Archive of Our Own

“I’m fine-” 

“No, you’re not.” 

“I really am-” 

“You’re really not, Tommy, so shut the fuck up and go to sleep,” Tubbo grumbles affectionately, pushing his best friend back down to the ground. Tommy’s face is flushed under all the dirt and messy blond curls, and he shivers as Tubbo strips off his jacket and lays it over him. 

“You shut th’fuck up,” Tommy slurs, curling into a crinkling bed of leaves. Before long, he’s asleep, wheezing slightly as he breathes. 

Tubbo sighs, rubbing at his face as he stares at the bits of starry sky poking out from between trees. The crude shelter he’s managed to put together out of fallen branches shakes a little in the slight breeze, and Tubbo shivers in his long-sleeved shirt. 

He could try and light a fire for warmth using the dead sticks and leaves, but it’d be a glaring beacon, and then they’d be right back where they started(that, or it’d catch the whole place on fire and kill them both)…but it’s been so long, and Tubbo can feel his Magic crawling under his skin, aching to do something. 

Those villagers couldn’t have waited two more weeks until November and Migration Week, when they’d pack up their rolling village and leave(when Tubbo and Tommy could’ve easily slipped away unnoticed) to watch Tommy calm Tubbo from a panic attack with his light Magic in a hidden corner of town, and the two hadn’t even been given a chance to collect their meager possessions before the cries of ‘monsters’ followed them out of the village…along with a knife thrown at Tommy. 

Tubbo’s Magic may deal in nature, but he can’t heal shit. 

Especially since the wound on Tommy’s ribcage is growing more and more tender and inflamed as the days go on. 

But it’s fine! It’s fine. 

Tubbo’s been able to feed them by asking trees if their fruit is safe and streams if their water is drinkable and then if he can have them, but it’s not safe to go back to the village. Not even to steal medicine. 

He’s lucky that the village thinks of the woods surrounding the place they’d chosen to stop last Migration Week as ‘haunted’, ‘evil’ and even ‘paranormal’; they won’t come looking for the two. 

The forest is a shelter to those it chooses to take in, and cutting down living trees isn’t a very good sign of respect. You respect the forest, it respects you. There’s a reason Tubbo only used fallen branches to build a shelter for Tommy; you wouldn’t tear someone’s arm off and build something with it when there are supplies right in front of you that nobody needs. That might be a bad analogy, but he’d heard the screams of the trees as their limbs were cut for firewood and their the mourning cries when one was felled to build a wagon or sled in preparation for Migration Week. 

It was the reason why he’d started to panic so much and Tommy had to try and calm him down by squeezing his hands and making lights glow softly in the dark alley in time to his breathing; it was, in turn, the reason why they were discovered. 

Tubbo had heard of a group of people the forest had chosen to take in, a group made of Magic users like him and Tommy. He’d told Tommy, and his friend had been overjoyed to ‘leave this fuckin’ hellhole’ and go to a place where they’d be able to freely practice the Magic running through their veins. 

But here they are. Two weeks early, with no supplies, hunger and dehydration starting to pain them despite Tubbo and nature’s best efforts…and Tommy’s not doing well at all. 

Tubbo groans, hands curling into his hair and roots mimicking his movements, curling over his boots. 

They can’t go on like this. 

The settlement of people is supposed to be another two days’ walking distance, it was only supposed to take five, but they’d been going slower and slower as time went on, Tommy finally collapsed today(day 6)…and Tubbo doesn’t know what to do. 

“Can you get off my shoes, please?” he whispers to the roots. “I appreciate the comfort, and I need to be able to walk tomorrow.” 

The roots perk up, one rubbing back and forth over his foot before they all start to slink back underground. 

“Actually-” the roots freeze. “Can you point us towards the settlement, please?” 

The roots slither into an arrow, pointing through the forest in the direction they’ve been heading. 

“Thank you.” 

He crawls into the shelter beside Tommy and lays down, moss sprouting up from the bit of tree root he’s using as a pillow. 

“You don’t have to do that.” 

It grows thicker as if to affectionately spite him and he laughs, sneaking a glance at Tommy to check on him before he falls asleep. 

Tommy’s…well, he’s not peacefully sleeping, but he’s always been a little bit of a mover and a thrasher. Tubbo can’t count the number of times he’s woken up from sleeping next to Tommy with faint bruises on his side from a certain someone driving his knee into his ribs. 

Tubbo closes his eyes to the rustling of leaves and the faint hooting of owls. The forest will look after the two of them as they sleep. 

Tommy will be better in the morning, he just needs rest, he tells himself. He knows that’s not going to happen. 

The stars and the moon shine down on him through the branches of the shelter as he falls asleep, head resting on a pillow of mossy roots. 

