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Tubbo doesn't want to be here.
He wants to be out with Tommy, running some stupid errand for Wilbur or griefing someone's house or scamming someone out of a couple dozen diamonds.
Tubbo wants to be on his couch, Michael in his lap, curled up in a blanket and sipping tea as they both listen to Ranboo read from a storybook. The nice one, the one where the knight saves the princess from the dragon, and that's the end, and there's no extra bullshit afterwards. No fireworks to the face or blown up countries or best friends getting murdered.
...That is to say, Tubbo would rather not be in this therapy office.
He'd tried to dress semi-nice, opting for his old green button down, but one of the buttons has fallen off and it's still slightly stained from the blood that dribbled down from his neck in that vault, down so far below the surface that nobody would ever have found his body, when Dream had threatened to- had almost- had gotten so close to-
Puffy sits across from him, in a big plush armchair. She has a clipboard and a pen and glasses that Tubbo has never seen on her before, which he suspects are all for show. After all, he's pretty sure she doesn't have any actual credentials, but here he is anyway.
Tubbo is here because Tommy recommended it. At first, Tubbo said no. Later that night, though, Ranboo had put an arm around him and said he really thought it was a good idea, that it might help, and Tubbo said no again. But the next morning Tommy brought it up again and Tubbo snapped at him, hissing that he didn't need therapy because there was nothing wrong with him. Tommy had only softened, and grabbed Tubbo's hand, and in an ultra rare moment of vulnerability, pleaded that "If you won't talk to me, at least talk to someone else," and Tubbo...
Tubbo had caved. He'd caved, and now he's sitting on a couch with the ugliest throw pillows he's ever seen, sucking on a butterscotch from a nearby bowl and staring at the clock on the wall with the cat paws for hands. Tommy's red bandana is tied securely around his upper arm, just out of sight.
They've been through the pleasantries already, him and Puffy. Some explanation of what therapy is supposed to be, what they'll be doing, empty reassurances that this is a safe place and everything he says is confidential.
As if Tubbo hasn't had it drilled into his head that all information, no matter how trivial, should be kept to himself. As if Tubbo could trust a borderline stranger more than Tommy or Ranboo. As if Tubbo even has any information to share.
The opening remarks are over. Now, they're in the awkward portion of the session. A stalemate, each waiting for the other to make a move.
Puffy goes first. "So, is there anything you'd like to talk about? It doesn't have to be anything deep, just something simple."
Tubbo doesn't have anything he'd like to talk about. Some small part of him wants to talk about something he knows she won't want to hear, to make a joke about cock and balls and gross her out to the point of leaving him alone.
He's stuck here for a while, though, so he just stays silent instead.
Puffy remains patient. "How about you tell me about your day yesterday?"
"My day yesterday," Tubbo repeats. He tries to sound at least slightly interested in their conversation, to make it easier on both of them.
"Well, Tommy and Ranboo and I hung out, so that was nice."
"What did you do?"
"Property damage," he shrugs. "Blew some shit up just for the fun of it. It was nice."
"Oh," Puffy nods, only looking slightly disquieted by the whole idea. Tommy's therapy must have had an influence on her. "That does sound nice."
"It was cool," Tubbo replies noncommittally, and the two quickly lapse into silence again.
Therapy, Tubbo thinks, is going pretty well.
Puffy clears her throat. "Did you do anything after you damaged the property?"
"Just went home," Tubbo shrugs. "Ranboo and I had a serious talk, so... That sucked."
"A serious talk?" Puffy perks up, still maintaining her composure. "What did you two talk about, if you don't mind sharing?"
Tubbo does mind sharing, but Tommy had lectured him on the way here, rambling about how "Theropay only works if you co-operate" and "You can't just refuse to talk." Tubbo thinks it's stupid, really, but he's also getting a bit sick of letting Tommy down.
"Just the scars again."
Tubbo realizes, belatedly, that Puffy may not have the context she needs to understand that.
"The scars," she parrots, scribbling something down. Tubbo doesn't know what, and he wishes he didn't care as much as he does. "What scars?"
Tubbo shoots her a sharp look, then, because it had been a stupid question. He resents the sentiment that someone could look at him and perceive anything other than a walking tragedy.
Tubbo knows that he exists primarily to serve as an example of what happens when you slip up. Just like Schlatt had wanted.
