Archive of Our Own

It happens on Monday night. They, he, didn’t see it coming, Tubbo’s never been the type to meticulously plan.

“I don’t get why you don’t just close early,” Tubbo asks, twirling the straw in his coke. Ranboo’s on the other side of the counter, wiping down the far corner where his coworker, Aimsey, spilled something an hour ago.

“Because I actually want to keep my job, Tubbo.” Ranboo presses his lips into a line after replying. Tubbo’s not having any of it. 

“No one else is coming in, I reckon.” Tubbo pushes.

Ranboo along with other miscellaneous kids from their high school work at Mikey’s Pizza which is possibly a crime against something . The actual restaurant is in a strip mall crammed between an empty lot and a tanning salon that hasn’t seen business since the eighties. Mikey’s Pizza can’t even fit a fifth table inside of it but at least people order their food occasionally.

Ranboo shakes his head, he’s too loyal for minimum wage. 

“Aimsey already left.” Tubbo was debating the use of GMOs with himself and they used it as an excuse to clock out and sneak out the back door. 

Ranboo shakes his head again.

Tubbo pouts in response. “So you’re gonna do deliveries?” He asks. Checkmate

The dish rag Ranboo’s been wiping across the counter stops in his hands. “I hate you.” He turns and retreats into the kitchen.

Tubbo cackles at the bar, victory is sweet.

Theoretically, Ranboo could do deliveries, his boss wouldn’t know it was Ranboo driving the car and it would be fine. But Aimsey’s the one on shift that makes the runs, Ranboo is banished to the counter and kitchen. Mikey’s Pizza is notoriously understaffed, there should at least be one person for every job. There never has been.

It’s high on the long list of reasons Ranboo should quit. He’s stuck around the longest of all the part-timers, long enough to make it to his senior year in high school and still be working there. Tubbo sitting at the bar for the latter half of Ranboo’s shifts is probably the only reason he hasn’t run out the door more than a reasonable amount of once.

“Do you want another Coke?” Ranboo asks, peeking his head out from the corner, a mop nestled in his hands.

Tubbo smiles, it’s more of a smirk but that’s beside the point. It can’t mean anything good. “You tryin’ to keep me awake? Hm,” He straightens up on his stool, “y’know if I didn’t know any better, I would call that flirting!” Tubbo says without missing a beat.

Ranboo does not smile back. He absolutely regrets ever using Tubbo to covertly say fuck you to his boss by funneling out copious amounts of free drinks. He hopes Tubbo gets cavities. In fact, his hate is so strong that he goes back to not hiding in the back, which has no relation to the splitting grin on Ranboo’s face because he isn’t smiling.

“I can see your smile.” Tubbo yells over the counter. Damn him to hell.

Ranboo yells back. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

It’s a quarter to ten when Ranboo finishes mopping, haphazardly, whatever has fallen onto the kitchen floor. Which almost means a reasonable amount of time has passed since a delivery order has come in for Ranboo to clock out. People ordering pizza past ten pm on a Monday night should be locked up let alone if it’s from Mikey’s .

Mopping the floor pretty much covers half of the closing tasks Ranboo ever does. Most of them are very small and take less than five minutes, even less if Tubbo wants to make himself busy.

Today he has by scraping off a chunk of dough from the inside of the counter he’s now leaning on. “Can you drop me off again?” He’d been quiet while Ranboo cleaned.

Ranboo pauses. “Uh, yeah? You mean like at your house right? Cause’ that’s fine, yeah.” He almost leaves it at that. “Or Tommy’s? Which- which is fine, I don’t mind the drive.”

Tommy lives almost on the outskirts of town, on the line of suburbia and rural countryside. His house isn’t as far as the places Aimsey and miscellaneous delivery drivers complain about having to drive to but it’s far. It’s farther than where Tubbo lives and definitely a good distance from Ranboo’s apartment.

Tubbo scratches the last of the dried dough onto the floor. “Nah man, it’s chill. Just gonna head home.” He replies.

The silence that follows feels more suffocating than it should.

The line Ranboo treads from overstepping into Tubbo’s padlocked personal space keeps getting harder to see. It feels like he’s tight-roping across some max security facility but if he looks down, there is no roof and he can peek right into the mind of Tubbo. Maybe the rope is getting thinner.

Ranboo’s not sure if Tubbo wants him to peek over, two years ago the answer would be no, a year ago it would have been a maybe. Now Ranboo’s pretty sure Tubbo wants him to take a look but if he doesn’t Ranboo will fall hard and fast. Maybe it’s more of a leap of faith. 

Ranboo never jumps, he’s always been a coward.

“Cool,” He lets the mop rest against the wall next to the back door, “cool, cool, cool.”

Tubbo helps him put away the few trays of toppings left out, which might be a health code violation, and it’s fine. Ranboo didn’t need to be brave, he’s never needed to jump.

“So what do you think Aimsey had going on?” Tubbo’s question doesn’t come off any certain way, they’re fine. No awkward tension and no-

“I dunno. Maybe he had something to get to.” Ranboo says quietly.

Tubbo turns back to the front counter, starting his walk to his things. “I mean they don’t have friends.” Ranboo can hear the smile on his face. 

The friendship Aimsey and Tubbo have is strange at the best and not so friendly at the worst. “I reckon he talks to rocks and flowers.” Tubbo doubles down with a wicked grin.

Ranboo stares back. “I’m pretty certain- I think actually, that you’re his friend.”

“Yep, you seem really certain, Boo!” Tubbo’s smirk, this one is definitely a smirk, stays on his face.

It’s past ten now. “Okay then, I’m gonna clock out.” He glances back. “Wanna take the trash out for me?” 

“Nope!” Tubbo pops the p.

The trash is still sitting in the can like before when Ranboo signs out. Tubbo is sitting at the counter once again, tapping away at something on his phone. Ranboo grabs the bags and heads out the back door.

The outside seems to be baked in shadows, there aren't any street lamps behind the strip mall. It’s just a deep blue that covers the back of the building and the street across. The street doesn’t have any buildings on it, just a cold vacant road that winds into the highway. And farther beyond.

The door behind Ranboo clicks shut and the bright yellow lights go with it, quickly shadowing everything beyond his eyes. A small lamp hangs off the wall, it’s much less bright than the ones inside but its glow is almost orange. The dumpsters on either side, dark green in color, almost fade into the night, hiding amongst the dark brick of the building. 

It’s calming to step outside of Mikey’s during the day shift but Ranboo doesn’t enjoy the dark. The uneasy feeling of being alone behind a strip mall that Tommy’s brother says is haunted, which is something Ranboo really wishes he didn’t remember or ever know, is not a nice companion. He can hear the click of the hanging lamp hitting the wall as the wind whips back and forth, seemingly growing stronger.

Why can’t they install street lamps on this side? It’s so dark . The orange light flickers under a blink.

Ranboo’s shoes scrap against the asphalt of the empty parking lot. Before he can go back inside where warm yellow light resides, he looks over his shoulder. There was no reason for him to look back because even if he feels eyes on him, there isn’t. It’s just like when he closes all the blinds in his apartment because he’s paranoid. 

Everyone always says that it’s just paranoia.

There is no reason for Ranboo to feel watched in an empty parking lot with a man staring back at him. 

That’s not supposed to be there.

Ranboo’s hand slams against the back wall and his other hits the side of the dumpster. He doesn’t register the sting as he can feel the rough brick still digging into the smoothness of his palm.

The man walks closer. “Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sincere.

Ranboo tightens himself, pulling his hands back to his sides. “It’s- uh fine.” It’s not. He should go back inside. This whole situation feels like a bad setup for some horror movie.

The person approaching is blonde and tall, shorter than Ranboo but he makes it up with broad shoulders. He has a scar that cuts through his eyebrow and stops just above his eyelid. There’s another, smaller one next-

It’s Dream. The realization is crashing and not at all comforting which recognizing someone coming out of the dark horizon should be. His smile doesn’t seem right, it’s width shouldn’t be able to fit on his face, stretching the skin around his bone like that. Ranboo’s shoulders tense further. This is all so very wrong.

“Why are you out here?” Dream tilts his head like this is some kind of game.

“Uhm,” Ranboo fumbles with his words. “I mean uh, I work here.”

He needs to calm down. Dream isn’t going to out right attack him, Ranboo knows that. He likes to play and taunt in a much more horrifying, Ranboo is coming to realize, way a cat plays with its food. Batting against a fish on a string, pulling rib and gut from scale as the string coats with blood and matts in the fur.

In an upsetting late-night conversation, bundled up in Tommy’s room, he was told-

“He has a reputation to keep up.” They were both on the floor, looking out the window, Tubbo was cuddled up in Tommy’s bed.

Ranboo doesn’t remember how the conversation got there or everything that was said. It was past midnight and an hour before they actually went to bed. Tommy was rambling about a much different night, one where he wasn’t hidden under a large comforter with an abandoned movie next to his best friends.

He said he felt afraid and small. “I dunno, he made me feel small like I, like- like I wasn’t as big as I shoulda’ been.”

-Ranboo’s only heard bad things about Dream.

“Hmm,” Dream rests against the opposing dumpster. He almost looks awkward for a moment. “I like the pizza here.”

Ranboo regrets looking behind him. “Oh, it’s not very good.” It’s fitting that the one time he regrets checking is when someone is there.

Dream laughs, it’s more soft expelled air through his nose than anything else. “I guess that’s true.” He stands up and presses closer. “Maybe it’s just nostalgia.” He doesn’t seem like the guy to stop on the past, sit, and talk about kindergarten teachers he wishes were still around. Dream doesn’t seem like he’d enjoy any conversation Ranboo is a part of.

Ranboo doesn’t say anything. He can hear his heart beating out of his chest, Dream must hear it too.

He does. “Why are you so scared?”

“I don’t know.” Ranboo presses his back against the right dumpster. “I’m uh, just kinda nervous.”

“You’re Tommy’s friend, right?” Ranboo can smell the alcohol on his breath. He doesn’t respond.

Dream smiles, eyes crinkling and skin stretching out far too thin once again. “You are!” Ranboo can see the recognition in his eyes, the slivers that are visible but piercing through Ranboo’s own wide eyes.

“Y’know, I never really got to meet his friends very often.” Ranboo feels sick, his back presses further into the dumpster. He can’t feel his own hands holding onto the insides of his pockets. The ripe stench of old trash wafts up in waves, helping build the bile in Ranboo’s throat.

“Can- can you just, uh back up a little bit.” Dream doesn’t move. 

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” His smile feels mocking.

Ranboo looks between his eyes, the words are stuck in his throat. “Uh.” He tries to swallow them back down.

“Y’know I always thought you were weird.” Dream is still too close, it’s some kind of booze on his tongue. “Why’d you even move here? Kinda fuckin’ weird you showed up in the middle of the year to live with Niki.” He adds. It’s common knowledge Ranboo showed up out of nowhere to live in a town with a population of just more than a thousand. It feels like an accusation out of his mouth, something Ranboo should die denying.

Dream’s yelling too close to his face, the smell of booze mixing with garbage. “You do know she’s not your mom, right? Did your parents throw you out or something? Wanted to get rid of the freak.” The rum on his breath is now overpowering, he’s starting to pant like a dog cornered, foaming at the mouth. Except Ranboo’s the prey here, he’s the one with his back pressed so hard against the metal edge of the dumpster it might be breaking the skin under his jacket.

It doesn’t come out as a yell this time. “Really funny, y’know!” It’s breathy and way too close to Ranboo’s face.

He can feel his heart beating louder under his rib cage. Ranboo’s face feels hot. 

“Well are you gonna fucking answer?” Dream demands, coming even closer.

Ranboo’s teeth are clenched together. He doesn’t have enough time to think if they might break from the force.

“Why,” Dream takes a deep breath, punctuating his words. “the fuck are you here?”

It doesn’t make any sense because Ranboo isn’t some horrifying monster his mind keeps trying to make him out to be and Dream doesn’t know that. He’s a high school student with a 4.0 GPA he’s cried over more times than he can count. Ranboo isn’t interesting or the key to any investigation worth starting, he’s boring and plain and invisible. It doesn’t make any sense for Dream to know some horrifying truth that Ranboo doesn’t even know about himself, that this interrogation is going to somehow lead to the undoing of the world and it’s somehow Ranboo’s fault.

The back door slams open. Ranboo doesn’t register it before his hands are pushing against Dream’s chest because he’s destructive and Dream knows. He’s falling backwards and Ranboo can’t hear any more accusations because he isn’t a bad person and he can’t actually hear anything anymore. 

Except for the crack which testified to every lie Ranboo’s told himself.

——

It’s loud, the door hitting the back of the building. Tubbo grabbing the rolling pin on the closest counter isn’t.

When Tubbo looks back outside, Dream is on the floor. He isn’t still.

Wood hitting skull isn’t as loud as a door hitting a brick wall, a scream is.

The sound ricochets up Tubbo’s arm and into the next swing and into the third and the next and the next and the next when blood is coating the pavement.

Tubbo’s not sure if the rolling pin hitting the asphalt makes a sound. The outside is just quiet, dark, and a deep red. All up his arms are a tingling sensation, his legs feel tense and hot. Tubbo steps back into the parking lot, further away from the restaurant. His breathing is heavy, it shakes his lip and ribs as it breaks out. 

Dream doesn’t move.

There’s blood covering his face and Tubbo’s shirt and the asphalt and the dumpster and the surrounding area. It’s all red.

“Ranboo,” Tubbo’s voice shakes. His mouth feels dry and his teeth fight against his bottom lip in a way they shouldn’t.

“Step back,” Ranboo is still standing a foot away from the dumpster. He’s breathing heavily. Tubbo’s breathing is a force that breaks out of his chest, Ranboo’s just shakes his body.

“Can you step back,” Tubbo pleads. He keeps staring at Dream. “please?” 

“Right, yeah. Mhm.” There’s blood across his cheeks and up his forehead. Ranboo moves and squats down next to Tubbo. It takes a second before his legs give out and he’s sitting on the asphalt.

“Oh my god.” He’s staring at the ground. “He’s dead. Oh my god, He’s-“ Ranboo’s breath trips and he shakes harder. “Oh god, we, he’s dead! Tubbo, he’s dead! We’re- he’s- oh my god.”

Tubbo stares ahead. “It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s gonna be fine.” His voice is still shaking.

Ranboo’s own words dissolve into whispers and sobs. He puts his head between his knees and repeats his whispers like they’re untrue. 

“Ranboo. Boss man, you gotta breathe.” Tubbo’s hands are clenched hard against his own arms, they don’t shake but his knuckles are a stark white.

“C’mon man,” It feels like a desperate plea. “you gotta get up, okay?” Tubbo can’t focus, his arms are numb and there’s something dripping down his chin. There is something tightly wound and stuck in his chest that he can’t break apart from.

Ranboo’s sobs sound hysterical and loud against the silent night. His breaths are choppy and shallow.

Tubbo can feel the pressure build against his eyes. He unclenches his hands, there are red marks on his forearms where they were. He stares down at his hands for a moment, the whole world just static for one second, he feels out of breath.

“Ranboo, can you breathe with me?” Tubbo bites down on his bottom lip and breathes through his nose. The air still rips out of his mouth too soon.

“Okay, shit!” Tubbo gives up on Ranboo responding. He closes his eyes and sits next to him. “Just- uh, I’m gonna count,” They breathe in.

“One, Two, Three, Four...”

——

It’s midnight on a Monday and Tubbo is standing on the inside of Mikey’s counter. His hands are gripping the granite. “Where’s the trash bags?”

“What?” Ranboo is sitting on a stool, the one that has Tubbo’s things resting against its base. He hasn’t looked up from his hands in ten minutes.

“Can't leave him out there.” Tubbo stares straight ahead, past Ranboo’s down turned head.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They’re in the bottom cabinet next to the sink. Tubbo grabs the whole roll.

——

Dream is heavy, Tubbo knows this when he pulls a trash bag around his bottom half and then around his head and torso. He further understands this when he helps carry him to Ranboo’s car and then when he helps place him in the trunk.

“We need to clean the blood up,” Tubbo says plainly.

Ranboo stares at the asphalt. “Right.” There’s still blood on his hands. “Uh- How, how do we do that?”

They both know that washing blood off asphalt rubs your hands raw. Even further than that, it hurts when you use hot water and soap to scrub it off your skin.

——

“Hey, give me your keys.” Tubbo still doesn’t look at Ranboo.

“Why?”

Tubbo puts his hands out. “Cause’ you can’t drive when you’re shaking.” He states. Ranboo drops his keys in Tubbo’s hands. He doesn’t mention how they have a slight unsteadiness to them.

Tubbo’s hands shake as they lift above the wheel when he turns onto the road. When the car straightens out Tubbo holds the wheel tighter, his knuckles are white. Ranboo stares ahead, the destination, although half unknown, is looming over both of them.

There aren’t many cars on the road even if it is the highway. Manning is a small town surrounded almost entirely by forest, people rarely visit. The most use the highway sees is the influx of people during school breaks who drive through to get to the mountains a couple of miles out.

“Uh,” Ranboo breaks the silence. “we’re, we’re not calling the cops, right?” He knows it’s too late.

Tubbo stares ahead, eyes glued to the road. “No.”

“I’m gonna be honest we really fucked up, Ranboo.” Tubbo adds.

“Okay, okay, yeah.”

Ranboo has never been driven by Tubbo before, in fact he is almost positive Tubbo doesn’t have his license. But Ranboo’s hands still shake even under the force of which he is holding them together.

Tubbo pulls off the highway. 

Ranboo clenches his hands tighter. “Okay uh, where are we going?”

They come to a red light. “My place, unless you have some rope hidden in your car.” Tubbo watches the traffic lights.

“No, uh, I don’t.” Ranboo doesn’t want to leave it at that. “Why do we need rope?” He pushes further.

The light turns green under Tubbo’s gaze. “I mean the ground’s too hard to bury him.” He hits the gas. “We uh. The lake isn’t far.”

“Oh.”

It’s mid November and they’re due to see snow in a month or two. Winter months in Manning tend to be calmer than the rest. Many of the older residents leave to get away from any impending snow storms, like birds migrating, which leaves about half a population. No hikers tend to come after November even if it’s a warm winter. 

Ranboo’s fallen victim to the normalcy and habitual nature of small town living even if he came late to it. It’s easier to be at ease with a new way of living when there isn’t much to compare it to. Half a book of written memories doesn’t quite make him sentimental.

The car pulls up to a chain fence, the left side of it is falling down. “We’re here.” Tubbo says as he pulls his seatbelt off.

Ranboo watches him get out and step onto the empty road. “Uh, is this okay?” He doesn’t know why he asks, he knows it isn’t.

“No,” Tubbo stares back at him. “you wanna stay in the car?”

In the three years Ranboo has known Tubbo he has never stepped foot in his house. He’s been to Tommy’s more times than he could ever count or remember. Ranboo has even slept over in the little attic Tubbo calls his home away from home. 

If there was ever a time to break further from habit, it’s now. “No uh, I’ll come with.”

It’s much colder inside Tubbo’s house than in Ranboo’s car. The living room lights are on when they step inside. 

Tubbo steps further into the house with his boots in his hands, he straightens up when he hits the hallway right of the kitchen. Ranboo watches from the small entrance, he stays put until Tubbo makes it all the way back to him.

“No one’s home, boss man.” Tubbo grabs Ranboo’s hand. Both of them are cold but Ranboo clings harder as he gets pulled into a room that isn’t Tubbo’s.

They drop their hands when they reach the middle.

Tubbo digs through the closet immediately, Ranboo stands uselessly in the middle. A collection of beer bottles cover the far desk, papers are scattered and stacked on the seat.

“Uh, Tubbo? Whose room is this?” Ranboo asks but in no way does he want the answer.

“Schlatt’s.” A pause.

“Where the fuck is the rope?” Tubbo mutters to himself.

Ranboo holds his own hands close to his chest. “Why do we exactly need rope?” Ranboo wants this answer even less.

Tubbo turns to look at him this time. “Y’know when me and Jack were talking about dead bodies like a month ago?” He asks and then takes Ranboo’s furrowed eyebrows as a notion to keep going. “Uh. When you die you got like gasses in you from decomposition, I think. So you kinda float in water.”

Ranboo nods a little too quickly and a little too hard. “Okay, yeah. That uh, makes sense.”

Tubbo goes back to pouring through Schlatt’s closet. Ranboo can only think about the dead body in the trunk of his car.

“We’re gonna weigh down his body,” Ranboo says into the air. He bites down on his lip to stop it from shaking.

“Yeah,” Tubbo’s response doesn’t come out nearly as strong as it was meant to. He tries again. “with rocks and shit.”