His sleep is dreamless save for a few peacefully floating images until it’s not, something is shaking him and pulling on his wrists, he’s trapped did the village capture him but they put so much work into not getting discovered how did he get arrested- 

He jolts awake to someone- no, something poking at his cheek. The root of a wildflower, a red anemone, is jabbing at his face as other roots are tugging at his wrists. 

“Wha’s wrong?” he slurs, voice croaking and deep. The moon is still in the sky, but barely; the sun’s takeover of the heavens is almost complete. “Wha’ happened?” 

The roots slither off his wrists, leaving tracks of wet soil as the anemone points its root towards Tommy. 

Tubbo’s eyes widen. “Shit.” 

He clambers up and crawls over to Tommy, who’s breathing heavily and wincing in his sleep. As he rolls onto his side, his eyes fly open and he curls up into a ball on the leaves; the dead ones crumble and stick to his damp forehead. 

“Tommy?” Tubbo whispers, trying to roll him onto his back and uncurl him so he can try and see the wound. 

“M’ don’t feel good,” he croaks back, eyes fluttering in his lids before they close again. 

Tubbo frantically brings the makeshift blanket of his jacket off his friend, trying to pry up his sweat-soaked shirt to see the wound. 

He gasps when his hands meet Tommy’s skin. 

Tommy’s got a fever. And he’s not just sick, this isn’t a virus…the wound is infected. 

Red, raised streaks radiate out from the slice in his skin and Tubbo chokes back a sob, slapping a hand over his mouth. 

Shit. 

This- this cannot be happening. 

They’re stuck in the middle of the woods with no medicine and another two days to travel before they reach other Magic users, and Tubbo doesn’t know how to heal. 

One of the downsides of any kind of Magic being condemned was that Tubbo couldn’t practice, and he has no clue how to help Tommy. He didn’t have the chance to memorize which plants to look for and ask for help, hell, he barely knows how to treat something like this! 

Something tugs at his pinkie finger and he looks down to the anemone plant’s root, the red flower staring up at him. 

“What-” He takes a shaking breath and gets his voice under control. “What is it?” 

One of the roots lifts up and angles itself downwards, wiggling in a way that looks almost like a snake. 

“It’s not a snakebite, it’s a knife wound,” Tubbo corrects, throat choking up. 

The flower’s head shakes like it’s saying ‘no’ and brings the root on Tubbo’s finger down, drawing curling lines in the dirt with his pinkie. 

“There’s a stream near here?” 

The flower nods, petals flapping with the force as it pokes his hand again and stabs a leaf in the direction of his moss pillow. The layer of moss slowly detaches and falls off the tree’s root. 

The last dregs of darkness fall from the sky as he listens for the babbling of the stream, casting a reluctant look at Tommy’s sleeping form. Thankfully, once he starts walking, it’s not far away, and he can soak the moss with a small whispered thanks to the stream. 

Tommy’s breathing is labored when he returns. 

“I’m sorry,” Tubbo whispers, yanking Tommy’s jacket up and parting the slice in his shirt to look at the wound. 

The only positive of this situation is that the wound isn’t bleeding. 

It might start again as Tubbo bites his lip and digs the wet moss into the wound, trying to scrape out the dirt. Tommy gasps and his eyes fly open, teeth gritting as his back arches in an attempt to get away from the pain and not scream. 

“I’m sorry, Tommy, I’m sorry,” Tubbo whispers. “It’s infected, it’s not good, I gotta clean it out.” 

“S’infected?” 

Tubbo nods, eyes preoccupied with watching the blood start to well up in the slice through Tommy’s skin. “Yeah.”

“Shit.” 

“Yeah.” 

“When are we leavin’?” Tommy slurs, biting back a cry. 

“Leavin’? The hell do you mean?” Tubbo asks, incredulous. 

“Well, we gotta go t’the…th’ thing in the woods…”

“Well, they don’t move as far as I know, and you need to rest. We can go when you’re feeling better.” 

“T’morrow?” 

Tubbo snorts at the expression on Tommy’s face as he holds the bloodstained wad of moss in place over the wound, pinkish water trickling down as he applies pressure. “Sure, you stubborn bastard. Tomorrow.” 

“Bitch.” 

“Idiot.” 

“Can’ believe you’d say that, Tubs, you gotta be nice t’me, ’m sick,” Tommy laughs, bright blue eyes half-lidded. 

Tubbo brushes a hand over Tommy’s forehead and winces at the heat that’s utterly radiating off his best friend, face falling as it really, truly sets in. 

They won’t be able to move for a while. 

“Yeah,” he breathes, the somewhat joking mood utterly killed. “Sorry, bossman.” 

“S’fine,” Tommy huffs as he recovers from the rude awakening, grimacing at the pressure Tubbo’s putting on his days-old wound to try and get it to stop bleeding again. “Just…is there any more water? M’thirsty.” 

