Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tommy and Tubbo were standing together on the edge of the crater. The crater where L’manburg once stood.

There was nothing left. Dust and smoke filled the air, remains of the many explosions that had happened just a few hours prior. The sun had begun to sink already, filling the area with shadows and a dark cloudy sky spotted with faint stars.

Water flowed down into the crater. And looking down into the pit, they could see bedrock, broken stones, and the wooden planks that were the remnants of the houses and pathways of L’manburg.

It was all gone. The entire town. The place they had rebuilt and the place they had fought for for so long.

What would they do now? Where would they go? Obviously they couldn’t stay here. And would it even be safe to stay nearby?

The two boys looked out over the L’manhole (as it had been so dubbed), just trying to process everything that had happened the past few days. They both had gone through a lot. But right now, all Tommy and Tubbo could do was hold each other and mourn this loss.

As they watched, Tubbo noticed a figure approaching from the other side of the crater. They clearly didn’t notice Tommy and Tubbo as the tall figure sat down at the edge, holding their head in their hands. They seemed to be shaking. Looking closer, Tubbo recognized the figure as Ranboo.

“Hey, that’s Ranboo over there I think. Let’s go talk to him,” Tubbo whispered to Tommy, who nodded. Even after being outed as a traitor to L’manburg, Tubbo still trusted Ranboo. They were friends, just like he and Tommy were. Tommy had also been around Techno and he’s still here with them. He fought for L’manburg. And Ranboo had lived there with Tubbo, in L’manburg, so he also probably didn’t have anywhere to go either.

Slowly making their ways through the rubble to get around the crater, the boys approached the enderman hybrid.

“Ranboo!” Tommy called out.

Hearing his name, Ranboo flinched. He quickly stood up, wiping tears from his eyes and looked over at Tommy and Tubbo, who were basically in front of him now. He seemed to almost curl in on himself. “Sorry, sorry, I’ll go. I shouldn’t be here.”

As the tall boy made to walk away, Tubbo grabbed his arm. Ranboo turned around, eyes wide and scared. “Really, really, I’m going. I shouldn’t have been here. I know I betrayed you. I’ll find somewhere else. Please. Please let me go,” he said quickly. Tubbo could feel Ranboo shaking.

“Ranboo, it’s okay. I trust you, we’re good.”

Tubbo let go of Ranboo, who looked at him. Ranboo’s suit matched Tommy and Tubbo’s clothes, tattered and torn, destroyed from the fighting earlier.

Tommy’s red and white shirt was ripped and he had a large bloody gash on his left arm, as well as a variety of smaller cuts and bruises scattered on his body.

Tubbo’s shirt had a massive hole in the center, exposing his burnt and bruised skin, both scarred from the first festival, and now damaged from when he had stepped in front of Tommy to block the firework rockets. Surprisingly it didn’t hurt as much as the first time, and he wasn’t dead, but the brown haired boy wasn’t sure if that was from shock or not.

Ranboo’s suit had been burnt by the blasts from the withers he had fought, and a sleeve was missing that he’d ripped off to stop the bleeding from a cut on his leg he’d gotten when he’d fallen on some wooden debris.

“Do you have a spot to go tonight? It’s getting dark so we should all probably get somewhere safe,” Tubbo asked Ranboo. He shook his head, black and white hair shoved into his face by a breeze.

“What about my old place? The one over there,” Tommy pointed up the destroyed Prime Path.

Nodding, Ranboo quietly replied, “That’s probably a good idea. But what if they come find you? Dream and Techno or anyone?”

“We should be safe for the night, we can find somewhere else tomorrow.”

Tommy and Tubbo started walking up the stairs, jumping over the holes that littered the path.

“Come on Ranboo, let’s go,” Tommy shouted down, after he noticed the enderman boy just standing there, seemingly lost in thought. At the sound of his name, the boy looked up surprised and, after a second, shouted, “Coming!”

The trio of teens continued down the path to Tommy’s original house in the hill. Holding a torch he had grabbed off the wall of the cave the path went through, Tommy led his way into the open house.

Dust filled the house, evidence of the lack of use during Tommy’s exile. However, it was clear someone had gone through the chests at some point, as items were haphazardly thrown out of chests on the floor and the chests were a mess.

