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Tubbo was pretty sure he died laughing. It was difficult to tell, his head buried in his hands, fingers twisted in the thicker part of recently cut hair (like he was a soldier again). He was so afraid of sobbing that he’d forced himself into the most hidden posture he could imagine, shoulders arched above his head, face parallel with the floor as the scarred hand he just used to salute reminded him he had tremors that could destroy worlds. It didn’t matter that Jack was there, flicking buttons frantically, trying to understand screens Tubbo only learned how to make from Fundy, screens Fundy only learned how to make to watch a movie with a monster, and as that thought flew by amongst a thousand others he knew he couldn’t hate Fundy for that anymore. To hate Fundy was to hate Ranboo, and to hate Ranboo he had to think about him.
And then it was quiet for a moment, like the bracing pause of an inhale before the release of breath.
His limbo was a mocking thing. It was his library, beneath Manburg. He and Foolish had visited it once, and for a moment he wondered if he’d been blasted half-way across the server and was lying in the rubble of it. But his body didn’t ache, not the way he was familiar with, and he could see no sky.
His farm was long withered, his armour looted. The entrance to the underground Prime Path (and subsequently, the Pogtopia ravine) was inaccessible, but every single book was intact. He started to open one, a cookbook, and then dropped it immediately when a voice spilled from it like he was listening to a communicator in the cold.
“—dead..? I don’t know why I… I can’t actually be… that’s not… what? I— Tubbo??”
Niki’s voice. Tubbo looked around for her frantically, panic setting in to his bones like the ache he was missing from the explosion, spreading across his chest and constricting his collarbone.
“I’m right here, hey— it’s okay.”
But she wasn’t right there. Tubbo could only hear her through the book. When he looked down, words were forming on the pages, presumably hers, he didn’t bother to read them. He hadn’t spoken to Niki in a long time, and it didn’t matter how much she’d meant to him before. Didn’t matter they both weren’t listened to, didn’t matter she’d believed things could change, too, didn’t matter she’d been the only one after the execution who was happy he was alive (Or, had presumed he was when no one checked and he was lying scarred and horrifying against the wall as Technoblade and Tommy argued). Now was the worst time to try and do that again.
Tubbo shut the book quickly with a rough nudge of his hoof and shut Niki down just like everyone else had. Hell fell into silence again. He waited, listening for any sign she was still there, and when nothing happened he picked the book up and set it on the shelf again.
He retreated to his withered plants, sitting beside them on the spruce floor. Tommy had probably figured out something went wrong by now. It was only a matter of time before he figured out Tubbo didn’t stop it, that it was Tubbo’s fault he didn’t protect the computer, that he trusted Jack at all, that he trusted anyone…
Tubbo started keeping track of the hours with the book covers. He’d sit and count, the only tether keeping his feet on the floor, and every sixty minutes he took a piece of broken off, dried sugarcane and left a notch in the book covers. He lost count once or twice and made up with an estimate of how long he slipped up for, but it was an easy guess.
After seven hours he got sick of the game, leaving the book (How 2 Sex) alone. He settled for trying to work out why his limbo was his library instead of… like, fire. Or fireworks. Dream had mentioned, in the prison, that limbo changed depending on how you died. So…
Tubbo considered, and after trying to be poetic and failing for too long, he decided it was just because he exploded again. The library reminded him of Manburg, therefore that made the most sense. He scrubbed his eye tiredly, looking down at How 2 Sex and wondering if opening it would let him hear Tommy.
He threw the book at the door and burrowed into his arms, hands trembling. They shouldn’t have been trembling anymore, he wasn’t in his body, he had no nerve damage, he was fine. And yet everything ached. He wished his drugs were in one of the empty chests.
Then he realised something. If each book corresponded to a person, Dream was there. Dream. Tubbo’s eyes narrowed hatefully, and he stood up. Maybe if he could find that book, he could destroy it, hurt Dream somehow, tear a piece of him out, do something.
He tried the combat book someone long forgotten by the cortex of history written during L’Manburg, which revealed a confused Purpled’s voice and a frantic, “Wait, Tubbo, where are w—”
Tubbo notched a quick “puprld” in the cover and tossed it beside How 2 Sex.
