Archive of Our Own ^beta

Wilbur

“Fuck the tyrannosaurus!” 

“Tubbo, why?” Wilbur asks, barely containing his laughter.

“Everybody always knows about the t-rex! As if it’s the only dinosaur in existence or something, but they weren’t even that cool,” Tubbo grumbles. 

“Ah, yes,” Wilbur nods sagely. He isn’t entirely certain as to how they got onto this topic, but he isn’t about to stop Tubbo from talking about something he clearly cares a lot about. 

“Exactly! Like, it wasn’t even so bad if you ran into one!” Okay, what? In an instant, Wilbur is worried. He doesn’t show it on his face - he doesn't want to alarm his chat - but the worry is still there. Tubbo sounds… high. Which means he’s probably sleep-deprived.

“Have you run into many dinosaurs in your life?” Wilbur asks. He still needs to keep the bit going if he doesn’t want his audience to freak out. 

“Obviously,” Tubbo says dismissively. “But the tyrannosaurus is stupid. If you want an actual, like, formidable dinosaur, try fighting a spinosaurus.” 

Wilbur’s eyes go wide. That’s not at all what he was expecting Tubbo to say.

“Fighting? Do you regularly fight dinosaurs?”

“Well, not anymore,” Tubbo explains like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Right,” Wilbur glances at his chat. Everybody seems to be finding this incredibly entertaining, but Wilbur is still kind of worried. Unless- “What video game are we talking about?”

“Huh? None.”

What the fuck. Wilbur really needs to convince this boy to sleep. Thankfully, he was already planning on ending stream sometime soon. He sighs internally, though, and keeps up the bit. “So, why are you fighting dinosaurs in the first place?”

“Because it’s fun!”

Later, Wilbur messages Tubbo to see if he’s doing alright. Seriously, how can someone be that sleep-deprived?

The only response he gets is a message that reads: shh! I’m gonna sleep for 48hrs!! :) 

Niki

Tubbo is a sweet kid, Niki thinks, but right now he’s being a menace. 

They’ve been playing on the Origins SMP for the past hour. Only Tommy, Wilbur, and Niki herself are streaming. Tubbo must have gotten bored because he’s been playing his keyboard for the past ten minutes. He started out playing properly, providing a beautiful musical soundtrack to their streams. 

Now… his playing has been steadily increasing in volume, speed, and manic energy. 

Niki doesn’t know what to do because, while it’s somewhat annoying, it’s also hilarious. Tommy and Wilbur have already left the vc (with some of the others) so as not to subject all three streams to jittery and sleepy Tubbo. Ranboo and Jack are still around, laughing their asses off as Tubbo’s playing devolves into randomly smacking at the piano keys. 

The ‘music’ cuts out so abruptly that Niki actually gets startled by the silence.

“Did you know,” Tubbo says, “that I taught myself how to use the hurdy-gurdy during the Renaissance?”

Ranboo and Jack’s laughter cuts off immediately. The smile that had been spread across Niki’s face turns into a bewildered, somewhat horrified expression. 

“What the fuck?” she hears Jack whisper. 

“The, uh, the hurdy-gurdy?” Niki prompts, because she has no idea what else she’s supposed to do. 

“Yep! I just thought it’d be fun,” Tubbo says cheerily. 

“Wait,” Jack says. “During the Renaissance?”

“Yeah? Anyway, I’m a little rusty, but I bet if I had a hurdy-gurdy in front of me right now, I wouldn’t be total shit at it.”

“Bruh,” Ranboo says.

“What?” Tubbo asks, genuinely confused. Niki isn’t sure what he could possibly be confused about, considering he’s the one being incredibly confusing.

“Tubbo,” Niki says tentatively, “you weren’t even alive during the Renaissance.”

Everyone goes very quiet, and then…

“Well, I mean, I know that,” Tubbo says, not sounding at all like he knows that. “I meant a, uh, Renaissance Faire.”

Niki doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t know what to believe, so she just looks into her camera, shrugs at chat, and continues her stream. 

“Oi! Tubbo!” Jack shouts sometime later. “You’ve been to a Renaissance Faire?”

Dream

“Can we not talk about this?”

Dream had forgotten about Tubbo being in the call. The kid’s been strangely quiet for the past few minutes.

“About what?” Sapnap asks.