"Sorry, I didn't- whose scars would be a better question," she backtracks. "I know Ranboo has some on his face that I've seen, and I know you know other people that have scars, so I didn't want to assume."
"We were talking about mine," he deadpans. "I don't know if you've noticed, but they're kind of difficult to ignore, bossman."
Puffy knits her brows. Pity, Tubbo recognizes, which means he's already slipped up.
Typical for him.
"Are you bothered by your scars, Tubbo?"
Fuck this.
Tubbo can feel that stupid itch in the back of his throat, the stinging behind his eyes that makes him feel like a crybaby. Lucky for him, he'd been taught how to push through it.
Tubbo's face doesn't even twitch. "They're a part of me."
"That isn't what I asked," she gently prods.
Tubbo crosses his arms. Not in an aggressive way, he ensures, but in a casual way. Just a subtle shift of his body, nothing to read into.
It feels wrong as soon as he does it. He uncrosses them. Fuck, now he's fidgeting.
"Look, they're there, okay? I don't have time to sit around and cry about it. It's fine. I don't even notice them, most days."
Puffy's expression changes as he talks, shifting into something he doesn't recognize, and oh god has he done it now.
Tubbo has slipped.
"Tubbo," Puffy starts, and the sympathy in her voice makes Tubbo feel alien. Like Puffy has misplaced her pity, like it's meant to be for someone else.
Tubbo doesn't flinch at it. He knows better. He sits still.
"...When was the last time you cried?" She asks, folding her hands as if it's the simplest question in the world.
Tubbo blinks. "I... What?" He stops, collects himself, makes sure he doesn't appear outwardly upset. "What, like, shed tears?"
Puffy nods. "Yeah, exactly. When was the last time you cried?"
A rush of memories flood back to him immediately.
An argument with Quackity over a wall that doesn't matter, talking themselves in circles like they aren't both relieved to be taking again at all. A missing nuke, an unhelpful Jack, and a horrible, gnawing fear that his son won't live to see age four. Technoblade, in all his glory; judge, jury, and executioner, making his way into Tubbo's house as his husband, his old friend, and his even older father figure watch with disinterest.
Sitting on a bench, on an iceberg, surrounded by flowers, without a body to bury or a person to blame or anything at all.
Farther back than that. A sword to his neck as he swears to Tommy that he'll be fine, that Tubbo has lived long enough, anyway. A smoking crater where home once was, a Tommy that shakes if he sees a hole in the ground. Swinging a sword at Tommy, and having it connect, and both of them shouting and Tommy saying a phrase that Tubbo hears on repeat sometimes. The hardest decision he's ever had to make, and a comparison to the last person he wants to be.
Even farther. The press of a button, a sword through a chest, annihilation mere moments after Tubbo thinks things might finally be looking up. A firework to the face, another to the chest, and even worse than that, watching Tommy be beaten unconscious through still blurred vision, face buried in Niki's shoulder. A thrown bottle and slurred insults, Quackity shielding him as best he can. Holding Tommy's hand, both shaking, and lying through his teeth that he thinks the election might turn out for the better.
Tubbo realizes, then, that the last time he'd shed a tear had been over Tommy. Quite literally, in fact. Hunched over Tommy's body, cradling him, as Wilbur pulled the bloody arrow from his chest.
As if it would somehow help. As if Tubbo hadn't known from the moment Tommy shakily grabbed onto his hand that he was a goner.
(They'd held hands the first time, too. It hadn't been as quick as it should've - they'd had a moment, there, bleeding out on the floor of the control room together, wicked laughter bouncing off of the walls. Tubbo remembers being scared, to die. He remembers shaking. He remembers Tommy next to him on the ground, blood spilling from his mouth as he used the last of his strength to reach out for Tubbo's hand.
Tommy was there the first time. Somewhere, irrationally, selfishly, Tubbo prays that he'll be there for the last.)
"Tubbo?"
Tubbo startles, coming back to the present. Puffy is still waiting on an answer, he remembers.
He counts the months back. Again, and again, triple checking that he's sure...
About a year, he realizes, since the revolution. It had only been about a year.
"...Been a while," he croaks. "A bit, I suppose."
"Why?" She asks, but Tubbo knows it isn't rhetorical. "Why do you think that is?"
If Tubbo had known theropay would involve so many questions, he wouldn't have come. Couldn't she just give him a pill or something? Something to fix him?
