Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“But after we escaped, uh, Sam murdered Ranboo in the escape. And before he died he…”

Tubbo doesn’t hear anything else.

His whole body is going numb, devolving into a tingling mess of failing nerve endings. Fireworks pop in his ears over Technoblade’s continued litany.

The world falls out from underneath him.

This is worse than when Tommy died. And better at the same time. When Tommy died, Tubbo had this weird up and down reaction where his brain couldn’t quite decide if he was in denial or if the throes of grief were so huge that it rendered him catatonic for days on end.

At least Tubbo’s reaction is singular this time. He sits in the empty mansion and clutches the picture that Technoblade gave him. He wanders the halls like a ghost and breaks over and over again in the silence. He lays on Ranboo’s side of the bed and tries to sleep through the crippling insomnia.

He doesn’t cry.

He thinks he might have done all his crying a long time ago.

Dream is coming.

He’ll want the nuke, Tubbo knows that. He knew that the moment he saw Dream on the steps of his armoury with the numbness of grief eating through his skin. He was probably supposed to try and stop Dream from leaving once his business with Sapnap was completed. He was probably supposed to stand his ground and demand that Dream stay away from Tommy.

But Tubbo is no hero.

He knows that. He stopped pretending the day he lost L’Manburg. 

Tubbo also knows that a hero couldn’t do what needs to be done right now. Only he can do it. Twisted as he’s been from his years playing this awful game, he is the only one that can do this. The emptiness of his house pushes him to it. Tommy’s continued absence pushes him to it. The appearance of the ghost who is his husband but is also nothing, nothing like him, pushes him to it.

Tubbo waits.

Sometimes, he thinks he hears Ranboo muttering to himself in the backrooms of the mansion. Every time his brain supplies him with this auditory hallucination, his heart constricts - threatening him with a grief so profound it almost undoes him. He leans back against the console behind him, feeling the cold bite of the numbers that will end it all and closes his eyes.

Ranboo’s dichromatic face flashes behind his eyelids. He wonders if he will ever go away.

“I loved you,” Tubbo whispers into the cold. The ghost isn’t here to pick fun at him or to answer him in Ranboo’s stolen voice. He isn’t really telling anyone but the memory at this point.

“I loved you so much I think it actually hurt,” he says. Pain twists in his chest like someone is ramming a serrated weapon through his rib cage. Tubbo wishes it would kill him. He really does. But he’s got something to finish first.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” Tubbo chokes out. He takes a shuddering breath and forces himself to open his eyes, to stare at the cold grey concrete of the ceiling. “I’m sorry I can’t be there for Michael. This is - this is the best I can do for him now.”

The shadow of Ranboo doesn’t answer him. He’s too busy preserving his own memories in a book that Tubbo will never read out of continued respect for his deceased husband. 

Tubbo takes another shuddering breath through the silence. The quiet is crippling. He’s so used to Tommy’s shrieking, Schlatt’s demands, Dream’s jabbing insults, Ranboo’s quiet monologue or Michael’s squeals of delight. Now, it’s just him.

Tubbo isn’t quite sure how he ever lived with himself.

A sound cuts through Dreamless sleep, a quiet beep that has Tubbo sitting ramrod straight in the simple wooden chair he’s set up in front of the nuke. He swallows, shaking uncontrollably as he brings up CCTV footage. He doesn’t know when he fell asleep.

At first, he sees nothing. Not in front of the house that Michael once lived in, not throughout the vast halls of the mansion, not around the harbour. 

His breath catches in his throat and a cold sweat beads on his forehead when he catches sight of Dream standing just outside the door of the bunker. He’s in full netherite. His mask, which Tommy assured Tubbo was cracked beyond all recognition when he finally got out of prison, is the pristine porcelain terror that it was when Tubbo last saw him.

He is staring straight at the camera like he knows that Tubbo is looking directly at him and Tubbo’s vision goes white with panic when Dream drags someone into view because this isn’t part of the plan at all. 

Tommy.

Tommy is battered, bruised and gagged. His hands are tied behind his back and Dream has his sword angled so the tip is pointing directly at Tommy’s Adam’s apple. 

He isn’t supposed to be here. Tubbo can’t go ahead with his plan if Tommy is here. What does he do if he doesn’t go through with his plan? What does he do?

Boo. Help. Please.

“Mnnnf!” Tommy screams beneath the gag. The way his voice cracks with desperation has a new sort of desolate numbness erupting over Tubbo’s skin. This is different to the way he felt after being told about Ranboo - and exactly the same. It’s not quite preemptive grief and it’s not quite panic. It’s some whirlwind combination of both alongside something stronger. Anger or hatred maybe. It would make sense to hate Dream. But Tubbo doesn’t know if he has it in him. 

Then Tommy’s eyes land on the CCTV camera and Tubbo can see everything reflected in the gaze of his lost brother that he, himself, can’t let himself feel unless he wants to shatter. Terror and anger and the desperate burn of gun powder.

“Open the door Tubbo,” Dream calls into the camera.

There is an edge to his voice that wasn’t there before the prison. Tubbo doesn’t like it. Cornered predators are more likely to do something rash. 

Tommy can’t die again. 

“Tubbo. I know you’re dumb as shit but in case you didn’t catch the threat here: open the door or Tommy dies right now.”

“Mnrrrfflfflemrn!” Tommy screeches, shaking his head so violently that his hair flies out in a golden halo around his head. Tubbo sucks in a sharp, shocked breath as Tommy’s neck flexes closer to the blade and Dream has to pull his weapon away to avoid impaling his hostage prematurely. The white streak in Tommy’s hair catches on the light from the lantern illuminating them both and Tubbo flinches at the reminder that Tommy was dead once. That he hated it. That Ranboo-

His shivering fingers find the entrance button and they nearly slip off of it as he presses down, slick with fear-fuelled sweat as they are.

When the door opens, Tommy slumps in defeat. Tubbo watches Dream yank him through the open door and anxiety drags its claws over the steel ball of resolve inside him.

This is okay. This is part of the plan. Dream was always meant to come here, to this room. But Tommy is here so the plan needs adjusting. Will the journey that Dream takes to get here give Tubbo enough time to find a way to save his best friend?

Tubbo allows himself to let out a whimper. Panic threatens to render him useless. His hands are sweating and shaking so much now that he runs his hands through his flower-riddled tangles - grabbing thick brown tresses to try and ground himself.

Tubbo Underscore-Beloved is no hero. He knows that. He’s never managed to save anyone. He’s never managed to do something successfully for the greater good. This situation can only end poorly for him.

He is a pawn pretending to be a queen.

What do I do? Boo? What do I-

“So this is it? Project Dream Catcher?”

Dream is reverent as he stands in the doorway. Tubbo’s head whips up, his eyes catching first on the point of Dream’s chin and his slightly open mouth exposed beneath the mask before they slip over to Tommy.

Tommy is looking at him. Directly at him. With an expression of complete and utter devastation. It’s the first time that Tommy has looked at him in weeks and it is the first time that Tubbo has felt seen since Technoblade told him about Ranboo.

And Prime, Tubbo’s missed him. He’s missed Tommy so much that even as terror sinks it’s teeth properly into his soul, he feels a bittersweet sense of childish relief. Tommy is here. Tommy is looking at him like he matters again. Maybe this is a mistake. Maybe Tubbo can-

“Tubbo. Is this Project Dream Catcher?”

Dream sounds impatient. Tubbo’s attention pings back to him like an elastic band snapping back into place. The mask is turned towards him now. Tubbo stares into the ambiguous black dots and it feels like he’s staring directly into the black pits of Hell.

He swallows and resists the urge to avert his eyes.

“Yes,” he says at length. “This is Project Dream Catcher. Who wants to know?”

Dream chuckles and Tubbo hates the way his courage falters because that laugh is the one Dream used when he confessed that the disc Tommy gave up to save Tubbo at the start of the final confrontation wasn’t even the real disc.

“I don’t have time for this,” Dream says on the come down from his laughter. “I’m actually here to make you a deal.”

“The nuke for Tommy, right?” Tubbo guesses before he can stop himself and his own deduction shocks him into a following silence.

Dream’s mask stares at him.

“That’s the general gist,” Dream confirms. “Guess you had to get something right at some point, statistically speaking.”

Tubbo tries to ignore the barb even though it burns that secret black space that Schlatt cultivated inside him like someone has just set off a firework in his face.

Tubbo’s heart rate is sky-rocketing, thundering out like a stampede of horses in his ears. The way Tommy is bucking in Dream’s grip like a wild stallion is only making it worse. The sword is still too close to Tommy’s neck.

“You won’t kill Tommy,” Tubbo says, stating the fact. He has to. Pure, blind terror makes him review facts. Ranboo commented on it once before they were married. He said it was the first thing he noticed about Tubbo when they first met - Tubbo stated facts like he was regurgitating them out of a textbook to give him space to shut down.

But this is the wrong thing to say. 

Tommy sucks in a harsh breath through the gag as the tip of Dream’s sword presses into the soft space between his neck and his chin.

“Won’t I?” 

“Y-

Tubbo feels faint because Tommy is one flinch away from dying again. He has no lives left. He won’t respawn unless Dream decides to revive him. And honestly, Tubbo doesn’t know if Tommy will survive another revival. Even beneath the bruises, he still looks like he hasn’t slept in months.

“You need Tommy, don’t you? B-because Tommy brings attachment to the server or whatever.”

“Oh that?” Dream asks, blase. “That plan’s a bust. I’ve moved on from that idea.”

He adjusts his footing and a cry threatens to rip itself from Tubbo’s throat as the blade nicks into Tommy’s neck. His eyes find Tommy’s and even though there is only so much that he can garner from Tommy’s pained expression, he knows that Tommy is not expecting him to give up the nuke.

Unlike Tubbo, Tommy Careful Danger Kraken Innit is a hero.

That doesn’t make this okay.

Tubbo watches as a single drop of blood clings to the edge of the sword. Tommy’s blood. This is not okay. He licks his lips and swallows the scream. 

“S-so…you don’t need - you don’t need Tommy-

“Alive anymore? No,” Dream clarifies, tightening his grip on Tommy’s arm as Tommy jerks automatically away from the sword. The cut it leaves on his neck is shallow but it might scar. Dream means business. Of course he does. 

Over the tip of the sword, over the point, Tommy meets Tubbo’s eyes again. And this time, his expression is complicated. It’s full of all this regret and unspoken apologies that dart beneath the blue of his irises like the flashing scales of illusive fish.

Tubbo feels an answering stir of the black guilt inside of himself.

This is not part of the plan.

“So what’s it going to be? Tommy or the nuke?”

Tubbo or the discs.

Tubbo shudders. How easy it was to be the one on the other end of the deal. How easy to offer himself up. He’d never considered how hard it must have been on Tommy to try and decide; with his prized possessions glinting in Dream’s tainted hands and Tubbo telling him that he was fine to die. 

“Shall I count down from ten?”

But this is different isn’t it? This is a nuke. 

“Ten.”

Even though his heart is caterwauling at him to give up the nuke in order to save the only person outside of Michael that matters on this server, logic tells him in low, even tones that he will be killing thousands by giving the nuke to Dream. 

“Nine.”

Tommy is worth a thousand lives. He is. 

“Eight.”

But Tubbo doesn’t have the right to decide that.

“Seven.”

Tubbo has never had the right to decide anything. He’s not important enough. He knows this.

“Six.”

The nuke gives him leverage but it was never meant to be used as a fuck you to the gods. He wasn’t issuing a challenge by building the nuke, he was issuing a warning to stay away. 

Yet you planned on using it to end Dream today. You planned on using it like you mattered. Like you were Wilbur Soot with the button to detonate L’Manburg. 

“Five.”

Tubbo Underscore-Beloved is no hero.

“Four.”

He just wants to die.

“Three.”

He’s wanted that for a long time.

“Two.”

And even though he wants to save Tommy, wants it with every fibre of his being;

“One.”

Ultimately, Tubbo is selfish.

Chapter Text

“Really? You’re really not going to pick Tommy?”

Dream sounds gleeful, like he’s just won a silent battle that Tubbo didn’t even know they were fighting.

And Tubbo can’t-

Oh Prime, Tubbo can’t believe he’s just done this.

Did he really just give up Tommy for the nuke? Tommy. His best friend. The one person that saw him when everyone else wrote him off as some naive idiot. 

Of course he did. Tubbo Underscore-Beloved is a spy and a traitor. He organises murder armies and throws away his friends when they threaten his pet projects. The black guilt, always present inside him like an impassable gallstone, festers in fast motion - spreading itself up and out through his guts like a sudden contagion until Tubbo feels like he is drowning in infection. 

Drowning in sickness. Suffocating in sinusitis.

Maybe death by firework to the face was better. 

“Y-you can’t ask me to choose Tommy,” Tubbo stutters out.

Tommy is looking at him, staring at him with emotional eyes that seem to accuse him of betrayal. Tubbo can’t meet that look. He can’t even give Tommy that courtesy.

Tommy knew he couldn’t pick him. He knew. He’s the hero. Not Tubbo.

“There are - there are thousands of people on this server and if I give - if I give the nuke to you then it won’t just be Tommy that’s in danger.”

Tubbo flinches when he catches the edge of a curling smirk peeking out from beneath the mask.

“Prime, this seems familiar doesn’t it?” Dream says, drawing back and tilting his chin up like he’s reminiscing. A chill runs over Tubbo’s spine when Dream leans forward again, pressing himself close to Tommy so he can speak right next to his captive’s ear. “What was it you said the first time? That you can’t put Tommy above a whole nation of people?”

His blood runs cold. His heart drops like a stone into his shoes. L’Manburg. Tommy is going to think that-

“That’s not fair,” Tubbo manages, his voice thick. 

Old ink dark shame washes through him. Tommy is stiff in Dream’s embrace now, barely breathing through the gag. He’s still looking at Tubbo - desperate, imploring Tubbo not to do this again and Tubbo still can’t look him in the eye.

“This isn’t the same,” Tubbo says but the sentiment is weak.

This is exactly the same.

“Oh it’s worse,” Dream tells him. “Because this time, you know you’re condemning Tommy to an exile he hates.”

Dream’s words stab into Tubbo, ripping him to pieces. He wants to shout out that this isn’t exile. He wants to scream that Tommy is worth more than anyone else on this wretched server. But he can’t because Tubbo won’t can’t make that decision.

He’s not a god and he knows that too well. It’s the only thing that works to his advantage in a server of megalomaniacs.

He winces when Dream tilts his head so that he can whisper directly to Tommy.

“ The nuke was worth more than you ever were. ”

“Stop it!” Tubbo snaps, distraught, but the damage has been done. The hurt that passes over Tommy’s face is so deep-rooted, so profound, that Dream might as well have used that stupid sword to rend open Tommy’s chest and expose his wounded heart. Tommy lets out a shuddering breath that makes his nostrils flare and Tubbo feels a piece of him die as Tommy’s eyes become glassy.

“Just stop it,” Tubbo whispers. 

Dream lets out a satisfied huff and Tubbo watches as he pulls back, lowering his stance so that the blade is positioned fully across Tommy’s neck. Not a threat now, a promise.

Tubbo almost screams. The fury of it, the storm, sits beneath Tubbo’s skin like a vow of retribution. The nuke is the only thing that stops him from lurching forward in some kamikaze attempt to knock Dream away from the boy that he’s just broken.

Dream’s mask sneers at Tubbo

“Last chance to change your mind,” he says.

The rage simmers into a quiet boil of regret and self hatred. 

“I,” Tubbo says and his eyes lock on Tommy’s.

It’s like looking into the light of a dying star. There is hope there, barely flickering, barely hanging on, and shredded trust dangling by a thread. 

Beneath that, there is a betrayal that was never properly ratified, one that only burned blacker when Tubbo married Ranboo. One that burns blacker still now that Tommy believes he is about to be abandoned again.

How can he believe I would do that to him again?

Because you are. Right. Now.

“I can’t,” Tubbo whispers.

Deathly silence follows as the last of Tommy’s light collapses into the black hole of forsakenness that opens up inside him. The tension in his body seems to drain with defeat until he’s hanging from Dream’s fingers, barely caring to prop himself up over the knife-edge. Dream stares at Tubbo promptingly for a moment, then shrugs his shoulders and says:

“Suit yourself.”

He presses his blade into Tommy’s throat and the world. 

Just. 

Ends.

“Tommy, no, TOMMYNODREAMSTOPIT! STOP IT!” Tubbo shrieks, flinching forward and slamming his fingers into the knots of hair by his ears in an effort to ground himself as blood gushes over the silver of the sword and drops in a cascade onto the cold concrete below. Tommy’s eyes widen first in shock then in an untold agony that only provokes Tubbo’s shrieking to devolve into mindless screaming that echoes over the bunker. Tubbo's eyes are glued open, riveted on his best friend as the muscles in Tommy’s face turn lax, as the light in his soul leeches into emptiness, then as his blank body falls - slipping off of the blade.

Dead.

Tommy Innit is dead.

His body doesn’t disappear like it should. Just lays there. Unmoving. Lifeless. Tommy shouldn’t be lifeless. Was Ranboo like this when he was murdered? Did he collapse like a puppet with cut strings? Was it-

Tubbo’s fault? It’s Tubbo’s fault. It’s always been Tubbo’s fault. Why didn’t he try and save them? Why didn’t he try ?

Guilt. Guilt. Black guilt erupting up and outwards to consume him and Dream and the server and the univer-

‘ You wanted them to die, ’ some twisted part of him says as Dream wipes the saturated blade on the side of his hoodie and something inside Tubbo petrifies. 

It doesn’t help that the twisted part of him sounds like Ghostboo.

“Well, I hope you’re satisfied,” Dream says, cocking his head to the side. “You know, I have to admit, I thought that you would at least try to save Tommy.”

Goosebumps run over Tubbo’s arms. The hairs on the back of his neck raise. Can Dream read his mind? Or is it really so obvious that Tubbo Underscore-Beloved is a waste of space? The worst friend ever. A failure of a President. An arsehole pretending to be a hero.

A pawn pretending to be a queen.

Tommy is dead.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Tubbo says and he thinks that he might have been surprised at his own unhinged tone if he wasn’t too busy breaking apart inside. It feels like there is a glitch in his system, like a world is trying to form inside him but keeps getting sucked back into itself as the rendering fails. “You shouldn’t have done that Dream. You shouldn’t have done that.”

Tommy is laying face first in his own blood. His skin is a weird bluish grey and his legs are splayed strangely out behind him. His arms, still bound, are pulling some weird butterfly shit over his back. The position is grotesque. Wrong. Tommy should be lying like he’s sleeping. There should be a chance for Tubbo to deny what’s happened. To process. 

He needs to process.

“Alright Tubbo, calm down,” Dream says, placating, like he’s speaking to a child. Tubbo hasn’t been a child for a long time. “There’s still a way to fix this, you know.”

“You mean the Revive Book?” Tubbo spits and did he really just have the audacity to sound so disrespectful to Dream ?

Yes he did. Tommy is dead.

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault. 

He shakes his head so hard that his hair whips over his eyes in a blur of brown and petals.

“Tommy won’t survive another revival.”

“What do you mean he won’t survive another revival?” Dream shouts and Tubbo twitches like a drug addict at the impulsive volume. Dream has a weird temper at the best of times and he’s not exactly patient when it comes to Tubbo.

“The Revival Book literally brings people back from the dead!”

“Yes. But they’re not the same,” Tubbo states. Stating facts. Regurgitating text books so that he can shut down. He needs to shut down or the supernova in his soul will devolve and start to suck in all the matter of the universe.

Tommy is dead.

Ranboo is dead.

Where is Michael?

It doesn’t matter - he’s not here. The best that Tubbo can do for Michael now is to defer to the plan. He has to remember that if Dream lives, Michael is guaranteed death. Tommy is dead so there is no reason now to abort.

He can go back to the plan. Autopilot engaged.

“What does it matter if they’re not the same?” Dream is asking. He’s taken a step forward, over Tommy’s body - like Tommy is nothing more than the nuke bunker’s welcome mat. A wave of molten fury erupts over Tubbo like errant magma. Suddenly, he’s looking at Dream and he wants to hurt. He wants to have Dream on his knees in front of him with an axe pressed into the flesh of his neck. The edge of this new need makes Tubbo think of Technoblade. Of pain and colour.

He takes a breath. 

Tubbo is not Technoblade. He will not listen to this siren song of violence. Not when he can think. Not when he can-

“Surely it doesn’t matter at all so long as they’re alive ,” Dream is saying.

Tubbo blinks, brought out of his internal spiral for just a moment so that he can really look at Dream. 

Dream has the blood of his enemy smeared into the side of his hoodie. The hair that pokes out of the lip of his hood is straw-like and straggly. The hands that wrap around the blood-soaked sword are spindly and full of calluses. His face is hidden behind a mask that constantly wears a smiley face.

To hide the pain.

‘We’re not so different,’ Tubbo realises.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” 

Tubbo pivots, not waiting for an answer. His body is shaking like he’s being subjected to a localised earthquake but inside, all is still - like he’s entered the eye of the storm.

He knows what he has to do now and he clings to that assurance as the lifeline in his abyss. 

“What are you doing?” Dream asks and his voice carries a hint of authoritative panic. 

Tubbo doesn’t answer. His body is moving on its own, his mind going through the motions. He’s shut down, taken himself away. Tommy is dead and Tubbo is running on autopilot.

He presses the first button and events are in motion. 

[23:26} <Tubbo_> If you are anywhere near Snowchester, get away. I’m setting off nukes. You have five minutes.

He hears the message that he spent so long spell-checking ping on Dream’s comm but is only half paying attention. With a deft side swipe of his hand, the control panel for the nuke is open on the console. A long time ago, when he didn’t quite trust himself not to become the man who had lost L’Manburg, he had Jack Manifold hold a secondary key card meaning that he and Jack would both be needed to activate the nuke. Tubbo has spent the last week re-routing the system so that he only needs his own passcodes and a detonation key. For the plan, of course. Not for himself. Not to exact vengeance upon the gods that have wronged him. The nukes were never meant to be a fuck you to the-

In the end, it wasn’t losing L’Manburg that turned him into Wilbur Soot, it was losing Ranboo Tommy. 

Dream is beside him. Tubbo didn’t hear the green nightmare move. The mask leers at the pre-entered coordinates situated in the top left corner of the screen.

X - 0, Y - 0, Z - 0.

“Tubbo, what are you doing?” Dream repeats. 

Tubbo hears the note of menace in his tone and almost buckles beneath its implication.

Dream is afraid. 

How is this possible?

Tommy is dead. Dream should be afraid.

“I’m ending this,” Tubbo says. Numbers run through his mind like the sprinkling spray of a waterfall. He’s calculated the fall out distance and the time needed to get away numerous times already. He knows there is no way to outrun this, not even with stacks and stacks of ender pearls. He just hopes that everyone else on the server is continuing their absence streak regarding Snowchester. 

“You can’t do this,” Dream says. “You’ll be killing yourself along with me.”

Tubbo ignores Dream, muttering out statistics instead. He already knows the answers to almost every preconceived sum relating to the nukes. He’s not going over it all now to make adjustments, he is retreating into the logic to give himself some comfort.

The only one that ever understood that about him was Ranboo. 

The final button pops up on his screen and he presses it before Dream has enough time to figure out what it is. A firework fizz of quivering excitement spins in his belly and he wonders if this is how Wilbur felt. 

“ Countdown initiated. Five minutes until nuclear detonation. ”

“No, no.”

Dream barges him out of the way - taller, stronger but right now, in this moment, Tubbo is smarter. He’s playing on the home field and the only people that ever understood him, that had a chance to stop him, are dead.

His eyes skim over to Tommy’s quickly cooling corpse.

Grief chokes him but he doesn’t falter.

I’m coming Tommy.

Dream is pressing buttons. His hands fly over the keyboard at the console bringing up command windows and task bars. His shoulders are hunched up by his ears and he’s breathing like he’s just run a marathon. His face is shock white beneath the mask - blending into the porcelain. Tubbo watches him with a detached sort of vindictiveness.

Tubbo is not a hero. He doesn’t think with his emotions, isn’t drawn into the allure of glory. But he is not a villain either. He doesn’t think in terms of power plays and grandeur. 

Tubbo is worse than all of that. He is cold, logical reality. No-one else understands patterns or how to subvert expectations quite the way that Tubbo does.

“Good luck with that,” he says.

“What did you do? What did you do ?” Dream howls at him, closing down a window and opening up the core of the computer itself.

“ Four minutes until nuclear detonation, “ the computer chirps.

“I did what I had to,” Tubbo tells him with forced nonchalance. He looks at his nails in an attempt to come off casual but his hands are shaking too much for that and Dream doesn’t appreciate the display. He snarls, vaulting at Tubbo and grabbing him by the shirt to lift him up off of his feet.

“Turn it off!” he barks.

Tubbo squirms, his heart rate escalating as he feels the burn of his shirt cutting into his neck. His hands wrap around Dream’s arms and even though they’re surprisingly thin, they’re as strong as concrete.

Concrete boxing him in. Schlatt laughing because he’s trapped in a ‘Tubbox’. Wilbur assures him that everything is going to be alright.

‘Stay strong,’ he’d said.

Tubbo tries to swallow and fails.

“Won’t,” he manages.

The mask stares at him, glaring disturbed daggers into a soul that is too malformed to acknowledge a new wound. Then he lets go, throwing Tubbo into the console and making a sound of disgust in the back of his throat.

“You’re literally killing yourself by doing this. You realise that right?”

Tubbo raises his eyebrow at the repetition as he pushes himself up and massages his neck, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Then he breathes in deep, exhaling grandly - in the same manner that Ranboo used to. For the first time since he came to sit down in this oppressive bunker nearly eight days ago, Tubbo thinks that the air doesn’t smell like old fridge water. Instead, it smells fresh, like the ice outside. Like the sea. Like life.

“Duh,” he says.

To his credit, Dream doesn’t run. He might not know the numbers inside and out like Tubbo does but he’s obviously smart enough to assume that running from this particular location is futile. 

As for Tubbo, well, he relishes in the relief.

“What about your son?” Dream tries as the computer announces two and a half minutes until detonation.

Tubbo feels his heart constrict in his chest.

Michael.

Prime, he hopes that Michael is somewhere far away if he’s even still alive. For all their sins and for all their poor judgements in the past, Tubbo hopes that he’s with Eret. Eret used to make Tubbo feel safe in the days of campfire songs and newly born nations. Eret was one of the few people that never actively poked fun at Tubbo for being scatterbrained or indecisive.

Tubbo thinks they’d be good with kids. And maybe, without Dream to plague the server, so will everyone else.

“Michael will be okay,” Tubbo says and he means it. “He’s more capable than people realise.”

“You’re insane,” Dream snarls at him as the computer announces one minute. “Don’t you get that by doing this, you’ll be making death permanent? Didn’t Tommy talk to you and tell you that you’ll just end up floating in a black void for all eternity?”

Fear flickers briefly inside him but it’s quickly smothered by dark acceptance. Tubbo shrugs and takes a seat on the wooden chair - the last chair he will ever sit in. He almost wishes that it was his couch in the mansion.

And that Ranboo was there to wrap around him.

“Wilbur said that he was in a train station. It’s probably different for everyone and I’m not planning on leaving Tommy alone in a void.”

Never again. He’ll never leave Tommy alone again. Even if Tommy finally hates him.

The computer announces thirty seconds and Dream roars out a swear.

Tubbo watches as Dream starts to prowl around the bunker like a caged animal - frenzied, rabid.

“You’re insane!” Dream repeats. “Why are you doing this? Is it to try and make a point? Are you trying to prove to yourself or to me that you’re important enough to make a decision like this Mr President ? Because you’re not ! You’re nothing more than a pawn Tubbo Underscore. And that’s all you’ll ever be! ”

The computer announces ten seconds and Tubbo leans forward to meet the dead black eyes of the mask and the inappropriateness of that smile.

“That’s Tubbo Underscore- Beloved, dickhead and this pawn just put you in checkmate.”

There’s a beep and a hiss and the nuke detonates.

He did it.

Exhilaration and relief war with the age old fear response as light and heat pops in his eyes. There’s a bang. Louder than the fireworks, louder than the screams of the people at the Festival.

“TUBBO!” Tommy screams but Tubbo can’t tell if his mind is firing off old synapses or if Tommy is really here.

Then he is burning, burning, burning and at this point, he’s so used to that sensation, his skin peeling away from his muscles and his muscles peeling away from his bones. He’s so used to nerves dying and the metallic smell of blood and the sour taste of it in the back of his throat. And somewhere in front of him, or behind him, or inside him, he can hear Dream screaming in the ultimate agony.

Then there is nothing.

And that is okay.

Chapter Text

Tommy spoke about being dead only once.

He was standing in front of his grave in the wind when Tubbo found him. His hair, newly streaked with white, was whipping over his face and he was hunched in a cardigan that he never would have worn before he’d died. Tubbo had felt a pinch in his heart when he’d seen him but there was still too much butt hurt between them for Tubbo to approach Tommy without feeling like he was giving something up. Tommy had known he was there though. He'd had eyes in the back of his head since the prison.

“Wilbur said there was a train station when he was dead,” Tommy had said and Tubbo had stiffened, feeling like an invader. He’d debated walking away without saying anything but for all the awkward irritation he felt around Tommy, for all the betrayal he saw in Tommy’s face whenever Tubbo addressed his husband, Tommy was still his best friend.

So Tubbo gave something up and moved silently to stand beside Tommy. When he saw the haunted expression on Tommy’s face, the way his mouth was drawn, Tubbo figured he'd made the right decision for once.

“When I died, there was just a void,” Tommy had said with a shudder. He glanced up at the grave that Tubbo had spent so long perfecting when that was the only project that could stop him from falling apart. Anxiety and plaguing dread had made Tommy seem older somehow.

“How come Wilbur got to have a train station?” he’d asked.

Tubbo hadn’t answered right away, not sure if the question was for him or not. Instead, he’d glanced down at his shoes, giving himself time to process the words and the implications of the hurt he’d seen in Tommy’s face. 

When he raised his eyes again, Tommy was finally looking at him - the question in his eyes.

So Tubbo had answered.

“I dunno,” he’d ventured. “I guess Wilbur’s just more imaginative than you.”

Tommy had blinked at him like he couldn’t quite process what Tubbo had just said. Then his mouth had cracked into a wonky smirk that didn’t quite reach his eyes and he’d nudged Tubbo in the ribs. It was a start.

“Shut up Tubbo.”

When Tubbo dies, he sees a pair of doors suspended in black space. 

They’re both simple wooden doors. The one on the left is yellow. The one on the right is red. Their colours shine through the darkness like overly saturated children’s drawings.

‘ I’ll make this as painless and colourful as possible. ’

It is cold in the afterlife. Tubbo shivers and lets out a breath that rolls into the black.

“You’re supposed to choose one.”

Tubbo starts, gasping and jerking backwards, his arms pinwheeling. His feet impact smooth flat ground though he can’t see his feet or the ground for the black. He can hear his breaths coming out short and shallow and his heart is cannonading against ribs that don’t technically exist anymore. He swallows to try and ground himself and chokes when his throat closes over an excess of saliva.

“Whoa. You okay?”

Tubbo turns, angling himself round so that he’s facing the speaker. His non-existent skin crawls when he comes face to face once again with his worst enemy.

“D-Dream?”

“Ah. Not quite. Hello Tubbo.”

Tubbo frowns. The creature beside him does look like Dream. But there are some integral differences to the man who raged as Tubbo fired his nuke. This Dream is wearing the same bright green hoodie and a mask made of porcelain, yes. His build is the same, athletic and slim like a marathon runner. But the face on the mask isn’t the usual, creeping smile. Instead, it is a simple XD, an expression entirely less ominous than that unholy smile . A pair of golden haloes encircle his head like the rings of some distant planet.

He doesn’t smell like Dream either. Dream, like Wilbur, smells of gunpowder and power. The thing standing beside Tubbo now smells of something older, wilder. Tubbo’s smelt this before, on the day that he and Fundy performed the ritual on the Prime path to rid Dream of his-

“Dreamon,” Tubbo breathes.

The Dreamon tilts its head and the XD expression on the mask is horribly disarming.

“Call me DreamXD,” it says. “Or just XD. Whatever.”

Tubbo forces himself to inhale slowly, carefully. He holds that breath for a few seconds, watching as XD shifts to scratch at something behind his ear. His humanesque ear. His hands aren’t spindly or callused like Dream’s. They’re long, artful, horribly perfect.

Tubbo exhales and tries to organise his thoughts as his heart rate gradually de-escalates into something manageable.

“What - why are you here?” Tubbo asks. “It’s not revenge is it? Coz I kind of think I’ve had enough of that.”

XD remains motionless for a moment, so still that Tubbo feels like he’s looking at a statue or a picture instead of a person. Definitely something unreal. But then XD throws his head back and laughs so hard that Tubbo’s toes curl. That laugh is the same as Dream’s. Whatever he’s looking at right now, it’s choosing to wear Dream’s form. That means it can’t be too far removed from the fact that Tubbo just killed Dream, right?

Tubbo doesn’t think he can beat down a Dreamon in a place like this. Tubbo never really believed he could beat down a Dreamon at all. Dreamon hunting was just the whim of a child who yearned for a story as prominent as Tommy’s. 

Imagine his surprise when the ritual he’d read about worked perfectly on the most powerful man on the server.

“I’m not here for revenge,” XD tells him, reaching beneath his mask to wipe away a stray tear. Tubbo squints through the darkness and a chill scrabbles down his spine when part of XD’s face is revealed.

It’s featureless - at least the mouth is missing.

Tubbo’s mind recoils at the nightmarishness of that and he lets out a stuttering breath, clutching at the shirt he can feel hanging over his chest. He wishes he could see himself. He wonders why he can see DreamXD and the doors. It’s like they’re lit up from the inside somehow.