Ranboo stares endlessly out the window above Schlatt’s desk. He knows there’s blood on the front of his shirt and probably on his open jacket. In the reflection of the window, he can make out a bit, dark and angry, stuck to his collar. He feels sick.

Tubbo pipes up. “Hey Ranboo, can you grab this box?” 

“Ranboo?”

Slowly he looks away from his own eyes in the cloudy glass. “Sorry, yeah.”

When Ranboo brings down the box from the top of the closet, Tubbo rips the lid open immediately. At the bottom of it, next to old fishing lures and wire, is a thick rope probably twice as long as Tubbo.

“That’s it.” Ranboo thinks he might throw up.

“Yep.” Tubbo looks a little green.

——

It’s colder and later in the night when they get to the lake. The car is parked as close to the lake as Tubbo could get it. There is still a bit of distance to cover, there’s half a trail and a few trees to get through.

The trail starts going downhill and Tubbo grips the trash bags in his hands harder. “We’re gonna be fine.” He repeats in his head.

The lake is pretty when the sun touches it but it’s just darkness as they descend closer to the water. Ranboo has a flashlight balanced between his teeth whilst he grips Dream’s upper body.

When they reach the edge of the lake, Tubbo ties the rope around Dream’s midsection. He tries to pretend it’s a normal late night, that he isn’t desperately trying to remember how Tommy’s oldest brother taught him to tie “the best knot in existence”. Tubbo’s hands are shaking like he’s back sitting in the living room trying to get the rope through the hole faster than Wilbur, Tommy’s other brother. 

These are much different stakes as Ranboo watches him tie rocks to a dead body.

“I think this is good.” Tubbo wants to be back in Tommy’s living room surrounded by his family. He wants to be far away from this lake.

Ranboo shakes right next to him. He must be praying for the same thing. “Oh, okay. What- what do we do now?” He asks.

“We gotta push him out.” Tubbo tries to even his own breathing.

He tries harder as his hoodie sleeves soak in lake water. The black bags sink in the water as Tubbo lets go of his hold on them. The lake seems a lot less beautiful. The dark water looks like it could engulf Tubbo if he got any closer, trees lining the back edge of the water loom over him.

“Let’s go back.”

Tubbo walks past Ranboo to the path back to the car. He can hear Ranboo walking behind him, but neither of them speaks.

The water trapped in Tubbo’s hoodie sleeve feels heavy as he trudges uphill. He tries to ignore it.

It still feels heavy when he turns the car back on. His whole body feels like he has weights attached to it when Ranboo speaks up.

“What are we going to do?”

Tubbo looks at him. “What do you mean?” He has blood under his chin and on his collar peeking out from his jacket.

“I mean we killed a man! You do realize people get arrested for that.” Ranboo says louder than normal but not quite yelling, he seems more frustrated than angry.

“What do you suggest we do?” Tubbo knows it’s too late for this discussion. They already dumped the body, there was no going back a long time ago.

“I don’t know exactly.” Any aggression leaves Ranboo’s body as he looks back at the dirt road.

Tubbo puts the car in drive. “We need an alibi.” He says.

“Alright.”

They just pass the trail signs when Tubbo starts again. “Here’s my proposal, we left Mikey’s after you clocked out. You drove me home, end of story.”

“Cool- Cool- Cool, we have a plan and everything.” Ranboo nods sharply.

“Yeah, it’s simple.” Tubbo turns onto an actual road. 

“Mhm simple.” Ranboo bites his tongue.

——

Ranboo’s hands shake when he tries to unlock his front door. “Sorry.” Tubbo rocks back and forth on his feet behind him.

All the lights are off when they walk in. Ranboo still whispers Niki’s name despite it. Silence rests dense in the apartment, Tubbo shimmies his way past the half open door.

“Is Niki home?” Tubbo asks in whispered form. Ranboo doesn’t know. She normally texts him if she won’t be home when he gets back from work but as she and Puffy get closer , the texts have fallen from their precedent.

The stove lights are still on. “I don’t know.”

“Just check, man!” Tubbo stands at the opening into the kitchen. His voice isn’t above a loud whisper.

A floorboard creaks under Ranboo as he approaches Niki’s room. He knocks softly against the door. When he gets no response Tubbo urges him on with narrowed eyes. Ranboo pushes the door open.

Her room is empty. Niki’s desk lamp is still on, illuminating the stacked cups and trash littered around her desk and bedside. An old bowl with a smaller one on top of it sits at the edge of Niki’s bedside, barely grazed by light. Ranboo closes the door before Tubbo can peek his head in.

“She’s not here.”

The stove lights from the kitchen light the pathway to Ranboo’s room. Tubbo stomps his way in before Ranboo. He flips the light on and skips past the mirror on the wall. He heads straight for Ranboo’s closet.

“I think I have some old gym shorts that might fit you. Or, or you could borrow some of Niki’s?” Ranboo fiddles with the hem of his jacket, there’s blood stuck to it. 

“Thanks, boss man.” Tubbo digs his hands through the hoodies in the bottom of the closet. He pulls out a dark blue one, it’s almost black. “Can I?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.” Ranboo turns away to look through the multitude of old clothes he outgrew that are stuffed in one of his dresser drawers. He tries to ignore the blood under his fingernails and just barely peeking out of his sleeve. 

The shorts are at the bottom of the top drawer, the plastic casings of the draw strings have been peeled off from past use. “Found em’!”

“Ranboo?”

At the mention of his name he turns around, he knocks his planner off his dresser in doing so.

“Yeah?”

Tubbo still has blood under his chin. “I was just gonna ask if I can take a shower.” 

Ranboo nods too hard, adrenaline hasn’t stopped coursing through his body like it has Tubbo’s. 

It feels a lot more suffocating in an empty room when you’re covered in blood. At work Ranboo is a loyal employee, the one that cleans the kitchen without needing to be prodded. He comes home late on Fridays if he works the closing shift because people always come in up and till the doors are locked. For the first time since Ranboo stepped out the back of Mikey’s, he looks in the mirror.

There’s a large spot of blood where his jacket’s zipper is open. It grows in size the more he looks at it. Like his guilt and paranoia in his gut is bleeding out, dripping into a puddle at his feet.

Ranboo’s eye bags are deeper than he remembers, sunken into his face like a corpse. His whole face feels heavier than it ever has before. Like his cheeks are melting off his skull and his lower jaw is falling against the weight, allowing for lies, soothing discomfort, to fall out from his open mouth. The scar on his forehead has blood stuck in it like it is oozing again. The original cause of the gash above his right eyebrow has escaped his mind. Ranboo imagines it cracking open from a rolling pin, opening from the sharp corner of a dumpster.

He watches as his hands shake and his teeth rattle together in the mirror. His bed is behind him but it’s only him in the reflection of the glass. It’s him next to a dumpster with his back pressing harder and harder against it.

A door slams open.

“Are you okay?” Tubbo asks, his hair dripping onto the carpet. A towel is clutched in his hands, unused. He looks a lot less brave than Ranboo remembers, it’s much darker under his eyes too.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” They both know what it means. Ranboo thinks Tubbo might know more than he does, with the way his knuckles are a stark white from the long sleeves of Ranboo’s navy hoodie.

Tubbo sits cross-legged on Ranboo’s bed, his back against the wall, the towel still in his hands. Water falls continuously onto his shoulders.

Ranboo sits on the opposite side of his bed, on the very edge.

Tubbo speaks again. “Shit.”

Ranboo looks up through the mirror at Tubbo. His head is flat against the wall. “What?”

Tubbo’s eyes are clenched shut as he stares at the ceiling for a second more.

“Tubbo, what? What’s going on?” Ranboo’s heart beats against his chest.

In the mirror, Tubbo’s eyebrows knit together. “Your shoes.”

Ranboo’s head shoots down. He can feel his teeth chatter. His once black and white converses, classy in a geeky way, are now black, white and red .

“Oh..” No other words come out. Ranboo just stares at his shoes still glued to his feet. Fundy, one of Niki’s old friends she always promises to make plans with, got them for him. Fundy had said he got them custom made, Niki late at night that same day had bitterly said it was a way for Fundy to buy his way into their life.

It was almost three years ago, towards the end of sophomore year, the first year Ranboo spent in Manning. Unlike the other times he had felt like an outsider making snap judgments at people in Niki’s life, Ranboo felt like he fit. It was the wrong time to realize that Ranboo was rooted to Niki. It clicked then anyway, listening to Niki grumble about a man buying her cousin something to get into her life again. 

Ranboo feels far away from that fifteen-year-old sitting on the couch with coffee stains, close enough to hear the whirring of an open fridge. Blood stains and the soft sound of Tubbo wringing his hands through his hair stick to him.

Tubbo clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I mean they were getting worn out, honestly.” He says, it comes out mean.

The red on white is blinding. “Do you think I can wash them?” Ranboo wants him to say yes.

“I don’t know, boss man.” It’s another lie.

“Right, yeah.” Ranboo toes his shoes off gently and places them next to his boots.

The carpet is rough against his feet as Ranboo paces the length of his room. His heel hits the floor first then toe. Heel then toe, over and over.

“You should shower, hot stuff.” The name falls flat off of Tubbo’s mouth.

Ranboo’s heels burn as he turns around to look at Tubbo. “You don’t like me covered in blood?” It sounds more hostile in the air than he meant.

Tubbo looks him in the eyes, unbothered. “Nah, I like you fresh.” His knuckles are still white, it matches the towel he grips.

——

It’s past three am when they climb back into Ranboo’s car. Tubbo is sitting curled up in the passenger seat this time. His legs are tight against his chest as the cold November air is still fighting against the car’s heater.

Tubbo’s been trying to stop picturing his hands holding the rolling pin. The way he swung, his arms started to ache after the lake. It’s the kind of soreness that Tubbo thinks will last a lifetime. He welcomed it into an empty parking lot and now he’s letting it take up residence in his arms. 

Pulling his arms around his legs, gripping forearms, isn’t helping. He can feel each bump in the road ricocheting in his bones. They’re dense and heavy, like they’ve soaked up every ounce of lake water and blood in his own jacket that's shoved in the corner of Ranboo’s closet. 

Ranboo’s shoes, Tubbo’s favorite hoodie, and the rest of their stained clothes are all balled up in a reused target bag. Ranboo tied the thing off with a pretty bow and Tubbo stuffed it into the back of the closet, suffocating it. He doesn’t feel guilty because you only feel guilty when you’ve done something wrong.

They haven’t. Tubbo didn’t bash anyone’s head in, he is a different kind of screw up. One who’s staying up late on a Monday because he’s stealing bourbon from his brother’s stash. Tubbo Underscore will be deadbeat and a drunk not a convicted murderer. He will follow in line with every no good in his family, there isn’t one of them that hasn’t made the choice, Tubbo uses the word lightly, to fuck up. He won’t be worse than them and in no way will he ever be better.

The car hits a bump.

“Almost there.” Ranboo hasn’t said a word since they left.

“Okay.” Tubbo’s been pretending he’s been too preoccupied with warming up to start a conversation. 

They turn on Tubbo’s street. He wishes he stayed at Ranboo’s with lavender candles that don’t spell out jail time, for grand larceny and petty theft, not murder. When Ranboo stops the car, Tubbo wishes for a moment that he didn’t clench his teeth. That he fell apart and let Ranboo call the cops. It’s a small wish for this whole thing to have ended earlier on.

“Are you still cold?” Ranboo asks, he looks like he has a bomb strapped to his chest.

Tubbo would have pleaded guilty.

“I think I’ll be alright.” 

It’s colder inside. Tubbo left his house earlier in the night with the heater off and now he feels as if he can see his breath. He can’t but it doesn't stop the feeling that his legs might snap off if the heater doesn’t kick in soon. The short gym shorts he’s wearing instead of winter clothes don’t help fight against the cold. 

Tubbo’s bedroom is small, the size isn’t the reason he barely considers it a room. There is one odd Arctic Monkeys poster that Wilbur gave him two years ago. He had passed it off as new but Tubbo had definitely seen it on his wall a week prior when he and Tommy snuck in to steal Wilbur’s old halloween candy. The poster strategically covers a hole in Tubbo’s wall where his own brother, Schlatt, had made with his fist.

There isn’t a lot of decoration or memorabilia in his room. Besides the poster and a couple polaroids from last year his walls are bare. He has an empty desk, a floor half covered in dirty clothes, a broken window covered by cardboard and a poorly decorated wall. It isn’t that depressing next to the lack of a table and counter covered in beer bottles in the living room.

Winter had never really been good for the Underscores. It always ends with a money scramble to pay heating bills and one half of them in a drunken stupor for all of December. It only worsens when Quackity inevitably drops whatever plans he had prior to spend the holidays with them. There's a lot of awkward shuffling in the kitchen on Tubbo’s part as he navigates between the dysfunctionality his life has always existed in and Quackity’s want to make things work. 

Despite the overwhelming evidence of failure, addiction, and debt in their family, Quackity always comes back. He keeps trying to make a family of deadbeats succeed. It started with packed lunches and awkward smiles to a kid Tubbo, now Quackity has landed himself too deep. It’s a curse, to be a Schlatt or an Underscore but maybe poor attachment is what it means to be Quackity HQ.

He never fixes them, Schlatt always lashes out and then locks himself away, Tubbo always runs and for some reason that Tubbo can never figure out Quackity always comes back. He has an out, he has a wide open door but without fail he always comes back to standing where a table should be.

Tubbo used to get angry that he wouldn’t run, it would be so easy for him. It was a selfish hate, that Quackity didn’t have to come back. Every couple months Tommy’s dad tells Tubbo that his house is always open to him for however long he needs. Tubbo smiles and thanks him, he never stays longer than a week. He crawls his way home, to beer bottles, cigarette smoke, burnt coffee and a miserable half-employed brother. Sometimes to a sort of Schlaltt, sort of Underscore, bound to house the same way they all are.

It’s just Tubbo home tonight. Cigarette smoke still spills out the house’s windows.

——

Tubbo has first and second period with Tommy. Upon Tubbo’s arrival into Chemistry, Tommy immediately clocks the eyebags that practically weigh down his body. 

“You okay, king?” Tommy asks, despite the remnants of breakfast on his face, looks completely serious.

“Yeah,” Tubbo throws his backpack on the table, it crushes Tommy’s homework. “you got shit on your face.” 

There’s a stack of papers at the far end of the table, Tommy had probably forgotten to pass them down. Tubbo reaches over and grabs two as Tommy gawks at him in fake offense.

“How dare you!” Tommy pushes his own cheeks together, and a few bits of toast fall off in the process. They land on the stack of papers Tubbo is about to pass.

Tubbo giggles when he looks up to see Tommy angrily smushing his face together. It only launches Tommy off again. “I actually wanted these here, they are my friends and I love them. You’re just a wrong ‘un!”

Tommy stops arguing halfway through first period when Jack, who snuck away from his own table partner, comes over to jabber on about something . Tubbo tunes out their conversation. He thinks back to trying to make each turn in Ranboo’s car. The counting of every left turn he had to make to get to his house. He remembers trying not to panic when he got on the highway, they passed a cop car taking an earlier exit. It felt like the world was ending around their car but Tubbo could not look, it could have been and Tubbo would have been none the wiser.

Driving around the potholes and uneven roads around his house was harder than Tubbo ever remembered. When he was fourteen and hopeful of never returning to Manning when he got out, he thought he’d leave, Quackity taught him to drive. It was in the summer that he graduated high school, he promised Tubbo that he would teach him to drive before he left for college.

They practiced in late afternoons, barely going eight mph around the shitty roads near home. Tubbo didn’t have enough money saved for driver's ed even if he was old enough and Schlatt just lost his third job of the year. It was easy to just cruise around in Schlatt’s beat-up 90’s Toyota Camry. Quackity went on about traffic signs and the “rules of an intersection” when they started driving further out. 

The first place Tubbo drove to was a grocery store a mile away from his house, he and Quackity fell over each other when it was time to park. Tubbo ended up reasonably centered. Almost two years later when Tommy was learning to drive he was banned from parallel parking because it almost gave Wilbur a heart attack. It was all that Tommy talked about the summer into sophomore year.

In August, a month after Tubbo turned fifteen, he drove on the highway for the first time, with an anxious Quackity and a dying Schlatt.

He was trying not to cry as he watched for the exit that said “Hospital ahead”. Quackity didn’t end up going to a college out of state, he signed up for a year of community college and moved half his things into Tubbo’s and Schlatt’s house. He said he would stay a couple of months to make sure Schlatt got back on his feet. That was four years ago and his clothes are still in the top drawer of Schlatt’s dresser.

Quackity never went to a four year college, Schlatt’s twenty four with a cardiac event and multiple occasions of alcohol poisoning under his belt. Tubbo gave up his dream of leaving Manning when he was fifteen.

Tommy shoves him; Tubbo almost topples.

“What the fuck!” Tubbo exclaims and promptly ignores Jack’s laughing to stare down Tommy.

“You were getting all spacey and shit!” 

“Asshole,” Tubbo grumbles under his breath. It’s almost indecipherable over Jack’s laughing but of course, Tommy hears it. He’s had plenty of time practicing tuning out Jack, it only makes sense.

Tommy scoffs. “I was just checking on you, man!” 

Tubbo is fine. He does not need checking on.

He loves AP Chem, there is no reason he wouldn’t want to be doing a worksheet on ionic compounds. It doesn’t matter if he barely slept three hours last night or if his arms ache as he tries to erase a typo. It’s just like every Tuesday Tubbo has spent ignoring his friends, fighting to finish his work. Tommy will ask to copy it before the class ends and everything will continue on like normal. There are no skeletons in Tubbo’s closet. It doesn’t matter if his own bones rattle.

“I’m fine.” It sounds convincing, Tubbo knows it does but his eyes will betray him. So he does not look up to face Tommy even if it feels like he’s losing the same battle with himself.

Tubbo rewrites the same wrong answer on his paper. He can change it later when Tommy isn’t staring him down and Jack is done gasping for air.

After an uneventful second period of napping while Tommy tries to explain the plot of some movie he saw on Sunday, lunch should be good. When Tubbo and Tommy get out of the lunch line Ranboo has already sat at their table with Jack and Aimsey. Tubbo stares at him and curses the world. It’s in Ranboo’s eyes, the way he’s hunched over, and the pace of his foot tapping against the ground, it all screams that he’s done something wrong. Tommy, of course, sees it too.

“You okay, big man?” It’s casual, unsuspecting. Tommy sits down next to Jack.

Ranboo takes it as an accusation. “Y- yeah, yeah, of course!” It’s a miracle that his leg shaking isn’t moving the table at all.

Tommy takes one look at him and tries again. “You sure?” Tommy pries, he’s always been the type.

Tubbo takes his seat in front of Ranboo and prays for the questioning to stop. It's a silent plea for himself as well.

“Mhm!” Ranboo forcefully takes a bite of his sandwich and nods his head. It takes much longer than it should for him to swallow. He has some grotesque combination of bologna and mustard in between the bread, it was their entire lunch conversation last week. Ranboo sticks to routine and what apparently “tastes best”. 

Tubbo stares at his school lunch and redirects the conversation to Aimsey before Tommy can further question Ranboo. “What the fuck are you wearing?”

Aimsey smiles and replies. “It's a beanie, thank you very much!”

Tubbo squints at their hat. “It has bunny ears. It’s fucking abysmal!” 

From next to Tubbo, Tommy bursts out laughing. It, unknowingly, eases some of the tension out of Ranboo’s shoulders. Tubbo watches them retreat back down from his ears as Tommy argues with Aimsey.

Tommy yells above the lunchroom chatter. “You’re a wrong ‘un!”

“I am not, it’s cute!” Aimsey yells back just as loud.

Tubbo tunes them out when Tommy starts accusing Aimsey of being a furry. 

The cafeteria is packed in the winter months when it grows too cold to sit outside. It’s always too hot in there with the mass of bodies only making it worse. Manning High School is poorly funded with an ancient heater; last year it broke in the middle of December. They could all see their breaths inside. Aimsey got a cold right before winter break.

Ranboo stares at Tubbo across the table. It’s a subtle look they give each other. It says they know one another’s secrets in full, it is everything and nothing Tubbo needs then. He has wanted to scream for as long as he has been born, since the curse that haunts him by blood turned its ugly head, bearing the same face Tubbo wears. He wants Ranboo to watch in sympathizing horror as he yells in a loud room that somehow still drowns him out.

Tubbo doesn't scream. He laughs at the right moments and plays along with all of Tommy’s bits. When nobody is looking but Ranboo, Tubbo smiles without his eyes. He hopes it is all and nothing Ranboo needs as well.

Ranboo is barely eating his food, he hasn’t touched the fruit he packed and he’s probably eaten one of the chips from the bag. Tubbo reaches over and steals a chip.

