Work Text:
the apartment was quiet.
it was late evening, so it wasn't too surprising. no one was asleep, it was too early for that, but almost everyone had returned to their rooms for the night, other than phil, who was cleaning the kitchen.
and tubbo, sitting out on the fire escape.
the sky was dim, with the moon peeking out behind grayish clouds and the faint outline of constellations decorating the atmosphere. more stars than usual, he noticed, pleasantly surprised. the city almost never allowed stars to be seen, what with the constant clouds and horrid light pollution that poisoned the skies.
tubbo didn't know much about stars; that was phil and technoblade's thing. phil could pick out star patterns and constellations like a god, and techno had a library of myths stored in his head, weaving the stories of deities and heroes with the stardust.
he preferred bugs, honestly. bugs were pretty cool. they didn't live long, and were considered pests by most people, but ecosystems would crumble without them. they were so necessary to survival, feeding small mammals and birds that would then get eaten by bigger mammals, and so forth until the food chain repeated over and over, and life flourished.
a single bug was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, though. if a fly died, who would care? it was just a fly, there were millions of flies in the world. why would it matter if a fly died, when it only had 28 days to live? it’s corpse could even be used for food, so why would anyone care if it perished? objectively, it was more helpful dead than alive.
tubbo felt like a bug sometimes.
would it matter, if he died? would people actually care? he didn’t really contribute anything to the world, he just existed and took resources from the earth. would he be better dead, rather than alive, like a fly?
obviously, his people would care. tommy would probably be broken for a while. they were best friends, after all, of course he would be sad. the others would probably mourn too, phil and techno and wilbur. they were almost like his family.
but they could move on. they could mourn, accept, and forget. and the rest of the world wouldn’t care outside of insincere “sorry for your loss”s, and then they’d move on, and he wouldn’t matter anymore.
would that be better than him being alive?
he caught a whiff of smog in the air. that wasn't uncommon, down here. smoke was the main smell that dominated these roads.
tubbo wished, sometimes, that he didn’t live in london. he wished that he still lived down by the sea, down near brighton, walking the rickety pears in the evening and running around on the boats and ships by the docks. his favorite thing used to be searching the beach and sand for cool shells and creatures, collecting sand dollars and terrorising small crabs.
there weren’t many bugs outside of the mosquitoes and horseflies that tormented people on the beach, but the sea made up for it. the water was cold and salty, and the little creatures were plentiful and lovely, and it was so, so much better than the stiff, polluted air and cramped area of london.
but then again, he wasn’t sure he wanted to see the sea anymore. not after last time. tubbo didn’t think he could ever step foot on a boat again.
and he couldn't leave behind the others. they were too important.
the window creaked behind tubbo, and he whipped his head around to look with wide eyes. wilbur grinned sheepishly, waving a little as he climbed through the window and sat down next to tubbo. he was holding his guitar, and he laid it across his lap, tweaking at the strings. tubbo untensed and looked back out onto the city, shifting to accommodate the older teen.
“ayup,” wilbur greeted, brushing up against tubbo’s side. tubbo leaned into him in response, and gently bumped his head against wil’s shoulder. wilbur returned to gesture, and adjusted his grip on his guitar.
“hullo, wilbur,” tubbo greeted. “y’alright?”
“i’m okay,” wilbur nodded, strumming his guitar. it made a nice sound. “you?”
tubbo hummed.
wilbur plucked at the strings of his beloved instrument, starting up a slow, sad sounding melody. it was a little clunky, with missing cords and stuttered notes in a few places, but it sounded distinctly wilbur, so it was nice anyways.
“you wanna talk about it?” wil asked, still strumming. his fingers pressed a particularly nice sounding note, and tubbo tilted his head to listen to it.
"no."
"alright." wilbur thumbed over a cord.
they sat like that for a little, wilbur playing and humming and tubbo listening, watching cars on the road below. it was nice; it quieted tubbo's thoughts.
"this city sucks," wilbur said suddenly, striking a cord. tubbo glanced over at him, but wil was still looking down at his instrument.
"why'd you reckon that?" he asked. tubbo's ear twitched as wil's guitar made a horrid little noise, settling when the failed strum faded off into a nice hum.
"what do you mean, why'd i reckon that? this place," wilbur gestured vaguely around, at the streets and pavement and buildings, "is horrible. the air is stuffy and smoggy, the people are dicks, the weather is gross, the tube is hell on earth--"
"the tube is shit," tubbo agreed, "and the air is hard to breathe. air shouldn't be like that, we need it to survive."
"pollution, my friend," wilbur said. his sad little melody faded off into a slightly faster, more angry strumming. not totally pissed, but vaguely annoyed, like how tubbo felt around tommy a lot of the time.
"why would people pollute the air if we need it to live? isn't that counterintuitive?" he asked, bumping his shoulder against wilbur's and leaning against him. wilbur knocked their heads together, gently, and strummed.
"people are selfish, tubbo," a stumbled cord, and then a metallic melody, "they take, and take, and take. take from the environment, take from people who are in need, take from everything. and they never give back. all they want is money and power, and they're selfish."
"are we better than them?" wilbur glanced over at him, but tubbo was looking out at the street.