“Yeah, of course, just gimme a minute.”

The day passes by slowly, Tommy sitting up at some points so Tubbo can try and bandage the wound with more moss and the torn off bottom of his shirt (“Dunno what y’think y’r doin’, but I am not a crop top person,” Tommy grumps) or sit up to eat some chestnuts he’d found while asking around the trees for anything they could eat. 

Tommy’s mostly calm, he jokes around, complains some, sleeps a little because there’s nothing else to do, and Tubbo keeps a steady check on his temperature; he can’t tell if Tommy’s getting warmer or if his hands are just getting colder in the chilly October air. 

He scares the shit out of Tubbo once when he clears his throat in the middle of a conversation and then begins to cough, but he quickly recovers and waves it off like it’s nothing. 

Once the sky starts to darken and the stars come out, the two of them lay down in the shelter Tubbo made, leaves crunching in their hair. 

“We’re gonna look like hot fuckin’ messes once we get there,” Tommy slurs, back to Tubbo as he curls up on his right side to get weight off his wounded one. “Lookin’ like… wood elves.” 

Tubbo laughs. “You know those are myths, right?” 

“But what if we make ‘em think they’re real, Tubbo, we’re gonna roll in there after sleeping in the woods for a week, they’ll totally think we’re wood elves.” 

“Yeah, you’re clearly feeling better,” Tubbo jokes as he pokes the back of Tommy’s head, and Tommy barks out a laugh, raising a hand and making the air around it glow so Tubbo is faced with a very luminous middle finger. “Hey!” 

The night is quiet and chilly once Tommy falls asleep, and Tubbo sighs tiredly as he stares through the gaps in the branches of their little shelter at the stars. 

Maybe he’ll be able to keep his promise to Tommy, and they can keep going tomorrow. People at the commune surely have to have a healer, or at least some medicine. 

Then he wakes up to the anemone flower from last night poking at him like the world is ending, and when he sits up to see what’s going on, it might as well be. 

Tommy’s worse. He’s so much worse. 

His eyes are half-lidded and glassy, blond curls stuck to his forehead with sweat, face somehow flushed bright red and ghostly pale at the same time. He’s panting and gasping for any semblance of a breath, having shoved Tubbo’s jacket off him in an attempt to cool down with the chilly October night air. He’s glowing slightly, seemingly losing control of his Magic as he gets sicker and sicker. He’s burning up.

Shit…he barely looks conscious. 

“Tommy?” Tubbo whimpers, shaking his friend and cringing at the amount of sweat he can feel through Tommy’s clothes. 

No response. 

“Tommy!” 

A feather-light touch brushes his knee through the thin, worn fabric of his pants, and when he looks down, the anemone is resting a leaf on his knee, pointing a root at the outside of the shelter. 

One of the tree roots outside their shelter is in sight in the pale light of the moon, and Tubbo sobs. “Can I- please-” 

A pad of moss sprouts from the tree, and Tubbo barely thanks it before he rips it up and bolts to the stream, skin crawling. 

Tommy’s eyes open slightly as Tubbo places the soaked moss on his feverish face, trying to cool his fever in the best way he can. “...mornin’...” Tommy’s glowing eyes are so rolled up in his head they’re barely visible, just the barest strips of bloodshot blue. “...m’don’...feel good…” His breath hitches and he coughs: horribly chest-shaking, nasty coughs. 

“No, I know, I know, I- shit, I’m doing everything I can, I’m so sorry-” 

But Tommy’s already passed out again. 

Tubbo can’t help it. He breaks down. 

He’s shuddering and sniveling, sobbing pathetically over his best friend’s luminous, comatose body, because he doesn’t know what to do. 

He can’t fix this! He can’t. 

He doesn’t know how, his best friend has an infected wound in the woods and he’s going to die because Tubbo doesn’t know what to do. He’s surrounded by supplies, but he doesn’t know which ones to use or how to use them without accidentally killing Tommy. 

Either way, it’s his fault. 

“...don’...don’ cry…big man…” Tubbo’s sniffles shudder to a halt as he stares at Tommy’s half-lidded blue eyes, barely visible beneath the water trickling off the pad of moss on his forehead. He seems to glow a little brighter as he lifts a limp, feverishly warm hand up and drops it on Tubbo’s lap. “...s’okay…”

“I-” Tubbo laughs bitterly through his tears; his mouth tastes of salt. “It’s really not.” 

“Y’r a fuckin’...wood…elf…” 

He’s fucking delirious, Tubbo frantically realizes, starting to hyperventilate. 

“...growin’ f-flowers…”

He’s fucking dying. 

Tubbo’s hands fly to his hair, but he feels something odd stuck between the locks of hair. 

