Archive of Our Own ^beta

“ Tubbo !”

He flinched as he heard his name barked down the cold hallway, immediately scrambling to put everything he had out away in drawers so his space would look as spotless as it was intended to be. He got up and raced to the doorway, making it just as a figure pushed open the door.

Dream surveyed the room with his hard green eyes, misintention flashing over his features. He clearly saw nothing out of place, but that didn’t mean any praise was coming his way.

“You have a new responsibility,” Dream remarked, cold and cruel, just as he always was. “Follow me.”

“Yes, sir.” Tubbo just barely kept his voice level, closing the door with nothing more than a click behind him as he followed Dream’s footsteps through the frozen marble hallways. He kept his hands closely grasped behind him, making sure not to touch anything, even if he needed to keep his hands busy. Dream never stuck around him for long, he’d have time to fidget in a few moments.

A new responsibility usually meant that Dream had gone out and caught another hero, and Tubbo would be in charge of running food and necessities to and from the cell until Dream decided to do away with them. It was not the worst of Tubbo’s tasks. Usually, the heroes were nice to him, said thank you when they could, and asked him a few personal questions that he’d never been asked by anyone of authority, let alone Dream.

Not that he was being treated badly, or anything. He was healthy at the very least. Dream was cruel to those who didn’t heed his beck and call, but those things were never hard. Tubbo owed him anyway.

Just as Tubbo expected, Dream unlocked the door to the cell blocks, which were about four squares of cold concrete and white-painted steel that framed bulletproof glass, making the people look like animals at the zoo. Tubbo hoped it wasn’t one of his favorite heroes this time. He wasn’t supposed to have any, but the more hell they gave Dream, the more he heard about them and admired them. Zephyrus and Ares were always up there, and Tubbo always hoped to meet them one day, though hopefully not in this setting.

The person in the cell was no one he recognized, however. He was small, for one, with dirtied blonde curls, clinging to a ripped red hoodie that didn’t allude to any hero's uniform. His blue eyes snapped up at their entrance, wide and open with fear, and it made Tubbo’s gut twist.

He looked about Tubbo’s age, which was just a little bit of a scary thought.

“This is Tommy,” Dream stared into the cage like he was watching a show, and not a real person behind the glass. “He’ll need two meals a day and the usual necessities.”

Tubbo nodded with something hard lodging in his throat. He didn’t dare let it show, but he decided that he could risk speaking up. He’d been good recently, he could handle asking a question as long as he didn’t stutter. “Sir, which hero is he?”

“He’s not a hero.” Dream looked over at him, no more aggravated than he was normally. That was a relief, usually Tubbo didn’t get to ask questions. “Tommy is the son of a hero. You’ve probably heard of him. Zephyrus.”

Oh, that was new. It kind of made sense. Zephyrus always had a place in Dream’s books as someone who had to die. But why would his son be here? He didn’t have anything to do with any of this. Tubbo silently hoped that maybe since he wasn’t a hero, he wouldn’t be hurt like the heroes.

“Oh, and if you find out if he’s hiding anything,” Dream smiled the way that made him shiver. “Tell me immediately. I don’t want this catch slipping through my fingers.”

Dream began walking out, and Tubbo didn’t take another moment to look at the kid in the cell block before following him. He shivered only once when he was out of Dream’s sight, and followed him back through the cold hallways until his responsibility would begin.

---

It was pretty late when Tubbo was told to bring the prisoner his food, and he didn’t know why it was so late this time. Tubbo had eaten hours ago, and the kid was probably starving already, but he didn’t question his orders, and he didn’t hesitate to carry the box down the hallways and to the cell block.

The kid was curled up tight in the corner, hugging himself with his arms and doing his best to keep out the cold. The rips in his hoodie had been pulled until the seams met together, but Tubbo knew it wouldn’t do too well as a blanket.

Still, he wasn’t in any position to do anything about it.

“I have your food,” Tubbo called as he set the box down in the slot that transferred between the glass. He pushed the drawer in so it was accessible from the inside, and it was only until the latch clicked that Tommy finally looked up.

