation just to lose, so he sighs, closes his eyes, and tries to swallow the lump in his throat.

“No,” he says, “you’re not.”

The wind howls for a moment over the empty, grey country.

“No,” George agrees, and if Quackity cared to listen he’d hear a hint of shame. “I’m not.”

~

His hands are shaking.

Prime, what has he done? What has he done? His hands are shaking, and he is still holding onto the bow, and there is no longer an arrow nocked in the string, and what has he done, what has he done?

He runs, though not at first, because at first it’s easy to imagine that he’s the one who won and righteously storm off. But it creeps up on him, chokes him, until his legs kick off the ground and his hair stands on end and he gasps for air, because he has just shot the President.

They killed Tubbo for far less. Schlatt killed Tubbo for far less. It doesn’t matter, he realizes with an ironically mirrored twist of an ankle over a tree root, it doesn’t matter how close they’d been, how much he’d deluded himself into thinking his title got him any higher on Schlatt’s totem pole.

He’s going to be so mad.

His title, his title - even that’s gone, now. He’s effectively stripped himself of everything in a few short minutes. He’s let his feelings get the best of him -

- I built this you can’t do this we make these decisions together stop stop stop STOP -

- he’s thrown it all away, and now here he is, struggling to breathe in the middle of the woods, nowhere to go except back, nothing to do except grin and bear it, and he wonders morbidly if Fundy will bother to make him a gravestone before he’s promoted to Vice in his place.

He’s served his purpose after all, he got Schlatt in power, he’s gotten boring, and what use does the President have for a traitor, these days? He used me, he used me, he used me, it loops in his head until it hurts, and he wonders how he got to be so stupid, he wonders how he let himself get so blind; worse than that, he wonders how he let himself leave, and knows nothing will ever be the same.

Nothing, nothing, and he can’t run anymore. He drops to cowardly knees on top of pine needles and hates how hard it is to swallow his sobs.

Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go.

He’s going to be so mad.

~

(Tommy will tell you he’s nothing like Wilbur.

But who else would look at Quackity, struggling not to cry in the middle of the woods, and think up a plan like that?)

~

“I never thanked you,” Tubbo says, “for what you said at the festival.”

Quackity blinks, cradling his wooden bowl closer to his chest so the contents steam into his face. He’ll take all the heat he can get in this place. “What did I say?”

“You know,” Tubbo shrugs. “Said maybe I should go to jail instead, or something. Just - thanks.”

“Oh.” Quackity digs out another forkful of potato. “Yeah, well, I felt - I know what it’s like to be staring down Technoblade’s weapon.”

Tubbo squints at him. “You do?”

“Mm,” Quackity hums, something in his stomach turning. He sets his fork down. “Long time ago.”

“Was it that event he brags about?” Tubbo asks.

“Yeah,” Quackity says. There’s an uncomfortable stretch in which Quackity thinks about the similarities between kids with blue fur who fight with their claws out and kids who take rockets to the chest and live to tell about it.

Tubbo just keeps staring at him.

In the White House, they hadn’t talked much, and if they did it was always about work. Quackity had argued with him more than once over things so trivial he can’t even remember them now. In the moment, he’d thought he was justified - he was the Vice President, and Tubbo was surely after his job. A flush of shame tints his cheeks as he realizes he’d been jealous.

Now, after everything, it’s hard to look at Tubbo the same.

He’s handling the aftermath well. The scars have almost healed - either that or he’s gotten good at hiding them. He’s civil around his executioner, and surprisingly warm towards Quackity despite how horrible he’d been to him under Schlatt.

“Well, you don’t have to worry, here,” Tubbo finally says, cracking a small smile. “Just keep a positive attitude and you’ll be fine.”

“Simple enough,” Quackity nods, and doesn’t tell Tubbo how uneasy that makes him.

“Quackity!” Niki appears, poking her head up the stairwell. “Good to see you.”

“Likewise,” Quackity says. He’s not surprised to see her here, given how brutally she’d been chased out of Manberg the day of the festival.

“Do you need anything?” she asks, eyes traveling to his Cabinet attire. “Something new to wear, maybe?”

“That’d be nice,” Quackity says, and means it.

She gives him a pair of jeans and a shirt Tommy had recently outgrown, which Quackity protests internally - he’s been reduced to taking hand-me-downs from a sixteen year old - and at his hesitant request pulls her shawl over her head.

“I’m sorry,” he says, a little helplessly. “You don’t have to.”

“It gets cold,” Niki shrugs with a reassuring smile. “I can always make another.”

A few private adjustments later, Quackity steps back into the ravine, wearing normal clothes in public for the first time since Schlatt was elected. It feels like a turning point. It feels like it should be more significant. It feels - he feels -

“Ah, Big Q,” Wilbur says, appearing out of nowhere. “Glad to see you finally changed.”

“Yeah,” Quackity says. The light in Wilbur’s eyes is still too bright. He thinks about the similarities between verbal contracts and Chekhov’s guns but doesn’t think about it for long enough to act on the urge to run.

“I’m so thrilled you’ve decided to help us,” Wilbur says, reaching out a hand and clasping his shoulder. His grip pulls uncomfortably on Quackity’s arm “You’re a valuable asset to our little family.”

“Yessir,” Quackity says, smiling as wide as he can.

“Yessir!” Wilbur laughs back. It echoes and slams into them over and over. “You’re so cute - yessir.”

“Mm,” Quackity grins. “Thanks.”

“Enjoy your stay, Big Q.” And with that, Wilbur walks away with a whirl of his trenchcoat, still laughing to himself.

Niki was right, Quackity thinks, pulling the shawl tighter around him.

It does get cold, here.

~

Despite what they say, Technoblade considers himself a man of culture.

He comes off brutish from a distance, he knows; what with the loot flashing on his body, his sharp eyes and sharper grin, the golden victor’s prize he keeps solidly on his head. Faded pink falls in a braid from his crown to mid-thigh. His armor shines in the dark.

He can’t blame what people say when they think he can’t hear, rumors of terror and bloodlust and an unstoppable force. When he bares his tusks, people shudder. He is the only one who’s beaten Dream, he is stronger than everyone, and it ripples through the stories he leaves in his wake.

As much as he’d like to, he can’t call them legends. If he had legends, he’d have to be dead.

“I hope you like potatoes,” he says offhandedly, pulling another handful up from the ground. In the doorway, Quackity audibly startles.

He chances a look up. The newest member of Pogtopia looks torn between bolting and begging for mercy. “Can I help you?”

“No,” Quackity says. “I just - no. Sorry.”

“Alright,” Techno shrugs, and turns back to his potatoes. There’s a beat.

“Actually,” comes the kid’s voice. So much for a quiet night.

Sighing, Techno clambers up to his full height. Quackity’s as short as ever, still looking afraid, but this time resigned to death. Something about him is familiar, but Techno’s seen a lot of people in his day and doesn’t give it any more thought.

“I’ve got some questions,” Quackity says, clearing his throat. He pulls a notebook out from under his shawl - Techno snorts.

“Wilbur’s probably the one you want, then.”

“No. They’re for you.” Quackity’s face shifts to a frown. “Besides, I - I don’t want to bother Wilbur.”

“Rule Two,” Techno amends, giving up completely. The faster he humors Quackity, the faster he’ll go away.

“Right. That’s one of my - those rules, I mean, what -”

“Just follow them,” Techno shrugs, thinking about how he could pull out Three and Eight right now but doesn’t and feels like that gives him something of a moral high ground. “You don’t have to go out of your way. They’re for the greater good.”

“They don’t make any sense,” Quackity tries.

“They work,” Techno shrugs, and that’s all he’ll say about that.

“Fine,” Quackity says, flips a page in the notebook. “Do we have anything to eat here besides potatoes?”

“No. Next.”

“Is there a job I’m supposed to be doing?”

“If Wilbur wants your help, he’ll tell you. Next.”

“Are we allowed outside just to walk around?”

“Sure. Next.”

“Do you regret it?” Quackity asks, and Techno suddenly can’t look him in the eyes anymore. “All the people you’ve hurt? Do you,” and here he gives a short laugh, “do you even remember?”

It hits him, then, where he’s seen Quackity before.

The championship had been brutal. Some young upstart cat hybrid had almost blown him to pieces, he remembers with a shudder, and the kid’s teammate had not gotten out of Techno’s way fast enough -

Ah.

But that’s not all Quackity’s thinking about; if there’s one thing Technoblade is good at it’s reading between the lines, and Quackity’s gaze keeps flickering towards Tubbo’s hammock.

Techno understands the question. “No,” he says, honestly. “No, I don’t.”

He waits for Quackity to argue back, that surely he must be human, that somewhere in him he’s got to have a conscience.

“Okay,” is what he says instead, turning to leave. “Thanks for your time.”

It shouldn’t sting as much as it does.

Techno decides not to think about it and kneels back down in the dirt.