He pulls out what feels like an odd clump of hair out with a wince and stares at it in the moonlight and Tommy’s golden glow, scalp stinging. He’s expecting a matted clump of hair, mud, and dried leaves, but it’s not that.

Tommy was right. 

It’s a daisy. 

A full-ass, but tiny, daisy. 

Yup, he is officially losing it. 

He glances around at the ground, and to his disbelief, he can see his path to the stream on the leaf-ridden ground outlined in moss and a mixture of tiny daisies and white mushrooms. The areas look like they’ve spread, the mossy footprints of his beat-up boots visible in some places but looking as though they’re merging together in others. 

The leaves in the trees seem to shake even more in the wind than before as Tubbo starts to hyperventilate. And as he looks up, he can see that the trees are bending towards him and Tommy’s tiny shelter. 

It’s so overwhelming, he subconsciously thinks as he kneels and curls up in a ball, feeling daisies spring from his scalp in the hair between his fingers. He’s never felt so overstimulated and anxious in his life, his skin is crawling, things are growing out of him, his best friend is dying, he’s helpless, hopeless, and alone in the dark woods, and he can feel his Magic swimming from him in bursts, breaking free with all his emotions; it’s like walking through a veil except the veil is emanating from you in white-hot bursts, he can feel the heat of both Tommy’s fever and his Magic luminating out, he can feel the flowers growing roots and the branches of the trees shifting and crackling towards him in the dirt and the mushrooms digging themselves into the ground and Tubbo screams and footsteps someone’s coming- 

“Who’s there?” he chokes out, using every bit of his strength to raise his head up, untangle his hands from his hair and stare at where he felt the footsteps coming from. As his eyes flick upwards, he can see that tree roots have woven their way over his legs, effectively anchoring him to the ground as they wind their way up the branches of the shelter. 

“Uh-” 

“I said who’s there?” Tubbo shrieks, fists balling up, chest shaking. 

A lanky teen shakily steps from the shadows, illuminated by a lantern and the light coming from Tommy. The lantern’s light shines on the tree branches that have arched and woven into each other. They’re clutching a book, and when they see Tubbo and Tommy, they gasp and slide the book into a holster on their hip. 

“Oh my- w-what happened? Do you guys need- no, that’s a dumb question, o-of course you need help.” They skid over, half of their shaggy head of hair glowing white in the light and the other shining black, and kneel next to Tommy, looking up at Tubbo’s nose. “Were you guys looking for the, uh…Magic commune?” 

Tubbo sobs in relief. “Yes, are you-”

“Yeah, I live there, I was walking around and there was just…a lot of Magic, like I could feel it and that’s not even my- I’m sorry, I’m Ranboo, who’re you?” 

“Tubbo, and he’s Tommy.” 

“What happened?” 

“The village we were staying in, we were gonna leave but-” Tubbo’s already choked voice cracks and he forces himself to continue. “We got found out and ran, but someone threw a knife and-” He can barely make himself go on, but he manages to choke out two more words. “It’s bad.” 

Ranboo brings the wad of wet moss off of Tommy’s forehead and winces now that more of Tommy’s luminosity is shining in their face, bringing a hand up to feel Tommy’s cheek. Tommy, of course, takes that opportunity to break into another fit of wheezing and coughing that makes Tubbo’s chest and throat ache just listening to him. “Here, I can bring you two to the commune, j-just…close your eyes and hold onto me, okay? He needs our healer, like, as soon as possible.” Tubbo sniffles and wipes his face on his sleeve as he nods, reaching over and picking up his jacket to put it on. “Do you guys have any other supplies?” 

“No, we didn’t have a chance to grab anything before we got chased out.” 

“Ok, uh,” Ranboo slips their arms under Tommy and starts to lift him princess style before they pause. “C-can you, um, move? At all?” 

“What do you- oh,” Tubbo realizes he’s still glued to the forest floor by roots. Shit, he probably looks like a mess right now, what with the flowers growing everywhere, the forest trying to merge with him, leaf bits in his hair, dirt on his face- is that a tiny mushroom growing on his finger? “I- yeah, give me a sec.” 

He leans over and whispers to the roots. “Thank you for grounding me. Can you move so I can get up, please?” 

Ranboo watches, mystified as the roots slither back into the ground and Tubbo collapses to the side, knees cracking as he stumbles to his feet. Ranboo stares up at him for a moment, then hefts Tommy upwards and adjusts his glowing, unconscious body. “You ready to go?” 

Tubbo feels a slight tap on his ankle and glances down, seeing the anemone that warned him about Tommy’s condition. He crouches, facing the flower. “Thank you.” 

The anemone pats his foot with a leaf, pointing a root up towards his hand. 

“The mushroom?” 