"...Because Ranboo gets burned by tears," he offers, because nothing else comes to mind.
Puffy purses her lips. "So you used to cry before you married Ranboo?"
"No," he replies. Simply, like he isn't contradicting himself. Aloof, and casual, and unbothered. Just like he's practiced.
(His patience is wearing thin, though, and he doesn't know if having Tommy and Ranboo around would make things better or worse. He wants to believe that this is a safe place, wants so badly to force himself to talk about it, but Tubbo can't think of anything dumber than reciting a list of things that could send him into a dissociative state where he's incapable of fighting.
Puffy's horns aren't helping him feel any safer.)
"So it isn't because of Ranboo, then," she continues, and Tubbo honest to god has to supress a flinch when she jots something else down. He's giving her too much. She's learning too many weaknesses.
"There's another reason," she suggests.
"Could be," Tubbo shrugs, because he's never thought much of it before.
Nobody really cried anymore, did they? Crying was something they did in L'Manberg. Now that home was gone, where was he supposed to cry?
Puffy sighs, so softly that Tubbo wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been listening. She taps her pen gently on the clipboard a few times, which should be annoying, but Tubbo finds it to be a bit grounding, instead.
Part of him is hoping that he keeps stalling like this, providing non-answers and half truths at every opportunity until his time runs out and someone else shows up. Another part of him wishes Puffy were a mind reader, wants her to look at him and just know every terrible thing that's wrong with him. To say "I'm sorry" or "Suck it up" or "You're a monster" like everyone else and just let him go.
"You don't think there could be a reason that you haven't cried in so long? Something keeping you from letting yourself cry?"
He takes a deep breath. Puffy doesn't seem willing to let him go without at least a little introspection, and the more he lies, the better chance he has of getting caught.
Tubbo hates getting caught in lies.
(Which is ironic, considering he sometimes lies compulsively.
Tommy and Ranboo know, though, not to correct him. When Ranboo comes in and finds Tubbo asleep at a desk, and Tubbo swears he's been working, that the nap had only been for a moment, Ranboo doesn't argue. When Tubbo lies about not having something, diamonds or Netherite or even food, and Tommy checks a chest and finds some, he doesn't comment. He closes the chest and ignores what he saw and asks Tubbo to help him gather some for himself.
It's kind of them. It's more than Tubbo deserves.)
Puffy's gaze flickers between the clipboard and the couch that Tubbo is sat on. She's trying not to make eye contact, he realizes, because staring makes Tommy uncomfortable sometimes.
Tubbo thinks it would be easier if he could do therapy for Tommy, honestly. Tubbo may not know him quite as well as he used to, but he can still recite Tommy's major triggers at the drop of a hat. He could ramble for hours about how to keep Tommy from getting overwhelmed, how to calm him down. Not because they've talked, but just from pure trial and error on Tubbo's part.
Doing therapy for himself is harder. Nobody tries with him. He won't let them. As far as they know, he doesn't need anyone to try, and he'd like to keep it that way.
Tubbo's eyes find the clock on the wall, thoughts racing quickly enough to block the soft ticking. He still has quite a while left in his session.
Too long to keep stalling.
Well... As long as he's already here.
Tubbo shifts, throwing an arm over the back of the couch, slinging one leg over the other.
"Well, I reckon it could have something to do with getting punished every time I tried to cry," he muses, keeping himself monotone and unenthused, detaching himself from his words completely. "Probably has something to do with it."
"Punished?" Puffy's eyes widen, voice soft and raw. "By- Tubbo, who...?"
Puffy, Tubbo thinks, is doing a noble thing by being a therapist. He can tell she isn't quite cut out for the job. She's too empathetic, too heroic. He can tell that it makes her heart ache, that hearing too much of their trauma could break her.
He tries to go easy on her, shrugging nonchalantly. "I mean... I'll be honest, the answer to half the things you're about to ask me will just be 'Schlatt', so... Keep that in mind, I guess."
Tubbo doesn't like to say his name, still. Tubbo wishes he were here. Tubbo hopes he never comes back.
"What do you mean by 'punished'?" Puffy looks like she wouldn't want to know if it weren't her job. Tubbo wouldn't want to tell her if he wasn't her patient.
Therapy kind of sucks ass, Tubbo thinks.
"Eh, you know," he waves his hand noncommittally.
Puffy stares as if she has no idea, and Tubbo swallows.