They met with a sinister form of understanding, and Tommy stood on shaky legs to take the box from where Tubbo had put it. He sat cross-legged in front of the glass, opening up the top of the box to look at what he was given.

It was just like any other prisoner. A sandwich with some kind of meat on it, a little side of whatever canned vegetables were salvaged from the rest of the base’s dinner, and a cup of water.

“I can’t eat this,” Tommy spoke, and his voice was strangely small. It wasn’t like Tubbo expected his voice to be loud, but it had a tone to it that said he was supposed to be, and he wasn’t.

“Why not?” Tubbo twiddled his thumbs and played with the buttons on his shirt. Tommy picked up the sandwich and pried the pieces of bread apart, letting the meat fall to the bottom of the box.

“Can’t eat meat,” Tommy mumbled, picking off what was left on the bread. “Makes me sick.”

“Oh,” Tubbo said dumbly like he had any say in the situation. “You can eat the other stuff though, right?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugged. “Could you tell them that I can’t eat the meat?”

Tubbo shook his head quickly. “I can’t talk back. I’ll get punished.”

“Oh,” Tommy said in reply, mirroring Tubbo’s own words, and then looking up at him. “Why are you with the villains?”

It was something he’d been asked a lot when he had to take care of the other heroes too, but he didn’t know why they always insisted on calling them villains. Dream said there was no such thing as a villain, and though Tubbo hadn’t heard any other opinion, he didn’t usually get to hear others’ opinions.

“Papa worked with him,” he told Tommy, referring to Dream. “When he died only Dream could take care of me, but he said I had to work for him to earn my place.”

Tommy nodded slightly, nibbling on his bread. “Do you wish you could leave?”

Sometimes the heroes asked him if he could leave, and that was always a silly question, because where would Tubbo go if he did find the exit? He wasn’t exactly great at survival, probably wouldn’t make it very far on the streets, and it’s not like any nice lady was just going to pick him off the street and tell him he could stay.

Tommy’s question, though, was a tough one.

“Sometimes,” Tubbo answered honestly. “But where would I go?”

Tommy didn’t have an answer to that and didn’t say anything else. Tubbo asked for the box back so he could leave, and Tommy gave it back to him through the latch.

“What’s your name?” Tommy asked in a short whisper like it was meant to be a secret.

“Tubbo,” he said in a normal voice. It wasn’t a secret, he could talk to the prisoners as long as he wasn’t avoiding other duties or trying to become a hero.

“Tubbo,” Tommy tested out the name and then leaned closer to the glass. “Is Dream going to hurt me?”

“I don’t know,” Tubbo pinched his fingers together. “He hurts the heroes, but you’re not a hero.”

“I’m not,” Tommy shook his head, “But I want to be one, one day.”

“Don’t tell him that,” Tubbo snapped, this time whispering. “Maybe he won’t hurt you if he doesn’t know.”

Tommy nodded, letting out a small “Ok” as he backed away from the glass and went back to his vegetables.

Tubbo took that as his cue to leave, carefully fixing his posture as he walked back to the door in case he ran into Dream in the hallways.

“ I’m scared ,” he heard whispered on his way out, but he wasn’t sure it was meant for him to hear.

---

Tubbo was all too familiar with his powers.

He often found himself unintentionally using them, seeing outlines through walls and waking himself with the buzz of his power through his veins. It was always late at night when it happened, he never got to really use them during the day.

But at night, when he couldn’t dare leave his room, and his lights wouldn’t turn on until seven am, the slight static of his ability would rumble in his bones and leave his heart pounding with the urge to do something .

He could always tell when someone was injured. As long as he could see them or had met them before, he could tell if they were hurting. It didn’t matter if they wore the biggest smile, it didn’t matter if it was a huge bleeding wound or a little paper cut, he could tell. He could always tell, and it drove him crazy.

It was late at night, when the world was heavy with darkness and the bright golden light of his powers outlined a figure through the walls and down the hall. He could hear the phantom buzz of screams, and how their hope started to dwindle. He could tell if they were crying, how much it hurt, what was hurting, if it would kill them.

He could look through the walls and he could tell that Dream was hurting Tommy.