The anemone shakes its petals side to side, bringing up another root and pointing it to his hand. 

“Do you want to come with?” He glances up at Ranboo. “I don’t know how you’re gonna get us there, but will it survive?” 

Ranboo blinks, poorly hidden confusion written all over their face. “Uh…y-yeah, it should.” 

“Great.” Tubbo holds out his hand and the anemone clambers up, wrapping spindly roots around his fingers. It feels so much like before that he almost gags, but he swallows hard, holds his hand gingerly to avoid crushing the red anemone’s roots, and stumbles over to Ranboo, scooping up the lantern in his anemone-free hand. “Hold onto you?” 

“Yeah, and close your eyes, it could be…unpleasant, otherwise.”

The anemone’s roots tighten around Tubbo’s fingers as he grips Ranboo’s arm and he squeezes his eyes shut. 

Between one heartbeat and the next, he’s being compressed impossibly small and then grows to normal size again. His feet land on solid, paved ground and he silently thanks every force of nature that nothing feels like it’s moving beneath him. He clutches at Ranboo’s shirtsleeve, swallowing hard as his stomach does somersaults, brushing his hand in Tommy’s sweaty hair just to make sure he’s still there. 

“You can open your eyes now. I-if you’re not dizzy anymore.” 

Tubbo opens one eye, then the other, realizing he’s staring at the ground. He glances at the anemone, which is shaking its head and ruffling its leaves, and then looks up. 

There’s a long wall of logs dug into the ground for what seems like a kilometer each way, interspersed with tall oak trees. The arms of the trees grow around the wall as if saying, we approve, we protect. It’s alright. It’s safe here.  

The amount of Magic in the air here…it’s tangible. Tubbo could reach out and touch the veil, and he does a little bit, letting the comforting feeling of loose, free Magic flow over his skin and calm the crawling left over from his overstimulation breakdown earlier. 

A rough-hewn door is right in the center of the wall between two giant trees, and as Tubbo’s stomach starts to calm slightly, someone shouts Ranboo’s name. 

“What’re you doin’ out there?” they say. “It’s late!” 

“Sorry, Techno!” Ranboo yells back. Then, they turn to Tubbo as they readjust Tommy in their arms, who’s still glowing, though it seems to have dimmed a little. Whether or not that’s a good thing, Tubbo can’t tell. “Techno’s one of the guards, he’s a good protector. Nothing and nobody comes in without him knowing.” 

Techno, apparently, is a pink-haired, muscular man who wears a red cape and has a sword, as Tubbo sees when Techno’s body appears from behind the wall, apparently on a hidden parapet on the inside. Techno seems to take in the scene below him: Ranboo holding a dirty, unconscious and glowing teen boy while another one stands next to them with flowers and mushrooms growing out of him. 

He gasps and races out of sight, calling for others inside, and the rest of the night is a blur. 

A group of people in varying stages of ‘pajamas-and-bedhead’ rush out, ushering Ranboo and Tubbo inside. One, a man with shaggy blond hair and a green robe, gently takes Tommy from Ranboo’s arms. Tommy starts to cough again, rougher than before; Tubbo runs after them but is held back by Techno. 

“That’s Phil, he’s taking your friend to our healer,” the man reassures him, walking around to hold him at arm’s length. He crouches to look Tubbo in the eyes; his eyes are brown bordering on red, his hair is braided down one shoulder with golden ribbons, and his hand is firm yet somehow reassuring in its grip. “You’ll visit her too, in a bit. We just gotta make sure…”

“Tommy. His name’s Tommy,” Tubbo chokes out, already close to tears again. 

“Tommy’s okay. He’ll be fine. Niki’s a good friend of mine, and her Magic is healing. She’ll make sure he’s fine in no time.”

Tubbo responds with a shuddering sob as Tommy’s glow enters a building and the door shuts, cutting it off. 

He doesn’t remember much else. 

Someone puts a blanket over his shoulders and a warm mug in his hand that smells of peppermint and chamomile. He isn’t conscious of drinking it, but soon his mouth tastes of floral, herby mint and his throat doesn’t ache from dryness; a soothing warmth runs through it, calming the remaining rolling of his stomach. In a few minutes, he’s guided with a steady hand into the building Tommy disappeared into. 

A kind young woman with short pink hair that’s lighter than Techno’s greets him and takes the now half-empty mug; a hand brushes gently over his and the anemone clings tighter to him, curling protectively (it stays); his jacket, shirt and shoes are taken off after he says it's okay and things fall from his arms, his head, his chest; he’s softly guided into a new shirt and ushered into a dark room with two beds, one already occupied by Tommy, who has a wet, clean washcloth on his forehead, is sleeping peacefully, and is no longer glowing so much. 

“Is he gonna be okay?” he remembers asking, voice a hoarse whisper. 