Punz joined shortly (Eight Ways To Get Rich Fast), then Schlatt (The Fourth Largest Planet In Our Solar System), Quackity (‘Medusa’), Ponk (Some kind of journal Tubbo’d never seen before), and after a while he stopped labelling and checking titles, just throwing them all into a pile.
“F—”
“Tubbo?!”
“—uck—”
“How did y—”
“—all of—”
“Tubbo.”
“—you.”
Tubbo’s head shot up from where he had been rapidly opening and shutting books, waiting for some sick recognition. And there it was, sick recognition, but not for the voice he wanted. That was Wilbur. Calm experience. Too calm.
“Who are you talking to?” Wilbur asked, tired, not sympathetic.
“No one— Shut u—” Tubbo started to close the book in a frantic panic.
“Don’t.” Wilbur warned gently. “Take a deep breath.”
“I’m fine.” Tubbo chuckled awkwardly, looking around and backing up like Wilbur would be the first person to appear. The bugbear, the brother he couldn’t escape even when he was—
“You’re not fine. You’re dead.” Wilbur informed him, like Tubbo was stupid. Well. He— Like he was a child. Like he was thirteen again and Wilbur was high. High above him and high off his ass. Wilbur sighed, “What happened?”
“You’re dead, figure it out.” Tubbo laughed shakily.
A beat.
“I’ve been dead.”
“What??” Tubbo’s eyes rounded and darted around, then across the pages in front of him. “But Tommy said you went to… Utah, or something.”
“Mm.” Wilbur hesitated. “That’s what Tommy knew, yeah.”
“What?” Tubbo repeated dizzily.
“I fucking killed myself, Tubbo, what do you think?” Wilbur barked. Tubbo’s body jolted by instinct but he felt no fear. He just felt frustrated.
If Wilbur couldn’t do one thing, it was change. And Tubbo was stupid for ever considering he might’ve found a way to.
Teasingly, Wilbur added, “…can’t even look at me, can you?”
“I can’t see you.” Tubbo mumbled, the dark oak floors a pretty good replacement for Wilbur’s face in his opinion.
“Huh.” Wilbur went silent, probably figuring something out. Tubbo wondered how pathetic he looked, and then decided to straighten up a little. “What can you see?”
“Books.” Tubbo spat disdainfully as he stalked past the shelves into the middle of the room. “The things that won’t remember us. The poets.”
“And I’m not one of them?” Wilbur’s tone was lighthearted.
“You’re cast like one, but you’re just words.” Tubbo shook his head slowly, looking down at the book again. He heaved, “I hate this. I want… to fix everything.”
“You can’t, Tubbo.” Wilbur inhaled slowly, about the same way he would’ve taken a drag from a cigarette. Tubbo resisted the urge to shut the book there. “I realised that a while ago. Sometimes you just have to let go.”
Tubbo fell silent.
Finally, Wilbur added, “But “what is a pillar without a ceiling?”, I suppose.”
“Shut up. Just… please.” Tubbo laughed tiredly.
Wilbur did as he was told. Tubbo stared at the pages of his book emptily. His own words had shown up alongside Wilbur’s, scattered about like dialogue between two characters. Flat paper cut outs of humans replicating the emotions of an author. He settled against the shelf.
“How did you live for so long? Knowing you hurt so many people?” Tubbo asked softly.
“I didn’t think about it.”
“I can’t not think about it.” Tubbo countered.
“Then maybe you shouldn’t be looking to me for advice.” Wilbur chuckled.
“I’m not looking for advice.” Tubbo scoffed at the idea. “You’ve only ever given me orders, give me an order. Tell me what to do. Tell me what I have to do, please.”
“Apologise.” Wilbur’s voice emptied. “And when that’s not good enough, lie in the bed you made and wait for the water to fill it.”
Silence stretched out between them, and Tubbo exhaled softly, picking up the book and weighing it in his hands. He shook his head and threw amongst the pile, continuing to look.
