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Green is dead and—with some serious mental gymnastics—it might be Tubbo’s fault. Except it’s definitely Bad and Pierre’s fault. And they don’t even know who the cursed team is, or if this will all turn out to be the thing that miraculously saved all the eggs.
So Tubbo falls back on this; he really doesn’t feel like going back to the base tonight, or the night after that, but he also kind of has nowhere else to go. He’s their leader, even when he’s not exactly been treated as such. He lingers a bit down there, dodges them when he can, and tunes out their conversations.
They get too loud at some point, and the walls of the cave seem to shrink in on him, forcing them into closer quarters when he just wants to get away from them.
Is he even right to feel so… betrayed? It’s a tired old game at this point; the whole him being not taken seriously. He even understands where Bad is coming from. That message from Dapper had been pretty cut and dry. Tubbo would probably be acting similarly if he were in Bad's shoes. It’s just frustrating.
There’s blood on his hands but it wasn’t even put there by him. Still, thoughts linger. What could he have done to keep a better grip on his teammates? And the answer will probably be nothing. Which makes it worse. Why had they even chosen him in the first place?
There’s a small campfire a bit down the shore, placed by someone passing through during a snowstorm, and it’s as good a place as any to just sit. He wraps his arms around his knees and stares into the fire, appreciating the warmth and serenity… for two minutes. He really isn’t good at just sitting, and he must be a pathetic sight, because even the monsters keep their distance, pitying him.
With a sigh, he gets up again and starts walking down the beach. He slices through monsters with a bit more efficiency than he remembers even from the main island, and it slowly occurs to him—with each stab and poof—that he’s more geared out than he was back home. That’s what death games do to a man, he supposes.
It’s not nearly as cathartic as he’d hoped.
He already kind of has something in mind, but going through that would mean caving in and admitting what he’s denied to himself plenty; he desperately wants to be in good graces with Phil again.
Phil looks out for him. That’s just a universal truth. But there’s a pretty significant roadblock now too. Phil has gone a little bit insane. Just like the rest of Team Bolas. And they’re somehow winning even though they don’t even have enchanted armour.
What makes him give in is something as simple as the cold. He’s only wearing that light dress shirt and a pair of pants that have been ripped slightly at the ends. It’s freezing and he’s not going to seek the warmth of their base—even if the lava pockets surrounding the underground are extremely appealing at the moment.
Sure, he could dig himself into the ground and find a little pool to sit by but that brings him back to the campfire situation.
A walk will do it, and if that walk happens to take him towards Bolas’ original base—and he’s sure they’ve moved somewhere else, but he doesn’t care anymore. If he meets them, he meets them—that’s just a coincidence.
He jumps through the portal to the desert and treks all the way to the savannah. The rotting corpses and skeletons barely faze him, neither does the crunchy sounds beneath his feet nor how desolate this place is.
They haven’t even bothered to cover up the entrance to their old “base,” leaving it open for anyone to walk in. Which Tubbo does. He looks through their chest and finds only junk, he ignores the stench of rotten food coming from the fridge, and when he has done just about everything he can to distract himself in that small space—which only takes a minute—he brings out his communicator.
And he caves.
You whisper to Ph1LzA: can we talk man?
You whisper to Ph1LzA: im at your old base
He resists the urge to toss the communicator into the wall. If he receives a rejection he genuinely thinks he might go insane. But he’d fall alone.
Ph1LzA whispers to you: of course
Ph1LzA whispers to you: be there in ten
Ph1LzA whispers to you: don’t do anything stupid
There’s a significant pause between the second to last message and the last message. One that Tubbo isn’t going to linger too hard on. He’s not going to think about it at all actually. He has ten minutes to spend.
They pass relatively quickly, he kills some monsters, steps on some more bones, and drinks some tea in the midst of all their carnage, until finally, he hears the sound of hooves.
Phil jumps off his horse with his sword in hand and cages it. Tubbo had kind of forgotten about the whole gas masks thing. Mostly because this meeting doesn’t actually feel like part of the game to him. It’s a pause. It’s… well he doesn’t know what it is yet. It’s him reaching out to Phil because when everything is broken down, the only thing that remains true is that Phil will be there for him.
But he is wearing a mask, and it takes some humanity from him. His voice is muffled when he starts talking. “If this is some kind of trap, I’m literally never forgiving you.”
It stings, a bit, even though it’s deserved. Tubbo is the leader of the team that’s fucked over Phil’s team—his cult, or family?
“I swear to you it’s not,” Tubbo says quickly, bringing out his own sword and tossing it on the ground. “Look. I’m not trying anything. All I wanted for tonight was a tie.”