~

“This is crazy,” Quackity whispers to him, stumbling over a rock as they hurry to the main hall. “He can’t be serious, right?”

Tubbo keeps his gaze locked on target. “He’s serious.”

“I’m not gonna fight Tommy,” Quackity laughs, disbelieving, “over a joke, that doesn’t make any sense!”

“Just do it,” Tubbo says quickly, pulling Quackity around the corner. “Please. It’ll be worse if you don’t.”

“It wasn’t a real argument,” Quackity says, voice tight as the pit entrance comes into view. “It wasn’t even - we weren’t even -”

“Ah, Quackity!” Wilbur crows, opening his arms wide. Tubbo lets go of Quackity’s arm and scampers to the opposite corner, where Tommy’s stretching one arm across his chest with a scowl on his face.

“Wilbur,” Quackity says. “Wilbur, come on, man, I’m not gonna fight Tommy.”

“That’s too bad!” Wilbur says, letting his whole face drop. “‘Cause Tommy’s going to fight you, regardless. Isn’t that right, Big T?”

Quackity snaps his head to look at Tommy, who just purses his lips and doesn’t meet his stare.

“Tommy,” Quackity says. “Come on, it wasn’t even a real argument, man, I was joking, I swear!”

“Go on, Tommy,” Wilbur says, and Tommy doesn’t hesitate to do as he’s told. He sits down on the edge of the pit, swinging his legs, waiting.

Quackity laughs again, hollow and desperate, and Tubbo resists the urge to flinch. It’s not a new noise - Quackity’s laughed like that before - but only when Schlatt was in the room.

“And, Big Q, you can’t fight in that,” Wilbur frowns, gesturing to Quackity’s shawl. “Go on, take it off.”

Suddenly, instead of arguing, Quackity visibly blanches and doesn’t move a muscle.

This is not good, Tubbo thinks.

“I said,” Wilbur starts again, lower this time. “Take it off.”

The well-hidden threat must register with the former Vice President, because with shaking hands he grabs the back of the shawl and pulls it over his head.

“Oh,” Niki gasps as the fabric hits the floor.

Techno scoffs, unimpressed. From the edge of the pit, Tommy’s jaw drops. Quackity sniffs, eyes wide and frightened, trained on Wilbur’s predatory grin.

Thick holographic green and black feathers run from his hip up to his shoulder blades - his tank top has been tailored adequately, the straps tied together with a strip of cloth in the middle of his back.

Wings. It’s the first time Tubbo’s really seen them. They shudder in time with Quackity’s breathing, pulled close to his body like a shield. They look wrong, though - chopped short near the ends, feathers all ruffled and messy.

“Oh,” Niki says again, in awe. “You…”

Tubbo waits for Wilbur’s reaction with baited breath. Quackity looks like he’s two seconds away from crying.

“Well,” is all Wilbur says, baring his teeth even wider. “Come on, Big Q, in you go. I don’t have all day.”

~

“You know,” Tommy says, hissing as he runs a damp cloth over his bruised knuckles, “you’re kinda like my dad.”

Quackity really doesn’t know what to make of that statement. “Hate to break it to you, but we’re not at the father-son stage of bonding just yet.”

“I mean the wings,” Tommy amends, looking up. “My dad’s got them, too.”

“Oh.” Every feather prickles self-consciously against his skin. “I didn’t know you had a dad.”

“He’s busy,” Tommy says, short. “He’s not dead or nothing, he’s just off - he’s busy.”

Filling in the gaps, Quackity decides that Tommy’s father figure left him. A poor decision, in Quackity’s opinion. He’d like to send the guy a letter.

To whom it may concern - Wilbur is fucking insane. Come pick him up before he blows us all to hell. Also, your youngest throws a mean left hook. Best, Quackity.

Yeah, right - Wilbur, Techno, and Tommy had never bothered to hide their familial bond, and with a son like Technoblade, who’s to say their dad would even care about Wilbur’s terrorist plot? Who’s to say he wouldn’t join in?

Another option, which Quackity entertains almost wistfully, is that Wilbur’s so far gone because there was no one there for him. Dramatically, so torn by the unexplained loss, he resorts to acts of mass genocide just on the off chance his long-lost father will hear of his exploits and return. Maybe this is all their dad’s fault; it serves him right for being dumb enough to leave behind his family.

Or maybe, Quackity thinks, shattering his stupid stories with a scoff - maybe their dad had simply been the first to hear the unhinged overtones of Wilbur’s laugh. Maybe he was the smartest out of all of them.

“Anyway, he’s got wings,” Tommy continues, snapping him out of it. “They sort of stick out from the back, though, not all down the arms like yours.”

“Cool,” Quackity says, trying not to let his discomfort with the subject show.

“Pigeon,” Tommy says, and laughs to himself. “He looked like a pigeon.”

“Was he?”

“Maybe. I don’t really remember.”

“Cool.” He’s already used that, shit, and his tone is creeping into wavering territory.

“You alright?” Tommy asks, narrowing his eyes.

“Peachy,” he grins in response. His cheek burns with the movement. He’ll no doubt have a bruise, thanks to Tommy. “Just peachy.”

Tommy squints at him for a second before reaching out. “You need help with your knee?”

“No!” Quackity snaps, scooting his poor, half-bandaged, painfully scraped knee out of range. “Don’t touch me.”

“I’m just trying to help,” Tommy says, sounding offended - or guilty. Quackity doesn’t have the mental capacity to figure out which.

“You helped by shoving me down in the first place,” Quackity hisses back. “Fat load of help you did, beating the shit out of me -”

“If you’re still upset, I’ll go again, right now,” Tommy bites, anger rising to match Quackity’s in the blink of an eye. “If you don’t, shut the fuck up and at least let me clean it, for God’s sake.”

Oh, fuck. If Wilbur had ordered him to fight Tommy in the first place over a joke, there’s no telling what arguing with him now is worth, so Quackity swallows hard and looks at the opposite wall, hands coming to wrap around his stomach.

It takes fifteen seconds of suffocating silence for him to realize Tommy’s waiting for an answer.

“Fine,” he says.

“Fine,” Tommy mutters back, almost too fast, dabbing a cloth into the neck of a bottle.

It stings. Quackity grits his teeth and refuses to whine about it. Nothing makes noise save for Wilbur’s faint singing echoing through the ravine and the occasional scrape of gravel.

Tommy starts to wrap his knee, legs curled to his chin as he focuses on not cutting off blood flow to Quackity’s calf. There’s a reddening spot on his chin.

He looks tired.

“Sorry,” Quackity whispers, feeling like anything louder would break him in half.

Beat.

“S’fine,” Tommy says.

Beat.

“Cool,” Quackity says, winces, and thinks that Tommy pouring alcohol on his knee was less painful than saying ‘cool’ three times in a row.

Tommy shifts his gaze up, takes a breath, lets it out. “Can you fly?”

“I,” Quackity starts, unsure where this is going. “Yes.”

“Do you think,” Tommy says quietly, eyes sunken into his face and so, so pale, “you could fly with me on your back?”

“Uh -” Could he?

It’s been months since he’s been able to let his wings show, let alone use them. Schlatt had never much liked them, and a standard suit, not tailored for hybrids, was the dress code for the Cabinet. Quackity had gotten used to the discomfort and pain of stuffing his full plumage into the jacket every day.

But here, obviously, Wilbur doesn’t seem to mind. That surprised Quackity a little more than it should have - he does have a hybrid for a son, after all. In Pogtopia, they encourage him to let his wings show. Techno’s tusks are proudly adorned with gold rings. Tubbo’s even started using his shimmery insect-like wings to get to the upper level faster.

It’s a change for him, and an ironic one - Schlatt, a hybrid himself, versus Wilbur, a human; one who tells him to cover it up and the other who gives so few fucks it’s almost concerning.

Regardless, Quackity hasn’t flown in far too long to answer that question well. From what he remembers, he’s just the right weight and size to somehow get off the ground.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “It’s been a while.”

Tommy hums, fingers stilling halfway through tucking the end of the bandage in on itself. When he speaks, it’s like he’s already up in the air. “It’d be nice, I think. Flying with you. Seeing everything from so far away.”

“Yeah?” Quackity’s voice cracks. He knows as well as Tommy does that Wilbur would never let them do that. It’s far too dangerous, he’d say. It’s too exposed. It’s reckless.

“Yeah,” Tommy mutters, so quietly it’s almost not there. “I think it’d be nice.”

“Sorry,” Quackity says again, sadly, because he is.

“S’fine,” Tommy says again, and there is nothing behind his eyes.

~

Schlatt towers over him. This is something Quackity remembers.

“Look at you, man,” Schlatt grins, blocking out the moon. One hand is propped above Quackity’s head, the other hooked in his suit pocket. His breath reeks of alcohol and he leans in far too close. “Come crawling back already?”