“H- Hey!” It’s barely an outrage.

Tubbo just smiles and swallows smugly. “Oh god, you buy baked chips? How did I not know this about you? It explains so much…” He trails off.

Ranboo looks more confused than upset. “What does that mean?”

“You wouldn’t get it. You just wouldn’t understand.” Tubbo giggles to himself, leaving Ranboo confused and slightly concerned is always a job well done.

“I- I dont! I don’t understand, Tubbo!” Ranboo gapes at him before smiling and shaking his head to himself.

Tubbo takes notice. “Mhm, mhm and what are you smiling about, chip boy?”

Ranboo takes a chip out of his bag for himself. “Hm? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tubbo knows Tommy will bring this day up again. He is not the type to let anything go, if Tommy doesn't mention it later today than it will be tomorrow, the next day or months later. He cares deeply, Tubbo knows that but it doesn’t stop him from wishing he could tell Tommy to fuck off and then fall off the face of the Earth and never be seen again. But Tommy would never stop looking for him.

Over the entire course of lunch Tommy has asked Ranboo seven times if he’s alright, including the ones with just his eyes, and Tubbo twice respectively. Every time they say yes Tommy tries to take it like it isn't a lie.

Tommy looks between Ranboo and Tubbo and whispers, if it can be called that, to Tubbo. “Is everything okay? Like with you or, y’know. Did something like happen?” Tubbo takes a bite of his lunch, Ranboo’s leg still bounces at a dangerously fast pace. 

“Nah, I’m fine,” He swallows. “I think Ranboo hit a squirrel on the way to school or something.” It’s much worse than that. Much worse than the joke Tommy makes in response or any of the ones he makes after that.

Ranboo happily eats chip after chip, whether to annoy Tubbo with his horrible taste or just simply because he wants to is unknown to Tubbo. By the time lunch ends his foot has slowed down to a regular pace, for Ranboo at least. Tubbo hopes it never picks up again, he knows that wish is futile, it only makes him more pathetic to want it.

——

Dream graduated two years before Tubbo and Tommy. Tubbo remembers going to the graduation, tagging along with Tommy’s family because Techno was working as a TA back then. When the principal called Dream’s name, Tommy just stared at the ground. Tubbo squeezed his hand, one , two , three times, until he stepped off the stage. Wilbur was whispering something to Phil then too, something foul and deserved.

He wasn’t well liked in all aspects. Underclassmen still looked up to him, half of his own class hated his guts. Tubbo was never too sure if it was because he had tried something with someone else or if it was all based off of misplaced jealousy. Dream really wasnt membrebale, he seemed average on the outside. He played some sport, was the captain of it in his senior year. 

There were George and Sapnap, only one of which Tubbo ever spoke to. Sapnap was in his health class, left it in junior year. He was nice enough, made crude jokes all through the sex-ed unit. He was fine on his own, Tubbo wrote him off during Sophomore year. 

George was never really in the books. They had one awkward conversation in the cafeteria, Tubbo doesn’t even remember what it was exactly about. Nonetheless, his name is crossed off in red ink right next to Sapnap’s in a metaphorical list of bastards who willingly associate with the biggest one Tubbo has ever met.

He doesn’t actually know if they knew what happened or what was going on. If they were just as oblivious as Tubbo, too unwilling to pry and too trusting when they shouldn’t have been. Tubbo’s name is crossed off in a much more guilt filled list of his own creation. 

Dream made freshman year hell for Tommy. Tubbo barely heard his name through the first semester, only in passing his friends in the hall, only because he sat next to Tommy in some class. Before winter break it was more frequent: “Dream said-”, “I don’t know if Dream would like this, Tubbo”, “Dream wants me to-”. Then suddenly he was an excuse to not hang out, to bail halfway through sleepovers. Whenever Tubbo asked too many questions, gave a funny look; “Dream is my friend!”.

The latter half of Freshman year was lonely, Tubbo remembers it. He watched Tommy get a ride home from Dream and he would walk the mile and a half back to his. For a moment, in the period when there weren’t any bruises and destroyed school projects, Tubbo was jealous. It was an ugly feeling that boiled over into guilt when there were small cuts on Tommy’s cheeks.

“Chill out, it was an accident!” Tubbo wondered if it was the same kind of accidents that happened in his house but Tubbo doesn’t pry. Tommy doesn’t lie either, all his emotions are laid out flat on a table.

He was so still on the hospital bed. Lying flat on the white sheets that only made his skin look bluer. Tubbo was scared to touch him, he thought his hands might stick to him like ice. They didn’t. Tommy’s skin was a pale blue, like he was out of some color-corrected indie film about the moon. Tubbo’s hands did not fuse to him but he didn’t let go, not when Tommy woke up and not when doctors flowed in and out.

Tubbo knows he should have said something more back then. He knew he should have done anything when Tommy was in the hospital after being pulled out of a freezing lake. Dream was only to blame, that was what Phil told Tubbo but he found himself blaming himself more than anyone else.

“Tubbo,” Phil looked so tired recently. “can we talk outside?”

Tubbo’s hand was still safely wrapped in Tommy’s own. The hospital room was warm and his hand was clammy even in Tommy’s cold one.

Phil gave him a small smile, it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s alright, mate. He’s asleep.”

They’d been in the hospital for a day and a half. Tommy woke up in the morning and only went back to sleep after a long conversation with Techno. Tubbo had been there when he first woke up and long after he went back to sleep. It had been a long day.

“Okay.” The hallway is much colder but empty. Wilbur and Techno were back at home getting some things Tommy wanted. It was just Phil and Tubbo outside the room, bar the old woman sitting on a bench far down the hallway.

“How’re you doing?” Phil asks. He has seen Tubbo through thick and thin but conversations have never been their strong points.

“I'm fine.” Tubbo doesn’t give him an inch.

Phil hums back.

“What about you?”

He smiles. “I’m doin’ alright, mate. I’m more worried about you.”

Tubbo doesn’t look him in the eye. He stares just past him at the nurses station. He’s never liked hospitals.

“Okay.” Phil sighs. “Y’know this isn’t your fault, you didn’t push Tom into that lake.”

Tubbo looks at the space between his eyes. “What?”

“It’s okay to feel guilty, Tubbo. We all do but you didn’t do anything.” Phil smiles like he’s finally done something right.

He knows he didn’t. Tubbo didn’t do anything when Tommy’s hands shook violently when Dream walked down the hallway. He promised he wouldn’t pry, he told himself that the basis of their friendship thrived on that fact. If he could go back Tubbo would scream and shout the second Tommy said Dream’s name. He would kick and flail till Tommy promised him that he would never speak to him again. Tubbo would bring storm after storm to Manning if it meant Tommy didn’t end up in that lake. In that Spanish class, sitting next to Dream.

A little part of him is sure that wouldn’t do anything at all. That everything would still crumble but Tubbo does not like to get stuck on what if and should of. It would only end in Tubbo playing a never-ending game of catch up that he would surely fail.

“I know, Phil.” Tubbo knows he didn’t do anything.

Like breaking the surface ice on a lake in February, Tommy lost the rest of his Sophomore year and Dream got away scott free.

——

“Hey, uh. Uh, did you do the chem homework? I’ve uhm, been a little bit distracted with y’know and everything.” Ranboo fights the silence in his room.

Tubbo is sitting next to Ranboo on his bed. Tubbo’s legs are pressed into his chest to make himself as small as possible. He lets the words sit in the air for a moment.

“You can copy.”

Ranboo immediately shakes his head. “No! No, no, uh. I was just uh,” He lets his head rest against the bed frame. “thank you.” He doesn’t know when it got this hard to be around Tubbo. Ranboo has always been on the awkward side, he doesn’t quite fit anywhere but Tubbo is, Tubbo is everything.  

It’s past dinner time, Niki left an hour earlier to eat out with Puffy. She left some sort of casserole for Ranboo, it’s still sitting untouched in the fridge. It’s much harder to eat when you think your insides are boiling, red hot and turning up the heat as you sit still. 

While it’s only Tuesday night, Ranboo can firmly say this is the worst week of his life. He’s pretty sure anyone who accidentally, he promises it’s an accident, over and over, under his breath, gives someone a head injury and then watches their best friend finish the job would agree. It might be the utter insanity of it or his lack of sleep but it doesn’t feel quite real. 

Everyone has carried on like nothing happened, like there isn’t a dead body weighed down in the bottom of Lake Pia. Ranboo knows there is, he knows he is complicit in it. It’s a heavy weight to carry, the burden of murder, he wonders if it would be better if everyone knew. If they could look at him with disgust and yell horrid things at him as he is hauled off. They don’t. None of them know.

Ranboo walked downstairs in the morning and the same woman he sees everyday waved at him as she collected her mail. He wondered how she didn’t see the weight on him, how the blood soaked in his converses didn’t seep through his floor and into her kitchen. She smiled when he waved back, he wanted to tell her to never look at him again. He wanted to walk up to her, shake her by the shoulders, and confess all his sins. Ranboo drove to school instead.

Tubbo still hasn’t said anything else.

The closet is open. It’s stuffed full of clothes, they all look sort of bloody, and old boxes that never got unpacked when Ranboo moved to Manning. In the corner, out of sight but he knows it’s there, is an old bag filled with blood stained clothes.

Tubbo knows all of this too. “We have to burn them.” He’s staring at his own knees. “I mean the clothes and shit.” He adds

Ranboo squeezes his eyes shut and rakes his hands through his hair. He wishes it could just be over, that he was one of those people that never felt guilt. It will never be that way for Ranboo, he has wished time and time again that he could undo everything he has ever done.

Tubbo speaks up again. “If we don’t then we’re extra fucked.” His voice is level but soft, he just seems sad. Ranboo for the first time, wishes he didn’t know why. He’s had a lot of wishes today.

Ranboo nods, it doesn’t shake out his falsehoods. “Okay,” He pauses. “yeah, okay.” They sit in his gut burning.

It takes 12 minutes to get to Tubbo’s house. Ranboo hits all the same potholes he always does. It takes a while longer for Tubbo to actually start and maintain a fire, he keeps saying “Well, this is embarrassing.” Apparently, all his bonfire knowledge comes from a camping trip he tagged along with Tommy’s family. Which is not much.

Ranboo has never been camping. It doesn’t seem like something he would enjoy, the one time he was forced to go hiking with Niki when he visited Manning years before he moved, was not his type of fun. 

“I- I went hiking once with Niki but I didn’t like it very much.”

Tubbo blows on a small ember. “That makes sense,” He looks up, hands still cupped over the fire, to deliver the insult. “You’re a pretty princess.”

Ranboo gasps. “I can’t believe you would call me that! I am clearly so very manly.”

“Pretty princess.”

The fire cracks. Ranboo squats down a ways away from the flames, he watches them grow through Tubbo’s eyes. He stays quiet as Tubbo cuts up his hoodie and throws in piece after piece. The flames engulf them happily.

Ranboo grabs his shirt and stares at it, there’s a large blood stain in the middle of it. It looks like he got a gut wound, it looks like he died wearing it. 

“What’s the maximum sentence?” Ranboo stares at the shirt in his hands.

Tubbo keeps looking into the flames. “Well, it’s kinda too late for that, I reckon.”

Ranboo bites his lip, hard. “But- It, I didn’t mean to. I- he, Tubbo, I didn’t mean to!”

When Ranboo drove home from Tubbo’s with shaky hands he promised himself it was an accident. That he didn’t mean to push Dream, that he would’ve got up and checked on him. It wasn’t malicious, he was just stupid and paranoid and scared. Ranboo was just scared.

Tubbo puts his head in his hands. “I fucking hit him- We didn’t,” He sits up, facing his eyes to the sky. “I fucked it up worse, it’s fine. It’s gonna be fine.”

Ranboo stays silent for a moment. The flames engulf his shirt, the blood red stain goes with it. He pretended that he didn’t watch Tubbo cave Dream’s face in. That the blood from the upswing didn’t coat his face. Ranboo tells himself Dream deserved it, he knows bits and pieces, he must have deserved it. Tubbo’s swing after swing after swing was righteous. Ranboo was just scared.

He mumbles into his hand, Tubbo only catches the last part. The words “Self-Defense” linger in the air like Ranboo yelled them.

The flames kick up, Tubbo pokes them one last time. “We threw him in a lake.”

——

It’s a cold November morning, what should be a painfully boring Thursday of catch-up work. Tubbo and Tommy are in study hall, the library is cold and Tommy was just refusing to put his jacket on, he used some excuse about “becoming a man”. Tubbo just rolled his eyes.

Tommy switches topics quickly. “Are you avoiding me?”

It catches Tubbo off guard. He spends practically every day with him, less so this week but they have three classes together, not including study hall. “What?” Tubbo gapes.

Like a flip has been switched, Tommy falls off his accusation. “I- just, I just mean we haven’t been hangin’ out recently! Like after school and shit.” 

On an average week Tubbo sleeps over at least once at Tommy’s house and comes over at least twice. He hasn’t been over at all this week. It’s not like he could’ve shown up covered in blood on Monday night or shaking like a leaf any other day. Wilbur, annoyingly perceptive, would’ve called him on his bullshit immediately when Tubbo walked through the door. Tommy just stares at him sadly, not unlike a kicked puppy.

Tubbo parrots himself. “What?”

He tries to joke it off. “Look, Tubbs, I’m just feelin’ a little left out! I’m being deprived of my Tubbo time!” Tommy scrambles a little out of his seat to cross his arms pout appropriately.

It works, Tubbo laughs along. “Your Tubbo time? Wow, I’m so sorry. This must be horrible for you!”

Tommy smiles and puffs out his chest. “Yeah, yeah! I will literally die if I don’t get any.”

“Alright, alright! I’m here!”

Tommy’s grin widens. “Great! I’m so glad you agreed to come over today!”

Tommy continues to complain, playful this time, he’s dropped the furrowed brows and frown. It feels easy to laugh loudly, piss off the librarian and get absolutely zero work done. When they quiet down Tubbo still catches Tommy giving him little concerned looks. It’s the clue that means the previous, much more serious, conversation will come up again. It’ll probably be in a lull of conversation at Tommy’s house. Tubbo will see it coming the second Tommy opens his mouth.

He does.

“WE’RE HOME!” Tommy yells towards the stairs and kicks off his shoes. Tubbo puts his next to the door where they’re supposed to go because he has manners.

Tommy bounces over to the couch and in an attempt to jump the back and land on the plush cushions, he rolls off and lands flat on the floor instead. “Owww. What the fuck!”

Tubbo sits where Tommy was supposed to land and promptly takes a photo of Tommy’s failure. “I’m sending this to Jack Manifold.” He says.

“You’re a horrible friend.” Tommy just glares at him from the floor.

The stairs creak from behind the couch. “Why is Tubbo a horrible friend?” Wilbur asks, peeking out from the staircase with his eyebrows raised.

Tommy immediately sits up. “Wil! WILBAH! Tubbo is blackmailing me.”

It’s an absolute lie that Tubbo will have none of. “I am not blackmailing you, I am making fun of you.” There is a very big difference.

Wilbur laughs, now from the kitchen, making fast work of something. Tubbo can hear bowls clinking together. “I’m making mac-and-cheese, do you gremlins want any?"

Tommy answers for both of them “YEAH,” It’s much too loud for the fact that Wilbur is not that far away. “THANKS!”

Tubbo yells back his own thank you and turns his phone to show Tommy his text conversation with Jack.

Tubbo: look at this lmao <image attached>

Jack: What a loser

Jack: Did he fall off the sofa???

Tubbo: yea

Jack: Tell him I say fuck you

“Jack says fuck you.” Tubbo happily sends along the message. He knows it will only enrage Tommy further but it’s very funny to see Tommy flail around in anger.

“WHAT THE FUCK! Tell him, tell him I say fuck you, die, pussyhole. Fuck you, fuck you, piss, shit, AND CUM.” Tommy yells.

Tubbo texts back what he thinks is appropriate. 

Tubbo: tom is very mad

Jack: Good

Getting Jack and Tommy to fight is fun but it also goes further than Tubbo ever wants, he’s learned to cut them off when he can. Jack takes things very personally and Tommy, despite him not actually meaning most of what he says, does not know when to shut up. Somehow Jack has stuck around for the entirety of high school even with constant insults. Tubbo has a theory that he is either a very sad masochist or planning Tommy’s demise.

Someone is always out to get someone, it’s a very simple lesson.

“Do you think I can get Wilbur to drive us to the store?” Tommy asks, now encroaching on Tubbo’s space on the couch.

Tubbo summons the biggest smile he can. “Nope!”

Tommy doesn’t argue, instead, he climbs off the couch to prove Tubbo wrong. “You are no help!”

The Craft house is not a mansion but it’s nice, definitely upper middle class. There are multiple family photos positioned on the mantel, some with Tommy and some older with only Techno, Wilbur, and who Tubbo knows is Phil’s late wife. She died a year or two before Phil adopted Tommy. 

There’s still a nice photo, the one where she’s wearing a sun hat and there’s a daisy tangled in her long hair, of her center on the mantel. Tubbo used to think it looked like one you would show at someone’s funeral. Now he thinks she just looks happy like she’s radiating warmth out of the photo.

Phil talks about her like that, he says she lit up every room she walked into. Tubbo would like to believe that. Everyone in this house sings her praises, Tommy says proudly that she’s his mom even if they never met. Despite the untraditional way their family came together, they all seem radiant to have one another. 

When Tubbo was young, more sad than bitter, he used to wonder why he didn’t have family photos or game nights with loud laughter. It had always just been Schlatt, Tubbo and their uncle, then just Schlatt and Tubbo, now Schlatt, Tubbo and Quackity. He didn’t think he was the odd one out, Tommy was the weird one with two brothers who loved him and a Dad who stayed.

“Wilbur is being lame and says he won't take us out.” Tommy says while coming back into the living room with two bowls of mac-and-cheese and a scowl.

Tommy stuffs pasta into his mouth. “He is sad and pathetic and cringe , not like me. I am manly and strong.” He says between chewing.

Tubbo pushes his fork around his bowl. “Sure you are.”

“Mhm, mhm. I am so manly, Tubbs.”

Later in the day, they hide in Tommy’s room upstairs to not disturb Phil’s business call. They’ve just finished destroying someone's army in Clash Of Clans. Tommy starts twiddling his thumbs and opening and closing his mouth like he’s trying to find the right words. Tubbo takes a deep breath, he tries to hide behind his phone. It’s never worked before. It doesn’t then either.

“Tubbo, my friend, is something going on?”  Tommy asks nervously. It’s not quite the same conversation from earlier, it’s a mix from the one at Tuesday lunch too.

If Tubbo says no immediately, it’s like an admission of guilt. “What do you mean, boss man?” Tubbo answers with another question, he lets Tommy pick whatever horrible thing in his life to focus on.

Tommy stares at him and starts again. “I’m gonna be honest, I’m worried. You’ve been, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, twitchy? ”

It’s worse than anything Tommy has ever prodded Tubbo about. It feels like the floor has been ripped out from under him. The concerned looks, kicked puppy dog faces, and lessened teasing have not been from Tommy feeling neglected. Tubbo’s hands still shake every now and then, he still has deep eye bags and jumps at not that loud of noises. 

Tubbo tries to steady himself. He sits up on Tommy’s bed and looks him in the eyes. “Tommy, I’m fine.” He lies.

“I’m not saying you aren’t! I’m, I’m, I'm just sayin’ you look tired as balls!”

“ You look like balls.”

“TUBBO!” Tommy drags his hands down his face. “I’m tryin’ to be nice, man! Here I am being a good friend and you’re saying I look like a nutsack!”

Tubbo snorts. “That’s not what I said!”

Tommy looks ignited again, ready to go on defense. “That is literally what you said. I- I, I have proof!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tubbo laughs under his breath and goes back to customizing his village in Clash of Clans.

Tommy audibly deflates again and squints his eyes. “You’re sure you’re okay?” He asks again.

Tubbo looks him in the eye again. “Yes, Tommy, I am sure.” He can feel the lie under his skin, crawling.

——

Friday morning, Tubbo walks to the bus. He and Tommy used to take it together, take turns sitting in the window seat, but in the Winter months Tommy always chickens out and gets a ride from one of his brothers. 

Tubbo gets the window seat every time now, it’s nice to just look out at the passing scenery even if it’s all the same. Tubbo is one of the only kids that get on at his stop, it’s him, two rowdy boys, and some tall girl. None of them are in his grade, he only knows the girl’s name. She had asked him if that bus went to Manning High like it could have gone anywhere else.

The walk is relatively quiet. None of the people in Tubbo’s neighborhood are early risers; there is one woman who is normally collecting her mail when he leaves. The heels in her hands and smudged makeup are not indicative of a morning person though. When Tubbo leaves that morning her newspaper is spilling out of her mailbox.