Phil’s head moves slowly from the weapon on the ground and back up to Tubbo. “It looked like that fell apart pretty fucking quick for you.”
“They don’t listen to me, Phil.” Tubbo starts pacing over dry grass. “I had to cooperate with ElQuackity, and not only is he the least trustworthy person on any of these islands, he’s also just completely incompetent.”
Phil snorts but doesn’t say anything.
Tubbo takes that as an invitation to continue. “We don’t even know for sure what’s going to happen with green. But we can be pretty certain that they’re going to fucking die. And I was just—” his chest rises and falls faster than it should, and his throat tightens, but he keeps speaking; because he gets to. “I really tried, Phil. But they didn’t listen to me. They never did. It was like arguing with a brick wall. Except a brick wall can’t claim a bunch of missions as everything ends, which is what Bad did, by the way—”
“Toby, calm down,” Phil says suddenly, walking forward and placing his hands on Tubbo’s shoulders. “What’s done is done. Even the best leader in the world wouldn’t be able to do much against someone like Bad and Pierre.”
“I bet you feel pretty lucky then,” Tubbo huffs, glaring at the ground.
Phil’s silent for one dangerous moment before he says, “You do realise who was on the green team, right?”
It’s sort of like he’s back up north, but instead of the mild chill of the beach, it’s the burning cold of the frozen depths—which is pretty ironic because that’s what he’d willingly thrown himself into just to avoid Phil the other day—because he’s let his mouth run without thought again, even though he knows exactly what Phil has lost.
He takes a step back and opens his arms. “Just fucking kill me now.”
Phil sighs through the mask. “I’m not going to kill you.”
“You’re not?”
“Nah, there’s been enough death tonight.”
Tubbo kind of feels like he’s lost the thread a little bit. “What now then?”
Phil crosses his arms and Tubbo imagines him shooting him a mildly unimpressed look through that mask of his. “You’re the one who asked me to come here.”
“Well, yeah—I, uh—” Tubbo focuses on a spot over Phil’s shoulder, there’s a neat cliff over there, and a bull hanging out on top. Isn’t that interesting? Phil’s too patient with him sometimes, letting him diverge his brain for a minute instead of doing some of the things he should do; like kill him, exact revenge, loot his body and leave the corpse in this graveyard of a savanna. Tubbo forces himself to look back, not sure how much time passed. “Why did you come, anyway? I kinda thought we were on bad terms.”
Phil’s silent for a moment and Tubbo almost thinks: this is it, he’s actually going to leave. But then he doesn’t.
“I guess I could just tell you actually needed me here and weren’t just—” he waves around his hand. “Playing around. Everything’s gone to shit, but I still care about you.”
“Oh.” It… it’s supposed to make him feel better, but instead it kind of just settles over him. It’s only at this moment that he realises he's genuinely thought the opposite.
“Please don’t tell me that surprises you,” Phil says, and for once his tone is simply impossible to read.
Tubbo laughs awkwardly. It falls flat to even his own ears. “Fuck, man. I don’t know? We haven’t exactly been civil since coming here… and you’ve got this whole cult thing going on. It’s pretty confusing.”
“First of all, we haven’t been civil because of what your teammates have done to us.” It’s not even a low blow, it’s a fair blow, but it still makes Tubbo’s heart twist. Which Phil must see on him. “Which I now realise is largely out of your control.”
“It shouldn’t be—”
“It is,” Phil cuts him off sharply. “So let’s leave that behind us. Fuck Bad in particular. What do you want to do now?”
Tubbo resists the insistent urge to just lie down on the ground and become one with nature. “That’s a loaded question.”
“You want options?”
“Sure.”
Phil tilts his head. “You want to sit down first?”
“I—yeah…” Tubbo sits down on the ground, crossing his legs and starting a staring contest with the grass.
Out of his peripheral vision, he sees Phil remove the gas mask. And he decides not to make a big deal out of that by not acknowledging it at all. It’s weirdly hard to see him without the gas mask too, because it shatters any illusion that Phil is the same steady person he’s always been. Tubbo doesn’t need to look at him for more than a second to tell that he’s lost a big part of himself.
And yet when he talks, it’s familiar, it’s soothing. “You can’t reel in Bad and Pierre. That’s it. You tried. If you go back, focus on the people who actually fucking respect you.”
Tubbo furrows his brow. “I’m sorry, did you just say ‘if’?”
Phil meets his eyes with a small, bitter, genuine smile. “Well, yeah. It’s just red and blue left. Everyone in Bolas will understand that you tried your best. You can burn yourself, put on a gas mask, and see where it takes you.”