“I was hungry,” Quackity stutters defensively. There’s dirt smeared on his hands and clothes, a precaution Technoblade had pointed out almost too late.

“If you’re going to say you’ve been living in the woods, you better look like it.” the boar hybrid grumbles, slashing a gash into the calf of Quackity’s pants. “Lose the suit jacket.”

Schlatt laughs, low and horrible. Quackity grinds his palms into the bark of the tree behind him and doesn’t bother repressing how badly his legs are shaking. “And you think you can get help from me?”

Quackity clears his throat. “I knew you’d be mad -“

“Of course,” Schlatt yells suddenly, making Quackity flinch, “I’m fuckin’ mad. You tried to shoot me. What kind of fuckin’ cabinet member are you, huh? You shoot me and run with your,” he gestures wildly, “tail between your legs?”

“I don’t have a tail,” Quackity mumbles.

“Naw,” Schlatt laughs. “You’ve just got, what, mold growin’ on your back. What is that? I don’t wanna see that.”

There it is. Quackity feels shame creep up his spine and into his cheeks. “I lost the jacket,” he practically whines. “If you’d give me one, I could -”

It does the trick. Schlatt’s yellowed eyes gleam with a predator’s thrill. Quackity hates it.

“Ungrateful bitch,” Schlatt says, throwing his voice up in an awful mockery. “Aw, Schlatt, I lost my coat, Schlatt, I’m cold, Schlatt! I’ve given you everything in your miserable career, and you repay me by booking it into the woods the minute I ask you to give something up for me?”

Quackity’s cheeks are burning “I -”

“And now you drag yourself back, hopin’ for God knows - you want your position back? You wanna cuddle up by the fire like old times? No,” Schlatt cackles, revelling in the helpless way Quackity shudders. “No! You’re a goddamned coward who knows he’s nothing without me.”

In the past, he’d have raised his voice and yelled, he’d have clawed his way to so-called equal footing, he’d stand there as Schlatt would laugh and brush him off, jab a finger in his chest and pull his feathers and call it fair. It’s clear as day, now, what he’s been blind to. It hurts, more than Schlatt’s barbed words or claws ever could.

“Come on,” Quackity says, letting his voice break with the weight of realization. “Come on, man, what do you want from me?”

Their eyes meet, Quackity looking up and up with a weak stare, disgusted with himself and this god-awful plan. Schlatt’s teeth are bared, devilish horns backlit by the moon, a halo around his head like someone’s horrible idea of a joke.

“Beg,” Schlatt sneers, gleeful. “On your fuckin’ knees.”

Well, he thinks, chest screaming, feathers trembling, well, he wants to scream, shout, howl, well, he thinks, and he drops to the forest floor, and he has never been so cold and he has never been so angry -

“Please,” he whispers, tears starting to prick at his eyes; Schlatt’s hand clamps tight around his arm and he laughs.

Well, he thinks, kneeling at Schlatt’s feet with his ribcage on fire, the President’s hand like a chain around him -

Well.

At least now he knows why Tubbo’s eyes were always full of pity.

~

“Big Q,” Tommy shouts as Quackity’s soaked form shuffles down from the rafters. “Welcome back!”

“Thanks,” Quackity calls. His voice shakes - he must be cold. “It’s fuckin’ pouring out there. I almost got lost.”

“Welcome back,” Niki echoes, giving him a hand down the uneven stairs. “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” Quackity shrugs, stumbling a little on the ground floor. “Shit.”

“You were gone a while,” Tommy frowns. “What’d he say?”

“Uh,” Quackity swallows, “he said I can’t fix everything with a half-assed apology, but he’s going to give me another chance. I suggested the meeting and he agreed.”

“Yes!” Tommy shouts. “We’re on our way, Big Q!”

Quackity’s smile is tight. “Yessir.”

Niki’s hand is gentle on his arm. “Why don’t you go get him something to eat, Tommy?”

“I’m not hungry,” Quackity says. “I ate, uh - I ate.”

“Oh,” Niki says. Something changes in her face the longer she stares at him.

Tommy narrows his eyebrows. “You alright, man?”

“Fine,” Quackity says, sounding upbeat, but his hands twitch at his sides.

“You sure?” Niki asks. Quackity stares at her for a long time. Tommy resists the urge to interrupt the silence.

“I want him gone,” Quackity says simply, sounding tired and afraid and more angry than Tommy expected. “I want him fucking gone.”

Niki takes his hand comfortingly. They’re trembling.

“Don’t worry,” Tommy manages, letting his resolve harden in his eyes. “Don’t worry, Big Q. He will be.”

For some reason, that only makes Quackity’s hands shake harder.

~

Quackity staggers as the other man reaches out and grabs him in a tight hug. Schlatt’s chuckles rumble through him and out through Quackity’s own throat, echoing in the halls of the White House - their White House, theirs.

Quackity claws his fingers into Schlatt’s back and yelps as his feet suddenly leave the ground. They spin, Schlatt’s arms pulling him to his chest, leaning back and twirling around like an excited five year old.

“I’m President,” Schlatt says into his ear, then laughs again, shouting, “I’m President!”

Quackity cheers, loud, euphoric - this is all he’s ever wanted. “You are, you are! We did it! We did it!”

“We did it,” Schlatt cackles, stumbling out of his spiral, “you son-of-a-bitch, look at that, look at that, would you just look at it!”

Wilbur’s gone, and with him the uncertainty Quackity knew he’d bring. Schlatt’s support has launched him here, and he’s in power, and he has a voice. In with the new, in with SWAG 2020, in with Schlatt and Cabinet, in with the President and his Vice!

“Thank you,” Quackity manages, once the world stops spinning and his feet find solid ground. He clings to Schlatt, feels how unnaturally warm he is, thinks that absolutely nothing in the world could stop them now. “God, thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“My pleasure,” Schlatt rumbles, finally letting go. Quackity’s arms ache where his hands had been. “We’ve gotta celebrate. We’ve gotta, we’ve gotta,” he pauses, roars , “it’s all happening, man!”

“We’ll celebrate,” Quackity agrees, feeling drunk enough already. He snatches Schlatt’s hand from his side and pulls. “We’ll celebrate, we will, but let me show you around, huh? Let’s get to know the White House, huh?”

“Lead the way, Mr. Vice President.”

Schlatt grins so wide Quackity can count each unnaturally sharpened tooth, and as he follows down the hall he laughs again, and again, and again, until Quackity’s laughing too, until nothing matters outside of this, and he swears that every time he closes his eyes he’ll remember how it felt to spin in someone’s arms with the world in his hands.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, there are things that happen quickly, like a traitor’s hand on a button, like a quick-spoken declaration, like the way someone’s heart can be beating one second and still the very next.

Sometimes, there are things that happen slowly, like a waltz underwater, like a war months in the making, like a dance in compound time that neither party will come back from.

One.

Wilbur Soot is going to war.

This is the first thing Schlatt hears when he wakes up. Dream is crouched over him, blocking out the light. Schlatt can practically see his shit-eating grin through his mask.

“What?” Schlatt grumbles, head pounding as he struggles awake. It gets harder and harder every morning.

He blindly reaches for the medicine on his bedside table, only to remember his bedside table went down with the White House, and Dream is hardly as concerned with his health as Quackity was.

“Wilbur Soot is going to war.” Dream stretches towards the sky. “In one week.”

Schlatt’s barely had time to catch his breath, but he stubbornly forces himself into a sitting position. “War? Against who?”

“Us,” Dream shrugs. Us, meaning the two of them. Three, if you count Karl, which Schlatt doesn’t.

“A week.” Schlatt blinks the spots out of his vision and stretches up like nothing’s wrong. Nothing’s wrong. “I’m surprised he still wants to fight. Isn’t he batshit crazy, now, or something?”

“I mean, I suggested it. We’re outnumbered, you know,” Dream laughs, cackles, like he knows something exciting, some big secret. Schlatt fights down the urge to curl his lips in distaste. There’s a time and place for shit like that; Dream in his hubris treats it like a cheap currency. “I thought it would be fun.”

Outnumbered. In theory, they have the support of the various mercenaries still under Dream, but rumor has it even Bad has left Dream’s side. Plus, Schlatt knows exactly how many friends he himself has. He could count them on one hand and still have five fingers left. Hardly a fair fight, any way you spin it.

Wilbur Soot is going to war, huh?

“Thanks for the update,” Schlatt says brightly, and bites his mouth into a bloody leer. “What’s for breakfast?”

~

The problem with history is that it traps you.

Two.

“Look out,” Sam calls back to Tubbo. “I think I hear a skeleton.”

The kid raises his shield arm higher, torch held white-knuckled in his hand. “Thanks. I’m - I’m looking.”

“You’re doing great,” Sam reassures, and swings his pickaxe back into the diamond vein.