Tommy led the way to the back room, placing the torch on the floor. There was nothing in there but the barren stone walls and a singular sign marking the entrance to the sewers titled ‘Tommy’s Poo Machine’.

“I guess we should stay back here. People wouldn’t see us if they just walked by.”

Tubbo immediately sat down on the floor, his breathing hard. The shock and adrenaline had begun to wear out, the pain from the burns on his chest growing.

“I’ll go check the chests and see if there’s any clothes or healing supplies anywhere,” Tommy announced, grabbing his throbbing arm, “We need to clean ourselves up, don’t want to get sick.”

“I can help you,” Ranboo replied, following Tommy, who had grabbed a burnt out torch from the wall, lighting it on the one placed on the floor, back out into the dark main room.

Ranboo picked up two bags from the floor in the corner of the room, passing one to Tommy. The two scoured the chests, grabbing whatever they could find useful and shoving it into the bags.

Food, cloth, tools, wood, stone. There was a half-empty regeneration potion sitting at the bottom of one of the chests. A few shirts Tommy had left were in one of the other chests. There were some seeds as well, but no food that wasn’t spoiled past the point of being edible, so it didn’t seem like there’d be any food until they went out in the morning.

Ranboo grabbed the regen potion and brought it to the back room to give to Tubbo to pour on his burns, and save the rest for Tommy’s cut.

“Here Tubbo, take some of this, it should help,” Ranboo leaned down to the boy on the floor, who sat up a bit, taking the potion.

He grimaced as he poured some of the potion across his red chest. “Thanks.”

As Tubbo finished covering his burns and a few other larger cuts, Tommy walked back into the room with a large blanket. “Found this in the storage room downstairs, should be enough for us right now.”

Ranboo had sat down on the other wall, but got up and sat next to Tubbo, on the opposite side of Tommy.

Tommy had poured the slightly sticky regeneration potion on his arm, and then draped the blanket over himself and Tubbo, giving the other end to Ranboo. It was just big enough for the three of them to be covered.

Maybe they wouldn’t freeze tonight, Tubbo thought. The trio fell asleep next to each other against the wall.

Chapter Text

Ranboo was the first to wake. The light from the torch had faded, but the light from outside was seeping through from the doorway. The three had all fallen asleep against each other. Tommy was leaning on Tubbo, who was leaning against Ranboo, whose head rested on top of Tubbo’s.

The enderman-boy stayed as still as possible so as not to wake Tubbo, while checking the scrapes and cuts on his leg. He’d wrapped it yesterday when he noticed it. The reused sleeve was soaked in dried blood, but as he removed the wrapping it didn’t begin to bleed again. Good.

He sat there waiting for the other two to wake up. What was the plan? Was he supposed to stay with them? Or was this just a quick temporary thing so they could all be safe for the night?

He knew he didn’t deserve to stay with Tommy and Tubbo, wherever they went. He should face the consequences of being a traitor. Maybe he could’ve done something to prevent all that destruction.

Reasonably, he knew that it wasn’t his fault, he shouldn’t be blaming himself for the actions of Dream, Techno, and Phil, but the irrational side of him wanted to.

He continued to spiral in thought for a bit, until he heard Tommy begin to wake up.

Tommy yawned, shifting into a more seated position, and Ranboo saw his eyes open tiredly.

“Hey,” Ranboo greeted.

“Hey.” Tommy stood up to stretch. Ranboo watched the boy grimace as he touched his arm, which looked better than it had yesterday, but not completely healed.

Feeling the weight of Tommy shift, Tubbo also woke, yawning.

“We’ve got to be careful making our way out of here, just in case anyone is around and sees us. I think we should head out back towards Pogtopia, since the land back there is relatively untouched.”

“Where are we going to go though?” Tubbo asked as he grabbed one of the shirts that had been pulled from the chests last night to replace his torn one.

“I don’t know, we could probably find somewhere to set up a nice place for the three of us to stay far enough away that the others won’t find us. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure basically everyone hates me and you Tubbo.”

Ranboo was standing in the corner quietly, before he asked, “Wait, you want me to go with you guys?”

