Work Text:
i.
Foolish has lived a long time as a creature of undying. Spilled blood, spread word, encountered things beyond his comprehension. Building a chandelier for two engaged kids is somewhere near the top of the list.
Biting back his complaints, he points up at the ceiling, at the painstakingly hung glass and glowstone. Ranboo just upped his pay; he’s not exactly in a position to start whining, no matter how damn long that wirework took him.
Tubbo hums and nods absentmindedly, pacing around the room and ducking into doorways.
He’s not even looking. Foolish is never taking light fixture commissions again.
ii.
Jack taps his foot against the side-panel wood of his hotel as he waits. His hotel. The Jack Manifold Hotel. Not Tommy’s, no matter what him and Puffy try to claim, those fucking-
His righteous anger is interrupted by a shout from Tubbo, carefully making his way across the wet grass.
“You’re late,” Jack chides, mostly joking.
“Sorry,” Tubbo shrugs, “came from the potato farm.”
“You know you could’ve just cut through L’manberg?”
“No can do, boss man.” Tubbo doesn’t stop to elaborate. Just walks in, beckoning as though Jack is the one lagging behind. “So what did you want?”
iii.
There’s no time for sentiment in Quackity’s life.
He knows this like he knows what to say when people come seeking opportunity, or to plug his nose when someone brings whiskey around. It’s reflexive. Natural.
Still, when he looks at Tubbo from his perch on a tree - he’s got an eye on everything lately, no pun intended - his focus catches on the memory of an execution. Gone are the phantom horns and the hand-me-down suit, but the scars still stand, stark red and white on skin.
We match, he thinks, then scoffs. He’s got better things to do than gawk.
iv.
Ranboo glances up from his paper with a sort of settled nostalgia. Last time he wrote on scratch he was just a minutes man, just an extra limb on a country-corpse. Now he’s one of two, planning a moving celebration.
“We could have fireworks,” Ranboo suggests, thinking of the last party he went to. His memory’s been better these days, what with everything - he pushes that thought away, it’s not for now, not here - and he wants to see Michael’s expression in response to sky-painted color.
“No,” Tubbo answers immediately, shaking his head. “Veto. We both get one, that’s mine.”
v.
On the days Eret feels least like herself, more title than person and soul, she leaves her crown on the throne - it’s been stolen before, what’s one more time - and heads across the water. Wherever her feet take her, a bit of indulgent adventure to get out of the choke-hold grip that is being king.
Today, she lands herself at Tubbo’s old jungle base.
It’s empty, skeletal remains sprawling. The only sign that someone ever mattered here are the overgrown crops, wind humming across leaves like a dirge.
Eret presses a hand against one of the still-standing walls and breathes.
+ i.
“Would you mind saying a few words?”
A recording device is shoved toward Tubbo just as he exits the hyperloop onto warm soil and he backs up on instinct, hands raised in surrender.
Some kind of defensive gesture. Wonder where that came from.
“About what?” he asks, relaxing as his mind puts the threat aside and the pieces together.
“Yourself.”
Tubbo snorts. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.” His mind’s already on the next hour - he has to meet with Tommy and there was something before that - but he offers a throwaway smile. “I’m not a very interesting character.”