XD sobers, folding his arms over his chest. 

“I’m here to collect you,” he says.

“ Collect me?” Tubbo repeats with a mortifying squeak. Well doesn’t that just sound pleasantly terrifying. Images of butterflies pinned to walls dance through his head - the metal pikes impaling their delicate bodies. “What do you mean, collect me?”

“Oh, uh,” the Dreamon pauses, glancing upwards like he’s seeking a higher power for answers and Tubbo feels the chill from his surroundings seep into his bones. 

“I mean that I’m here to take you to make amends for what you did.”

Tubbo is instantly on edge. The dread that has been slowly curdling inside him like gone off milk spikes into an unignorable alarm. He licks his suddenly dry lips and sucks in a breath of chilly air.

“Not gonna lie, that kind of sounds the same as revenge there big man.”

XD sighs and lifts a hand up to run through wayward strands of sandy hair. Discomfort flickers over the top of Tubbo’s barely contained panic at the sight. XD is far too fidgety - it’s almost like he’s trying too hard to appear human.

“You set off a nuclear weapon in that stupid little town you have, Snowchester, right?” XD presses.

Tubbo nods automatically, then winces when he thinks of what must be left of Michael’s home.

“Well, the thing is, you fucked up.”

“Because I blew up Dream?” Tubbo asks. He’s always suspected that Dream might be more than he lets on. He might be more than even he knew. The appearance of this creature, who seems more god-like to Tubbo than Dreamonic, only serves to confirm Tubbo’s suspicions. 

He supposes it only makes sense that he’s going to be punished for this. He’s probably disrupted some natural order or something. Tubbo figures it was worth it. Even if Tommy and Ranboo are permanently dead along with him now, at least they won’t have to worry about the repercussions of being revived. No matter how miserable Tubbo got in the days following Ranboo’s murder, he never once considered going to Dream to ask to bring Ranboo back. He didn’t want his husband to go through what Tommy obviously had.

“Well, there is that,” XD agrees. “But more than that, you blew up half of the Dream SMP and subjected the other half to the promise of a nuclear winter that will devastate all remaining life there.”

Shock hits Tubbo like a punch in the face. He staggers backwards through the void and ends up squatting though he can’t see the floor beneath him so he doesn’t gain any comfort from being closer to the ground.

“I did-I did what?” he asks weakly.

This can’t be real. XD can’t be telling him the truth right now. He ran the numbers. Over and over again. He sent the message so that anyone close to Snowchester would have a five minute head start to get away. Because the bomb was only supposed to blow up Snowchester.

A wave of goosebumps breaks over his skin bringing a heavy cold sweat and a primordial mix of dread and horror that oozes over him like crude oil. 

XD folds his arms back over his chest. He looks impatient, like he’d rather be anywhere else than here. The stance is too much like Dream. There is too much judgement in that crudely drawn mask. XD is not invested enough in this conversation to be lying about this.

Tubbo thinks he might pass out.

“You basically caused Armageddon, kid,” DreamXD clarifies, sounding far too unimpressed for the gravitas of that statement.

The crude oil mixture lurches up, spilling up and out from Tubbo’s heart like filthy toxic waste. Tubbo shudders and clutches at himself, rocking backwards and forwards as he feels at the familiar fabric of his shirt.

He didn’t mean to.

Oh Prime, he didn’t mean to.

He’d told Dream that he wouldn’t hand over the nuke because he was trying to save thousands of lives. In the end, it had been him that had been the mass murderer, that had been the genocidal maniac.

It had always been him.

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault.

“How?” Tubbo blurts out. “ How? That nuke was only supposed to do as much damage as a city wide rain of TNT plus radiation after-effects. It was supposed to turn Snowchester into a crater but leave the rest of the SMP untouched! The first nuke didn’t end everything! What happened?”

Tubbo glances up at XD with desperation clawing at his chest, willing this creature to give him the answers but XD just shrugs, too blase, too bored.

“I don’t know. The point is that you fucked up and killed everyone you ever loved so now you have to make amends.”

He killed them. 

Oh Prime, he killed them. Everyone.

The guilt, oh the guilt is unbearable. It swims through his guts like acid. 

He’d only wanted to kill Dream.

Just Dream.

And himself.

Oh Prime. He killed Michael. 

“I’m gonna be sick,” Tubbo says, hanging his head over his knees and willing himself to eject everything he’s ever eaten. He retches uselessly as his stomach tries to launch itself up through his eyes.

He killed everyone.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” DreamXD tells him and Tubbo can hear the eye roll in his voice.

“S-screw you,” Tubbo manages between burping hiccups.

“No can do,” XD says. “Tell you what, how about we move our little discussion somewhere a bit less dull, eh?”

There’s a jerk and a judder and the ground beneath Tubbo’s feet begins to wobble. He’s thrown forward on his face and his cheek meets with the grainy feel of slightly damp wood. He can smell wood as well now, and a fresh varnish. When he looks up, XD is pushing away from something, like a wall in the middle of space and then they’re bobbing from side to side through the darkness like they’re standing in the middle of-

“A boat,” Tubbo gasps, groping blindly around him to feel for the sides. 

He can hear the sound of lapping water now and can smell the nostalgic pull of the sea beneath him like baking salt.

“Where-

He cuts himself off as he realises that the doors, still red and yellow and threatening to burn his retinas through the darkness, are growing smaller behind him. Whatever choice they represent, he is obviously not fit to make it yet.

He already knows, somehow, that he will be back here again.

It still doesn’t really compute. He killed everyone? Even Wilbur hadn’t managed that. Even Dream and Phil and Techno with their rain of TNT hadn’t managed that.

He’d been the end of the Dream SMP.

It’s kind of impressive really. A great accomplishment for someone once labelled a ‘pawn’. But then Tubbo thinks about Jack Manifold dropping his key card, Niki building her underwater city and Fundy hunting Dreamons with him. He thinks about Sapnap teaching him to shoot a bow and Quackity trying to think of ways to deflect Schlatt’s wrath in the white house. The SMP was populated with good and bad people, beauty and ugliness, and Tubbo just went ahead and destroyed it like it never mattered.

He feels sick all over again. Horrified with himself. Disgusted. Guilt-ridden to the point of madness. He can feel the responsibility weighing on him like the lapels of a President’s blaser. He can hear the screams of the people he’s damned like pops of firework colour in his ears.

I wasn’t trying to do that. I just wanted to take Dream and his Revive Book out of the equation.

That’s not what you did though.

The world around him is changing. The blackness is receding to make way for purple-blue dawn light. XD who has been rowing his way forward holding nothing at all, suddenly has an enormous oar in hand, one that looks far too big for him to be able to handle on his own. The sounds of birds can be heard, the kind that cry out in the Spring and Summer and Tubbo catches the first outlines of mangrove trees with their roots rising up and out of rippling water.

“Where are we now?” Tubbo asks. He blinks, realising that he can see himself. He looks exactly the same as he did before he died, right down to the scuff marks on his shoes.

He doesn’t look like a mass murderer.

“This is the Dead Sea,” DreamXD tells him. “It’s sort of like a collective body of water that connects everybody’s Limbos or whatever.”

“Ah,” Tubbo says. It’s all he can manage as a spark of selfish hope ignites within his devastated guts. Maybe he’ll be able to go and find Tommy and Ranboo after all.

But…

Should he get to do that?

He-

Tubbo blew up the server. He killed everyone. Surely there’s…surely there’s more of a punishment than just having to make amends or whatever. He feels like there should be more of a punishment. The guilt pushing him to the edge of sanity is demanding it. Though if he has to talk to the people he killed then maybe that is enough of a punishment. They’re going to hate him, even more than they probably already did. And that’s going to be just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg of pain.

Prime, he was so stupid. How could he have been so stupid? To think that he could play with fire and not burn the world down around him.

Just a pawn pretending to be a queen. 

Tubbo stares at XD above him and suddenly, this whole situation is too much, just way too much for him. He can’t take this. He can’t be expected to assume responsibility for a thousand people or more. He’s tried that already. He gave up his best friend’s life, the last person he actually truly loved, to save everyone else and look what happened. 

Dream was right. He’s not important enough to make these sorts of decisions. So he should just stop trying. No. All Tubbo wants to do is find Tommy and Ranboo and spend the rest of eternity holed up in some closed off Limbo that no-one else can reach.

His mind whirs into action. Half baked plans to steal the boat surface in his mind like large mammals coming up from the deep for air plus two or three contingency plans should things go pear shaped. The boat itself is massive - far larger than the yacht that Fundy built to block out the horizon in the docks of Las Nevadas and honestly, Tubbo isn’t sure how even someone as alien as XD is managing to steer this monstrosity. The deck is bare so there’s nothing really to help him with his ideas. Which kind of sucks. There’s not even a loose piece of wood or string to make a crude bow.

“Don’t bother trying to steal the boat,” XD says over the splash of the water as the mangrove trees thin enough to make way for an open ocean.

Tubbo’s muscles tense in sudden reverent fear. Can this god-like creature read minds? Had Dream been able to do that before he and Fundy had separated Dream from XD?

“I’m going to give it to you in a minute anyway.”

“You’re giving me this boat? Really?” Tubbo splutters.

That doesn’t make any sense at all.

“I thought you said I had to make amends or whatever.”

“Oh, you do,” XD confirms. “But you’re going to need a boat to do it.”

Tubbo frowns. He’s really not following. Maybe he should be, this doesn’t sound hard but honestly, he’s still reeling from the revelation that he killed everybody. That he’s dead. That Tommy’s dead. The sight of Tommy’s slack corpse going cold in his own blood beats behind Tubbo’s eyelids as he blinks.

It’s been a long day.

“Can you please just stop being cryptic and tell me what I’m going to have to do?” Tubbo asks. 

XD glances back at him and his head tilts just a little too far. Tubbo blanches at the sight. It looks as though Dream is having his neck snapped in slow motion.

“Aw, you’re no fun,” XD complains. 

“You wouldn’t be either if you’d been told you’d just single-handedly annihilated an entire server,” Tubbo snaps back before he can stop himself.

He freezes, made nervous by his own cheek. He raises a shaking hand to cover his mouth and stares up at XD as though waiting for a blow. It’s a reaction that he hasn’t had to anyone since the last time he saw Schlatt alive. 

Thankfully, though, XD doesn’t seem to feel inclined to lash out because of a little snark. Tubbo has no doubt that if he felt truly insulted, he wouldn’t hesitate to showcase an explosive temper. Though he denies being Dream and whilst he is clearly something else, there is no denying the connection. 

For now, XD regards him with his hand raised and his index finger tapping his chin in mock thoughtfulness. Another entirely too human gesture.

“Mn, you have a point,” XD says. “Alright then.”

He abandons the oar which Tubbo notes, quite terrifyingly, continues to move itself in a rowing motion despite losing its user. Had XD just been going through the motions of having to row this monstrosity of a boat for kicks? That unsettles Tubbo more than he cares to admit. It makes him feel like this god is merely playing games with him, like he’s still the helpless pawn playing on a different chess board.

When XD flops down cross-legged in front of Tubbo, Tubbo has to resist the urge to jerk back and put some distance between the pair of them. He wishes he had an axe. Or even a stick. Just something to hold onto to make him feel like he has the option to defend himself should this thing try to attack him after all.

Can he die in Limbo?

“So, because of the way that the people of the Dream SMP died,” XD explains. “You know, quite suddenly without any warning, a lot of them died with attachments and unfinished business still hanging over them.”

Tubbo nods as the guilt reaches through him again to squeeze his heart and lungs. Of course, it makes sense that people would die with regrets if they were really subjected to all the depravities of a nuclear explosion gone wrong. 

Tubbo really is a monster, isn’t he?

“So most of them ended up in their own versions of Limbo instead of moving on properly,” XD says. “Your job, once I hand over the boat, will be to ferry them through the waters of the Dead Sea to the Final Resting Place. Simple right?”

Tubbo is instantly suspicious. Nothing is ever simple. Less so when you’re dealing with a creature wearing a warped version of Dream’s face.

“Too simple actually,” Tubbo says. “What’s the catch?”

XD leans back, placing both of his unnaturally smooth hands down on the grain of the boat. 

“You know, Dream always said that you were a simpleton but I think you’re pretty smart.”

Tubbo frowns, not taken in by the backwards compliment at all. The fact that XD spoke to Dream at any point is pretty unnerving. Tubbo decides to file that information away for later.

“Thanks…” he says at length.

“Along the way, you’re going to have to help these people come to terms with their deaths and help them resolve their unfinished business,” XD continues. “Even if you make it to the Final Resting Place, they won’t be able to step off of the boat if they’re still weighed down by their attachments.”

That sounds…awful if Tubbo’s honest. He doesn’t like to pry and he’s got enough of his own problems to be trying to deal with other people’s OTP baggage. Uncovering secrets and lies were a huge part of his job as a spy for Pogtopia and he sucked at it something fierce back then because he kept his own secrets and lies buried so close. He still doesn’t think that anyone outside of Quackity knows that Schlatt used to hurt him.

“I can’t,” he blurts out. “I’m not - Tommy was always the people person. Ranboo was always the compassionate one. I’m just…well, I suck at people. And do you really think that anyone will talk to the boy that blew them up?”

“Does any of that sound like my problem?”

Tubbo stills as the first fingers of his new reality thread their way through his hair and down into his spine. There, they clasp, holding him steadfast, a prisoner anew.

Punishment enough indeed.

Since they have floated away from the two doors representing Tubbo’s choice, the air has gotten much warmer. Still, Tubbo feels cold. Colder than he ever has before.

“No, no, you can’t do this to me,” he whispers, broken and shuddering in horror.

This is a nightmare.

This has to be a nightmare.

Boo, wake me up! Please!

“Actually, I think you’ll find that I can, little mortal,” XD says and there’s something in those words that makes it clear that it is indeed XD who is doing this to Tubbo, no-one else. “While I don’t really go in for that whole revenge thing, you did kill my other half and amends need to be made.”

XD straightens, impossibly tall all of a sudden - like an Enderman. Like-

Boo?

“The Final Resting Place exists within the mangrove behind you,” XD explains, pointing to the horizon where Tubbo can just make out the trees clumping together like a black cloud on the water. “The oar will move your boat.”

XD shifts his pointing finger to the oar in question and Tubbo’s mouth falls open as the oar suddenly stops rowing. He watches in awe and a healthy amount of terror as it shrinks down, all the while emitting a curious yellow glow that leaks out from the knots and marks in the wood. When it reaches a size that might be comfortable for Tubbo, it makes a sound like a tinkling bell and forms into a glowing ball that rests serenely in place over the deck of the boat.

Tubbo is no stranger to magic. He’s used it enough times to enchant armour and weapons over the years; to brew potions and study the habits of the creatures that populated the SMP. But he has never seen magic of this calibre before. Transformations like this should be impossible. 

It gives a whole new dimension to the predatory air that XD carries around him despite being fairly laid back.

“If you want to use the oar, you just have to hold your hands out over the edge of the boat like you intend to row,” XD explains. “If you can fool it into thinking you’ll be doing half of the work, then it won’t mind doing what you want it to.”

Tubbo nods, not really taking it in.

This whole situation is absurd, utterly ridiculous.

He wishes that Tommy was here. He’d probably like this sort of thing. Though on second thought, he’d probably have gotten himself smited by now and he probably hates Tubbo so much that he wouldn’t want to be on the same ship for an extended period of time.

XD is fishing around in the pocket of his trousers. They look like jeans, Tubbo realises, but different in a way that hurts the eyes to try and process.

Tubbo’s attention is diverted with a painful lurch when XD finally manages to pull out a very familiar looking compass.

“This will be your guide.”

It’s his compass, the one that got blown up by that creeper all those months ago. How does XD have that? How-

“How is that here?” Tubbo breathes, reaching towards it with trembling fingers.

Does it still point to Tommy? Even now? Or has it lost the ability to find the boy who hops dimensions like a stowaway might hop ships?

XD shrugs and hands the compass over. Tubbo isn’t fooled but he’s too busy staring at the compass as his soul turns itself inside out to call XD out on his dismissiveness. The compass is almost exactly the same as it was, right down to the dent in the bottom left hand corner where Tubbo dropped it on a block of obsidian when he was mining out materials for L’Manburg at 3am. The only difference is that instead of saying: ‘Your Tommy’ across the top, it says: ‘Your Friend’ instead. Which is pretty ominous really. Apprehensiveness wriggles through all the regret that has been dredged up from the black pit of Tubbo’s soul as he processes the words.

The needle is currently pointing beneath the shimmering surface, straight ahead of the boat where a new geometric shadow is starting to loom along the horizon.

“What’s that?” Tubbo asks, squinting out over the water. The sun is a harsh glare in the sky making the world a little difficult to see. Tubbo spares it a side glance and then double takes when he sees that the sun is nothing more than a big black ball in the sky giving off a burning white glow.

“What the-” he mutters.

“ That ,” XD says, “is your current destination. The first person that you are to ferry across the Dead Sea. The compass will point to them until they are on the boat. Then it will point you back to the mangrove. Okay?”

Tubbo swallows, staring down at the compass and then up at the horizon again. 

“Okay,” he says, though it’s not okay. It’s not. 

Who will he have to see? Who will scream at him or sob at him or try to beat him down? Why can’t he just go and be with Tommy and Ranboo? He didn’t mean to blow up the SMP. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone other than Dream who had just killed Tommy right in front of him for the last time.

He wants to break. He wants to curl up on the deck of the boat in the foetal position and cry until he dies again from dehydration.

But Tubbo did all his crying a long time ago.

“Can you at least tell me-

Tubbo cuts himself off as he turns to face XD again only to see that XD is nowhere to be found, vanished like he never existed in the first place. The only thing left to denote that he was ever here is the glowing yellow orb of the ‘oar’ floating in place over the wooden deck.

Tubbo blinks, his mouth goes dry and his throat closes over, making it difficult to swallow. He doesn’t want to be alone.

Yes he does.

He doesn’t know what he has to do.

Yes he does.

With fear in his heart, trepidation and a begrudging acceptance, he looks down at the compass still pointing dead ahead of him.

He shifts himself, walking on shaking legs over the deck of the ship and wincing with every clap of his scuffed shoes on the wood. Just as XD advised, he cups the orb, shifting it over the water and then manoeuvring his hands so he’s holding an imaginary oar.

It works just like XD says. The oar materialises, dipping into the shoals of the water.

This is insane.

Tubbo lifts his shaking hands up to feel at the flowers still tangled in his hair. Then he looks up at the geometric shapes growing bigger over the water-

-and promptly starts rowing in the opposite direction.

Chapter Text

Oooooohhhhhhhh man. Oh man, oh man, oh man.

Tubbo can’t believe that XD just up and left him alone with a vessel that can connect to everyone’s Limbos. He didn’t even shackle Tubbo to the boat or whatever.

Really.

Honestly.

What did XD expect him to do?

He’s out of here. Gone. He’s going to find Ranboo and Michael and Tommy and he’s going to take them away from all of this.

Screw talking to the people he blew up. Screw all this amendment shit. Tubbo is going to shove what he has inadvertently done down deep and he’s going to carve out an escape for himself.

Surely he’s owed that much.

Surely he put up with enough in his life to earn himself an escape from all the bullshit.

Nevermind the niggling - desperate, clawing, all-encompassingly dark - guilt that he’s still trying to come to terms with. Nevermind that the feeling of needing to help those he’s wronged is almost like a compulsion. Nevermind that he’s a fucking monster. Tubbo’s sure that will all go away on its own. One day. Eventually. Whatever.

Excitement and apprehension war inside him as the sun beats down on his neck. He’s going to see Ranboo again. Soon. He’s going to see Ranboo again and he’s going to tell him immediately how much he missed him. He’s going to say sorry for making Ranboo uncomfortable when they fought because they were fighting about something before Ranboo left. Tubbo doesn’t really remember what the fight was about - he does, he does, he won’t ever forget - and Ranboo will forgive him because he’ll be Ranboo again. Then they’re going to find Michael together and Tubbo is going to swing the little piglin up in his arms and hold him close and-

He won’t be plagued by the fact that the little piglin probably knows exactly what it feels like to burn to death. He won’t look into Michael’s good eye and see the reflection of a nuclear explosion detonating forever.

Then the three of them will go and find Tommy. And okay, yeah, Tommy’s probably going to be livid. Or all broken up. Tubbo would be if he thought he’d been abandoned again. But that won’t matter when Tubbo apologises to Tommy. He’ll be all: ‘I didn’t mean to abandon you again. I’m sorry I totally suck and am the worst friend ever. Will you come and live with us on this cool boat that I totally stole from a Dreamon?’ Of course Tommy will say yes because Tommy is actually very forgiving. It’s one of his lesser known traits and Tubbo totally won’t be taking advantage of his best friend like the pitch black villain he is on the inside.

Yeah. That all sounds good to him. What can possibly go wrong?

Sweating, Tubbo rolls up his sleeves. Luckily, he wasn’t wearing his Snowchester vest when he died or he probably would have passed out from heat stroke by now. He glances up at the sky, checking the position of the sun, then he looks back down at the compass which is now pointing resolutely behind him.

Nope, nope. He’s not going back. Screw that.

Tommy, Ranboo, Michael. Tommy, Ranboo, Michael. Not necessarily in that order.

He has no idea where they are or how to find them. 

That…is a bit of a problem admittedly. But Tubbo is nothing if not tenacious. Wiping the back of his arm over his sticky forehead, Tubbo lets go of the oar with his other hand and then watches, dumbstruck as it carries on paddling without him, just like XD said it would.

Freaky.

He takes in a breath. It really is hot. He’s used to the sub zero temperatures of Snowchester. Honestly, this tropical type of heat is unbearable. It feels like he’s trying to breathe in wet flames.

Ranboo would probably have something fun to say about this. If Ranboo was here…

He is somewhere; happily existing in the same space as Tubbo again. Tubbo feels like a vice around his heart has loosened, he really does. Desperation to be with Ranboo right now pushes itself over the jagged edges of Tubbo’s grief.

The deck of Tubbo’s - escape vehicle - vessel is large and bare; gratuitously large actually. It kind of feels like it’s waiting for something - like foundations, like this was supposed to be a boathouse at some point. Tubbo shrugs to himself as he stalks across the boat from front to back. At the back of the boat is a crudely painted shack that might be the cabin. It’s an odd structure, jutting upwards at the back with a slanting roof. In front of the door, which is light blue, there is a bell which lets out muffled chimes in the low breeze rolling off of the sea. The walls are painted a neutral cream and are broken up by window frames holding diamond patterned glass. Out of the back of the cabin, Tubbo can see a line of colourful bunting draping down towards a lone deck chair.

Has this always been here? 

Tubbo’s not sure. He doesn’t think he saw it earlier when XD was explaining how everything was going to work. The whole thing makes him feel incredibly uneasy so he decides not to dwell on it.

He feels a bit like he’s breaking and entering as he puts his hand on the door knob, twisting so the door flies open. The interior is pretty sparse. There’s a navigation table set up by the window and a ladder that reaches up into the sloping roof. Gaping up into the semi-gloom, Tubbo sees a wad of blankets thrown over a hammock and a little bedside table. Fairy lights hang from the rafters.

Huh. Not too shabby.

But Tubbo is not here to admire the decor. He moves over to the navigation table and opens the drawer. It comes away from the main body of the table with a horrible shriek that sets Tubbo’s teeth on edge but it’s worth it because inside, he finds a spyglass which he instantly pockets and a few charting tools including map paper.

No map though. Damn. Not to worry. It’s not a big deal. Tubbo can map as he goes. It’ll be something cool to show Michael when he finds his son.

Tubbo leaves the cabin, staring out to sea with trepidation. He’s hoping to see something on the horizon, bumps and silhouettes that foretell of a land mass but there is nothing as far as the eye can see. Only the blue water under the obnoxiously blue sky, all slowly being roasted beneath the unforgiving light of the dark sun.

He can’t even hear a sea gull.

Tubbo swallows and it’s like trying to fight his way past sandpaper. His lips are cracked and dry, hard to the touch when he lifts his fingers to feel at them. He didn’t realise just how dehydrated he was until now. Blowing up an entire server is thirsty work.

The joke makes him uncomfortable.

Time to check the hold, Tubbo decides. 

He moves across the sizzling deck and finds himself irked by the heat lines wavering over the grid patterned wood of the hold. He squats, studying the mechanism that keeps the doors locked before flicking apart the metal clasp and hauling the doors open. They’re surprisingly heavy and Tubbo finds himself grunting as he pushes them up and over because the exertion is making him sweat more. Right now, he doesn’t have the fluid to lose. A headache is already starting to push at the backs of his eyes. He needs water and fast.

Thankfully, it is relatively cool beneath the heavy boards of the deck. Tubbo squints into the shadows, picking out the arcing shape of the boat below him and a folded stack of several more deck chairs. Other than that, it is completely empty. 

Tubbo draws back, perching on his hunches as the quiet dread of a horrible realisation creeps over him. He thinks he knows now why XD left him on this boat alone and unchained. 

Food is one thing. He can fashion himself a fishing rod from the wood of the ship and the fibres of his shirt if he has to (providing there are fish in this alien ocean) but water is an entirely different problem. Tubbo lets his head tip back, feeling the burn of the sun run its fingers over the raised scars of his face and squints at the endless blue. There’s not even a whisper of a cloud. No moisture bar the saline solution of the sea beneath the boat.

Frustration and desperate, curdling disappointment drips poison into his logic like crying obsidian. He can’t think of a single way around this. He’s trapped. Like a boxed in pawn. In concrete. In-

“I don’t want to go back,” he whispers and the compass burns a new ring of pain into his scarred palm.

For just a moment, the tiniest instant, Tubbo considers jumping into the inviting waters of the Dead Sea instead and letting himself drown.

It wouldn’t take much.

Just the steeling of his nerves and the resolve to weather the panic sure to jump-start on the cusp of asphyxiation.

Surely that’s better than being ripped into by the people he’s blown up.

Surely that’s better than trying to wade his way through the dark waters of their hearts and walking along the line of their sharpest edges.

Surely that’s better than fighting his way to Ranboo only to find himself forgotten, to Michael to find his son afraid of the boy who blew up the SMP, to Tommy who thought himself alone through his last breaths.

But then that moment is gone.

Tubbo doesn’t dwell on it. He doesn’t question it or linger on what a thought like that in a place like this might mean. Tubbo moves because that’s what he’s good at when he’s afraid, when he can’t process a terrifying truth. He pushes himself up through the heat and pads over the deck towards the oar. A simple touch is all that’s required to make it form into the glowing orb resting above the deck. Tubbo gapes at it, awed all over again because it’s like he has his own personal sun.

No, that was Tommy. Tommy was always the sun and Tubbo was the moon trying to light up the dark and failing horribly.

With reverent hands, he cups it, then flits across the ship on light feet to drop it over the other side of the vessel. The oar re-manifests and the boat slows to a stand still in the water. Tubbo checks the compass, then with his heart screaming at him to please keep trying to run away - run to Ranboo, to Tommy, to Michael, he pushes off back the way he came.

Dread and fright grow up inside him like black bindweed to constrict his heart in thorns as, a few minutes later, the geometric shapes reappear on the horizon.

Tubbo doesn’t know who he’s going to have to deal with first. He doesn’t know if he’ll have to help everyone he killed or if it’s only a select few that need to be ferried across the waters of the dead. XD wasn’t exactly specific with the details. All Tubbo does know is that the first opportunity he gets, he’s abandoning this trauma trip to find Tommy, Ranboo and Michael. 

They come first. They always have. Always will. 

Tubbo just needs to make sure they know that.

Chapter Text

When the smell of the air shifts, an age-old fear reaches up and out of the darkness of Tubbo’s soul to petrify his lungs. He sucks in a sharp breath and then stills, reeling against the cold weights in his chest. His heart, once large enough and gnarled enough to support his flaws, seems to shrink inside him until it’s nothing more than a frightened child cringing away from a monster.

Tubbo hasn’t felt this way since-

‘ Tubbo, get up here. ’

‘ Tubbo, you get paid way too much to be crying. ’

‘ You’re lucky we don’t make you a chimney sweep. ’

‘ Tubbo, tear down this goddamn wall now! If you’re not gonna find Wilbur Soot and Tommy Innit then you need to make yourself useful.’

‘Geez, this Tubbo guy’s getting on my nerves. ’

Alcohol.

It oozes over his shirt to permeate his skin in a sour cloy and Tubbo gags, dropping down on the wood of the deck to clutch at his hammering heart.

No. Schlatt has been dead for years. He had nothing to do with the nukes. Surely this is someone else’s Limbo.

He doesn’t know of anyone else that would take the smell of alcohol to the afterlife with them.

Tubbo’s barely aware as the temperature drops around him, as the geometric shapes that he’s been steadily moving towards resolve into expertly crafted silver-grey skyscrapers. He shivers as the wind picks up, as the smell worsens, but inside he is burning, burning, burning.

‘ Technoblade, take him out to dinner. I want you to kill him. ’

‘Tubbo, I’m sorry. I’ll make this as painless and colourful as possible. ’ 

The first firework ploughs into his torso and Tubbo can’t believe how much something can hurt. His skin feels like it is festering, becoming necrotic and taking pieces of his soul away with it when it disintegrates. The smell of burning flesh, cooking blood is so overwhelming it’s almost as powerful as the pain. Someone is screaming in front of him and he thinks it might be Tommy. Or it might be Wilbur.

Or it might be him.

The second firework rams into his face and this time, shock overrides the pain because he wasn’t expecting to have to do this again.

Then there is the lurching drag of respawn and it’s all over but it never finishes.

His hands shudder uncontrollably as he reaches up to touch at the puckered skin stretching over the right hand side of his face. His breaths are stuttered and jerking, like an engine trying to turn over as his throat closes over the oxygen in his lungs, trapping it in. 

Trapped. He’s trapped. Can’t get out. No escape. Hundreds of people watching him. Thousands. The gods are probably holding their breath right now.

‘Schlatt? I can’t actually get out, Schlatt.’

Tubbo sucks in a breath as his vision blurs and sheer, uncontrollable panic threatens to render him immobile. He can’t do this. 

He has to get away. 

How though?

How?

Tubbo can’t get out of here without water.

Jumping into the Dead Sea and letting himself drown is looking really, really good about now.

He eyes the water consideringly as his skin erupts in a wave of trauma induced numbness. He frowns when he notes that the seawater is no longer blue. Instead, it is a murky, debris littered grey. The fact that he notices this change grounds Tubbo. His throat opens, he gulps down a breath and just like that he has control of himself again. 

He never lost control. 

Beneath the stench of alcohol, there is an underlying stink of fish on the turn and Tubbo is reminded, even through the sear of terror still threatening to drag away his control, of L’Manburg’s port.

Not Snowchester. It’s always L’Manburg.

Pushing himself, Tubbo looks out and over the water towards his destination. At some point, the sky has become overcast - completely blanketed in roiling clouds that carry the electric promise of a storm. That explains why he’s still shivering. He’s certainly not shivering on the come down of a panic attack. Tubbo doesn’t have those, what are you talking about?

His fingers fumble over the fabric of his shirt as he rolls his sleeves back down. Sweat cools rapidly on his back, acting like a freezing second skin as Tubbo’s eyes run down the looming skyscrapers. There are five of them, all over Tubbo’s head now. They reach up like stretching fingers to press their tips into the clouds; mortals extending themselves into the realms of the gods.

Tubbo breathes. Careful, controlled.

He can’t do this.

Beneath those skyscrapers, a warren of rundown terraced houses sprawls in a maze over a rocky island. Something in Tubbo’s heart flinches when he recognises the design of those houses - an exact copy of an estate that Schlatt had asked Tubbo to design and build back in Manburg. 

Then there is the quay.

It is flint-edged and grey, like the sky above and the water below the boat. Tubbo squints when he sees which berth the boat is heading towards and his insides go cold when he sees a lone figure waiting for him on the jetty.

The figure is wearing a dark blue beanie and black slacks with suspenders over a white dress shirt. He’s standing casually, with his hands in the pockets of his trousers but Tubbo can see the air of vehemence that circles him like a vulture.

Quackity. 

Fuck.

So Tubbo really did blow up the SMP.

Prime. Prime, there’s no escaping this now.

WhathaveIdone?WhathaveIdone?

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault.

Tubbo casts his eyes over the deck of the ship in search of something, anything he can use as a weapon. His blood electrifies with anticipatory dread as his vision locks on the bell still letting off soft clangs in the wind. Not exactly a brilliant choice for a weapon but it will do a fair amount of blunt force damage.

He’s on autopilot as he sprints the length of the deck, skidding to a halt as the boat pulls up beside the jetty and stops. His fingers tangle in the threads of rope holding the bell up as he unties it and his heart counts the seconds to his next demise as he hears the crunch of Quackity’s shoes on the wood. After what feels like a small eternity of frantic scrabbling, the bell comes free with a clunk and Tubbo whirls round, half expecting Quackity to already be standing beside him with an axe raised over his head.

He’s not though.

Tubbo blinks at the empty deck, then creeps cautiously forward to peer over the edge.

Quackity’s stony gaze meets his. He is still standing on the jetty with his hands in the pockets of his trousers like he has all the time in the world. Tubbo’s stomach clenches when he sees the genuine murder present in Quackity’s good eye but then that promise is overtaken with sudden, harsh shock.

“What the fuck?” Quackity hisses out into the wind, taking a calculated step away from the boat and drawing his hands out of his pockets. His face pales considerably, until he’s almost the same grey colour as his surroundings.

Tubbo frowns, perplexed and alarmed by this response. He’d been expecting hatred, maybe an attack. Not fear. Not terror. No-one is afraid of Tubbo. He’s not important enough for that. Tubbo glances down at himself, cataloguing the texture of his outfit and the scars visible on his right hand. It’s nothing that Quackity hasn’t seen before.