“Oh my god,” Tubbo says, playfully in awe—kinda. “Am I as insane as you all? Are you inviting me into your cult?”
“I like keeping my family close,” Phil says, eyes dark. He can be so menacing. “And it’d be a pretty big fuck you to Bad.”
“Ah, so there are ulterior motives,” Tubbo points out, and then he manages to blurt something that he had really never wanted to say. “God forbid anyone chooses me first.”
The funny thing is that they’re both taken aback by it. Tubbo because he’s usually so good at suppressing his feelings, and Phil because from his perspective he’s just heard something pitifully sad be dropped out of nowhere.
Phil’s expression is one Tubbo’s seen plenty before; that unequivocally worried one. “Toby…”
“Save the pity,” Tubbo forces out, absolutely not meeting his eyes. “It’s not even a sad thing. It’s just weird to be unfrozen with no memories and shoved into a group of people where everyone’s trauma bonded for months. And now we’re here, and I miss the morning crew, and my godchildren, and Fred. It’s just kind of soul-crushing.”
Phil looks the tiniest bit speechless. “I didn’t think—”
“There’s nothing to really consider,” Tubbo interrupts regretfully. “I’m managing just fine compared to, like, at least half of everyone here. Your team alone is like a million times sadder than I’ll ever be.” He can tell Phil’s on the verge of protesting, so he pushes on, diverges the subjects, and takes control. “Anyway. We were talking about leadership.”
For one dreadful moment, he’s afraid that Phil might actually want to do a pseudo-therapy session in the middle of fucking purgatory. Much to his joy, Phil picks up what he’s putting down and arches a brow. “Actually, we were talking about you joining Bolas.”
“Oh, right.” Tubbo throws himself on the ground with a loud, exaggerated sigh. There are no clouds in the sky, and it doesn’t have the red tint it does during big events. It just looks like the sky. Which is a dumb and played-out thought, but strangely, a comfort.
He knows what he needs to say, but it’s kind of hard. He wants now more than ever to take Phil’s offer because it’s something he’s been chosen for. He’s been called family. They are that, they were that. And Tubbo wants to cling to it, to put on a mask and fall behind Phil for the rest of the event—which may ultimately end with his tragic demise. But he also knows that he can’t. Because someone else chose him too.
Phil moves over and sits down next to him, becoming a blurry figure out of the corner of his eyes. He just waits, patient once again, until Tubbo is ready to speak.
It hurts to say the next string of words, but he must. And he does. “I can’t actually join you. I can’t do that to the rest of the team. Pac’s going to need me, and Tina’s going to be devastated too and I don’t want to leave Niki with them…” He trails off and looks back at Phil, finding him with a soft smile on his lips.
“I know, Toby. And for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you.”
“You’re proud of me?” Tubbo sits up. His tone is nothing short of incredulous.
“Mhm,” Phil hums. “Always have been.”
“Cool,” Tubbo says. “Super cool. I mean, this is not exactly the place I ever expected to hear that but, uhm, thanks.”
Phil is secretly an asshole because he looks very amused by Tubbo’s fumbling. “Anytime.”
Silence hangs over them for only a few seconds before Tubbo breaks into a small smile. “I missed you, Phil. I’m sorry about everything.”
And he means everything. Things that are out of his control, like the kids being missing and the Federation being the Federation. And all the things that have happened in Purgatory. All of them.
“It’s bygones, mate.” Phil returns the smile, and Tubbo blinks in confusion as he reaches out and fixes the goggles on his head—crooked from lying on the ground—careful fingers brushing against his hair. They’re stained with blood and dirt. Tubbo doesn’t mind one bit. “If you ever need something, message me. And when we’re on opposite sides of the battlefield, know that whatever ends up happening, it’s nothing personal.”
“You’re going to go feral like you did the other day?” Tubbo teases, pretending Phil getting comfortable with killing doesn’t leave some horrifying implications behind.
“I might,” Phil responds wryly. “So you better take care of your team.” He frowns to himself. “But put on a gas mask if you… want to signal something to us.”
Tubbo’s being granted immunity. He’s already a bit of a traitor. He doesn’t care.
That’s the nature of a game like this, isn’t it? To bring out the worst in them to entertain whatever person it is that’s watching them. But Tubbo understands now that he and Phil are on the same page. Neither of them ever wanted to play into the game master's hands, and now they’re the last two leaders left.
Who knows how that’ll all go? At least they can part ways knowing that there’s a fragile bridge between the two teams, one Bad might find a way to burn anyway. At least they can die knowing they still had each other to some degree.
That’s good enough for now.