Work Text:
They all call it grief.
The first five stages, they say, with their sympathetic looks and gentle hugs – squeezing him tight in embraces that are supposed to be warm, that are supposed to be comforting and kind, but only seem to make him hate everything even more.
Tubbo can't stand it.
He can't stand the pitying gazes on his body, the concerned glances that he knows he's given, even when he turns his head, and it's as if everyone has suddenly decided to look at something else the very moment that he spins.
It enrages him, to put it lightly.
And as a result, there's venom on the tip of his tongue, and his words are made of blazing fire.
"Stop it! I can fucking see you! I'm not crazy! I'm not fucking crazy!"
Tubbo tries to tell them – he tries to let them know that he's aware, that they're not as hidden or as secretive as they like to make themselves out to be.
But they don't listen, no matter how much he screams and pleads.
It's obvious, nay, too obvious, one might say, that they're worried that he's losing his mind; that he's losing the plot; that after what had happened, after the 'Shocking News' he'd received that fateful afternoon, Tubbo had simply spiraled in result.
But Tubbo wouldn't. He hadn’t.
He'd already made that abundantly clear, right?
Right?
He doesn't care about the incident, the accident, the tragedy – whatever they want to call it. He doesn't care, and it's like nobody wants to listen to him when he tries to tell them that.
He tries a lot about that too, amongst his angered shouting and fits of fury and rage. Tubbo attempts to carefully grip onto Ranboo's sleeve, his gaze pleading, and his cracked lips parted to let free the words that he really wants to express outwardly.
"You have to listen to me, Ranboo. I don't- I don't care, okay? I could care less about what happened! I'm not in denial; I just don't give a fuck!"
"Why aren't you listening to me!?"
Ranboo, like the others, only gives him that fucking sympathetic look.
The one that has Tubbo's blood boiling, has his emotions rising and his eyes watering – not from sadness, not from the grief or the sorrow that should be filling him, but from pure and unadulterated wrath.
If Ranboo won't take him seriously-
If his own husband won't listen to Tubbo, hear what he has to say, then who will?
Who will?
Logically, nobody.
Tubbo has nobody to listen to him. Nobody to hold his hand tight without fear of him breaking; to pat him on the back like he isn't made of fragile glass; to treat him like he isn't spiraling through the damn, five stages of pure grief.
He just wanted to be treated normally.
He wanted to be seen as Tubbo again, seen as the ex-president with bubbling smiles and a fiery personality – seen as somebody strong and resilient, somebody who had survived wars at the young age of seventeen and forged better countries than more experienced adults ever had.
Tubbo didn't like to be seen as anything but that.
Especially not just an extension of his dead best friend.
'Best friend,' ha, if you could even call Tommy that at this point. In reality, he was anything but – and he was long gone anyway, so what did it matter what he was referred to as?
Tubbo could call him a bastard if he wanted to, a horrible, evil, villainous prick who didn't care about anyone but himself. A selfish, vile teenager who thought only about his own gain, his own discs, his own resources, and about nothing else.
Not even Tubbo.
Never Tubbo.
Tubbo had always just been a pretty accessory to Tommy. A side piece. Arm candy. He'd been the loyal, trustworthy sidekick – that character on the show that's always a little ditzy, a little up in the clouds and far away from reality.
He'd been seen as unimportant, as weak, as nothing but 'Tommy 2.0', or 'Tommy's friend.'
Tubbo hadn't really been allowed his own identity next to Tommy. He'd never really been allowed to be 'Tubbo,' and he resented the younger blonde for it. Absolutely fucking hated Tommy, underneath all of that false love that Tubbo had put forwards.
Or at least, that's what he'd told himself.
Because it had been Tommy's fault, hadn't it? It had been his fault that Tubbo was seen that way, right?
It had been Tommy, and not the countless amounts of adults that constantly put pressure on the both of them to do better, to strive for more - to fight in wars that were far more complicated than their young minds could ever imagine and to throw their lives away for the sake of items that had never truly meant a single thing to them.
It had been Tommy and not the people who seemed to conveniently forget that Tubbo was only seventeen, that he was only a teenager, that he wasn't somebody fit to be president nor a warrior.
It had all been Tommy's fault.
Tubbo hadn't allowed himself to see it any other way.
So, he'd been glad when the 'devastating' news had hit, when Sam had tumbled from the prison, covered in blood that, unsurprisingly, wasn't his own, and clutching a lifeless, cold body between his armoured embrace.
Who could blame him, though?
Who could blame Tubbo for letting out a sharp, disbelieving laugh at the sight, hope, and happiness seeming to bubble within his aching chest as he regarded the 'harrowing' scene before him?
Tubbo's eyes had watered, not with sadness, not with tears of regret or anguish, no – they'd shined with glee.
He was glad. He was glad that Tommy was finally gone, that his last, crumbling life had finally been snatched from him – pulled from his soul and thrown away into the mystifying void. Tommy would be no more, and Tubbo would no longer have to live within his blazing shadow.
It was good, wasn't it?
It was a good thing.
Tubbo wasn't sad. He wasn't sad. He wasn't sad.
Tubbo was happy.
He didn't care about Tommy; he didn't care about him – not about the way his eyes hadn't shone with their familiar, brilliant blue; not about the way his soft, delicate hands hadn't automatically reached out for Tubbo's; not about the way his lips hadn't parted into a mischievous smile as he explained their next, exciting prank.
Tommy was gone, and Tubbo was free.
It was fine.
"I hate you, you know?"
Tommy's lips quirked upwards, eyes shifting with a flicker of amusement, and a careful hand landed gently on Tubbo's shoulder. He gave a little squeeze, just a gentle one for Tubbo's sake (though that was honestly all he could properly muster anyway.)
"I know, Tubso. You've told me."
The brunette bristled, expression hard as he stared forwards towards the shifting hills and swaying trees.
There was a lulling – though slightly scratchy - hum of Mellohi playing from the nearby jukebox. It was both familiar and taunting. Tubbo sort of wanted to smash his fist into it, just to make it stop.
He didn't. He had impulse control, after all.
"I'm glad that you're dead."
Tommy chuckled that time, a low, glitching sort of thing that sounded like nails running across a chalkboard. It was nothing like his usual, bubbling, high-pitched laughter, nothing like that at all.
Tubbo hated it.
"I loved you, Tubbo."
A hitch of breath.
There were tears bubbling in Tubbo's eyes. Not tears of glee. Tears of anguish. Tears of pain and sorrow and downright pain. Tubbo wanted his best friend back. Tubbo wanted his Tommy back. Not some hallucination - not some ghost.
Tubbo wanted to run around drug vans and countries with Tommy, to pull at their slightly oversized uniforms and make fun of Wilbur's ridiculously large hat.
Tubbo wanted...
He wanted something else.
"...I hate you."