He doesn't want to say it. Once he says it, it's a real thing that shouldn't have happened to him. If he says it, it starts to matter. It isn't just something that happens to everyone, or a minor inconvenience that Tubbo is overreacting about. Once Tubbo starts admitting things, he may have to start confronting them.
Tubbo's trauma sits in a closet in the back of his mind, chained up behind a very specific door. When something happens to him, rather than processing, he opens the door and throws it in before the mountain of horrible memories can avalanche him. As long as he does it quick, shuts it out and forgets about it immediately, he knows he'll be fine.
He also knows that if he starts to let it out, it won't all fit back in. It'll change him, fundamentally.
Tubbo doesn't particularly want to change his entire personality on a rainy Wednesday morning.
"Tell me what you're thinking," Puffy gently urges. "Just get your thoughts out, even if you think they're silly."
"I can't start talking," Tubbo's blurts. "Can't handle it."
"What part of it can you not handle?"
He frowns, and swallows. Tubbo moves his mouth as if he's talking, although no words come out, and he goes like that for a few seconds before he even catches himself. Schlatt had hated seeing him do that. Thought it made him look stupid.
"I won't stop," he hoarsely admits. Tubbo puts his hands in his pockets, pulls them back out, sits on them. He can't meet Puffy's eyes. "If- if I start talking, I won't..."
He swallows. "It'll be the death of me."
"I don't think it will," she tells him. He looks up, and when he meets her eyes, she looks determined. "I think it'll be freeing."
And oh, god, she could not have worded it in a more enticing way. Freedom, true freedom, is all Tubbo has ever wanted. Freedom, and peace, and a simple life.
He winces, picking at a bandaid on his hand, from a piece of machinery that had slipped from his non-dominant hand. Machinery that he only needed to make nukes. Nukes that he only needed to make himself feel safe, to protect Snowchester, to keep himself free.
Puffy waits, expectantly, like she knows she's already won. Tubbo sinks into himself, making himself small. He pulls his feet up onto the couch, having already discarded his muddy boots at the door. Tubbo takes a deep breath, hands now fiddling with a loose thread on one of his socks, and opens his mouth.
"You have to understand, Puffy, that the festival is only part of it."
The thing that most people don't understand about Tubbo is that the festival is only the tip of the iceberg for him.
It had hurt. Sure it had hurt, because that's what Schlatt wanted. He'd said as much to Techno on the podium. "I want you to kill him, right here on this fucking stage, and I want you to make it hurt."
("Are you gonna do it?" He spits at Techno. Techno who stands in front of Tubbo, fully decked out in enchanted Netherite, rocket launcher already aimed.
Tubbo fumbles for his communicator, which he shouldn't be allowed to do, but nobody is really looking at him, anyway. They're getting second hand embarrassment watching him beg for his life.
You whisper to WilburSoot: WILBUR?!??!)
Tubbo remembers it perfectly, remembers his clear view of the crowd, some of whom had armor themselves.
All of whom waited, watching, only a few of them crying out for him.
(WilburSoot whispers to you: stay strong
They aren't doing anything. The whole crowd sits still. Waiting, watching, unmoving.)
It was like something out of a nightmare, the festival. Trapped in a box, surrounded by people who had spent all this time telling him they cared, that they were sorry about how Schlatt treated him. That they'd help if they could, that it would get better soon.
(Why is nobody doing anything?
The crowd barely reacts as Techno takes a swing at Tubbo's arm, achieving a fairly deep gash.
The pain numbs his mind. It hurts almost too much to bear, really, but Tubbo is a soldier. He's a soldier, and he's fought a war and died before and whatever happens he knows he can't cry.
If he cries, Schlatt gets mad. If Schlatt gets mad, Tubbo gets hurt. It's a simple equation, and one he knows well.
"He's softening him up!" Schlatt sounds delighted, giddy with bloodlust. "He's softening him up!")
Tubbo still doesn't understand why Technoblade had bothered to hit him. As if a teenager, trapped in a box with his hair done nice and tie on crooked, armorless and weaponless and begging for mercy, could somehow have defeated him if he'd just had the use of both arms.
("Okay," he says aloud when he reads Wilbur's message, voice shaking, body shaking. No one hears him.)
Looking back, Tubbo thinks it's ironic, really. Even at his own public execution, no one cared to listen to what he had to say.
("Tubbo," Techno starts, and Tubbo gets the briefest, most childish flutter of hope.