He saw Ranboo’s memory book, didn’t dare open it, he saw Fundy’s spy journal and his coding book that he shared with Sam one weekend when he wasn’t trying to forgive him (or imagining choking the life out of him and throwing his body to Dream like a carcass to coyotes and vultures). He saw counselling books and contracts and a thousand other things he didn’t recognise but spurred the voices (which all mockingly sounded like Wilbur then) to laughter. Some of the books joined the pile when they weren’t useful. Some (mainly the unopened ones) he tucked into the shelf again gently, fingers brushing over the spine remorsefully.
He couldn’t really feel anything. There was no texture to the pages, no fear of paper cuts, nothing but the ache in his chest. He could only tell his scars were still there from staring at his hands as they worked. No new ones had accompanied them. He wondered if that meant his death was instant, or if even limbo decided his corpse would’ve been too mangled to try and build back into a human being.
Voices flashed by, not too different from the ones in his head had been. All of them were mostly surprised “Tubbo!”s, or confused “hello”s. He carelessly threw open a book on Greek Mythology and he felt like he’d been slapped.
“Hey, kid. What’re you doing?” Technoblade asked dryly. Tubbo stumbled a little, hitting the shelf behind him and slumping into a sitting position, the book in his lap in front of him. He took a small breath in, hearing Wilbur (or maybe a voice of Wilbur) crow Technoblade’s name in surprise.
“I’m— um.” Tubbo laughed nervously as he tried to figure out what Technoblade’s limbo was from the brief description of his movements. He shook his head clear, shutting his eyes for a second to brace himself. “I’m looking for Dream.”
“Neat.” Technoblade repeated emptily, bored. There was a beat of silence and Tubbo waited, genuinely (stupidly) thinking he would elicit more of a reaction than that. After about as long as a brief glance over would take, Techno added, “Hey, Wilbur.”
“Hey, Techno.” Wilbur greeted in turn. Tubbo furrowed his brows so fast he blinked in chain with it. He looked over at the pile accusingly.
“Wilbur, how are you still here? I shut your book!” Tubbo squawked, sounding more whining younger sibling than he intended. He hadn’t played that role in a long time, not with Techno and Wilbur.
“Uh… I don’t know?” Wilbur chuckled, at ease, or maybe laughing at Tubbo’s expression. “I’ve been watching you do… something for the past few minutes. I didn’t want to interrupt, you look sad.”
“I don’t look sad.” Tubbo chuckled sharply, eyes flashing as he straightened up, shoulder rolling into military posture as he looked over at the pile of books now covering Wilbur’s. “And I don’t want to talk to either of you right n—”
“You cut your hair.” Technoblade observed slowly. Tubbo’s gaze whipped around to his left, still expecting to see a piglin towering above him with a disdainful aura to the way his muzzle was tilted. All that stared back was books. “What happened to the flowers?”
“The— I don’t know, they… I gave them to Micheal or something.” Tubbo shook his head in an attempt to refocus, setting Techno’s book aside and picking up others in thick stacks he could shuffle through. Technoblade laughed.
“Oh, Wilbur, that is weird.” Techno commented. Tubbo’s ears flattened immediately and his arms fell stiffly to his sides as he stared off at the stone brick stairs beyond him. He felt ridiculous.
“I know, right?”
“What?” Tubbo asked in irritable confusion, not turning, not moving.
“We can only see the books when you pick them up.” Wilbur clarified. Tubbo glanced down at the books in his hand. “So you look really strange and then you have a book. It’s entertaining.”
Tubbo’s lips twitched in annoyance, then he sighed and picked the books up again. “Glad you’re enjoying this.”
“Don’t shut Techno’s book.” Wilbur piped in, too close to “don’t tell Phil” then what was comfortable for Tubbo. “I want to talk with him.”
Childhood was a repetitive thing, and Tubbo hated the noise it kept echoing. He didn’t reply to Wilbur, but left Techno alone and sunk to the floor, flipping through covers he’d already seen and identified.
George and Ninja’s marriage license.
“Thought you went to Utah.”
