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Tubbo likes heights.
He likes the way they make his head spin, the vertigo like a strange noxious high similar in vein to the fumes Wilbur used to wave out the back of the Camarvan’s windows when Tubbo chirped out warning of someone approaching. Those had made his head spin just like heights do, staring down into an abyss that crawls with anxiety and promise. He can sit over them for ages. The teetering pathways of the Nether had never bothered him, and as a small child he can remember begging to go on flights, clinging to a man’s feathers– a name he refuses to think, right now– and swallowing so hard, shrieking into the sky. He likes the sky. He wishes he could fly, feathers or maybe he’d have insect wings, the shimmering elytra, forewing and hindwing with the hydrophobic gloss and multi-colored glint of gorgeous insectoid beauty.
Tubbo used to dig his hands into feathers and wish he could fly. Now, he grasps at the grass and wonders what it would be like to fall.
He could probably ask Tommy, if he was sick in the head enough. Tommy would probably say as much, brash and loud and defensive when it comes to whatever had happened that makes him flinch around certain things. Tommy calls it trauma, butterflies. Tubbo calls it nothing.
(It’s always been easier to just ignore. Ignore the fact your father doesn’t love you as much as he loves others, ignore the hurt, ignore the fuzz in your brain and push through anyways. He’s no good to anyone if he’s paralyzed by his own thoughts.)
Around him, the L’manhole is quiet. It’s seen a few visitors today, and there’s a small panel of remembrance that sits across the way from him that he’s been keeping an eye on to make sure no one vandalizes. A girl with blonde hair had been there earlier, a basket of flowers by her side and her head bowed in prayer for a little while before she’d moved on, leaving the flowers. Chains of them decorate the panels, and Tubbo knows if he were to go over and read the signs they’d read out names.
Names he’d failed to save, as President. Names of those who died in the first war, soldiers Tubbo had fought alongside.
As he watches, a young hybrid with their eyes covered comes by, rising over the hill and kneeling, just for a second. Beside them is another, and Tubbo can make out the colors of the flag that makes up their jacket. He turns his eyes away– their grieving is their business, and he has his own to attend to anyways.
Descending the cliff sides isn’t hard. Philza Minecraft had attacked the place with a pickaxe and a packet of seeds at one point, like he is often wrought to do. That man can never leave well alone , Tubbo thinks bitterly as his fingers dig into the stone and as it holds him up, steady. Phil had always liked picking up pet projects even when they arguably didn’t need any changing. He just liked the mindless work, Tubbo theorizes. Something to keep your mind off the unbearing emptiness in your chest.
Maybe he sympathizes a little more than he wants to admit, sure.
The water is up to his waist when he finally makes it to the bottom. The flag stretches up above him, a massive effort of wool and linen, the colors still vibrant even after a few months out in the open air. Tubbo wonders if Phil made that too or got it from someone– Eret, perhaps. Eret was always a pretty good tailor. Not as good as Niki, no, but her flag was long gone. Set alight by Fundy over a year ago now.
The water is cold and it shocks him, seeping into his boots and socks and pants, and Tubbo’s quick to shuck off his jacket and leave it by the edge. With all the fleece in that he’s sure it’d get too heavy, and he doesn’t want to have it drying for the next five days.
He wades through the mushrooms and lilypads, kicking aside vines and plant life and reaching out to the curious fish that approach him. They nibble on his fingers and follow as he shivers through the cool water, ending up at the base of the flag. It’s tied neatly with a soldier’s knot at the base, and Tubbo runs the fingers of his better hand over it to check and make sure it’s secure.
Above him, the obsidian sits quietly. An ominous subject of nightmare, unmoving.
He makes his way back to the edge of the water slowly, taking care not to disturb too much of the wildlife. What a spectacle he must make, he knows– but he had to make sure. The flag had always been secured like that and he had to make sure, to know, to grieve properly. He’d come here before, sitting on the edge and singing to himself. Or at least, that had been his tradition until Wilbur and Ranboo had stumbled upon him and made him make a fool of himself. Stupid, he thinks, slapping one palm to his forehead as he clambers out of the water and shakes his legs out, blinking absently at the ground. Stupid stupid stupid.