"I- yeah?" He replies, because oh thank God, here it is. Here's Techno, Tommy and Wilbur's almost brother. Techno, who's about to tell him to run and hide, who's going to say, "Tubbo, I'll hold them off, you get out of here," or even toss him a weapon and ask him to help in the fight.
"Tubbo, I'm sorry," Techno tells him instead, and he looks a little bit heartbroken.
Which is weird, considering he's about to save Tubbo. Of course he's about to save Tubbo.
Wilbur said he was going to save Tubbo.
The crowd is still quiet. They don't move. They don't do anything.
"Tech- Technoblade?"
Schlatt starts laughing, then, in an evil sort of way, a way that Tubbo can't yet know will haunt him for the rest of his life.
Techno loads the launcher, and Tubbo can clearly hear Niki scream, which he doesn't think should comfort him as much as it does.
"I'll try and make it as painless and colorful as possible," Techno promises, levelling the crossbow with Tubbo's head.
Tubbo's vision starts to go fuzzy as it dawns on him that he's about to be shot in the face. That he's about to die here.
"What the hell?" He's looking straight into Techno's eyes, now, as if he could change the Blood God's mind. Tubbo knows he's a goner, but as much as that fact shakes him to his core, he's still hoping Techno gives him some sort of explanation.
Or maybe a small smile. A lie that Tubbo will be okay. Anything comforting. Anything at all, really.
"Tubbo... Tubbo, I'm sorry," Techno repeats, same as before.
In Tubbo's periphery, Wilbur pops his head out of the roof just enough for Tubbo to make eye contact.
"Wilbur?" He begs. He doesn't know what he's asking for, really. For Tommy to rush in and save him, for Wilbur to cause a distraction. Even for a message on his communicator.
Something. Anything. Anything from anyone, because they're all standing still and watching this happen, and it's taking Techno so long to pull the trigger, and nobody is even trying to stop him, why aren't any of them helping Tubbo?
Tubbo can't see Wilbur's face too well, but he looks worried. Tubbo reckons that's a bad sign. Tommy's arm twitches like he's about to move, and Wilbur catches it.
Tubbo knows not to look at Tommy, or Tommy will rush in and save him. And Tubbo wants that, oh god does he want that, but...
Maybe this is necessary. For L'Manberg, for the resistance. If his death wasn't inevitable, surely someone would be stepping in. After all, they all know better than Tubbo does.
"Wilb..." He tries again, but Wilbur doesn't budge. Tubbo's arm still burns with a white hot pain that he can barely ignore, blood soaking the arm of his new suit. Ruining it.
"Tubbo," Techno regains his attention, "I'm being subjected to mild amounts of peer pressure-"
Tubbo is elated, at first, to have some sort of communication, some reason for all of this, but Schlatt shuts it down quickly.
"Do it!" He screams, voice amplified by the microphone. "Do it!"
Tubbo knows this is it. He's doomed.
He looks up to the roof, and makes brief eye contact with Tommy for one second. One singular second before he raises his one good arm and tucks his head to the left, a weak attempt to shield himself, and experiences the worst pain of his life.
It's all colors, then. Red and white and blue and yellow and searing, unbearable pain and blurry vision and he's sure his ear is gone and why isn't he dead yet, please just get it over with, please-
And then he respawns. Quietly, behind the crowd. He's running before he even gets his bearings, before he processes any of it. He takes off running and he doesn't stop, and he shuts his eyes so he doesn't have to look at the way his hands are still pink and marred by burns.)
One thing Tubbo remembers, still, even after all of this time, is Tommy's screams. Tubbo had been running, hearing practically ruined, but anyone within a thousand block radius could hear Tommy.
Tubbo's name, shouted desperately, over and over and over again. He'd hated being the reason Tommy was upset, but god, at least he knew someone still cared.
At the end of Tubbo's story, Puffy is uncomfortable. Tubbo can tell that she is. Her reaction to hearing him speak about the festival is the same as everyone else's - morbid curiosity, like watching a car crash happen in real time.
(Everyone except Ranboo, of course. Ranboo always looks miserable after, always holds him close and apologizes for nothing and whispers things to him that Tubbo is sure he can't really mean, because they're all so nice and gentle and kind and too much for Tubbo to bear.
Tubbo has told Ranboo about the festival four times, now, and he isn't looking forward to making Ranboo rediscover the knowledge for a fifth.)