November is in full swing now. Trees are starting to lose their leaves, the ones that are there are an orange brown. Despite the trees and dying nature, everything looks blue. 

The sun hasn’t risen yet, Tubbo likes the soft pinks and bright oranges but there is something delicate about the blue before sunrise. It’s less consuming than the one after sunset, the morning blue is warm in its own right, like watercolor brush strokes seeping into your skin.

Late autumn is the most picturesque time in Manning. People are their happiest then too, winter break is on the horizon, bakeries spoon-feed cinnamon to anyone who asks, and the weather is nice for the most part. 

Tubbo, despite the upcoming holidays, doesn’t hate the season. It’s the beginning of winter when he always thinks that things could get better. It coincides with Schlatt making the same New Year's resolution, that he’ll stop drinking. Quackity smiles through gritted teeth and leaves early those days. Tubbo pretends he doesn’t believe him but he still has that naive happiness when Schlatt promises.

Addiction has never been the only problem in their family, it isn’t the reason for the anger. It runs deeper than that, it clots Schlatt’s blood and is the reason for the ache in Tubbo’s arms.

This late autumn, early winter season has not been kind. It’s finally going to be the year where Tubbo gets taken away and memorialized as worse than every man that came before him. The dead of winter will take its hold again and every crime, every bad thought, every misdeed Tubbo has committed will come to light. They will make Tubbo drink from the lake, the one with blood, tears and shaking hands. He will beg and grovel like everyone expects him too and then they will drown him. 

Tubbo doesn’t listen to music on the way to his stop to make sure he can hear every footstep in the quiet. His stop is a couple blocks away, too far when he is tired and stayed late for some club one of friends dragged him to, too short when he is dreading class work. This morning he walks slowly.

It’s the end of the week, normally worth celebrating. Tubbo just stands next to the girl with long dark hair, Nadine, she doesn’t look at him at all. Their bus is almost always late even in the early mornings when the roads are deserted. Tubbo regrets turning down rides from his friends when he’s standing in the cold waiting for a bus that gets him to school five minutes late. He always ends up back there.

At the corner of the street, where a stop sign should be, there’s a poster stapled to a telephone pole. Tubbo is not the guy who stops at missing cat posters, it’s always Tommy and Ranboo who stare at them sadly but he recognises the sharp green like a beacon coming out of the autumn brown. 

Dream is not missing. He’s probably on some bender in the town over with his head face down in some uncomfortable couch, not a lake. There’s no reason for a poster with his name plastered on it in big block letters. Let alone one in the neighborhood, Dream was too stuck up to set foot in.

“Shit.” 

Tubbo feels his feet shift on the pavement.

Dream is not popular, he is not cared much about in the Manning community now. In his senior year half of his class hated his guts but he has- had two very loyal friends, one more than the other. 

The poster isn’t very long, it gives a phone number, what he was wearing last, a very liberal use of the word please, and a picture of Dream which makes him look warm . Tubbo doesn’t look at his face for very long or think about the fact he genuinely seems happy in it. Underneath the photo it says “He was last seen Saturday, November Ninth.”

The ninth, on Saturday, two days before Tubbo bashed his head in with a wooden rolling pin.

In a perverse game of murder cover-up, Tubbo counts it as a win. He still feels sick.

——

The school library is relatively small; most of the books are YA at the request of some freshmen book club. Ranboo shoves the book poking out of the very bottom shelf back in with his foot. He thought there would be more work he could get done before first period started. Now he’s just stalking the non-fiction section, looking for that one econ textbook his teacher said he might use to base lesson plans on.

Ranboo’s not sure if an old ex-bank teller was the right choice for an econ teacher but it isn’t like the school had a lot of candidates to choose from. Niki had him when she went to school and now she manages a pretty successful business, so maybe he shouldn’t be written off completely. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, Ranboo doesn’t have a future. His legacy will be his undoing, his death at the bottom of a pool in some random apartment complex, his burning of every word he's ever written. The econ textbook won’t matter.

He turns the next corner into the next aisle.

Another book is poking out of the bottom shelf, The Human Race’s Insignificance , and he pushes it back in. A cough from behind him interrupts his wandering. 

“Sorry, sweetie, I’m just supposed to hang these up.” The woman, someone Ranboo vaguely recognizes from the front office, holds up a stack of posters. “Do you mind,” She hands him one. “If you could put one up right above you, It’d be lovely.” She adds gently.

“Oh, uh, yeah of-” It feels like the world plummets beneath Ranboo’s feet. “Of, of course.”

Dream’s eyes are bright green, bright, and bold. They’re less cloudy than Ranboo remembers, less wide and lifeless. It still seems like they’re staring into his soul, unperturbed by any transgressions but knowing, all knowing. Guilt pools in Ranboo’s gut. Thick and slow it courses through his veins and it eats through his skin, melting his bones, burning like acid.

The woman is gone, quickly satiated by Ranboo’s response. Far away, a keyboard clicks, it’s towards the exit, Ranboo doesn’t know where it is anymore. Blinding eyes are still staring up at him and they know, they know better than he does, what he has done. They are judge, jury, executioner and they hold no power. Ranboo is his own sentencer and he can't find the exit to the library. He can’t get out and he's at the bottom of the pool.

He’s drowning and the eyes are still looking at him, above him, staring down. The blood in the pool is not his own and he can’t get out. The only escape is the drain, washing out, picking away at stains, and joining the filth.

Ranboo can’t get out.

“Alright, here’s the tape.”

The woman is staring at him, eyebrows quirked.

“What?”

She looks confused. “The tape for the poster?”

Ranboo nods. “Oh, right.”

He tacks the poster right next to the one about the book club.

She speaks up again from behind him. “You’d think someone would have seen him in such a small town. I bet a kid like him is just off in St. Lucy!”

Ranboo presses the poster harder onto the shelf.

“I swear I never got in this much trouble.” The creases in her forehead deepen. She motions for the tape back.

Ranboo thinks the world might be ending.

“Thank you, sweetheart. You seem like a good kid, now don’t you go missing too.” She smiles at him. Her eyes are green too.

The world is ending around him.

——

The cafeteria is loud and busy, everyone is stuffed inside trying to beat the cold. Tubbo is picking apart the salad he got served against his will in the lunch line when Ranboo finally joins their group.

Jack immediately bounces forward. “Did you hear?” He asks loudly over Tommy’s head.

Ranboo looks completely lost with his eyebrows furrowed and only halfway into his seat. “What?”

“Dream’s dead!”

Ranboo drops his bag onto the floor and stops moving, eyes wide and mouth open. Before he can stammer out anything, Tommy starts yelling.

Tubbo stares straight ahead.

“No, he fucking isn’t! He’s- he’s probably doing some dumb shit or whatever the fuck losers do.” He seems out of breath. “I wouldn’t know because I’m not a loser.” His rant seems more urgent, less lighthearted than normal.

Tubbo doesn’t know why he defends him. He doesn’t know why Tommy still has that inflection in his voice that makes him sound desperate and uncertain. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t wish Dream was dead.

Tommy swallows, heavily, and starts again.“I bet- I bet he’s out getting frostbite like a little bitch-“

“Like you did?” Jack cuts in.

Tommy just stares at him. There’s no emotion on his face, maybe wild disbelief. 

Jack stares back, smile intact.

Since the very moment Tommy and Jack met there has always been a rivalry. Many half-hearted slap fights have gone down in every possible location. They get into it more than anyone but neither of them are cruel. 

Jack cares so much about everything and everyone, it’s almost debilitating. Yet with Tommy, he’s always been toeing the line. Trying to find the right button to push but most importantly the wrong one.

Jack says something, Tommy says something undeniably worse and they hate each other for a week.

This is different.

“You are a horrible fucking person! Pure fucking scum, Jack manifold!” Tommy’s rising out of his seat. He’s yelling and getting in Jack’s face but he looks sad.

Aimsey laughs nervously across the table. They seem to be picking up on the fact that Tommy shouldn’t be this upset at an off handed comment.

Ranboo has a death grip on his lunch bag. He’s still standing, watching in horror as Jack pushes Tommy away from him.

“Fuck off, man! You’re the one who brought u-“

“OH SHUT THE FUCK UP! Look at me, I’m Jack Manifold and I’m a huge bitch!” Tommy is only getting louder, people are looking over.

“Tommy,” Tubbo whispers. 

“WAH WAH WAH! That’s what you fucking sound like! All you do is make shit jokes and drink yourself to sleep!” Tommy’s breathing heavily.

“NO ONE FUCKING LIKES YOU, JACK!” The table goes silent. “You’re- you’re just an asshole who- who has nothing better to do than make me feel like shit!”

Tubbo’s holding onto Tommy’s shirt. He tugs and Tommy barely moves back.

“I’M THE ASSHOLE? Fuck you, fuck you! You’re the one with the goddamn issues, solve your own shit!” Jack’s red and unwavering. 

Tubbo takes the lapse in yelling as an in. “Can you both chill the fuck out?”

Jack’s still angry, wanting a fight. “He’s the one who can’t take a joke!” He throws back.

“Fuck off, man!” Tommy’s holding his bag now, still glaring at Jack. He turns away when Jack opens his mouth again.

“Yeah, yeah, walk away, bitch.”

Tubbo watches him push out of the cafeteria doors. The cafeteria noise picks up as the doors shut behind him. 

The table’s quiet aside for Ranboo’s heavy breathing.

“Is Dream really dead?” Ranboo asks. They’re both liars, aren't they?

Before Jack can open his mouth, Tubbo swivels around in his seat. “No.” 

Aimsey looks between Tubbo’s stoic face and Ranboo’s pursed lips. “We don’t know anything.” They whisper to Ranboo.

Ranboo takes his seat finally, he doesn’t make any move to open his lunch bag. He stares at the gray table, under the table Tubbo’s foot finds his.

——

The announcements go off right before lunch the next week. Tubbo is in chemistry again when the teacher stops talking to let the people on the intercom drone on. When they were younger, in elementary school, maybe even middle, everyone would listen to the announcements. Stay quiet and only whisper to the person next to them when their friend's voice comes over the intercom.

No one cares now. It’s the same news and the same people from the office. Something about sports teams, some clubs wanting new members, upcoming school events, PTA news, maybe a poorly timed new addition where the person talking is clearly reading off a script.

Tommy’s been sulking on his phone, avoiding any conversation with Jack which apparently means ignoring Tubbo too. It’s all fine, Tubbo can keep busy just fine. 

People are still talking over the announcements, loud and uncaring. Jack is too, on the other side of the classroom, it doesn’t look like he's lost any sleep over Friday. Tommy looks slightly disheveled but nothing completely out of the normal. What’s atypical is the fact they’re not yelling at each other across the classroom and Tubbo. 

“To reiterate, if you have any information on where Dream Blosck is, please contact the local police. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.” The intercom clicks off.

“Okay class, pull out your notes! Were gonna go over-”

Oh. Oh, there’s an actual effort to look for him. Tubbo’s hand grips hard around his pen. 

What happens when they find him? They’re gonna find him. They’re gon-

“The test isn’t actually going to be over this section but I expect for you all to understand the main concepts.”

There’s still some of that rope in Schlatt’s closet. Can they trace that? How suspicious is it to abandon this whole town now? We could make it, Ranboo can take a GED test in the city.

“Tubbo?”

What if they look for me? What if they blame it all on Ranboo? Did we clean his car well enough?

“Did you get that cause I have no fuckin’ clue what-”

What happens to Tommy when I get caught? Tubbo sets his pen down. He’s going to hate you. 

“Are you alright?”

You’re a bad person.

“Tubbs?”

His stool scrapes against the floor. “I’m gonna throw up.”

——

They found him a week later. It’s all over the news, small town man found dead at twenty three, and everywhere you look. 

Tubbo has two missed calls from Tommy, seven from Ranboo, and an exponentially increasing number of text messages. His phone is vibrating on the side of the sink, dangerously close to the well of it. It’ll fall soon.

Tubbo retches again. He’s hunched over the toilet, head still spinning, body dry heaving at this point. No one is home but him, Quackity hasn’t been around in a week. Schlatt is somewhere, hopefully at work, maybe at the bar. It doesn’t matter, they’re both better off than Tubbo is. If he’s lucky he’ll die alone in the bathroom, guilt expelling from his stomach.

The porcelain isn’t as cold as it was an hour ago, it’s warm and unfriendly. Tubbo rests his face on top of it, ignoring the urge to throw himself away from the germs. He stares at where his phone has gone still for a second. In a moment of strength or self-destruction, it’s undecided really, he reaches for it.

Most of the texts are from the group chat Tommy set up with himself, Tubbo, Ranboo, Aimsey, and Jack. The most pressing are actually straight from Tommy and Ranboo, many of them are variations of pleading for him to pick up the phone. Ranboo has called twice more since Tubbo last checked his phone. His most recent text reads: I'm picking you up, From five minutes ago.

Tubbo drags himself rightside up and against the wall. He clicks on his and Tommy’s messages.

Tom: didf you hear??

Tubbo: about dream?

Tom: yeah

Tubbo uses the side of the sink to pull himself up. The heaviness and lack of sleep almost drags him back down. Slowly he makes his way out of the bathroom and through the kitchen.

Tubbo: are yuo okay?

Tom: yeah

He rifles through the bottles of pills, most of which are old and empty prescriptions, in the far right drawer. Like water in the desert, Tubbo prays to god as he clutches an Advil bottle. There is no god in Manning for if there was one then Dream would not have died by Tubbo’s hands and Tubbo would have never existed at all. Everything would be as it should be if there was a god.

Tom: call??

Tubbo: cant

The kitchen is colder than any other room in his house, which doesn’t say much with their lackluster heater. It’s the windows that fog up with cold condensation in the winter months, they freeze over once January comes. Tubbo isn’t going to make it to the new year. They’re going to find him too.

He prays it’s in the next town over.

Tom: do you thinkk he deserved it

Tubbo: idk

He knows. It’s a different kind of guilt than the one Tubbo should be feeling. He knows he would do it again, he would have done it two years earlier if he wasn’t sitting in the hospital with Tommy. Tubbo knows he would murder Dream in front of a jury, he deserved it. Tubbo doesn’t know if that makes the guilt worse or better. Was it on purpose? 

Tubbo: probably

Ranboo gets there ten minutes later.

——

For the past hour, since Niki turned on the TV, late in the evening, Ranboo has been trying to reach Tubbo’s phone.

Niki’s timer for her proofing bread goes off for the third time. This time she turns it off completely. 

“It doesn’t look right.”

Ranboo has been doing calculus homework at the table against the half wall that breaks up the kitchen from the living space. He’s two assignments behind, a horrifying first for him.

“It looks nice, Niki.” He doesn’t look at all.

She hums back and goes back to prepping. Normally all the baking she does is at work, she owns half the shares of the town’s bakery. But this loaf is special, it’s supposedly going to Techno as a thanks for something Ranboo’s not been told. Or has and doesn’t remember.

Niki mutters something about oven temperatures and sets her timer again. 

“Ranboo, pass me the remote.” She’s still covered in flour and something Ranboo is pretty sure is dried icing. 

In a swift movement, eyes never quite leaving his calculus homework, he passes off the TV remote.

Channels quickly filter in and out as Niki passes through them, herself still in the kitchen. She lingers on some documentary, the man begins explaining the hunting habits of a wolf spider and Niki quickly clicks away. Next, she lands on the news.

Ranboo can hear her moving pans around in the lower cabinets. The news blends into whatever menial tasks Niki does, one after the other. Until she drops a pan.

“Holy shit!”

Ranboo immediately flicks his head to her. “What? Are you okay?”

She leaves the pan on the floor and skirts around the counters. “Look, look!” Niki points to the TV before falling onto the couch just in front of Ranboo.

He can feel something building in the air. Everything moves slowly, like Ranboo is stuck in honey watching his own story play out in front of him. But this is not a play, this is not some theater performance, this is a horror story of his own making.

“-found dead at Lake Pia earlier this evening. The police force have forgoed further comment but have stated they are investigating the matter as a murder.”

A wave crashes over Ranboo. He is completely absorbed, water runs all around him. The waves keep coming but they don’t touch him, they ripple around his feet, and they pour out of his ears. It’s just him and the TV in a choppy ocean, wading out to sea.

Like a stray buoy, taken from its line, Ranboo clings onto his own arms. The salt digs in deeper and it burns, it scars over and Ranboo presses harder. The waves surround him, crashing in a spectacular storm but there is no wind. It’s just running water, a river, an ocean, a stream, a lake dirty with blood. It’s in his ears, pouring out onto the hardwood floors. 

The TV is just static with those waves, with that bloody lake.

“I can’t believe someone actually killed him.” Niki says at the bottom of the ocean.

Ranboo hasn’t been driving lately, he can’t focus like he used to. It feels like the roads are being ripped out from under him. He gets turned around, going around the same block over and over. 

The GPS yells out to turn onto Tubbo’s street. Ranboo does so with little ease, he can’t remember if his right turns were always so wide.

It’s always been darker in Tubbo’s neighborhood. The space between the street lights gets farther and farther apart until it’s just abyss. Tubbo’s house is two down from the last light. It’s still too bright.

Ranboo wants to inch his car further down and scrape his way into the abyss. He wants to stay and watch Tubbo grow old through his windows, watch the whole world disappear into an inky black as his house is preserved just barely by the light. But Tubbo isn’t in the windows, his lights are on but Ranboo can only see so much through holes in curtains.

He leaves the warmth of his car for a cold November night. Ranboo runs to the door, much more afraid of the dark when he is unprotected by his car. It feels like it is creeping up behind him, scurrying away only when he looks back to the street.

He bangs on the door, one fist after the other. He sounds like a hurricane at the end of the world.

Tubbo swings the door open before he can start yelling.

“What the fuck, Ranboo.”

He’s somehow out of breath maybe from his short run maybe from the fear that has only been building for weeks on end. “You- You didn’t pick up the phone.”

Tubbo’s still holding the door open, letting the cold wind blow right through him and Ranboo.

“I saw your text.”

“Oh,” Ranboo stands helplessly. “You didn’t respond.”

Tubbo stares back. He’s still in the hoodie he wore to school, black with some graphic design from a band Ranboo hasn’t heard of. Standing in the doorway, eye bags ever present, he looks much smaller than Ranboo has ever seen him.

Tubbo stands almost a foot below Ranboo but he has always been much more brave than him. Ranboo can barely order his own food, Tubbo could command an army if he wanted. He could break Ranboo but he hasn’t yet, Ranboo thinks Tubbo might be the only reason he’s still in Manning.

“Uh. Did you- Uhm,” Ranboo fumbles over his words like there aren’t people looking for him. Like he isn’t standing on the porch of a murderer he can’t seem to stop seeking out because it’s always been Tubbo, everything Ranboo has ever done leads back to him, leads back to wanting to live so fervently it makes him sick.

“Can I come in?” He asks.

Tubbo shuffles further inside, making room. “Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”

It’s almost as cold inside as it is out. Ranboo doesn’t mention it as he steps further inside.

Tubbo’s shoulders are tense as he stands in the entrance, only having moved to close the door.

“I can turn the heater on if you want.” He can see right through the hands Ranboo immediately stuffed into his pockets.

“That- That would be nice, thank you.”

Tubbo’s kitchen and living room aren’t separated by any wall. Overall it’s bigger than Ranboo’s but it’s in much worse condition. The one window on the back wall is broken, patched up with duct tape. A table is missing altogether.

The kitchen sink is half full of dishes, something Ranboo knows his is too but Tubbo’s look much older like they’ve cemented to the porcelain. All the top cabinet doors are open, exposing their bare interiors. The only open bottom cabinet is one drawer full of mostly empty pill bottles.

“Just warning you, it takes a while to warm up.” Tubbo returns from the hallway.

“That’s fine, really!” Ranboo notices Tubbo looks much worse in the yellow kitchen lighting.

His hair is dirty, more chalky than greasy. The cracks that fill his lips give him further away, painting a picture Ranboo is too afraid to ask about. He knows he cares more than he should but the feeling to reach out to Tubbo and never let go keeps building. It’s terrifying in its own naive, unknown way. 

A silence washes over them, this one is more unchartable than ever before. Ranboo stares out the window at his car parked on the street just barely touched by the abyss. Niki told him to be back by ten. The whole room suddenly feels colder than ever before.

Tubbo is still in the corner of his eye, he’s looking somewhere else, far away. It’s suffocating, there is so much Ranboo wants to say, to ask but there’s nothing really that hasn’t been said. It’s just the two of them in the yellow kitchen light, Ranboo’s hands shaking violently and Tubbo’s hidden in his hoodie. 