“T-Tubbo?” Quackity asks and Tubbo’s gaze darts back up to meet Quackity’s. There is a frightened question in Quackity’s expression now alongside a darkness that the two of them share, an ink black villainy cultivated beneath the hand of a man who knew only the release of the bottle.

Tubbo tries not to gag as he-focuses on the acidic taint in the breeze.

“Is-am I here for you?” Tubbo asks as his fingers clench around the comfortingly cold and heavy feel of the bell.

Quackity blinks and Tubbo watches the cogs screech to life in Quackity’s mind. He’s trying to figure out how he can use that question to his advantage. Quackity is a gambler by nature but if he can rig the game in his favour then he bloody well will. Tubbo can’t fault the man for it. Tubbo is the opposite, always playing it safe, then lashing out with a risk that can end a server.

“Tubbo, what do you mean? What are you doing here man?”

Quackity’s voice is overly calm. His words are slow, carefully enunciated, and Tubbo shudders as electric danger skitters over his skin. He doesn’t like this. But he considers the question. His mouth forms over the syllables required to start an explanation but he can’t quite seem to get that vocal push. Standing in front of Quackity with the smell of alcohol on the wind makes him feel volatile, unsafe. He doesn’t know if Quackity will put himself between Tubbo and Schlatt’s backhand or if he will condemn Tubbo to death in a box of yellow concrete. 

Either way, Tubbo feels like Quackity has the power here and Quackity seems to know that. When Tubbo doesn’t come up with a fitting explanation for why he’s here, Quackity recovers his composure, his good eye becoming as flint-edged as the dock around him. 

“You blew up the SMP,” Quackity states - a blanket accusation that makes Tubbo wince. He swallows the unimaginable burn of the guilt, holding the bell up over his chest, protecting his heart. He wishes he had a shield or an axe. More than that, Tubbo wishes he wasn’t here.

“I didn’t mean to,” he offers quietly.

Quackity seems to bristle at that and something electric bright seems to build up inside him, forcing his shoulders to rise and the muscles to pull cord tight over his arms. Tubbo figures that he’s looking at blind fury right now and tries to brace himself for what he knows is coming.

Once upon a time, Tubbo threatened to blow up Las Nevadas. 

Yesterday, he succeeded.

“What do you mean you didn’t mean to blow it up?” Quackity roars and the volume slices through Tubbo’s core. 

He’s been expecting this.

He has.

Ever since XD told him what he did. 

And he still isn’t quite sure he believed the Dreamon even though he knew the truth of those words, deep down inside.

He deserves this. And more. This is his punishment. 

“You fucking - Tubbo you fucking set off a nuke with a five minute warning! What the fuck were we supposed to do?”

Stay away. That was all anyone was supposed to do. Tubbo’s voice lets off an exhaust-fuelled utterance of regret and tension.

“It’s not like any of us had a fucking nuclear bunker ready to go. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Quackity is snarling now. He takes a step towards the boat with his face thrust forward in outright aggression and it takes everything Tubbo has inside himself not to retreat like he used to. He is not the boy that was pushed around by the Schlatt administration. He is not the boy set on the board to be used by whoever deemed him useful. He is his own piece. He made his own decision and he will take the consequences.

“I lost everything!” Quackity shrieks. “EVERYTHING I’VE BEEN WORKING ON!”

Tubbo nods, squeezing the bell. He levels his eyes on Quackity’s and though he wants to, he refuses to look away from the swirling red haze of rage, the show of teeth.

“I did what I had to,” he says. 

No apology, no excuse, no real explanation. Wilbur said that ‘sorry’ was a weak word and Tubbo knows the truth of that. He’s not going to disrespect Quackity with a word like ‘sorry’ now.

“What you had to?” Quackity repeats, like he can’t quite believe it. “Tubbo, no-one has to fucking detonate a server. What the Hell man?”

If Tubbo is going to murdered here then this is going to be the moment. He braces himself, expecting to feel the grasp of Quackity’s bare hands clenching around his throat. He heard the rumours back when he was alive, of Quackity visiting the prison armed to the teeth. He saw the missing finger on Dream’s hand, felt the lacking digit in the collar of his shirt when he was lifted into the air.

Quackity is not the sort to shy away from something like this. 

Tubbo is rock solid and ready with his bell. He’ll take whatever Quackity will throw at him.

Seconds pass. Quackity breathes in through his teeth and then out again so harshly that a flyaway lock of black hair flutters over his scarred cheek. Tubbo counts the seconds, keeping his gaze steady, his heart sure and with each passing number, he lets a little more hope build up inside him.

The longer someone waits to commit murder, the less likely it is to happen. Observation catalogued by Tubbo Underscore-Beloved during times of conflict on the SMP.

Eventually, Tubbo watches as the anger recedes back into a quiet simmer beneath Quackity’s good eye and the spell of potential murder is well and truly broken. Something deflates in Tubbo as Quackity pulls back, clearing his throat like he’s embarrassed by the loss of emotional control. His hands are shoved back into their pockets. Where they can’t hurt anyone.

“What happened?” Quackity asks

Tubbo has several answers for this question. None All of them are the truth. Only one matters. He lowers his head to let his eyes fall on the grain of the boat as a strange combination of loathing, defeat and childish petulance swathes him in black tar.

“Dream,” he manages and the name tastes as acidic as the air around him.

Silence follows this and Tubbo finds obstinance growing up inside him. This is all Quackity is going to get and eventually, he hears Quackity let out a shaky exhale that has Tubbo raising his eyes again

“Ah,” Quackity says and the sheer amount of understanding in that single utterance overwhelms Tubbo to the point of taking a defensive step backwards.

“So, why are you here?” Quackity asks again, taking another step back himself and perching on a weather-worn crate like they’re talking about the fucking weather, like he hasn’t just brushed off his own demise at Tubbo’s traitorous, explosive hands. “How did you get your hands on a boat so fast?”

Tubbo reels from the topic change, once again squeezing the bell in his grip like he is Ranboo with a block of grass covered dirt.

“It’s a long story,” he grinds out.

If he wants to get Quackity on the boat so that they can leave this Prime awful place, then Tubbo knows he’s going to have to do better than that. He’s kind of hoping that Quackity might direct him on where to get fresh water and other supplies but Quackity doesn’t owe him anything. 

He flinches when he realises that Quackity is watching him with narrowed eyes. Suspicious. Too suspicious. 

To be expected after he betrayed Quackity to Pogtopia. 

After he blew up an entire server.

“I’ve got time,” Quackity says casually. Too casually. Tubbo is not fooled but he remains silent. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do now that my fucking projects have been obliterated.”

Tubbo blanches at that but Quackity doesn’t give him an inch, just glaring at him with that crooked edge he obtained when Las Nevadas started to overtake L’Manbrug in terms of influence and power.

Though Las Nevadas never had the impact L’Manburg did, did it? And it was never something else, never separate from the Dream SMP, not even whilst Dream was in prison. Tubbo thinks that Quackity knows this, deep down, that his pursuit of power was only that of a man chasing down a Presidency he had never managed to acquire.

He considers an answer to Quackity’s questions. Once again, his mouth falters over several attempts to start talking. Once again, he can’t get that vocal push to begin. He doesn’t know where to start really and honestly, he’s hesitant to divulge anything - very much aware that information can be weaponised in the right hands. It’s the leftover mindset of a boy very much raised by a defunct political cabinet.

He stares at Quackity, watching the way the storm clouds are reflected in the dark depths of his good eye and this time, he sees the draw in Quackity’s face, the grief that Tubbo has caused.

He owes Quackity something. He thinks he probably always has.

“XD gave me a job to do,” he finally blurts out, stiffening when Quackity’s eyes widen.

“XD,” he whispers, awed. “He spoke to you? ”

The ‘but you’re just Tubbo’ goes unsaid. Tubbo tries not to take offence at the dismissal. He does anyway.

“What did he ask you to do?”

Tubbo does not feel comfortable talking about XD so freely. Or his mission. He briefly considers bartering the information for access to supplies but quickly shuts it down. It’s a miracle that he hasn’t been attacked considering how pissed Quackity still clearly is. Really, this whole conversation is a testament to Quackity’s self control. He doesn’t particularly want to provoke the guy again. And really, is there any harm in Quackity knowing what he’s here to do? Maybe a little show of fake trust will work in his favour.

“He said I had to make amends for what I did,” Tubbo admits. “Asked me to ferry the people I blew up across the sea to something he called the Final Resting Place.”

Tubbo leaves out the bit about helping people to get over their own deaths and let go of their attachments. He’s not sure he’s accepted that particular responsibility. He’s not sure he actually can.

“So you’re like…a glorified bus driver?” Quackity scoffs, malicious humour lighting up his face. Tubbo glowers at him.

“I guess so,” he says. “So if you could maybe tell me where I might be able to get some supplies and get your arse up onto this deck, then we can be on our way thank you very much.”

To Tubbo’s chagrined horror, Quackity shakes his head, the smirk still firmly in place as he tilts forward to lean on his knees.

“Nah. I’m not getting on that re-death trap with you.”

“But you have to!” Tubbo blurts, shifting along the edge of the boat as the oar morphs back into a ball of light with a little flash that has Quackity’s eyes widening again.

“No,” he says with more serious conviction. “I don’t.”

Distress contorts itself around Tubbo’s spine making him spit out the start of several halting words. His mind scrambles to rectify Quackity’s refusal whilst considering alternatives, back up plans, contingencies as always. Maybe he can get the water and supplies he’s after and make a break for Tommy, Ranboo or Michael again? Something tells him that somehow, he’ll end up simply floating through blank space ocean again with nothing but the dark sun slowly melting him away to nothing. 

The compass, it seems, is more than just a simple tool to show him the way to go.

He wishes he could reach for it now to run his thumb across the dent in the bottom. He wishes it would point to Tommy the way it used to.

“I wouldn’t get on there if you promised to get me a thousand Yeezys,” Quackity tells Tubbo, crossing his arms over his chest.

Tubbo feels the first tug of desperation in his gut. He’d never expected to be met with this kind of resistance. Surely everyone wants to find peace even if they have to put up with someone who murdered them to do it.

But then something occurs to Tubbo, a dredge at the back of his mind that makes him look at Quackity again, particularly at the way Quackity’s got his arms crossed across his chest like he’s trying to protect himself.

“You’re scared,” Tubbo says simply.

He knows he’s hit the nail on the head when Quackity goes very still. The light in his eyes sharpens and his lips purse into a thin hard line.

“Tell me, what do you think happens when someone goes to the ‘Final Resting Place’, Tubbo?”

Tubbo doesn’t know, he has to admit. 

He hadn’t thought much of it when XD had labelled the mangrove. He’d been too caught up in the notion that he’d detonated an entire SMP to really pay attention to anything outside of the mechanics of what he would be forced to do. So he lets himself think about it now.

The name sort of implies a long sleep. Tubbo doesn’t think he would mind that. He hasn’t slept properly since long before L’Manburg was a thing. It would be nice not to have to watch his back. It would be nice to shed the shackles of grief and self-loathing that he carries in exchange for the chance to sleep like George Not Found.

But then with the way Quackity is looking at him; in quiet, expectant terror, Tubbo half wonders if perhaps it’s more sinister than that.

All he knows is that when XD found Tubbo, there had been a nameless choice to make in the form of two unspectacular coloured doors.

He shrugs and once again, Quackity’s eyes widen.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “But I’m not afraid of it.”

Tubbo watches with a new stable pillar of defiance propping him up from the inside as a pop of new anger explodes like a firework through Quackity’s demeanour. But then that anger fizzles out and Quackity’s expression turns contemplative.

“I’m sorry I blew you up,” Tubbo drops into the silence and he’s surprised at himself. The words seem to have come from nowhere, falling out of him from a place that he didn’t even know existed. They’re as weak as he knew they would be and Quackity stares at him like Tubbo’s just slapped him.

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Quackity tells him and Tubbo figures he’s right about that.

A silent moment of disgust passes between them where Quackity glares at Tubbo like he can’t believe Tubbo had the audacity to apologise and Tubbo stares right back with the sick knowledge that he really is just an asshole deep down. 

He always thought he was a good guy. Not a hero like Tommy, not by a long shot. But a good guy nonetheless.

When Quackity’s good eye flicks to Tubbo’s burnt side, Tubbo can’t help but stiffen. Then something softens in Quackity’s demeanour and he suddenly just looks really, really tired. Tubbo frowns, confused and unnerved as Quackity lets out a hard sigh and runs his hand up to scratch his hair beneath his beanie.

What's changed here? Tubbo's missed something and that never bodes well.

“Come on,” Quackity says, sliding off of the crate and gesturing with a wave of the hand that has Tubbo’s fingers vice-like white around the bell he's still clasping. “I’ll show you where to get supplies. I’m still not getting on your fucking re-death trap though.”

Tubbo's insides are hiccuping instant, violent suspicion. He doesn't trust this. Not one bit.

But he's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

With hands still mildly trembling, Tubbo puts down his bell and follows Quackity into the heart of the island.

The compass is pointing towards the tallest skyscraper, not to Quackity at all.

Tubbo stares up at it as Quackity leads him down a narrow alleyway and out into a market that looks like it would have been red-flagged the moment it cropped up in L’Manburg. Moving further inland, the bitter stench of alcohol only gets stronger to the point where it reminds Tubbo more of the alcohol used in the dank pit of Pogtopia to clean wounds than the stuff Schlatt used to keep under his desk. There are more people here as well, moving about with purpose like ants hard at work. They’re dressed in an eclectic range of attire - from ancient fashions like the shit Technoblade used to wear to the more modern hoodies and tennis shoes, like Dream or Tommy.

There’s no-one else that Tubbo recognises. Thank Prime.

The compass must be pointing to Schlatt. But why? Tubbo didn't blow him up. Tubbo had nothing to do with the way that Schlatt died. Tubbo blew up Quackity. Why doesn't Quackity have to get on his boat? This doesn't make any sense.

“So, uh, what’s with your eye?” Quackity asks out of nowhere and Tubbo’s heart skips a beat. He chokes on his surprise, spluttering, then stares at Quackity like he’s never seen the man before.

“Sorry?” he says, confused and ominously afraid when Quackity gives him a tightly alarmed expression in return.

“Your…eye,” Quackity says. “It’s…See for yourself.”

He leads Tubbo over to the dusty window of a house that looks, quite frankly, abandoned. Tubbo squints at it and as if on cue, a beam of watery light breaks through the overhead cloud cover to illuminate his reflection.

Pure, unfettered horror crawls through the messed up concoction of Tubbo’s current emotional state as he sees himself for the first time since dying.

“Oh…Prime,” Tubbo whispers, lifting his hand up to feel the familiar tattered skin that surrounds his right eye.

His iris is bright, electric yellow. Like someone has leached the colour and then installed a neon backlight. Through that yellow, the symbol for nuclear power stands out stark and black and damning.

“What the fuck?” Tubbo hisses, drawing back from himself. He blinks, watching his eye close and then open on the same backlit symbol. “What the fuck?”

“Thought you knew about that,” Quackity comments beside him, shoving his hands back into his pockets. He looks absurdly uncomfortable standing next to Tubbo and his eyes keep flicking to the curling wisps of hair that sit just over Tubbo’s eye like he’s curious but doesn’t want to ask about it.

“No,” Tubbo breathes out. “I didn’t know.”

No way to avoid what he’s done. No way to try and brush it off when he meets someone he’s wronged. His eyes will serve as a reminder for the entirety of the trip they are forced to take with him.

Not cool. 

“Okay,” he says, letting out an elongated breath. “Okay.”

He makes a point of taking the cold shock and dread he feels at this unwanted alteration to his appearance and shoving it deep down in the box that houses everything else. The reaction to having his face and hands irreparably altered by the scars left behind after the fireworks is there along with the pain of being threatened in the black bunker that Dream had fashioned to finish him off with Tommy watching. 

This is okay. He can still see out of his right eye - with more clarity than he’s been able to in a while actually but that’s not unnerving at all. It’s great in fact.

Moving on.

“Quackity,” he says, his voice flat and authoritative. “Can you tell me what that building is over there?”

Tubbo points to the tallest skyscraper cutting a line of executive silver across the sky. If his hands shake to the point of making his whole arm judder, Quackity doesn’t say a word. Tubbo doesn’t want to be grateful for the discretion. He is anyway.

Interestingly, Quackity scowls up at the building like it personally wronged him in another life. Tubbo draws back when Quackity glances back down at him, his eyes full of a weary camaraderie that Tubbo suspected long dead.

“You don’t want to go in there kiddo,” Quackity says and his voice is unnervingly soft.

Tubbo feels a chill run over him as he turns his attention back to the compass. It is unrelenting in its accusative urge to do exactly what Quackity just told him not to.

“I think I have to,” he says, resigning himself. 

“That’s Schlatt’s isn’t it?” he tacks on before Quackity can pity him for being the naive idiot he was back when they were both just trying to survive L’Manburg.

Quackity screws his nose up, raising a hand up to pull at the black lock of hair framing his face from beneath the beanie. He nods.

“Better you than me,” he says.

Tubbo thinks there is a certain self-righteousness to the statement that shows just how Quackity has changed. Tubbo remembers a time when Quackity would say: ‘Hey, I’ll come with you, I’m going that way anyway’ even though they both knew that Quackity should have been going in the other direction. He remembers how, when Schlatt would insult him for his spelling mistakes or for working on the wrong projects, Quackity would step forward to partially obscure Tubbo from view and try to derail the conversation. He remembers how the sight of Quackity’s back in front of him was almost as much of a comfort as Tommy’s.

This time, Tubbo is very much on his own and he knows that he deserves it.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” Tubbo mumbles out.

He slips forward, his footsteps shaky, then starts as Quackity calls out.

“Don’t be surprised if your boat’s gone when you get back hermano. ”

Tubbo glances back over his shoulder, fixing Quackity with the eye that now burns with the symbol for nuclear power. For all his spite and petulant impulsiveness, Quackity is not much of a thief and Tubbo has a theory about the light orb oar and its connection to XD anyway.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” he offers, holding his hand up in a wave of departure.

Quackity was going to show him where to get supplies but Tubbo figures he can sort all that out himself later. For now, the building rising imposingly in front of him is more important despite how thirsty Tubbo still is.

Things change as Tubbo moves his way through the maze of streets, narrow rubbish filled corners being replaced with more open, cleaner spaces. The people drifting about thin as well until he’s standing in a street that is completely empty and almost unreal in its perfection.

The buildings here are pristine, uniform white and a feat of exquisite engineering that might have Tubbo drooling if he wasn’t so caught up on what awaits him at his destination.

The biggest skyscraper is situated at the end of an enormous cul-de-sac like a king seated at the head of the table. Nervousness gathers in an impassable lump in Tubbo’s throat and he swallows several times, wincing at the sandpaper pain. Maybe he should have acquired a drink before trying this. Too late for that now though.

He moves forward and his footsteps echo ominously along the deserted street. He winces, every muscle in his body pulled taut as he waits for the attack to come, a crossbow bolt fired from one of the mirrored windows or the sound of someone hitting the ground after throwing an Ender pearl to stab him in the back.

It doesn’t come though and eventually, Tubbo reaches a pair of glass doors.

Reluctance and anxiety tug him back in the direction of the boat. From here, he can see it, bobbing up and down in the quay where he tied it off. The little cabin at the back looks obnoxiously cheerful next to the uniform of terraced houses. Tubbo almost cracks a crooked smirk when he sees Quackity creeping over the deck and eyeing the ball of light hovering over the grotty wood.

Does Tubbo really have to do this?

The compass in his hands tells him that he does.

But what will happen? The alcoholic air promises swift retribution for everything that Tubbo has done. The black guilt stirs within him, ugly and cloaking. He swallows it down and flexes his fingers. His reflection stares back at him from the double doors, his alien eye once again calling his attention.

He doesn’t look the same as the boy that Schlatt used to bully.

But he is the same. Inescapably so. No matter how much he tried to distance himself from the helplessness he experienced beneath those heavy hands. 

This really is the ultimate punishment.

So suck it up Tubbo.

Tubbo heaves in a shaky breath and presses the pads of his fingers to the glass door. It swings open in one smooth, forgiving motion.

Tubbo steps forward, feeling like he’s stepping towards his own execution. 

Again.

“Hello?” he ventures, craning his neck into the semi-gloom.

The interior is ominously tasteful. The walls are Magnolia and broken up with carefully placed artworks - black and white photographs of cars and several pictures of the same man in white robes that Tubbo feels he should recognise. There are potted plants situated over a grey marble floor, a few carefully placed chairs in the same overcast grey as the sky outside. A white receptionist's desk stands towards the back next to the telltale silver doors of an elevator and sitting at the desk is a woman in heavy, dark makeup that Tubbo has never seen before.

Here, the smell of alcohol is nearly overwhelming. Tubbo’s eyes sting as he shuffles his way inside, letting the door close behind him.

The woman glances up only when the door clicks back into place. Her nose isn’t wrinkled and her eyes aren’t streaming. Tubbo wonders if she can even smell the stink.

“Hello? Can I help you?” she asks and Tubbo blinks, processing her accent. It’s thick and not one he’s familiar with.

“Uh,” he says.

A master of social interactions, Tubbo Underscore-Beloved is not. That was always Tommy’s area. Ranboo too, to some extent.

“C-”

He lets out a harsh breath and stares apologetically at the woman as she tips her head sideways, curious and a little bit put off by his struggle. Tubbo feels a stirring of the humiliation that used to dog him whenever he failed to construct viable sentences for Schlatt. This problem hasn’t plagued him in a long time. Why does it feel like he’s unravelling back into some pre-evolved state right now?

“Can you tell me where I might find J Schlatt?” Tubbo asks, forcing himself through the question.

The woman in front of him brightens considerably, smiling loosely at him and pointing upwards.

“Oh sure,” she says. “He’s up in the gym. It’s floor ten.”

She gestures to the elevator and Tubbo tries to make his shoulders relax a little bit even though hearing that Schlatt is definitely here makes his skin start to crawl. He licks his dry lips.

“Thanks,” he says, starting forward.

“Are you sure you want to go up there sonny? He’s been in the gym for four days now. Didn’t even come out to welcome the newbies, you know?”

Tubbo can only assume that the newbies she’s referring to are the sudden influx of SMP members like himself. He swallows and pulls at the collar of his shirt which suddenly feels far too constricting, like there’s a tie hanging down like a noose around his neck.

“I’m sure,” he assures her with what he hopes is a bit more than a grimace. Then he slides his way towards the elevator and presses the little button labelled ten. If the button looks a little too much like the button Tubbo used to detonate the nuke, then Tubbo won’t doesn’t pick up on it.

He listens to the smoothe rumble of the elevator mechanics as he waits, remembering the elevator that Dream had fashioned in his bunker. This place reminds him of the bunker - square walls, feelings of entrapment - even though the colour scheme is decidedly opposite. Dream was all dark menace and black, foreboding promises. Schlatt is the facade of aesthetic comfort and rich ambitions.

The elevator dings, the sound reminding Tubbo of a death toll, of the bell he left on the side of the deck when he agreed to follow Quackity.

The doors open and Tubbo stares into the compact space of the box.

So tiny. The space is so tiny. The yellow concrete is cold, hard and unforgiving.

‘Schlatt. I can’t actually get out, Schlatt. ’

“Is there a staircase I can use?” Tubbo asks. He winces at the sound of his own voice which is too high and too loud. The woman, who has gone back to writing something on her desk, glances up at him again before frowning and turning her attention to the open doors of the elevator.

“Uh, no,” she says slowly. “Are you okay? Do you need help at all?”

Tubbo hates that question. It always makes him seem weak or like the child that he no longer is. Ranboo used to ask it sometimes and it never failed to make Tubbo’s hackles raise. 

This woman doesn’t know any better though. He holds himself in check.

Barely. The box beckons.

“I’m fine,” he tells her and makes himself step forward.

The elevator is cold and far too warm. The creak of the metal underfoot makes Tubbo want to collapse in on himself but he refuses to buckle beneath the force of his own fear. Instead, he turns, giving himself over to the mechanics of the situation.

“Floor ten,” he repeats, regurgitating the fact before pressing the button on the interior of the elevator.

When the doors close and the box lifts, Tubbo struggles. This isn’t the same. He knows it’s not the same. The box that trapped him in place on the day of the Festival was made of concrete. It didn’t move even if the whole universe felt like it was being ripped out from under him when the fireworks exploded around him, inside him. 

Still, the square containment gets to him. It really does. Nausea and breathlessness twine together like a helix of disaster to set his world ablaze. He hunkers over himself with his arms pressed over his chest and fingers pawing at the arms of his shirt in a pathetic attempt to ground himself. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work and his ears start to ring with the remembered buzz of shell shock that had followed respawning with burn scars running all over him.

The elevator dings again and the doors open.

Tubbo, halfway through a panic attack and feeling like he’s dying, glances up to see Schlatt sitting on the end of a scuffed up weight bench. He’s wearing a white vest and a pair of dark joggers. His hair is a sweating dark mess atop his head, curling around the ridges of his horns. The alcoholic stench is mixed with sweat and as Tubbo’s eyes flinch down to Schlatt’s hands, he can finally see the source of the fumes, the glass bottle held between loose fingers. 

Schlatt’s eyes are fixed on Tubbo, seeing him at his worst as usual. Tubbo tries to stifle his hyperventilating, to control the race of his heart but it’s futile. When he meets Schlatt’s eyes, Schlatt is quietly, malefically triumphant and Tubbo is nothing more than the useless, bumbling child he always was.

“Hey Tubbo,” Schlatt says. “It’s about time you got here.” 

Chapter Text

‘ Tubbo, get up here. Now. ’

‘ Whenever I get close to you, it’s kind of like I’m listening to a conch shell. I can hear a bunch of whining toddlers.’

‘ I’m not gonna let you sit around and do nothing.’

‘Do you know what happens to traitors Tubbo? ’

Tubbo doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Schlatt is staring at him like he’s expecting something and Tubbo can’t remember if he was supposed to bring the draft for the latest decree or the blueprints for the archive because he was busy with Wilbur making plans for potato harveste-

“You gonna breathe sometime today Tubbo?” Schlatt asks, smirking as he pulls back to take a swig from the bottle. Tubbo cringes at the sound of Schlatt’s almighty swallow. Permanently killed by a heart attack probably relating to drink and the guy can still knock one back like a pro.

Tubbo doesn’t want to breathe. His hands are shaking. Just like they were when he respawned after being shot in the face. If he breathes now, he’ll just be doing as he’s told and he’s above that. He’s his own person. He’s-

‘ You’re just a yes-man aren’t you. ’

He inhales. Schlatt’s smile is crocodile wide.

“Y-

Tubbo falters, his skin prickling with nerves. The elevator lets out a protesting ding, urging him to step out of the box and Tubbo moves as though a rocket has just detonated behind him.

Or over the skin of his face.

“You knew I was coming?” he asks and the sound of his own voice makes him want to curl up and die with shame. He sounds exactly like the pubescent wash out he was when he was slinking around Schlatt’s cabinet. He feels like that boy, like the world’s worst liar trying to play spy - trying to make up for his cowardice when Tommy and Wilbur were initially exiled.

It should have been him as well. He should have-

“Of course I did,” Schlatt scoffs. “I know everything.”

Tubbo shivers. He knows intellectually that Schlatt can’t know everything but his voice carries that same charismatic cadence that he boasted in life. It makes Tubbo question the facts and he can’t do that if he has any hope of gaining control of this situation. 

Can he do it?

Tubbo was a President too and for longer than Schlatt was.

He straightens, forcing himself up using every ounce of willpower that he possesses and there is a triumphant moment where the expression on Schlatt’s face neutralises and then his eyebrows bunch in the beginnings of a frown.

“What the fuck did you do to your eye?”

Tubbo’s shaky confidence shatters beneath him and he stiffens, caught in the moment before catastrophic freefall. His scarred hand itches to raise up, to touch at his raised skin but he clenches his fingers and holds himself taut.

“I didn’t do anything,” he says because there’s no point in trying to lie. Schlatt will see through it. Tubbo is a better liar than he used to be but there are some tells that Tubbo hasn’t been able to erase yet.

He will cover them. He will be a machine that knows no truth. He will be able to keep his secrets so close that not even-

Schlatt spends an inordinate amount of time staring in mild disgust at Tubbo’s eye, like he can’t quite figure out why anyone would want to do that to themselves even though Tubbo’s just explained that he had nothing to do with it. Then he blinks, pulling a ‘whatever’ expression and switching back to god mode.

“So, you really did blow up the SMP.”

Tubbo thinks that Schlatt’s mother might have been Medusa. He is petrifying, pinned by the eyes of a man that’s at least part snake. He dares not move a muscle as Schlatt takes another swig.

“Right on man. Why’d you do it? Did someone tell you off for asking for more gruel?”

Tubbo closes his eyes against the sting of the joke. He shouldn’t have to put up with this anymore. He’s better than this. He’s been better than this for a long time. 

So why does it still hurt just as much as it did when Schlatt used to say things like this?

Good thing he’s thicker skinned than he used to be.

“I’d really love to hang out and chat, king, but I’ve got shit to do,” Tubbo says, deflecting with expert finesse if he does say so himself. He reaches trembling hands out to clasp at the compass in his pocket as Schlatt lets out a snort of derision. He brings it out to check that it is indeed pointing to Schlatt whilst grappling with a childish hope that maybe there’s someone else here. The arrow tilts towards his horned tormentor as Tubbo angles it towards the floor to ceiling windows. He curses inwardly. He still doesn’t get why Schlatt is even involved when Tubbo had nothing to do with how he died. The puzzle of it sends a current of irritation through the overlay of dread and fear.

Tubbo likes puzzles, but not this one.

“See, I’m here to pick you up; to take you to find peace in the Final Resting Place,” Tubbo continues, dressing the truth up so it sells better to Schlatt than it did to Quackity. He congratulates himself when he doesn’t trip over his words like he used to in Schlatt’s presence.

Schlatt regards him through eyes that are too sharp. 

“Yeah, I know about all that,” he confesses, grinning like a fat cat when Tubbo raises an eyebrow. “Your buddy XD told me all about your new job. Said I’d be a good candidate for a test runner or something.”

Tubbo fights against the tingling surge of apprehension that runs over his spine. Putting aside the fact that XD is conversing with Schlatt about Tubbo, the idea of using Schlatt of all people as a test runner for anything is completely absurd. Who would use someone as volatile as this man for something so important? A cold thrill ricochets over Tubbo's scalp as the terrifying thought that maybe his job is not as important as he thought it was swims to the surface of his mind to squat there like a toad.

Maybe XD is playing with him. 

Like he’s just a piece on the board. 

Like he’s a pawn. 

Like everyone else ever has.

He tries to recover himself.

“Great,” he says. “So I don’t have to spend time on lengthy explanations. Let’s get going.”

“Wait,” Schlatt demands and, to his own hot horror, Tubbo instantly stills.

He hates the way that Schlatt can still do that to him. 

Even Ranboo couldn’t make him stop with quite so much mindless obedience.

Humiliation and self loathing bubble inside him like a poisonous cocktail.

“What?” Tubbo snaps and he is proud of the snark that shines through that singular question. That is different. He never would have let a question like that detonate in the white house of Manburg. It's not quite enough to absolve the humiliation of being so automatically obedient but he gets an extra boost of vindication when Schlatt pulls a revolted face, like he can’t believe the audacity of the boy in front of him.

He’s not a President here and Tubbo Underscore-Beloved is the boy that blew up the SMP.

“Testy, testy,” Schlatt chides, reeling the conversation back under his control. He pushes himself up from the weight bench and with a pinch of dread, Tubbo takes in the new muscles bulging over Schlatt’s arms. He wonders just how much time Schlatt spends in the gym.

“You know I never would have put up with such cheek on my cabinet Tubbo.”

“Yeah, well this isn’t your cabinet.”

“True,” Schlatt concedes, moving himself round like a tiger prowling around a cornered animal. “But this is my island.”

“And we’re about to board my boat so I guess the rules of my cabinet apply there.”

He stares Schlatt down even though the frightened boy inside him just wants to curl into the foetal position on the mats and pretend he doesn’t exist. He feels a bit like a hero, like Tommy, when Schlatt is momentarily derailed. Schlatt looks both confused and a little awed until he throws his head back to let out an enormous guffaw.

“They made you President after I died? What a fucking riot! What, was Wilbur too busy stroking his own ego or something? Wasn’t he all about that all important dictatorship?”

Tubbo can feel the tension within him balling up into something solid that sits just below his rib cage. It’s awkward and uncomfortable; like the interrogations he suffered through when Schlatt was constantly demanding to know where he’d been.

He swallows.

“Yes,” he manages to grind out. “They made me President.”

The worst President that L’Manburg had ever had according to Dream.

Schlatt doesn’t need to know how he failed. He doesn’t need to know how Tubbo tried to copy the better aspects of Schlatt’s Presidency because he had no idea what he was doing. 

“Oh man, ” Schlatt croons, amused. “I bet your first decree was to give the fucking bees citizen’s rights. Or no, to drop taxes in an effort to get people to forget that you were a no good, goddamn traitor. Am I right?”

The black guilt stirs inside Tubbo like a sleeping leviathan. Tubbo puts in the effort to squash it as much as he can.  

Tubbo isn’t quite sure exactly when Schlatt moves. He flinches when he realises that Schlatt is suddenly standing in front of him, blocking his way back to the elevator, boxing him in like - yellow concrete. Tubbo tries not to lose control to the swirling panic threatening to kick start again inside him. His breaths spike. His heart knocks out a harder rhythm that rattles through his bones so he flexes his fingers and tries to count the passing seconds.

Schlatt, obviously sensing weakness, moves in for the kill.

“XD told me that part of this little road trip we’re about to go on is you helping me come to terms with some stuff I haven’t managed to reconcile in death.”