He's expecting "I'm sorry." That's what most people have for him. "I'm sorry" or "That sucks," "It wasn't that bad" or "Stop being dramatic." Any of those, really, would be par for the course.
Puffy finishes up with what she's jotting down, visibly upset, and Tubbo waits patiently.
"...But that's only one part of it," she finally clarifies. There's emotion in her voice, still, but she seems to be attempting to move forward.
Huh. That's new.
Tubbo nods. "There's more," he says like it's obvious. "A lot more, if I'm being honest. A lot happens to me, it's just..."
"People don't talk about it," Puffy fills in for him, and hearing someone else say it out loud is bone chilling. "You get ignored."
"They don't need to talk about it," he hoarsely corrects her. "I'm dealing with it."
Puffy takes off her glasses, folds them on the table, and moves her clipboard. Anxiety curls itself tight in Tubbo's stomach.
"No you aren't, Tubbo," she tells him, gently, kindly. She's leaning forward a bit, making sure to look him in the eyes. He blinks, too much, too fast, and glances away.
"You're not dealing with it, you're shutting it out."
He opens his mouth.
"There's a difference."
He closes it.
"What am I supposed to do," he asks, mostly rhetorical, voice low and dull. Emotionless. "What's there to do about it? I don't have time to dwell on it."
"Why don't you have time to dwell on it? What's stopping you from starting to heal?"
"Look around, Puffy," he gestures. "Things aren't exactly as peaceful as they could be. What good is it to start healing over a wound if I know I'm about to rip it back open?"
"What makes you so sure that you're going to get hurt again?"
He works up the courage, then, to look her in the eyes. He thinks he should be crying, or shouting, or showing any kind of emotion, but the most he's achieved so far is a furrowed brow.
"I always do."
It feels a little bit like a weight off his chest. Like setting down something he's been carrying. He allows himself to press on, digging his nails into his palms.
"I always get hurt. Even if it isn't my fault. Especially if it isn't my fault. Puffy, I am an example. I am an origin story. I am a pawn, leverage, a yes man and a sidekick. That's just how it is, and that isn't going to change."
Puffy's hand twitches, like she wants to reach for her clipboard, but she stays put. Tubbo motions to it with his head, trying to let her know it's okay, but she stays resolute.
He shifts uncomfortably as she soaks in what he'd said, uncrossing his legs and crossing them the other way. Tubbo feels horrifically self conscious, here. Vulnerable.
"You're worried you're going to get dragged into another conflict," she attempts, doing her best to read between his shaky, desperate lines. "You don't feel like you could say no."
"It's not about saying no, Puffy," he chuckles. "It doesn't matter what I think. I'm not... I'm the princess, in this scenario," he tries to explain.
Puffy blinks. She isn't getting it. Tubbo thinks it's simple, really, and he's already sick of this therapy thing and he's getting frustrated, so he elects to just start talking, consequences be damned.
"I'm not the knight. Wilbur is, Tommy is, even Ranboo might be. They're knights, and they've got their own stories and their own lives and they get to fight, and I... I don't. I sit in the tower, and I wait, and a dragon kidnaps me and takes me off to fuck knows where, and then I wait again. I wait for the knight to save me, and I think, 'Is this finally it? Am I finally about to get eaten by this goddamned dragon?' And it isn't, and I don't, and they save me and we go back home. Except, they go parade themselves around the kingdom, they get called a hero and a legend and everything else, and I go back to the fucking tower. I go right back, and I sit, and I wait until another dragon comes along. I don't get a say in it. I get a sword to my neck or a firework to my face just to make someone else upset."
He'd raised his voice, halfway through his little speech, speaking in the impassioned way that Tommy sometimes did. He's embarrassed, briefly, but Puffy only smiles.
"That's exactly why you're here, Tubbo. That. What you just did was take a step towards healing."
"What I just did is spout a load of shit," he argues.
"I'm proud of you," she tells him.
Tubbo stares at the floor as she starts writing on the clipboard again.
I'm proud of you. That was an old one. When was the last time he'd heard that?
"I don't think that did anything," he tells her numbly. "I don't feel fixed."
"Therapy isn't to fix you, Tubbo," she says without looking up from writing. "You aren't broken. It's to help you feel better, and to help you identify behaviors and learn to change them."
"Well, I'm not doing that, then. I'm just talking."