It took them hours to find this, and Sam still isn’t quite sure why Techno sent them out for diamonds they don’t need, but if there’s one thing Sam’s learned in the few days he’s been camped in Pogtopia, it’s that you do not argue with Technoblade.

I could take him, Sam thinks, arms aching. A piece of stone shrapnel scrapes by his cheek, barely missing his eye. I could probably take him.

But Techno fights dirty, knows exactly how to use the overpowered weapons he flaunts like jewelry, the strength of the Nether backing him up; Sam is just a guy with gunpowder in his veins and the nasty habit of wanting to live in peace.

“How much more do we need?” Tubbo asks. He sounds nervous. Sam can’t blame him. Caving is no fun, especially not in the pitch black and cold that comes with diamond mining. The stray noise of a mob bounces around the stone, making both of them flinch.

“Just a few more. I saw another vein just down there, so we don’t have to go much further.”

“Good,” Tubbo says. “Good.”

“Thanks for coming with,” Sam says, leaning down to pick the glittering diamonds out of the rubble. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know,” Tubbo says, “but it’s good to get out of there, sometimes, you know? Back when - when - well, I used to go resource hunting when I needed a break, but I haven’t had time for that in, uh, a while.”

“I get it,” Sam shrugs, wiping sweat off his brow. His cheeks are probably tinged green with all the blood rushing to his face. “This way, by the way.”

Tubbo scrambles down the gravel slope after him.

“There’s a lot on your mind, then?” Sam asks, eyes scanning the walls for the tell-tale blue.

“That’s an understatement.”

“Well, I’m willing to listen,” Sam tries, hoping it’s not a push too hard too soon. “Ah. Here. This’ll be enough.”

The only noise for a few more seconds is the crack of metal on stone.

“There’s a traitor,” Tubbo says finally, and Sam almost drops his pickaxe.

“What?”

“Dream said it,” Tubbo mutters. “Said there was a traitor among us. I don’t know if you know, but, last time we fought -”

“I heard,” Sam says, remembering the lonely gaze just behind Eret’s sunglasses as she had explained how she came into power. “Dream - Dream told you this?”

Tubbo nods. “And I can’t stop thinking about it. I mean, for all I know, it’s you,” and here the kid’s eyes shift a little more guarded, “and I just - I just don’t know. I hate not knowing.”

Sam takes a breath, watching it mist back out in the chill of the cave. “That’s rough.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo says, sounding miserable.

“Dream told you this,” Sam repeats after another swing. “You know, I - what if he’s lying?”

“Lying?” Tubbo asks.

“Yeah. I’ve spent time with the guy, you know? It’s sort of his thing. Mind games, lies. Dream plays games, it’s what he does.” The last of the diamonds falls to the ground with a gravelly crunch.

Tubbo shivers. “I don’t know. You’re right, I guess.”

“Just,” Sam says, blowing the dust off the gem. “Just remember that. Dream wants you riled up, distracted. It could be an infighting play.”

“I think we should head back,” is all Tubbo says to that.

Great. The hunch of the kid’s shoulders tells Sam he’s just scored a higher position on his list of suspicions.

“Whatever happens,” Sam says, “you can trust me. I promise.”

“Yeah.” No one that young should have to look as old as Tubbo does in that moment. “Which way did we come from?”

“Left,” Sam says, and silently resolves to never let anything get this bad again.

~

The problem with Mellohi is that it’s broken.

Three.

“Could you maybe not,” Fundy grits out, “play your music so loud?”

“What?” Tommy calls back, somewhere above him, voice echoing around the ravine. “I can’t hear you over the music!”

Fundy’s currently attempting to take inventory of their food and medical supplies, a difficult task when Technoblade’s projected food output seemingly depends on the position of the stars and Quackity keeps sneaking bottles from the chest and Mellohi is blaring distractingly from the jukebox just to Fundy’s left.

Fundy tries again, clutching a hand through the fur on his head. ““Could you not play your -”

“Huh?” Tommy yells again.

“Tommy!” Fundy shouts.

“Sorry? Speak up!”

“TOMMY!”

“WHAT?”

“SHUT THE GODDAMNED -”

Click.

The silence that follows should be a relief.

Instead, Fundy’s fur stands on end, and Wilbur Soot steps away from the jukebox with the record held between two fingers.

Tommy appears from the rafters, face screwed up with a retort on his tongue. His annoyance bleeds away to alabaster tension with a simple twitch of Wilbur’s eye.

“Sorry,” Tommy says. “Sorry. I was just on my way to -”

“I hate this record,” Wilbur says. He looks at the disc, flips it upwards, brings it so close to his face he’s almost touching it to his nose.

Tommy swallows. “Okay, I’ll, I won’t play it when you’re here, big man.”

“What do you think, Fundy?” Wilbur murmurs like Tommy isn’t even there.

Fundy shifts, uncomfortable under Wilbur’s sudden attention. “I think it’s alright.”

“Really? I could’ve sworn you were pulling your fur out over it just seconds ago.”

“Uh,” Fundy says. “I thought it was too loud. That’s all.”

“I hate this record,” Wilbur says; he looks at Tommy, now, and grins wide. “What do you think about that, Tommy?”

Tommy’s eyes are wide. “Please, Wilbur, put it down. Please.”

“Why?” Wilbur asks. “I’ve told you before. Don’t play your music so loud. Do you listen to me?”

“I do,” Tommy says.

“You don’t,” and Wilbur screams with a movement so ferocious Fundy takes a step back. “You don’t fucking listen, Tommy!”

“What?” Tommy gapes, genuine fear flickering over his cheeks and flaring his nose.

Wilbur barks a laugh, bringing both hands to the disk, raising it level with his eyes. “You’d learn if I broke it.”

“Please!” Tommy splutters, jolting like a dog at the end of his leash. “Wilbur. Don’t. Please, please.”

“Fundy,” Wilbur snarls. “You tell me. You fucking tell me -”

“Don’t -” Tommy begs.

“You fucking tell me!” Wilbur laughs, record bending dangerously in his hands. Tommy screams in its place. “Will he listen? Do you think he’s got it in him?”

“Since when do you care what I think?” Fundy asks, having only the time to register a vague bitter feeling in the back of his head before Wilbur’s trench coat whirls on him.

“Answer the question,” he spits over Tommy’s next howl. Fundy wishes yet again he’d been born anywhere else.

“Please,” Tommy says again.

Fundy wonders why the boy doesn’t kick Wilbur in the knee and rip his prized possession from his grip. This is a child who faced down death for a stupid ream of plastic Wilbur’s millimeters away from snapping in half, and he’s just standing there, and on closer inspection, he’s not really breathing, is he?

Fundy has half a mind to let Wilbur break it.

Prime, Tommy looks so afraid.

“I think he can learn to listen,” Fundy says, throat constricting around the words.

Wilbur looks at him for what must be the first time in months, and Fundy wishes with all the venom he has that his father doesn’t like what he sees.

“Fine,” Wilbur says. The record clatters to the floor. Tommy lets go a hurricane from his lungs.

“He’s a good kid,” Fundy says.

Wilbur laughs. “He can be.”

Tommy bends down to pick up the record from the dirt. Wilbur slams a foot down just beside his hand, making both Tommy and Fundy flinch. “Don’t let this happen again,” Wilbur smiles.

Tommy looks straight ahead. “I won’t.”

“I know,” Wilbur says, cocking his head to the side. A spider’s web hand reaches down to ruffle Tommy’s matted hair. “I know. You’re my right hand man.”

“Yeah,” Tommy whispers. Something hardens in his face. Fundy can’t tell if it’s resolve or hatred or both or something else entirely, and he’s not sure he wants to know.

“Back to work, boys,” Wilbur crows, echoing his mad cackle up the uncaring walls. “We’ve got a war to lose!”

When he lifts his foot off the ground, the button he’d been standing on clicks an empty release.

~

These children are going off to war.

War is a loose term, I think. War is brutal machines and it is weapons, but most importantly war is the worst kind of carelessness - caring so much that eventually you can’t remember what it was you cared so much about.

Can we say with certainty that this is not a war, not a power play? Can we tell them it is just a game of dress up? Can we look them in the eyes and tell them “have fun;” can we watch and still think it won’t be as brutal as a tank when one of them pulls the trigger on the wrong gun?

Right.

So.

These children are going off to war.

Four.

Quackity doesn’t like to be alone when he’s nervous. Tubbo learns this through experience.

“It’s just, like,” Quackity rambles, cross-legged with the lantern in his lap, “what if something happens while we’re asleep? We’d get separated. Chaos. It’s safer, it’s - it’s for protection, you know?”

Tubbo blinks at him from the floor, bleary-eyed. “Mmhuh.”

“And, and, less oil to burn,” Quackity says. “If everyone needs their own lantern for their room, then it’s more oil, but if we’re in the same room -”

“You know what else saves oil?” Tommy grumbles, finally rolling over to give Quackity’s back a death glare. “Shutting up and sleeping.”