Horror yawns open inside Tubbo and he loses the battle for mental control with himself, letting his breaths spiral back into hyperventilation territory. 

Why would XD tell Schlatt about that part of the job?

Why would he make it so easy for Schlatt to think that he can abuse his passenger status?

When Tubbo doesn’t respond, Schlatt takes that as a confirmation, his eyes flashing.

“See, I don’t mind taking your little pleasure cruise Tubbo. I’ve been stuck in this place for long enough. But the thing is, I need you to help me get some revenge before we head on over to your ‘Final Resting Place’.”

“Revenge?” Tubbo repeats, his voice coming out horribly young once more.

He doesn’t like the sound of that.

Not one bit.

“That’s right, on Wilbur Soot. I’m guessing he’s here seeing as I’m looking at the jackass that broke the world.”

Schlatt showers. Tubbo waits for him in the downstairs reception awkwardly fielding the stares of the dark-eyed receptionist. When Schlatt emerges some forty five minutes later, he’s dressed in clothes that Tubbo never thought he would see on the man - a light blue long sleeved shirt that looks like it’s made out of high quality fabric and dark cotton trousers. He’s even wearing a pair of boat shoes in place of the usual shining Brogues.

“What?” Schlatt says as he strolls forwards, exuding his usual purposeful importance despite his more casual attire. “I can’t exactly wear a fucking suit on a boat now can I?”

Tubbo shrugs and averts his eyes, hefting himself up to his feet.

“We need to get supplies before we leave,” he says as Schlatt levels a heavy glare at his receptionist.

“Stop oogling, Minx, it’s making you look more gormless than usual.”

Tubbo’s muscles tighten in minute degrees with dread. He clenches his jaw and throws a side glance in the receptionist, Minx’s, direction expecting to see her fold in on herself as Tubbo always used to whenever Schlatt decided to pick on him. Instead, his heart leaps up like a bull frog when he sees the way her eyes flame.

“Shut the fuck up Schlatt,” she snarls. “You know, if you’re really going on a trip with this kid or whatever, I’m not going to miss you at all. ”

Tubbo’s chest is a furnace - a flaming stock pile of humiliation and terror. He sucks in a breath that fans that ridiculous heat and waits with bated breath for the familiar molten fury to roll through Schlatt’s features.

‘ Tubbo. Most of this shit’s spelt wrong. Can’t you do anything right? ’

‘ Oh man, you should have seen the look Tubbo was giving me, he had it coming. ’

‘ Do you know what happens to traitors around here Tubbo? Nothing good. ’

One beat passes.

Then two.

But the anger doesn’t materialise. Instead, Schlatt rocks back on the heels of his ridiculous boat shoes and gives a crooked smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “Five minutes after I’m gone, you’ll be crying to that friend of yours.”

Tubbo is utterly knocked for six if he’s honest. His jaw drops open before he can stop it but then he’s quick to cover up his mistake as Schatt levels with him again. Minx sticks her tongue out at Schlatt, pulling the skin beneath her eye down to expose her eyeball. Schlatt dutifully ignores her.

“Did you say something about supplies?”

“Yes,” Tubbo manages, coughing over the dryness in his throat. “We need water, food, tools and building materials.”

“Building materials?” Schlatt responds, scrunching up his nose in mild distaste.

“Building materials,” Tubbo repeats with conviction.

There’s no way he’s sharing the cabin with Schlatt. He’ll either build Schlatt his own room or Schlatt can have the cabin. He’s been thinking about getting some floating farms going as well. The logistics and blueprints are already resolving themselves within his mind like little flashing beacons of sanity. At no point did XD specify that he couldn’t modify his ship.

And building a working community aboard the ship will give him something to occupy-

Schlatt pulls another face, the equivalent of a facial shrug where his eyebrows raise into his hairline, and moves forward. He has no luggage, Tubbo notes. Not even a suitcase full of clinking bottles.

“You can get most of that down at the market,” Schlatt says dismissively. He pushes forward and Tubbo is hit with a pungent wave of that sour cloy as he passes close by. It’s almost like he’s wearing the fumes like a sort of cologne. Tubbo tries not to gag and only half succeeds.

“What? You still not on the drink little boy?” Schlatt sneers as he opens the glass door to freedom.

Tubbo thinks it might just be a point in his favour when he manages to glower at his tormentor instead of shrinking away. Perhaps he’s taking a leaf out of Minx’s book. Perhaps he’s just tired mad.

“I’m still not old enough,” he says and now, he supposes, he never will be. No great loss. For some unexplained reason, Tubbo has sort of been put off of drinking. He’d actually been dreading the moment that Tommy turned eighteen if he was painfully honest. 

“Tch,” Schlatt clucks as Tubbo stalks past him. “I doubt there are any rules about that in the afterlife kid. If we’re gonna be stuck on this little cruise together for the foreseeable future, we might as well get you a taste of the good stuff.”

“No thank you,” Tubbo tells him as they start walking along the pristine street towards the quay.

“Nah, nah, I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” Schlatt says and there is an edge to his voice that dredges up that age old fear, that makes Tubbo feel like everything he’s built up around himself is being reduced to ash so that Schlatt can come face to face with the stupid boy that used to skulk around his cabinet.

So Tubbo says again.

“No thank you.”

This time, he makes sure to inject a certain amount of controlled conviction into his refusal. He flinches when Schlatt side-eyes him, almost expecting those big hands to come forward to wrap around his neck or to lash out in the usual lightning backhand but even though he is filling up with watery terror, he doesn’t back down.

He is not Schlatt’s lackey anymore and the sooner Schlatt gets that into his head, the better.

“Huh,” Schlatt says, considering. “Big words from the big man, yeah?”

An ache blooms in his chest at the use of the words ‘big man’ and it’s so strong that he’s unable to fully mask his expression. He clocks the way Schlatt’s eyes stay glued to him as they drop down into the tightly knit alleyways connecting up the lower quarts of the settlement. Schlatt looks like he’s cataloguing, like he did at the start of his Presidency when he was more ambition than alcohol.

When Tubbo doesn’t respond again, Schlatt lets it go, instead directing Tubbo to the various shops and warehouses stocking all the supplies that they might need on their trip. Schlatt is given a wide berth by the people milling about, Tubbo notices. He’s like a celebrity in his fine quality travelling attire, surrounded by people on all sides in varying forms of squalor. Some of the people point and whisper excitedly as Schlatt stands expectantly off to the side. Most of them simply weave out of his way as he walks with frightened looks on their faces that Tubbo recognises intimately.

Soon enough, Tubbo has a procession of people crawling down to the docks carrying enormous water bottles, planks of wood, tool boxes and, to Tubbo’s chagrin, several barrels of ale and spirits. Schlatt, of course, pays for everything. Tubbo has no money here, no precious gems to trade for goods and it makes him horribly uneasy to think that he might owe this man a favour but what can he do? He makes a mental note to mine for resources when they next stop.

The wind picks up as they move onto the petrified planks of the quay. Tubbo glances up at the clouds moving in fast motion overhead and wonders about storm conditions. He’s a fair sailor, taught mostly by Puffy in the days before the end of days. But he’s not professional, by any means. It would be dumb to cast off in a storm.

His gaze snaps down when he hears the gasp and the subsequent huff of a laugh from Schlatt beside him. Schlatt has his arms crossed casually over his chest as he regards Quackity who is perched on the same crate he was before as people move in front of him to load up the ship. Tubbo almost finds it funny that Quackity didn’t manage to steal the boat as promised after all.

“You’re alive?” Quackity asks Tubbo with only a hint of joking disbelief.

Tubbo glances down at himself, shivering in his too thin shirt. He wishes he had a set of netherite armour but strangely, there’s no ore merchant or blacksmith on Schlatt’s island.

“Well no,” he says, side-eyeing Quackity with the ghost of a smile on his lips as Quackity scowls. “But Schlatt didn’t kill me again if that’s what you mean.”

Tubbo freezes as Schlatt snakes an arm around his shoulder. His heart scrabbles inside him like a frightened bird in a cage and his palms start to sweat. Schlatt is too close and too tall and it would only take one jerking movement to throw him into the Dead Sea from here and Tubbo hasn’t finished the paperwork or built the wall that Schlatt asked him to build or sent out the notification for-

“We’re going on a father/son bonding trip,” Schlatt tells Quackity in a jovial tone.

Tubbo can’t breathe. He can’t think. All he can hear is the sound of his own heartbeat gradually turning into a hum of tinnitus in his ears.

“Better you than me,” Quackity says and the familiar words drag Tubbo through the haze of his mental spiral. He glances up, expecting Quackity to still be looking at him but his attention is firmly on Schlatt now.

“Yeah. Coz I must be crazy to want to go with a guy that detonated an entire server, right? He’s the reason you’re here isn’t he Quack?”

Schlatt draws Tubbo closer, shaking him like he’s actually proud of him for committing mass genocide.

“That’s my boy.”

Tubbo feels sick.

“You can take care of shit while I’m gone,” Schlatt is saying, either ignoring or not noticing that Tubbo is falling apart beneath the muscles he can feel still bulging within the thin line of Schlatt’s shirt. “I won’t be coming back any time soon. Stay away from Minx though, she’d eat an idiot like you for breakfast.”

Schlatt removes his arm from around Tubbo’s shoulders and Tubbo suddenly feels cold and like he can breathe again all in one go. He inhales slowly, letting the panic settle into turbulent waters, then exhales the stress before letting his attention drift back to Quackity.

His stomach drops when he notices the way that Quackity’s good eye lights up with new, cold ambition. 

“You should come with us,” Tubbo says.

He blinks, shocked by his own words enough that he almost misses the flash of surprised terror that explodes through Quackity like a lightning flash. Quackity stares at him, calculating, considering, and there, in the back of his dark scrutiny, Tubbo thinks he catches a glimpse of the only man who understands how central Schlatt’s influence was to who Tubbo is.

Tubbo doesn’t want to be left alone with this man that has the gaul to call himself Tubbo’s father.

He's not. Tubbo never had a father. Philza Minecraft found him in a box on the side of the road but it was Tommy, really, that raised him.

Tubbo doesn’t want to be the only target.

He doesn’t want to do this by himself.

For one crucial second, Tubbo thinks that maybe Quackity will step up to face his fear and his blood pulses with helpless hope. But then, the ambition hardens like a glacier in Quackity's eye and he becomes closed off, unreachable. When he focusses on Tubbo again, there is a new bitterness in his gaze that makes Tubbo's insides twist.

“Hey Schlatt, you know that Tubbo’s taking you to essentially be turned into space dust, right?” Quackity asks as Schlatt steps forward. Quackity keeps his eyes on Tubbo, vindictively detached as Schlatt reaches back, wrapping a hand around Tubbo’s wrist. Tubbo’s skin goes cold as the panic bursts up like an eruption of magma in his guts again, leaching all the heat from everywhere else in his body. 

Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me. Oh Prime, please don’t touch me! Wilbur! Tommy!

BOO!

Tugging like a parent coaxing a wayward child, Schlatt drags Tubbo up onto the deck where the light of the oar still hovers strangely over the wood.

Quackity does nothing. And Tubbo is sure, in that moment, that Quackity will never do anything for him again.

Tubbo can only breathe when Schlatt releases him. He rubs at the tingle lingering over his wrist joint, though Schlatt’s grip wasn’t hard, and shudders involuntarily. 

He tries to process Quackity’s words through the de-escalating panic, frowning at the new puzzle and appreciating the comforting feeling of having a problem to solve as hyperventilation evens into normal, shallow breaths. The overly saturated doors of choice flash beneath his eyelids as he blinks, a feature of the mangrove that Quackity obviously does not know about. 

And Tubbo wonders about the doors and the choice. 

What happens to those that choose the yellow door? 

What happens to those that choose the red? 

Is space dust really an option for them?

Tubbo’s not sure if he would mind being turned into space dust. Maybe some of his particles could float to wherever Ranboo, Tommy and Michael are hiding. Maybe he’d finally be free to move around the board as he pleased. 

He can’t do that yet though. Not yet.

“Meh,” Schlatt says and it doesn’t escape Tubbo’s notice that his fingers twitch by the pocket of his pressed trousers, like he should be holding on to the glass rim of a bottle. “If that’s true then the first thing I’m gonna do is slip myself into a nice bottle of Milagro Silver.”

Tubbo decides to take that as his cue to get the fuck out of here. He moves with ninja stealth to the line tying them to the dock and peels the knot away with deft fingers. Then he shifts to the oar, cupping it and shifting it over the edge of the boat. The awe he sees in Quackity’s face as the oar manifests is tempered by the sudden wariness in Schlatt’s gaze. Schlatt’s dark eyes run over the oar and then skim over Tubbo himself, lingering on the right hand side of his face, on the nuclear power symbol.

On the scars that Schlatt gave him.

Chapter Text

Tubbo was alone with Schlatt only a few times during Schlatt’s presidency.

Tubbo did that on purpose. To minimise the damage. To become the wallflower cabinet member that he needed to be in order to have people’s scrutiny slide off of him.

It’s hard not to try and fall back into old habits but with Quackity’s refusal to board Tubbo's boat, there’s no-one around to hide him now. 

Schlatt has no-one else to entertain him.

As the ship moves out of the dull grey waters of Schlatt’s island, the temperature soars. Tubbo finds his skin prickling beneath his shirt with the change and then he is threatening to sweat again. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, it’s like an oven out here,” Schlatt complains, rolling up his sleeves and kicking off his shoes as he drops down on the steps that lead to the cabin.

Tubbo doesn’t grace that with a response. Instead he braces himself to haul open the heavy doors of the hold, ducking inside and emerging several minutes later with a plastic bottle full of water that he chugs down like an idiot in a desert with a water skin. Schlatt watches him with the lazy scrutiny of a meat eating cat until Tubbo chucks a water bottle his way.

“Geez kid, with the way that you went through that, I’d say you definitely have the skills required to become my new drinking buddy,” Schlatt comments as he catches the water bottle.

Tubbo glowers at him, wiping his mouth as the fresh feel of hydration perks him up. Here on the boat, where Tubbo is Captain and Schlatt is not dressed in the tailored suit of the all-powerful, he doesn’t feel quite so intimidated.

Which is stupid.

He shouldn’t be considering letting his guard down around his long time tormentor, around the man that demanded his death in front of thousands of people.

‘ Take him out to dinner. I want you to kill him. ’

Human nature is really dumb, Tubbo decides as he drops back down into the mildly cool interior of the ship.

He has a project to do and he intends to do it before night falls.

If night even falls? Hasn’t he already been here for days on end? He’s seen no sign of a rising moon, of the sky darkening, of pinprick stars in the sky.

Well, whatever. It’s not like Tubbo had much of a Circadian rhythm to rely on when he was alive anyway.

He lays on Ranboo’s side of the bed and tries to sleep through the crippling insomnia.

Tubbo reaches for the tool box, sorting through the materials he has to work with. Nails, screws, hammers, pickaxes, axes etc are all emptied out and spread across the bottom of the deck. His mind catalogues the numbers, labels the different parts and all the while, Tubbo breathes and breathes and breathes like he hasn’t done since he first started building the nukes.

“Tubbo, what are you doing?”

Tubbo stiffens. His lungs seize up inside him and his hands go numb with contextless humiliation.

‘ I gave you an order Tubbo. ’

He has to force himself to swallow as his throat closes, glancing up at Schlatt’s silhouette squatting over the hole of the hold. 

He can’t do this.

Would it really be so bad if he just pushed Schlatt into the Dead Sea and made a break for Tommy, Ranboo or Michael?

“I’m-

The utterance breaks his throat. He coughs twice, tapping his chest where his heart is quivering. Then he tries again.

“I’m building a second cabin,” he says.

With the black sun beating down on them, Tubbo can’t see Schlatt’s answering expression but he figures it’s probably disapproving. He doesn’t won’t can’t let himself worry about it, instead turning back to consider the quality of the wood he’s been given.

“Huh. Don’t you need to drive the boat?” Schlatt asks. He sounds more curious than derogatory.

Which is interesting.

“No,” Tubbo says, not really willing to elaborate.

Because he doesn’t really know the mechanics and that bothers him immensely.

Schlatt remains squatting above him for an inordinate amount of time, his eyes boring holes in the scarred side of Tubbo's face. Tubbo hates the way that he feels like Schlatt is trying to map his way through Tubbo’s jagged edges. It takes everything he has not to lift his hand to cover the marks that make his face entirely unique.

Instead, he makes a point of ignoring his passenger, pulling out a measuring tape and muttering under his breath as he crawls over several planks of wood.

Eventually, Schlatt huffs out a breath, dropping back out of view.

“Suit yourself,” he says. “Hey, you got any Brewdog down there? I’m aching for a cold one.”

Tubbo, still processing numbers, automatically abandons his task and reaches for one of the smaller crates. The clink of bottles chimes out through the gloom.

“Yes, Schl-

He stiffens. 

‘ You know you’re my right hand man, right? ’

‘ Yes, Schlatt. ’

‘You know you’d do anything I’d request of you.’

‘Yes, Schlatt.’

‘Tubbo…see to it that these signs are removed.’

He breathes out, the air shivering in front of him. Then breathes in and the sound is harsh. His bones seem to have engorged within him, like all his joints have been subjected to sudden aggressive arthritis and now he’s seizing up, petrifying into a statue of Schlatt’s right hand man. Theoretically, he knows he’s freaking out but he feels too detached from himself to do anything about it.

“Oi, Tubbo, where’s my beer?” Schlatt calls down and Tubbo flinches like he’s been roasted, or like a firework has just been levelled at his face.

Very carefully, with his heart rate sky-rocketing and his lungs starting to burn with nausea, he lowers his hand down and falls back on his hunches. The movements still feel stiff and his joints creak. He flexes his hands through the panic attack.

“G-get it yourself,” Tubbo mumbles as Schlatt’s head re-appears over the edge of the hold.

“Huh? Tubbo, you gotta speak up or-

“I said, get it yourself Schlatt!”

Cold silence tries to follow Tubbo’s sudden outburst but Tubbo is not here for it.

He’s done.

This isn’t Manburg. Schlatt holds no power over him now - no Technoblade waiting to cave at the first sign of peer pressure in the audience.

He figures he should feel good as he gathers his materials and starts hauling them up to the baking deck. He figures he should be proud of himself for standing up to someone who’s voice still haunts his nightmares when he does get to sleep. But all Tubbo feels is self-incriminating fear when he chances a glance over at Schlatt who is watching him through eyes narrowed with venom.

Tubbo figures he should feel good as Schlatt throws his legs over the lip of the hold and drops down into the dimness himself.

But all he feels is fear.

Night time, as it turns out, is a thing.

Tubbo works until the orange hues of sunset threaten to disrupt his progress. Then he watches as the sky makes way for the stars. They dot the horizon in constellations he’s never seen before. There’s no trident marking the God of the People - Drista and no crown utilising the brightest star to signify Prime. Tubbo frowns as he thinks about new navigational star charts and what he’ll need to make them when Schlatt eases up beside him.

“What do you want?” Tubbo asks wearily. He’s tired. Woodwork tends to do that to him. It was worth it though. The frame of the second cabin is ready, it’s been firmly anchored to the deck to protect it from storms and Tubbo is half way through a roof that will at least shelter him tonight. He has no doubt that he will be the one sleeping outside.

Schlatt spends a long moment just staring at him like he’s trying to read him but Tubbo doesn’t want to be read. Not by anyone Schlatt.

He tilts his head and meets Schlatt’s eyes, ignoring the way he still wants to cringe away.

“What do you want?” he repeats.

“You’re not the same,” Schlatt accuses and Tubbo has to frown.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re not the same kid that I used to push around,” Schlatt says. He has a new bottle in his hand now, a spirit of some sort. The smell drifts over the rapidly cooling sea air, like cleaning chemicals. Tubbo really doesn’t know how Schlatt can drink something so obviously toxic.

He doesn’t know how he feels about that observation. On the one hand, it’s laughable. Of course Tubbo wasn’t going to be the same following the Festival, what Schlatt did to him and everything that happened afterwards. On the other hand, it unnerves Tubbo how seen he feels right now. The only ones that have ever seen him are Tommy and Ranboo. They’re the only ones that are welcome. Well, and Michael, if he’d ever had the chance to get to know his daddy.

He killed Michael.

Grief and guilt threatens to choke him but Tubbo pushes it aside.

“Of course I’m not the same,” Tubbo whispers. “Did you really think after dealing with something like the Festival that I would be?”

“Well I guess not, considering you had the guts to blow up an entire server.”

“That was an accident,” Tubbo says.

“Yeah, maybe so, but you still had the means to do it. The nuclear symbol in your eye gives you away there buddy.”

Tubbo sucks in a harsh breath and crosses his arms so he can press his fingernails into the skin below his shoulders.

“I know,” he says. “The nukes were only meant to keep people away, they weren’t meant to be a power play.”

“Sure, you just keep telling yourself that.”

“It’s true Schlatt. Not everyone thinks like you do.”

“What? You think I haven’t been the little guy?"

Schlatt side-eyes him.

"You think I haven’t been stepped on and shat on before? Well, you’d be wrong about that. And if there’s one thing I know about being the little guy, it’s that even if you aren’t actively seeking it, you still crave power because you think that it’ll set you free. For me, that yearn for power resolved itself in taking Manburg. For you, well…”

Tubbo wants to deny him. He does. The indignance is on the tip of his tongue, the rage. Why does everyone always assume that he built the nukes to play the villain?

But you did play the villain didn’t you? When you threatened Las Nevadas. When you blew up the server. You made the power play and had the audacity to kill someone who may or may not have been a god. 

Tubbo shivers as night falls properly and the moon rises over the water like a chilling crescent, a smiley face turned on its side taunting him from the mask of the sky.

“I’m going to bed,” he says, turning on his heel and stalking towards the half finished second cabin.

“Wait, you’re just gonna sleep out here?” Schlatt asks. He sounds a little revolted but what does he expect?

“Yep,” Tubbo confirms, popping the ‘p’. He disappears into the near pitch black hold, fumbling with a lantern and then re-emerging a few minutes later with an armload of blankets. Schlatt, he finds thankfully, has retreated to the complete cabin up the stairs. 

Tubbo spends a good half an hour arranging a nest within his work station. Then he slips beneath the covers and tries to ignore the sound of oar sliding methodically through the water.  

He’d be lying if he said that Schlatt’s words didn’t repeat on a flawed loop in his head as he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to will himself unconscious.

‘Even if you aren’t actively seeking it, you still crave power because you think that it’ll set you free.’

That’s not Tubbo.

It’s not.

Tubbo knows that freedom doesn’t come with power. All that comes with power is pain.

So why did he build the nukes? If he was smart, if he really wanted people to stay away more than anything else, then he would have made Snowchester as unobtrusive as possible, a town of no consequence - easily forgotten.

He wouldn’t have built the cookie outpost in an effort to get Quackity’s attention. Because really, that was what he was doing, wasn’t it? He wasn’t doing it to assess Snowchester’s enemy like he told Ranboo.

He…

Tubbo was trying to cross the board.

He was trying to cross the board, to promote himself and become a queen.

He was seeking power, just like Schlatt said, lying to himself all the way.

Tubbo was sort of expecting Wilbur’s Limbo to manifest itself in much the same way as Schlatt’s did. He expects to wake up and find himself sailing through dark waters into the heart of some industrial tube station. As it turns out, Wilbur’s Limbo exists much further away from the mangrove than Schlatt’s did.

Which is very sus.

Tubbo is up in the crow’s nest with a piece of cloth draped over the burns on his face in hopes that the sun won’t kill his skin. He’s squinting into the endless blue, checking the swirling eddies for any sign of life when he spots the island. At first, his heart sinks into his shoes because he’s sure that this island must be where Wilbur’s holed up but when he glances down at the compass, it’s pointing off to the left. He looks back at the island, checking for any signs of life and feels a spark of boyish excitement when all he can see is the wild fronds that make up the canopy and a craggy mountain situated in the middle.

He slides down the ladder, almost crashing into Schlatt who obviously decided that the best place to be to glare at Tubbo would be the bottom of the ladder.

“Whoa, watch it,” Schlatt complains as Tubbo whizzes past him, landing on the balls of his feet.

“Sorry, sorry,” Tubbo lets out, the apology coming out like a bark of laughter. “There’s an island ahead.”

“An island? Is it Wilbur’s?” Schlatt asks, squinting out over the edge of the boat.

“Don’t think so,” Tubbo says as he trips down into the hold to drag open one of the more fortified chests. He quickly gears up with a sword and an axe strapped to his belt. Though there was no black smith on Schlatt’s island, Tubbo was able to find at least these basics along with a brown bomber jacket that he adorns in hopes that it might at least semi-cushion a fatal blow.

“Wilbur mentioned a train station to Tommy and this place is savage,” he tells Schlatt, pulling himself back up and out of the hold.

“Alright, so why are we stopping here?” Schlatt asks, scratching the back of his head and appearing for all the world completely disinterested in this amazing find.

“Are you serious?” Tubbo asks him. “We can stock up here - replenish our water and food. Plus, this is the first island I’ve seen outside of yours, I want to-

Check for Ranboo, Tommy or Michael. Run along the beach and call their names until one of them answers.

- check out the nature. I want to see how much of this place differs from the SMP. It’s mostly the medicinal plants I’m interested in. And maybe the ore deposits.”

Schlatt stares at Tubbo, then glances down into the hold where he can see at least four more barrels of water sloshing as the boat tips slightly on the edge of a cresting wave.

“Are you fucking nuts?” he asks. 

Tubbo bristles at that, letting his hackles raise as he directs the oar to steer towards the island.

“No, I’m not,” he says. “I’m just practical. Even if we have an abundance of resources, we should always stock up to max whenever we have the opportunity. That’s just basic. Have you ever actually had to take care of yourself a single day of your life?”

Now it’s Schlatt’s turn to bristle, a cold, black fire roaring up in the depths of his eyes that Tubbo is equal parts terrified of and indifferent to. 

“You wanna get yourself eaten by monsters then be my guest,” Schlatt snarls, stepping back to let Tubbo pass as the boat pulls up next to the island and the trees provide an epic background to Schlatt’s ire. 

Tubbo almost asks what Schlatt means because he hasn’t seen a single monster since he died bar XD but that would mean admitting that he hasn’t weighed up the risks of what he’s doing properly.

Just like he failed to do with the nukes.

So he slips past Schlatt without so much as a wave and drops down onto the sand.

It’s golden yellow. The waves lap in slow rhythmic shoals up the sloping dunes towards a line of palms and vine covered jungle spruces. There are parrots sitting in the branches, green and red, chatting to each other and fighting over berries.

It’s kind of paradisiacal. Tommy would hate it.

Tubbo glances back up at the ship and almost cracks a smirk when he sees Schlatt’s head bobbing along the gunwale. If Tubbo didn’t know any better - and he does, he really does - he could almost assume that Schlatt is the worried father sending his son off to learn a life lesson the hard way.

Heh. What a thought.

Tubbo steels himself with a breath and starts forward. The feel of his feet sinking into the sand is reassuring somehow. It certainly makes him feel alive which shouldn’t be a thing. He wishes he knew how Tommy had ended up in a void feeling like he was disconnected from himself and everything else. Tubbo isn’t sure that he’s ever felt so connected to reality before. Maybe it’s just that he was always made to be dead.

He scours the beach, picking up little pink shells and watching the black sun to try and keep track of the time as hair sticks in sweaty wisps to his forehead. When he’s roamed the beach for just under an hour, he turns rather abruptly and dips into the line of trees. 

The atmosphere changes instantly.

It’s darker beneath the canopy than it should be. The trunks of the trees are pitch black. There’s not even enough light to make out the gnarled patterns on the bark. Sound seems to tunnel inwards, closing in over Tubbo like a harder gravity. He strains to listen for the sounds of creatures, bird calls and the rustle of grass but there is nothing. 

Tubbo feels the muscles in his neck tense. His breathing quickens with new alertness and his eyes sharpen with laser focus.

Panic only starts settling in when he registers the smell carried in on the wind rolling across the beach. Something he hasn’t smelt for a long time.

Gun powder.

Tubbo’s immediate response is to abandon this endeavour. The fact that this place is checking all of his instinctual ‘nope’ boxes is enough to have Tubbo charging back to the ship and putting enough distance between himself and this place to fill several servers. But two things stop him. One is the idea that someone important might be here. The compass is swirling round in aggravating circles when he pulls it out of his pocket to check.

That can’t be good. It’s like the compass can’t find it’s way. Like it can’t figure out that Tommy’s de-

The other is that if he goes back now, resourceless and obviously on edge, then Schlatt will know that he’s won this particular battle.

Tubbo doesn’t plan on giving him an inch.

So against his better judgement, he edges forward and the darkness presses closed behind him, sealing him in.

As he walks carefully through the trees, Tubbo wonders where the parrots have gone. Do they perhaps just live on the edge of this place? Too afraid to venture in? Afraid of what exactly?

Monsters, Schlatt had said.

What could a man who executed a child on stage at a Festival call a monster?

Tubbo gets his answer sooner than he bargains for.

Something shifts in the trees ahead, a shape angling itself behind one of the black trees. Tubbo goes still for just a moment with his heart pumping rapid adrenaline through his veins and his mouth hanging dry with nerves. He lets out a little breath as he tilts his head to the side, catching sight of the edge of something waiting for him.

Whatever it is, it’s small. Tubbo sized. Tubbo’s heart skips up with flimsy hope that maybe this is someone he recognises and not something to be terrified of.

He swallows.

“Hello?”

His voice sounds out like a nuclear explosion and he winces when the something flinches like it’s been struck.

Or provoked.

Tubbo takes a tentative step forward even though every instinct inside him is screaming at him to run away, get away.

Tubbo has to know though. What if this thing, this person, is Tommy or Ranboo? Okay, it’s way too short to be Ranboo but what if this is Tommy? What if Tubbo’s final betrayal did something to him and now he’s… something.

Guilt. Black guilt. It warps inside him like a caterpillar in the throes of metamorphosis. He can’t ignore it for much longer. He can’t-

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault.

“Tommy?” he tries.

One more step forward.

And this time, the something responds by stepping out from its hiding place.

Tubbo gasps, arching back away so violently that he trips over a tree root behind him and starts scrabbling backwards over the dirt. Shock and terror meld within him into a single steely desire to run, get away. Have to get away.

Boo, help me! Help me!

The something is wearing Tubbo’s mirror image, right down to the flowers tangled in its tresses. The burn marks on its face crawl with fester - maggots and rot wriggling under the surface. When it opens its mouth to show off teeth in a crooked smirk, they are yellow and broken. Unlike the real Tubbo, the monster wears Tubbo’s Snowchester clothes and the nuclear power badge glows like it’s carrying a battery powered light beneath its patterned surface. Its skin, like its surroundings, is dark - grey almost to the point of being black and it’s eyes, like Tubbo’s own, are unsymmetrical. On the left, unscarred side, the iris is grey and cold. On the right, where the scars writhe, stretching over his eye, is only a black hole.

The something tilts its head to the side, watching Tubbo with a predatory focus that makes Tubbo’s hands tremble as he scrambles to pick up his axe. Tubbo has seen his fair share of predators in his time, true, but this is something else. This is savage, primal, like there are no words that could possibly turn things around. Murderous intent rolls off of the creature in waves.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?” Tubbo whimpers, pushing himself back as the something decides to take a very pointed step forward.

Tubbo already knows what this thing is.

“You looking for someone else king?” the Dreamon asks and although it speaks with Tubbo’s voice, there is something off about its accent.

Tubbo doesn’t want to speak to it. That doesn’t seem like a good idea at all. But anything he says will put off a painful death. Tubbo doesn’t have anything that can help him against a Dreamon right now. No diamond hoe. No eggs. He swallows and tries to control his haywire fear responses as his breaths desperately try to devolve into full on hyperventilation.

“Uh,” he says.

He wishes he could remember the phrases he read in the Dreamon hunting book he found. He wishes Fundy were here, or Sapnap.

Tommy or Ranboo.

“You won’t find any friends here,” the Dreamon says, taking another heavy step forward. Tubbo starts in horror as the nature of those festering scars changes. They seem to be healing in fast motion as Tubbo stares at them, pulling taut and thick but with cracks remaining and leaking light. It’s like the firework is detonating over the Dreamon’s face right now but from the inside out.

Tubbo’s going to be sick.

He gags.

The Dreamon’s grey eye flashes yellow.

“Nice eye,” it says, tapping at the dead skin beneath the black hole on its right side. 

“What do you want?” Tubbo manages to get out, craning his neck over his shoulder to eye the line of trees, searching for his way back to the beach. All he sees is dark trunks closing him in. The trees have well and truly swallowed him.

“Oh, just to say hi,” the Dreamon says. It takes one more step forward and then squats in front of Tubbo over the bracken with it’s scars still giving off flame-light like its burning alive.

“ Someone has to after all,” it says. “It’s not like you’re going to have any friends or family left considering what you did. ”

Abandoned Tommy again.

Failed to be there for Ranboo when all he tried to do was protect his family.

Murdered everyone like he had the right to set off a nuke destined to destroy the server.

So much. He's done so much damage.

“Tell me something,” the Dreamon says, leaning closer so the black hole of that missing right eye sucks Tubbo in and down, down, down. And when it speaks again, the Dreamon’s voice has changed. There is a streak of white in the petalled tresses and the flash of round rim glasses. “Are you the villain Tubbo?”

Tubbo can’t.

The guilt, the horror at himself, the loathing presses him down and he fights it because he’s afraid and he’s petty and he’s so, so selfish. He pushes himself up, letting the panic loose so it can fill him with nothing but the need to run. The bracken crunches under foot as he turns, exposing his back to the monster and he sprints through the black trees, not much caring now if he’s heading towards the beach.