"less selfish? yeah, we are," wilbur confirmed. "we don't want money or power. we just want to be happy."
"but, we all want out of this city. we wanna live in a big house with like ten dogs, and a bunch of bedrooms, and a big tv, and tommy wants a cow, and all this other stuff! isn't it selfish to want that, when other people can't have it?"
"it's not selfish to want the best for yourself," wilbur said, and he sounded so sure of himself. he set down his guitar behind them, and tapped on tubbo's shoulder, encouraging him to look at his older brother figure. tubbo did, because why wouldn't he? it was wil. "tubbo, we are not selfish for wanting to be happy. you are not selfish for wanting to be happy."
tubbo sighed, looking down at his lap. "i know that, wilbur. i know. i just…" he looked up. "what if me being here, being with you guys, is making life worse for someone else? what if i'm causing some other kid, someone who you could've found and taken in, harm because i'm here?"
"tubbo…"
"i could be what's dragging us down! maybe, if you didn't find me, if you and phil and techno didn't work your asses off to provide for all five of us, maybe you could get out of here. you've always wanted to live in brighton, that extra money could help. if i just left, or if i hadn't gotten found--"
"tubbo, shut the fuck up."
tubbo shrank back, fearful, but wilbur just pulled the goat boy into his arms and hugged, squeezed so tight it was almost like he was trying to suffocate tubbo. tubbo froze, and then slowly leaned into the older's chest, setting his chin on wilbur's shoulder and closing his eyes.
ah. he was crying. great.
"tubbo, you deserve everything ," wilbur's voice was shaky. guess he wasn't the only one crying. "not even just everything we can give you. you deserve everything in the world."
tubbo gripped wil's sweater and buried his face in it.
"same goes with the others. phil, techno, tommy, you. you all deserve the world, and it's not fair that i can't give it to you."
tubbo laughed, gross and snotty sounding, "you're not god, wilbur."
"i should be," wilbur sounded like he was grinning.
"don't you know, wilbur, jack manifold is god. he is the almighty, all-powerful."
wilbur cackled, digging his chin into the top of tubbo's head, "you're right, how could i compete with jack manifold?"
"you'd simply have to be demoted to jesus, with how powerful jack manifold is."
wilbur squeezed tighter, shaking with soft laughter. " demoted to jesus --"
"jack manifold is the highest power," tubbo said solemnly.
"he is," wilbur agreed, still sob-laughing. it sounded painful. "tubbo, this might be a horrible thing to say, but as long as you're happy, and you're safe, i don't care what happens to anyone else."
"wil…"
"i mean it," wilbur sounded honest, and that was scary, wasn't it? "everyone else can die in a bloody massacre, for all i care. it doesn't matter. as long as you guys are safe, the world ending wouldn't matter to me."
tubbo sniffled, pressing closer. he doesn't deserve this, he doesn't deserve this, hedoesn'tdeservethis --
"i would kill everyone in the entire world, just to make you guys safe. and maybe that is selfish. but i don't care." wilbur rubbed tubbo's back as he sobbed. "i love you so, so much. you mean so much more than the world to me."
that shouldn't be the thing to make tubbo let out a broken sob, sounding like a dying seagull, but it did. wilbur just hugged him closer, humming.
it took a long time for tubbo to calm down, long enough that the moon started approaching the middle of the sky and the lights of the surrounding buildings flicked off, but wilbur didn't complain. he just mumbled little stories to himself and hummed secret little melodies that only he knew.
tubbo lifted his face from wilbur's shoulder, setting his chin there instead. the yellow fabric was completely soaked with tears, and he cringed looking down at it.
"so, did i guess what you were thinking about correctly?"
tubbo laughed, wiping his nose with his hand, "is that what that was? an experiment?"
"absolutely," wilbur joked, ruffling tubbo's hair.
"somewhat," tubbo bumped his head against the side of wilbur's. "thanks, mr. therapist."
"someone has to be."
"isn't puffy getting her psychology degree?"
"i think so." wilbur scratched the top of tubbo's head, around his horns, and tubbo nudged his hand for more. "then we can go to her for all our problems."
"that's so many, though!"
wilbur cackled, pushing tubbo's hair into his eyes. tubbo swatted at him and attempted to brush it away.
"man, we're fucked up, aren't we?" wilbur sighed, sounding happy.
"yep."
"well, at least we're fucked up together," wilbur leaned away from the younger, and unwrapped his arms from tubbo. he stood, and grabbed his guitar, then held out a hand for tubbo. "come on, phil's gonna yell at us for being outside."
"yellza," tubbo grabbed the hand and pulled himself up. "one of these days, he'll have a heart attack from yelling."
"i await what's carved on his tombstone."
phil didn't yell at them, because he never did, but he did scold them and assign them dish duty, so it still sucked.
(he also pointedly didn't ask about wilbur's red eyes or the tear tracks running down tubbo's cheeks.)
(he just hugged them a little tighter than usual and told them to go to bed.)
wilbur caught tubbo's hand before he could enter his and tommy's room, and pulled him into a hug.
"i still mean it. i'd end the world for you," he mumbled. tubbo squeezed him, hard.
"love you, wil."
"love you too, toob."