“The virus,” Tubbo says. They’ve been talking about the coronavirus on George’s stream, urging people to please wear their freaking masks when they’re around other people. Please.

“Okay,” George says, happy to move on. They’ve all said their pieces and it’s probably time that they get back to the main purpose of the stream.

“Everything okay?” Dream questions, just in case. If it’s something personal, Tubbo knows he can always message him instead of saying it on stream.

“Yeah,” Tubbo says, sounding tired, almost mournful. “I understand telling people to wear a mask. In fact, wear your masks, chat. It’s just bringing up some memories, is all.”

“Some memories?” Sapnap sounds as confused as Dream is. 

“Hm. The Great Mortality is nothing to be trifled with.”

Dream wants to shout ‘what the fuck?’ but he doesn’t. It’s a weird as hell statement but Tubbo sounds so… sad. 

“The Great Mortality?” Sapnap probes.

“Yeah. The Great Pestilence. The Black Death. The Bubonic Plague.”

“You-” Dream can hear the hesitation in George’s voice, can see the apprehension on his face, “you’ve got memories of that?”

Tubbo hums. “It’s- a lot of people died. Good people. Entire towns were wiped out,” Tubbo sounds awfully far away. There’s an air of melancholy slowly taking over George’s stream. Even the chat looks like it’s slowed down.

Dream messages Tubbo over Discord, telling him that if he needs to talk about anything, Dream doesn’t mind leaving the stream. Tubbo is sort of talking absolute nonsense and Dream is becoming rather concerned for him. It’s probably because Tubbo is tired, but Dream just wants to make sure.

He knows the exact moment that Tubbo receives the message, because the kid’s entire tone totally switches.

“Anyway!” Tubbo says, suddenly cheery, “George, I thought you wanted me here to talk about mod packs. What did you want to know?”

Ranboo

“You know,” Tubbo says, “it was actually pretty fun.”

“Wha-” Ranboo lets out a short, incredulous laugh. “The Dark Ages?”

“Yeah,” Tubbo mumbles. Ranboo wishes his friend would go to sleep but he must admit, he loves it when Tubbo joins his late-night streams. “The literature might have been shit but if you looked in the right places, it was hella fun.”

“H-hella fun?” 

“Yep.”

“I- uh… Alrighty then.”

“I mean,” Tubbo begins. Oh, good, Ranboo thinks, Tubbo’s actually going to explain himself this time. “I had fun,” nevermind. “Although, that may just be because I could terrorize people. But not like you, Ranboo.”

“Like me- Tubbo I don’t terrorize people! Or, I don’t think I do,” Ranboo frowns, thinking about his lore streams. 

“No, I mean I terrorized people different from how I terrorize you,” Tubbo explains, even though it explains literally nothing. This is significantly weirder than Tubbo’s typical sleep-deprived ramblings. “Because, see, I terrorize you out of love. It’s funny and nobody gets hurt.”

“Tubbo.”

“Hm?”

“Are you saying that you-” Ranboo can’t decide on whether to laugh or be concerned, “-are you saying that you hurt people? In- in the Dark Ages?” 

“What?” Tubbo gasps, suddenly more alert. “No! Why would I say that?”

“Uh, well-”

“Anyway! Did you know that rabbits are physically incapable of vomiting?”

“Incapable of…” Ranboo mutters, his mic barely picking up his voice. He glances at chat and is glad to know that they’re just as confused as he is. 

Philza

Phil is streaming, working on his basement on the Dream smp. He knows that Tommy and Tubbo have just finished streaming together and he’s almost certain that within the next few minutes, they’ll both join his vc to bother him.

As if on cue, they do exactly that, Tommy coming in with a long and drawn-out “Phil!” 

“Hello,” Phil greets. 

“Hi Phil!” Tubbo responds. A second later, in-game Tubbo and Tommy arrive at Phil’s base. They start bouncing around and generally being a nuisance, but they aren’t fully getting in the way, so Phil just lets them be. He does have to assure his chat that this is not really part of lore, though. Unlike Ranboo, who’s often always at least somewhat in lore-mode, Phil likes to turn it on and off a little more obviously.

“I’m exhausted,” Tubbo says half an hour after joining Phil’s stream. 

“That’s probably because you streamed for twelve hours on your alt yesterday,” Phil says, trying not to sound too much like a father scolding his child.

“Jesus christ,” Tommy says, “how do you do that?” 