For several long minutes, he can only think that the Dreamon is about to pounce on him and sink yellow teeth into the tender flesh of his neck. The fear is real and ancient. Not like the fear he felt at seeing Schlatt again. Older than that. Deeper than that. It dates back to the night he spent in the box before Phil found him, the sounds of mobs prowling around him, the mournful calls of the Endermen through the dark night promising retribution on a child who was unloved, unwanted.

Unseen.

He bursts out through the line of trees into the sun and the sticks and roots beneath his shoes turn into the sinking dunes of rolling sands.

Parrot calls burst in his ears and Tubbo trips, sprawling down on the sand.

On autopilot, he curls into himself with his arms tucked up over his head and his legs protecting as much of his torso as they can. He waits for five seconds. Then ten.

Tommy or the nuke.

Tubbo or the discs.

Ten…nine….eight…

He cracks open an eye when he finds himself still alive. There is no monster looming over him, no mockery of his face, weeping contagion or fire. He thrashes, throwing himself up into a sitting position to stare with wide eyes at the line of the trees. 

But there is nothing there now. 

This island is misleadingly paradisiacal once more. 

Fuck this.

Tubbo launches himself up, kicking up spraying granules of gold as he sprints back in the direction of the boat. 

Schlatt is waiting for him as he climbs nimbly up the side. 

“Did you get whatever the fuck we-hey, what happened?”

Tubbo has no idea what he must look like right now. His breaths are quick. His hands are covered in sweat and shaking so hard he can barely control them as he darts over to the oar and shoves it into the sand to kickstart them back on their journey.

“Hey, don’t you fucking ignore me,” Schlatt says, moving up into Tubbo’s face and staring at him with concern that can only be mocking Tubbo for not heeding his advice.

“Yes, Schlatt,” Tubbo responds, barely aware of what he’s saying as the boat slowly shifts over the silt into the main body of the ocean once more.

Schlatt starts at the easy acquiescence, drawing back and running a hand through his hair over his horns.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asks.

Tubbo swallows as the sun tries its level best to warm the chill that just won’t seem to thaw inside him. He feels a little better once the island looks smaller behind them but he still can’t peel his fingers away from the oar. Instead, he licks his lips and tries to find some semblance of composure through the lingering terror.

“Saw a Dreamon,” he manages.

He braces himself for the ‘told you so’, for the cruel stream of gloating and the assertions that Schlatt knows everything. But none of this comes. Instead, Schlatt goes pale and falls back against the mast as his eyes grow haunted.

Tubbo wonders when exactly it was that Schlatt met his Dreamon.

“Jesus kid, you’re fucking lucky to be alive right now, you know that?”

Tubbo does know that. He knows a lot about Dreamons after all.

But he wonders if he really did make it out alive.

‘ Are you the villain Tubbo? ’

The words resound in his head as he fishes out the biscuits and pickles for dinner. And they stay with him as he tries to go to sleep that night tucked safe in the rigged up walls of the second cabin - ringing through his head in Wilbur Soot’s excited tones.

Chapter Text

The air is ash.

It presses into Tubbo’s lungs and he chokes, coughing until his chest burns with panic and shattered hope.

There are fires everywhere.

Shouting, yelling.

The world is chaos.

L’Manburg is burning.

Tubbo is burning. He didn’t know that being shot with a firework so close would hurt so much. It feels like his soul is being eaten alive. Where is Wilbur? Where is Tommy? Make it stop. MAKE IT STOP! It feels like-

Tommy is here; yelling at Technoblade. Tubbo’s hands shake as he watches the exchange. He still can’t quite believe that Tommy is here. He can barely process anything at all through this insanity and he stumbles closer in case this is the dream of a dying boy, in case Tommy is just the byproduct of a synaptic misfire and Tubbo is lying in a ditch somewhere having bled out.

He holds his good hand out towards his friend as he moves, ignoring the pain that lances down his dislocated shoulder.

But then he spots the ruffle of black wings out of the corner of his eye and he stills.

He tilts his head to the side to catch a glimpse of his father Phil and electric horror darts over Tubbo’s skin when he spots the crossbow held taut in Technoblade’s filthy hands. He tenses, muscles suddenly rigid with fear and his heart rate increases until he literally cannot hear what Tommy’s saying despite being three feet from his friend.

All he knows is that the crossbow is levelled at Tommy’s chest...

And it’s loaded with the telltale blue, white and red of a firework.

Burning, burning, burning. Tubbo was burning and it was so. Painful. And now Technoblade is about to put Tommy through the same thing and-

Sick terror lurches inside Tubbo’s chest and for the first time in his life, Tubbo moves before he can think. His legs burn as he takes the leap. His lungs feel like they’re going to explode. For a split second, Tubbo is airborne - flying on the same black wings as his father.

The world flashes in and out as Technoblade takes the shot. Black, then the rocket is there spraying out colour and fizzing hiss, then Tommy’s black pillar and his half finished nether portal burn behind Tubbo’s eyelids, then it’s the rocket again, closer, inevitable-

Burning. Burning. Burning. Burningburningburning.

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault.

He never really managed to tell Tommy how sorry he really was that he’d exiled him. 

“TUBBO!”

Tubbo wakes up as the firework skims over the hard skin burns of his face to detonate on his right. The lingering whistle of shell shock rings through his ears as he sits up in the hammock, panting. Sweat cools rapidly over his skin providing a contrasting freeze to the balmy night air and slowly, Tubbo’s fingers relax on the blanket he’s clutching as he realises where he is.

Another dream about Tommy. An old nightmare, always.

He drops back against the cushions he’s got piled beneath him, letting himself go boneless with relief and misery.

“You know, no one said anything to me after I exiled Tommy,” he whispers into the darkness. The pillows behind him don’t feel as solid as Ranboo, so it’s not like he can really pretend that his husband is here. Tubbo talks anyway. Once upon a time, Ranboo said that it might help him. It might’ve, when Ranboo had been around to respond in a sleepy muffle of concern.

Now, it just hurts him. He does it anyway.

“They all watched with me as Dream dragged him away and not one of them told me that I was the worst friend ever.”

Tubbo leans forwards, pulling his legs up so he can wrap his arms around his knees and squeeze like he’s trying to flatten his feelings.

“They didn’t have to,” Tubbo drops into the silence. “I could see it in the way they looked at me as I led the way back to the office.”

Tubbo squeezes his eyes shut but the pillar is still there cutting an accusatory line into the night. Tubbo grits his teeth against the ache that blooms in his chest as he remembers the thoughts that swam through the reactive grief like soup.

It was my fault. 

The admission hides in the corner of his mouth, waiting for the chance to be said but Tubbo clamps down over it like he can’t stand to let it out, even by himself in the dark.

It hurts.

It hurts so much to hold it in but Tubbo knows that if he lets it out, even here, he will break and there is no guarantee that he’ll be able to put himself back together again.

He can’t break now. He has a job to do. A punishment to endure.

He lets out a breath and, with a gargantuan effort, Tubbo forces the hurt to scab in fast motion, hyper-healing into a jagged scar over his heart, an emotional bone set wrong.

It’s the best he can do. It’s the best he’ll ever be able to do.

He wishes Tommy understood how much Tubbo loved him.

“Love you Boo,” he mouths as he rolls over, obscuring his face in fabric. 

Biscuits and pickles get old very quickly. Three days after Tubbo and Schlatt have managed to put some distance between them and what Tubbo has now dubbed ‘Monster Island’, Tubbo decides to build a kitchen.

“Bit of an ambitious project ain’t it?” Schlatt declares as he sups on his morning margarita beneath the shade of an old umbrella that Tubbo rigged up for him.

Tubbo ignores him, pulling out a sheet of planning paper that he’s kept stuck in his pocket since he finished the second cabin. Being the bigger of the two living spaces, Schlatt was perfectly fine with taking the second cabin off of his hands and that suits Tubbo just fine. He feels better being closer to the navigational equipment stashed in the first cabin anyway.

Nevermind that the bedding in the first cabin is infused with the lingering putrescence of alcohol. Nevermind that Tubbo feels filthy the first night he tries to sleep beneath the folds of those piled up blankets. 

Tubbo draws a mock up of what he wants to build in the far right hand corner of the paper, then moves over the deck to his cabin to grab a ruler, a pivot square and a protractor. He’s not oblivious to the way that Schlatt is watching him as he re-emerges. The pointed interest makes him shiver despite the heat, the little hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention.

He tries not to dwell on it though it’s hard. Schlatt’s scrutiny is judgemental as he measures out dimensions and scribbles equations beside a new, larger isometric drawing. It reminds him a little too much of when Schlatt ordered him to break the carefully constructed walls of L’Manburg right at the beginning of his reign. Schlatt had watched him break up the barriers making up Wilbur’s peace of mind with an opinion on who Tubbo really was forming in those dark irises.

Tubbo hadn’t liked what he’d seen in Schlatt’s gaze then.

Though he couldn’t deny the truth of it.

Push over.

Spineless.

Yes-man.

He wonders what Schlatt’s opinion will be of him this time.

Part of him is too scared to find out. 

‘Are you the villain Tubbo?’

He gets to work as the sun arches over the sky. Really, he should be worrying about the fact that they’ve been travelling for days now with no sign of Wilbur’s Limbo on the waves. Tubbo is seriously suspecting foul play if he’s totally honest but what can he do about it? His only hope is that they’ll reach some kind of civilization before they run out of supplies.

The kitchen will at least make the food problem easier to deal with.

Schlatt watches as he lays down a concrete foundation to mount the oven on; then as he goes about fire proofing the surrounding area, calculating mast angles and the most efficient smoke exhalation spots. Eventually, the sky starts to bleed into sunset colours and Schlatt finally decides to deliver his verdict.

“You’re quite a handy little fucker aren’t you?”

Tubbo pauses with a hammer suspended in midair and a nail held firmly in his good left hand. It’s the first time that Schlatt has spoken since he deemed Tubbo’s project ambitious several hours ago and a heavy suspicion squats over Tubbo’s chest as he processes the words. Schlatt knows he’s handy. It’s the one thing that Schlatt used to compliment him on.

“What?” he bites out, slamming the hammer down over the nail.

“I said you’re a handy little fucker,” Schlatt repeats, pushing himself up from where he’s leaning against the first cabin. “You’re just getting on with all this by yourself. It’s pretty impressive.”

The suspicion in Tubbo’s chest seems to double in weight. He squints at Schlatt and lays the hammer down on the flat surface of the wood he’s modifying.

“What do you mean?” Tubbo asks. “You always knew I was good at building.”

Schlatt scratches the side of his nose and has the decency to avert his eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I did,” he admits. “But I just thought that you were a good little worker drone doing the grunt work - resource gathering and brick laying mainly. I didn’t realise you could play architect and had the smarts to fucking build a working oven on a wooden boat.”

Tubbo isn’t quite sure what to do about the compliment. It spurs something inside him, a weird sort of corkscrew feeling in his stomach that he doesn’t trust at all. It makes him feel weak, that corkscrew feeling. It makes him feel seen.

“Who do you think designed and built up most of Manburg?” Tubbo asks, unable to mask the bitterness in his tone as he picks up his hammer again and beats down on the nail in his hand with a little more force than necessary.

“That was you?” Schlatt asks and despite himself, Tubbo pauses once again to listen to the note of interest in Schlatt’s tone. “I thought most of the architecture crap was down to Quackity.”

Tubbo puts the hammer down again and wipes a hand over his sweaty forehead. 

“Big Q did make some things,” Tubbo admits. “He’s a pretty decent builder but when Big Q took over most of the written work, I started taking over the building plans and construction sites.”

“Huh. I bet that’s when shit started to go downhill,” Schlatt says. The comment is offhand but Tubbo isn’t fooled by the blase facade. The comment is supposed to be cruel and Tubbo is sorry to say it gets to him, feeding the furnace of black self-loathing deep down inside him enough that he glares over the top of the wood.

“I didn’t fuck up half as much as you used to think I did,” Tubbo tells him. He only half believes the words. Schlatt used to accuse him of forgetting things, of purposefully ignoring him and Tubbo was so stressed out trying to juggle Manburg shit and Pogtopian instructions that he could hardly figure out if he had fucked up somewhere.

He was never suited to be a spy.

He was never suited to be Schlatt’s right hand man.

He was never suited to be Tommy’s friend.

Sometimes he used to wonder if he was suited for anything at all, if he was more than just a black mark on the record of history.

He knew the truth though. He knew that anything good inside him, around him, rotted within a matter of weeks. But then Ranboo had come along and had treated him like he was still good, like he was still the boy who could find joy in the bees or pick flowers with-

“Nah, you did,” Schlatt insists. “Otherwise, it had to’ve been me that fucked up. And that’s just not possible.”

“Really? Are you really that narcissistic to think that you couldn’t make any mistakes?”

Schlatt leers over him.

“Are you?” he asks.

And Tubbo doesn’t know how to answer that because he checked the numbers. Again and again and again. He’d calculated the fall out zone, predicted the long term radiation damage and the effect on the environment. Yet a god wearing a warped version of Dream’s face had assured him that he’d managed to completely annihilate the SMP anyway. 

He’d meant to kill Dream. He’d managed to kill everyone. 

Mistakes were made indeed.

Schlatt is drunk.

Not his usual levels of ‘I need to be this drunk to function’. Manburg drunk.

Tubbo feels the prickle of foreboding along the skin of his arms as he fishes but only turns around, wincing when he hears the crash. 

“Fuck! Fuck this shit!”

Tubbo’s fingers tighten on the fabric of the deck chair until the tips of his fingers are white with blood loss. Memories assault him of slipping hesitantly along the corridors of the white house wondering how bad Schlatt was going to be that day. If it was bad, the smell of alcohol would often reach him before he made it to the office. If it was bad, Tubbo knew to expect scattered bruises along his arms and ribs if he’d made even the simplest spelling error.

Tubbo knows that he doesn’t have to take that kind of abuse now. He is no longer part of a powerful political cabinet and he is no longer playing spy for Wilbur and Tommy’s sake. Somehow, knowing that doesn’t make him feel any better, or make him shrink down into his chair any less as Schlatt staggers around the corner.

“There y’are,” Schlatt drawls, blinking sluggishly and leaning up against the wall of the cabin. “I w’s b’ginning to think that I w’s all by myself on this fucking…whatever this is.”

Tubbo doesn’t say a word. His vocal chords seemed to have abandoned him, sinking down into a dark safe space inside of himself where he wishes he could join them.

“I fucking - Tubbo where’s th’ paper I asked for like two days ‘go man? Wh’t have you been doing all this time?”

Tubbo tries to let out a shaky breath but it’s like his lungs have decided to pack up and shut down as well. Something hot and hard lodges itself in his throat right at the back of his tongue and he tries to swallow the burning sensation to say something.

He’d forgotten. Honestly, he’d almost forgotten that Schlatt could be like this. The guy’s been so bearable on this trip.

“Y’ve been - you’ve been takin’ - been takin’ my state secrets to fucking - to Wilbur haven’t you?” Schlatt accuses suddenly, falling forwards as the boat rocks on an errant wave. 

Tubbo only blinks at him. He can’t speak. He can’t escape.

Even now he can’t escape.

“Thought I taught you a l’sson ‘bout what happens to traitors, ” Schlatt hisses out with a maniacal glint in his eye. He takes another step forward with overly white teeth bared in an angry snarl and Tubbo just can’t take any more of this.

“You did,” he says, the words coming out robotic with the effort it’s taking to have them form over numb lips. “You did teach me a lesson.”

Schlatt is utterly derailed. He stands in front of Tubbo, swaying like a sapling in the breeze, and frowning in total confusion.

“I did?” he asks.

And Tubbo is choking on nothing but the truth.

“You did,” he repeats. “You got Technoblade to blow me up. With a firework. Remember?”

There’s a long pause following that revelation as the information travels through Schlatt’s saturated brain but then, that glint of rage morphs into a light of pleasure as Schlatt lets out an almighty belch and belly laughs like he’s never found anything more amusing.

Tubbo stares.

He stares at the round face of the man that had him murdered. He stares at the chortling arse who took Tubbo’s innocence and crushed it beneath violent hands. 

And in that moment, something inside Tubbo that has been wound so tight for so long, snaps.

He pushes himself up off of the deck chair, dropping his fishing pole in the process. Then he strides towards Schlatt through a haze of blood red, draws his scarred hand back in an open palmed assault. Then lets it fly.

The satisfying crack of the smack alone acts like a balm to Tubbo’s aching soul. He grins as Schlatt is thrown sideways into the side of the cabin, wide-eyed with shock and clutching at his glowing cheek beneath the facial hair.

That felt good.

It shouldn’t have. Despite everything that Tubbo has gone through, Tubbo still does not like or condone violence unless it’s absolutely necessary. This wasn’t necessary. 

But it was deserved.

He waits until Schlatt meets his eyes with an expression of disbelieving hurt. His mouth is open in lingering shock and his eyes are alert where they were dulled with alcohol before. Maybe the slap sobered him up. Maybe Tubbo is about to be throttled. With the way he’s feeling at the moment, Tubbo would like to see this man that he’s always feared try.

“Yeah, Schlatt. Congratulations, you had a child on your cabinet murdered. Well done, you really managed to achieve something with your time as President of L’Manburg. With your life. ”

“Don’t pull your high and mighty shit Tubbo. You deserved what you got. You betrayed me first.”

Tubbo’s blood is boiling, bubbling and it feels like hot gas is pressing at the undersides of his skin as he raises his left arm, the one unmarred by burns, to show off a smattering of scars that glint in the sunlight. Most of them are crescent moon shaped. Fingernail shaped.

“No,” Tubbo says with the conviction that allowed him to press the final button in the bunker. “ You betrayed me first.”

It’s dark.

Tubbo is watching the moon rise, frowning when he realises that the moon has been carved out in that same sinister crescent since he died. He doesn’t know what to make of it other than it makes him feel like he is being watched over by the most malevolent of gods enemies.

The clunk of a bottle being placed on the deck beside him heralds Schlatt’s appearance and Tubbo experiences a stir of wrathful misery. 

“Go away Schlatt,” he says, turning over in the deck chair so he’s facing the black water below the boat.

Schlatt makes a sound behind him like he’s clearing his throat but Tubbo only shuffles back round to face him when he hears the delicate chime of more glass objects being handled. He glowers at the shot glasses as they are placed rather reverently on either side of a large black bottle labelled ‘Kraken Black Rum’.

Tubbo thinks of Tommy.

“No,” Schlatt says carefully. “You’re going to play Truth or Drink with me.”

Tubbo lets out an explosive sigh.

“I’m a minor Schlatt, I’ve told you.”

“And I’ve told you, there ain’t no rules about that in the afterlife,” Schlatt counters, glaring back at him with a new kind of heat that Tubbo can’t really label. “Look kid, due to an unfortunate set of circumstances, I can’t actually get in touch with my usual drinking buddies. You’re all I’ve got. Consider this a prerequisite to ferrying me off to the Final Stop or whatever.”

Tubbo eyes the bottle. He doesn’t want to drink. He really doesn’t. The disinfectant fumes that spiral out of the bottle when Schlatt uncorks it makes him want to gag. But if there is even the slightest chance that doing this will get Schlatt off of his boat, Tubbo’s game.

He drags himself up and off of the deck chair. Then he plops down opposite Schlatt with a scowl in place.

Schlatt smirks a crooked smirk.

“Okay then,” he says, delighted. “So the rules are: I ask a question. You can choose to answer with the truth or take a drink. You can try to lie but if I call you out, you also have to drink. We take turns so I ask a question, then you. Got it?”

“Got it,” Tubbo affirms, steeling himself as much as he can.

He watches Schlatt pour the first of the rum with a deft hand. Like its name, it’s black and thick. Like tar. Tubbo doesn’t understand how anyone can drink this shit.

“Alright then, question one,” Schlatt announces and Tubbo shivers involuntarily when Schlatt smirks with the same puppet-string pulling aura that Dream used to command. 

“Who was it that put the eraser in the door on the day I made my speech about upping taxes on Niki?”

Tubbo stares at Schlatt. A politician stares back from the dark depths of Schlatt’s soul and Tubbo shivers with childish dread. The question is a trap. Of course it is. Everyone knew the answer the moment Schlatt stepped through the door and the eraser hit the crumpled shoulder pads of his jacket. Schlatt is trying to figure out if Tubbo is going to lie and either way Tubbo answers, it will give away too much about how he’s planning to cross this board.

Fucking Hell. 

“It was Fundy,” Tubbo admits, crossing his arms over his chest to drag in the defensiveness in his tone. Schlatt smirks anyway. The triumph scares pisses Tubbo off.

He’s not scared of Schlatt. Not anymore.

At least he doesn’t have to drink.

“Alright,” Schlatt concedes, leaning back on his hands as a pleasant breeze wafts over the deck. Beneath the light of the lamp Tubbo placed outside of the first cabin, with shadows playing over his face, Schlatt looks every bit the villain he is on the inside.

“Your question,” Schlatt prompts.

Tubbo considers his options. He could follow in Schlatt’s footsteps and try to set a trap. But Tubbo has learnt too much from Tommy and there are better things he can take from this.

He licks his lips and meets Schlatt’s expression with shrewd eyes.

“What do you want me to do to Wilbur?” he asks.

For a moment, only the lap of the water beneath the relentless row of the oar can be heard along with Tubbo’s increasing heart rate. The smell of the sea becomes bitter with sour nerves in Tubbo’s nostrils and he flinches when Schlatt leans forward again. The triumph is not gone from his features but it’s tempered now with a discontent that makes Tubbo bristle with answering irritation.

“Really? You can ask me anything you fucking want and you choose to ask about that? ”

Tubbo glares at him.

“What do you want from me?” he asks. He sounds defensive and for some reason, clocking his own defensiveness makes a flare of heat streak over his cheeks. “I don’t really care about asking a bunch of meaningless personal questions. The pair of us are only actually here for one reason. Right?”

Schlatt shoots him a condescending look but Tubbo is poker-faced, his emotions steely. He’s not here to mess around and he doesn’t care if he’s missing a trick. He just wants this to be over with.

“What about the whole ‘helping me reconcile shit I haven’t come to terms with’ part of our little trip? Don’t you need to ask, what was it you said, ‘meaningless personal questions’ for that?” Schlatt prods and Tubbo’s stomach tingles with the drag of emotional dread. He doesn’t want to know about Schlatt. Quite frankly, he wants to get through this trip with as little knowledge shared about his tormentor as possible. 

If he knows the truth, will he stop seeing Schlatt as a monster? If he can’t hate Schlatt, if he can’t blame the ex-tyrant for what he has become then who does-

‘Who am I without you?’

‘Yourself?’

“Is there something you want to tell me?” Tubbo prompts, then winces because he’s getting far too riled already and he’s unable to mask it in his tone.

Schlatt gives him a long hard look that Tubbo can’t won’t , for the life of him, read. Then he lets out a little huff of disappointment and draws back to lean on his hands over the grain of the wood.

Tubbo tries not to feel like he’s failed a test.

He doesn’t care if he has. 

He’s long past caring what Schlatt thinks of him - no he’s not.

“Alright kid,” Schlatt concedes. “If you really want me to spoil the surprise, then the truth is that I want you to mess with Wilbur’s trains.”

Intrigue melts through the crippling self hatred doubt like hot magma through crucial mining tools. Tubbo sits up a little straighter as he forgets his discomfort at Schlatt’s probing and his mind starts to turn over the possibilities.

“Trains?” he repeats. “Wilbur said his Limbo was a train station…”

Schlatt scoffs.

“Yeah. Some fuckers have all the luck. He gets the beginnings of an intercontinental empire for his Limbo. I get stuck in an office block with Minx.”

Tubbo ignores that statement and the way it twists his heart because the sentiment of Wilbur getting lucky in the afterlife is one that reminds him that Tommy had only the void when he died. For months on end.

I’m coming Tommy.

“An intercontinental empire?” Tubbo breathes. “Do you mean that Wilbur’s trains can connect Limbos like my boat?” 

Tubbo watches Schlatt’s reaction to the observation out of the corner of his eye, hoping that Schlatt might give something away if he thinks Tubbo isn’t paying attention. Instead, he feels a little stab of pride in his guts as Schlatt’s eyebrows raise in surprised acquiescence.

“Not yet,” Schlatt says. “But last I heard, Wilbur was working on something like that. You know, I really didn’t think you’d pick up on that possibility so fast.”

Tubbo ignores the backwards compliment - even though it makes him burn with pleasure , frowning instead as he considers Wilbur’s motives.

“Why would Wilbur need to build a rail system that connects Limbos?” he mutters. “Why not spend the resources on a boat? Unless…”

He remembers the awe on Quackity’s face when he turned up in Schlatt’s harbour. He remembers the question: ‘how did you get a boat so fast?’.

He glances down over the edge of the boat into the dark deep. Is he the only one that can traverse this sea? And is it the boat that’s important or is it the compass that guides him?

Schlatt shifts in front of him, drawing one of his legs up so he can drape his arm over his knee. The pose is too casual for Schlatt to really be relaxed and the fact that Schlatt is not letting his guard down makes Tubbo feel like maybe, just maybe, Schlatt is starting to take him seriously.

And oh does it feel good to be seen for the formidable opponent that he really is rather than just a pawn to be shifted over the board through someone else’s will.

“You know Wilbur,” Schlatt says. “The guy’s in his element when he’s got his thumb in other people’s pies. He has more issues with control than I do and that’s saying a whole fucking lot.”

Tubbo has to agree with Schlatt there but he doesn’t allow himself to vocalise this. Instead he says:

“What exactly do you want me to do? I don’t see how messing with Wilbur’s trains will be beneficial to you if you’re really going to let me take you to the Final Resting Place.”

Tubbo makes himself stare stonily at Schlatt who’s expression is suddenly mischievous.

“I already told you, it’s for revenge. And it’s not your turn.”

Tubbo blinks, then glances down at the shot gla sses between them and his cheeks heat when he realises that he’s forgotten they were playing some stupid game. The allure of the puzzle has thoroughly derailed him. 

“Fine,” he spits out, hunkering over himself so he is pressed ball tight behind the fluttering fabric of the deck chair, caging in his emotions in preparation for whatever Schlatt is about to try to dig into. “Your turn.”

Schlatt fidgets happily, adjusting himself like a lion waiting for his dinner to be brought home, but then he looks at Tubbo and Tubbo feels a spike of alarm as Schlatt’s eyes burn with unmistakable venom.

“Tubbo,” Schlatt says and his voice is low, serious, an accusation already.

Tubbo swallows his fight or flight instincts as they kick into high gear. Whatever Schlatt’s going to ask him, Tubbo is already absolutely sure that he doesn’t want to deal with it.

“Why did you betray Manburg?”

Chapter Text

The question hits him.

Tubbo shrinks into himself, gripping the sleeves of his shirt as an intertwine of anger and fear bubbles out from the cage he’s erected around his heart.

It hurts!

Schlatt doesn’t - he doesn't even know what he did wrong!

How?

It’s ludicrous. It’s insane.

It’s not fair!

“Why do you think I betrayed Manburg Schlatt?” Tubbo spits out, mortified by the fury that he can’t hide. He meets Schlatt’s eyes over the rim of the nation bottle that sits between them and although Schlatt’s eyes are narrowed in warning, Tubbo doesn’t bother to reel in how pissed he is.

Wrong. This is so wrong. Schlatt’s going to pulverise him. He’s going to beat Tubbo so badly that there won’t be anything left to limp back to Wilbur and Tommy. 

But Tubbo can’t stop himself. 

The rage is powering something within him, an ugliness that has been slowly gaining mass and power inside him like a tumour since Manburg. No, since before then when Wilbur came along to steal Tommy away because he thought Tommy was more significant than Tubbo. No, before then, when Tommy came along and tried to rob him because even he wrote Tubbo off to begin with as nothing more than a hapless pawn.

Tubbo lets out a breath that’s hot and hard. 

“Not gonna answer? Fine. I’ll fucking spoon feed it to you. I was never loyal to you, king. Never.”

Tubbo watches as Schlatt’s hands flex into white knuckled fists. The jagged edges are picked out by the lamplight and a niggle of fear tries to pop this balloon of anger that’s inflated within Tubbo. He refuses to let it though. Fear has always dictated Tubbo’s actions and he’s so done with being afraid.

“Do you really think I would ever be loyal to someone who hurt me?”

The marks on Tubbo’s arms are picked out by the lamplight in glittering exclamations. They are the constellations that Schlatt has peppered across Tubbo’s sky and they will not be glossed over now. 

“You needed me,” Schlatt counters. His tone is ominous but there is a lace of petulance through the words that doesn’t escape Tubbo’s notice despite his haze red tunnel vision and the tinnitus in his ears. It’s almost like Tubbo is a toy that has been stolen away and Tubbo feels so sick because that’s all he ever was. To Schlatt and Wilbur.

Even Tommy, to some extent.

No, not to Tommy. Tommy was going to give up the discs to save his life. Tommy made it clear that Tubbo was worth more than just a throwaway piece on a stupid chess board in the end.

Tommy was worth much more than Tubbo’s stupid nuke.

“No,” Tubbo says. “I didn’t.”

There’s a pause as each past President regards the other. Right now, Tubbo finally feels like he’s on an even playing field with the monster in front of him and there is something to be taken from that. He feels that maybe, just maybe, it might actually be possible to outgrow your nightmares after all.

But then, Schlatt speaks and everything shifts on its axis.

“Then why did you stay so long?” 

Tubbo freezes.

“Wh-what?”

“Why did you stay so long?” Schlatt asks, enunciating each word like he’s speaking to someone stupid. 

Like he’s speaking to the Tubbo that used to cower beneath his backhand.

“There were plenty of opportunities for you to leave Tubbo,” Schlatt tells him and Tubbo tries to stop himself from flinching at the reminder of all those times he was left alone in the office after hours. Of all the times he wanted to run to Pogtopia and Tommy.

But Wilbur wouldn’t be satisfied with that.

No, it wasn’t about Wilbur, it was about-

“You want to know what I think?” Schlatt asks, taking control of the conversation as the roiling fury within Tubbo peters out beneath the black ice that thrusts out from the guilty core of himself.

He could have left. At any time, he could have left.

No, he couldn't.

“Not really, no,” Tubbo says, the statement half a plea for Schlatt to stop.

He doesn’t.

“I think you dress yourself up to be some tragic martyr in this story but that’s not what you are at all,” Schlatt summarises with a cruel honesty that makes pain bloom out from Tubbo’s chest. 

“I think you betrayed Manburg for yourself . Not because it was the right thing to do, or even to get away from me. I think you did it to put yourself back into Tommy Innit’s good graces. Not for any higher fucking purpose.”

Tubbo lets out a careful breath as the truth threatens to end him.

He'd thought...well...

He'd thought he was a good guy.

Tubbo had taken the invisibility potion to try and follow Wilbur and Tommy out of L’Manburg but the minute Schlatt had called his name on that podium following the election outcome, Tubbo had only been interested in preserving himself. 

‘Where is Tubbo?’

‘I’m coming, I’m coming Schlatt. ’

‘ Tubbo, do you want the job or not? ’

‘ I do! I do want the job!’

He remembers the heart-breaking look straining Tommy’s features when Tubbo found him on the Prime path.

‘ Tommy? I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with me. ’

He remembers screaming at himself that this was wrong and how could I go through with this and how did I end up here? But then Wilbur had contacted him to ask him to be a spy for Pogtopia and the relief he’d felt had been-

Tubbo had only ever agreed to that suggestion because it was a way to erase that hurt from Tommy without having to get his hands dirty and explain his own cowardice. Tubbo was a horrible liar, a worse actor. Yes, he kept his secrets close but that was literally his only qualification.

If there had been anyone else available, Tubbo is sure that Wilbur would have picked them instead. 

He shouldn't have had the opportunity to be a coward, deny his own ugliness, lie to himself.

“N-no, that’s not-

“You think I don’t know you?” Schlatt interrupts and Tubbo feels so young and stupid and afraid as Schlatt leans forward to push into Tubbo's space. It's like his anger from before was only ever a cover up for the fear of a petty little boy that Schlatt already knows.

“You’d be wrong. I know you because, like you, I’m a goddamn selfish motherfucker, a villain Tubbo. And if I was in your shoes, I think I would have done the same things for the same reasons.”

The comparison rolls out like an icy breath through the darkness and, as the moon ventures back behind an errant cloud, Tubbo finds himself sitting in front of the Dreamon version of himself. Except this one has Schlatt’s horns curling out like ridged madness from beneath its flower-riddled tresses.

It smirks and the expression is ineffable.

‘If I can’t be the next Schlatt, then you can’t be the next Wilbur.’

Tubbo lets out several, sharp panicked breaths and blinks and blinks to clear his eyes. When the moon re-emerges once again seconds later, it is Schlatt he is looking at again.

Schlatt sniffs, his expression cold as he reaches around the bottle to push Tubbo’s shot glass towards him.

“So drink up liar,” he says.

Tubbo stares at the shot glass, horrified and wrung through. It feels like his soul is on display, like he is a broken version of Tommy Innit wearing his sick heart on his sleeve and no one should see that, no one. Not his friends and family, not Schlatt and not himself.

“I didn’t lie,” he whispers. 

Schlatt sniffs again and somehow the action is riddled with a disgust that sends lances of pain shooting through Tubbo’s exposed heart.

“Maybe not to me.”

Tubbo can’t find a way to deny Schlatt’s words any longer. He’s not sure he has the energy anyway. So he lets out a little breath of defeat and reaches forward to grasp the glass between twitching fingers. The noxious smell hits him before he’s managed to drag it half way up to his face and he wrinkles his nose.

He really doesn’t want to drink. He really doesn’t want to continue on with this game. He doesn’t know what Schlatt has to gain by exposing his darkest corners. 

Saliva floods Tubbo’s mouth to precede bile in acidic discomfort as he eyes the murky liquid. But Schlatt is watching with cruel intent and Tubbo agreed to play this game so now he has to face the consequences of lying to himself.

