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When Tubbo made his way up to the bench, he’d expected it to be empty, hoping for a moment of solitude after a long day, hoping to mourn his friends in peace.
When Tubbo made his way up to the bench he was excited, jumping up and down in anticipation, hoping to meet up with his friends for the first time in a while.
Instead, he was met with, well, not quite a stranger, but someone he was pretty sure he recognized from somewhere. As much as he tried, he failed to put his finger on who the man (child) was. It felt wrong, to have someone else, someone foreign, at their place, but at the same time it was curiously, strangely normal.
As he got closer, Tubbo finally recognized the child. The black and yellow striped sweater and overalls should have given it away earlier, but then, who could fault him for not instantly assuming the impossible?
The boy’s bright eyes caught his and he couldn’t help but flinch at the innocence of his unmarred face. He wasn’t meant to feel contempt at this. He wasn’t meant to resent the child for having yet to experience the horrors of the world first hand. He wasn't meant to resent himself.
As the man approached, Tubbo became more and more confused. He looked… similar to him? He’d never known any of his family, so maybe this was a brother or cousin of his? But if so, how would the man know about the bench?
They made eye contact, and he only shrank back a little at the sight of the scar stretching half of the other’s face. It looked scary, but he’d always been courageous so he forced himself to grin as they finally met at the top of the hill.
“Hi! Who are you?” He didn't bother with suspicion, much too impatient to find out what was going on, put off only slightly by the man’s serious, nearly sorrowful expression.
“I’m… you. ”
It took a second for the words to register before he laughed, confusion clear in his face.
“Are you alright bossman? Hit your head or something? You can’t be me, because I’m already me. And that’s just- that’s just not how it works.”
“Tubbo-” he flinched at the sound of his name. “I don’t know how this happened either. But I’m, like, an older version of you. I can prove it.
With that, Tubbo pulled a compass out of his pocket, a small, fragile thing, the needle no longer fixed towards north and a huge crack spanning the glass.
Tubbo mirrored his motion, unfastening a compass from his belt and holding it, still working and clean, only slightly chipped on one side from the time he’d accidentally dropped it trying to catch Tommy who’d decided to jump him as a ‘surprise loyalty test’. The next time his friend had tried that he’d dropped him on purpose.
They stood side by side, holding them together old and new, the engraving in on one of them nearly faded, on the other stained red because Tubbo had regrettably thought that would look good at one point.
It was his compass. Their compass .
Tubbo looked up at the man again. It wasn’t definitive proof, but if he let himself, he could see it. Their eyes were the same soft amber, horns matching ivory and he recognized the tiny bee pin adorning the thick winter jacket next to an eye of ender.
Tubbo looked at the younger version of himself, trying to ignore the way his eyes seemed to flicker away from the scar, instead focusing on the expression he’d seen in the mirror so many times before.
He knew what he must look like, all tired with deep rings under his eyes and exhaustion in his bones, his once innocent eyes forever darkened by life, obstructed in part by scar tissue. He was bruised and battered and with the tip of one of his horns broken off.
They were quiet, for just a moment, taking each other in.
“What… what happened… to us?” It was barely a whisper, terrified in a way that nearly broke Tubbo’s heart.
He wanted to smile, to say ‘hey, it’s not so bad’, but couldn’t bring himself to lie. Had it been a different day, a different life, had he not come here to grieve the loss of Tubbo’s two closest friends, he might have. Instead, he opened his arms to hug the little boy standing in front of him, wrapping his arms around the thin frame tightly.
“Life happened.” and it would happen again. The kid was so full of hopes and dreams, he did not deserve to have them crushed like this, and if he could, Tubbo would have promised to protect every child in L’Manburg, past, present and future, with his life. Life was brutal, and cruel, and this boy deserved none of it.
Tubbo heard the quiet response, safe in the arms of his older self who smelled of engine oil and fireworks. And Tubbo was so, so afraid of what was to come.
And for the first time, Tubbo took a moment to mourn. Not the people and places he’d lost, but the childhood that was so clear in front of him, and the hopes for adulthood he never got to have.
He had been so innocent, full of hope.
He had been so happy, full of hope.
Tubbo didn’t want to cry but for the first time in a long, long time, he did.
What had happened to him? How could he still have hope now?