Quackity twists around. “Oh. Sorry to wake you.”

“Ugh,” Tommy yawns.

“I was just telling Tubbo, right, why I’m -”

“It’s the middle of the night, Big Q.”

“I know. I know, so that’s why I’m explaining why I’m here, right, cause it’s the middle of the night, but I just kept thinking, you know, like, what if something happens? Safety, like I brought up before. And -”

“Quackity,” Tubbo mumbles, still not quite caught up with reality. “Nobody cares where you sleep.”

“But-”

“What he said,” Tommy grumbles. “Look, if you wanna stay here, be our guest. Floor’s roomy enough for us all. Just keep your trap shut, yeah? Big day, tomorrow, and we need our rest.”

Quackity exhales. “Uh. You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Mmhuh,” Tubbo says again, thinking that trying to say anything more would effectively blow the transmitters in his brain.

“Okay!” Quackity says, too relieved, bringing the lantern to his face and snuffing it with one quick breath. “Thanks. I’m -”

“Shh,” Tommy says.

“Okay.”

“Shh.”

“Sorry.”

Tubbo shuts his eyes again and listens to Quackity shuffle around with his blanket. The room echoes with three sets of breathing. Something about it is comforting enough to lull him into a half-asleep stupor almost instantly.

Distantly, Tubbo realizes he should probably have offered Quackity his mat. The poor man shouldn’t have to sleep on the stone floor.

But Tommy’s already snoring again and he could swear Quackity’s sigh is bordering on contented, and the last thing Tubbo thinks before he drifts off is that it’s far too late to make anything better, now.

~

Children is also a loose term. What defines a child? There’s children in this group, legally. There’s children in this group, mentally. There are fathers, too, although that is even more difficult to define.

But in regards to the whole thing, I think we can say that they’re all children, because what is a child, really? A child is lost. A child is naive. A child doesn’t know what’s best for them, and a child hasn’t yet grown, and a child’s instinct is to destroy until there is a new, burning crater in the middle of the living room floor.

Yes, these are children.

What do you think?

Five.

The view from this tower is nice.

The sun is slowly creeping up the sky, painting the early morning with orange and yellow and purple, more color than he’s ever stopped to see. The stars are still visible in the upper heavens, a lovely picture of the transition from night to day.

Quackity dangles his legs over the edge and wonders if it’s the last one he’ll see.

“We could leave,” Tubbo says. Quackity almost thinks he’s imagined it, with how out of character it seems.

“Leave? Like, now?”

“Yeah,” Tubbo says. He stares at the horizon, kicking his feet against the blackstone. “Just - just go into the woods and start over. Do our own thing.”

Quackity laughs. “Wouldn’t that be nice, huh?”

“It’s what Wilbur wanted to do,” Tubbo says. “Before he went crazy. He said we could go build a cottage, if the election didn’t work out.”

“Really,” Quackity says. He finds that hard to believe.

“He used to be a nice guy,” Tubbo mourns. “Before - before. He used to want the right things.”

“I don’t,” Quackity hesitates, “I don’t think he did, Tubbo.”

“You didn’t know him,” Tubbo protests.

“No,” Quackity says. “But he - but I think he’s always had the idea that, even before the revolution, that L’Manberg could only thrive with violence. And when I did get here, he told me I couldn’t join. He built the walls to keep people who would threaten him out, he’s always been - always been power hungry, wanted that control, you know?”

Tubbo’s hands are clenched on the edge of the tower. “I - I guess. It’s just - things happened so fast.”

“I’m sorry,” Quackity says, though he can never apologize enough. Something guilty boils in the back of his throat. It tastes like acid when he swallows it down.

“It is what it is,” Tubbo shrugs softly. “At least I’ve - at least I’ve got you, Big Q.”

The row of hastily carved signs beside them loom their long shadows over the floor. Who’s the traitor? Who, who who?

“Right,” Quackity says. “We’ve got each other’s backs.”

“We’ve both been under Schlatt,” Tubbo says like he’s trying to convince himself.

“We’ve both been hurt by everyone,” Quackity says. “Schlatt - Schlatt wanted you dead.”

“Schlatt, like, destroyed you,” Tubbo says.

“Alright,” Quackity grumbles. “The point is, it’s not us. I trust you, man.”

“We could run away,” Tubbo says again, and then laughs, hollow. “What if we ran away?”

What if? Would that really be so bad? A life in the woods, just him and Tubbo, just the forest and no wars and no bombs under their feet and no one telling them what to do. Maybe they’d get a dog. They’d fly together, watching the sunrise like this every morning, just them, just peace, just -

Quackity stares down at Manberg, the land he’s given everything for, the land Schlatt had torn from him. It hurts to look at it and know he’s not the one in charge. It hurts to look at it and know it should be his.

“Okay,” Quackity says, standing with a flurry of feathers. “Listen. Come here, Tubbo, go over there by that pillar.”

Tubbo does as he’s instructed, looking confused.

“Here’s the deal,” Quackity says, “I’m going to count down from ten, and you’re going to step left or right. This way,” Quackity gestures to his right, “we run away. The other, we stay and fight for our country. Okay?”

Tubbo’s eyes widen, uncertain. “I - okay. Okay.”

“Ten,” Quackity says. He’s not sure he’s made up his mind yet, either, though it was his idea.

“Nine.” Manberg has brought him nothing but pain.

“Eight.” The idea of peace is so, so appealing.

“Seven.” But what kind of coward would he be, running away like that?

“Six.” He’s got to see this through.

“Five.” He looks at Tubbo’s eyes, and can’t figure out what he’s thinking.

“Four.” What if they step in separate directions?

“Three.” What if Quackity stays alone?

“Two.” What if Quackity rules alone?

“One.” Would that really be so bad?

And with a final, damning motion, Tubbo steps in tandem with Quackity, back towards Manberg, back towards fighting.

They’re silent together for a second, and then they laugh, half relieved and half horribly, horribly sad.

“We’re doomed,” giggles Tubbo morbidly, wiping at his eyes with a netherite plated sleeve.

“Yeah,” Quackity chokes out, and thinks that’s the only thing he can truly believe, anymore.

~

The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie.

Six.

“What do you think?” George asks him, squinting one eye shut and framing the flimsy structure with his fingers.

“It’s a bunch of sticks,” Karl says.

“It’s a mushroom,” George corrects.

“Really? ‘Cause it looks like a bunch of sticks.”

“Fine, a bunch of sticks,” George sighs. “But they’re going to be a mushroom, just you wait.”

“Why’d you pick today to build a house, man?” Karl asks, collapsing down to lie on the grass. The sun is high in the sky, almost noon, warm breeze smelling like flowers.

“I don’t have one,” George shrugs.

“But you’ve been homeless forever.”

“Exactly.”

“Just camp out with Sam for another day.”

George sits down cross-legged beside him. “Why?”

Karl raises an eyebrow. “Who knows what’ll happen today? What if this spot gets attacked?”

“What are you talking about?” George scrunches his face. “Attacked? By who?”

“George. The war is today.”

“War?” George frowns. “Wait, what war?”

“You’re fucking joking,” Karl wheezes in disbelief, propping himself up on his elbows.

“No!” George whines. “Karl! What war?”

“The war, man! The war! With Wilbur and Dream, and Pogtopia, I thought you - George!”

George looks genuinely confused. “They’re going to war? Today?”

“I cannot believe you,” Karl says, something to the left of annoyance creeping up his spine.

“It’s not my fault,” George says. “No one tells me what’s going on!”

“Because you don’t ask!”

“I shouldn’t have to! Don’t I live here?”

“I don’t know,” Karl spits. “It sure feels like you don’t.”

George scoffs. “Okay, Quackity.”

“What?”

“That’s what he’s told you about me, almost word for word, I bet you.”

“No, what?”

“You’ve been hanging out with him, I’ve seen you.” George squints. “Are you fighting on their side, or something?”

Karl laughs, bitter and loud. “No. No, I’m not. And I haven’t been,” he brings a hand up to make air quotes, “hanging out with him. Quackity wants nothing to do with me, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I hadn’t,” George says.

“Big surprise.”

“So, what, you want me to just drop everything and go stab shit with you?”

“I want you to at least know we’re fighting for our land, George! Don’t you care, even a little bit?”

George looks at the grass. “I don’t think so.”

“How?” Karl splutters. “Dream - Dream is leading the charge, George. And if not Dream, then - then Quackity, surely, I mean, you were running mates for Prime’s sake!”

“I’m not Dream’s lackey,” George snaps. “I don’t - I’m not his guard dog.”

“Sure, whatever.”

“And Quackity has made it clear he blames me for all this,” George continues. “You think he wants me on his side? No, Karl, I’m going to build my house today, you have fun playing with your friends -”

“They’re not my friends,” Karl says. “It’s - Schlatt’s the only one who -”

“Who what,” George laughs, and Karl is reminded just how venomous George can be, “pays attention to you? Pities you enough to feed your ego?”