Ranboo doesn’t know how they got here, how Tubbo got stuck at the same table with Ranboo in sophomore English or why he spoke to the new kid at all and kept coming back. Ranboo isn’t the type of person people come back for, he’s overly polite, somehow condescending and off putting but Tubbo kept talking. He kept talking when Ranboo was sure he’d freaked him out.

Tubbo’s somehow back at the end of the hallway now. “You coming?” He says it like there was never a quiet in the room at all.

“Oh, yeah.”

Tubbo has always had this talent to keep moving, to ignore the previous and charge forwards. He doesn’t seem to get caught up in the waves that knock Ranboo over, pulling him under. Tubbo is a rock in the fast running stream, he is immovable, he is solid in his reserve but somehow small. 

——

“You can sit down on the bed, y’know?” Tubbo nods to the spot across from him.

Ranboo blinks back. “Oh, oh. Alright.” He sits on the very edge. “Thank you.”

Tubbo buries his hands in the blanket on top of him. “Why are you being so awkward, man?”

“Uh, I don’t- I don’t know, maybe it’s the fact the police are looking for us.”

He’s still sitting on the very far end of the bed, right on the edge. Ranboo is tall and lanky but there’s plenty of room, he could have sat on the floor if he was this uncomfortable. Tubbo should have never opened the fucking door.

“They’re not looking for us.”

“Yes, they are.”

Tubbo wants to push Ranboo off the goddamn bed. “It’s gonna be fine.”

A beat passes over them, much shorter than the one before. Ranboo fiddles with the rings on his fingers. “You don’t know that.” He replies.

“They don’t know anything yet.” Tubbo knows they’re going to find him, watch him through his windows, and drag him away while everyone watches. He knows that for a fact but he also knows he can’t say that. It has a lot more power out in the open instead of giving him an itch in the back of his head. Ranboo doesn’t need to hear it.

“They know he was murdered, Tubbo.” Ranboo isn’t argumentative but he’s scared. Scared is a much less manageable feeling, it eats you alive. Tubbo doesn’t know how to fix that.

“It’s gonna be fine. We just have to act normal.”

“You do realize the cops are after us!”

“We’re- we’re gonna be so nonchalant! You’re gonna go to that lecture in St. Lucy you’ve been talking about and- and I’m gonna be fucking normal.”

Ranboo doesn’t look any more calm than when Tubbo started talking, he looks anxious beyond belief. Tubbo doesn’t blame him, he would be throwing up right now if he had anything left in his stomach.

Tubbo’s phone goes off, another text from Tommy.

Tom: are you gonna go to dreams funeral????

Tubbo: r you?

Tom: yeah

Tubbo’s room has heated up considerably since he turned the heater on. He can hear the machine whirring just outside his window. His cheeks still feel cold, like he’s fighting the snow, rosy cheeks as proof in the face of winter’s war. 

He’s sure his nose is pink too, evidence of what he’s facing. With how cold this room feels, Ranboo an eon away and Tommy already mourning.

Tom: i feel like i owe him that much

Tom: he wasn’t all bad

Tubbo would murder Dream a thousand times over. He doesn’t regret it, he regrets getting Ranboo involved, in making it complicated for Tommy, for ruining Quackity’s dream family again.

Tom: idk

“Tommy wants to go to Dream’s funeral.” It’s nothing more than that, Ranboo doesn’t need any more strife than Tubbo’s put on him.

“What?” Ranboo stares at him. He has that look in his eye that pleads for Tubbo to say it’s all some bad joke to lift the mood.

“I’m gonna go with him.” Tubbo would kill Dream again and again, at every chance but Tommy comes first. Tommy comes before any vengeance and violence Tubbo wants to bring.

Ranboo looks almost more horrified than he did covered in blood. “Tubbo,” Almost. “we can’t just-“

“You don’t have to go!” Tubbo yells back.

“Tubbo! We- I,” He continues in a whisper like someone is listening in. Tubbo isn’t sure someone isn’t. “ We killed him .”

“It’ll look weird if I don’t, Ranboo!”

“That’s- that’s not the point! What about his family or- or I don’t know, the morals?”

“We’re way past morals!” Tubbo can watch Dream be lowered into the ground, he can watch Sapnap weep. No matter how sensitive he’s made out to be, he can be a wall. No one will know until his trial, until they pull the lever and lower his own body down.

They’re at a standstill, their own actions coming up to meet them. Tubbo hasn’t seen Ranboo this terrified of himself before.

“Okay. Okay, okay, I guess we’re going!”

Tubbo can see Ranboo grit his teeth. “You don’t have to!”

“I’m going! Just no wake, okay?”

“Okay, no wake.”

——

Quackity’s around a lot more in the weeks leading up to Dream’s funeral. Every morning, he’s on the ratty couch of the Underscore-Schlatt house, looking progressively worse for wear. 

Tubbo doesn’t know why he’s there so often, doing school work, making lunch, washing dishes, desperately trying to keep ahead of the growing number of bottles on the counters. Tubbo knows it has to do with Dream’s death. Maybe he got tired of consoling one family, he had to come back to his own and watch them die too, different circumstances, the same suffering.

Schlatt hasn’t made any more appearances than he normally does, irregular in his own pattern. Despite this, Quackity is still making an effort. When Tubbo woke up on Tuesday, four days out from Dream’s funeral, he was already awake.

“Good Morning, Tubbo.” Quackity is wide awake, sitting comfortably on the couch, laptop perched atop his legs. He looks busy with whatever he’s working on.

Tubbo stares from the hallway. “Morning.”

School starts in twenty minutes, he already knows he’s going to be late. Tubbo was late yesterday and he’ll be late today and probably for the foreseeable future. It’s not a shock to anyone but Quackity when he decides to start paying attention. Somehow, between Tubbo’s outbursts and windows that pour out smoke, Quackity got the idea that he’s smart, that he has this potential he’s wasting. 

It makes him sick in a way Tubbo never has been. It makes his failure, his fault, not a curse or bloodline wrecking his bones. Wasted potential is something he didn’t ever think he was capable of until he already was, purposefully ruined and unfixable.

“Aren’t you going to be late?” Quackity asks.

Yes, yes he is.

“It doesn’t matter.” His first period teacher barely acknowledges his presence.

Quackity looks at him, the first time he’s looked up from his work like Tubbo has grown a third head. “Yes, it does.”

Tubbo moves from his spot at the end of the hallway and slinks into the kitchen. “No, it doesn’t. The semester is almost over, anyways, boss man.”

“That’s not- no! Tubbo, you can’t just skip class-”

“I’m not skipping!”

Quackity furrows his eyebrows further than Tubbo knew was possible. “Yes, you are! Tubbo, look,” he carefully moves his laptop off his legs to the right of him. “You can’t just blow off school, it’s important.” He adds.

Tubbo almost flips him off and runs off back to his room to sleep away the day but his throat fucking hurts and he just wants to get a glass of water before completely wrecking the morning. He compromises by muttering curse words under his breath while he washes out a mug with coffee seemingly permanently stuck to the bottom of it. 

“Can you just listen to me for once!” 

Tubbo whips around from the sink. “You’re not my mom, Quackity!” 

He doesn’t know why he says it. Tubbo is probably the least qualified person to say what a mom sounds like considering his family life. To Quackity’s credit, his advice, more logical sense than anything, is probably helpful to any other teenager in Manning but it feels like Tubbo is dead set on giving up.

Quackity has never been the type of person to be dissuaded by one little jab. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“I know.” Tubbo has always been the type to give in.

“I’ll drive you, okay?” It doesn’t feel like a question.

All their fights, small and large, come to compromises more often than not. There’s something much less fulfilling about it, everytime. Tubbo wants to be unreasonable, he knows he could push further.

Quackity is set to blow at every corner yet he’s patient. It’s the same type of patience Tubbo has in him, it’s the kind you get from living in their house. It breaks you down and every ounce of patience gets replaced with exhaustion and the urge to give in.

“Fine.”

Quackity lectures him in the car too. “I just want you to have all the opportunities you can.”

They’re at a stop, the first intersection out from school. Tubbo sinks down in his seat. “Cause you threw yours all away?”

To give credit to Quackity, he barely reacts. “No, I made a decision to stay in Manning. You won’t have any options but here if you give up now.”

“I told you I’m not giving up!” Tubbo wishes he never came out of his room.

“Okay, then you’re just being difficult.” Quackity looks perfectly indifferent but Tubbo knows past that.

“You need to apply yourself, Tubbo. It’s ridiculous to let whatever is bothering you ruin what you’ve made.”

Tubbo wonders when this is all over if people will say they knew it would end like that. If it’s so clear that of course Schlatt’s brother would end up a murderer at seventeen. Maybe it’ll finally shut Quackity up about living up to his potential. 

He knows Quackity’s wrong, Tubbo didn’t make anything before this all. He tried a little harder in class, had  fewer c’s than he does now but this change didn’t shock any teacher. No one who doesn’t know him in and out is asking any questions. 

Tubbo still gets to school late.

Thursday is much worse than Monday, with infuriating car conversation lacking at least. Tommy drags his feet through gym and Tubbo gets blamed for why they’re not winning a very one-sided relay race. It’s stupid and no one really cares except for the guy who keeps getting in his face about being slow.

Lunch afterwards is still awkward like it has been for the past week. Jack is still convinced he deserves an apology, he does, and is completely absolved of any blame, he isn’t. He makes his stance very clear every time Tommy says something.

“Can you shut the fuck up for once?” Jack cuts him off mid rant about his English teacher.

“Fuck off, Jack!”

It’s almost comical the way Jack puffs his chest out at Tommy’s retort. “Not all our lives are centered around yours like your bitch boy. I don’t care if-“

“What does that mean?” Tubbo cuts in, a little louder than he means to.

Jack scoffs, actually scoffs. “It means I don’t worship the ground Tommy walks on!”

“And I do?” Tubbo takes back any defending arguments he had in his head about Jack. 

“You’d make out with his dirty laundry if it meant-“

Aimsey shouts over Jack. “Maybe we should all just cool off?” Ranboo chimes in with a tiny “yeah.”

Tubbo’s halfway out of his seat to yell at Jack over Tommy’s head. “No, He’s being a jackass!”

“Jackass? Real fucking funny, Tubbo!”

“Do you ever stop spewing bullshit!” Tubbo’s standing now.

Jack rises up with him. “Do you ever stop obsessing over Tommy?”

For a moment, Tubbo contemplates storming out of the cafeteria. But Jack’s smiling at him like he’s hot shit. Tubbo’s already moving before he starts talking again.

Fist hitting flesh should be louder than it is. There’s a crack when Tubbo’s hand connects to Jack’s nose but then silence. Unlike the movies, unlike the books, there isn’t any heavy breathing or split knuckles.

A teacher is yelling at them before any of them actually say something to each other.

It’s Quackity who shows up in the office after Schlatt doesn’t pick up the school’s call for the second time. He’s out of breath by the time he reaches the desk.

“I’m here for Tubbo Underscore. Uh, I got a call about something happening?”

Tubbo watches him finally look over to him sitting in one of the chairs against the wall. “I’m here.” He says it like Quackity has no idea who he is.

Before he can respond the assistant principal comes out of the back of the office and is directing both of them to where Jack and his step-mom are.

Jack has an ice pack wrapped in those shitty brown school paper towels held to his face when they walk in. A nasty purple is already blooming near his eyes, half covered by the ice pack. He looks so miserable that Tubbo has to bite down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing.

“Can we get this on with? My son has a broken nose, I don’t think there’s any more that needs to be discussed.” Jack’s mom is staring at Tubbo, still in the doorway. He kind of wants to hit her too.

“I don’t think that’s,” The principal sighs and directs his hand at Tubbo. “Can you have a seat, son?”

Jack’s mom directs her attention to Quackity. “I mean,” She scoffs. “Who even are you?”

Quackity has never looked more affronted. “I’m one of his guardians.”

“Right!” She throws her hands up only to put them right back down onto the purse set in her lap. “That makes a lot of sense.”

Quackity stares back at her. “Excuse me?”

“It’s always kids in broken homes that are causing these kinds of troubles for-”

“Aren’t you Jack’s step -mom, I think that classifies as pretty broken.” Tubbo cuts in.

Said woman opens her mouth but before she can get any words out, the principal speaks up again. “How about we have this conversation with the kids outside of the room, huh?”

“Whatever.” Jack gets out of his chair without looking at Tubbo at all.

It’s only when they’re back in the office waiting chairs when he starts talking. “You’re a real dick, you know that?”

“Fuck off, Jack.”

“No, I mean it! You used to be a nice guy or at least more fucking tolerable than Tommy but you’re just not . I don’t know what happened in the last two weeks but you’re fucking different, man.”

Tubbo can feel his eyes on him but he keeps staring ahead.

“Can you at least listen to me?”

He narrows his eyes. “Shut up.”

“Have you always been this much of an ass or are you just trying it out?” Silence. “Well, you’re doing an amazing job of it. You’re a bad person, Tubbo.” He turns in his seat to face Tubbo’s side. “I really mean that, you don’t give a shit about me! None of you fucking do and I know that but I still stick around for whatever fucking reason and it’s not-”

“Why?”

Jack actually stops for a moment, thoroughly shocked Tubbo said anything.

“Why do you still stick around? It’s not like Tommy’s ever good to you.”

Jack turns back in his seat to face the wall, staring at the same potted plants Tubbo is. “Why does it always have to be about Tommy.”

“God, whatever, Jack! What about fucking me, I’m an ass to you ninety percent of the day especially recently-”

“So something is going on!”

Tubbo hits his foot out of his space. “Shut up! Just, why do you stick around if all we do is make you hate yourself more.”

“I didn’t say that.” Jack straightens in his seat, he can’t keep still.

“You implied it.”

He scoffs. “No, I didn’t! Maybe you hate yourself, prick!”

“ Jack .”

Tubbo waits in silence for an actual response.

“I don’t know. I mean, you guys never actually kick me out. That’s gotta be worth something, I can’t go back to eating alone in the math hall, can I?” He lets the air sit stale for a moment. “He doesn’t mean all of it, right? He couldn’t actually mean all of it.”

Sometimes Tubbo thinks that all the jokes Tommy makes about Jack mean something more. Sometimes he thinks Tommy’s just a dick because he doesn’t know how else to be friends with Jack and sometimes Tubbo doesn’t know if they’re friends at all. “I don’t hate you.”

“Thanks, Tubbo.”

Jack beats his shoe into the ground, over and over. “Does he mean it?”

“To be honest, I don’t know.” It doesn’t make any sense at all that Tubbo and Jack are in a better place after Tubbo literally just broke his nose than Tommy and Jack are. At the same time it’s so irrevocably them that it makes perfect sense.

Tubbo looks over at him. “Sorry ‘bout the nose, though. I’ll punch Tommy too if he makes fun of you for looking stupid.”

Jack makes a noise between a scoff and a laugh. “Yeah, yeah. I was being a prick, deserved it didn’t I?”

Tubbo laughs. “Tell your step-mom that, I think she might actually kill me.”

“No fucking way! Her hating you right now is saving my ass.”

Right on que Jack’s step-mom comes right down the hallway to whisk him away and out of Tubbo’s evil clutches.

“Thank you for coming in Mrs. Manifold! I hope Jack makes a speedy recovery.” The principal yells at her out the door. Just after he directs his attention to Tubbo.

“I understand this was not just a one sided dispute but this campus does not tolerate violence. While I’ll see to it that Jack has a letter written in his file, I have to suspend you for the rest of the week as well as Monday. Do you understand that?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry for the inconvenience.” Tubbo already knows the disappointed look Quackity is giving him without even looking.

“Okay then! Mr. HQ, I’ll leave you to sign him out.”

Tubbo stays sitting in the waiting chairs for the next ten minutes while Quackity has some hushed conversation with the office desk lady. It’s all intelligible whispers till Quackity starts raising his voice. “I’m his acting guardian!”

“Sir, that is not what this file says. I can only release him to a Jay Schlatt.” The woman at the desk looks completely unfazed.

Quackity looks a lot closer to losing his cool than at the end of any argument he and Tubbo have gotten in. “Look, I’m his brother! You wanna try calling Schlatt again then be my guest!”

“You’re his brother? Great, then just pull out your ID for me.”

“That’s not-” Quackity looks completely defeated. “Look, I’m all he’s got, okay? I’m the one taking care of him, I’m the one signing field trip forms and making lunches. I can’t change the fact I’m not on that stupid file but I am the brother who’s here to pick him up right now.”

When the office woman looks over at him, Tubbo manages the fakest smile he can. She sighs. “Fine, just get his actual guardian to come in and add another slot on his official file.”

Quackity manages a much more fake smile. “I’m sure he’d be delighted to.” He looks over to Tubbo once again. “C’mon, get your stuff.”

——

“Why would you hit him?”

“I was angry.”

——

It’s six pm on Friday when they talk again. Quackity is washing dishes from earlier in the day when Tubbo walks into the kitchen. For a moment it seems completely normal, Tubbo isn’t some horrific monster, Quackity isn’t slowly killing himself by putting himself in this house, they’re just content. 

“What do you want for dinner?” They could be a happy family if they lie a little more.

Or they could crash and burn like they’re meant to. “When are you going to yell at me?”

Quackity turns around from the sink, mug, soap and rag still in hand. “Why would I yell at you, Tubbo?” 

“Quackity, I hit him.” Tubbo replies.

Quackity looks at him like he’s a small child. Tubbo doesn’t think he’s that far off, it’s getting tiring to just stand. “I know you did. You got a punishment already didn’t you? Why do you need me to yell at you?”

“I don’t know.” Tubbo feels lost in his own kitchen.

“I thought you didn’t like hearing me talk about you giving up-”

“I’m not.” He doesn’t like the fact that Quackity's talks of wasted potential, of losing, are getting to him because if he’s right then it’s much too late of a realization for Tubbo to do anything about it.

“Fine, you’re not.” Quackity subsides.

Tubbo moves to stand right next to Quackity, picking up the bowl still struck with evidence from a week's old mac and cheese dinner. They work in quick silence. The whirring of an overworking heater just outside the window doubles as background noise that somehow still gets drowned out even in the quiet. Quackity washes efficiently, scrubbing spots from ceramic while Tubbo drags out every wipe of a dry towel, waiting for the next dish.

When they finish, Quackity moves on to look at whatever they have in the fridge. Tubbo stands useless, still at the sink.

“What do you want for dinner?” He asks again.

Tubbo watches him push around an empty milk carton. “I don’t care.”

Before the silence can fully settle, Tubbo speaks up again. “Dream’s funeral is tomorrow.” He watches Quackity stutter without any words.

He looks unfazed but his jaw is set and his shoulders are tense. On paper Quackity is a great liar, he gets away with plenty of things just off the tip of his tongue but not to Tubbo. He’s always just slightly off, like he’s waiting for someone to finally catch him and give him no room to wiggle free. 

“I know that. Why does that matter right now?”

Tubbo lets the silence sit then. He’s a good liar, always guilty, always eating himself from the inside out but he’s a good liar. It burns in his gut and scrapes away at his head until he actually has to step out, to lie again and apologize for the headache he doesn’t have. It’s part of the reason he has to remind himself that the suffering he has does not make him a good person but worse for ignoring it and returning to only burn in his own flames.

“I did something bad, Quackity.”

The mug on the rack to the right of Tubbo drips onto the counter and Tubbo doesn’t look to see the puddle of water draw bigger but to watch Quackity take the rag from his hand and dry it.

“I think I knew I was going to do something bad and I did it anyway. I don’t- I don’t want to be a bad person.”

Quackity holds the rag still on the counter. “Sometimes we have to make hard decisions. That doesn’t make you a bad person.” He says.

Tubbo stands still in the kitchen.

“Sometimes, you have to be a bad person to make the right decision. Tubbo, you can’t see these things in black and white. Life isn’t about that, you have to keep moving or everyone will without you.”

Like Quackity is resetting the conversation he moves back to the open fridge.

“I don’t think it works like that.”

Tubbo watches him pick the carton out and toss it into the trash. Quackity has always kept moving, at each letdown. He has only slowed down to ready himself for a sprint or that is what he has said to keep himself moving at all.

He turns back to Tubbo, face calm but shoulders tense. “What do you want for dinner, Tubbo?”

“I’m tired.”

Four hours later, on an empty stomach, Tubbo is lying in bed when Quackity comes into his room. He doesn’t bother asking if he’s asleep, he just sits on the edge of his bed. The light from the living room is still on, the yellow of it creeps into his room only to light up the doorway.

Quackity settles in, sitting a little closer than Ranboo did a week ago. Half of his face is visible from where Tubbo has his own face squished into his pillow. He sits there quiet for a moment, still in the clothes from the day, face blank. His hands are clasped together like he’s praying.