And it hurt him to see it, to know it. He couldn’t ever do anything about it. He wouldn’t dare tell Dream he had manifested his ability yet. Tubbo knew they didn’t usually come in until later, and he wouldn’t admit that his fear of Dream eventually turning on him had sparked them.

He would forever be stuck in his dark room, praying for the light to fade, because he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. He just needed sleep, Dream could always tell when he had trouble sleeping.

But Tommy’s begging was louder than most. He couldn’t physically hear them, but he could tell how they rubbed his throat raw, how it hurt, how he wasn’t- couldn’t stay strong enough to be defiant. Not like the heroes. Tommy was a kid. One like him.

And now that Tubbo knew Dream would hurt even the littlest of people that he took in, his heart wouldn’t stop pounding.

He didn’t get any more sleep. He couldn’t.

---

Tubbo brought Tommy his food in the morning, and the golden outline he had around him only got brighter in Tubbo’s eyes.

He was cradling his stomach, his head hanging low on his chest as he either slept or tried hard to. His body was pressed further into the corner than he had been in yesterday, and his hair was all knotted and strained from where it had been pulled and twisted. Tubbo could see his bruised ribs and the muscle strain on his arms from trying to pull away. There wasn’t too much more than bruises and his mental state dipping low, but it was still scary.

“Tommy,” Tubbo called timidly. He knew that if Tommy was sleeping it probably wasn’t good to wake him, but Tubbo knew that he would want food either way.

The kid brought his head up, his eyes bloodshot, but pried himself up to move toward the drawer that Tubbo diligently put the food box into.

Tommy took it gingerly in his hands, taking everything out before giving the box back to him, and sitting down in the same corner to eat it.

Tubbo didn’t want to leave. Leaving meant going back to his room, or doing whatever chores Dream had thought up for him to do today.

Dream had said he could talk to the prisoners, as long as he knew why they were there and what they had done to his father. Tubbo always did, he knew that the heroes had driven his father out of the tower and tried to murder him before he could leak anything classified to the public.

However, Tubbo knew his father more than most, and he knew that there was nothing good in him either.

“Can… can you tell me about the heroes?”

Tommy’s head snapped up warily, eyeing him with careful consideration. He looked like he was about to say no, but seemed to decide against it, and finally pushed himself out of the corner to sit against the glass.

Tubbo sat down right across from him, and he listened.

“I’ve lived with the heroes forever,” Tommy told him, picking at the food that he looked too unwell to eat. Tubbo could feel his nausea. “They’re the best people on earth. Dad- Dad does a lot of good. He helps a lot of people.”

Tubbo nodded. He knew that the heroes helped people, like picking them out of fires and stopping people who wanted to take their things. He knew that they also fought Dream, and Dream came back hurt sometimes, Tubbo could tell.

“Don’t they hurt people?” Tubbo stuffed his hands into his pants pockets to keep them from fidgeting too much. “Dream comes back hurt sometimes.”

“Dream is a villain,” Tommy stated like it was the surest thing in the world. “The heroes don’t try to hurt the bad guys, but they don’t want to be hurt either. They’re trying to put them in jail, and sometimes they have to hurt them to do it.”

“Heroes only hurt the bad guys?”

Tommy nodded, and Tubbo had to think about that for a minute. Of course, Dream told him that ‘villains’ weren’t real, that anyone could look like a villain, but if they only hurt the people they thought were bad, was that a good thing?

“Dream hurts the heroes that he captures,” Tubbo tries, but it’s hard to figure this stuff out. “He thinks they’re bad.”

“Dream is the bad one,” he stated, once again, like there was nothing at all to prove him wrong. “He steals things and he hurts people that don’t need to be hurt. He set a building on fire once, and he kidnapped me.”

That was true. Tommy was here, in one of the cells, and Tubbo didn’t know why. He was only related to a hero, he wasn’t one, and there was no way that he actually did anything to warrant being here if Dream was being truthful about the heroes being bad.

“Why did he kidnap you?” Tubbo finally gave in to the urge to fidget with his fingers.

“Because he wants Dad to find me,” Tommy crossed his arms. “And he wants to hurt Dad.”

“But then why did he hurt you?”

