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"Sorry, my husband was busy today. If this is too unprofessional I can just come back tomorrow; you can blame any delay on me. I couldn't leave him alone."
Scar blinks. Then, he blinks again. The little zombie pigman is still there after he blinks the third time, hugged to Tubbo's chest in a baby harness and tightly woven sweater looking awfully like a toddler who's upset to have been woken up from their nap. Tubbo's hand is on its hoof, rubbing small circles absentmindedly. It makes him look a bit silly, more like a child playing pretend than he normally does standing there in his ill fitting suit with a random mob playing the part of baby. All he’s missing is a briefcase; then he’d match the role to a T.
He almost laughs because it's a little bit funny but Tubbo is staring at him, face set to his usual all-business expression that Scar usually spends most of their meetings trying to wear away. It occurs to him that Tubbo was talking to him a moment ago, and that he probably should have been listening.
"Sorry -" he starts, unsure of where he's going with it. "No, it's fine - what's this about a husband?" He says, repeating the one bit of Tubbo's greeting he'd managed to catch.
"My husband, he's busy today." Tubbo explains. Except, he's not really explaining anything because Scar is still stuck on the concept of Tubbo having a husband at all, far too much to focus on the “being busy” part. Tubbo was a kid right? When did he get married and why had that not come up? He feels like that's the kind of thing that should have come up. Like, "How was your day? Oh I spent mine with my husband!" or something? Did Tubbo always have a ring on his horn? How did he miss that? "I couldn't find anyone else, so I have to watch Michael today. I understand it's unprofessional."
Michael...?
Oh! The pigman! He was named! Interesting, okay, so it must be a pet? Why the baby carrier? Well, baby pigmen *are* baby shaped. It's in the name, but he can’t imagine anyone taking the baby part very seriously.
"No, no that's perfectly alright! I don't mind, I don't mind." Scar says, smiling again. He rolls forward to get a closer look. Tubbo visibly relaxes, giving the mob's hoof a little squeeze.
"Thank you, I appreciate it, really." The baby pigman blinks sleepily at Scar with his one eye as he approaches. Like most pigmen, Michael is missing a significant portion of its (his?) flesh and to be honest, Scar'd never looked very closely at one of these and it's, uh, well it could be less gross for sure. It's not helped by the way Michael keeps staring at him, eerily silent and all too focused. At least he looks clean? Especially around the socket. Did..someone wash his exposed skull? Scar resolves to not think about it. He’d ignore it for Tubbo’s sake, keeping his grimacing to an absolute minimum.
"Hi, little guy." He says, reaching a hand to gently pat the side of Michael's face that still has fur. It's really soft, if a bit bristly. Like a new paintbrush. He's definitely been washed. Micheal leans into the touch just slightly which is almost cute.
Tubbo leans down a bit so Scar is entirely at the same level as Michael. "Hey, Michael, you wanna say hi? Can you say hi for me?" Tubbo says softly, smoothing out a wrinkle on Michael's sleeve. Michael lets out a whine that turns into something that almost sounds like he's saying no. Which is pretty funny, considering that pigmen don't speak. "Sorry, he's a bit tired. He's not usually up this early." He says, smiling apologetically.
Scar laughs at that. "It's alright. We all know that feeling." He takes the opportunity to roll back and Tubbo straightens again, mumbling something to Michael. Michael makes a noise that almost sounds like baby babble. Weird!
"We should probably get started." And oh! They're supposed to talk about business. Right.
"Of course!" He smiles and leads them away from the portal and up to the town hall, where their usual meeting room is. Even though Scar would really like to not do that today - especially with the best excuse in the world strapped to Tubbo's chest - Bdubs would kill him if he got distracted today.
Speaking of, Bdubs was in the meeting room waiting for them and fidgeting with the knob on his clock, seemingly trying to fix it. When the door opened he looked up, smile wide.
"Hey! Hey you guys, Tubbo, Scar -- err." He said, standing. Scar could pinpoint the moment that Bdubs’s eyes landed on Michael as his face fell, staring for a moment before quickly resetting his gaze on Tubbo.
