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It is the night before the festival when Tubbo realizes that he just doesn’t care anymore.
Shit’s hit the fan, certainly. The stage is scattered with balloons, some farcical mockery of a celebration that should come (will come, something in him insists) when the damn thing actually commences. Now, though, it feels like some lurking monster on the horizon of a new day. Something that’s going to kill him if he’s not careful. So he’s careful, plays it smart - he hasn’t done anything to piss Schlatt off in the past two days, which is good, because sometimes the smiles the man gives him seem genuine, if a little lost on his face.
He prepares Manburg for the festival. Puts up the banners and makes sure things are bright and festive instead of dreary and ominous. “This is a festival, Fundy,” he hollers, tearing down one of the purple banners as he debates shellacking the blackstone. “A festival! Not a funeral!”
“Put the ‘fun’ in ‘funeral’, then!” Fundy shouts from somewhere within the whitehouse. Tubbo’s heard that one. It doesn’t earn him a laugh.
So he puts up the banners and gathers lilac and poppies and cornflowers, tying them in massive bouquets that dot the square. He erects the market stalls and organizes the games and presses his suit, and when it’s all said and done, he blows up the balloons.
It lightened the place up in the daytime. Sure, the massive blackstone throne still loomed, but surrounded on all sides by stupid balloons and flowers and hand-dyed banners, it had about as much intimidation as an office chair.
Now, though, in the middle of the night with the moon shining over Manburg, it holds all of the same animosity as it was intended to. The balloons blow over the stage and out into the square; few bumble on lazy tethers, but the rest roam free across the area like lonely ghosts. The banners have faded into varying shades of grey beneath the cold, cold moon.
Tomorrow. This thing starts tomorrow. He’s worked himself to the bone, and it feels stupid, now, farcical and pointless and he takes a slow seat in the massive throne and looks out over the stillborn festival and its gloomy partygoers.
It’s Quackity’s voice that finds him.
“Having fun out here?” he asks, right by Tubbo’s ear. He whirls, hand to sheath and half out of seat before Quackity’s got a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Woah, dude, chill.”
“You scared me,” Tubbo defends.
“Wow, really? Couldn’t tell,” Quackity snarks. The staredown is short-lived, its killing blow Quackity’s lazy sit on the arm of the throne. Tubbo sits beside him, folding his hands in his lap.
The wind does not howl. Instead, the night is forebodingly empty.
“You did a good job,” Quackity says.
“Did I?”
“Yeah.”
It’s genuine. “Thanks, Big Q.”
It goes quiet again. “Excited for the festival, then?”
“Eh,” Quackity says. “It’ll be alright, I guess.”
“Well that’s not very enthusiastic,” Tubbo says. It sounds worryingly like a lecture, especially for him. “What, is no one but me excited for this thing?”
“No! No, no, I’m - I’m excited,” Quackity amends, “I’m just - a little worried, is all.”
Tubbo stops himself short from saying something he shouldn’t. “What about?”
Quackity sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “I dunno. Your - your friends - Wilbur and Tommy - you think they’ll show face?”
Yes. “They’re not invited,” he says slowly. “I don’t think they’re invited.”
“They aren’t,” Quackity says, “but they’re also real fuckin’ stubborn. Look at it this way - ” and he holds his hands out, “when someone tells you you can’t have something, don’t you want it a little more?”
This is a test. Surely, this is a test. He doesn’t know what the right answer is. “Sure,” he decides.
Quackity huffs. “Exactly,” he says, and something in his tone suggests a little more than he’s letting on. “Exactly. That’s the - that’s the thing, Toobo, that’s it - they’re gonna fuckin’ show up no matter what. They want this place back, right?”
“Right,” he says, and this is edging into dangerous territory.
“Right,” Quackity says. Tubbo’s never seen him rant like this, never seen this manic sort of glint in his eye. “But they can’t have it! I don’t - I don’t want them to have it,” he finishes, and something about it sounds like an admission.
Tubbo picks his next words carefully and still manages to stumble over them. “I think - I mean, I don’t really -”
“Schlatt,” Quackity says over him, and then he’s holding him by the shoulders, “doesn’t deserve it either.”
That one throws him for a loop.
Quackity backs off, eyes wide as if he hadn't expected it himself. “Look. Kid. Tubbo. Everyone knows I’m a - a show piece ,” Quackity says. “You’re next in line. The administration, this place -” he throws his arms out at the empty square below them - “I’m never gonna have it.
“You, though,” he says, “you’ve got some fucking potential. He’s practically handing it to you, the dumb motherfucker - but he’s right. He’s right to do it.” He laughs, low and pitiful, hands falling heavy into his lap. “You’re the best out of all of us.”
Tubbo doesn’t say anything. Can’t. Quackity shuts himself up. The wind does not howl.
“Starts tomorrow,” Tubbo manages eventually.