“He’ll be fine,” the young woman reassures him. “Let’s get you to bed, yeah? You look exhausted.”

He’s helped into bed, and Tubbo knows no more. 

When he wakes, he’s lying on his stomach. His eyes ache slightly as he peels them open, sticky with the feeling of a deep sleep. The bed is soft, the pillow is soft, the blankets are warm…he feels like he’s sleeping on a cloud and almost closes his eyes again before he registers that someone is sitting next to his bed. 

He groans and pushes himself up, sees a patch of red on the bedside table and pauses. The red anemone is happily potted in a small cup of moist dirt; its petals open slightly and it perks up when it sees Tubbo moving. The person sitting beside his bed freezes, closing a book and putting it in a holster on their hip. 

Wait…

“...Ranboo?” Tubbo mumbles. 

“Hi,” they say. “Good morning- uh, g-good afternoon, I guess. You slept for a while, but it seemed like you really needed it.” 

Tubbo drops himself face-first back into his pillow with a paf. He turns his head to look amusedly at Ranboo, who looks like they can’t decide if they want to laugh or be silent and respectful. 

Suddenly, he shoves himself up again, giving himself a head rush and almost dropping back into the pillow from the dizziness. “Tommy, is he-”

“He’s fine,” Ranboo soothes, standing up to try and get Tubbo to lay back down. Their hands have a slight chill through his shirt. “He’s right there, he woke up a little earlier and Niki gave him some medicine, but he didn’t seem all that lucid yet. I-it’ll be a little bit before he’s a hundred percent, maybe less than a week? But he’s gonna be fine. Full recovery.” 

“Can I-”

“Oh, sorry, yeah,” Ranboo says, moving out of the way so Tubbo can see Tommy. 

He’s breathing, and the golden glow has faded completely. His face looks less pale, and the red blotches across his cheeks have lessened significantly. Tubbo watches as Tommy shifts in his sleep, rolling from his back to his left side so he faces Tubbo and Ranboo. The washcloth falls from his forehead with a wet slap on the floor, and Ranboo sighs while Tubbo snickers. 

“That’s, like the…fourth or fifth time he’s done that, and I’ve barely been in here for an hour.” 

Tubbo laughs, smiling warmly now that he knows Tommy is okay. “Yeah, that’s Tommy for you. He’ll kick you when you sleep, the bastard.” 

“The, um…the flower seemed really worried about you,” Ranboo says, clearly venturing into a new territory with emotional flowers. They walk to Tommy’s bedside and pick up the washcloth, setting it on the bedside table. “Niki gave it some dirt and watered it.” 

“Oh…thanks,” Tubbo murmurs as he lowers himself chest-first back into the pillow. He reaches out a finger to the anemone’s petals, and it reaches back, brushing its soft red petals against his calloused fingers. “I’m alright,” he whispers softly as the petals close protectively around his fingertip. “It’s all good.”

“Do you remember last night at all?” Ranboo asks, voice quieter as they sit back down at Tubbo’s bedside. 

Roots sprouting from the ground and tying him down daisies in his hair vibrations climbing up his legs and plants popping from his head and arms and chest mushroom on his hand- 

“By the look on your face, I’m…gonna assume that’s a yes,” Ranboo continues. “It was…a lot, but I-I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like for you.” 

Tubbo blinks slowly, trying to focus on anything but the memory of the things crawling under and poking from his skin, and whispers an apology as he draws his finger from the clasp of the anemone because it’s just too much. 

“Niki got everything off, nothing’s gonna leave a scar and only one or two actually, um, bled, but they were really small. She took care of you.” 

“It was… too much,” Tubbo whispers, and that confession’s all he can bear to say, not enough and yet too much at the same time. 

“You’ve gotta be really powerful for something like… that crazy to happen.”

Tubbo freezes, eyes flicking up to Ranboo’s because his head’s on the pillow and he doesn’t want to sit up again. As soon as his eyes meet theirs, they look away, so Tubbo finds himself staring at their hair, black and white split nearly evenly down the middle. “Really?”

Ranboo nods. “Seriously, I- it would’ve been amazing if not for the pain you two were in-” they freeze, grey eyes widening. “Sorry if that sounds weird! I didn’t mean, like- I just-” they groan and slump over, face in their hands. “I’m sorry. J-just…the trees were bending towards you, like they were trying to protect you, almost, and the ground was all mossy and covered with flowers and grass and mushrooms even though it’s October…it was just raw Magic. I’ve lived here as long as I can remember, and I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Tubbo blinks. 

He blinks again. 

“Huh.”

That is…a lot of information that he doesn’t know how to deal with. So he shifts slightly, ignoring the groaning and loud creaking of the mattress(it didn’t make this much noise before) and asks the first question on his mind. 