Scar moved to his side, leaning up to whisper in his ear: "That's Michael, I think that's his pet."
"Oh, oh, pet, yes of course." Bdubs muttered, his smile brightening again. He moved forward to pull out a chair for Tubbo.
Today they were discussing trade, or at least trying to. It was difficult with the excess that Hermitcraft had, to find things they could ask for from the Dream SMP. Especially with Tubbo knowing they had that excess. (Maybe Scar wasn't thinking when he showed Tubbo basically everything Hermitcraft had to offer.) But! If there was one thing Hermicraft could always do with more of, it was building materials. So that's what they asked for: sand, terracotta, concrete and other relatively inexpensive but grindy materials that the Dream SMP could do without.
(And boy, could they do without. Tubbo had shown him pictures.)
In return, they would give the Dream SMP diamonds, potions, and a few beacons -- all things you could use to help rebuild a struggling server. And it wasn't even that suspicious of a deal! Scar was pretty proud of this. It took a lot of convincing on Tubbo's part that several beacons were worth a load of sand, even though genuinely they were.
Michael was quiet throughout the discussion, seemingly dozing off about ten minutes in. Scar didn't know that zombie pigmen slept. He figured if there was one thing that would come with death it would be not having to sleep, especially in the nether where sleeping was definitely in the category of things you didn't want to do, but what would he know? It was just nice to have Michael's gaze off of him; the empty socket of his other eye was unsettling enough.
He could kind of see the appeal of a baby zombie pigmen as a pet, with how apparently soft they can be and the little baby faces but the eyes - or worse, lack thereof - were a little too weird for him. Not to mention the missing flesh. But then again, Tubbo was a weird kid.
An hour later they were at the portal again, shaking hands and congratulating each other on the agreement they had reached. Tubbo was smiling, excited to bring the news to his people back home and Scar felt good. He felt really good. Like this was actual mayoral stuff and he was killing it! (Even if Bdubs helped. Team work makes the dream work!)
"I'm sure you're eager to get out of here so we won't hold you up." Scar says, clapping a hand on Tubbo's shoulder, interrupting their banter.
"I am. Great stuff today, big man." Tubbo says, putting his own hand on Scar's shoulder. "And thank you again for understanding with Michael. I'll try not to let it happen again."
"Oh, don't even worry about it. It was no trouble at all." Scar replies.
"Yeah, you can bring your pet 'round any time. Just glad to have you." Bdubs agrees.
Tubbo stiffens under Scar's hand and frowns. "He's not my pet, he's my son."
Oh.
Oh no.
"Yes of course, your son!" Scar replies, launching into his best impression of someone who knew that the whole time. Tubbo looked happy a moment ago. Then just like that, gone.
"Your son?" Bdubs sputters.
"-Don't mind Bdubs, he's - he hasn't been sleeping recently, you know how it is." Scar is smiling so hard his cheeks hurt and he lets out a little chuckle to really sell it. Tubbo steps away, his arm wrapped loosely around Michael. "Makes him a bit slow sometimes!"
"Yes - yes that's true! You know me, never sleeping. I should - should really do something about that!" Bdubs tags on,recovering and barely taking the time to glare at Scar for calling him slow.
"It happens." Tubbo says in a way which is very professional and distant and not at all convincing Scar that they did not just fuck up this arrangement. "I, uh, think I'm going to head back now?"
"Of course! Of course. Safe travels!" Scar waves and then Tubbo is through the portal and gone within the minute.
"That was his son?!" Bdubs exclaims, looking at Scar incredulously. "Why did you tell me it was his pet! That's a pretty huge difference!"
"I didn't know it was his son! Why would it be his son! Isn't he like 18?" Scar throws his hands up. "What kind of kid has a son! And why would it be a zombie pigman!"
"Well he's adopted obviously!"
"Obviously!" He runs a hand down his face. "I don't know, I just assumed, it's not like zombie pigmen are very - kid-able!"
"They're not!"
"And it's not like he said it was his son, I couldn't assume just because he's married. He's married, by the way!" He runs a hand through his hair.
"He's married?"