“Tomorrow,” Quackity says. “C’mon - time for bed. Gotta be, gotta be rockin’ and rollin’ for the festival.”
“Sure,” Tubbo says, and allows himself to be led off of the stage by what might be the only honest man left in this prime-forsaken war.
--
First things first: he has no idea where he is.
Second things second: there’s a kid in front of him who he’s never seen.
Instinctively, his hand finds his waist - he’s swordless, of course, and comes up horrifically empty. The stranger raises an eyebrow at him. Tubbo raises his fists instead.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” the kid says. “Honestly, not even sure that I can.”
“Where am I?” Tubbo asks.
The kid tsks and takes a step toward him, eyes searching. "Yeah," he says, taking a slow few steps to the left, "I can see why he'd like you."
Tubbo's not sure he's ever been more lost. He lowers his hands from in front of him as the boy starts in a slow, slow circle. Like an inspection, or something. "Sorry?"
"Schlatt," he clarifies. "He's got a knack for - for vulnerable youths. "
It stings like an insult. He’s not vulnerable, for prime’s sake. "Who are you, again?"
"Ty," he says, coming to stand in front of him. “I’m Ty.” It doesn't tell Tubbo much. "Used to be an intern, now I drive trains. Pretty good pay. He pay you anything?"
It feels like four consecutive concussions. Too much information in too little time. "The role of secretary of state is a gift, not a right," Tubbo recites almost automatically. Ty rolls his eyes.
"He's conning you," he says. "Get your money's worth."
He’s floundering. Get a hold of yourself . "Have we met before?"
"Nah," Ty says, pulling one of Tubbo's arms away from his side to examine his cufflink. He sounds bored, frankly. He's solid in a way that makes him impossible to read; still in a way that implies secretiveness. Then again, probably not. Tubbo's most likely drawing the lines to read between.
"I'm not here to warn you," Ty says. It’s so out of the blue that Tubbo gets the bizarre urge to protest it. "He's. . . scary. But he's not evil."
"So why are you here? Why am I here?" More importantly, where is 'here'? He doesn't recognize this place, doesn't recognize the buildings.
"Tomorrow's the festival," Ty says, quiet. His boot scuffs the stone path beneath them. "You've got a lot on your plate."
Tubbo doesn’t respond; spends his time glancing around. “Where are we?”
“Uhh - old place,” he says. “You familiar with nether hubs?”
Of course he is. What kind of dumbass does the guy take him for? “Old place,” he parrots. “Sure. That definitely tells me everything.”
“Walk with me,” Ty says. Seems like they’re just going to be ignoring each other, then. As much as he’d like not to, Ty has an easygoing sort of nature that Tubbo much prefers to the dead black night and the prospects of getting lost in an unknown city.
The trip to the portal is surprisingly easy. It’s carved into the center of a tree, a towering, gnarled thing with roots bigger around than he is. The portal hangs open wide like a gaping mouth, unlit before Ty’s flint and steel lights the place up in an ominous purple. He scampers in after him, ignores the pull of nausea in his stomach with an earned resilience, and walks at Ty’s side.
The nether is scorchingly hot. The hub is a horrific cacophony of things; signs and posters and rooms and hallways, with a massive, decaying hole in the center. Ty ignores all of it, picking a tunnel that Tubbo can’t see the end of and starting down it with confident strides.
It’s quiet. Tubbo can hear the magma bubbling around them like an omen. “You said you drive trains now?” he asks, throat sticking.
Ty startles. “Uh, yeah,” he says. “Usually trains. Sometimes trucks, though, or planes, or - whatever. Doesn’t matter.”
“Okay,” Tubbo says, inviting a conversation. Ty does not say anything more. Tubbo decides not to prod.
They come to another portal, inevitably, after what feels like ages and ages of slipping on the packed ice beneath him. When he passes through it, he finds himself at the top of a massive hill.
“Home sweet home,” Ty says, dusting off the front of his hoodie.
“Home” might be a bit of a stretch. The place is a disaster; he can hardly see the grass off the edges of the path, coated in redstone dust and bits of junk. Ty picks up a discarded lantern from the mess and lights it.
There’s a house to the left. It’s maybe the nicest thing he can see, surprisingly well maintained compared to the destruction around him. Ty ignores it entirely, taking a few steps down the path and a heavy deep breath. Tubbo moves on, does a slow turn around, and finds -
“Schlatt & Co.,” Tubbo breathes. The sign is massive, sat up in the sky, and the words are faded, but he can read it. “What is this place?”
“I mean - I think it’s pretty self explanatory.”
He sounds sheepish. It makes Tubbo nervous more than anything, but looking around at this place and its haphazard organization only reminds him of the harsh fragility of Schlatt’s blooming nation. L’manburg no more, a fracture upon the very name itself, reflected in a set of unprotected borders that make him feel armorless.