“What did you do, Tubbo?” He asks in a whisper.

It’s different in Tubbo’s dark bedroom than in the kitchen just during sunset. Tubbo can feel his heart stutter like it didn’t before, a weight descends upon his chest constricting his lungs but he still breathes just fine. The blankets around his neck feel like they are suffocating him. He doesn’t know how he got here, for the first time in his life he wishes he never spoke to Ranboo, never walked down this path with him.

“I don’t think I can tell you.”

Tubbo knows more than anything that Quackity desperately wants to hear it, and wants confirmation on what he already knows. Despite this, Tubbo cannot figure out a single other thing going on in his head. If he’s going to ask again, plead for Tubbo just say it, what he would do once Tubbo finally speaks up, none of this Tubbo knows.

It’s a lot simpler than he expects. “That’s okay, move over.” He sounds exasperated.

Quackity turns to face him and crawls under the covers, jeans and all, right next to Tubbo. He looks sad more than anything else. The hair on his forehead is pushed awkwardly to one side as if he’d been running his hands through it. The image of him pacing the living room, hands grasping at strands of hair, plays through Tubbo’s head as he avoids eye contact.

They both lay facing each other for a beat, silent. Quackity slowly pulls Tubbo’s head to his chest, his arms coming around his side to hold him carefully like someone would a scared child. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. No one is going to take you away, I promise.”

Tubbo has never been more thankful that he can’t see Quackity’s face, he doesn’t want to know if he looks off. He wants to blindly trust like a toddler does when they pick plastic easter eggs up from the ground, being nothing more than happy. In this life, Tubbo has always been the strong one, thick skin and all. He feels just as he did when he was small and hadn’t quite grown into it yet, still crying from scrapes on the playground.

There is nothing Quackity can actually do to protect him, Tubbo knows that. It is all on him, all on Ranboo. Even though, He wraps his own arms around Quackity, holding tight. “I’m really fucking scared.” He whispers.

Tubbo can feel Quackity rest his head against his. “I’m right here.”

They don’t talk about the fact Quackity didn’t say “It’s going to be okay” or what happened at all in the morning. It’s business as usual except for the fact they’re awake at eight am on a Saturday, both dressed in dark suits, Tubbo’s jacket a little too large on him.

——

Niki comes from a long line of stone cold women; Ranboo knows this. He also knows that she is a weeper. She swears she hates these women but she weeps over each one of them like they have handed her the stars. Ranboo is not sure if they have, they refuse to look at him. Ranboo, himself, comes from the part of Niki’s family that is soft, that crumble faster than anyone Ranboo has ever seen. Niki weeps for them too.

His mother was taken away when he was young, Ranboo remembers her unbrushed hair and chipped tooth. Late at night, he sometimes thinks that he is still stuck in her womb, banging on a flesh drum to be let out. He pretends to forget it when he wakes up. There is one photo he has of her, with kept hair and closed mouth smile.

Ranboo’s father, he has been told, was gentle and kind. Niki swears he was the one to make the stars. He was a carpenter, a chair he made stays unused. It does not match the other two next to it; Ranboo lets himself believe that his father sits there. It’s a simple lie, easy to lead himself to believe.

The black dress Niki is wearing actually reminds him of the last time they saw their family. It was a funeral much different from this one, for some aunt neither of them knew very well. Ranboo doesn’t quite remember how old he was or their aunt’s name, only the fact he was recently living with Niki’s parents at the time and they would not stop to explain anything that was happening to him. Niki was the one who let him cling to her dress even though she looked like she wanted to be anywhere else but that chapel. This time she isn’t wearing bright pink wellingtons.

It isn’t raining at all when they get to the church. Surprisingly it’s quite sunny out for December, all the rays are hitting through the stained glass, painting the church floors and pews. Niki tells him to sit just behind where Tubbo, Quackity, and all of Tommy’s family are. She disappears just after.

Tommy turns around in his seat a second after Ranboo sits down. “How’re you doing, big man?”

There’s a closed casket less than twenty feet away from them. “I’m fine, what about you?” Ranboo replies.

“I feel like shit. I don’t really understand how he’s just gone.” Tommy says quietly. It makes perfect sense that Tommy is a mourner of all living things, no matter how terrible they are. His brother Wilbur doesn’t share the same sentiment as he poorly hides a “He was a bastard.” sandwiched between two coughs.

Tommy turns back around to glare at Wilbur. “Shut the fuck up.” He quickly turns back around, tears more evident in his eyes now, to keep talking with Ranboo. “I know he was a bad person but it doesn’t mean he deserved to die. Am I supposed to feel good about all this?” Tommy asks.

“No- No, I dont- I don’t think so.” Ranboo feels like he’s going to throw up.

“I’m pretty sure he was my friend at some point and now he’s dead. How is that fucking fair, Ranboo? Someone killed him and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.” The tears at the corner of his eyes somehow grow larger without ever spilling over.

Ranboo looks just to the right of Tommy where Tubbo is sitting with his head hanging and his fists clenched in his black slacks. Quackity’s hand is resting on his back as he looks stoically ahead. Ranboo can just make out the water falling from Tubbo’s face, hitting the wooden pew.

“I don’t know. I guess you just have to mourn.” Ranboo says, trying desperately to refocus his attention.

Tommy looks up at the ceiling, searching for something beyond the wet he is blinking back. “How the fuck do I do that?”

——

A couple days after the funeral, Tubbo sits with his legs propped up against Tommy’s couch, phone in his hands, his body laying on the floor just in front of it. Wilbur and Tommy are talking surprisingly gently over a TV program no one is watching anymore.

In the kitchen Techno and Phil are attempting to fix the leaky faucet. Tubbo suspects they’ll give up in the next hour and call a plumber for tomorrow. Before they do, the shrill sound of the landline rings.

“Yes, this is he,” Phil says into the phone, standing right at the wall cutting the kitchen halfway off from the living space. Tubbo can hear him more clearly than Tommy and Wilbur’s conversation about an aquarium in some other city.

“Oh, why would they need to do that?”

Silence.

“I don’t appreciate this.”

Furrowed brows.

“I understand but-”

Jaw set.

“Alright, I’ll let them know.”

Phil hangs the phone with more force than necessary. Everyone’s looking at him by now, Techno from behind, Wilbur and Tommy from the couch. He still has his eyebrows set into his eye creases.

“What was that about?” Wilbur all but yells. He has his hands hanging from the back of the couch, his body turned so he can rest his head on it.

Phil tries to come up with a neutral face, Tubbo thinks, he's not doing a very good job. “That was the police-”

Techno looks up again, alarmed. “Heh?”

“They want to talk to you and Tommy at the station tomorrow morning.” Phil laments back. When He turns back around to face Tommy and subsequently Tubbo, his face looks substantially more neutral than before.

Tommy, on the other hand, looks panicked. “Why the fuck do they want to talk to me?”

Phil’s face falls to sympathy this time. “It’s about Dream, mate.”

The couch creaks as Tommy jumps off of it onto his feet, leaving Wilbur toppling over who was leaning on him previously. As Tommy rounds the corner of the couch, coming closer to the kitchen, Tubbo sits up on the floor, following him with his eyes like a magnet. “I don’t know shit!” Tommy yells.

“Tommy, I don’t know anything either. It’s probably preliminary.” Techno tries to soothe him from the counter, putting things back into a toolbox.

Tommy grumbles something that sounds suspiciously like “Preliminary, my ass.” as he comes back to sit next to Wilbur. The cooking program becomes audible again as everyone seems to come to a still. There’s an ever present drip from the kitchen but it is now accompanied by Tommy’s socked foot tapping against the floor.

The drumming increases for a moment until Wilbur leans himself back into Tommy’s space with an arm over his shoulder. “Calm down, man. It’s going to be fine, I promise.” Wilburs says to Tommy.

It’s silly how often Wilbur promises things like this, things he has no control over. Tubbo wants to promise too. He wants to promise Tommy that if the police come to some conclusion that goes against him then Tubbo will turn himself in. He’ll drag the rest of the rope in Schlatt’s closet with him so they have something to tie him up with. Of course, he says nothing.

When Tubbo gets home two hours later Quackity is standing on the porch smoking a cigarette. 

“The police want to talk to you.” Quackity says when Tubbo reaches the front door. Somehow he looks more nervous than Tubbo.

Instead of texting Tommy or any one of the Crafts, Tubbo lets Quackity dial their landline. He sits on the counter watching like a small child does when their mother calls to find out if their kids can play after school together. But none of it is like that, Quackity still has a cigarette between his fingers, Techno’s voice over the phone sounds stressed for once. Tubbo wants to rip the phone away from Quackity to ask why Phil didn’t pick up, where he is, where Tommy is, if both of them are alive, and maybe if they’ve had dinner yet.

Like Quackity can sense the things going on in his head, he turns to him, phone outstretched. “Do you want to say something?” He asks.

Tubbo doesn’t look at the phone. “Ask if they’ve had dinner.”

Quackity repeats the question over the phone with a tacked “Tubbo wants to know” on to it. A second later he nods to him and places the phone right on its stand while bringing the cigarette to his lips.

Tubbo breathes in like he is the one inhaling smoke.

——

The next morning Techno picks Tubbo up three blocks away from his house. The ride to the police station is anything but silent. Tubbo thought it would be tense and rigid but Tommy can’t seem to stop himself from arguing with Techno over the radio. It seems to be distracting him and Tubbo’s pretty damn sure Techno knows that because there is no reasonable explanation to why he is being this patient with his brother.

The precinct is the complete opposite of the car. The second they walk in it is complete silence, all the accusatory eyes of small town police officers. Like sharks smelling blood in the water, two detectives come out to show them the way before they can even reach the front desk.

When they’re finally seated all on a small bench outside what Tubbo presumes is an interrogation room one of the detectives speaks up. “We’re going to take you all back one at a time. Don’t go anywhere while you wait.” And then Tommy is taken away.

Tubbo watches him walk all the way into the small room with both the detectives until the taller of the two slams the door behind them.

It’s silent again. Techno and Tubbo have never been very close, something about age gaps and an instilled rivalry via Quackity and him. One of the best memories Tubbo has of Techno is when he taught Tubbo to tie “the best knot in existence” but Tubbo’s tainted that one. 

“He’ll be fine.” Techno says.

At this moment Tubbo wonders why Techno is here at all, why the police want to talk to him at all. Tommy, Tubbo can understand, the complaints filed after sophomore year and the accusations the police made that he was slandering Dream. Tubbo wholeheartedly disagrees with their thinking but nonetheless it makes sense. He wonders if Techno made good on that promise to knock Dream’s teeth in while Tommy was unconscious in the hospital. 

Instead of asking why the police asked him there at all, Tubbo asks something that’s been concerning him for much longer. “Why do you hate Quackity?”

Techno doesn’t even glance at him. “I don’t hate Quackity, I mildly dislike him.” He states.

“Whatever! Why do you mildly dislike him?” Tubbo presses.

This time Techno looks him right in the eyes although he looks completely unfazed. “He accused me of plagiarizing my essay submission to the school newspaper which almost got me expelled, Tubbo.”

Suddenly Tubbo wants to start screaming and yelling. Since he was twelve Tubbo has been plagued by some horrific feud between Quackity and Techno which turns out has been over some fucking school newspaper essay. Tubbo knows Techno has some skeletons buried, issues at the school which landed him in a precarious position with the old principal, probably the reason he would almost be expelled over something so small. None of that matters when Tubbo has spent the past half decade protecting himself and them from this small of an issue. He wants to pull his hair out and then Quackity and Techno’s.

Instead of doing any of that, he continues the conversion. “You threw a tire iron at him!”

“He shouldn’t have gotten in reasonable attack range.” Techno replies.

Before Tubbo can say anything else, the shorter detective comes out of the room next to them and ushers Techno to the one across the bench. All of this leaves Tubbo alone with bubbling anger.

He can remember walking home from Tommy’s four miles away just because he was too scared to ask Techno for a ride in case Quackity was home. Every time he wasn’t. Tubbo remembers not knowing where to stand when Quackity picked Tubbo up and Techno came home at just the wrong time. Techno looked like everything he saw was red. Never in Tubbo’s life has he been more glad for Tommy’s habit of inserting himself in every situation.

All of that time worrying, planning, and wondering feels utterly stupid now. If Tubbo could go back in time he would shake twelve year old Tubbo by the shoulders and tell him to forget any tension between Techno and Quackity. Well, if Tubbo could go back in time he would do a lot of different things. He would find his mother and tell her to pick anyone else in the bar, maybe that half Tubbo kid would end up better than the full one did.

The feud pulled Tubbo and Tommy apart temporarily but it completely ended whatever Quackity and Wilbur had going on. For a long time, Tubbo blamed Quackity for the strife, especially during the two weeks he couldn’t hang out with Tommy because of it. Now he feels guilty for shutting him out when his total of one other friend at the time, Wilbur, left all at once.

Tubbo’s unsure if they’ve actually spoken more than two words to each other since then. 

Twenty minutes of silence later the detective and Techno emerge, the detective seemingly a lot more disgruntled but Techno largely unaffected. Tubbo wonders how Tommy is still getting questioned while he’s being taken back for his own interrogation.

The room is cold and completely bare except for a desk, two chairs and a small recorder on the table. Unlike the cop shows Tubbo has seen, there is no one way glass for him to be scrutinized through.

“I’m Detective Lewis. Do you know why you’re here today?” The man says. He’s only a little taller than Tubbo is but he’s much larger. His face is undeniably mean, his lips are thin and press firmly together after every sentence.

Tubbo suddenly feels choked like question one has him caught red handed. “It’s about Dream, right?” He says.

“Yes. Can you tell me how exactly you knew him?” Detective Lewis asks him like he’s wasting his time but simultaneously is deeply engrossed in whatever Tubbo will answer.

“Uh, we went to school together. Tommy, my friend, and him had a bad relationship but I didn’t talk to him very much. I don’t think he knew I existed.” Tubbo replies.

Detective Lewis looks completely engrossed now. “What do you mean by a bad relationship?”

Tubbo hates this man. He hates the fact that Detective Lewis knows exactly what Tubbo is talking about and yet he’s asking. “He hurt Tommy. Dream put him in a frozen lake!”

“That was never proven. Did Thomas Craft tell you that?” He asks.

“I saw him, he was blue!” Tubbo is trying everything to keep from yelling.

The man looks like he is trying to contain his smile, poorly. “That doesn’t prove that Dream had anything to do with that.”

Tubbo just stares at him.

“Do you know anyone else that might have something against him?” Detective Lewis says and Tubbo wants to hit him for saying anyone else like Tommy could have ever killed Dream.

He does not leap out of his chair fist first like he wants to. “Half of our school did. He was a jerk to almost everyone!”

The detective seems to be getting more and more exasperated with how Tubbo seems to be answering. If Tubbo wasn’t totally biased he would feel sympathetic for the people trying to solve the murder of a hated man. 

“Nobody stands out at all? Maybe someone who made a big deal about sharing a desk with him?” 

Tubbo doesn’t think a desk dispute is any reason to kill a man. “No? I didn’t have any classes with him.”

This seems to interest the detective more than anything Tubbo has said prior. “That’s not true, Mr. Underscore. I had schedules printed of everyone in his classes and this says that you two had first semester gym together in your freshman year. “

Tubbo barely remembers his winter gym class, he probably showed up a total of five times if he had to guess. “No one came to gym first semester. They put half of the school in one gym class and the heater broke a week into school! Honestly, I just sat in the library that period.” He has no idea if Dream was there or not.

Detective Lewis seems deflated once again. “So you had no contact with him in that class?”

“I didn’t even know he was in my class!” Tubbo says.

Detective Lewis seems to collect himself as he puts away the few copies of class schedules on the desk back into a paper file. He crosses his arms across his chest to gather back his hard facade.

“Can you tell me where you were on the night of November Seventh?” Lewis asks, still standing, looking down on him.

Tubbo reminds himself that he is a good liar. No one ever knows when he is burning from the inside out. “I was at Mikey’s Pizza then I went home.” Tubbo says flatly.

It’s starting to dawn on Tubbo that he is a suspect in a murder that he committed.

“When did you leave Mikey’s?”

Tubbo tries to think back, like he doesn’t remember every horrid detail. “I don’t know? Around ten or eleven.” He prays that he and Ranboo cleaned that blood up well enough. They must have if no one has said anything.

Once again Detective Lewis looks bored. “Can anyone verify that?”

Tubbo adjusts his seat. “Yeah, I was hanging out with Ranboo on his shift, he drove me home.”

“Is this Ranboo Beloved?”

Tubbo nods and tries not to start crying at the horrifying state his life is in. How the hell is he a murderer at seventeen? People are making bad decisions like getting drunk, sneaking out, having sex with their best friend’s boyfriend, and not killing a man.

Detective Lewis checks his phone before he speaks again. “Alright then. We’ll call you in again if we have any more questions.”

When Tubbo comes back into the makeshift waiting area Tommy is still not back. Techno is leaning against the wall instead of sitting on the bench whilst he talks on the phone. He offers no greeting when Tubbo takes his seat back but he does glance at him, acknowledging his presence.

“Tubbo just got out.” Techno says into the phone, no longer actually looking at Tubbo.

Whoever he is on the phone with plows on with their rant while Techno stands stock still. Tubbo would feel bad for him but he’s still upset about the absurdity of the great Techno-Quackity feud. Who in their right mind throws a tire iron at someone because of some high school drama. Quackity’s tending to annoy the living shit out of everyone ignored or not, it makes no sense.

Tubbo watches the line go quiet. “Where’s Tommy?”

“I don’t know, he’s still back there.” Techno still has the phone pressed to his ear.

Tommy has always been kind, not quite so thoughtful but he is kind. Tubbo knows this yet Tommy is still trapped at the center of a murder investigation. It really isn’t fair that Tommy is always the one who has to pay for Tubbo’s mistakes. He doesn’t know how he can fix this.

If they arrest Tommy, which they can’t, he didn’t do anything, Tubbo has to come clean. But that means taking down Ranboo and despite how angry Tubbo gets at him, he can’t condemn him either. He deserves to get some fancy university degree and a job that puts him as respected, he deserves a fuller life than he’d get with Tubbo attached to his hip. No matter what, he’d figure out how to save Tommy. It wouldn’t matter the consequences he’d face.

Right on time with Tubbo’s crisis, Tommy walks out the door seemingly okay. It’s strange to see him that way after everything Tubbo’s mind has run through while he had been gone. In some weirder way, Tommy had died in there or Tubbo had. The second Tommy had walked through that police room it was over, they were never going to be the same Tubbo and Tommy. In reality, it was before that, the second Tubbo grabbed that rolling pin, they were never going back and that was Tubbo’s choice.

That’s the scariest thing about this whole ordeal, Tubbo made a choice. He’s been trying to lie to himself about that but none of it matters because Tubbo knows he made a choice to kill Dream. He knew before he did it that it was going to happen and he knew he could stop but he didn’t. If Tommy ever knew, if he ever prodded a little deeper, he would hate Tubbo because above all else Tommy has never hated Dream, he was scared of him but he never once hated him. 

“Who’s Techno on the phone with?” Tommy’s standing right in front of Tubbo, smiling down.

Tubbo’s still not sure if he regrets any of it. “Uh, no fucking clue, boss man.” But he is so goddamn sorry.

Techno, no longer leaning against the wall, moves towards where they came in. “It’s Wilbur, come on nerds.” He motions for them to follow.

Just ahead of Tubbo, Tommy is literally prodding Techno. He keeps pushing to ask why Wilbur called, what he wants , if he’ll give Tommy the red controller when he gets home because of what he had to do today. Techno seems about ready to commit his own act of violence. Before Tubbo can redirect Tommy’s antics, they stop abruptly, just before the front desk.

Tubbo would love to argue that he was doomed to continue the cycle of violence that was done onto him but it isn’t fair to the people who keep choosing good. Like Tommy and every kind thing he has done even from where he came from, like Techno who despite everything still tries to be forgiving. 

“Can you just give me my fucking kid? How goddamn hard is that for you?” In all his disgruntled glory, Schlatt stands arguing with an officer.

Tubbo is still halfway behind Tommy and Techno when Schlatt rounds on him. “Great, I’m the one who fucking found him!”

Neither Tommy nor Techno move to let Schlatt through to Tubbo. No matter the day and no matter the time, the Craft family have always been ready to stand in the way of Tubbo and his fucked up family. They never really win, Tubbo always promises he’ll be fine, he’s my brother , and walks right into the belly of the beast. It’s not fair to call Schlatt that or relate Quackity to it all, Tubbo loves them no matter what.