“Shut up,” Karl screeches, pushing to his feet. “At least I’m doing something! At least I have -”

“You have fun,” George shouts, standing too, and he blocks the sun out from above Karl. “You have fun, you go march off to battle for something you don’t even care about -”

“I hate you,” Karl fumes. “I hate you!”

“Join the club!” George says, and pulls his sunglasses out of his pocket. “I’ve got a house to build. Leave me alone.”

“I will,” Karl says, but however angry he is, he doesn’t move, can’t move, some cowardly ball in his gut forcing him to stay.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, anyway?” George asks.

“The war isn’t -”

“Get off my property,” George says.

“It’s technically not -”

“Prime, go away!” George shouts, and turns his back on Karl.

“Happily,” Karl sneers, finally, painfully, peeling his feet away from the grass.

But as soon as George is out of sight he collapses to his knees, pulling his arms across his chest; he claps a hand over his mouth and doesn’t cry, no matter how hard he tries.

~

These children are going off to war.

They come from different neighborhoods. The sides blur like a mirage in the middle of summer. Tell me who’s with who, they beg. Tell me who to aim at.

In the end, only one of them will make that choice.

Seven.

“What do you think keeps you in power?” Dream asks, grinning above him like the Cheshire Cat.

Eret straightens his spine, not liking the projected path of this conversation. “I’d like to think it’s respect,” he says, staring at where he imagines Dream’s eyes would be.

Dream laughs, jumping down from the wall to land solidly on the path in front of him. “Respect.”

“Am I wrong?” Eret asks.

“You can’t even imagine,” Dream says. He steps closer - Eret resists the urge to flinch back, letting the masked man lean much too far into his personal space.

“What keeps you in power,” Dream smirks, “is me.”

Eret swallows. “What do you want, Dream?”

“The war’s coming up fast. I need to know who my friends are.”

“I’ve always considered you a friend,” Eret says. The wind howls, bringing with it the beginnings of a cold front.

“Right.” Dream says, and then laughs again. “Alright, listen - I won’t bother with the doublespeak.”

With a quick movement, Dream swipes his mask to the side. Glowing purple eyes stare directly into Eret, sparks swirling from them and fizzling into the air. Dream’s pointed teeth bare into a grin. “Whose side are you on, Your Majesty?”

Eret’s frozen in place, Dream’s eyes pinning him down, digging into his head until his temples burn. He can’t speak.

Dream steps back, no less threatening. “Choose your answer carefully,” he says. “And be grateful that I’m letting you.”

Eret thinks that it would be easier if Dream forced his hand, pulled the words from his mouth, thinks it would be so much less of an ache in his very soul if only he didn’t have to choose.

The past flashes before his eyes, then, black walls and rough-hewn wood beneath his fingers. He imagines Wilbur in much the same scene, and thinks about how the world isn’t big enough for two people like him, and how much the pain of separation has eaten away at him -

“Them,” he gasps out, meeting Dream’s burning gaze with a trembling lip. “I choose them. I choose them.”

Dream keeps staring. It starts to hurt. Oh, Prime, is Dream going to kill him before the war even begins?

“I’m disappointed,” Dream says. “I’m really disappointed.”

The mask goes back on. Eret gasps, spine crumpling, only keeping himself upright by propping his hands on his knees.

“Well, then, I’ll take this.” Dream’s hands yank the crown from his head, taking a few hairs with it. He yells, mostly surprised, a small part of him already longing for the empty power he knows he’s just lost.

“I’m sorry,” Eret mutters, unsure if Dream can even hear it. It’s true, in a way. He’s sorry for ever giving up so much. He’s sorry for things he can never take back.

“You’re in the wrong neighborhood,” Dream shrugs, twirling the crown around his finger. “I suggest you start running.”

So, lungs burning, Eret does, until Pogtopia’s tower is the only thing he can focus on, until the world spins beneath his feet, and when he finally stops, when his old friends raise their weapons and point them at his chest, it’s all he can do to just stay upright.

“Why should we trust you?” Tubbo says bluntly, crossing his arms over his chest.

Eret looks at him. “Hello, Tubbo.” Tubbo just frowns deeper.

“Well?” Wilbur grins, arms spread. “I couldn’t give less of a shit, Eret, but let’s hear it!”

And it’s funny, but after months of being shunned and spit at and cursed out, now that he’s finally been given an audience, there’s only one thing he can think of to say.

“I lost everything.”

~

One of these children grows up in the blink of an eye. One of these children will never grow again. Deserved, think some. Pity, think others. About time, thinks one, even though he will wish for that time back more than he wants to acknowledge.

But that hasn’t happened yet.

These children are marching to war, uniform only in their lack of uniformity, and the other children wait for them, and the outcome is hanging over their heads just waiting to be.

These children go off to war.

What happens next?

Chapter Text

“It’s been a long time since I drank champagne.” - Anton Chekhov, paraphrased last words

~

Scene: Wilbur Soot wakes up on the morning of war and feels borderline insane with euphoria.

(He thinks, sometimes, about rewriting the script. It’s entertainment, in some twisted way. He thinks about rewriting the script, turning back time, induligng his most far-fetched fantasies, and curses at how fucking pointless it is and keeps doing it anyway.)

His pulse pounds so hard he has to press a hand down on his neck to keep it inside, to keep it from bursting through his skin, a sick little mirror of the very thing he’s excited about in the first place. His lips peel back in a grin. He stretches limbs too long for his muscles to hold up without shaking, pushing and pulling rancid air through his throat. A well-oiled machine. He flexes his fingers, turns over on his back, feeling blood flow return to his poor arm.

“To-day,” he sing-songs quietly, his familiar pitch echoing and warping and vanishing into the walls.

The problem with that is that they never stop taking, never stop listening, those fuckers - collecting history, words, events, collecting dust - the walls have fucking ears and eyes and skin and a beating, bleeding heart inside. That’s why, Wilbur thinks, in any situation, the walls are always the first to go.

(Scene: The walls of Wilbur’s country stay up, towering blackstone and concrete, and they build a gate, but they forgot to check under their feet for the second time.

Somewhere close by, Wilbur Soot has brought the music in the walls to life; he pushes down on his heart for the second time today but this time, he wants it to explode. The walls fall and crumble and shatter, and the noise they make is beautiful. Wilbur listens to it happen and tries to give this glorious new song words, but all that comes out is a single, triumphant scream. It will have to do. It is all that anyone hears, in the end.

Here is the summary, and here is the old lie: Wilbur Soot tore the walls of that country from his own body, and he will be the one to permanently tear them down.)

“Fuck the walls,” Wilbur decides eloquently, and finally blinks his eyes open. He’s not greeted by the sun streaming in through a window. There’s no fresh breeze like there used to be. That’s alright - things are going to change, today.

For a long time, Wilbur hadn’t wanted change. He cringes looking back on himself, so stubborn, steadfast to the point of rotting. Will. Wilbur. General Soot. President Soot. You fucking madman. It’s all the same, he can see now - stuck in name after name, cause after cause, deluded into thinking he was still fighting for the right thing.

Tommy flashes before him the more he thinks about it. It’s frustrating to watch his brother fall down the same path despite his best efforts, so blatantly ignoring the truth, looking at Wilbur as something to save, something crazy. Wilbur doesn’t fit into his little boxes. Wilbur is bad, but Wilbur is good to him, and that must outweigh the bad, because Tommy thinks in binary, in fucking black and white.

Tommy’ll learn, he thinks. After today, he will make sure Tommy learns. Wilbur Soot is getting greyer by the minute.

Will. Wilbur. General. President. Please, you don’t have to go through with it. He unhinges his jaw in a careless yawn and wonders what they will call him after this.

Traitor.

Though time has passed and he knows he shouldn’t give a shit, that he doesn’t, the word still involuntarily cracks a glowstick in his veins. Visions of another desperate man with a hand on a button, the world lying just behind it, blink behind his eyelids. It was never meant to be - Wilbur files that one away for later.

(Scene: Wilbur pushes the button with everyone in front of him.

He has his guitar. He sings, puts on a show like he selfishly always wants to. They’re all just frozen, afraid to step forward, afraid he will, afraid he won’t. He sings the words he’s coughed up from the bottom of his lungs, and they’re all listening but nobody can really hear him and they never really have. He toys with them, leaning towards the button, pulling away, laughing at how easy it is to pull their strings. They barely breathe with him. They’re all just frozen. They’re all just frozen, but they burn when he -

Or he doesn’t, no -

No, he’s a better writer than this -

No, what would be better, is -

Here is the cinematic parallel, here is the old lie: Wilbur pushes the button with everyone in front of him, performs his plagiarized monologue, and smiles when he’s finally left alone.)