Tommy looked down at the floor, his expression determined yet hurt. “I think Dream just likes to do it.”

Oh.

But- but it had always just been a job! Dream had said it was to make a change, or for the greater good!

“But he always has a reason,” Tubbo looked sternly at the bottom of the glass. “He has to have a reason.”

“Villains just like being villains,” Tommy shook his head. “They might make up reasons, but they don’t need one. That’s what Tech told me.”

Tubbo didn’t know who Tech was, but he had too many things going through his head to ask, and he wasn’t sure he liked what he was hearing.

“Do you want to leave, Tubbo?” Tommy asked him, and it surprised Tubbo so much that it shook him out of his thoughts.

“You asked me that yesterday,” he muttered, picking at his nails.

“I know,” Tommy pushed. “Do you want to?”

“Sometimes,” Tubbo said, just like yesterday. “But I have nowhere to go.”

“If you had somewhere to go, would you leave?”

No more injuries keeping him up at night, no more food delivery, no more seeing heroes hurt, and no more constant fear of Dream.

“Yeah,” Tubbo admitted in a whisper. “But I don’t know how.”

Tommy smiled a little bit. “Don’t worry. I can handle that part.”

---

Dream didn’t wait until night to hurt Tommy again.

Tubbo had the box of food in his hands when it started, the bruises that had just begun to settle picking up again violently, the golden glow that Tubbo had tried to steer around growing until it was so bright he couldn’t face it. Tubbo heard the pleas for help and felt the tearing of his lungs as he sobbed and struggled to catch his breath.

Tubbo’s legs brought him to the cell on their own, and he dropped his box once he got in through the doorway.

Tommy was dangling in Dream’s grasp, the door to the glass cage thrown open. Tommy’s face was red from sobbing, tears rolling down his face as he begged in a hoarse whisper for him to stop.

“You know how you can make it end, Tommy,” Dream was telling him, pulling at his collar until Tommy’s already ruined hoodie was tearing even more. “Just tell me his name.”

“No!” Tommy yelled, squirming, but it sounded shaky, like he was on the edge of just giving in.

Tubbo had never seen Dream’s tactics, but he knew of them, and he knew of them well. If he wanted information, he would use any means possible to get it. Often Tubbo was forced to see heroes with waterlogged lungs from how many times Dream had forced their heads under the water of a bucket.

“Fine,” Dream hummed. “We’ll take it to the next level then.”

Dream pulled out a knife from his belt, and Tubbo was already running in by the time he processed what he was doing.

“Stop!” He gripped the handle of the knife Dream was holding, and the man only whipped around to throw him against a wall. Tubbo’s lungs deflated with a small umph , and he had trouble prying himself back up.

“Tubbo.” Oh, and he didn’t like that tone. He knew what that tone meant. It meant the worst punishments for well over a week, it meant only food when there was nothing left that the dogs would eat, and it meant the chores that took hours upon hours of no sleep to get done.

Tubbo cracked at the tone, tears already pooling in his eyes as Dream dropped Tommy on the ground, and he curled into a heap.

“What do you think you are doing, Tubbo?” Dream knelt down in front of him, but his eyes were fiery with rage and craving pain. Maybe Tommy was right, maybe Dream just liked it.

“You can’t- why would you hurt-?” He was gasping for air now, his gaze was suffocating.

Dream chuckled something low, sinisterly prying at the edges of Tubbo’s peeling paint, poorly patched from the last time it had cracked under pressure. “Your sympathy finally got to you, did it? You couldn’t handle seeing someone your age. I knew it would do something, but all of that work, those years of obedience, Tubbo, to throw it away like that?”

Tubbo shivered. He wasn’t hitting yet. There was no pain, why were there only words? Dream didn’t tell him what he did wrong, he just made sure it didn’t happen again.

“Let me tell you why I hurt Tommy,” Dream started, standing up tall and leaning over the kid that had pressed himself to the far wall. “For one, he’s related to Zephyrus. I told you that. Don’t you think his son would be corrupted with the same twisted ideals those heroes have?”

“ You’re twisted,” Tommy spit back, saving Tubbo from answering. “You- fucking dick .”