"Apparently!" Scar shouts, slumping back in his wheelchair. "He's got - there's this ring on his horn. Was that always there? I could have sworn that wasn't always there. But I also could have sworn he never said he was married."
"OH - that's what the ring was for? I just thought - I don't know. Jeez, he's married?" Bdubs says, biting at the tip of his thumb. Then, stating the obvious, says: "We messed up."
"Yeah we did." Scar bites his lip, fidgeting with the fabric of his armrest. "We have to do something about this. We were doing - that deal was *great*, Bdubs."
"It was." Bdubs nods. "Then We called his son a pet."
"We can make it up to him. We could get him..." Scar brings a hand to his chin, wracking a piece of Tubbo trivia that would help him out. "Shulkers...?"
"They'll just fight over them over there." Bdubs responds, hunched in on himself and scratching the side of his face in thought.
"Right." Not that. Jeez. Most of his valuable resources would be impersonal or outright contraband on Tubbo's home server which is not helpful.
"We could build him something." Bdubs suggests hopefully.
"It'd get destroyed." Scar's at a bit of a loss. Services are the other thing Hermits deal in and nearly all of those are out of the question - few would even make up for dehumanizing a child anyway. (Was dehumanizing the right turn of phrase? de-child-ifying? de-person-ifying? -- Now was NOT the time to think about semantics actually.)
And then it hits him.
"Toys!" He shouts, straightening his posture. Bdubs looks back at him, confused. "This is about his kid, right? We should apologize to Michael, too. We could make toys!"
"Ohhh, you're right!" He cheers, pointing at Scar. "That's genius! But...uh, how do we do that? Make toys?"
"It can't be that different from regular crafting, could it?"
It could be, it turns out. In theory making toys is very simple; figure out what you want to make, and then make it. The problem comes in the logistics of the thing. See, Scar had the brilliant idea of making Michael a little wooden truck, at most consisting of five or six pieces. But the wheels never rolled as smoothly as he'd like and working on such a small scale made him feel unusually oafish - like he couldn't quite get his hands still enough to do the details.
It didn't help at all that Scar usually relied on magic for most of his creations, perhaps more than he should. Even if it appeared mechanical the gaps were often filled in with a little supernatural hot glue, so to speak. Just to make things run a little smoother, a little more naturally. That's how his bases always seemed to breathe a bit more than they should. But the small scale didn't allow for a crutch like that and the magic wouldn't last on another server anyway, so he's woefully relegated to analogue techniques.
It sucks.
Bdubs was better at it at least, having experience building his own furniture which is a bit like toys for adults, if you think about it. Not really actually, but the skills translate well enough and he's able to put together an adorable little wagon complete with a rope to pull it around.
While Bdubs worked on that, Scar resorted to pulling out the needle and thread, scrapping the toy truck idea entirely. He'd never get it good enough and this was not a normal gift-giving occasion; the fate of the relationship between their servers could be at stake! And, more importantly, Tubbo's feelings.
So Scar does something he is good at: he sews Michael a little friend. It's a little bigger than he'd intended, made of a soft felt and shaped like a hoglin. He wasn't sure what Michael liked but he'd seen baby piglins playing with hoglins before, and zombie pigmen aren't too different from piglins, so maybe it would remind him of home? In a good way?
Scar sure hoped so.
Scar's stuffed toy happens to sit quite nicely in Bdubs’s wagon, so that's how they stage the gift, throwing in a few diamonds for good measure.
All that's left to do is to request Tubbo's presence and hope he shows.
"He will show, won't he? I mean - I did say it was about official business, so he'll have to show and then it'll be all good. Right?" Scar's picking at the hem of his sash again, teeth worrying the inside of his lip.
"Of course - of course he'll show, Scar." Bdubs replies, setting the plush toy upright again and adjusting the position of the diamonds. It looks very nice with a bow on front, the dream gift for any kid. Part of Scar wishes they could see Michael's reaction but they're unsure enough about Tubbo. "He's never not shown up, and he will *love* this."
Right on time ten minutes later Tubbo is stepping through the portal, childless this time as they'd expected but not looking particularly peeved. That's a good start.
"Heyy, Tubbo!" Scar says, arms extended in a welcoming gesture.