Finally.

He heaves in a deep breath and knocks it back.

It hits the back of his throat like a radioactive detonation. Unpleasant shock stutters through him and he swallows reflexively, wincing against the burn of fire running over his oesophagus. As soon as it’s gone, Tubbo reels back, coughing like an avid smoker.

Schlatt chuckles in front of him.

“Good shit, yeah?”

Tubbo blinks the sting of tears from his eyes, watching as Schlatt takes one smooth swig straight from the bottle.

“It’s vile!” Tubbo declares, sticking his tongue out in repulsion.

“Just wait ‘til you get used to it,” Schlatt tells him.

Tubbo levels a new glare on his nemesis as he feels his brain start to fog with the hit.

“I don’t plan on getting used to it,” he replies with conviction.

The mirth in Schlatt’s face slips slightly and Tubbo takes that as a triumph. As Schlatt so aptly pointed out, both he and Tubbo are frighteningly similar, but Tubbo won’t allow himself to be lured in by the promise of an escape like the bottle. 

He’d rather build nukes and kill an entire server of people.

“It’s your ball slick,” Schlatt says.

Tubbo lets out a huff. He can’t think straight. If this is what one shot of alcohol does to him then he’s going to need to watch his answers to the next set of questions. He doesn’t like this at all. His thoughts feel disjointed, numb.

The man in front of him sits with all the grace of someone assured victory. Tubbo considers asking the questions he should ask. And decides to do something different.

He’ll take a risk and detonate a server later.

“Was it the first time you’d spoken to XD when he came to tell you that I was coming?”

The wording is awkward. It’s probably the drink. The little stab of pride he feels when Schlatt appears warily impressed by the question is also probably the drink.

Yeah, that’s what Tubbo’s telling himself and he’s sticking to that.

“Now why would you want to know that?” Schlatt asks and his voice is low with barely concealed poison.

“Nu uh,” Tubbo says, waving his finger back and forth over the rim of the bottle. Rum Triumph licks at the inside of his stomach making him want to smirk. “It’s not your turn to ask a question. And you’re deflecting, which means the answer is yes.”

Schlatt snorts and Tubbo figures he’s got it in one. If Schlatt can play the politician, if he can use this situation to draw weird truthful conclusions about Tubbo, then Tubbo can do the same to Schlatt. The fact that Schlatt looks pissed off because of Tubbo’s deduction promotes a pleasant giddiness to run through Tubbo’s blood like electricity. It must be so frustrating for Schlatt, a man obsessed with controlling power, to be visited by an individual like XD only to talk about someone as insignificant as Tubbo Underscore-Beloved.

Tubbo licks his lips as his mind really starts to engage, burning through the fog of the drink with sheer wilful curiosity.

If XD really did only visit Schlatt to talk about Tubbo then perhaps the god-like entity is more invested in Tubbo’s journey than he let on. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing remains to be seen. Tubbo doesn’t like the idea of being watched or forced onto a particular path. He is not a hero on a journey through a story book tale. But knowing that XD might be interested means that Tubbo has something he can potentially use.

Tubbo flinches, snapping out of his reverie as Schlatt reaches forward to pluck up his shot glass. Tubbo’s heart is hammering as Schlatt raises it up.

“You win this round kid, cheers.”

The shot disappears. Tubbo simmers with annoyance that Schlatt doesn’t cough.

“You didn’t have to drink,” Tubbo mumbles.

Schlatt wipes his mouth and eyes Tubbo with an expression that crackles with mischief.

“My turn,” he sing-songs and then, in an abrupt about face of mood, he pushes himself forward with eyes as hard as iron.

“Why did you blow up the SMP Tubbo?”

Tubbo stiffens as the bloom of triumph inside him withers away into the depths of newly surging black panic. His breaths quicken and his hands tingle. He should have been expecting the question really. Schlatt's pride has just been wounded so now, he's aiming to wound.

Tubbo swallows his apprehension and tries to look Schlatt dead in the eye. The moment he makes eye contact though, Tubbo realises that this is the question - the real reason that Schlatt wanted to play this game. His eyes are burning with resolve, black holes flecked with red piercing through the night.

What does Schlatt want to know exactly?

“I already told you, it was an accident,” Tubbo says.

Schlatt’s eyes narrow in irritation.

“Yeah, I don’t buy it,” he claims. “Why did you really blow up the SMP Tubbo? Hm? You say it wasn’t a power play but why build nukes in the first place?”

A good question. 

“I told you, it was to keep people away,” Tubbo says.

He starts, taken aback when Schlatt actually snarls at him.

Tubbo’s asking for it. Really asking for it. Any moment now, and Schlatt is going to reach across the gap dividing them and grab hold of Tubbo’s arm. He’s going to clamp down so hard that Tubbo will have finger shaped bruises and nail shaped scabs to pick at as Wilbur berates him for whatever he’s done wrong. Or worse, Schlatt will punch him square in the face and Tubbo will have to invent some lame excuse to spout at Tommy when he’s inevitably questioned about the black eye tomorrow morning.

“Nukes don’t keep people away.” Schlatt growls. “If anything, they’re going to attract the biggest fish, the real killers, you and I both know that. So fucking square up. Level with me. Did you build them to make people see you differently? Or was your purpose darker than that?”

Tubbo can’t quite deny believe what he’s hearing. What darker purpose could Tubbo have possibly had in mind? Sure, the destruction the nukes promised was alluring - particularly at night when Tubbo would keep himself awake calculating radiation fallout distances, particle reactions and heat densities. Sure, Tubbo wanted to cross the board. But.

But.

“No, no! I built the nukes to protect Ranboo and Michael from Dream !” Tubbo insists. “The whole thing was called Project Dreamcatcher. I would have protected Tommy too if he’d stayed in Snowchester.”

“Snowchester?” Schlatt asks, frowning and Tubbo’s mouth snaps shut, his jaw clenching. He doesn’t want to go into what Snowchester was. He doesn’t want to have to explain the sorry excuse that was L’Manburg’s status following his time as President.

Schlatt gives him a long hard look for a moment before trying something else.

Tubbo isn’t grateful.

“Yeah, okay. What did that big green asshole do to make you want to build a fucking nuclear weapon?”

So much.

Dream did SO MUCH.

The manipulations, the smooth promises, the insistence that Tommy didn’t care about him. It all crawls over Tubbo’s skin like the minute footsteps of a spider. 

That followed by the goading, the insults and the ever present assertion that Tubbo was nothing more than a pawn - a catalyst in an origin story meant for Tommy Innit.

He’d made Tubbo believe that his story was finished.

So Tubbo had tried to set up a way to repay the favour whilst protecting his husband and child, the people that had given him life when his life had been handed back to him by the people of the SMP. 

The people that he ended up murdering.

“A lot happened after you died, Schlatt,” Tubbo answers. “Dream manipulated us all to get to Tommy and then, in the end…”

‘ The nuke for Tommy right? ’

An image of Dream’s sword cutting into Tommy’s exposed throat flashes behind his eyelids as he blinks. His own screams fill his ears and the accompanying hysteria threatens to set him on fire from the inside out all over again - like the memory is Technoblade’s firework only ten times more potent.

When Tubbo opens his eyes again, Schlatt is watching him with rapt attention and Tubbo feels something stony on his tongue as he continues, something like anger or hatred or the dark promise of a nuclear explosion.

“Dream killed Tommy right in front of me,” he says.

Schlatt stares at him.

“So you just decided to fucking blow him up?” he asks. “Really?”

Tubbo frowns, his thoughts floundering as Schlatt makes that sound like such a petty, stupid reaction.

“Well, no,” Tubbo tells him. “There was sort of- I mean, I knew Dream was going to come to Snowchester to get the nuke so I’d sort of been planning on- I mean I called the whole thing Project Dreamcatcher so it wasn’t like I’d just decided to blow him up on the spot there boss man.”

Schlatt looks confused. He draws back like an enderman who’s just accidentally dipped a toe in a puddle - like Ranboo when he tried to go out on rainy days - and scratches his head like this is all beyond comprehension.

Tubbo tries not to feel defensive. Schlatt doesn’t have to understand his motives. No one does. 

Because, really, he did everything for hims-

“So, let me get this straight, you reeled Dream in by waving your nuclear weapon under his nose and then you were planning to set it off. And what? You just didn’t figure out how much destruction it would cause? Is that it?” Schlatt asks.

Tubbo tries to swallow around the lump of shame that lodges in his throat.

“I must have miscalculated somewhere,” he admits. “It was only supposed to blow up Snowchester.”

“Wait,” Schlatt says, shaking his head. “I thought you said you wanted to protect this Snowchester.”

“Oh, uh, no. I said I wanted to protect- well, it was only me left when I decided to blow it up. I sort of decided it would be worth it to take Dream out.”

The idea had been to free the server. That's all.

He can tell himself that forever.

“So really, you set off the nuke to blow up Dream… and yourself, ” Schlatt states and Tubbo doesn’t know how to respond to that.

How are you supposed to respond to allegations of suicidal thoughts? Tubbo had half been dreading the inevitable confrontation over what he’d let spill out of himself in those heart-stopping moments trapped in the obsidian death room during the final disc war but that confrontation had never happened. 

No-one has ever actually called him out like this before.

Tommy was supposed to but he didn't.

Tubbo feels cold with the shock of having this part of him finally acknowledged. It’s like…it’s like breathing for the first time after holding your breath for decades. And at the same time, it inspires a scrambling panic to get away. Schlatt knows too much. He sees too much.

When Schlatt sits back and chuckles mirthlessly, Tubbo flinches like he’s finally been subjected to that dreaded slap.

“And I thought you were smarter than that,” Schlatt lets out on a long sigh as his laughter dissipates.

Tubbo bristles, spurred to a bitter, twisting anger by Schlatt’s judgement.

“A choice like that is not about being smart, big man,” Tubbo tells him. “I did what I did because I thought I’d be saving everyone from Dream.”

Schlatt glowers at him and it takes everything Tubbo has not to cringe away from that look. Right now, Schlatt is judging Tubbo’s true self and that is…

Terrifying.

Usually, if people make assumptions, they’re so far off the mark that the negativity slides off of Tubbo like water off of a duck’s back. This will be one of the first times someone will be passing judgement on the shit that matters.

When Schlatt’s glower twists into a look of mild repulsion, Tubbo feels a piece of himself die.

“No. You did what you did because you wanted to die,” Schlatt decides. “You blew up the SMP for yourself Tubbo, just like everything else. You’re a selfish shit, just like me.”

Oof.

Tubbo feels like he’s been trapped in that yellow concrete all over again, the Tubbox of truth. He feels like Schlatt has taken the firework and the crossbow this time to fire it into the centre of his soul. 

It hurts. 

It hurts so much to have the horrible truth so bluntly stated.

“No, no, that’s not-

“Stop. Lying. You built the nukes to tell everyone that you were Mr Big Shot. You built them to make people stop underestimating you as some victimised kid and start treating you with a bit of respect. Tell me Tubbo, you say that you were the only one left in Snowchester when you decided to blow it up? Was it because everyone had realised what an awful person you were and left?”

Tubbo doesn’t know when exactly he stood up. His heart is pounding and his hands are shaking violently as he lifts them up to stuff his fists in his ears. 

He can’t take this anymore.

“Stop it Schlatt,” he pleads, desperate for this to be over.

“Or was it because they’d been killed taking hits for your ego?” Schlatt presses, his eyes flashing malice as Tubbo shakes his head and grits his teeth against the burning in his chest.

“Stop.”

“I bet you let Dream kill Tommy in front of you,” Schlatt says, reaching for the bottle of rum once more. “It wouldn’t be the first time you’d chosen yourself over Tommy, would it?”

“Stop it, stop it, STOP IT!” Tubbo shrieks, slamming his fists into his temples over and over as he crumbles.

Oh Prime. Oh Prime.

When did he get to be so awful? Was he always like this? Was he always a-

“Yeah. You blew it up for yourself. There’s no mistaking that,” Schlatt decides.

He downs his drink and Tubbo’s had enough. He whirls round without so much as a word of self dismissal, moving back towards the deck chair in a robotic motion and rounding the corner to hide behind the next wall of the first cabin.

“You can’t run from this Tubso!”

Something catches in Tubbo’s throat but he ignores it. Just like he ignores Schlatt’s words. He can run from this. And he will. Fuck trying to get Schlatt off of his boat right now. All he wants to do is crawl beneath the blankets in his hammock and die all over again.

“Not being able to accept that you’re a goddamn villain is what destroyed the SMP kid,” Schlatt is saying as Tubbo rounds the corner on the opposite side of the cabin where the door stands invitingly open. Tubbo freezes as his hand brushes against the door handle to pull it closed. The words of the Dreamon roll through his head in conjunction with Schlatt’s monologue. The horns curl over its floral tresses when Tubbo closes his eyes.

‘ Are you the villain Tubbo?’

“Trust me, everything gets a lot better when you just accept that you’re a shit person.”

Tubbo slams the door closed and locks it behind him. If Schlatt’s laugh rumbles through the wall to Tubbo’s left, Tubbo isn’t going to acknowledge it.

“Land…ho!” Schlatt puffs as he lifts dumbbells in the shade of the mast.

Tubbo hears the words and doesn’t quite believe it. 

Land.

TommyRanbooMichael.

Supplies, civilisation, a chance to have Schlatt off of his back for a couple of hours at least. 

TommyRanbooMichael.

There’s also a chance to meet more Dreamons intent on pulling out his worst fears.

He takes a breath to try and calm the storm threatening to escalate out of control inside him. His hands shake violently over the watering can he’s fashioned out of the last of the iron bars. 

“You sure?” he calls out of the makeshift greenhouse, pushing himself up from where he’s been kneeling amongst fledgling plants. 

“Pretty…goddamn….sure,” Schlatt pants.

Tubbo decides to see for himself, skirting around the plants and throwing open the splintered door so that it cracks incriminatingly against the support pillar to Tubbo’s left. As soon as he’s outside, he feels the change in the air, the heat becoming dust dry. There’s a smell like wet fur and fear - not like Wilbur’s smell of gunpowder and sour insanity so this can’t be Wilbur’s Limbo - and in the distance, looming like the back of a giant whale, Tubbo can see the bubble of an enormous sand dune.

The cap on the emotional storm pops and it’s all Tubbo can do not to hop from one foot to the other in his desperate need to just arrive so that he can search for the people that matter get to work.

“Looks like a shithole to me,” Schlatt remarks as he slides up beside Tubbo smelling more of sweat than alcohol today. 

Tubbo side-eyes him, barely able to restrain his enthusiasm as he pulls out a dog-eared notepad from the back pocket of his dirt streaked trousers.

“Nah, we couldn’t have asked for a better place,” Tubbo says, grinning.

Deserts have sand and sand means glass. Deserts also mean cacti and with their water stores running on the low side since he’s decided to go ahead with the greenhouse project, Tubbo is eager to harvest as much as he can. Plus, with the space being so open, they’re sure to catch the approach of TommyRanbooMichael a Dreamon a mile away.

Tubbo starts writing out a poorly spelt list of supplies as the ship pulls forward and the enormous dune stretches out into a fully fledged sand sea in front of them. Tubbo’s pen stills over the paper when he catches sight of the tip of a tower he thinks he recognises.

“No…” 

“What?” Schlatt asks, rolling the sleeves of his shirt up to expose his forearms.

“I think…I think this is Fundy’s Limbo,” Tubbo mutters.

That’s…

Not good. 

Tubbo and Fundy were tolerant of each other before the nuke. Somewhere along the line, they’d gone from being family to mere acquaintances. Tubbo can’t blame Fundy for pulling away. Tubbo is-

A monster, a tyrant, a megalomaniac trying to pass himself off as someone good.

A villain.

“Maybeeee he won’t notice we’re here?” Tubbo suggests hopefully.

He shoots Schlatt a grimace. Schlatt pulls a disgruntled face but neither of them mention changing course so Tubbo tries to buck up and prepare himself for another post nuke encounter.

The temperature creeps up to the point where Schlatt is pulling off his blue shirt and Tubbo is forced below deck to find a vest that he’s been sewing (badly) for the past few days. When he emerges again, the boat has slowed down and has turned to run parallel to the beach. Tubbo shifts with practised ease over the deck to where the anchor sits, bracing himself against the hard iron and pushing it with a grunt and a splash into the water.

A low whistle sounds out behind him.

“You’re more ripped than I was expecting,” Schlatt says. He leans up against the wall of the second cabin and runs cataloguing eyes over the lines of Tubbo’s muscles beneath the puckered skin on his right hand side.

Tubbo scowls at him.

“I work hard,” he says.

And it hurts when the muscles become too big for the skin of a boy that won’t grow with him anymore. Still, Tubbo works because he needs the muscles more than he needs to fit into his old self.

Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Schlatt pushes himself off of the wall and stretches, flexing the lovingly crafted muscles on his chest and over his shoulders.

“So do I,” he quips back, smiling his crocodile smile.

Tubbo rolls his eyes. He doesn’t have time for this kind of pointless flexing. He never has.

“Whatever, help me get the row boat into the water will you?”

He points at the boat which is tacked on to the side of the ship like a crispy boil in the heat. He smirks in satisfaction when Schlatt pulls a disgusted face.

“Ugh, manual labour,” Schlatt complains, moving forward to grab on to one of the pulleys anyway.

“I thought you said you worked hard,” Tubbo teases with a wry grin.

“I do,” Schlatt says. “But this sort of shit is for underlings.”

Tubbo’s grin falls into a scowl as the pair of them work. He knows he shouldn’t resent Schlatt for thinking things are beneath him. Schlatt has always thought that, to the point where he didn’t understand half of the building plans he was presented with. Tubbo used to comfort himself when Schlatt used to screech at him by telling himself that when Schlatt fell, it would be a pleasure to watch him flounder in the real world.

It wasn’t, in the end.

Sure enough, after a good ten minutes of puffing, panting and increasingly frequent profanities, Tubbo realises that Schlatt is merely tangling himself up in the rope rather than helping to hoist the boat. He has to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

“You’re supposed to crank the lever, then pull,” he says and is almost surprised at himself for his mocking undertone.

Right now, Schlatt does not look like the man that used to beat him. He doesn’t look like Tubbo’s worst nightmare or even the man that died of a heart attack in the heart of Manburg.

He looks like little more than an overgrown child struggling to grasp the simple mechanics of something he should know.

“Yeah, yeah,” Schlatt barks out, all snarling, rabid peevishness. “You do it your way and I’ll do it mine alright?”

Schlatt takes a minute to try and identify how exactly he’s managed to tangle himself up. Then he mutters himself through some reversal steps that ultimately make it all worse. More half chewed swear words are spat out and Tubbo thinks he should feel better watching this pathetic display. He thinks it should be a pleasure to watch this man flounder but for some reason, seeing Schlatt struggle like this with a task so simple only fills Tubbo with pity. For Schlatt and for the boy who is still afraid of him.

“You should go grab a bag of some land supplies or something,” Tubbo tells him. “I think I’ve got this.”

Schlatt levels a death glare at Tubbo but Tubbo holds his gaze with the stony resolve of someone who has a task to complete and will not tolerate someone getting in the way.

Schlatt lets out a crisp, little breath and Tubbo’s heart does a funny little flip as, for the first time ever, Schlatt backs down.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, pushing the rope down around his legs and stepping out onto the deck.

Tubbo watches with his jaw slightly agape as Schlatt crosses the wood of the deck to disappear into the shade of the hull. 

The sky darkens as Tubbo steps out of the row boat and into the sand though the heat remains choking. He looks up, squinting at the ring of white still emitting from the dark sun above but with the black sky, it’s like being in the middle of a solar eclipse.

Ominous. 

The hairs on the back of Tubbo’s neck are standing on end as Schlatt rolls out of the boat beside him and suddenly, Tubbo really hopes that Tommy, Ranboo and Michael aren't here.

“Keep your guard up,” he mumbles, reaching back to grip the pole of the axe he has strapped to the back pack.

Tubbo doesn’t know what it is that feels so off about this place. Perhaps a Dreamon is near? There’s an electricity in the heat that feels like panic and Tubbo has known enough peril in life to listen to his instincts when they warn him of encroaching danger. He briefly considers leaving but they need supplies.

“Oh fuck this,” Schlatt says in front of him, blinking as sweat tries to run into his eyes. “It’s hot as balls out here.”

Tubbo side-eyes him.

“Didn’t you ever visit the desert when you were alive?” he asks.

Schlatt shoots him a repulsed look. If Tubbo didn’t feel so on edge, Schlatt’s aversion might have made him smile.

“Heck no. Heat is for cooking on, not for suffering through.”

Tubbo has to agree with him. One of the draws of Snowchester was that it was cold enough to keep his burn scars happy. Now, he stands on the sand with his green button up covering half of his face. At least if he meets Fundy, he won’t see the nuclear symbol in Tubbo’s eye before he sees Tubbo himself.

“Stay behind me,” Tubbo says. Schlatt doesn’t protest Tubbo’s commanding tone. At the moment, Tubbo is the only one that has a weapon and at this point, his battle instincts are pretty well honed. Schlatt, as far as Tubbo knew, hasn’t really ever engaged in a real fight.

Must be nice.

They move up the steepest dune together. Tubbo keeps the tip of what is definitely Fundy’s tower to his left as they ascend, watching it grow into the impressive structure that it was on the SMP. It takes a good bit of work with the heat and the sand sapping them of strength with every step, but eventually the pair crest the top of the dune and are able to look down on their find.

Tubbo lets out a shaky breath.

“Told you it was a shithole,” Schlatt offers beside him.

It is, essentially, a wasteland. The sand stretches for miles in every direction bar behind them which leads to the Dead Sea. There are a few cacti dotted around but they’re sparse. Mostly the sand is broken up by the outstretched, petrified fingers of bushes that have been long dead. Fundy’s tower looks…weirdly out of place in this hellscape. The bushes lining the front steps are still verdant green. 

Aside from the tower, there are a couple of other landmarks that draw Tubbo’s attention. And subsequently fill him with a mixture of dread and nostalgia. Smack bang in the middle of the sand is a near perfect replica of the camarvan minus the burning sausage on top. It squats like a pimple, raised up on black stilts to stop it from sinking into quicksand. 

It makes him think of campfire nights, the smell of popcorn and the sound of Wilbur’s guitar keeping errant mobs at bay. It reminds him that once, he had sat on fallen logs beside Tommy and Eret wearing boots that were far too big for him. 

He’d almost forgotten.

There’s also a very small sandstone house set not too far from the camarvan. Tubbo doesn’t like the look of it at all. It looks far too tiny to live in, like a box, like yellow concrete.

“You, uh, ever get the feeling that you’re being watched?” Schlatt asks. 

Tubbo blinks, drawing himself out of his own uneasiness to spare a look at Schlatt. The bigger man has moved closer and his knuckles, Tubbo realises, are white over the straps of his backpack. 

If even Schlatt, who is still only half sober, can tell that something’s up with this place then Tubbo really needs to focus.

“Let’s keep moving,” he says, starting down the other side of the dune.

This place is definitely Fundy’s. 

Tubbo weighs up his options as he digs around in his pocket for the compass. He thumbs the dent as he holds it up and eyes the ‘Your Friend’ etched into the top in Wilbur’s spidery scrawl. The glass face catches the light of the sun and Tubbo is forced to squint at the needle. His heart sinks when he sees that it’s pointing back towards the boat - like an omen that they should get the fuck out of here.

Maybe Fundy is like Quackity and doesn’t want to be given his final peace.

Tubbo nearly jumps out of his skin when Schlatt jerks to a stop behind him. His head snaps back over his shoulder. His heart starts to hammer against his ribcage when he sees the flint-edged fear in Schlatt’s eyes. Then his eyes whip in the direction Schlatt’s looking and there, on the sand, stands a terrifying figure dressed head to toe in a black robe.

Tubbo freaks. The black robed figure isn’t moving at all. There’s no vague swaying or the adjustment of one foot to the other over the sand. It’s just. Standing. There.

It must be at least 95F out here but Tubbo’s skin breaks out in a wave of goosebumps. His hands shake with full on fright as he takes a step forward to raise the axe up - a warning. His mind is flooding with memories of late night thunderstorms by the fire at Phil’s house and Tommy telling him freaky stories about Herobrine and the White Enderman.

“H-hello? Fundy?” he tries and his voice comes out as nothing more than the high pitch of a scared child.

The figure in front of them says nothing. But it does start to turn. The movement is slow, unnaturally so and Tubbo feels himself bunch up with tension, preparing to fight some monster as his heart rate escalates to let off fireworks in his ears.

But then there is a shout behind him. Schlatt swears. Tubbo turns away from the menacing pivot of the figure in front of him to find himself staring at Fundy who is wide-eyed, shock white and standing right behind him.

“COME ON! COME ON!” Fundy screams, yanking on Schlatt’s shoulder to pull him back towards the tower.

Tubbo doesn’t need to be told twice. Angling himself round with a shout, he breaks into a dogged sprint over the sand, following Schlatt and Fundy as they high tail it towards Fundy’s tower.

A cold thrill trickles over him as he hears the creature behind them give off a low, inhuman shriek.

It’s a sound that Tubbo knows all too well and that recognition inspires a terror that is age old and bone deep to grip him.

Dreamon.

Chapter Text

Fundy slams the double doors of his tower shut behind them and throws down an enormous oak bar that clacks into place. Then he backs up until he’s standing beside Tubbo who is not shivering in abject terror. Nope. 

Boo, help me!

All three of them stare at the door.

A moment later, through the pounding of his heart in his ears, Tubbo hears the rustle of fabric on the stone steps leading up to Fundy’s front door. There’s a grunt. Then Tubbo nearly has a heart attack as something slams into the doors. The wood groans out its protest but holds firm. 

Another inhuman shriek of rage follows. Then nothing.

All three of them are breathing hard. The panting comes in short sharp bursts that are just out of synch. Tubbo tries to hold his breath so he can listen but he hears nothing else. 

If the Dreamon is still outside of Fundy’s tower, it can’t get in it seems.

“What the fuck?” Schlatt breathes, backing up until he’s perching on the end of Fundy’s enormous bed. He's pale as a sheet and his jaw is a hard line beneath the shadow of his stubble.

Fundy licks his lips. His eyes are still bright with fear though they’re set into shadowed sockets that make Tubbo cringe with empathy. Fundy’s gaze stays rooted to the door as he angles his body round towards Schlatt and Tubbo. He’s thinner than he was the last time Tubbo saw him.

“This place is fucking crawling with Dreamons,” he says. “That one was just the first.”

Tubbo lets out a breath and his grip on his axe tightens until he can feel it cutting through the burn scars on his palm.

Crap.

“Fundy, we-

“You have to help me, Tubbo.”

Tubbo recoils, completely taken aback as Fundy turns his bright yellow eyes on him. The desperation in his expression is enough to have Tubbo feeling sick. Then Fundy’s eyes skim over to his right hand side. The cloth covering his eye fell away at some point when he was running so, Tubbo realises as Fundy’s face drains of colour, the nuclear truth is exposed.

“What…happened to you?” Fundy breathes.

Tubbo opens his mouth to try and explain himself, to assure his old friend that the nuclear symbol in his eye is only a brand to condemn him as the SMP’s final mass murderer. It doesn’t mean that something had to’ve happened to him.

But the explanation dies on his lips because that’s a lie.

Dream happened to him.

He happened to him.

“Uh, it’s a long story,” Tubbo deflects.

“Fundy, how the fuck are you living here if this place is crawling with Dreamons?” Schlatt asks. He’s shifted at some point and is currently pawing through Fundy’s chests. Credit where credit is due, Tubbo admits, Schlatt is not the sort of person to freeze up under the pressure of fear.

Tubbo’s gradually calming heart constricts as Fundy sinks down into a ball on the cobblestone floor in front of them. 

“I don’t know,” he confesses. “They won’t come into the tower for some reason. They bang on the door, make a racket so that I can’t sleep; but they never go for the opening at the top.”

Tubbo frowns, peering up at the dark sky outside through the coiling column of the wooden stairs leading up.

“Tubbo. Why did you blow up the SMP?” Fundy whispers and his voice is so broken that Tubbo almost says the word ‘sorry’. 

Almost.

Sorry is too weak, it’s not enough for what he did.

He did what he had to. Nothing more, nothing less.

‘You blew it up for yourself.’

“Do you - do you have any Dreamon hunting supplies, Fundy?” Tubbo asks instead, pulling his gaze from the off-puttingly open tower top to look at Fundy. The fox hybrid is staring at him with a look of desolation that rams into Tubbo’s guts, directly feeding the black guilt inside him until it threatens to engorge into an inferno. Tubbo knows it's a dick move to dodge this question and he tries not to cringe when Fundy's eyes harden into bitter shards.

Another betrayal. Another abandonment.

They don't have time for this. Not if Fundy expects Tubbo to help him here.

Tubbo continues to stare pointedly at Fundy though maintaining eye contact through the storm of guilt takes almost everything Tubbo has. It's a tug of war, a game that Tubbo has been playing longer than Fundy, and eventually, Fundy drops his cold scrunity. Tubbo is awash with shameful relief as Fundy uncurls from his position on the floor and he watches with curiosity overlaying the guilt as Fundy slips over to the chest that Schlatt is currently sorting through. He shoves the man aside - 

(“Hey!” Schlatt shouts.)

- to pull out a diamond hoe.

“This is all I’ve been able to find at the moment,” Fundy tells Tubbo, his voice flat with purposeful shut down. Tubbo knows that voice well. A solid coping mechanism for his current situation indeed.

Tubbo'sfault.

Tubbo nods.

“It’s a start,” he says. 

He frowns, thinking as the lurching howls of other Dreamons start to ricochet over the desert outside. 

“This place is probably one of those special locations, like the entranceway to Skeppy’s hotel,” Tubbo mutters and he winces as Schlatt’s head snaps up, his eyes wide and flashing with inquisitiveness.

“Wait, how the Hell do you know?” he asks.

“Because I founded the Dreamon Hunters,” Tubbo tells him. He side eyes his nemesis, enjoying the spark of pride that pops inside him as Schlatt’s eyebrows raise in surprised approval.

“How the fuck do you start something like the Dreamon Hunters, yet you used to cower and simper away from an asshole like me?” Schlatt asks.

He sounds genuinely perplexed and Tubbo doesn’t really have time to explain that the real monsters are the people that get under your skin, that manipulate the weaknesses they find inside you. Instead he turns back to Fundy who has shrunk back into himself on the ground. His arms are wrapped around the knees of his sand-strewn trousers and now that he really looks, Tubbo can see the matting in Fundy's orange hair and the sallow pallor to his skin.

He looks like Wilbur did right before he blew up L’Manburg.

“I have a ship,” Tubbo blurts out and Fundy’s head snaps over to him.

“If I can hoe a pathway over to it then we can get out of here," Tubbo continues, his voice cracking with conviction.

He breaks eye contact and glances at Fundy's chests, moving towards the nearest one and opening it to get a quick catalogue of what Fundy’s managed to procure.

“We need supplies. If you could grab-

“No.”

Tubbo starts at the word and the tone. There is defiance, dark and bold and it falls between them like the fell of a sledgehammer.

Tubbo cranes his neck back to regard Fundy and the question: ‘are you insane?’ buzzes through him.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” He asks. “What, you want to stay here with the Dreamons?”

“I’d rather stay here with them than go with you Tubbo,” Fundy tells him. He uncurls again, standing at his full height still a head taller than Tubbo. 

Tubbo’s insides grind together like the coils of an overly taut spring as he flips the lid of the chest closed and turns so he’s facing his old friend head on.

“You just asked for my help,” Tubbo points out.

“That doesn’t mean I want to come with you,” Fundy says in a low tone. “You blew up the SMP. It might not have been the best place but it was my home. ”

It had been Tubbo’s home too. And Michael’s. And Ranboo’s and Tommy’s. And Jack’s and Niki’s and Eret’s.

And Dream's.

Tubbo lets out a breath and flexes his fingers.

“I didn’t mean to,” he whispers into the void between them.

“That’s what he tells everybody,” Schlatt says over a mouthful of jerky.

Tubbo and Fundy both turn to stare at him. Tubbo isn’t sure whether or not to be disgusted as Schlatt tilts his head from one to the other. His dark eyes are defensive as he tears into another chunk of pilfered meat.

“What?” he asks like Tubbo and Fundy are being arseholes with their judgemental eyes.

“Schlatt, what are you even doing with Tubbo?” Fundy asks. He directs his next statement at Tubbo himself and Tubbo blanches against the misery it provokes. “I would have thought that you wouldn’t have gone within twenty miles of Schlatt.”

“I wouldn’t if I’d had a choice,” Tubbo admits. He huffs out a breath and resists the urge to thumb the dented compass in his pocket.

It doesn’t point to Tommy anymore.

“If you don’t want to come with me then what do you want?” Tubbo asks, trying to railroad the assembly back to the task at hand. “I can’t exactly exorcise a whole fucking army of Dreamons with a single diamond hoe.”

“There must be something you can do,” Fundy pleads as the encroaching night outside is filled with the sound of more shrieking Dreamons.

Frustration slams into Tubbo like one of Wilbur’s trains, to the point where the muscles in his face tighten with tension. He wants to yell at Fundy that this is stupid. Whatever grudge Fundy holds towards Tubbo, it’s surely not worth his afterlife. Tubbo still doesn't know what happens if you die here but he's sure that there will be no lurching respawn or why bother taking the people of the SMP to the mangrove at all?

He opens his mouth to voice at least some of this but then, like lightning, something hits him. He straightens as excitement cracks over his thoughts. His veins tingle with electric buzz.