“I dunno,” Tubbo mumbles. “I jus’ do, I guess.”

“You just do?” Phil asks incredulously. “Mate.”

“What?”

“No, I agree with Phil,” Tommy says. “Twelve hours? That’s ridiculous.”

Phil hears Tubbo yawn. The kid’s Minecraft character hasn’t moved at all for the past few minutes, a clear indicator that Tubbo really is on the verge of falling asleep.

“I mean,” Tubbo yawns again, “twelve hours isn’t really that long, is it?”

“Twelve hours isn’t long?” Phil stares into his camera, letting his chat know with his eyes that he is very worried about Tubbo. “Oh, to be young again.”

Phil barely hears Tommy’s “So you admit that you’re old?!” because his focus is locked onto Tubbo’s voice as the boy utters the absolute weirdest thing that Phil has ever had the displeasure of hearing.

“It is not about age,” Tubbo says sagely, “ I have seen far more than you ever will, Philza. Eons are mere child’s play compared to the time I have been watching over these worlds.”

And then Tubbo’s in-game character shuffles away, in the direction of Snowchester. Phil’s character is the one left standing stock still. 

Phil’s mouth drops open. He knows his chat is going absolutely crazy, but he can’t pay it any mind when he can’t even decide on whether he should be confused or terrified. Maybe he should be both, actually.

Before Phil can even begin to ask about what the hell that was about, Tubbo says he’s going to bed and leaves the vc. 

“What the fuck?” Tommy whispers under his breath. Phil can only agree. What the fuck, indeed. 

+ Tubbo

The irony of the fact that his secret gets revealed when he’s not sleep-deprived is not lost on Tubbo. He’s had so many close calls, yet it’s after he’s had a perfectly normal amount of sleep that everybody finds out.

At least nobody is streaming?

It starts with a meetup and the Dream Team doing something astoundingly stupid. 

The meetup involves Tommy, Ranboo, Wilbur, Jack, Phil, Niki, and of course, Tubbo himself.

The ‘something astoundingly stupid’ involves Dream, Sapnap, George, a Discord voice chat, and a summoning ritual. 

Tubbo is on the beach in Brighton, messing around near the water with Tommy, Ranboo, and Wilbur. Further up the beach, Phil, Niki, and Jack are standing around and chatting about something or other. 

He feels the tug, deep within his chest, and immediately knows what it is. Something like this hasn’t happened in years. Thousands of years. Not since people worshipped gods like him. Even when people did worship gods like him, Tubbo was rarely summoned. It’s not like he’s the god of safety or harvest or luck. Tubbo is the god of mischief. 

It wasn’t often that he was summoned by good people, way back then. If someone has gone through the trouble of finding a way to summon him now? There’s no way he’s being summoned for a good reason. 

He feels the tug again, this time stronger, and realizes he needs to hide somewhere before he just disappears in front of his friends’ eyes. He quickly stumbles up the beach, not bothering to explain himself to Ranboo, Tommy, and Wilbur. The tugging is getting stronger, harder to fight off, and therefore more painful. 

He doesn’t make it past Phil, Niki, and Jack. 

All eyes are on him as he grimaces, grunts, and disappears. 

He reappears in somebody’s living room. It’s scarcely decorated, yet homey and warm. Not exactly what he was expecting, but then again, he’s still surprised that someone got their hands on a summoning ritual in the first place.

“What the fuck!?” a voice shrieks from behind him. Tubbo whirls around to face the person - no, people - who summoned him. 

“Sapnap?” 

“What the fuck?” his friend repeats. 

From a phone in Sapnap’s hand, someone - George, Tubbo realizes - shouts, “What’s going on? Sapnap? Stop messing with me, dude.”

The man beside Sapnap - who must be Dream - reaches for the phone, grabbing it out of Sapnap’s hand. “It fucking worked,” Dream says bluntly, eyes wide. “We summoned Tubbo.”

“Dream,” George complains. Dream just turns on the camera and hands the phone to Tubbo, who is still very, very confused. 

“Oh, what the fuck?” George says when he sees Tubbo. “How’d you get to America?”

“I- you… you summoned me,” Tubbo says. 

George rolls his eyes, “Very funny.”

And then Tubbo’s phone starts ringing. He hands Sapnap’s phone back to Dream, who has been trying to get Sapnap to breathe, dammit for the past thirty seconds, and pulls his phone out of his back pocket.

