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Tubbo sighs as he slowly walks over to the still-smoking crater of what used to be L’manberg before Wilbur got his TNT-happy hands on it. He’s clutching the one ukulele he had in Pogtopia, the one he’d used as physical therapy to try and regain the motion in his burnt left hand.
He’s the president now. The president of nothing but a crater, as Wilbur had assured him.
Prime, he doesn’t have a thing left but his memories, his scars, the clothes on his back, his ukulele, and Tommy.
Tommy, who’s following behind him as he stumbles down the wreckage of the country they both helped found. The one they both fought and died for.
Once Tubbo finds a sturdy rock, one that won’t fall and plunge him into the waters filling their - his, now, he’s the president, but it’s still theirs- crater of a country, he sits down on it, letting his feet swing into the abyss as he begins to strum the strings of his ukulele.
As Tommy flops himself down next to him, Tubbo takes a deep breath and starts to softly sing.
“I’ve been living to see you
Dying to see you, but it shouldn’t be like this~”
It’s an old song, one from something Wilbur used to hum occasionally.
Tommy’s face is quietly solemn, face still streaked in soot and coagulated blood from a shrapnel cut below his right eye, with a few clean lines beneath his eyes where you can see his tanned skin. Neither of them mention them. Tubbo knows he has them too.
“This was unexpected, what do I do now?
Could we start again, please?”
Tubbo’s throat is still coated in ash from the explosions, and his voice sounds rougher than it usually does when he tries to sing. He coughs a few times into his shoulder, force stuttering the strings on his ukulele and making him play a few errant notes before continuing.
“I’ve been very hopeful so far
Now for the first time, I think we’re going wrong~”
He can’t make his voice not break at the next two lines.
“Hurry up and tell me this is just a dream
Or could we start again, please?”
His eyes start to swim as he keeps strumming the strings of his battered ukulele, and he opens his mouth to continue before he’s cut off by Tommy’s stronger, louder voice-
“I think you’ve made your point now~”
-which gives Tubbo just enough time to clear his throat to join him, their voices colliding and reverberating around the crater beneath them as they both sing the next line.
“You’ve even gone a bit too far to get the message home~”
Tubbo lets his voice drop away at the next line, giving Tommy a chance to make his voice echo around and let ripples form on the water below.
“Before it gets too frightening, we ought to call a halt~”
It’s Tommy’s turn for his voice to break, and he chokes up, unable to look in front of him any more in an effort to hide the multiplying tear streaks on his face, giving Tubbo the opportunity to finish the verse.
“So could we start again, please?”
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“I’ve been living to see you
Dying to see you, but it shouldn’t be like this~”
Tubbo’s voice is rougher now, scraped by more soot and ash and yelling, and he has a different ukulele. His old one just got blown up.
This time, there’s no water in the crater. This time, there’s an obsidian grid in the sky, silhouetted in front of the glowing moon. This time, L’manberg is still smoking. This time, he knows there’s no rebuilding.
This time, he really is the president of nothing but a crater.
Tommy sits next to him. They both have more scars, physical and mental, than they did the last time they did this.
“This was unexpected, what do I do now?
Could we start again, please?”
His eyes start to swim as he sings the final line, but Tommy cuts him off, almost yelling the next lines into the crater, at Technoblade and Phil.
At Dream.
“I think you’ve made your point now~”
His voice is dripping with burning anger, righteous fury and loss.
Tubbo’s is ringing in silent grief, inflamed rage and guilt as he joins his friend.
Together, a perfectly imperfect symphony to compliment the forever unfinished one still smoking below them.
“You’ve even gone a bit too far to get the message home!” The two of them yell, voices cracking as they sob and roar into the crater, voices bouncing off the walls and echoing back to them, making them sound like the ghost that was once their brother who is floating beneath them and calling out for Friend.
And Tommy is sure to keep the same volume as he yells out the new verse.
“Before it gets too frightening, we ought to call a halt~”
A single tear traces down Tubbo’s cheek as he sings the next line.
“So could we start again, please?”
Tommy’s own voice, barely away from being considered a quiet cry, echoes him.
“Could we start again, please?”
Tubbo stops strumming his ukulele, more and more tears tracing their way through the soot, ash and blood on his face.
“Could we start again, please?”
Tommy’s hand finds its way to his own, squeezing softly as the blond quietly murmurs his line.
“Could we start again, please?”
And Tubbo leans his head on his friend’s shoulder as his eyesight blurs and he finishes out the song with a choked, barely audible voice.
“Could we start again…please?”