“Fundy,” Tubbo says in his business voice. Fundy's eyes narrow in unmistakeable venom. There's no denying the way his shoulders tense up with readiness though, like a soldier listening for the command of a superior. From his position next to the chest by Fundy’s bed, Schlatt lets out a derisive snort at the display. Tubbo ignores him.

“Do you have any leather?”

“Uh, some,” Fundy replies as he tries to school his composure. His voice is thick with suspicion. “Not much. The Dreamons killed all the cows I managed to round up on like day three.”

“Some is fine,” Tubbo says. “Is there enough for a chest plate or two?”

Fundy nods, frowning now as he tries to follow Tubbo’s thought process. It’s jumpy though, like a cricket. Tubbo’s brain feels like a pinball in his skull, bouncing from idea to idea, synaptic cluster to synaptic cluster. He couldn’t explain the shape of his plan if he tried. Fundy’s just going to have to trust him.

Easier said than done. Even Tubbo doesn’t trust Tubbo.

Tubbo slips the notebook out of his trouser pocket, thumbing past his supply list.

“We’re going to have to dig a pit,” he mutters, more to himself than the others. “Then get some iron doors…”

“I don’t have any iron left,” Fundy announces.

Tubbo ponders on that, working his way through the situation. His eyes dart over the tower, cataloguing building materials.

“I might have to do a mining trip for supplies then,” he concludes. “We’re going to have to find a butt ton of copper.”

“Tubbo, what exactly are you planning?” Fundy asks as something new collides with Fundy’s front door sending a bang through their conversation which makes Tubbo see the bursting red and blue of firework sparks behind his eyelids.

He breathes out the panic and tries to quell the race of his heart. Then he turns to Fundy, almost letting out a manic laugh when he sees that Fundy still isn’t following him.

“I’m going to build a Dreamon trap,” Tubbo tells him.

They set to work. 

To Fundy’s horror, Tubbo fashions a crude pickaxe out of the cobblestone used to raise Fundy’s bed. Then he digs out a mine that goes straight through the middle of Fundy's house. Schlatt watches all this from his makeshift camp on Fundy’s bed whilst providing a thoroughly unwanted yet cruelly entertaining commentary. 

The Dreamons become more active as the night wears on. At first, they take to howling like hyenas through the wood of the door but just past midnight, the whispers start. Tubbo hears them whenever he resurfaces from the increasingly deep depths of the mine and every time he catches their words, his skin crawls.

‘ Nukes don’t keep people away. ’

‘ Tommy hates you Tubbo. Everyone hates you. ’

‘ You killed them all. Traitor. Murderer. ’

‘ You did it for yourself. ’

Theoretically, Tubbo knows that the whispers are just a Dreamon byproduct designed to disorient a potential victim. In practice, ignoring them is nearly impossible. He finds refuge down in the shadows of the mines where the whispers gradually peter away. Eventually, Fundy joins him down there looking so relieved that Tubbo has to wonder how long he’s been putting up with these Dreamon attacks - why he never thought to go underground himself.

It doesn’t escape Tubbo’s notice that Schlatt remains up in the central part of Fundy’s tower all night.

“Okay,” Tubbo says, letting out a breath and running an arm over the sweat starting to bead on his forehead. The sky above the tower has just started to turn orange as the sun rises so the temperature is leaping upwards by the minute. Outside, all is quiet.

Tubbo surveys his handiwork.

It’s not his most elegant build by any stretch of the imagination but it’ll do the job well enough. 

Time for the real work to begin.

“How’re those chest plates coming along?” Tubbo asks Fundy as he hoists himself out of the new containment pit for containing shit. His hands slip over the copper lining where they’re slick with sweat and his nose wrinkles when he can smell the hard work leaking from his pores. He needs a shower. Or at least a dunk in the Dead Sea.

Fundy glances up, blinking bleary sleep from red rimmed eyes and yawns emphatically.

“They’re good,” he says. “But Tubbo, wouldn’t it be better to try and dig out for more iron? Some of those fucks carry axes.”

Tubbo shakes his head, reaching for the closest hastily stitched up leather.

“No coz, see, these are brown,” Tubbo declares, waving them under Fundy’s nose. 

Fundy’s eyes light up with understanding.

“Does leather really work like that?” he asks.

Tubbo shrugs. Honestly, he’s never tried it but the books he read said that it was the colour that was important, not the material. 

 From where he is still sitting on Fundy’s bed, Schlatt pulls a face. 

“Why does it matter if your armour’s brown? Surely if you’re taking an axe to the fucking back, you still want to be decked out in something hard.”

Tubbo offers him a side-glance, noting the dark bruises that ring Schlatt’s eyes and the way his hands shake when he reaches for the nearly empty water skin. Schlatt isn’t used to sleepless nights. More than that, he’s not used to a prolonged amount of time without alcohol.

Tubbo remembers those shaking hands, the sallow skin. He watched Schlatt grow weaker day by day with a sick hope in his heart that it would all be over soon.

“I think you should stay here,” Tubbo tells his nemesis.

Fundy flinches, glancing up with wide eyes between Schlatt and Tubbo as the silence of the absent Dreamons settles between them. Tubo braces himself, feeling entirely unremorseful as Schlatt’s lips purse and his eyes flash in tangible fury.

“What did you just say to me?” Schlatt asks and his voice is laced with a dangerous promise.

Tubbo hasn’t forgotten what Schlatt is capable of. His fingers tighten anxiously over the rough texture of the leather chest plate and he grits his teeth to brace himself against the hit he’s expecting. But aside from that, he doesn’t cower. There's too much to do and no space for the old fears to overrun him.

“You heard me Schlatt,” Tubbo says, stepping forward. His voice is flat. Beside him, Fundy shrinks down until he appears smaller than Tubbo, less of a target. Tubbo knows the tactic well and seeing Fundy implementing it in this moment just makes him feel weary.

“I think you should stay here. You’re a liability as you are now.”

Schlatt’s face drains of colour - white with fury. His muscles bulk up beneath the line of his shirt and a vein pops out to throb on the side of his forehead. Tubbo swallows his own answering terror, compressing the age old fear and the mounting dread into a closed off space inside him so that he can focus on remembering why he’s being so uncharacteristically defiant right now.

If Schlatt goes out there like this, he’ll be re-killed.

“You think I’m a liability ?” Schlatt spits out and the room seems to darken with the menace in his tone.

Tubbo’s mouth goes dry as Schlatt uncoils like a snake from the bed. He maintains stormy eye contact the entire time he’s rising. Tubbo licks his lips before continuing.

“You are,” he says. “You don’t know anything about Dreamons. And I bet you can barely hold a sword right now.”

He folds his arms over his chest to try and contain his heart which is threatening to burst apart as Schlatt takes a step forward. Tubbo tries to keep eye contact but his gaze is drawn by Schlatt’s hands flexing into fists.

“Hey, Tubbo?” Fundy squeaks from behind them. Tubbo daren’t turn around to acknowledge Fundy’s words, afraid of exposing his back to the threat in front of him. He feels a guilty pinch of relief as Schlatt’s infuriated eyes slide to the side and the inferno of scrutiny shifts with them.

“Uh,” Fundy continues through a thick throat. “Why don’t we just let Schlatt do what he wants?” 

The words seem to stick in Tubbo’s ears. He chokes, dropping his vigil on Schlatt to tilt his head over his shoulder. He sees Fundy behind him, small in his own houseand wearing an expression of defensive vacantness.

It reminds Tubbo of his old self.

He opens his mouth with stuttering jerk of a new protest on his lips. He’s not the boy who will give in to any demand just to keep the peace anymore. He hasn't been that boy for a long time. But those words snap into a sharp gasp as Schlatt’s arm shoots out beside him, skimming past the curls of his hair by his ears.

Star bursts of panic erupt through Tubbo like a chain reaction of nuclear detonations as Tubbo tries to comprehend what he’s seeing.

Is Schlatt trying to hit him?

Did he miss?

Does Tubbo have enough time to collect himself before pain explodes over the burnt side of his face?

But then Schlatt draws back, pulling Tubbo’s axe over his shoulder. He grips the pole between twitching fingers and glares at Fundy first and then Tubbo.

“I’m not a liability,” Schlatt says.

The assertion is thick with faked conviction, with defensiveness, and Tubbo thinks that this might be the first time he's ever seen Schlatt on the defense. There's something to that. There really is. Tubbo feels like he's just been presented with the final piece to a puzzle that he hasn't started figuring out yet.

Well, whatever. All that matters at the moment is getting the plan underway.

“You are,” Tubbo says. He holds his hands up as a gesture of peace when Schlatt snarls like a caged animal. “I’m not saying this to be a dickhead, king, it’s just a fact.”

That’s it Tubbo, regurgitate facts and cope.

“Oh fuck you!” Schlatt barks, adjusting his grip on the axe. It’s wobbling slightly, shivering like it’s being pumped with buzzing electricity. 

Tubbo doesn’t pity the pathetic piece of shit in front of him. He won’t. He’s not that good.

Tommy would have.

“I mean it, Schlatt,” Tubbo says. “You need to stay here. Fundy and I are going to go out and bait the Dreamons back to Fundy’s tower. It’s gonna be hard. We’re going to need to focus. If we have to abandon what we’re doing to try and save your arse at any point then this whole plan is going to be a bust. I don’t know about you, but I don't have another plan to fall back on right now.”

Tubbo holds Schlatt’s hostile stare. He doesn’t let his eyes wander to the axe though they really want to. Instead, he watches the cycle of stormy rage in Schlatt's eyes becoming petulance before it peters out into dull acceptance.

The hard air of tension in the tower diffuses bit by agonising bit until Schlatt finally, finally, lowers the axe with a sigh.

He sniffs, dropping it down next to one of Fundy’s chests and Tubbo feels a vice around his heart loosen considerably.

“Yeah, whatever,” Schlatt says, sniffing melodramatically and slouching off to perch himself on one of Fundy’s chests.

Tubbo watches him. He figures he should feel triumphant because he just won an argument against Schlatt but, honestly, he just feels like a shit. 

'Everyone hates you.'

This, right here, is why he hates telling the truth. This, right here, is why he learnt quickly that it’s better to be a liar. 

Practicality wins though. It always does.

He sucks in a breath and turns to Fundy. 

“You ready?” he asks.

“No,” Fundy says. His eyes are wide. He keeps glancing between Tubbo and Schlatt like he’s missed something. Tubbo doesn’t care if Fundy understands what just went down or not. He’s not sure he does either.

“Good enough,” Tubbo says, slipping the leather chest plate on and grabbing up the axe that Schlatt dropped down. “Let’s do this.”

The heat is dry. It runs stinging fingers over Tubbo’s skin as he stalks over the dunes with his axe raised and makes his burn scars prickle threateningly. The Dreamons have, apparently, retreated for the daylight hours. It makes sense to Tubbo. Though they don’t fear or have any aversion to light, they do tend to prefer and be more active in the hours of darkness - much like your average mobs. 

Prey is, after all, easier to scare in the shadows.

After carefully checking the perimeter, he and Fundy fan out at right angles from the tower. The going is tough with the black sun blaring relentlessly down on him and the sand eating the energy beneath his footsteps. Tubbo is reminded of Las Nevadas and wonders about Quackity’s preference for heat. Maybe it had something to do with Sapnap.

Tubbo gives the camarvan a wide berth with a mixture of warring feelings churning through his guts. The nostalgia it lends brings regret and misery but there is also an element of displacement that makes Tubbo uneasy because that van should still not be stilted above a desert.

He can’t help craning his neck to get a glimpse in through the windows.

And when he does, Tubbo really wishes he hadn’t been curious.

He stops dead still on the sand, his body automatically petrifying as adrenaline screeches out from his heart through his veins.

There, he sees Wilbur framed by the vibrant yellows and purples of the potions they used to make still sitting on the shelves in bubbles of rounded glass. The old Wilbur. The one from before L’Manburg became an obsession. He has his head thrown back in laughter with sunlight playing over cheeks that aren’t hollow, dappling hair not streaked with white.

But then Tubbo blinks as he recoils, swallowing instinctually, and when he opens his eyes, the van is empty.

A chill settles over Tubbo’s skin as he continues to stare at the van. Words like ‘haunted’ and ‘ghosts’ swim to the surface of his mind but he dismisses them quickly. He’s in the afterlife right now after all. He is the ghost.

He decides to ignore the fear the whole thing, pushing past the van and doggedly climbing his way up towards the tiny sandstone house.

He gives that a wider berth.

Ten minutes later, he finds his rumpled green shirt lying half buried in the sand. It looks sad and pathetic and forgotten. Tubbo picks it up and drapes it over the burnt side of his face despite the grainy snow of sand that flurries in his hair.

Tubbo knows he’s hit the jackpot when the line of trees breaks up the monotony of the horizon. He feels a satisfied tug in his guts at the obvious progression of his plans and relishes the invigoration as he continues forward. Suddenly the sweat clamming up his skin, the sandpaper dryness of his mouth and the fire consuming his thoughts doesn’t seem so dreadful. 

Grasping the axe tight in his hands, Tubbo scours the patchy ground where the biomes blend to find the best way into the dense undergrowth.

It’s a weird place.

Though it has the structure of a typical jungle, the trees are mostly made up of thin branched acacia and scrubs that have grown tall. Tubbo listens carefully as he checks the plants but he can’t hear even the distant call of a bird. The noiselessness is unsettling but for a Dreamon hive, it’s not really surprising. 

He eventually finds his way through a thorny bush, crouching as low as he can and as soon as his back foot leaves the sand, the light drops away like someone’s flicked off a light switch connected to the sun itself. Tubbo lets out a shaky breath. Considering what happened on ‘Monster Island’, this display doesn’t impress Tubbo all that much. Though when he glances up at the sky visible through the tangling snarls above him, he must admit that his heart beats a little faster when he finds himself staring up at alien constellations pin pricking a totally black sky.

Great, so Dreamons apparently have power over night and day now.

Doesn’t matter. Even if they’re especially powerful Dreamons, all Tubbo needs to do is lead them back to Fundy’s tower. 

He continues to shuffle forward at a much slower rate. Being nearly pitch black on the jungle floor and with leaves and bracken cracking beneath his boots, Tubbo decides to pull out his torch. He lights it quickly and carefully, hoping that the light will attract the Dreamons so he doesn’t have to venture too much further into their home.

He’s not disappointed.

Chapter Text

“So the villain finally makes his grand entrance.”

Tubbo goes stock still on the shrivelled leaves as the first of the creatures emerges from the darkness. It’s just the same as the one he encountered on ‘Monster Island’, a grey scale, rotting version of himself with yellow teeth and that singular, soul-sucking black eye socket. The smell of baking sand and half dead vegetation twists into the acrid bitterness of gunpowder in its wake.

Skittering panic threatens to claw its way up Tubbo’s throat at the sight. His skin feels cold, rippling with goosebumps but Tubbo crunches down on it as hard as he can.

He has a plan this time. He just has to remember that.

The Dreamon Tubbo in front of him grins, toothily, madly, and steps forwards with its arms held out wide.

“We’ve been waiting for you.”

Tubbo’s hands are so tight around his axe that they’re burning. Pain cuts through the skin of his scarred hand and he wishes right now that he hadn’t let Fundy take the diamond hoe. If he could just till up the ground beneath him, he could rest assured that this creature wouldn’t be able to get into his personal space.

“Oh yeah?” he breathes. It’s almost impossible to get the words out around the lead lump in his throat.

“Yeah,” the Dreamon says, nodding as a large deathwatch beetle crawls out of the empty eye socket, skittering across the grey of its skin before burrowing into its curling hair.

Tubbo shudders. Why he ever thought it would be fun to hunt Dreamons, he doesn’t know.

Because it was cool to be the hero, no matter how scary some of the obstacles could be.

“Good friends are hard to come by when you’re just a shit person,” the Dreamon continues. “But we don’t mind hanging out with fucked up souls here.”

It takes a step forward so that its twisted features take on a strangely malefic definition. Tubbo holds his breath as the panic threatens to squirm into something overpowering inside him. He braces himself for the attack, for the stench of close up decomposing flesh as his heart clamours like a trapped rat inside his rib cage.

But then the Dreamon’s good eye catches on the chest plate Tubbo’s wearing and it hisses, its voice distinctly inhuman, like screen static and nails on a chalkboard all smashed together.

Tubbo whimpers in protest but it’s a point in his favour that he doesn’t drop the axe in favour of stuffing his fists in his ears.

“You came prepared,” it growls, baring its teeth at Tubbo as it switches from moving directly towards him to shifting around in a carefully distanced circle instead.

Tubbo doesn’t like the way it seems to be trying to get behind him.

“I did,” he manages. His words are high pitched and slightly slurred with distress.

The Dreamon grimaces. Tubbo takes a crucial second to remind himself that he has a plan. He just has to stick this out until the Dreamon Lord of this hive appears. The fear ebbs just enough that Tubbo feels his thoughts start to re-order themselves in his mind, like molecules settling from vibrating, gaseous chaos into the more linear structure that makes up water.

They almost threaten to re-scatter as the second Dreamon emerges from the trees.

“Your petty preparations won’t matter for long,” the newcomer says.

This one is not like the first.

This one is much, much worse.

The sight of it hits Tubbo. Like the shock of the firework. Like the devastation of the nuclear explosion. Pain ricochets through him. And misery. And horror. And so much anger. And regret. Everything he couldn’t feel when Technoblade first spoke to him that awful day in Snowchester because he was too busy going numb.

It’s Ranboo.

Except this Dreamon version is even taller than the real Ranboo, easily pushing nine feet. Its limbs are super elongated, more enderman than Ranboo ever was and it holds its hands up, lengthy fingers twitching and probing at the night air before it.

It wears a horribly tarnished version of Ranboo’s crown, has the same flop of Ranboo’s dual-coloured hair but it’s face…

Its face is entirely devoid of features save for two sunken pits where Ranboo’s gentle green and red eyes should be. The pits radiate ultraviolet light like the popping particles the endermen leave behind when they teleport, like the incriminating burn of ultra-radiation.

Tubbo’s wide eyes skim down to the slash running a diagonal line through the wrinkled suit the creature is wearing. The blood it’s leaking is as violently purple as the glow in its eyes. Tubbo thinks, with a lurch of his stomach, that he can make out the twist of muscle and sinew twining around the peak of a rib cage.

“Hello Tubbo my Beloved,” the creature says in Ranboo’s stolen voice.

Tubbo drops his axe.

It clatters down over the sand and sticks as Tubbo drags his violently shuddering hand up to paw uselessly at his shredded heart through the leather.

“Boo…” Tubbo whispers and he sucks in a stuttering breath that isn’t quite a sob.

Because Tubbo did all his crying long ago.

“I see you’ve been busy,” the Dreamon impersonating Ranboo says, tapping the space beneath it’s right eye. Tubbo draws back as the nuclear symbol flashes a brief yellow through the darkness, cutting through the purple leaking out of Ranboo’s right eye for a moment before being swallowed by ultraviolet once more.

Tubbo doesn’t know what to do. 

He doesn’t know what to think.

His mind is in shambles, struggling at full capacity to process the emotions brought on by Ranboo’s sudden appearance. There’s so much he wants to say but this apparition isn’t Ranboo. It doesn’t look enough like Ranboo to be Ranboo. Why is Tubbo reacting like this? He needs time to process. He needs-

A mask.

A smiley face that hides the pain.

Tubbo breathes as the Dreamon impersonating him finally stops moving just beyond his periphery on his right hand side. The Ranboo Dreamon is left taking up his main field of vision and now that he has only this caricature to look at, Tubbo feels bitter anger rise up to smother the chaos of panic and grief threatening to drag him somewhere dark and deep. It's the first time he’s seen anything even vaguely resembling Ranboo in weeks and this monster has just gotten it so very wrong.

Ranboo is kind and gentle and nervous. Ranboo doesn't grin in such a pertinatious manner.

Ghostboo did.

Tubbo straightens, not sure when he hunched over himself. His hand falls away from his chest to clench into a fist as his heart hardens into something iron hard.

He breathes out the promise of retribution.

“How dare y-

“Tubbo,” The Dreamon interrupts and Tubbo’s fury falters. 

However much this thing has fucked up Ranboo’s appearance, there’s no denying that the voice is Ranboo.

“Do you know how much pain I’m in?” Ranboo asks and the anguish in that question is so palpable that Tubbo feels a physical lurch inside him. Like sickness. 

He’d always suspected that Ranboo was damaged but-

“Do you know how much Limbo hurts me?” The Dreamon interrupts and now, its glowing eyes are staring at Tubbo with an expression of taut suffering.  

Tubbo's heart constricts inside him, shattering that iron rage.

He can’t take this.

No iteration should ever have to suffer.

Gritting his teeth together, Tubbo bunches up over himself to try and hold himself together. Every inch of him cries out for Ranboo, knowing that he can’t do a damn thing to make it better because- 

“ You did this to me, you know. It was your fault, ” Ranboo says.

Tubbo hisses out black pain as the truth cascades over him like a waterfall of magma, burning him alive again. Because it is Tubbo's fault. That Ranboo's suffering, that Ranboo's dead, that-

Tubbo should have gone with him.

This is worse than firework pops and nuclear scorch.

It's always Tubbo's fault. Everything is Tubbo's fault.

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault.

Tubbo is the black mark on history. Tubbo is the shadow king, the reason for the madness that nobody blames because he hides it deep, deep, deep down inside himself like every lie he ever told Schlatt and-

“What?” he chokes out and the world wavers beneath the torchlight as he averts his eyes. “No. I didn’t-

“You abandoned me, Tubbo,” Ranboo accuses. He steps forward, his large feet crunching. Tubbo hears as the Dreamon impersonating him shifts closer as well and Tubbo knows somewhere inside himself that he can’t run now even though his legs are screaming at him because he has a plan to follow. He’s supposed to stick this out. Because even though these creatures are horrible, they're small fry. Tubbo has to wait for the main players, the core of this hive to show themselves.

Tubbo is the leader of the Dreamon Hunters, he’s supposed to know how to handle this. He’s supposed to-

Gather the resources and do the brunt of the buildwork.

Be a good spy.

Forgive Technoblade.

Be the better President of L’Manburg.

Stay true to Tommy.

Be a good husband and father.

Tell the truth.

“I went to do what was right,” Ranboo is saying. “And you abandoned me because you’re-

“Stop,” Tubbo drops between him and the Dreamon but the Dreamon doesn’t stop. They’ve caught him in his own trap, the trap of the truth that he won’t acknowledge, and they know it.

“ Selfish. ”

It’s true.

“ Evil. ”  

Oh Prime, it’s true.

“ A villain. ”

“Stop it!” Tubbo snaps, swiping his free hand across himself and jerking back when his hand sweeps over the cold feel of Ranboo’s chest. When did the Dreamon get this close?

“I never…” He exhales, breathy. The gunpowder smell in the air is slowly being replaced with something more complex and cloying - a mixture of burnt aliums and the odd chemical coldness of radiation. It’s making it difficult to breathe at all. 

“I never wanted to be a…”

Tubbo trails off when the third Dreamon pulls itself into view from amongst the tangling shrubs. 

“Can’t help what you are,” Tommy says as he leans back against the spindling trunk of the closest acacia.

And Tubbo feels sick.

It’s definitely Tommy but like Ranboo, it’s malformed. And Tubbo always knew that Ranboo was damaged in the same way he was. It was one of the things that really drew Tubbo to Ranboo in the first place. So the monstrous form of Ranboo, the elongated, end-particle irradiated abomination isn’t unexpected somehow. But Tommy…

Tommy is not like that. He never was.

Tommy is light and wholeness and himself, always.

It breaks Tubbo to see Tommy subjected to this kind of darkness.

Gnarled scars break up the Dreamon’s face into a patchwork of angry red, barely healed slashes. Where the Tubbo impersonator is grey scale, Tommy’s is sporting the pallet of dead flesh, all white and grey and gone off blue around lips and fingertips barely picked out in flickering torchlight. It’s eyes are solid blue, just like the real Tommy’s, though the pupils are made up of each of Tommy’s beloved discs - the labels shining out in purple, white and green from the black centres. He’s dressed in the clothes that he pilfered from Technoblade when he’d been subjected to exile for too long. His hair is the shaggy mess it was when Tubbo saw him leading Connor along the outskirts of L’Manburg. 

That’s bad enough but perhaps, most chilling of all, is the thread that’s been used to stitch Tommy up. It’s exactly the same colour as Dream’s favoured hoodie.

The strings he loved to pull so much.

Tubbo’s eyes flick down from Tommy’s ravaged face to the overabundance of string spewing out from the severed edges of the slice that circles Tommy’s throat and Tubbo is so-

Scaredupsetsorryguilty.

He can’t-

It hur-

Please make it stop.

“Oh no,” Tubbo whispers and his face is hot and his throat is clogged and his hands.

Won’t.

Stop.

Shaking.

“Please Prime, no.”

“It doesn’t matter what you are, does it Tubbo?” Tommy is saying. He pushes himself up with a crack of rigor mortis bones. Tubbo winces at the sound. Bile crawls up his throat. “As long as you’re up front about it.”

This is a nightmare.

This is the nightmare. 

Tommy knows the truth about how fucked up Tubbo really is. Ranboo knows that he was really alone at the end because Tubbo had forsaken him like he had Tommy.

Tubbo knows that he is a-

“No, no,” he whimpers, shaking his head and falling down onto his knees.

He can’t take this. He can’t deal with his own shortcomings and the consequences he’s inflicted on others.

The guilt will drive him mad if he lets it in.

And he’s afraid of losing control like that. 

“Why did you lie to me Tubbo?” Tommy asks. Tubbo is barely able to comprehend as Tommy’s feet appear in front of him, the same tatty white trainers he’s always worn. When Tommy squats in front of him, Tubbo doesn’t raise his head. He’s too scared to look his best friend in the eye. 

He can’t even give Tommy that courtesy.

“Why did you let me think you were my friend?”

Then there is Ranboo wearing his stupid mud-splattered dress shoes and he too squats down in front of Tubbo. The smell of burnt alliums makes Tubbo want to cry give up. 

“Why did you abandon me the first chance you got?”

It hurts, it hurts. He’s always making mistakes and it hurts! Him and everyone around him.

This time, it’s his own feet standing in front of him. A perfect monochromatic replica of his scuffed shoes. His own knees greet him as the Tubbo impersonator squats down in front of him as well and as if drawn up by irresistible magnets, Tubbo raises his head with his heart drowning in regret to stare into the wrong eyes of his tormentors.

“Tell me Tubbo, are you the villain in this story?” his other self asks.

Tubbo catches the flash of round rim glasses ghosting over the nuclear symbol that burns through the Dreamon’s empty eye socket.

And something inside him, something integral, breaks apart like old plaster.

This time, it feels like the damage is irreparable. This time, it feels like he won’t be able to stick his jagged edges together to create a distorted image of himself that will fool others into leaving him alone. 

He takes in a shaky breath, the suction loud in the encroaching silence.

Then he utters a couple of words that change everything.

“I am,” he whispers. “I am the villain.”

He never wanted to be. Prime knows he never wanted to be but it’s like the Dreamon Tommy said, Tubbo can’t actually help what he is even though he tried for so long to deny it. And maybe Schlatt’s right. Maybe Tubbo needs to start acknowledging how much of a monster he is so that he can start mitigating the damage he’s caused, the damage he will cause.

The real Ranboo and Tommy are better off staying away from him. He always knew that yet he let Tommy believe Tubbo was worth befriending. He let Ranboo grow more and more attached. He let them even though he knew he was a sick, sad little fuck!

Maybe everyone is better off staying away from him.

Tubbo Underscore-Beloved, the true villain, the murderer, the monster of the SMP. That's what he is.

All the fight drains out of him. Tubbo knows, distantly, that this is not good. Dreamons eat the souls of those that are weak enough to succumb to their taunting and sure enough, as Tubbo glances up with dull eyes, he sees himself and Tommy open their mouths. Apparently, not even the brown of his chest plate can deter them now. The mouths stretch open and then unhinge to create more room, like snakes about to swallow him whole and it is truly horrifying to behold. The Ranboo impersonator has teeth melt through the skin of his face where his mouth should be, a jawline studded with almost exclusively overly sharp canine teeth. Then they too open wide, unhinging.

Tubbo should be afraid.

He can feel it prickling like a phantom somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind but it’s like he’s looking at his own reactions to the horrible present through a filter. Like he’s not really here at all.

All he can think is that it’s about time.

“Tubbo, get the fuck up!”

Tubbo blinks and everything seems to speed up.

There is a shock as something warm and grounding slams into his shoulder. Large fingers scramble to find purchase in the dark straps of his shirt and then he is being hauled off of his knees bodily backwards. The Dreamons in front of him lunge as he is thrown back against the spine of an acacia but even through the impact and the ‘oof’ of the wind being smacked out of him, Tubbo is able to see the clumsy swipe of a pair of stone swords keeping the Dreamons at bay.

Gasping for breath, Tubbo gawks through the torchlight at his saviour and is absolutely floored to see Schlatt standing above him.

“BACK OFF FUCKERS!” Schlatt roars as the one that looks like Tommy, it’s jaw still unhinged, tries to dodge its way around Schlatt’s unpredictable flailing to take a bite out of his leg. Seeing this, Tubbo staggers into a reaction, jabbing the torch still clasped in his hands into the side of its face.

It screeches as the flesh burns. The strings holding its face together fall away, glowing bioluminescent green, and part of Tommy’s jaw drops down onto the sticks.

Tubbo clocks this.

His stomach launches itself into his throat.

Because he just burnt Tommy. He burnt Tommy in the same place he was burnt by that second rocket. The one that murdered him.

But he figures he’ll throw up later when there’s time and he can figure out how to breathe again.

Instead, he falls back onto the tree as a whistling starts in his ears. Then, with a truly colossal effort of broken will, Tubbo tries to pull himself up on shaking feet to stand next to Schlatt but it feels like all his bones and muscles weigh a million pounds because there’s.

No.

Oxygen.

Spots burst over his eyes as he drags himself up and he loses everything for a crucial minute.

“-cking thought you were supposed to be the Dreamon expert!”

Tubbo heaves in a breath and it feels like something pops out inside him. He drags in a couple more sharp breaths that sound like milkshake going up a thin straw before throwing himself at Schlatt’s back. He opens his mouth to try and explain why he's been trying to hold his ground, that they have to wait or the whole plan will be a bust, but the words crack into nothingness as everything changes. Tubbo breathes through the thick static of new panic.

The Dreamons are losing their form.

At first, it looks like they’re no-clipping right out of reality. Weird glitched blocks of colour break over their skin. The smell of rancid, burning clay feeds over the situation making Tubbo recoil so violently that he ends up headbutting Schlatt in the shoulder blades. He screws his eyes shut as the smell threatens to melt his eyes and when he opens them again, there are three versions of Dream, all wearing blank masks.

Then they too are gone and standing in their place are three completely different people. 

The first two, Tubbo recognises and he experiences a jolt of cold discomfort when he sees himself standing there once again. Except this time, it’s a younger version of him. It’s wearing the suit that Tubbo came to despise so much.

The one he lived in for those long months filling out paperwork and shakily trying to walk on administrational egg shells.

Except it’s also covered in patches of the L’Manburg flag that seem to be burning in fast motion. The face is devoid of scarring and Tubbo feels something hollow yawn inside him when he realises it’s the first time he’s seen himself as he used to look since the Festival.

Tubbo doesn't recognise that boy anymore. That boy may be guilty of lying and spying, but he isn't guilty of what came after - the ugliness that the scars brought with them.

It is also sporting a pair of curling horns that jut out from beneath the mop of brown hair.

Aversion shivers along Tubbo’s frame. 

A villain he may be, but he is not Schlatt.  

The new Tubbo Dreamon is staring hungrily at Schlatt who, Tubbo realises with a start, has gone absolutely rigid behind him.

"Sch-Schlatt?" Tubbo hisses. Schlatt doesn't answer.

Beside the new Tubbo Dreamon, there is an alternative version of Schlatt himself. This one has golden crystals growing out of its horns. The suit it wears is unkempt, the tie wrinkled, the jacket ripped. Its eyes glow out alien red through the dark. In it’s hand, it holds the rim of a dark, glass bottle through loose fingers.

The third Dreamon has taken on a form that Tubbo doesn’t know. It’s large and humanoid though it’s skin has the same rotting corpse colouring that Tommy’s had. It has a head of curling grey hair that follows almost exactly the same rooting pattern that Schlatt’s does, right down to the shape of the sideburns. There is a worn baseball cap on its head and it’s wearing the flowing robes often associated with Church Prime. Its eyes, Tubbo notes with a shiver, are nothing more than a pair of gold coins set into stony flesh.

“Oh fuck this,” Schlatt finally says, breaking the tension like a whip chord crack and whirling around. He pushes Tubbo back towards his other self and the line of trees that lead back towards the desert.

Tubbo coughs, alarmed and digs his heels into the bracken.

“No!” he croaks, “We have t-

“Schlatt,” the new Dreamon, the one with coins for eyes, purrs. Schlatt goes rigid again as the robed monster takes a bold step forward. A crooked smile splits its face displaying canines and Tubbo feels a new tug of horror urging him to surrender and abandon ship as a curlicue of smoke drifts out from between those teeth - ember flecked and dark.

“You useless sack of shit.”

Tubbo experiences a zing of reactionary defensiveness and pain. The words are not meant for him this time but that doesn’t stop him empathising with the emotional damage they can cause. 

Sure enough, Schlatt has started shaking behind him. His expression, as Tubbo cranes his neck back to look at him, is stony with loathing. His eyes are black with misery.

Tubbo almost pities him.

Tubbo shifts his stance as the other Dreamons start to move. He’s unnerved to find himself up against the Dreamon that has taken his form again. Its eyes are blue, not grey or embossed with a nuclear accusation predatory, mad, and Tubbo wonders if he looked this insane when he threatened Las Nevadas.