“Is it, like…I dunno, a stress response or some shit?” 

Ranboo nods. “Probably, yeah. It can happen to everyone who has Magic, especially if they haven’t been able to use it in a while, just like…in their different ways, of course. Like sometimes for me, I get, like…glitchy?” 

“Glitchy?” 

“Yeah, I, um…my Magic has something to do with teleportation, so if I get really anxious I’ll just… whizz around the compound a million times a minute ‘til someone catches me. It’s not fun.” 

“Doesn’t sound it,” Tubbo yawns. 

“But…I don’t know, I’ve been kinda thinking about it, and y’know what a part of me thought you were at first?”

Tubbo frowns. “What?” 

“I saw you with the, uh, flowers and mushrooms and roots and everything and I just thought, wow, I guess wood elves are real. Y’know from the stories? Then I realized what I was really seeing, and, uh…yeah.” 

“...fucking told you,” someone says sleepily, the shit-eating smile audible. 

Tubbo rolls his eyes, a fondly exasperated smile growing on his face as he scoffs. “Shut up, Tom-” his eyes widen, and he pushes himself upwards again as Ranboo freezes and turns around. “Tommy?” 

Tommy smiles sleepily, eyes still half-lidded but looking so much more awake then he did last night. “Hey, big man. Where th’hell are we?” 

Tubbo shoves himself all the way upwards and swings his legs over the side of the bed, staring Tommy right in his feverish face as he smiles. “We made it.” He glances over to Ranboo and holds a hand out. “Help me down?” 

“Oh! Y-yeah, sure- hang on,” Ranboo says, scrambling to stand and support Tubbo’s arms so they can lift him down(the bed is higher off the ground than he thought) and support him over. 

Tommy’s eyes are wide with wonder and relief as Tubbo staggers over, Ranboo holding his elbows. When he’s close enough to support himself with Tommy’s bed, he does, and Tommy looks up at him, eyes brimming. “We…we made it?”

Tubbo hugs his best friend, ignoring Tommy’s fever and sweat and how his own legs tremble with his weight. “Yeah, bossman. We made it. Ranboo,” Ranboo waves, one hand still on Tubbo’s back, “found us and brought us here.”

“We’re free?” Tommy whispers, voice strangled like he’s about to cry. 

“Yeah,” Tubbo whispers back. “We are.”

“Fuck you, Tubs, you’re makin’ me cry in front of the new person,” Tommy laughs wetly, and Tubbo laughs with him. 

All noise stops with a knock at the closed door of the room and an unfamiliar voice asking to come in. 

Tubbo lurches back into Ranboo, who scrambles to catch him so he doesn’t fall as Tommy very subtly (not really, but Tubbo will let him think that) wipes his eyes. Damn his shaky legs. 

Ranboo hums. “It’s just Phil-” 

“And Niki!” a new voice adds. 

“-and Niki,” they finish. “Are you good if I let them in? Niki’s our healer, and Phil’s kinda the leader- he’s nice, I promise,” they add hurriedly, seeing the anxious looks Tubbo and Tommy shoot at each other. “He’s not gonna kick you out or anything, but I think Niki definitely needs to see you guys, just to make sure you’re healing right.” 

Tommy sighs, rolling onto his back. “...’kay.”

“You sure?” 

“Mhm.” 

Ranboo’s eyes linger on Tommy, concerned, before they call for Niki and Phil to come in. 

Two familiar people enter- the man with the green robe who took Tommy from Ranboo’s arms last night, and the young woman with the light pink hair who helped Tubbo into bed.

“You’re up!” she says, beaming. “How are you feeling?” 

“Tired,” Tommy and Tubbo mumble at the same time before glancing at each other and snickering. 

“I bet, you’ve had a rough time,” she sympathizes. “You probably already know, but I’m Niki. It’s nice to really meet you two.” Niki immediately walks to Tubbo and, with Ranboo’s help, ushers him back to bed. Once he’s settled, she holds out her hands over Tubbo’s head and they begin to glow a soft shade of blue. The soothing feeling of Magic flows over Tubbo’s head, sifting down his spine and shoulders, and he closes his eyes.  

“I’m Phil,” the green-robed man says. “You’re…Tommy and Tubbo, yes?” 

“Yup,” Tommy groans, and Niki’s Magic leaves Tubbo, her footsteps moving across the room. 

“Ranboo told me a little, but I think I’d like to hear your story from you two,” he continues. “If you’re up to it. I understand last night especially was tough.”

Tubbo opens his eyes, and with one glance at Tommy(what he can see of him beneath Niki’s fussing and checking of bandages, anyway) he knows Tommy’s okay with him telling. 

So, he starts. 