L’Manburg’s Declaration of Independence.
“You believed that?”
The national anthem lyrics.
“Nah… not really. You hated Quackity’s… uh… What did he call it again? Burger world? But if you didn’t like that, I can’t imagine why you’d choose Utah.”
Quackity’s speech notes.
“Did Phil believe it?”
Tubbo froze, the illegible scribbles chuckling at him. Childhood.
“I think he wanted to.” Wanted to. Of course he wanted to. Tubbo tossed the paper aside and buried his head in his hands tiredly, hair flipping through his hands without sensation.
“…fuck.” Wilbur’s reply wasn’t emotional enough, so close to drugs under the bed all over again. “Tubbo.”
He was stupid enough to lift his head with the speed of an arrow and almost expect an, Are you okay? for it.
“Find Phil.”
He forgot Wilbur was incapable of anything but commands.
“I’m a bit busy right now.” Tubbo picked up a book by one side of the cover and let it fall open with fluttering pages to prove that point. He forgot what an open book meant.
“So you can— Oh. Techno?” Eret’s disembodied voice asked in confusion in front of him. Tubbo grimaced, resisting the urge to slam his head against his knees in front of him. Stupid, stupid, idiot.
“Eyy! Eret.” Technoblade greeted warmly. “Hey.”
“Hello. Oh. Hey, Wilbur.” Eret added. Tubbo could form disdain in his voice if he pricked his ears slightly. The sound wasn’t enough for him, and neither was, “Tubbo? Are you… okay?”
“He’s looking for Dream, so no, not really.” Wilbur observed without sympathy.
“I was just talking to him.” Eret informed them. Tubbo blinked rapidly, shooting to his feet and toppling Eret’s book onto itself in a way that crumbled the pages.
“Really?? What’s his limbo like?” Tubbo demanded excitedly to no one.
“He didn’t tell me.” Eret admitted.
“Fuck…” Tubbo groaned, shaking his hands out frustratedly and pacing a little.
“I’m sorry.” Eret offered, more gentle than anyone had been to him so far. Maybe besides what Niki almost was.
“Eret, he can’t see you.” Wilbur informed them dryly as Tubbo’s hooves clicking against wood sharpened into hurrying to the shelves.
“Oh.” Eret fell silent for a bit as more covers were yanked from the shelves unsympathetically. Not Dream, couldn’t be Dream, stupid stupid stupid fucking— “Well, you have my sympathies anyway.”
“Wilbur might take a hug instead, he’s been here for a while.” Techno deadpanned, and Tubbo froze as he realised that was what Eret was doing.
“I’m… uh.” Eret chuckled.
“Please don’t hug me.” Wilbur grumbled.
“I won’t.” Eret assured him. Tubbo exhaled and it came out as some kind of hiccupy laugh. That might’ve been an indicator of emotion if how he wasn’t able to move himself to working again wasn’t.
Silence fell around them and Tubbo fought down any emotion related to how stupid he felt. How fucking stupid Eret was for trying to comfort him, how he wasn’t shutting their book and how he was staring at a stupid wilderness survival manual with a campfire on the front.
Stupid fucking campfire. Stupid.
“So, how did we all die?” Eret asked at last. Tubbo started in surprise, nearly dropping the book.
“Tubbo seems to know.” Wilbur let his words rest, impact everyone else, then encouraged smugly, “Tubbo?”
“Watch out, he could shut all of our books.” Techno teased. Tubbo broke free of the trance and tossed the manual aside with a scoff. “Was mine a Greek Myth book, Tubbo? Is that really how you see me?”
“Wilbur’s was a book on the worse weapons in the history of the world.” Tubbo informed him, trying not to think about the amount of Tommy’s breakdowns he’d managed that involved gasped out parts of the Theseus myth and anxiety-induced predictions about his death.
“You think he’s that dangerous?” Eret chirped.
“No, the worse as in most ineffective.” Tubbo mumbled, gesturing vaguely behind him as he fished out a true crime book that Callahan loaned him once. Eret and Technoblade laughed in the background as Tubbo flipped open the pages.