“Oh. Why are you here?” Tubbo comes out from behind Tommy’s left.

Schlatt, seemingly sober enough, puffs up. “Cause’ the police called, what the fuck did you do, huh?”

“He didn’t do anything! You would know that if-” Tubbo kicks Tommy in the shin to shut him up, and in return he whispers some choice words.

“I just meant that I have a ride home, Schaltt.”

He takes a step forward to get a hand behind Tubbo’s back and usher him out. “We’re leaving this shit place, kid.”

In the past month, Tubbo has only seen Schlatt maybe five times, always brief, always extremely early or late. It’s strange to see him acting like he’s such an integral part of Tubbo’s life yet still like it greatly inconveniences him. Tubbo wants to say that he cares because why would he show up here if he didn’t, why would he bother with drunken promises of getting them far away from Manning for good, why would he do any of it if he didn’t care a little bit.

Schlatt pulls out of the parking lot a little too fast for a police station directly behind them. “What’d they get you for, huh?”

Tubbo wonders what Schaltt would do if Tubbo told him the full truth, what he did to Dream in the dead of night. Despite how utterly predictable Schlatt is, Tubbo has no idea. It’s unrealistic to think Schlatt would take his side more than casually or take the other; maybe he wouldn’t look at him differently altogether. He’d probably shake his head and laugh, pat Tubbo on the back and say Guy was an ass, anyways . None of that makes much sense either because just as easily Tubbo can imagine him stopping the car and saying Why the fuck would you do that just to kick him out and never to be seen again.

“I’m fucking talking to you.” Schlatt’s looking at him sideways.

Tubbo straightens in his seat and looks out the windshield. “Oh, right. It was just questions.”

Schlatt scoffs. “That’s how they get you, dumbass. What’re they poking at?”

“Y’know, Dream’s death and all. Suspicious, innit?”

Schlatt slows to a stop sign and looks at Tubbo like it’s a totally normal night and Schaltt’s pulled him out for lunch like Wilbur used to for Tommy. He’s smiling without his teeth and for a split second Tubbo thinks that Schaltt is my brother, he loves me, of course he loves me and then he opens his mouth again. “What, did you kill him?”

Before Tubbo even gets to have his mini heart attack, Schlatt is getting honked at and then cursing out the car behind him. He starts talking again before Tubbo can even make his mouth open. “Course you fuckin’ didn’t, you’re too much of a wimp for that shit.”

Tubbo laughs along and everything is fine, he’s just learning to live with himself.

——

The second they get home, Schlatt passes out on the couch. It’s three hours later when Quackity gets home and Tubbo finds him with a beer against the kitchen counter just staring at Schlatt asleep.

“He seems content, right?” Quackity doesn’t bother to look up at Tubbo when he pads into the space.

Tubbo looks briefly at his sleeping brother’s face, furrowed brows unfurrowed. “Yeah, he kinda does.”

Tubbo actually speaking seems to break Quackity out of whatever spell he was in as he focuses his attention on him like Schlatt isn’t even in the room. ”Did you not go back to school?”

“Schlatt picked me up so we just ended up back here.” Tubbo ignores how Quackity immediately goes back to staring at the sleeping man in their house as soon as his name is said.

From his voice Tubbo can tell he’s genuinely shocked. “He picked you up?”

“Yeah, he just showed up.” Tubbo watches the way Quackity’s eyes get glassy and tries not to feel guilty somehow. “Ranboo has an off period last period so he’s gonna come pick me up.”

Quackity just nods with a beer pressed to his lips. Something about this feels wrong like Quackity has been stuck here the same way Tubbo has been and he just never noticed. It all seems to click into place and Tubbo can’t leave so he sits next to his shoes on the floor and watches. Ranboo was supposed to pick him up three blocks away like always, like how Tommy’s family does because it’s too much of a risk for them to be right in front of his house.

Tubbo used to do it because it was embarrassing , Tommy had this mansion he lived in and Tubbo’s house was falling apart but the Crafts knew where he lived, they always knew. So it turned into protecting Quackity from Techno, they’d pick him up away from the house just in case Quackity was on the way over. But Ranboo never had any feud, Tubbo just wanted to protect him from this part of his life. He thought he could keep it separate, let Ranboo have the only good parts of Tubbo for as long as he could manage to keep them.

Ranboo’s text vibrates against Tubbo’s leg and finally, he rises. “I’m leaving, Quackity.”

“Have fun, kid.” Quackity still watches Schaltt’s peaceful sleeping face, warm bear dripping condensation through his fingers.

——

Ranboo doesn’t really know how to get information out of Tubbo unless he wants to be forthcoming. It has always been a waiting game with him, quiet and awkward but it’s worth it. For the past two hours, Tubbo has been curled up on Ranboo’s bed, facing the wall with his back pressed against Ranboo’s side. He’s been quiet except for the moments Ranboo swears he heard snoring but his eyes are open and his fingers keep drumming on his own leg. 

“Tubbo?” Ranboo whispers to the back of his head. He doesn’t know what to do here, if he asks what happened at the police station again or sits quiet until Tubbo says something . 

Tubbo burrows his head deeper into the mass of pillows underneath him. “What’s up, boss man?”

It’s quiet in Ranboo’s room, Niki is out with Puffy again and most of the residents at their apartment complex, which is only a two story building that's shaped like a U, are older and very quiet. The window’s blinds are closed tightly but Ranboo can just barely make out a sliver of light from the streetlamps. Just months ago Ranboo would have begged for a night like this with Tubbo by his side but none of this is what Ranboo wants. If it was okay, Ranboo would hold onto Tubbo and never let go again.

“What do we do?”

Tubbo swivels around to face Ranboo. “What do you mean?”

He watches how Tubbo’s eyes have this little twinkle in them like the stars outside his windows live right in the blueness of his irises. Like this, all cuddled up in Ranboo’s blankets and curled up around the sheets starting to slip from the corners of his mattress, he looks so at peace. “When this blows over what do we do?”

Tubbo has this habit where he starts to smile but tries to abandon it halfway through so the corner of his mouth twitches and his lips tremble. “When?”

Ranboo wasn’t even thinking about if. “Yeah, how do we move on?”

“Well, you’re gonna get into some fancy pants university and I’m gonna follow you around like a groupie-”

“Tubbo!”

He laughs just briefly under his breath and Ranboo suddenly remembers that he can never just let Tubbo leave, he doesn’t care if it means abandoning all thought, he did once already, he’s staying with him to the end. “What else?”

Tubbo laughs a little louder. “I don’t know, man! We’re- uh, we’re gonna have cozy nights in with tea and shit. Nothin’ to worry about, yeah?”

It sounds like a dream Ranboo would die to live in. “That sounds nice.”

None of that will happen, of course. It’s a nice little dream, perfectly packaged with no room for life ruining events because there's no reality in it. It’s like all the Hallmark movies Ranboo begrudgingly loves because there is always a happy ending, the guy always gets the girl and in turn, their happily ever after. For Ranboo, none of that will happen, there is always the next day.

But school is easier the next day and everything is light. Tommy tells him he doesn’t look like shit for once. Things are looking up!

“RANBOOO!! Are you paying attention to me?” Tommy is breathing down his neck in the school auditorium, clearly ignoring the graduation information the principal is currently saying is “incredibly important”.

Ranboo can feel his bubble pop just a tad. “I was trying to listen, what?”

“You and Tubbs are coming over after school right?” Tommy does not follow the way Ranboo whispered to him just before which makes what he says next even worse. “Or are you guys gonna make out and ditch your kind and loving friend? Huh?”

The red that immediately covers every visible portion of Ranboo’s skin burns even brighter as the group of girls right next to him begins laughing. “Tommy!”

Said child looks feigns innocence. “What? Are you coming or not?”

Ranboo sinks back into his seat and whisper yells an affirmative. When he starts thanking god that the whole interaction is over, Tubbo with Jack in tow come creeping over to take seats next to them. Ranboo sinks even lower as Tommy greets Tubbo by calling his name a little too loud making the girl next to him burst out in giggles again.

Tommy’s joyous smile drops off his face once he actually sees Jack hiding behind Tubbo. “What the fuck is he doing here?” 

Ranboo feels guilty for forgetting about what went down between them, furthermore he feels bad about doing nothing about it. He knows Jack, Tubbo and Tommy have known eachother since middle school back when Jack and Tommy’s fights were a lot less serious. A part of Ranboo knows that whatever anger between them right now is a long time in the making with Tubbo right in the center.

Jack sneers right back at Tommy but at least he doesn’t yell. “You don’t have a monopoly on fucking chairs, Tommy.”

“Both of you shut up!” Tubbo interjects. He’s wearing one of Ranboo’s hoodies, Ranboo can’t help but notice the way it threatens to swallow Tubbo’s hands whole. Despite this, he looks uncharacteristically serious. “Jack’s coming over to yours today too, yeah?”

Tommy, definitely aware of Tubbo’s seriousness, ignores it. “Like fucking hell I’m letting him in my house!”

Like Tubbo is parenting two ungodly children, he smacks Tommy upside the head and pushes Jack into his seat in one fell swoop. “Jack has something to say, right?” 

Jack looks like he does not want to be saying anything. “Fuckin’ whatever!” A beat later. “I’m sorry for being an ass and saying shit about Dream.” 

Tommy’s face is all screwed up, his upper lip isn’t even visible at this point but Ranboo can see the glassy look in his eyes. He’s known Tommy long enough to understand that he really hasn’t been that angry with Jack at least not for a while. He’s just got all of this pride that seems to block his ability to just let go .

“It’s whatever.” Tommy completely slumps down in his chair and looks away.

Tubbo says his name with gritted teeth.

Tommy looks back to Jack who at this point might be about to cry which is shocking for a number of things but mostly because Ranboo has never actually seen Jack cry. “Okay, okay! I’m sorry for saying all that fucked up shit, I was being a prick.”

“You can come over to my house if ya’ want.” Both Tommy and Jack are looking nowhere near each other.

“It’s cool, yeah.”

Ranboo is completely lost in all of this, it’s been weeks since they’ve had a conversation that hasn’t ended in screaming and now: It’s cool . Ranboo was sure they were going to graduate high school without ever speaking again and that would be that. To be fair, Tubbo is sitting in the middle of them doing the thing where he tries not to smile and Ranboo would make up with anyone to see that so maybe it isn’t that shocking at all.

——

Jack is taking up half the couch with the way he is sitting and maybe Tubbo is using it as an excuse to lean all of his body into Ranboo but he does not deserve the way Tommy is fake gagging at them or the way Jack laughs so loud it feels like the whole room is shaking. It feels nice anyways. All of them together making fun of themselves for not being able to beat this god forsaken level of Super Mario Odyssey, felt impossible a week ago but it’s happening and Tubbo feels happy with it all.

“Stop trying to sit on Ranboo and pass the fucking popcorn, Tubbo!” Tommy is still the same.

Tubbo would love to dump the entire bowl of popcorn on Tommy’s head but he passes it because he is a gentleman. “I hope you choke.” Okay, he isn’t a great gentleman.

Jack is button mashing directly next to Tubbo which is definitely not the way to get up the wall he is facing in the game but he doesn’t seem very focused. “Does- does it scare you guys that there’s someone in this town that’s a murderer?” Of course, all good things end. 

“I reckon there’s a lot more than just one.” Tommy speaks aggressively around the food in his mouth.

Jack rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever! I mean like it’s someone we know, someone fucking murdered someone we know and why? That’s fuckin’ terrifying, innit?”

Tubbo tries to not break Ranboo’s hand with the way he is holding on to it for dear life. “I mean he was a bastard, who wouldn’t want him dead?” Immediately Tubbo knows that was the wrong thing to say by the way Tommy is looking at him.

Ranboo pipes up from above Tuboo’s head before Tommy says anything about it. “It could have just been an accident.”

“Right cause it’s totally an accident the way his head was  clobbered in.” Tommy takes the controller out of Jack’s hands after he says his piece and Tubbo knows that means conversation over. 

“Tommy it’s my fucking turn!”

“Fuck off,” Tommy shoves Jacks arms away from the controller. “You were doing a shit job!”

While Jack and Tommy squabble over who should be playing right now, which no one is because Jack is actively trying to take Tommy down to the floor, Tubbo watches how Ranboo’s leg bounces against the floor. “It’s okay.” Tubbo whispers, cheek pressed firmly into Ranboo’s shoulder.

Ranboo in return intertwines his fingers with Tubbo’s. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.” He whispers back.

“We can go if you want.” Tubbo knows that might be suspicious but worse comes to worst, Tubbo will tell Tommy he wants to go suck face with Ranboo and that would shut him up, it might also give Ranboo a real heart attack but they can recover from that. 

The way Ranboo shakes his head jostles Tubbo’s own just slightly. “No, no, I’m okay.” For the moment he is quiet Tubbo can tell he is trying to calm his leg. “Act- Actually, can you get me some water?”

Tubbo is happy to oblige. “Sure thing, boss man.” 

Tommy’s kitchen is big and has a window that faces Techno’s surprisingly always full garden. The only fatal flaw is the fact they have one of those fancy water containers that Tubbo hates refilling but somehow he always ends up doing so. That in itself is a testament to how much time Tubbo actually spends at the Craft residence, rivaling how much he spends at his own house. 

He doesn’t really know with how much genuine time he spends here how there is no actual trace of his existence like the moment he walks out the door it’s all erased. It probably has something to do with Tubbo being utterly terrified of making too big of an impact which seems to be the opposite for Tommy. Maybe that’s why they work so well together.

In Tubbo’s stupor of trying to not overfill the fancy ass Craft water container, he misses Wilbur coming into the kitchen.

“Taking a break from Tommy and Jack’s screaming?” 

At the sudden sound of Wilbur’s voice, Tubbo almost screams himself. “Holy shit, dude!”

Wilbur laughs the same way Phil does, like he is collapsing in on himself. “Sorry, sorry!”

Tubbo watches, heart still beating out of his chest, as Wilbur then takes the container out of his hands and puts it back into the fridge. He continues to rummage around in there. “I swear Tommy never fucking refills that thing.” 

That would explain why Tubbo always has to, of course, it’s Tommy’s fault somehow. 

Wilbur looks back up at Tubbo, still bent over into the fridge, and says something Tubbo never thought would ever come out of his mouth. “So, how’s Quackity?”

Them three haven’t been in the same room together since Tubbo and Tommy’s middle school graduation. Even then they sat as far apart as possible and didn’t mutter anything past a greeting. 

Tubbo would love to blame the shock for the reason what he says in response comes out sounding too sincere but it’s just that Tubbo is sincere. “Y’know, I hated you when we first met.” 

He knows it doesn’t answer Wilbur’s seemingly innocent question in the way he wanted him to but it’s far too easy to say that Quackity is fine and just the same as always. It’s not every day that Tubbo gets to genuinely shock Wilbur in way of words and it’s stupid to try because they’re not some cartoon rivals that get to trade one liner quips. They’re not enemies at all so Tubbo’s not quite sure why every one on one conversation he has with Wilbur feels like walking in a minefield. The way Wilbur’s jaw goes slack and his eyes wide is worth it, enemy or not.

Wilbur recovers quickly. “What did I do to you?”

“It was stupid,” And it clearly is because Tubbo has no clue why he’s trying to have some damning conversation with Wilbur with Ranboo’s glass of water in his hands. “I thought you were going to run away with Tommy and Quackity.”

Tubbo remembers being barely eleven when Tommy’s family came rolling into town because the middle school in their old town closed and it was just easier for them to move a couple miles to Manning before it became an immediate issue. Quackity had just started dating Schlatt and despite denying all allegations of it, Tubbo liked him. He liked that he tried a little harder than he needed to and he liked that he wasn’t scared to spend the night even if none of them knew if Schlatt and Tubbo’s uncle would be home. 

It was only a couple of months later when Tubbo officially met Wilbur when he finally spent the night at Tommy’s house but Tubbo had known him before that, as the guy who was stealing away Quackity’s time. Every night that Quackity was supposed to come over and watch scary movies that Tubbo was definitely too young to see and didn’t make it over Schlatt told him it was “that fucking beanie head brother of your friend’s fault”. 

Tubbo believed all of that then because he was eleven and stupid and desperately wanted it not to be the Underscore-Schlatt’s fault for someone not coming back. So maybe seeing Wilbur and Quackity, who Tubbo thought was with his brother, on the couch when Tubbo walked in the door to the Craft residence wasn’t the best first impression. Or the next forty minutes which Tubbo spent awkwardly sitting on the couch as far away from Wilbur as he could, watching Tommy and him laugh.

“I’m not taking Quackity anywhere.” Wilbur says matter of factly and Tubbo hates it. He hates the way he talks about Quackity like they were never friends, hates the fact that he might be thinking about dragging Tommy away and how he would be completely justified in doing so.

Tubbo vocalizes none of this, he shrugs calmly instead. 

“What’s going on with you, Tubbo?” Wilbur closes the fridge and diverts all the attention he can to Tubbo’s shrunken form.

“I’m fine.”

Wilbur sighs like he knows for a fact that Tubbo is lying to him, to be fair he probably does. “Cmon, work with me here.”

Clearer than when Tubbo met Wilbur officially, Tubbo can remember the ending fight of Wilbur and Quackity’s friendship. Tubbo had just turned thirteen and had completely forgiven Wilbur of all prior fake transgressions. They hadn’t spoken in a couple days and suddenly Quackity was volunteering himself to give Tubbo a ride over to Tommy’s. Wilbur was seventeen and mean, completely unforgiving, Quackity was a year younger and pushy. Tubbo didn’t understand any of it, why they were staring at each other in the doorway, he squeezed himself between the frame and Wilbur to get to Tommy on the other side.

It wasn’t like every other time a young Tubbo had pried himself into the Craft home, without calling, just knocking on the door. It was the first time Tommy didn’t greet him loudly and pull him upstairs, unmistakably there was something wrong .

“Tubbo, right now isn’t a great time.” Wilbur wasn’t even looking at him.

Before Tubbo could apologize, Quackity jumped in to defend him. “Don’t take it out on him!”

“You need to leave.”

“That’s not fair-”

“Get out, Quackity!”

Wilbur had always been happy to have Tubbo over. Maybe he figured out that he and Tommy had eaten his share of the leftover pie the last time he was over. Tubbo didn’t think he would be this angry about that, Tommy said it would be fine.

Tommy at the moment looks upset too, Tubbo should have told him to ask Wilbur before they ate it. “Wilbur! Can’t Tubbo just stay over for a little bit?” Tommy was a lot quieter in his arguing than he normally was, he must have already been yelled at.

“That’s-”

Quackity butted in. “Why don’t you guys go upstairs and I’ll call for Tubbo when we’re leaving.”

Tubbo should have refused when he saw Wilbur’s grip tightening on the door frame but Tommy was pulling on his arm and it did seem like the fastest way to get out of Wilbur’s anger.

By the time Tommy pulled him into his room and started sifting through his new pokemon cards, Tubbo could hear the yelling traveling up the staircase and through Tommy’s open door.

“God, Quackity! Stop acting like a child, you did this-”

“This isn’t my fucking fault!”

“Like hell it isn't! Do you even know what you’ve fucking caused-”

Tommy closed the door with a louder slam than Tubbo thought he was capable of. “Ignore them, they’re being bitches.”

Tubbo can’t help but giggle because Tommy still tries to act like Phil when he curses with his face all scrunched up, it’s funny. But underneath their laughter, Tubbo can still hear Wilbur yelling at Quackity and it makes sense. Of course, it was Quackity’s fault, Wilbur’s never been angry at Tubbo for eating his food before, only Tommy.

“Tubbo, when have I ever betrayed your trust? You can tell me what’s going on.” Wilbur is watching him struggle to get away with Ranboo’s glass of water threatening to spill all over his hands with the way they’re shaking.

Everyone keeps asking what’s wrong, Quackity, Tommy, Jack, and Techno, although it was brief and more or less with just a quirked eyebrow, Tubbo isn’t sure what to say to them all. If he could just run out the clock on his high school years and just get away .

“I’m not sure if you can give any advice on this one.” Because in reality what can Wilbur tell him to do, sit tight and repent?

Wilbur heaves a big sigh like Tubbo is just being difficult for nothing. “You’ve gotten through everything before, why should this be anything different?”

There are a thousand reasons why it is, because a man is dead, because this is the present, and because he is not over it yet. “I’m just being dramatic, Wilbur. I get it.” Tubbo takes a breath of his own and skids past Wilbur, who’s still watching him, back to the relative safety under Ranboo’s arm. His hands are still wet.

——

“Ranboo, I’m home!” Niki sets her bags on the kitchen counters and peeks her head over the back of the couch to see Ranboo on the floor with his laptop. He mumbles a welcome back.