Tubbo’s ears almost prickled at the sound of the curse, coming from a mouth much too young, crackling with an energy that shouldn’t have manifested yet into such a small being.

“Secondly,” Dream dropped his voice. “Tommy has an ability . A power that’s come out once before, hasn’t it?” Tommy looked shocked this time. Horrified. “I just don’t understand why you won’t use it.”

“I’m not luring my Dad into a trap!” Tommy screamed this time. “I won’t do it!”

“But you will,” Dream laughed, inching closer, “With enough prompting, it will come out of you.”

“No!” Tommy pressed himself further into the wall, eyeing the open door like he had even a chance at making a run for it. “Please- please please don’t hurt me-”

“One or the other, Tommy,” Dream sang, and then stopped. Tubbo felt his heart stutter as those green eyes trailed back to him again. “Or, actually, what if I took your new friend ,” Dream crossed the cell in record time, snatching Tubbo up by the collar before he even had the chance to twitch. “And killed him.”

Tubbo’s mouth was hanging open, and it took him more than a moment to realize that he was the friend.

“Wha- Dream- Dream I’m -”

“Quiet!” Dream demanded, and Tubbo’s head hit the wall so hard that it bounced back. His own injury monitor popped into existence, and a throbbing picked up behind his skull. “What’ll it be, Tommy? You can call out for your family, you can tell me Zephyrus’s name, or you can watch your new little friend die .” Dream smiled. “And I’ll keep the body in here with you.”

“You can’t kill him!” Tommy tried to get up, but his knees gave out from underneath him. He had a concussion . “He’s not involved!”

“But you’re attached,” he sang like it was some great achievement. “Which means he can be used .”

Crack . A fist landed on his nose. Tubbo’s head bounced back again as he cried out. Fractured, not broken . It was bleeding, he could feel the red pooling above his lip.

“What’ll it be, Tommy?” Dream held his throat, air was getting harder to obtain.

“He’s not in this! He works for you!”

Dream laughed, “After this? Not anymore.”

Crack . Another hit again at his face, landing on his cheek, definitely leaving a bruise.

Tubbo shut his eyes so he didn’t have to focus on the scene. He listened to his breathing, his frantic heartbeat, and the roaring of blood in his ears. He squeezed them shut until he could see patterns dancing beyond his eyelids and could feel the way his teeth were clenching.

“I won’t do it! I won’t!”

Crunch . Now his nose was broken.

Pain throbbed up like a leak. His breathing was too fast for his liking.

Tubbo found that staying silent in the midst of his inevitable doom was a scary thing to do. He had always been too obedient. It had helped him with his father, and eventually helped him with Dream, but now it just felt like he was accepting what was happening, that he was playing the role of the victim that deserved it.

He wanted more than these marble floors and too-cold hallways. He wanted more than taking prisoners their food and shying away from anything that might make him seem like anything less than a dog beaten until it was broken. He wanted so much more than what life had given him. He wanted to run in grassy fields and talk about the heroes and see the sky and find out what shade of blue it actually was. He wanted to go to school and sleep in a bed that wasn’t freezing him to the bone and not have to worry about the glowing outlines of hurting people outside his door.

Maybe he’d get that next time, though he thought most people lived much longer than eleven.

Bang . His head slammed into a metal support that held the glass walls of the cell. He winced as he felt it cave in on itself slightly, the room spinning and the lights seeming far brighter than they had been before. He couldn’t help but scream, there was nothing else to do but scream, and he did.

Tommy screamed with him, but his seemed different. His echoed in Tubbo’s ears until his thoughts were filled with it. His scream went far beyond the walls of the place Tubbo had been told to call home. Nothing filtered it out, and it bounced far away from where they were, to be heard by the whole world.

“Now, that wasn’t so hard,” Dream said snidely, and then Tubbo was on the floor, his body hitting the concrete ground with a loud smack. He coughed until his lungs restarted and his brain finally got the chance to dip out of fight or flight mode.

There was one more sharp kick to his ribs before Dream’s footsteps left the room, the door closing behind him and locking with a click.

Tommy tried to get him to sit up, but it hurt. It hurt to breathe, and he didn’t feel like dealing with it. His power had never blessed him with the ability to resolve those injuries on people, though, just to know of them and possibly never do anything about them.