He hasn’t seen Wilbur today. Or Tommy. Strange. He would’ve thought they’d be here.
Maybe it makes sense Wilbur’s not– this place is a grave for him after all. No one had claimed his body despite Tommy desperate to find it, digging for hours where the button room had been. Whatever physical remains Wilbur left behind had been gone, melted into the debris and scattered like a wildfire.
Privately, Tubbo had always thought that was alright. Wilbur hadn’t left anything tangible behind as a body, but there had been plenty of legacy to pass around. Plenty to bury, plenty to grieve.
Tubbo had never really grieved for that Wilbur.
He’d been sorry, yes, really quite sorry. But he mourned the Wilbur that had existed before, the one who was President Soot. Or maybe just Wil. A brother-something, a half-relation with a grin that leaned on his face and a charm that was impossible to ignore. The smell of blaze powder and spider eye, not gunpowder and nitroglycerin. That Wilbur– Wil. He’d been someone Tubbo could mourn.
As he makes his way up, Tubbo’s hands find the wood and pathway he’d built, and he nods to himself.
Yeah. He doesn’t miss the Wilbur that died here. The one who had pressed the button had been seething and rotted, a shell of sickness and disease that ate away at everything that made him good. Manberg hadn’t been good for any of them. Pogtopia hadn’t been any better.
Pogtopia had been a sickbed.
For some that had been more literal than others. Tubbo can’t remember much from the days just past the explosion that had taken his right ring and pinky fingers, most of his motor functions and almost all of his sight in his right eye. That had been a time of fuzzy vision and snow-white bandages that slowly got stained dusky maroon, memories hazy as seen through the bottom of a bottle. Warped. Stained, especially. Tubbo can remember the initial shock and Niki’s tears, soft and weeping. He thinks that might’ve been the last time he’d ever seen her soft.
Techno and Tommy, fighting.
Definitely not the last time he’d seen that spectacle.
Tubbo thinks about Wilbur and that sickly, manic look in his eyes and thinks yeah, Pogtopia had been a sickbed , and not just one for himself.
He makes it to the top and turns, stares out across the pit-that-used-to-be-L’manberg and blinks, running his tongue over the front of his teeth. He hasn’t brushed them in a few days and they’re grimy, just like his fingers and gloves, like the warm fuzzy jacket currently draped over his shoulders. Tubbo’s not one for being unhygienic, but as The Day had approached he’d found it harder to keep up with himself. Even Ranboo seemed more scattered, which meant that Tubbo had no support system other than Tommy and he didn’t even want to think about Tommy.
He probably should. Tubbo has always liked heights. Tommy never did until recently.
He scans the walls of the crater like he might spot white and red among the slow creeping foliage that is making a new home for itself in place of red vines and TNT. Like maybe Tommy would do the same thing he did and clamber his way clumsily to the bottom, play in the water like how they had fought on the beach when they were children. Scrapping in the sand and dancing through the shallows and waves, throwing clumps of kelp and seaweed at one another until they were both stinking and filthy but happy. They’d left bruises on one another but it had never mattered because they loved each other and that had been enough.
And then it hadn’t, and then Tubbo had been the worst best friend in the entire history of best friends, and–
What a fool he’s making of himself, sobbing on the edge of a crater he used to be President of.
“Hey,” someone murmurs behind him, and he whips around, shoving his hands into his pockets and blinking furiously, choking back whatever cry had been looming in his throat.
“Hey,” Tubbo says, a bit clogged and the word warped. He clears his throat and tries again. “Hi.”
Quackity looks back at him with a wary expression, shirt collar loose around his neck and suspenders clipped on. No tie. He’d insisted to Tubbo when he’d been pitching Las Nevadas to him– no ties here, there’s no dress code, nothing to follow. No one to listen to.
It had been appealing, at the time.
“You okay?” Quackity says after an awkward three seconds of silence. He coughs a bit. “Man, it reeks of sentimentality up here today.”
“Well,” Tubbo says, heaving a breath that makes his chest ache. “I’d think so.”
“Yup,” Q says, popping the p lightly. “Yep, yup. Makes sense.”