"You're making progress on learning about yourself."
Tubbo thinks that's bullshit. He pops another butterscotch candy into his mouth.
"I haven't learned anything," he stubbornly retorts, because he hasn't. "I've just been telling you about shitty things that have happened to me."
"Actually," she puts down the clipboard, tone still just soft enough for Tubbo not to feel anxious, "you've spent most of our visit trying not to tell me about bad things that have happened to you. That should let us both know that you have trouble with talking to people, right?"
"I mean, not really," he attempts. "I can talk to people fine, I just don't like whining."
"What about when they talk to you?"
"What?"
"Tommy and Ranboo," she elaborates, leaning back in her chair. Tubbo grabs a pillow and puts it in his lap to squeeze.
"If Tommy and Ranboo talk to you about their tra- about bad things that have happened to them, or about things that make them scared or sad, is that whining?"
"No," he immediately replies. "They can talk to me about that. I want to fix it."
He waits for Puffy's reply, but she stays silent. She doesn't stare at him or give him a look or anything. She just waits.
Tubbo, for all his repression, doesn't mind when Tommy and Ranboo talk about their issues. He wants to know, wants to be able to help as best he can. It just gets annoying, sometimes, how often they ask him if he wants to talk-
Tubbo crunches the butterscotch in his mouth, hard.
Oh.
Puffy smiles wryly.
"Got it?"
Tubbo nods, stilted, jaw still clenched.
"They want to help you," she urges, voice low and comforting and all too honest. "They wouldn't ask you if they didn't want you to tell them about it."
Tubbo tries to come up with something to say, to argue, but he draws a blank. "They have enough on their plates," "They don't have time," "I don't want to ruin their day," they're all hypocritical statements.
Tubbo doesn't want to be a hypocrite. He folds his hands, and crunches his butterscotch, and plans to push Tommy into the lake later for making him come here.
Puffy opens her mouth to say something, but a soft beep beep beep beep sounds from her communicator, and she bites her lip with a sigh.
"We're done?" Tubbo clarifies, although he doesn't know if he's relieved or upset at the fact.
She nods. "Yes, we're done for now, Tubbo. But I would like to ask..."
Damn. Here it comes.
"Are you interested in making a follow up appointment?"
Tubbo sits in silence, for a moment. Thinking.
He'd hated this. It hadn't been fun, and he didn't even feel like he was making much progress.
Tubbo flexes his upper arm, just to remind himself that Tommy's bandana is there. He runs his fingers over his wedding ring. Breathe in, breathe out.
He meets Puffy's eyes.
Tommy claps him on the shoulder when he exits the therapy office.
"Hey, Tubbo," he grins, and for half a second all Tubbo hears is You killed Tubbo, Do you wanna go find that fucking button, Tubbo, The discs were worth more than you ever were, Please don't go Tubbo please don't go-
Tubbo elbows him. "Oi. Don't smack me, I'm fragile. I've been thero-payed."
"How was it?" Tommy asks, bouncing on his feet. "Good? Bad? Did you fight Puffy? It's okay, I tried to fight her, too. I stopped after one hit, though. Did you get more than one hit in?"
"It was awful," Tubbo tells him sincerely. "I hated it. I never want to do it again."
Tommy's face falls, ever so slightly. "Oh. Um... Well, thanks for trying, I guess."
"You're welcome," Tubbo grumbles. "Bitch."
"Bitch," Tommy parrots with a smile. "Maybe it did help, even if you never go back."
"Who said I was never going back?"
Tommy freezes, and frowns. "You did, just now...? You said you hated it."
"I did hate it, Tommy," Tubbo sighs.
He meets Tommy's eyes, then, and smiles. They aren't as bright of a sky blue as Tubbo can remember, but they're a lot brighter than they used to be. Healed, slightly.
Tubbo feels his communicator buzz from his pocket, once, twice, three and four times. He grabs it and flicks it open.
Ranboo whispers to you: How was therapy? Are you ok?
Ranboo whispers to you: I can come pick you up, if you need?
Ranboo whispers to you: Stay safe on your way home. Eat. Drink water if you've been crying
Ranboo whispers to you: <3
Tubbo chuckles, glancing up at Tommy. Maybe, he thinks, it's time to start finally taking advantage of the support system they've offered him. Tubbo does his best to offer a reassuring smile.
"I've got another appointment this time next week."