His head was screaming at him to fix it, but what would he do it with? He was no healer.

“Wha’ did you do?” Tubbo slurred, his eyes refusing to open, but tears still leaked out of them anyway.

“My power,” Tommy confessed, “It’s hard to control. It- I can call for help from anywhere, and they’ll know where I am.”

Tubbo felt a shoulder touch his own. He could feel Tommy’s injuries speaking back to him, far worse than his own, yet Tubbo couldn’t deal with a broken nose and a concussion. To be frank, he’d never had to before. He’d never gone through anything like this.

“Why didn’ you do it earlier?” Tubbo fought for words, they were hard to think up.

“Dream has a trap ready for Dad,” the shoulder touching his shivered violently. “He wants to lure him in and kill him.” Tubbo frowned, but his eyes wouldn’t open, they were far too heavy. “He’s gotta make it. He’ll beat him.”

“Heroes always win, righ’?” Tubbo tried, but it came out as desperate rather than comforting.

“Usually,” Tommy shivered again, “And we’ll get you out.”

“Where will I go?”

“Home,” Tommy spoke like he could will it into existence. “You’ll go home.”

---

Tubbo and Tommy clung tightly to each other as the fighting started, and they didn’t move. They didn’t dare let each other go, trying to muffle the sounds of screams and gunshots as they echoed along. Both of them were cold, the room’s temperature was far under what it should have been, and they each hadn’t eaten for longer than they should have, not to mention that each of them sported matching concussions and equally as crushing headaches.

Tommy was hopeful, but Tubbo was not.

It was why, when the door to the cell block eventually flew open, Tubbo blocked Tommy’s body before Tommy could protect him. He’d be the one to die if he had to, he’d keep Tommy as safe as he could until his heart stopped.

But it was Zephyrus that walked in the door, his wings outstretched and ready for a fight, but he softened as soon as he set eyes on the two.

“Dad!” Tommy called, but he couldn’t really move, not with the extent of his injury. Tubbo backed off as Zephyrus got the door open, two more figures bursting into the room. Tubbo didn’t know who they were. They looked like heroes, but he’d never seen them before.

Tommy was scooped up in Zephyrus’s arms as soon as he was inside, crying and clinging to his dad, making noises that didn’t sound like something Tubbo could make. Tubbo’s heart welled up with acid, happy for him, but far more jealous than he should be.

It should have been the least of his concerns. His brain was in turmoil, he was beaten up and bruised, he was still in a cell and the only people around him were people he didn’t know if he could trust.

The one in red kneeled down in front of him, taking up the forefront of his vision. Tubbo looked at him with scared, wide eyes, nothing of recognition in his stare.

“Hey, kid,” the man rumbled, it was low but soft, and it made him relax just a little bit. “We’re not going to hurt you, ok? My name’s Ares, I’m a hero. I’m here to help you.”

Ares . This was Ares! Tubbo had wanted to meet him! He gave Dream a hard time, he was the one that annoyed him so badly that he would scream in a room with a sword and wonder what he was missing.

But… he was a hero.

Tubbo worked with villains. Or, maybe he used to, he wasn’t exactly sure of his entire employment status at the moment, being locked in a cell.

“Can you tell me your name?” The hero questioned through the mask, and it was hard to see his eyes, but they were in there somewhere. “Or where you live? Where your parents are?”

Oh no. His last name was Schlatt, just like his dead father. He lived here, he didn’t have anyone to go to. He was trapped. Where would he go? He had nowhere to go.

He would be rescued for what? To be dumped on the streets where the people would wait for him to die?

Tubbo couldn’t help it. His tears started to fall again. He shook his head, trying to say so much at once, but none of it came out. He was just silent as droplets of water wove their way through the red that was still probably lining his nose from when Dream had broken it.

Would other people be like that? Would they hurt him? Maybe they wouldn’t hurt Tommy, but he grew up with the heroes. Tubbo grew up with villains, how was he ever supposed to be ok?