“Yeah man, of course! Us kids have gotta stay together and it’s not like you have anywhere else to go,” Tommy laughed dryly. “Let’s pack some more stuff from the chests and then we need to find food because I’m starving.”

The trio scuffled about, changing into un-ripped clothes and making their way into the main room to shove anything of value into the two bags they had. They wrapped the blanket up, which Tubbo would carry, since the backpack would hurt his burns. Tommy’s bag had wood, stone, and tools that were found around the house. Ranboo’s smaller bag carried the spare clothing, armor, and a bag of seeds they had found.

Tommy, the leader of the trio of teens, peeked out the door as they finished. It was quiet and there didn’t seem to be anyone around. He speedily grabbed the carrots that were planted near the door. Those would have to do for now unless they could get over to Purpled’s abandoned potato farm that everyone used. Hopefully that hadn’t been destroyed.

He glanced down the Prime Path in both directions, towards Eret’s castle and then and Skeppy’s mansion, but didn’t see anyone. He sighed gratefully.

Ranboo finished shoving down the clothing and other things he’d found in chests into the bag as Tommy walked back into the room.

“We should be good to go, looks clear.”

“Alright.”

Tommy, followed by Tubbo, with Ranboo in the rear, made his way down the path to where L’manburg had once been.

The damage looked even more extensive in the daylight. Basically everything that had once been part of L’manburg, from where Jack Manifold’s house was to Party Island, was gone, just a pit. The Prime Path remained vaguely intact, filled with holes but one could still tell where it was.

As the three walked down the stairs, Ranboo noticed a person. Walking from the direction of Party Island, was a person in a purple and blue colorful hoodie. Karl. He hadn’t seen him at the battle yesterday, maybe he had just gotten back from somewhere?

Hadn’t Karl also lived in L’manburg, or at least had a house, along with Quackity?

“Tommy, look.” Ranboo pointed over to Karl’s figure, which was on the remaining patches of Party Island. The Pokimane statue was untouched, but the rest of the island was almost gone.

“Let’s try to get around him. We’ve got to go in his direction, I don’t see a way across from over here and we need potatoes from the farm too.”

So the trio continued down the path, vigilant and watching for any sign of another person heading their way. Karl spotted them when they neared the island.

“Tubbo! Guys! How are you after everything that happened yesterday? I wasn’t there but wow. I didn’t remember it being that big…” Karl laughed awkwardly. “L’manburg I mean, not the crater...”

Karl noticed the bags Ranboo and Tommy had. “Are you guys going somewhere?”

Ranboo looked at Tommy, who glanced back at the other two. “Yeah, we were just going around L’manburg to see if there was anything for us to grab, and then we were gonna head back and rebuild my old house,” Tommy lied.

“Oh okay, well I wanted to see what all the damage was and then I’m gonna go find Big Q. I’ll see you guys later then!” Karl waved at them before turning back to walking around the crater.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Tommy led the way around the rubble. Thankfully, Purpled’s farm seemed in-tact. They walked through the pumpkins and potatoes over to where the old house was. The chest, as usual, was full of baked potatoes which they grabbed quickly.

Now that they had food, they were good to go. To leave.

A part of Tommy was sad to be leaving it all behind. But he knew it was for the better. The three of them were just kids. Kids who had been hurt worse than any child ever should be. Even Ranboo, who had just arrived in the world recently, had gone through a lot.

They reached the top of a hill, where they could see out over the crater, and see the buildings in the distance. The only real world they’d known for so long.

But it wasn’t a home anymore. Not for them.

Tommy turned his back to the Dream SMP and looked out into the wilderness. He began to walk down through the spruce forest, which eventually became a forest of oak and birch.

The three chatted idly about what kinds of things they wanted to do wherever they went.

As they neared where Pogtopia had been, Tommy and Tubbo were reminiscing over the fun times they had when they had been living there a few months ago. Obviously, there had been the bad, but they were trying to leave that all behind.

“Oooh, wait Ranboo, you’ve never seen Pogtopia! Tommy, let’s go show him!”

So the teens entered through the small dirt room. Tommy pulled out three torches, lighting them and passing one to Tubbo and one to Ranboo. They made their way down the spiral staircase and to the bottom of the ravine. Buttons still lined the walls from the prank Fundy had pulled so long ago. The potato farm was empty, having not been replanted after they left. Cobwebs were in the corners of all the little rooms they had made.