They fall into another uneasy silence. Tubbo sniffles and finally just reaches up to wipe his sleeve across his face, the snot gathering in his nose smearing across the fabric of his sleeve. His pants are still wet and dirty and his shoes squish with every shift in his weight. Quackity takes a step up to his shoulder and they stand there, looking out on the crater and Quackity tips his head up, back, back to face the obsidian grid that casts a great shadow on them as they wait. Tubbo’s not sure what he’s waiting for, but he recognizes the feeling now. He’s waiting, impatiently pacing his way across the ruins like maybe it’ll bring something to him and make the feeling stop.
“What do you want for your birthday?” Quackity asks suddenly. Tubbo starts. He’d nearly forgotten he was there.
“What?” He asks, turning.
“Your birthday,” Quackity says again. He’s got his eyes on the sky, hands loosely in his pockets as he turns slightly to face Tubbo. They’re both on each other’s good sides– Quackity standing to his left, Tubbo to his right. Matching scars, almost. One full set of working eyes between them. Quackity’s gold tooth flashes as he speaks. “It’s what, almost a month away? Figured I’d get started on it early.”
“Oh.” Tubbo shrugs. “Uh. I dunno. I wasn’t really thinking about it, honestly.”
“It’s the big one-eight,” Quackity says, bumping their shoulders together and blinking. “We could have a party or something. Happy adulthood, woo! Woo.”
“I think I’d rather a quiet night at home,” Tubbo admits gently. He’d never say it to Quackity, but spending his birthday with Ranboo and Michael seems much more appealing than anything else right now. And he’d been honest– he hadn’t been thinking of it at all yet. “Dunno. ‘S not much I want these days.”
“A humble man,” Quackity hums. “I can respect it.”
“Thanks,” Tubbo says quietly, and they fall into silence again.
Quackity had always been interesting to Tubbo.
They’d shared a lot, in the early days. Well– the middle days moreso, since Quackity hadn’t arrived since after the first war. He hadn’t known the days of rationing and brotherhood that comes with a war well-fought, the terror at night, the TNT cannons and explosions. He hadn’t known any of that– not until a year ago, that is.
Regardless, he and Q had shared a lot. Manberg especially had drawn them closer, like moths to light. Endlessly circling, a dance of which they couldn’t explain, long nights spent pouring over paperwork and avoiding Schlatt like the plague. Tubbo can’t hear the sound of bottles clinking still without freezing up. He knows Quackity smokes, and he doesn’t miss how the man’s fingers shake whenever he flicks the lighter.
They both bandaged wounds and pressed ice packs to bruises, bore the weight of a terrible burden on their shoulders. Quackity had been strong enough to walk away on his own. Tubbo had simply been found out.
Quackity, Tubbo thinks, looking over at him with a blank gaze, is much stronger than me.
“You alright?” The man in question asks, noticing the look and glancing over with a slightly concerned glint in his eye.
“Fine,” Tubbo says. “I should… go.”
“Wanna come back to Las Nevadas with me?” Quackity offers. It’s a way out, obviously. A distraction Tubbo knows he sorely needs.
“No thanks,” he says. “Snowchester– I’ve got–” People waiting on me, he doesn’t say. He thinks Ranboo is home. He’s not sure. He was when he left this morning.
“That’s cool,” Quackity says, and his hand is warm and squeezes Tubbo’s shoulder lightly. “Don’t linger too long. I’ll see you around, kid.”
“See you,” Tubbo murmurs back, and Big Q’s hand disappears and he’s left alone with his fuzzy brain.
He can smell wine, strangely. Mixed with nitroglycerin and rot, tantalizingly sweet. Something long-dead has come this way, haunting like a ghost with flesh, a zombie with a soul, angry and tired and mean.
Maybe it’s L’Manberg’s ghost itself. Maybe it’s Schlatt.
But Schlatt’s dead, he reminds himself. We ate his body. Schlatt is dead, Dream is locked up, L’Manberg is gone, Wilbur is de–
No, Wilbur’s alive. But that’s fine.
A year has passed, and Wilbur’s alive, and Tubbo is alive, and Tommy is alive (just barely).
A lot has changed in just one year.
Tubbo pulls his jacket further around himself and turns away from the pit that used to be a country and inhales, then exhales. A year to grieve, and no more.
He goes home.