“It’s ok, kid, you’re alright,” the hero tried to calm him, but Tubbo’s fear just got louder in his ears. “You don’t have to tell me now, but I’m going to get you out of here, ok? We’re going to go with Tommy.”

Tommy said he’d figure out how to get out, and he guessed he did, but Tubbo had nowhere to go.

But… going with the hero was better than staying here.

When Ares reached down below Tubbo’s shoulders, he reciprocated. He clung tightly to the hero that held him, looking over at Zephyrus, who was holding a clingy Tommy while whispering reassurances and little sounds that sounded like those chirping noises birds made. There was another hero in blue next to them, with curly brown hair forming ringlets over his eyes.

Maybe that was Orpheus. He was usually with Ares.

Ares was tall, but Tubbo couldn’t appreciate it. He just held his eyes tightly closed and hoped that this was more than a rescue. He hoped he could find a place to go that wasn’t a dumpster along the street.

He doubted anyone would take in the son of a villain. Screw whatever Dream said about villains. Dream was one, and so was his father.

He wouldn’t tell them. Tommy didn’t know, no one had to know.

Ares held him gently but securely as they walked through the cold hallways one last time. Tubbo didn’t even want to look around. He wanted it to be all behind him.

But the embrace was so warm, and the walk was so steady, that Tubbo didn’t even realize he was falling asleep until it was far too late to bring himself back from its pull.

---

“Techno,” Tubbo heard someone say out of the fog of his own rest. “You don’t think that’s Schlatt’s kid, do you?”

Immediately Tubbo was awake, but he wouldn’t dare let himself be known. What would happen if he did say his dad was Schlatt? Would they lock him in a cell? Would they kill him like they killed Dad?

“That probably makes the most sense out of everything,” Ares rumbled back. That must have been Techno. “I wonder what Dream did to him to make him so… skittish.”

“He’s probably long overdue for some actual rest,” another voice Tubbo didn’t really recognize spoke. Maybe that one was Orpheus, it sounded lighter than Zephyrus’s. “I looked through those dorm rooms and they got almost nothing. It would be even worse if he was stuck in that cell the whole time.”

“I don’t think he was,” Zephyrus spoke softer than the rest of them, he was probably still holding Tommy. “Those injuries on him are pretty recent. My guess is he probably got punished for trying to help Tommy.”

“We’ll have to thank him,” Ares sighed, and Tubbo felt the way his arms shifted. He had stopped walking, and the air had a pleasant warmth to it. They were probably inside somewhere, maybe at the- “We could probably give him a place here at the tower until we find a more permanent home for him, figure out if he has anyone left.”

Tubbo was at the heroes’ tower. He was in the one place he never should have been.

Yet, it was so nice here.

There were footsteps that fell over to them, a pen clicked open. “This is the kid? Do we have a name for him?”

“We haven’t found out-” Ares began, but Tubbo brought his head up, opening his eyes to look at the nurse holding a clipboard, studying him like she was trying to find the best way to stuff him into a box.

“I’m Tubbo,” he murmured and didn’t realize until then that his grip on Ares’s clothes was keeping the hero from putting him down.

“Do you have a last name?” The nurse asked again, writing down his response.

Tubbo bit down on his tongue. He would not let himself be known, he would be gone in minutes, no matter what those heroes had said, no matter how nice they seemed on the outside.

Tubbo shook his head softly, bracing himself for the heroes’ coaxing, but the three didn’t even flinch. The nurse looked up at Ares for some kind of confirmation, and the man just shrugged. Tommy was still passed out in Zephyrus’s arms, looking a little more put together.

“We’ve got a bed for you, so we can get you all fixed up,” the nurse smiled at him even while writing some things down. “Someone can accompany you if you’d like.”

Tubbo doubled his grip on Ares’s outfit, and the hero chuckled. “I guess that would be me.”

“Right this way, then,” she turned on her heel, and Ares only adjusted his grip once more before following the nurse through the hallways.

Tubbo got the chance to look out the window, and he got to see the sky. A bright blue, with white wispy streaks running through them. He gripped the windowpane briefly to get Ares to stop, staring at the brilliantly colored expanse of the world around them.

Maybe the heroes would be nice, at least for a little bit.

Maybe things would work out.