Somewhere deep down, Wilbur knows he’s a pawn. A vassal. The queen in Dream’s game of chess, running rampant with Dream’s fingers around his head. He doesn’t care. He’ll be Dream’s queen if it means he’s on the board.

But war is never a game, of course - he should find a better analogy. Wilbur doesn’t subscribe to Dream’s - not even his brother’s - ideals of chaos and anarchy. He finds them crude, brawn for the sake of brawn, the simple desire to be better packaged in a shoddy excuse for a moral code. But war is exciting, and war is just like business in the way that people kill each other for the chance to wear gold, and Wilbur has always had an affinity for finding ways to do business alone and dive headfirst into things that are exciting.

Will he get a castle? Will he get a crown? He could, if he wanted - Dream thinks he’s doing the right thing, because Wilbur is doing what he wants. He could ask for anything and Dream would give it to him. If Wilbur didn’t think - didn’t know - that the only satisfying end to this story is sitting by his bedside, sheathed in a pile of armor he is never going to wear, he’d be excited for the power about to fall into his hands. Should he mourn it before it’s dead? Should he mourn everything he’s about to sacrifice for the blind people he used to love?

No, he thinks, and pushes himself up to a sitting position. He doesn’t need to mourn. He hasn’t loved anything in a very long time. He has forced this to be true.

(Scene: Philza comes to his grandson’s first birthday.

Wilbur’s holding Fundy in one arm and clumsily lighting a candle with the other. Phil stands in the doorway and laughs at them instead of helping, but it’s nothing menacing; Wibur knows he only stays so far away out of faith that Wilbur doesn’t need him. Fundy is smiling. Fundy is holding onto one of Wilbur’s fingers with his whole, pudgy hand. Fundy’s little ears are straight up on his head and his tail is dangerously close to the lit fire, but nobody is worried. Phil is there, Phil crouches down in front of Fundy and shakes his hand like a gentleman, and says something stupidly endearing like he used to do to Wilbur when he was little. It makes Fundy squeal with laughter. Wilbur presses his face into his father’s shoulder and Phil presses his lips to Wilbur’s hair, and Fundy grows up with two parents and Phil visits every week and Wilbur has a family.

Here is the mirage, and here is the old lie: Phil and Wilbur and Fundy stand facing each other through layers of smoke and ashes, and they are perfect copies of each other and they say, without hesitation, “I love you.”)

Wilbur growls, shaking his head. He has a lot to do, today. There’s always so much to do. There is no time for thinking about Niki - Fundy - Tommy - Techno - there is no time to think about anything but the adrenaline in his blood, the burning organ in his chest, the war, the war, the true climax on the pyramid that edges closer with each damning second.

Whatever happens, he reminds himself. Whatever happens, Tommy will learn, Techno will win, Phil will never look him in the eyes again, Fundy won’t have a birthright to feel cheated out of -

Whatever happens, he tries again, Eret will get what she fucking deserves, Schlatt won’t win and he’ll lose utterly alone, Dream will be happy enough to leave them be, and Niki will look at him with that horrible disappointment in her eyes -

Wilbur yells, something guttural, ending in a laugh that leaves him breathless.

Whatever happens, it’s what he wanted. Whatever happens, Wilbur will get what he always had coming.

Things are going to change. Wilbur, just Wilbur, straightens his back and smiles so wide it hurts.

Things are going to change. He’ll be happy when it’s all finally over.

Things are going to change, he promises, and with a deep breath, starts walking his funeral march.

~

“In a true war story, if there’s a moral at all, it’s like the thread that makes the cloth. You can’t tease it out. You can’t extract the meaning without unraveling the deeper meaning. And in the end, really, there’s nothing much to say about a true war story, except maybe ‘Oh.’”

~

The war starts at sundown. The details that happen before are not important. Neither is what happens during. In time, no one involved will remember them, anyway.

The war starts at sundown, and the war ends by morning. Not with a bang, but with a weak, pathetic whimper and a wet, choking gasp. Schlatt’s body fades within minutes, but the smell of alcohol lingers on Quackity and Fundy for hours afterwards.

No one is really satisfied, despite everything that could have happened and didn’t through some miracle. What happened in the middle seems pointless, like a cheap plot point, like a cruel game that cost them too many sleepless nights and tears.

There are some who feel cheated, and there are some who are afraid, and there are some that don’t feel anything at all, but the ones who are smiling know that the war has yet to begin.

~

“It comes down to gut instinct. A true war story, if truly told, makes the stomach believe.”

~

Phil could make it beautiful, if he wanted.

There’s no denying the poignant otherworldly aura in the room. There’s no denying the palpable anticipation, the tension gathering behind his son like a halo. Wilbur’s pose could be described as martyr-like, feet spread apart, one hand against the wall with no hesitation and the other held straight against his temple in a bitter, glorious salute to a country he no longer believes in.

Phil could imagine that the resulting pure, bright, fire is akin to the warmth of the sun Wilbur used to play in as a child. He could compare and pick apart the details in the crook of Wilbur’s elbow, the bend of his knees, could memorize every unraveling thread in his trench coat as the wind begins to blow.

The smell reminds him of fireworks on sweet summer nights if he closes his eyes just right, or alternatively, it’s so nauseating he has to check behind him for the hiss of a creeper. The stone cracks in slow motion, and Wilbur doesn’t move, stood stalwart to the end. The rubble clatters in planned patterns around him, afraid to touch him, like something holy.

When he later recounts the tale, if he wanted to weave a pretty picture, he’s sure Tommy’s eyes would widen in a rightful mix of shock and awe. He could bring the glare of the mushroom cloud back up, he could say it lightened Wilbur’s hair and eyes so much he almost looked like Phil’s reflection. If he wanted, he could reassure Tommy it was something to be proud of, the way Wilbur met his end.

Yeah, Phil could make it beautiful. But it wouldn’t be true.

In the end, what happens, is that Wilbur gives his final show to an unwilling audience of one.

“It was never meant to be.”

It rings hollow, twisted, and Phil doesn’t understand. He thinks in the time it takes for Wilbur’s arm to move that there should be someone here who does, but it’s not like he can say, “just wait there, son, I’m going to get someone better.” He’s all Wilbur has, and much, much later he will wonder if that was his original sin.

He doesn’t move so fast Phil didn’t have time to react, it’s not like Phil’s frozen with grief or shock or blind denial. Phil simply doesn’t move. He watches Wilbur turn around, watches him raise his arm, stuck to the spot by a concerning amount of apathy.

Then Wilbur’s hand hits the button, triggering the redstone, shaking fingers slipping off it in a weak anticlimax.

“You didn’t,” he says, uselessly.

Wilbur is so pale against the dark of the cavern. There is nothing poetic about the words clawed bloody into the walls.

There is only the dull truth of Wilbur’s chipped fingernails and the rumbling noise that signifies he’s finally kept a promise.

And in the end, the back wall just, kind of - goes.

Wilbur staggers forward, strings cut, the gale blowing his beanie awkwardly into his eyes. Phil doesn’t lean forward to catch him, but Wilbur doesn’t fall. His hand is still tangled in his hair.

The cavern shakes with the weight of it all. Phil shuts his eyes and raises his hands against the shrapnel and selfishly prays that the ceiling doesn’t fall.

To Phil, the explosion doesn’t drag out like time itself is bleeding, despite what everyone else will say. Phil counts exactly seven seconds in perfect time. They’re long past by the time Wilbur starts laughing.

“My L’Manberg,” Wilbur crows, hunched over like he’s broken, like his bones are stabbing through his skin, like his very height cowers from his own head, and he is not a mirror, not a window, he is a one-way painting of something rotten Phil doesn’t recognize.

My L’Manberg. There is no final, refined monologue. Wilbur, for all his many words, can only shout mine like he did when he was a toddler.

There’s a sword on the ground at Phil’s feet.

An order leaves his son’s cracked lips.

Awful, how the cavern wall just went like that, Phil thinks.

He looks out, and sees Tommy, painfully grown, something the color of his shirt running down his forehead, and even though they are what feels like a mile away Phil looks him straight in the eyes.

“Kill me!” Wilbur’s pitch wavers somewhere between elation and f-sharp. He does not come close and beg for forgiveness. He doesn’t shake Phil by the shoulders and scream at him for every mistake.

There is no catharsis, no reconciliation, not even a longing look. He hovers, agonizingly, just out of arms reach. “Kill me, kill me, they want you to! Look at what I’ve done!”

“You’re my son,” Phil says; it tears from his throat unexpectedly, chokes out like broken glass, “no matter what,” and he’s never thought of himself as a coward before but he is so, so afraid when his body takes the final step forward.

“Look at what I’ve done!” Wilbur screams, and then he crumples to the ground and doesn’t scream again.

“I’m looking,” Phil murmurs. “I’m looking, Will.”