Despite it, the White House is put together. There’s an atmosphere of care put into the administration. This, though, this place - Schlatt & Co. or whatever - feels as if it was forged on short notice, chests strewn about the area with no distinguished pattern.
In some twisted irony, it reminds him of Pogtopia.
When he looks up, Ty has wandered down the path. Tubbo watches as he brushes his fingers over the clasps of chests, forlorn, watches as he tugs the hatch of one open. He feels a bit like he’s intruding, but then Ty’s face is setting into something firm and he’s beckoning over his shoulder for Tubbo to follow him, continuing down the hill. Tubbo scampers after him. Walks at his side.
“So he put you up to this, then?”
Ty looks over at him, surprised, before he purses his lips. “Nah,” he says. “Haven’t seen the big guy in - I’unno - months, at least.”
That’s. . . surprising, to say the least. The guilt drops his heart to his stomach before he can do anything else. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He sighs. “It happens, I guess; moved on to bigger and better things. At least I’m not an intern anymore, right?”
The smile he gives looks fake, even to Tubbo. He’s definitely not comfortable enough to comment on it, though, so he instead elects to take it in stride, turning his face to the sky. “This is kind of nice,” he lies.
Ty scoffs. “It’s not bad, I guess. It’s a fucking mess, though - nobody to look after it.”
It’s something of an intimate setting, and an awfully sad thought; Tubbo can almost imagine a time when it prospered, unorganized as it may be. Now it just feels like a ghost town, all of the lanterns extinguished and a fog hanging over the lake like it’s from a horror movie.
“So is this it, then? This - this dream?”
“I mean - I guess?” Ty splays his hands. “Sorry, bro.”
“Huh,” Tubbo says. “I’m just - I’m pretty confused, if I’m being honest.”
And he is. All of this feels utterly incomprehensible, and something deep within him understands that he probably won’t remember it all in the morning. This shit means something, though - there’s a reason his subconscious built up this world, and there’s a reason he’s in it, and there’s a reason Ty looks helpless, and he’s going to forget it all.
“You wanna go somewhere?” Ty asks suddenly, frown settling into his face. Tubbo nods. Ty turns away, abandoning the chests to their battlefield, and Tubbo follows him back through the portal.
It’s a companionable sort of silence. The grumbles of its beasts provide an almost comforting ambiance, this time, muddled with the boil of lava through the walls. Ty leads them back down the tunnel, back into the central hub, and up a rickety set of side stairs. Tubbo stands in a baffled sort of silence, staring down whatever monstrosity is sat before him.
“Ty,” he says.
“Yeah?”
“What in prime’s name is that.”
“Whale facts,” Ty says simply. “Push the button, get a fact, make a profit.”
It’s ugly as hell, is what it is. The thing is weathered and worn, cobalt stripping off of it from the heat of the nether, big goofy mouth gaping like that of a tortured soul. The button on the far wall looks ironically rusted.
He looks at Ty. Ty looks back at him, grinning innocently, before gesturing towards the maw of the monster.
Okay. Whatever. He takes a step forward, pushes the button, and takes the little slip of paper from the dispenser.
Whales can breath honey
“I don’t get it,” he says. “This doesn’t - this doesn’t mean anything.”
“It’s a joke?” Ty says. “It’s supposed to be funny.”
“I - okay,” Tubbo manages. It doesn’t feel funny. It’s misspelled, he notes dully, and can’t place why exactly he feels like he’s falling apart. Whales can breath honey. He feels like he might as well be breathing in the stuff himself.
“Normally you’d have to pay,” Ty tries. “Thing’s broke, though, so it doesn’t really matter. Wilbur made it.”
Tubbo freezes.
“Wilbur made this?” he asks slowly, edges of the slip crinkling in his fingers. “Wilbur was - Wilbur lived here?”
“Sure,” Ty says. “Long, long time ago.”
“How long ago?” he asks, voice coming accusatory. “A few years? A decade?”
“I’m not that old,” Ty scoffs. “But, uh, yeah. Was a while ago, I guess.” He runs his hand over the head of the whale; it comes back coated in blue powder. “They were friends, y’know. Before.”
Tubbo doesn’t have to ask who. The fond smile on Ty’s face makes him feel just the slightest bit uneasy. He thinks of Wilbur, of the drawn lines of his shoulders as he hunkers in the pits of Pogtopia, of his - his whale facts. Thinks of Schlatt, of his oil-slick smiles and firm grasp upon the government of the nation, of the desperation of Schlatt & Co.
And he thinks that somewhere along the line, something somehow got switched.
“I want to go home now,” he says carefully, crumpling the slip in his hands and shoving them into his pocket.
“Done,” Ty says. “Thanks for letting me tour you around. Have a good time at the festival.” The scene fades into the void. Ty’s sorry smile lingers.
“You’re the best of all of us,” Quackity’s voice echoes as he gasps awake, and it feels like a promise of his own undoing.