Memories came flooding back to the two boys as they recounted to Ranboo tales from Pogtopia.

There was the time Techno had made them all dinner with the potatoes from the farm he had just made. Wilbur, Tommy, Tubbo, and Techno had all sat at this makeshift table, eating, and once he had finished, and Wilbur had grabbed his guitar, playing songs softly. The notes reverberated through the ravine and marked the start of the new times.

And the time that Tommy and Tubbo had played hide and seek, chasing each other through the caves and finding new secret areas. Techno had been sharpening his weapons and enchanting armor in the equipment room he’d made and Wilbur had sat on the ground outside the room, having a quiet conversation with the pink-haired pig-man. The laughs of the teens echoed through the ravine, which had made Wilbur smile fondly.

While trying to find a spot to hide, Tubbo had stumbled across a small crevice in the wall, which was just big enough for him to climb through and led to a tiny square of space, hidden from everyone else. It ended up becoming the spot where the two teens would go to get away, after Wilbur had started to change. That hide and seek game had been one of the last times they’d had peace in the ravine.

After a while, Tommy and Tubbo, having shown and shared many stories with Ranboo, decided to eat, since they hadn’t since the morning. Tommy grabbed out a few more torches from his bag, setting them up in a few spots around the ravine to light up the space, and sat down next to the other two on the stairs in the ravine.

Ranboo checked his communicator for the time. “Should we just stay here tonight? It’s already 5pm so it’s gonna be dark soon.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. I’d rather not try to fight off zombies with my arm like this.”

And so, after they finished eating, the teens headed to the room that Tommy and Tubbo had made in the side of the ravine. It was small and cold, with stone walls. There were two beds in the room, pulled together, and a chest in the corner with some random items in it.

Setting down his bag next to the bed, Tommy flopped down onto the bed, sighing deeply.

“A bed, finally.”

Ranboo sat down on the floor next to the beds. Tubbo had put the blanket down, so while Tommy and Tubbo got under the covers of their old beds, Ranboo grabbed that to wrap himself up.

“Ranboo what are you doing?” Tubbo asked.

“There’s only two beds so I’ll sleep down here, it’s fine.”

“No dude, come up here. We can all fit, it’s way too cold down here for that,” Tubbo responded.

So Ranboo stood up and sat down on the bed next to Tubbo, who scooted closer to Tommy. He covered himself in the warm blanket. His feet hung off the bed a bit but it was substantially warmer being next to the other two.

The three boys fell asleep quickly, wrapped in their blankets together after their first day leaving the place they had been for so long.

Chapter Text

Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo had traveled for days.

They had decided to continue away from the SMP lands, past the pink and cobblestone tower, through the fields and into the forest, unexplored as far as they knew. They passed through a large dark oak forest, traversed around some large snowy mountains, followed a river through a desert, and walked through a large open field. They slept wrapped in the blankets they had brought with them in small homes in villages they passed, or against the stone walls of caves they found on their way.

After about what Ranboo thought was a week of exploring, the trio found a lake. Around it was a flower filled forest. Tall oak and birch trees, leaves swaying in the slight breeze. A bee hive nearby with a few bees pollinating a batch of yellow and red flowers. Ranboo could see fish swimming in the lake.

As they walked around the lake they got to a spot where the trees cleared out and there was a small beach.

“We should stop here and eat,” Tubbo suggested, sitting down under a tree away from the shore.

His burns had scarred over the past few days and thankfully didn’t hurt as much. He pulled out some bread they had made while they were at a village the prior night. Tommy and Ranboo followed suit, sitting down around the tree with him as he handed them each a piece of the bread.

After he finished his bread, Tubbo reached over to the flowers next to him, dandelions and oxeye daisies, and plucked them out of the ground. He began to wrap the stems together loosely so as not to break them. Surprisingly, the flowers didn’t fall apart and formed a small crown.

“Remember when we would make these back in L’manburg?” Tubbo mused, setting the crown on the grass next to him before reaching for more flowers.

Tommy smiled back, “Yeah.”

“We’d sit outside the walls before the first war and make each other flower crowns and have picnics when it was nice out,” Tubbo said, directing his gaze to Ranboo, who was listening intently.