It is not a complicated end. The sword is simply no longer in Phil’s hand. Manberg is simply no longer there. There is no long-awaited tender moment between father and son, only the noise of the new battle in front of them.

Wilbur’s breaths keep coming shorter and shorter and wetter and wetter. No sunlight falls on his face - the shadows under his eyes only seem to get darker.

Wilbur settles back on his knees, leaning contentedly against the wall. The nation screams in a horrified unison. Phil’s heart is pounding into his chest.

Wilbur stares out at the crater Phil’s turned towards, explosions glittering in the water pooling at the bottom. His smile is already turning cold.

And when his body vanishes, his eyes are the last to go, looking over the smoking expanse of his legacy.

Phil is still looking at Tommy.

When he later recounts the tale, Tommy’s eyes stay firmly on the ground. Instead of the cinematic ending Phil wishes he could see, flickering so obviously behind his eyelids is the ripping claw of loss. Phil couldn’t lie to him, even if he wanted to - he was there. He saw it all. He can make his own decision as to how the story goes, and he will, and everyone will, but Phil knows the visceral ugliness that cracks through his own voice will be the constant through them all.

There is nothing beautiful about it, in the end.

~

The aftermath. I told you what happened, once. But I lied to you when I said it was over, because the crossfire doesn’t stop.

There will never be an aftermath.

(Technoblade points his sword at his brother’s best friend and does only what he’d promised to do from the start.)

D.c. al fine, from the beginning to the end.

History repeats itself. The problem with that is no one remembers how many times they’re supposed to play the melody.

(Tommy stares at his father and thinks about Mellohi and decides he has had enough of being told what to fight for.)

And now, my dear, the coda. The finale.

Am I lying to you again?

~

At the end of it all, Quackity goes to bed alone.

“I’ll be just over here,” Sam says. “Holler if you need anything. I’m a light sleeper.”

“Thanks,” Quackity says. “Thanks, man. You really didn’t have to let me stay.”

Sam shrugs up a salt and pepper freckled shoulder. “It’s the least I could do. You guys can use all the kindness you can get.”

You guys. The degree of separation, although hardly intentional, settles uneasy into his stomach. Quackity laughs a strained chord and calls a goodnight down the hallway after Sam, listening to his door click shut.

And then it’s quiet. Sam’s base of operations is built for one, but it’s hardly claustrophobic - the main room where Quackity’s camped out is all echoing stone and cold open spaces, chests stacked against the walls in perfect order.

Quackity turns over in his makeshift bed, staring up at the high ceiling, and feels like he’s going to sleep in a museum.

Maybe it’s fitting. After all, Wilbur’s gone. Tubbo’s in charge of a pile of rubble. Technoblade’s just waiting for someone to stand tall enough for him to strike at. Tommy’s fighting a battle that doesn’t concern anyone but himself. Schlatt - Schlatt’s -

(It’s a familiar sight, seeing him like this. The President is staggeringly drunk. He reeks, spit flying from his mouth as he yells. He’s not wearing any armor, sticking out of the netherite plated crowd almost as much as Wilbur.

He’s breathing heavily, suit jacket gone, tie loose and shirt soaked with sweat. He locks eyes with Quackity, and smashes off the end of his bottle with an awful accusation. It takes two people to hold him back from Quackity’s neck.)

Schlatt’s gone, too.

So where does that leave Quackity?

Tubbo had promised him a place in the administration, albeit second best to a child who isn’t even going to be here. These next few weeks are going to be spent doing backbreaking labor, rebuilding the land as best they can, no reward save a solid surface to walk on.

At least, under Schlatt, he’d had a place to call home.

Quackity closes his eyes, pushing his cheek into the pillow, a mistake - Schlatt’s final moments flash behind his eyelids again as clear as the minute they happened.

He didn’t think it was possible for his old boss to look so afraid, so cornered, like the prey animal he always saw Quackity to be. He hadn’t even been breathing, by the end. It wasn’t Quackity’s fault, he knows, it wasn’t anyone’s fault but the liquor and his rotting muscles, but he can’t stop the guilt from creeping up his spine.

It wasn’t Quackity’s fault, but his chest clenches like it’s the karma he deserves. It wasn’t Quackity’s fault, but Schlatt had believed it up until the end.

They won, Quackity reminds himself. The good guys are left standing. Everyone who hurt them is gone, they’re stronger together.

Secretary of State, whispers a breeze like a ghost through Quackity’s ears. Quite the demotion, babe.

Everyone is gone. Things are different, better.

(He’s standing on the podium when it happens. One minute his feet are on the ground and the next he’s in the air, flying without moving his arms, feathers singed so badly he couldn’t stay up even if he knew what was happening.

Horrified, he watches the land below him turn to quicksand to burning red to smoke, stomach pushing into his throat as he starts to fall, and he hits the water with no air left in his lungs.)

Everything is gone.

“Just go to sleep,” he mutters to himself, hoping it’ll fill the space enough for him to relax. It doesn’t.

“Fuck,” he says into the mattress, softer.

He knows it doesn’t make sense to be unhappy, but when he tries to rationalize it, all he can think is that he never should have left.

But no, it wasn’t his fault. It was Wilbur, Wilbur, it was Wilbur who manipulated them all, who blew the ground out from under their feet.

It wasn’t his fault. It was George disappearing when Quackity needed him. It was Technoblade, dragging his rotting, amalgamated skeletons from the ground, stabbing them all in the back with a promise to do it again.

It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t -

“Fuck,” Quackity whispers again. It echoes in the empty space.

And so, at the end of it all, Quackity goes to bed alone with regret burning through his throat and a crater behind his ribs.

~

“In the end, of course, a true war story is never about war. It’s about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do. It’s about love and memory. It’s about sorrow. It’s about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.”

~

“You’re such a worrier,” Schlatt says, hypocritically working a shaking hand through his hair, catching on the stubby horns protruding just behind his ears. “God, you’re such a worrier.”

“Can you blame me?” Will asks, pointing towards the roof and then down out the windows. The only light comes from Schlatt’s hastily made torch, flickering over the two of them in a sad mockery of sunlight. “Look up, dude, look up - the water’s too far over our heads, we might not be able to swim up, soon, and it’s only getting worse!”

“We’re fine down here!” Schlatt snaps right back, gesturing around their shack. The wood slats groan under the weight of the ocean above them. “We’ve got - we’ve got food, and farmland, and we can dig -”

“Are you blind?” Will shouts. “We have to go up, find somewhere new!”

Schlatt whirls and jabs a finger into his chest. “Are you crazy?” and then he laughs, high-pitched and short, nothing like Will’s ever heard come out of him before. Will snaps his mouth shut at the horrible sound and hopes he never has to hear it again.

“Look, Will, you barely made it back here. We barely -” Schlatt runs a hand through his hair again, interrupting himself with an exasperated sigh.

“I know,” Will says.

“I thought you weren’t going to come back,” Schlatt says, sounding tired.

Will opens his mouth to break the silence, remembers the pressure of the ocean, the harsh rain, the panic of not knowing how much further down the house was, air boiling in his lungs -

“Don’t be such a worrier,” is all that he can manage.

Schlatt’s chuckle is wet but back to normal, at least, and Wilbur, on impulse, holds his arms open wide. “Come here, dude.”

Schlatt stares. “What?”

Too late to back out, now. “An invitation,” Will says.

“What, you want a hug? You’re drenched.” Schlatt scrunches up his nose. That’s all the incentive Will needs.

“C’mere,” Will grins, and barges through the divider.

Schlatt yelps, but there’s nowhere to go, and soon Will’s waterlogged sweater sleeves are wrapped tight around his friend’s shoulders.

“Oh, you smell like wet dog,” Schlatt whines. He pushes half-heartedly at Will’s waist. “Come on, man.”

“You don’t really mind,” Will says.

Schlatt stills at that, like he has to think about it. Outside, there’s no noise, save the steady trickle of some invisible stream of water that sends Wilbur’s heart into his throat. They’ll die here, if Schlatt has his way. Something has to change.

Schlatt’s warm under his freezing hands. Will rests his chin on top of Schlatt’s head and squeezes his eyes shut, determined to see the sun again.

“I don’t,” Schlatt finally mutters, his own arms coming up to circle around Will. “And listen, I’m just glad you’re alright, that’s all.”

“I know,” Will says. “Me, too.”

“I just want - don’t want to be alone.”

“I know,” Will says, sparks dotting the back of his eyes, and wonders exactly how many swings it’ll take to break through the windows.

~

Pas de deux. I told you what it meant, once.

A dance for two. A waltz in six-eight, polytonal, two voices clamoring to be heard over the other; in the end nobody wins, because in the end the only thing left standing is the pedal raising and the dampers lowering and the muted silence they leave behind.

They’re dancing, the two of them.

No one can see them, anymore, but they can see each other for the first time in far too long, and it’s far happier an ending than either one deserves.

Finis.