Tommy is calling.

Tubbo answers, putting it onto speakerphone.

“Tubbo, what the fuck?” Tommy says before Tubbo has the chance to say anything. “You just fucking- fucking disappeared! What the-”

There’s a rustling sound as the phone is wrestled from Tommy’s hands. “Tubbo,” Phil says. He sounds very obviously freaked out. “Are you alright? What happened.”

Tubbo… Tubbo doesn’t know what to do. 

But… Tubbo is a fucking god, so he rolls his shoulders, he stands up straighter, and he gathers as much confidence as he can. 

“I’d also like to know what happened,” he levels Dream, Sapnap, and George (or well, the phone that George is on) with an inquiring stare.

“It was just a joke!” Dream says defensively. 

“Is that-” Wilbur is on the phone now. Phil must have it on speakerphone as well, then. “Is that Dream?” 

Tubbo sighs. He can’t explain anything like this. The majority of the people he’s talking to are on the phone and in Brighton. And then there’s George on the phone as well, who probably still thinks that this is all an elaborate prank.

“Right, give me a moment,” Tubbo says, hanging up his phone before anybody can object. 

He hasn’t used his godly powers to this extent in a long time, so it takes him a second to latch onto everyone. Once he has them all, though, he just has to pull and-

“This day keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Ranboo says, faux-cheerily. Tubbo can’t help but laugh.

Tubbo has brought them all to a sort of pocket dimension. It’s one of many that he has access to. One of many that he’s created himself. This one is a big theatre with a rather grand and fancy stage at the front. 

“Have a seat, everyone," Tubbo gestures to the audience seats, then climbs up onto the stage.

They listen to him, likely because they’re all still bewildered and off-kilter from being transported to a pocket dimension. Once they’re all seated, Niki tentatively raises her hand to get everyone’s attention.

“This is actually happening, right?” she frowns.

“It is,” Tubbo says. Niki nods, her frown deepening. “Now, Dream. Can you elaborate on what you meant when you said it was a joke?”

“George found an old book with a bunch of English translations for summoning rituals,” Dream says. “We just thought it’d be funny if we tried one. We weren’t being serious about it, or anything. We didn’t think that it would…”

“That it would summon me?”

“You were summoned?” Tommy breaks into the conversation. “What does that even mean?”

Tubbo decides that it would be best to explain from the beginning. Like, the beginning beginning. He tells them about coming into existence and just knowing everything. Knowing how to move and speak like a fully grown adult. Knowing everything about the world and the solar system and the universe . Knowing everything about everything but himself, that is.

He tells them about slowly figuring himself out, forming a personality and identity. He explains to them that he’s immortal. That he’s not actually seventeen, but that he’s still the same person that they know and love. That he still loves Minecraft and streaming and being their friend.

“So,” Jack says when Tubbo finishes his story, “you’re the god of mischief?”

“I am.”

“And we aren’t dreaming?” George asks. 

“Do you think you’re dreaming?”

“We’re awake,” Niki says, certainty in her tone. 

Wilbur gasps. “The dinosaurs! You actually fought dinosaurs!” Tubbo flushes, nodding. He’d forgotten about letting that slip on Wilbur’s stream. 

“Oh,” Niki’s mouth falls open. “The hurdy-gurdy.”

“Oh my god! You really did learn that during the Renaissance!” Jack’s eyes go wide. “Wait, can I say ‘oh my god’ around you or is that offensive?”

Tubbo giggles. He’s glad that the mood is lightening a bit. He isn’t sure how much longer he would’ve been able to go with all of the tension in the room. “It’s fine, Jack. Not offensive at all.”

“You, um...” Sapnap looks unsure.

“Yes,” Tubbo says, “I did lose people close to me during the Great Mortality. Or, everyone calls it the Black Death now, sorry. I’m usually pretty good at keeping up with the present-day vernacular but that term is still a newer one.”

“Newer? Mate…” Phil sighs. 

“What? The seventeenth century is newer than the 1300s!”

“Okay,” Ranboo interrupts, “I know I should be asking about the ‘terrorizing people during the Dark Ages’ thing that you talked about on my stream, but I’m sort of stuck on the whole ‘fighting dinosaurs’ thing that Wilbur mentioned.”

“Yeah!” Tommy yells. “What the hell is that about?”