“Stick to the bottle, booze boy, it only hurts when you’re sober,” the Dreamon Schlatt comments, reaching up and knocking back a boorish slug of some black liquid which dribbles down its chin. 

Tubbo almost gags as a powerfully noxious smell hits him. It filters over the air like a pungent ooze, acidic and fermented. He still doesn’t understand how anything would want to drink something like that but even he can tell that whatever fumes are saturating the night, they’re high quality.

Anxiety spikes within Tubbo when he feels Schlatt stop vibrating behind him. He cranes his neck to find Schlatt watching the bottle with obscene focus.

Tubbo goes dead cold when the Dreamon holds out the bottle to Schlatt.

“Go on,” it says.

Schlatt’s hands twitch on the sword. He licks his lips. The want is a hot hard aura emanating from Schlatt, a need that Tubbo can’t begin to fathom. Even when he was into all the camarvan madness, Tubbo never understood how people could become addicted to a feeling of losing control. But when Tubbo looks into Schlatt’s eyes now he sees:

Dependance.

Brokenness.

Desperation.

“Don’t,” Tubbo whispers. His voice is small and unconvincing and no-one ever listens to Tubbo. “I don’t know what that stuff is.”

He waits, turning his attention back to the Dreamon Tubbo who has inched closer and is showing off angry looking teeth of its own.

He has no choice now but to trust Schlatt, his abuser, the one who betrayed him first . 

What a cruel afterlife.

“Go on,” the Dreamon Schlatt insists, it’s voice is liltingly soft, understanding.

The seconds drag. Tubbo holds his breath watching the struggle rumble through Schlatt's eyes like the stir of storm clouds and hates the apprehension that accompanies being at the mercy of someone else's vices.

Then eventually, Schlatt shifts. He sucks in a hard breath and clears his throat.

Dread petrifies Tubbo’s aching limbs because Tubbo knows what's coming. He can see the surrender in Schlatt's frame, the cracked chap to his lips.

“Nah,” Schlatt says, tilting the swords he’s duel-wielding so they cross slightly in front of the bottle.

“I’m good.”

Tubbo blinks.

He can’t - wait, what? - he can’t believe what he’s just heard.

Elation tries to tumble through him but he pushes it back, containing it as much as he can because he couldn't have heard that right.

Did he hear that right?

Schlatt has - he’s never refused a drink before. Never. Not even when Quackity brought some weird home brewed moonshine to the office saying that even the dogs wouldn’t go near it.

Whatever this Dreamon is offering, it smells smooth, it smells bitter. It smells like the definition of Schlatt’s favourite ales.

Schlatt hasn’t had a drink in what must be pushing thirty six hours now. How is he able to say no?

Tubbo cranes his neck back again to look at him, dumbstruck by this totally atypical display of willpower.

Tubbo’s, well honestly, he’s impressed.

The Dreamon in front of Schlatt seems just as dumbstruck as Tubbo. His eyes widen, pools of blood red in the night. Then he scowls and draws the bottle back towards himself like its some sort of precious baby that’s just been rejected by a neglectful parent.

“You’ll regret that,” it says.

But Schlatt shakes his head.

“I don’t think I will buddy.”

Tubbo doesn’t think he’s witnessed something this pog since Punz walked through the portal literally three seconds before he was about to be murdered by Dream. There’s an awkward sort of respect growing up to squat on his chest. Though he doesn’t understand Schlatt’s struggle with addiction, he knows how powerful it is that the man he watched chug veritable toilet bleach in an effort to get a hit has said no to an offering like this.

He figures he should say something.

But the Dreamon impersonating him beats him to it.

“Well if you’re not going to drink with us, you should get out of here,” it says, causing Schlatt to crane his neck over his shoulder and Tubbo to shiver because that’s his voice coming out of that abomination.  

“You’re a liability, ” the thing croons and Tubbo winces at the repetition of the words he spoke not hours before.

He glances up at Schlatt, cringing as the shame of those words finally trickles into him.

You felt so bad when people used to berate you for your shortcomings, yet you do it to someone else. Yes, it’s Schlatt, but isn’t he just the same as you?

Like Dream.

Like Wilbur.

We are the villains of the SMP.

This time, Tubbo expects Schlatt to crack like he did beneath the weight of all his weaknesses pulled into the spotlight by his three biggest Dreamons. But Schlatt, it seems, is on some kind of power trip. This time, Tubbo feels as the man’s muscles relax above him. The swords shift until they’re in a slightly more advantageous position. 

He is calm. He is collected enough to make executive combat decisions. Tubbo doesn’t know what to make of this man.

He led your nation. He was charismatic and cool when he was campaigning for Schlatt 2020. Beneath the booze and the yelling, maybe he isn’t-

No. If Schlatt isn’t all bad then doesn’t that make Tubbo-

Yes. Yes it does. Everything that Tubbo is right now can only be blamed on Tubbo.

“Yeah, yeah,” Schlatt says, shaking his head dismissively. “I already know what a useless craphole I am. You won’t be able to use that against me.”

The afterlife holds its breath as Tubbo inhales.

Can you really just accept that you're a villain and just expect to get away with it?

Is that allowed?

Tubbo looks at Schlatt again, at the way that he's standing as though he isn't being changed by the monsters in front of him. Like he won't ever break.

Because he can't break, Tubbo realises. He's already broken and has accepted his jagged pieces.

The afterlife grinds to a start again as the Dreamon wearing Tubbo’s face scowls. The expression morphs Tubbo’s unscarred features into something so ugly that it makes Tubbo recoil. This is not how he wants to remember his original self. He doesn’t want to associate the bee-loving, naive idiot with the hate and the malevolence that poisoned his thoughts as he grew on the SMP.

How could Phil have ever brought himself to take Tubbo home? Maybe this ugliness is what caused him to remain as absent as he possibly could be from Tubbo’s life.

Then there is a sound through the darkness. A tinny, shrieking clamour that almost makes Tubbo drop the torch in fright. 

“Argh, what the fuck?” Schlatt shouts, gritting his teeth and pressing the left side of his head into his shoulder.

Tubbo, of course, knows what is happening. His palms start to sweat accordingly.

The Dreamons each take a few steps away from Schlatt and Tubbo, creating a wider ring around them and through the darkness a new figure approaches, a figure in a black robe carrying an aura of grandeur that nearly matches XD’s.

“Sch- Schlatt, we should run now,” Tubbo manages to yelp out.

Schlatt performs a classic double take over his shoulder. Tubbo figures it would be funny if they weren’t in this horrible situation.

“What? Now?” Schlatt asks, pushing Tubbo with his back as the black-robed Dreamon starts moving towards them. “Why now? Why not like five minutes ago?”

Tubbo pivots, pulling Schlatt’s shoulder and thrusting out an accusatory finger in the robed Dreamon’s direction.

“Because we had to wait for the Dreamon Lord of this hive to show itself!” he screeches. “Now for fuck’s sake, RUN!”

He drags Schlatt back around and launches himself forward. Adrenaline sends a kick of panic through him as he tries to dodge around his other self but the Dreamon is fast and, snarling, it slams itself into Tubbo’s side sending them sprawling to the ground.

Tubbo’s world is awash with new darkness as he is thrown sideways. He cries out. Instant disorientation makes him feel sick. Pain blooms first in his left side and then in his right shoulder and his head as it smacks down in the bracken. 

He’s on the ground.

That’s so, so bad.

It’s about time.

No, no, Tubbo is too afraid to die again.

Pops of firework colour burst behind his eyes as he kicks out with his legs and flails with his arms to keep his enemy away. He shrieks when his hands slap at the face of his other self which is pinning his legs, grunting and snarling like a rabid animal. Tubbo feels like he’s being trapped in that stupid Tubbox again. He feels like-

Like he’s looking into Wilbur’s eyes as his friend and mentor stands on the roof of the building opposite the podium and is seeing just how worthless Wilbur really knows he is.

“No, NO!” Tubbo screeches as the jaw of his other self unhinges once again. He lashes out, throwing his arm in front of his face to protect his throat and it’s lucky he does because a moment later, he feels needles and knives plunge into his exposed skin. 

Cold pain erupts through him and it’s different to the inferno of being exploded. Different and therefore shocking.

He gasps rather than screams and figures it’s all over.

But then there is a howl like the battle cry of a wolf and half a second later, there is a deeper pain as the Dreamon is yanked away beneath Schlatt’s bulging bicep.

Tubbo stares, not really able to process properly as Schlatt hoists the furious Dreamon up over his shoulder to toss it at the three other Dreamons stalking towards him like it’s nothing more than a bowling ball. Inhuman shrieks litter the air as it becomes airborne and Tubbo doesn’t bother watching to see if Schlatt lands a strike. He’s already scrambling to stand up as Schlatt runs by, grabbing on to the collar of Tubbo's shirt to haul him into a dogged run.

His arm is bleeding, Tubbo notes vaguely as he crashes through the treeline and out into the bursting sunshine of the desert. It’s bleeding and the hot, sticky wetness is trailing down his arm.

He smirks.

Good. The trail of blood will lead them right to Fundy’s tower.

“What the fuck? What the fuck?” Schlatt is huffing out as he falls onto all fours to haul ass up a particularly large sand dune. Ahead, Tubbo can see the landmark line of Fundy’s tower and the glint of the camarvan.

He glances back over his shoulder and his skin chills with dread as he sees that the Dreamons have cleared the trees. 

“Keep going! Whatever you do!” he barks at Schlatt as the pair of them tumble over the top of the hill.

Tubbo doesn’t know how much blood he’s losing or how quickly. He knows he feels like shit as he and Schlatt pass the sandstone house. All he can hear is a hum in his ears where his heart should be. All he can acknowledge is the feel of the sand beneath his feet as he runs to escape whatever wretched fate awaits him.

Should he be running from this?

If he is the villain, if he can accept it, then it’s about time he was eradicated, right?

Tubbo hears the shriek of one of the Dreamons behind him and his skin breaks out in a wave of goosebumps. It’s much closer than he would have liked. Much closer. He doesn’t dare look back to see how close but he swears as they pass the camarvan and pant over the final stretch of sand towards the tower that he can feel the thing’s gunpowder breath on his neck.

He hopes his plan will work.

He hopes the idea of using copper to nullify the effects of the radio waves the Dreamons obviously hate is one that is solid enough.

He hopes he hasn’t fucked up and endangered everyone unecessarily.

Again.

“ARGH!” Schlatt charges up the steps to the doors of Fundy’s tower, throwing them open with shivering hands and disappearing into the gloom. Tubbo follows with his heart in his mouth.

This is it.

He drops down into the pit, landing on legs that almost crumple, then staggers out of the way, watching in horror and fascination and triumph, as the Dreamons follow him through the doors. It’s the Schlatt imposter first, careening its way forward. It falls gracelessly but lands like a lioness, on all fours and ready to continue the hunt. 

Tubbo frowns at it, his mind screaming out in abject terror when he sees that it’s form has become unstable in the chase. Though it still mostly resembles Schlatt, there is a tuft of curling blonde sticking out of the top of its head. Part of its face looks stitched on and one of its eyes sports the haunting disc pupil that Tommy had - Mellohi, of course.

The second falls through in much the same way, the Tubbo imposter which looks more like the current him now - scarred, battered and twisted with evil.

Then there’s the one that Tubbo doesn’t know, the one that makes Schlatt stiffen like a foot soldier before his superior. He’s all elongated and giving off popping purple particles like Ranboo.

They all bare yellowed teeth as the final black shape descends into the pit. That one doesn’t fall like the others. That one hops down with a dexterity that seems more like floating and when it pulls down its hood, Tubbo figures he’s seen the new face of his nightmares.

It’s Dream.

His hair is the same lanky mess it was when Tubbo last saw him. 

He still wears the mask but the face on the mask keeps changing.

At first, it looks like a smile a three year old might draw out in primary colours, then it’s a yawning black void opening up and reaching back through the mask and through Dream’s skull. Then it’s a series of luminescent green eyes that keep popping into place and opening over a blank canvas.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Schlatt gasps from somewhere behind him.

Tubbo registers that Schlatt is still too close. He hasn’t climbed the ladder Tubbo set up on the opposite side of the pit.

“Schlatt, climb the ladder,” Tubbo commands, reaching back to push his shoulder as the Dreamon Lord comes forward. It too is elongating, its limbs becoming spindly long. 

“SCHLATT!” Tubbo barks when Schlatt doesn’t immediately move.

“Fuck,” Schlatt swears again as he turns. Tubbo listens to the sound of Schlatt’s footsteps on the wood. He keeps his eyes on the Dreamon mask, hoping he’s holding its attention.

‘ You are the villain Tubbo. ’

Tubbo stills.

The voice seems to be coming from somewhere in his own head. But it sounds like Tommy and it sounds like Ranboo.

And it sounds like himself.

They know. Have they always known that Tubbo was so awful? Did they choose to attach themselves to him anyway?

Did they think they could make him better?

“Tubbo!” Schlatt shouts from the top of the ladder.

Tubbo sucks in a deep breath and the shards of himself lying scattered and broken in the black abyss of Tubbo’s truth solidify in place. Now, there is no chance of them coming back together to be what they were. And maybe that’s okay.

“Yeah, I am the villain,” Tubbo admits and it’s easier this time somehow. Then he smiles a humourless smile. One that is all dead inside.

“I already know what a useless craphole I am. You won’t be able to use that against me.”

With that, Tubbo turns tail and sprints to the ladder. The Dreamon behind him lets out a sound like trucks crashing together but Tubbo forces himself to focus on his hands as they close over the first rung despite the fact that he wants to curl over himself in reactive fear. 

He climbs. For all he’s worth, or not worth, he climbs. He hears as the things behind him reach the ladder. He feels as their hands brush up against the heels of his shoes but that doesn’t matter as long as they don’t actually catch him.

And they don’t.

A moment later, Schlatt’s hands are on the back of his shirt, pulling him up and as soon as Tubbo is clear of the hole, he lurches forward and pulls the wooden fence pole door so it crashes down over the Dreamons as their fingers curl over the lip of the pit.

There are several shrieks of pain and rage as the Dreamons are boxed in. They retract their hands and spit out words in an alien language that Tubbo only vaguely recognises. There are iron doors built into the fence post network and the Dreamons scatter around them, hiding in careful rings around where the iron casts a shadow like the iron is giving off a steady stream of radiation.

“Do we pull up the copper now?” Schlatt belts out, covering his ears with the flat of his hands as hissing and spitting in the pit flows towards a crescendo.

“Not yet!” Tubbo yells back. “Fundy’s not back yet!”

He slips over to the door, peering out into the searing daylight and there, on the horizon, Tubbo can see Fundy carefully leading a troupe of about ten Dreamons over the sand, hoeing the ground below his feet as he walks.

“He’s coming!” he tells Schlatt as his nemesis plops himself back against one of Fundy’s chests looking thoroughly haggard. 

Tubbo wants to go to Fundy. He has some vague notion of luring the monsters away so that they’ll chase him and fall into the pit faster but he doesn’t trust Schlatt to hoist the door to the pit back up at the right moment. And right now, he has more important matters to deal with. He’s starting to feel nauseous and light headed. Not a good sign. He braces himself and looks down at the blood still rolling in a steady stream off of his left arm.

It’s not pretty. The sight alone is enough to have sickly sweat beading on his forehead and his breaths coming out like machine gun fires. The skin has been well and truly ravaged, the teeth sinking deep enough to puncture muscle. Obviously the Dreamon didn’t hit a tendon or Tubbo would probably be dead by now.

He’s going to need stitches.

He glances around for anything resembling medical supplies as the Dreamons start kicking at the door trapping them in. It’s hard to think when they’re being so loud, when they could escape at any moment.

He wonders if there’s a medical kit on the ship.

With eyes beginning to blur and child-like terror settling in that this is going to be a dragged out and painful re-death, Tubbo shifts himself, pushing open the lid of the closest chest with shaking hands.

He checks through the contents with an acute awareness that he doesn’t have time to mess with. He needs to stitch himself up as best he can so that he won’t be a deadweight when Fundy gets here.

He needs to-

Tubbo starts when something appears in his periphery. His heart clamours inside him, overriding even the roar of the Dreamons but as he glances over his shoulder, he sees Schlatt standing behind him with an icy expression on his face. He’s holding out a small green medical kit. 

Tubbo’s throat closes over when he sees it. It was the one they used to keep by the door in the camarvan. Does that mean that Fundy’s been inside? Or did Schlatt have a poke around before he came after Tubbo.

“Thanks,” Tubbo says, frowning slightly as he takes the kit.

Schlatt sniffs, averting his eyes and wincing as the Dreamons continue to clamour below them.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Tubbo’s not sure what to make of Schlatt’s newly helpful behvaiour but there’s no time to dwell on it now. He drops down onto the intact floor beside the chest and is thankful for how close he is to the ground. His hands shake, one slick with blood as he unzips the bag and checks the content. 

Bandages, sutures, even rubbing alcohol. Jackpot. Perhaps he will live after all.

Well, sort of.

He opens up the alcohol with his teeth, then braces himself for the burn as he pours it directly over the wound.

His vision goes white.

Agony rips through him, setting his insides on fire and it is nothing like being burnt but it is all too familiar at the same time. Tinnitus clouds up his ears for what feels like a small millenia and when that drains away, he can hear someone that sounds incredibly like himself giving out little half muffled shrieks.

This is nothing.

This is nothing compared to the pain he’s endured in the past.

It’s nothing compared to the treatment he had to suffer through under Niki’s cautious hands in the button infested bowels of Pogtopia. Tubbo is used to pain. He’s used to-

“Tubbo? Can you hear me?”

Tubbo blinks, heaving his head round to stare at Schlatt who is squatting beside him looking pale and haunted. 

And Tubbo doesn’t understand this reaction because isn’t this the sort of scene that Schlatt should relish in? The sight of his enemy lying broken in front of him?

The sight of a pawn being ploughed off of the board by a bigger, better piece?

Schlatt never looked at Tubbo like this when he was being murdered.

“What’s wrong Schla-Schlatt?” Tubbo wheezes. “Never-never seen someone try to fi-hix themselves up before?”

Schlatt winces but he doesn’t back off as Tubbo reaches juddering hands out for the medical kit. Unfortunately, he has no time, nor the resources for an anaesthetic so this is going to be made of uber suck. Tubbo doesn’t know if you can really re-die in the afterlife or not but he doesn’t particularly like the idea of ‘living’ with sepsis or with less blood than is strictly required to function thank you very much. So even if this isn’t a particularly life saving operation, Tubbo will just have to bite his tongue and put up with the pain.

He grabs the curved needle as the Dreamons start banging on the fence poles and wishes that he could have quiet to concentrate.

His hands shiver as he tries to thread the surgical thread.

“Holy shit, you’re worse than me,” Schlatt says and plucks the needle and thread right out of Tubbo’s saturated fingers.

“Hey!” Tubbo barks at him but stills when he sees Schlatt concentrating on controlling his shaking enough to thread the needle. 

Something occurs to him as the world fades out into a mess of popping colour in the sides of his eyes.

“Schlatt,” he says as Schlatt tries to hand the thread back to him. “‘M gonna pass out.”

The confession burns his throat as it leaves and how can he have the capacity to be embarrassed when he’s barely conscious? How is it even fair that he can feel so crap for being weak when he’s half dead?

Schlatt looks at him for a moment like he’s grown a second head. Then he growls, squeezing the needle in his hands in anger.

“You’d better fucking not,” Schlatt tells him. “I have no idea how to handle these fucking Dreamons.”

Tubbo blinks. The action is horribly sluggish. He feels like he’s losing control of himself and that scares him so, so much.

Tommy, Boo, help me, please…

“N’t help it,” Tubbo manages. “You’re gonna…hafta st’tch me up.”

All the colour drains from Schlatt’s face. Under any other circumstance, Tubbo is sure he would find that reaction completely freaking hilarious.

“Oh Hell no buddy,” Schlatt says and he pushes the needle at Tubbo’s numb fingers.

Tubbo’s barely there now though, merely floating through a wretched sea of nausea where he’s not sure if he’s going to throw up or if he’s passed out already or what.

“Tubbo? Tubbo! Fuck…”

Tubbo falls away from himself in one smooth motion. The hollering of the Dreamons blurs into blissful white noise. Fundy’s tower slips into a sea of sparkling lights and Tubbo loses all connection to his limbs.

He doesn’t know if Schlatt is going to try and fix him up or not. He doesn’t know if leaving the wound open is going to mean that he’ll re-die of blood loss or not.

If he is dying, though, then this is a lot gentler than last time.

He’s not sorry.

It’s about time.

Chapter Text

Tubbo is yanked out of the sludge of his mind rather violently.

One minute he’s floating in blissful sleep, the kind he hasn’t had since Ranboo died. Then, the next, he feels a rush of horribly exaggerated vertigo, a pull that toes the line of agony and then he is blinking blackness from his eyes on the floor of Fundy’s tower.

He is achingly thirsty and horribly nauseous. These are the immediate things that come to mind before the cotton falls out of his ears and he can hear the continued chorus of caterwauling from the Dreamons in the pit. 

He blinks as he struggles to remember what he was doing, what happened to him. Then his eyes widen as he remembers that Fundy was on his way with a miniature Dreamon army. Stress crashes down on his limp body as well as the burning need to move.

He lets out a groan and tries to push himself up but something stops him dead, the feel of fabric over his bare arms. He tries to look, to see what's covering him and his eyes blur in the orange of one of Fundy's bed sheets.

What the fuck?

“Tubbo? Shit. Fuck.”

He hears scrambling, a clatter and then something clammy is slapping his face. Tubbo hadn’t even realised his face was numb until sensation slowly begins trickling back into it. He blinks, licks his dry lips and relief flows into him when he realises that he’s not dead or re-dead or whatever.

He turns his head slightly on the floor and frowns as Schlatt slowly comes into focus. 

The guy looks like a nervous wreck. His eyes are wide and bright. His face is shock white and drawn. Honestly, Schlatt is looking at Tubbo like he almost watched the death of his best friend, like Tommy looked at Tubbo right after he respawned in Pogtopia.

What’s up with that?

It’s nice that someone is concerned about him. It’s nice that he wouldn’t have just re-died out in the desert without anyone around to give a shit.  

“Dude, are you alive?” Schlatt asks and the high pitched tenor to his voice, the clear panic makes something pull in Tubbo’s chest.

He ignores it.

Schlatt doesn’t actually care about him. He just doesn’t want to be left with half a dangerous plan unfinished.

Well, unless Fundy and Schlatt managed to finish up on their own whilst Tubbo was lying in a useless lump on the floor, then bang goes that theory. The wail of the Dreamons suggest this is still ongoing though.

“Where’s Fundy?” Tubbo whispers as he finally manages to push himself up. His arm twinges warningly and dread coalesces in Tubbo’s sore stomach as, with flinching fingers, he pulls the bed sheet off of himself to take a look at the wound.

He gapes like an idiot when he’s met with a row of messy stitching closing up the wound in a gnarly crescent shape.

A smile, just like-

“He’s just outside, like, half way between the camarvan and the tower.”

But Tubbo can’t actually get past what he’s looking at right now.

Schlatt stitched him up.

Schlatt who hit him around Manburg’s Presidential office and who had him murdered in cold blood in front of hundreds of Festival goers.

That Schlatt just sat over his slumped form and actually put in the effort to stitch him up. This after saving him from the Dreamons in the scrub jungle.

What the actual fuck is happening here?

“Tubbo?” Fundy calls from outside the tower. He sounds more terrified than Tubbo has ever heard before. “I hope you’re fucking in there!”

There’s no time for this now, Tubbo realises. There’s no time to be freaked out over the fact that he might have just bled out if not for Schlatt. There’s no time to process what Schlatt's motives might be or how much Tubbo suddenly feels like he owes this man. Right now, the end of the plan is more important.

“Yeah, he’s here!” Schlatt calls back as Tubbo staggers upright through a wave of dizziness.

“Wait at the bottom - bottom of the steps,” Tubbo calls out through chattering teeth. His voice is horribly weak. Tubbo's really not sure that Fundy heard that at all. There’s no time for doubt though. He turns to Schlatt, blinking clarity back into his vision. Schlatt is watching the door to the tower like someone might watch an unexploded bomb. He’s still pale and there is an edge to his expression that makes Tubbo’s skin crawl with empathy. 

Schlatt’s been through a lot in a very short space of time. He needs to process. 

No time. No space. That trauma will become the hardened skin of a scar and that scar will darken that side of his face-

“We’ve got t-to move over there,” Tubbo breathes out, turning away from Schlatt and holding on to the flat edges of the chests to pull himself along. There are several moments, as Tubbo shuffles along, where he almost falls back beneath the black blanket of unconsciousness and every time he falters, Schlatt is there to hold onto his elbow.

Every time Schlatt grabs onto him, a little burst of shock pulses through Tubbo.

It’s…it’s nice. To have someone here to support him.

Even if it is Schlatt.

No, no, Tubbo doesn’t need anyone.

Tubbo grabs on to the rope that will pull up the door to the pit but Schlatt pushes him out of the way, forcing Tubbo to drop into a wobbling crouch over the copper lining instead.

“You ain’t lifting squat,” Schlatt mutters when Tubbo turns to level a glare on him.

Prickling irritation feeds itself through Tubbo’s system because this is something that they cannot afford to fuck up so Tubbo should just do it himself and-

The edge of one of the stitches on his arm catches a glint of the light pouring into the tower. Tubbo’s eyes fall to it and fix on the jagged pattern that has been so clumsily and yet so carefully done.

Schlatt stitched him up.

He looks up. Schlatt watches him and his grip on the rope is defensive, like he’s bracing himself for the fight. His hands on the rope are taut.

Tubbo has to trust him again.

This is becoming a bit of an unhealthy routine.

But Schlatt has proven himself now. He stitched Tubbo up. Before that, he faced down the Dreamons in the scrub jungle. He refused the bottle.

Tubbo will risk this. It may be a stupid move, it may go against everything Tubbo has learnt about trust but Tubbo will risk this. It’s important. He can feel it in his bones.

Tubbo turns away and presses his own clammy, shaking hands down on the smooth heat of the copper before he can change his mind.

“Bring them in Fundy!” he manages to holler.

Everything narrows down to this moment.

Silence precedes it. There’s a horrible lull in the Dreamon cat calls from within the pit, even a lull in the sound of Tubbo’s own heart beat though he can still feel it pushing out a ridiculously fast rhythm against his ears. 

Then a series of predatory growls shatter that silence. Schlatt lets out a noise of protest besides Tubbo and stuffs one of his fists in his ears but Tubbo merely winces. Through that bestial rumbling, he hears the pounding of Fundy’s footsteps against the stone. 

He counts them. 

One, two, three, four.

Dream is knocking at his door.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Tubbo tells him it’s too late.

Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

The SMP can’t save itself.

Fundy pelts in through the doors. Schlatt screams as the nightmare follows and Tubbo doesn’t have the time or the willpower to rip his eyes away from the spectacle to see if Schlatt has dropped the rope. 

The Dreamons are a mass of twisting forms. Tubbo sees the flash of Wilbur’s glasses, the stretch of Philza’s black wings, his own face twisted in snarling malevolence and Tommy’s too.

This is…

This is horror.

This is a Dreamon horde.

And Tubbo knows, at that moment, that he’s in way over his head.

“OPEN THE DOOR!” he bellows, digging his fingernails into the recently upturned earth to start prising up the copper sheets.

Tubbo’s spine feels like it’s being kissed by Lady Death as he watches Fundy barrel forward. The door isn’t moving and soon, the Dreamons are going to be brought out of the frenzy of the chase to realise the set up of this plan.

He shouldn’t have let Schlatt handle the rope. He should have taken the responsibility himself. He should never have trusted the man who-

Schlatt lets out a roar behind him and his muscles, it seems, aren’t just for show because the fence post door flies up like it’s been blasted open.

He did it.

Schlatt actually did it.

Tubbo trusted him. And Schlatt came through.

What does this mean?

Tubbo watches, his mouth agape and his lungs burning with desperation, as Fundy makes an expert play. He staggers forward like he’s lurching through blind panic, tipping dangerously close to the lip of the pit. Tubbo watches the toes of Fundy’s boots skim over the darkened depths. The Dreamons below him and behind him let out sounds of triumph and hands snatch towards him. Tubbo’s breath catches. His wound throbs with an overload of adrenaline. 

But at the last possible second, Fundy moves like a snake, coiling his body so that his momentum changes. He slips out of the Dreamon’s grasp, throwing himself to the side and back as the mass of nightmares continues to plough each other forward.

The Dreamons aren’t as dextrous as Fundy.

They fall into Tubbo’s trap like lemmings and, as the last Wilbur imposter drops below Tubbo’s eyeline, Schlatt drops the door down on top of them all with an incriminating crack.

The result is truly a sight to behold. Tubbo, Schlatt and Fundy have just trapped an entire Dreamon hive in a containment pit the size of Fundy’s floor. Flashes of light like fireworks lightning zip over the writhing blackness. Wisps of ember-flecked smoke start curling up from between the fence post bars. It smells like gunpowder, like burnt popcorn, like the lilting smell of Asphodel that always underlies Phil’s natural woody musk. 

Tubbo is transfixed. Triumph knocks on the edges of his mind because somehow, they actually managed to pull off Tubbo’s harebrained scheme. Together. Like a team or some shit. But that triumph is kept in check by the yawning horror he feels witnessing the Dreamons starting to tear into each other. They push and jostle, sending their hive-mates directly beneath the iron doors so that their faces start to vibrate and their bodies start to burn.

Burning. Burning. Burning. Tubbo is always burning-

“TUBBO!” Fundy screams. Tubbo’s head jerks up, whiplash fast and the world spins into seeing only Fundy’s quivering finger pointing at the fence post poles next to him. Tubbo’s blood turns to ice when he sees that several Dreamons are gnawing through the wood like enormous rats.

“Break the cop-copper!” Tubbo calls out hoarsely, scrambling to get back to work.

Tubbo is unsurprised when Schlatt falls down beside him to start tugging at the sheet metal.

Whatever is going on with Schlatt, Tubbo doesn’t want it to stop. This Schlatt is reliable. This Schlatt listens to him. This Schlatt does what needs to be done and saves him when he’s in trouble.

No, Tubbo, don’t be lured in. Don’t be an idiot.

The last of the copper sheets is peeled away.

Tubbo has a moment of dark and ugly self doubt because what if he was wrong about why the Dreamons were avoiding Fundy’s tower? What if they’ve just weakened the containment pit for no good reason and it’s-

Tubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfaultTubbo’sfault.

He holds his breath as he peers down into the pit and the closest Dreamon wearing a version of his face streaked with molten lava burns grins at him with half melted teeth.

And suddenly, like a switch being flicked, the screaming starts.

Tubbo panics, drawing himself back as the Dreamon forms below him start to twist in fast motion, their faces flashing through the various people they’ve impersonated and merging them into a heaving mess. Fingers twitch and scratch over flesh as they hug themselves. Others run blindly, flailing wildly and always screaming, screaming, screaming. Like war victims.

Like Tubbo tried to when that first firework hit him. Sound was ripped out of him as his flesh peeled back from muscle, from bone.

Like Tubbo did when Tommy was murdered right in front of him.

‘Tommy, no. TOMMYNODREAMSTOPIT!’

Tubbo’s eyes dart from face to face and his breath hitches everytime he sees an expression of anguish on a warped version of Ranboo or Tommy. His heart twists, squeezing in on itself until he has to grit his teeth and raise his injured arm up to grip at the fabric of his shirt.

Then the Dreamons start fucking melting and that…well it’s almost worse than having them chasing him down across the open desert.

“Oh fuck,” Schlatt breathes out on Tubbo’s left as Fundy turns back on the other side of the room to upchuck spectacularly.

Tubbo doesn’t dare to take his eyes away.

Because they’re melting.

Like he did.

The smell is horrible. Tubbo pulls his shirt up over his mouth and nose as his eyes start to water.

He stills when he catches sight of the Dreamon Lord standing amongst his dying subjects.

It’s staring straight at him with acidic green eyes set into a narrow, freckled face that Tubbo has never seen before.

‘It’s Dream’s,’ Tubbo realises with a lurch of awe and dread. ‘Dream’s real face.’

He looks like a stranger, even if the expression he’s wearing is familiar enough.

Malevolent light consumes him from the inside out, a hatred so personal and deep rooted that Tubbo can’t help but flinch away from it.

‘ You are a pawn Tubbo Underscore-Beloved. ’

This time, the words in Tubbo’s head are spoken in Dream’s rasping voice.

Tubbo nods slightly.

“I know,” he says out loud and beside him, Schlatt’s head jerks in his direction.

Tubbo has eyes only for the Dreamon though as it too starts to blur. It’s face, the face of that stranger who knows him so well, starts to cave in as it’s structure starts to melt away.

‘ You are a petty little villain trying to play a game on a bigger board. ’

Tubbo nods again. The barbs hurt but it’s like Schlatt said on the boat, things are easier now that Tubbo has accepted that he’s a shit person.

“I know,” he says again.

‘ You will never be able to make amends for the bad choices you’ve made, for the terrible things you’ve done. ’

Tubbo nods one more time and this time, he pushes himself up so he’s sitting with his body angled forward, a direct show of challenge.

Tubbo knows all of this. The Dreamons can’t use his own denial against him now.

“You need to work on your Dream impression,” Tubbo tells the Dreamon Lord as its bones become brittle and degrade into ash inside the black robe. “Dream never did learn to use my full, proper name.”

Tubbo stares at the black robe as it lies amongst the Dreamon remnants. Finally, silence falls back over Fundy’s tower and this time, it’s unapologetically victorious. 

Chapter Text

Tubbo sags.

Relief is not the potent concoction that adrenaline is. It won't hold his bones up or keep the darkness from pressing in at his eyes. Tubbo feels sick all over again, like he'll vomit if anyone so much as moves near him but still, through all this, he smirks.