He tells of how he doesn’t remember his family, how the plants were always his friends, and how he and Tommy met when they were twelve and haven’t been apart for longer than a few hours in the four or five years since. How the traveling town they’d lived in had cursed any kind of Magic; the flowers looking up to him and the light Tommy was always able to make and manipulate had to be kept hidden or else they’d be seen as monsters for existing. How they’d heard of the commune and planned to leave the next Migration Day, when they could slip out unnoticed, and walk through the woods to the commune. 

Tubbo’s voice begins to choke up and Ranboo places a chilled hand on his arm. He takes a deep breath, looks at Tommy, who’s sitting up with a mug in his hands as Niki holds her glowing hands over his bare, unbandaged wound, and continues. 

He tells of how the villagers decided they’d needed more wagons to transport their things this coming Migration Day, and how they’d gone into the edges of the forest to cut down trees, but not too far, since even the most Magic-hating person could tell how filled with Magic and life that forest was. He stammers to a halt when he starts to tell of how the trees screamed in agony at the axes and saws being used to cut them down. 

Tommy interjects, and speaks of how he calmed Tubbo down in the small corner between two buildings they were currently calling home, using his lights to show him when to breathe when someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw the grass turning green around Tubbo’s legs and the orbs of light growing and shrinking in time with Tommy’s counting. Then, he starts to cough, though it’s much less lung-shaking and rough than it was, and Niki takes the mug from him so he doesn’t spill hot tea all over himself as he wheezes shakily. She lays him back down gently, picking up more bandages to rewrap his wound. 

Tubbo picks their story back up, speaking tremulously about how the villagers chased them out of town, the mob growing by the second. How they hadn’t even had the chance to grab their meager supplies they’d been stocking for the trip before they had no choice but to leave two weeks early. How one of the villagers threw a knife, and it caught Tommy in the side. 

How they’d been stuck in the woods for a week with no supplies other than what Tubbo could glean from the forest around him with his Magic. 

How Tommy had finally collapsed, feverish with an infected wound, on day six of the five-day journey. 

Ranboo jumps in once Tubbo starts shuddering and rubbing at his arms, the anemone poking upwards, concerned, as he tries not to remember what it all felt like, but the phantom roots still sprout from his skin. They describe the scene, one boy kneeling on the ground with nature radiating from him and the forest growing from him, and the other unconscious, glowing like a beacon in the dark night. They could sense the amount of Magic pouring out of the clearing, they say. They knew they had to get the two back to the compound; Tommy’s fever had been reaching dangerous levels and Tubbo’s Magic was absolutely overwhelming him. 

“And now…” Tubbo shrugs, reaching an arm across to the anemone and letting its petals brush his fingertips. “Here we are.”

Phil stands silent and still the whole time, absorbing it all. 

Once Tubbo finishes, Ranboo gives his arm a squeeze as they look up at Phil. “I know we have room for them here, Phil.” 

“Well, I wasn’t gonna kick ‘em out, mate,” Phil laughs lightheartedly. “You two are welcome to stay. We’re happy to have you here.” His warm smile beams through the room. 

Niki runs a hand over Tommy’s forehead and turns from him. “You’d have to be here for the next few days, at least until Tommy’s better, just to be safe. We aren’t going to separate you.” She looks at Phil. “I think they could use some rest, though. Are you okay if Ranboo stays here? They can come get me really quickly if something happens.” 

“M’fine with it,” Tubbo yawns, glancing over to Tommy, whose eyes are closed, chest rising and falling slowly. He looks…peaceful.

“That’s good.” Phil smiles and heads for the door. “I’m glad you two are here and safe. Everyone was worried, so they’ll be happy to hear you’re alright.” He opens the door and waves, Niki going before him as he shuts the door. 

Tubbo scooches down in bed as Ranboo stands up to turn down some lanterns on the wall he never noticed were there. As he burrows in the cloud-soft covers, Ranboo calls his name. 

“Yeah?”

“Are you happy you’re here?” 

Tubbo scoffs, watching with amusement as the anemone burrows deeper into its soil, mirroring him. “Hell yes.” He closes his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath before opening them again as Ranboo returns and sits back next to him. “We’ve been waiting for this for a while, and…I’m glad. We’re free now.” 

“Yeah,” Ranboo agrees, smiling audibly as they take their book from its holster on their hip. “You are.” 

Tubbo curls up under the blankets, closing his eyes, and for once relishing how they well with tears. He can tell these tears aren’t sad tears, they’re happy ones. 

This place can be home, more home than the village he and Tommy have lived in all their lives. 

He smiles as he starts to fall asleep, Tommy in the opposite bed, Ranboo beside him, and the Magic he hasn’t been able to feel for so long brushing its silken fingertips through his hair and all through his blood. 

Yeah, he thinks, falling into the waiting arms of slumber. 

This will be a good home.