"Tubbo!" Bdubs greets from where he's standing in front of the gift.
"So, we know last time that we didn't really - uh, part on the best of terms. So-!"
"We made you something! To apologize. For - yeah," Bdubs steps out of the way and gestures towards the wagon, grinning wide.
Tubbo stares at it a moment before his eyes go wide. "Oh-!" He steps closer, kneeling down to get a closer look at it. His hand almost reaches out to touch it but he hesitates, holding it just above where the contents of the wagon sit. "I don't - this is for me?" He says, glancing at Scar and Bdubs cautiously.
"Yes! We felt horrible about that misunderstanding the other day so it was only fair that we make it up to you!" Scar explains.
"They're toys! For Michael." Bdubs chimes in.
"And some diamonds for you, for the trouble."
"For the trouble...?" Tubbo looks between Scar, Bdubs, and the diamonds. It's a healthy half-stack, nothing too crazy, but now Scar is wondering if it's not enough. He does literally have a diamond throne. Did it look like he skimped out? "The thing with Michael? It was just a misunderstanding."
"Even so! These are yours, here, look! They're handmade." Bdubs gestures for him to inspect the gift closer - and he does, picking up the plushie.
"You made these?" He's turning over the plush hoglin in his hands, fingers running over the seams. Scar was proud of how sturdy he'd gotten them to be. Michael could throw it in a river and it should be fine.
"I made that one! And Bdubs made the wagon." Scar smiles. He likes it, surely.
"Oh wow." Tubbo says, now looking at the wagon beneath, plushy tucked gently under his arm. The wagon is not especially detailed but still has a nice bit of trim around the edge to make it look a little fancier than it is. "You really didn't have to do this."
"Ah, but we wanted to! Please, take it. Won't let you leave without it." Scar rolls up behind him and has the mind to place a hand on his back but hesitates. Up close Scar can see Tubbo smiling softly.
"Okay." Tubbo says, placing the hoglin back in the wagon. When it topples over he sets it back up gently. Scar is hit with how young Tubbo is. Not young enough for him to be playing with toys himself, but still clearly so small. If you stripped away the suit and the scars he's still just a kid.
But he has a kid at home, and a husband, and far, far too many scars. He's an ambassador for an entire server, taking regular day trips to discuss things even Scar would rather eat rocks than talk about and Scar signed up for it. Was Tubbo given that choice? Did he sign up for all these responsibilities or were they shoved onto him far too early? Iit makes Scar ache to think about the kind of place he must be from that's burdened him with so much.
It must not be all bad though, Scar thinks watching Tubbo patiently stack the diamonds around the plush to get it to stand upright for the way home. He looks happy. Scar hopes his husband is nice and that their house is warm and safe. He deserves at least that much. He deserves much *more*.
Tubbo stands again, rope of the wagon held loosely in his hand. "We should get to business."
"Oh, don't worry about it. Wouldn't want to make you drag that around all day." Scar pats him on the back. He's giddy just imagining Michael's reaction to the toys and he won't even get to see it. Tubbo must be excited too.
"But, won't there be delays?" Tubbo's fingers idly pick at the rope, almost pulling apart the weave before he realizes what he's doing and stops himself, forcing his other hand to his side. Undoubtedly the loose strands will be enough to entice Michael to continue where his caretaker left off.
"We can blame them on Scar. You should get home." Bdubs grins and Scar nods along. Tubbo looks unsure but nods too.
"Thanks for all this. He'll - I think he'll really love it." Tubbo says, staring at the gift again like he couldn't believe it was really there. How many toys does Michael already have at home? Are these his first? Will they be his best?
You know, Scar hasn't spent as much time sewing recently as he could be. Don't want to let those skills get rusty.
"Of course!" Scar says, nudging Tubbo back towards the portal.
"And we meant it, when we said you can bring him any time." Bdubs adds on.
Tubbo looks between the two of them for a moment before leaning forward and giving each a hug. "Thank you." He repeats, before pulling the wagon through the portal with him.
Alliance saved, feelings spared.
“We did it.” Scar grins.
“Thank gods.”