“I’ve never made a flower crown before, how do you make one?” Ranboo asked as he pulled some of the flowers near him up, trying to copy what Tubbo was doing.

“Here, let me show you.” Tommy stood up and grabbed some flowers from nearby, before sitting back down next to the taller boy.

They continued until they each had a crown of yellow and white flowers. The boys started talking about flowers, devolving into an argument over what the best flower is, with the consensus ending in alliums, the huge light purple flowers they used to see. It was the same type of flower as the one that Ranboo had given Tommy during one of their first times meeting.

“It’s pretty here,” Tommy commented after a while, looking around the lake.

“It is,” Tubbo responded. Ranboo nodded his agreement.

“We’re far enough away I doubt anyone would be able to find us,” the blonde noted. “I think this would be a good place to stay.”

The three looked at each other. “Let’s do it,” Ranboo concluded.

And they got to work.

They started with a small shack, big enough for the three of them to set up beds and chests for their things.

The trio then decided to explore the area around them. They could see the lake and nearby area, but there were so many hills around and Tommy wanted to go see what he could see from the tallest one.

When they reached the top of the nearest hill, all Tommy could see was the flower-filled forest for miles. A large river seemed to weave its way through the forest. There was another lake with a waterfall falling from a cliff in the distance. Way further on the horizon, he could spot what looked to be a savannah. Behind him, in the direction they had come from, was the vast plains.

Ranboo, Tommy, and Tubbo spent the next few hours sitting in the grass and watching the sun fall as they discussed their plans for a house, what they needed, that kind of thing. In the morning Ranboo would take his axe and chop down some trees for wood from a flat section of land they had spotted. Tubbo would do most of the building, as he was by far the best at building, so Tommy would cut down the trees by the clearing where the house would be.

The house took weeks to finish, as they wanted it to be perfect. They had even made a trip back to the village they had passed when they were traveling to buy more supplies and decorations from the market.

In the end, the house was two stories tall and made mostly of oak. There were three bedrooms upstairs, one for each of them, along with a bathroom and an extra room they weren’t sure what to put in. Downstairs was a decent sized kitchen with 3 large furnaces, a chest room with a basement area big enough for each type of item to have its own space, and a living room with a large couch Tommy, Tubbo, and Ranboo could all lay across.

“Where’s Ranboo? Thought he’d be back by now,” Tommy asked. He’d just come back inside from the farm, where he had been picking potatoes most of the day.

Tubbo, from the kitchen where he was making a dinner of cooked mutton and potatoes, responded, “He’s on his way back now. He said he found a bunch of diamonds and coal for us.”

“Alright, nice.” Tommy walked over to the side of the kitchen by the sink and set his full bucket of potatoes down. He’d wash them in the morning.

Tommy gave his dog, Clementine, a few pats as she climbed out of her bed to him, before he went up to his room to change out of his dirty clothes, leaving Tubbo downstairs to finish what he was doing.

When the blonde came back downstairs, Ranboo had returned and was laying down on the couch, recalling to Tubbo some of the things he’d encountered while mining today. Apparently, he had found a mineshaft which had connected to both a zombie and a skeleton spawner, which had led to some dangerous spots.

When dinner was done, the three boys sat down at the table to eat. Ranboo continued telling stories from today. He had been in a massive cave and found a surprising amount of diamonds today, which meant they finally had enough diamonds for all of them to have full diamond armor. Tommy updated the other two on the status of the farms. He’d found a second cow and brought it back so they could now breed more cows, and the potatoes had finished growing so he’d picked them.

Just as Tubbo was about to tell them what he’d been doing all day, there was a knock at the door.

They all froze. Clementine ran to the door and started barking loudly at it.

Nobody should be around. Nobody should’ve been able to find them, that’s why they had left. To get away from everyone.

The person at the door knocked again.

Slowly, Tubbo stood up and grabbed weapons for each of them, handing Ranboo his axe and Tommy a sword, while keeping his own axe for himself. Tommy grabbed Clem’s collar and pulled her back, sword held tightly in his other hand. Tubbo opened the door slightly, peaking out to see who it was.

“Hi Tubbo.”

“What are you doing here? How did you find us?”