Niki’s laughter is a little less light than usual as she moves around the noise of plastic bags. Alarm bells ring in Ranboo’s head as he moves off the floor to watch her from the couch. “Is something wrong?”

She turns around, smile a little less intact than he expected. “Oh, I’ll be fine, just a bit stressed with work.”

Ranboo hasn’t been around the bakery in awhile, it started with college applications as excuses and rounded into just never stopping by. He does feel guilty but he was never the best with the coffee maker and Mikey’s used to keep him busy. Ranboo’s not quite sure he ever told Niki that he quit.

She seems to notice the worry on his face and stirs away her own issues. “Oh, did you hear about the arrest?”

Ranboo feels his heart stop for just a second. He saw Tubbo yesterday, drove him home and everything. They couldn't- Ranboo would know. “The what?” He can hear his own voice crack.

Niki keeps putting things away like this isn’t world ending news. “I just heard from Puffy this morning, they arrested Sapnap. Crazy, yeah?”

It is crazy because Ranboo knows for a fact that Sapnap is an innocent man. He’s the guy who Ranboo avoids when he sees him at the grocery store because he has those bags under his eyes and the tone of voice that just sounds sad . Ranboo knows for a fact that he can never look Sapnap in the eye because he helped bury his best friend, no matter if his death was for the greater good. Which it wasn’t, Ranboo knows that. He can’t keep justifying it like that, it was needless violence. 

It was gorey and ugly and sad. “For- for the murder?” Ranboo wants so badly to hear Niki laugh and tell him no, of course not.

She looks at him all concerned. “Yeah, I know. It’ll be fine, Sapnap’s- It’ll be fine , Ranboo.”

He might actually throw up. Niki isn’t humming anything when she goes back to putting groceries away, she’s the one who went to school with him, and spoke to him at the funeral. She knew him and he’s in jail for a murder her kid cousin helped commit.

Ranboo’s not sure what he’s supposed to do. It’s not Tubbo in prison which is good but none of the information he’s just gotten comes as a relief. It feels like heavy guilt being placed back on his chest that he just managed to get off. He’s not some habitual offender, he made a mistake and then another and another.

That’s all this is. That’s all he wants it to be, a mistake he can brush right off but there is an innocent, grieving, man in prison. Ranboo put him there and he can’t get him out. He could get him out but it means burning everything down, it means taking a lighter to the one thing Ranboo would throw all morality away for.

How do you live with all that, the ending of one life and the ruin of another? Ranboo is seventeen, almost eighteen, and waiting on two more college letters, he has a career picked out and a city he wants to live in. Sapnap is twenty one, lost his best friend, and walks around buying his groceries with wet cheeks. Why the hell does Ranboo get to be the one moving on with his life?

Nothing about this situation is fine. Most of Ranboo’s moral dilemmas have a defining ending question: What’s the next step to move on? Ranboo doesn’t get to ask himself that, he doesn’t get to just keep ruining lives passively and then move to a big city and make something of himself. This is him. He’s the guy who moved in with his cousin, ruined her twenties, killed a man, and ruined a few other people’s lives, there is no grand redemption or metamorphosis.

Niki keeps looking over at him. At some point, she finished putting things away and now she’s sitting with her phone on the couch. Ranboo’s laptop screen is dark now, he doesn’t know when that happened either.

He wants to throw himself out the window in his room but that wouldn’t fix what he’s done, he isn’t a sufficient martyr. Ranboo feels he owes it to Niki to say something, to tell her that she didn’t have to raise him at all but she did, and how he turned out was inevitable, nothing of her doing. Instead he says, “I’m gonna take a nap.”

Ranboo just lays silent on his bed, laptop closed and laying on the floor, sheets crumpled around him. It’s like he put himself in time out for committing an atrocity. It’s unfortunate he can’t walk up to the gates of a prison and tell the guard “I need you to lock me up, I won’t tell you why but I deserve to be in there. Treat me like a dog.” They’d tell him he’s psychotic and try to lock him up in the place they tried to put his mother but they’re far too nice there. Or maybe they’ll sedate him just right and he’ll be subject to the blinding numbness his mother was so afraid of. 

——

Sirens come blaring down Tubbo’s street at three pm and disappear just as quickly. Twenty minutes later and Quackity is pacing on hold with someone from the police department. Tubbo never really asked why Quackity spent so much time with Sapnap and Karl. It always seemed like it would end badly for one of them if he did.

It’s strange to watch Quackity so worked up about something they all thought was over. Tubbo thought it ended when he left the police station, when they told him he was free to go and life moved on. Clearly, they did not. Sapnap was the perfect mourner, wrote a pleasant eulogy, cried when they lowered the coffin, and spoke to the officers who showed up. 

None of this feels like reality, the way Tubbo can still faintly hear sirens in the distance. They can’t just lock him away, he didn’t do anything. He must’ve known though, that makes it better, right?

Sapnap must have known about Tommy, at least that Dream was messing with him. He couldn’t have been oblivious the way that Tubbo was, he knew and he didn’t do anything. That’s what makes this okay, it’s karma. Dream was a bad person and now he’s dead, Sapnap was one by association, that’s why any of this is happening.

When Tubbo looks up from his lap, Quackity is staring at him. The phone is still pressed to his ear but he’s looking straight at Tubbo with his glassy eyes. His bottom lip is caught between his teeth and the lines in his forehead only seem to deepen impossibly.

Tubbo never asked about Sapnap and Karl because he was afraid that someday Quackity would have to choose between them and Schlatt and Tubbo. 

“I’m sorry.” Tubbo barely recognizes the words slipping past his lips.

It’s suddenly like Tubbo is repulsive because Quackity can’t even seem to look anywhere near him. He’s still in the kitchen, back facing Tubbo, eyes turned up to the ceiling. Tubbo wants to pretend that he isn’t blinking past tears.

Quackity’s phone is still silent. “Quackity, I’m sorry.” He just wants him to look at him again. All he does is let out a shaky breath.

The sirens a couple streets away are getting fainter, Tubbo thinks that must mean they’re pulling onto the highway. He isn’t sure if Sapnap is in one of those cars or the first ones who already left the scene. 

“I’m sorry, please.” Tubbo can feel the wobble of his lip bleed into his plea.

Quackity is stock still in their kitchen, his left hand now gripping into his hair. Of all the arguments Schlatt and Quackity got into, the screaming matches and petty squabbles, Quackity was never silent. He was always decibels below Schlatt but never quiet, he dug his feet in and talked right back. Tubbo always prayed he would just shut his mouth because then Schlatt would get tired, he would run out of insults to hurl and back down.

Tubbo doesn’t know how he would tell Schlatt that he was the one to drive Quackity away. It’d be a knife to the chest, Tubbo has always been the one to argue against the fact that Schlatt and him are the same. They’re half brothers and that somehow made Tubbo better, it gave him some out but he was wrong. Tubbo is just like him, driving people away, and ruining his own life but Schlatt never killed a man.

He just wants Quackity to turn back around. “Quacki-”

“Tubbo, please.” He turns his head to look over at Tubbo, still on the couch. “Just let me have this phone call.”

Tubbo knows it’s still playing the same quiet hold music.

There’s banging at their door. Tubbo barely recognizes it and then he’s opening it because if there’s a gun on the other end then it sure as hell won’t be pointed at Quackity.

Ranboo’s panting hard. “Tu-“ Another shattering breath breaks out. “bo”

Tubbo can feel the wind prickling against the hair on his exposed legs. “What’re you doing here?”

He looks so scared. His hair is a mess, tangled in the back, going every which way in the front. One of his shoes is untied and the tongue of it is crushed beneath the shoelaces. Ranboo’s hands are curled in the stomach of his shirt, still trying to take in deeper breaths.

“Sapnap- Sapnap’s gone .” It looks like he’s choking on the words.

Tubbo can hear the floor creak behind him. Quackity is staring at them, phone at his side. He knows. Tubbo can see it in the way he’s looking at Ranboo, in the way he’s avoiding looking at Tubbo at all. When Tubbo told him, he left out Ranboo, left out the whole story but kept the guilt. 

Quackity breathes in once. “I’ll hold down the fort. You can go.” He’s looking straight at Ranboo when he says it. The way “go” falls out of his mouth feels like he’s giving Tubbo permission to go much farther than he’s ever been.

Tubbo’s not sure he has it in him. “Are you-“

“Tubbo, it’s fine, go .” He stays just watching.

It’s all too much to bare in such a small space. Ranboo’s breathing is in his ears and Quackity’s stare, his unwavering loyalty when all Tubbo’s ever done is let him down.

He wants to apologize and say thank you all at once but something about the way Quackity is asking tells him that he doesn’t want to hear it.

Tubbo grabs his boots next to the door. “I’ll be back soon.” He should know Tubbo doesn’t have it in him.

“Okay.”

Tubbo doesn’t bother putting his shoes on inside. 

——

“Where are we going?” Tubbo wanted to ask twenty minutes ago and then again ten minutes ago but Ranboo didn’t look capable of answering then. Nothing’s changed.

Ranboo looks quick to him then right back to the empty road. Mayb the cops scared everyone away.

“Mikey’s.”

The whole car shakes and Ranboo jerks the wheel to the left to keep them on the road. Tubbo thinks, oh this is how I die, in a car, not behind the wheel.

“What? Ranboo-“

“I know, Tubbo.” He looks deadly serious. Ranboo barely ever interrupts, if anything he waits too long before responding.

The highway peters off and Tubbo feels like he’s looking down the barrel of a gun. The strip mall’s off white, grotesque walls greet them. It’s just barely dark out and the lights around the place haven’t turned on yet. Everything is bathed in a deep sinister blue, Tubbo thinks for a moment there might be darker shadows in the lot behind Mikey’s.

Ranboo’s hands are gripping the wheel so tight he might break it. There’s no one around and he brings the car barrelling down the road into the lot in a split second. He’s always been a cautious driver but Tubbo thinks he’s somehow mistaken break for the gas pedal.

“Can we slow the fuck down?” Tubbo can hear his own voice crack.

They’re going to die. “Yeah, sorry.” Ranboo breaks so hard that Tubbo lifts from his seat for a minute. He won’t look at him, no one will fucking look at him. Is it that bad?

They sit there in silence for a moment. Ranboo is still breathing heavily for some reason, like he ran the distance that the car made, Tubbo is still gripping to his seatbelt for dear life.

Ranboo’s eyes are dark, completely blank from what they normally are. They’re usually a nice warm brown, this is different. “They’re going to put him in prison.”

For a minute, Tubbo thinks he might not be talking to him. “I- probably not. They’ll- He’ll go to court, it’ll be fi-”

“What if he doesn’t have an alibi?” Ranboo puts his hands back on the wheel like he’s going to take off again.

Tubbo looks out the window at Mikey’s and the dumpsters and the hanging light and the back door with the sign that says “Employee’s Only” and the stupid goddamn cat sticker Tubbo stuck on top of it. “Well then maybe he’s guilty.”

Ranboo whips his head right at him and Tubbo sees it right on his face. The fear dripping from his eyes. “ Tubbo , we’re being selfish. You know that, right? We’re so fucking selfish. I’m- I’m a terrible person.”

He knows. Tubbo has known he was a selfish person since he was four years old and let Schlatt take the blame for the mess he made. More than that, he’s known Ranboo is a good person since the day he came into his English class with a goofy smile. “You’re not! You’re not! It’s okay, we’re gonna be okay!”

Ranboo shakes his head hard. “That’s not true!”

Tubbo doesn’t know what to do at all. Everything he says seems to be the wrong thing. “Do you want me to drive us?”

“No! No, no, I want to go home. I want to go home from two years ago when- when it was easy. Tubbo, I’m so fucking done.” Ranboo bangs his hands on the wheel like he’s trying to break them off.

Tubbo has never been afraid of Ranboo. He really doesn’t want to be. “It’s okay, it’s okay.” 

He watches Ranboo cry.

——

The next two weeks are hell. Ranboo bombs his last physics test and he can’t even do the corrections because he didn’t take any notes all unit. It’s terrible and he can’t eat and Niki is looking at him like she wants to check him to a place he’ll never make it out of like his mother. Jack and Tommy are squabbling again and Tubbo is- Tubbo is scared and Ranboo can tell.

He’s been wearing the same hoodie all week and looks like he’s a second away from taking his own hands and prying his chest open for the vultures to peck at. They’ve been circling lately, all out of season but knowing that something is going to die soon.

Tubbo slept overall last week and hasn’t even stepped foot in Ranboo’s room this one. Tommy keeps making gagging noises at them when they get too close and Tubbo won’t acknowledge it so Ranboo’s the one who has to play it off. He doesn’t know how to do any of it, he has never been able to move on from anything before, clinging to it so hard that he eventually rips the thing to shreds.

It’s Sunday morning when things change, Ranboo prays it’s the first in a long string of things. Sapnap is out, he’s in the land of the living, walking out of Niki’s bakery with two free cookies.

“Did- when did- Niki?” Ranboo thinks his heart might beat out of his chest.

Niki looks over at him with that appraising look again. “What? Sapnap?”

“Yeah, I thought he was gone.”

She smiles lightly. “No, no! They let him out a while ago. I think they confirmed he was with Quackity when it happened.”

For the first time in two weeks Ranboo breaths out. “Oh, that’s nice.”

Every last freakout feels like cosmic punishment now.

Ranboo: Sapnap’s out!!!

Ranboo: Like out out

Ranboo: He just left the bakery

Tubbo: fr fr????

Tubbo: fuck man thank fuck

Ranboo barely makes it to the back room when Tubbo calls him.

“He’s out?” Ranboo can hear the relief in his voice.

“Yeah, yeah- I, yeah.” It smells like cinnamon and sugar in the back of the bakery, not like the suffocating kind from artificial scented candles.

On the phone, Ranboo can hear shuffling like Tubbo is readjusting himself in bed.

“I’m- I’m with Tommy by the way.” On cue, Ranboo can hear loud steps in the background and muffled screaming that sounds a lot like “Phil”.

“Oh, sorry.” Ranboo knows it’s been strange between them.

The rustling reassumes. “Nah, man! I called you, were, were good.”

Ranboo doesn’t know why he says it. It barely passes through his mind before it’s passing out his lips. “I miss you.”

“Oh.”

The line goes silent and suddenly the smell of cinnamon feels a lot more oppressive. He saw Tubbo yesterday but that’s not what he means. Ranboo’s not really sure what he meant to begin with. He’s never been the most eloquent with his words or feelings.

There’s a quiet giggle and the perfect image of Tubbo’s scrunched up eyes pops into Ranboo’s mind. “Yeah, okay, I miss you too, boss man.”

“Alright then.”

——

Ranboo gets accepted to Lur’man University two months later.

——

“I like the kitchen.” Ranboo knows Tubbo’s somewhere checking out the bedroom behind him. It’s small by all means but the cabinets are a warm brown and the top of them are smooth laminate. They’ll afford it, definitely and Tubbo’s already applying to higher paying part-time jobs on top of trade school. They'll do just fine.

The living room is the biggest space by far. It’s all hardwood with scrapes Ranboo isn’t sure what could have made. There’s a couch and a TV provided which Ranboo is surprised about considering the price but he’s sure the cushions are even harder than they look.

“Do you think we can upgrade to a queen? I hated your fucking double at Niki’s.” Tubbo pops his head back out of the room with a wide grin Ranboo is still getting used to looking at. It almost masks what Tubbo says.

Ranboo crosses his arms. “What are you talking about? You took up all the room on it-”

“Exactly!” Tubbo giggles. He’s still laughing when he walks out towards the fire escape. It’s still cold out.

The sliding door struggles to open again when Ranboo tries to step out with him, he gets it open just barely for him to squeeze out.

“You can’t walk away from bed negotiations!” He somehow feels hysterical.

None of it feels real. They’re not in Manning anymore and Ranboo can barely think about the place without the image of Dream’s caved in head looking into staring right at him. 

Tubbo’s staring out into the city, he looks like he belongs there.

Ranboo tries to see what Tubbo does. “I didn’t think this far ahead.” He holds the railing a little tighter. “Do you think we’ll make it to next year?”

Tubbo smiles just as beautifully as ever and Ranboo can’t look back at the city again. “I’ll you in a year.”

——

Tommy calls him when he finally just gets off the longest goddamn welding shift there ever has been. “Tommy, what on Earth could you want right now?”

Tubbo wants to face plant into bed and never get up again. His feet hurt and he can’t seem to will himself to get up from the couch to get some water.

“Jesus, Tubbs! Have some respect for your best friend?” Tommy’s laughing quieter than he should be.

Tubbo tries to sober up and soften his voice. “Sorry, sorry. What’s up?”

“Just got off the phone with the old man, y’know?” Tubbo hums and Tommy continues. “Well apparently they closed it.”

Tubbo lets them sit in silence for a minute. He thinks maybe Tommy’s going to continue, going to explain what exactly he means. He doesn’t.

“What? What’d who close?” Tubbo desperately wants to ignore the beating in his chest.

Tommy does his awkward half cough half sigh thing. “The whole Dream Got Murdered case.”

The whole room spins for a minute. Tubbo is a better man. He killed a man and got away with it and he is a better man. Tubbo left Manning with two suitcases and bloody hands but he left on his terms without the cuffs. They can’t drag him back.

Tubbo tries to sound like he isn’t going to cry or throw up or any mix of the both. “They- they got the guy?”

Tommy doesn’t laugh. “No, they’re just done.” He sighs. “I don’t know, they just stopped. Phil doesn’t really know why either.”

The day before Tubbo left for the city, Quackity came into his room. They’d had probably one of the worst dinners of their life with Schlatt the day before. Quackity just stood there and looked fucking guilty. For a minute Tubbo thought he’d turned him, that he couldn’t let Tubbo go, had to keep the fucked up Underscore-Schlatt cycle going if Tubbo wouldn’t do his part.

“I’m- I’m gonna say I’m proud of you, alright.”

Tubbo’s legs are folded under him as he sits on the floor. He’s solid and he’s there and Quackity is looking at him. “Oh, that’s nice.”

They’ve never been good at this. They weren’t built for nice things and Tubbo doesn’t know how to fix them once they’re broken. “I’m not, I don’t think.”

Quackity sits on the floor next to him. Tubbo’s room is mostly empty now. There’s a half full suitcase next to him and a few things he’s deemed not needed scattered around. The sheets on his bed are pulling up.

“Tubbo, you made it. You know that, right? You graduated.” Quackity says it quickly and matter of factly.

“It’s a low fucking bar.” Tubbo’s not sure if he’s supposed to feel proud putting “got away with murder” under accomplishments.

Quackity messes with his shirt, trying to right the collar. “Okay, fine, it’s shitty.”

Tubbo places another crumpled shirt into his bag and Quackity folds one next to him.

“You’ll call, right?” Quackity asks in an almost whisper.

The cardboard that covers half of Tubbo’s window rattles with the wind and almost pops off. “I didn’t- You want me to?”

Quackity looks over at him and puts a nicely folded shirt in his lap. “I gotta have someone to tell me what it’s like on the other side.”

Suddenly Tubbo feels terribly alone. “Okay, I’ll call, boss man.”

Ranboo walks in and places his keys on the kitchen counter. Tubbo smiles at him barely and Ranboo frowns back.

“Can they do that?” Tubbo goes back to looking at the floor in front of the couch. 

Tommy sighs louder on the other end and Tubbo thinks he can hear him flop down on his bed. “Fuck if I know! Just- it’s whatever, Tubbo. It doesn’t matter, fuck Manning.”

Tubbo leans back against the couch when it dips with Ranboo’s weight. “Okay, sure. Can we- uh, Ranboo just got home.”

Tommy actually scoffs on the other end. “God, yeah! Go makeout with your boyfriend!” He hangs up before Tubbo can tell him to go choke.

Ranboo looks soft, his sweater is light brown and is maybe a little too short for his arms. Tubbo doesn’t mind either way. He wraps his arms around the back of his neck and pulls him down so they’re both lying down.

“Was that Tommy?” Ranboo doesn’t even react to being manhandled.

Tubbo sighs and tilts his head against Ranboo’s shoulder. “Yeah.” He doesn’t want to say what about, it can wait till after dinner or before bed.

Ranboo hums and cradles the back of Tubbo’s head. It’s a bit awkward but Tubbo’s too tired to move.

“Can we get Chinese food tonight?” Tubbo can feel Ranboo’s light laugh reverberate through him.

His voice is a little muffled by their proximity. “I guess. How are you already thinking about dinner?

“Gotta have something to look forward to.” He burrows his head further into Ranboo.

He tries to wiggle further away but it only makes them finally end fully on their sides. “Going to Will’s concert isn't enough?”

“Nah, I like my cozy nights in.” Tubbo smiles.