The laughter abruptly stopped. Tubbo blinked, waiting for someone to speak. Nothing came for a long while, and he turned back to the front of the book. Penned gently beneath one line that’d scratched it out in an attempt to replace it was a signature.
“Hello.”
Dream
“Don’t.” Tubbo grumbled, thumbing over his own signature beside it before lifting his chin defiantly.
“Sorry, would a “hey” be better?” Dream deadpanned hollowly.
“Tubbo, shut his book.” Wilbur instructed sharply.
“No, I want to—” Tubbo’s fingers slipped around the pages and he tugged, hard and desperate. They refused to tear under his grip, and he settled for less pages. “I want him to listen, I want...”
“You look ridiculous.” Dream observed.
“You’re a monster.” Tubbo shot back childishly, eyes lifting in hopes of seeing someone.
“Bold words from the one who killed everyone.” Dream coldly replied from nowhere. Tubbo’s eyelashes fluttered and the world flashed in front of him for a moment like a clip show.
“What?” Eret asked immediately.
Tubbo must’ve looked conflicted for a moment because Techno added a reverberating, “Bruh.”
Dream cackled, shrieking and unhinged, “Oh, he didn’t tell you? Yeah, this little shit-head—”
“Dream.” Wilbur warned scathingly, an out of character, for once brotherly defence that made Tubbo’s eyes burn.
“—thought it’d be fun to fire his nukes at the prison and killed everyone by accident.” Dream continued, wild and manic. Tubbo could envision the harsh lift of his bottom eyelids without needing to see them.
“Hang on, I had three lives, why didn’t I respawn?” Eret levelly inquired.
“No one could survive in the radiation for long enough to wake up fully.” Tubbo whispered softly, like a lack of volume would keep his voice from cracking.
He felt like everyone was staring at him. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel it in the air, disdainful and amused and worried.
“Don’t touch him.” Wilbur spat suddenly. Tubbo’s shoulders hiked.
“Oh, what’re you gonna do about it, Wilbur?” Dream snarled. Tubbo’s mind flipped through a thousand different scenarios, hands on the wrist, the forearm, shoulder, on the back of the neck— Fuck. The back of the neck was always the worst. “Tubbo, you’re a fucking coward.”
“I killed you.” Tubbo argued uselessly, laughing too quick, closer to hyperventilating than he’d like, “I killed you fast. And— and that could’ve been it, it should’ve been—”
“You killed everyone. You killed everyone to settle some stupid fucking score. You didn’t think about anyone else. All you cared about was winning some imaginary game you and Tommy made up.” Dream cut him off, calm and decisive. Tubbo took a soft breath in. It must not have been a satisfying reaction, because Dream scoffed. “You’re a child.”
Tubbo’s eyes lowered to the book in front of him, face burning with something that wasn’t fireworks. It wasn’t pinpricks or tightness, it was just hot. Hot and full of shame.
“That’s why he shouldn’t have had nukes in the first place.” Eret sighed, and Tubbo scrubbed his face to try and rid of the feeling. “If he’s at fault, so are we, Dream.”
“I think he had plenty examples of how explosives are shitty, and shouldn’t be used.” Dream scoffed. “I mean, look at the other minors on the server. I haven’t seen Purpled or Aimsey—”
Tubbo made a noise somewhere between a whimper and a laugh.
“—ending any servers. But what do I know? I’m fucking dead!”
Tubbo swallowed, shutting his eyes and stumbling back to lean against the wall. He hated himself. Dream hummed. “It’s funny, before this, Sam and I thought you were really the only good person left on the server.”
“Me?” Tubbo repeated softly, looking down at the pages of the book.
Early in the morning of June 13th, the girls’ bodies were found in their sleeping bags out on the trail leading to the camp showers. The only evidence that their killer left behind was a red flashlight and a bloody footprint.
“Have you spoken to Sam?”
never caught
Tubbo stayed quiet. He was sure he’d heard him, somewhere along the sorting through books. Wilbur sneered, “Dream, leave him alone.”
“He killed all of us! Is no one else mad about this??” Dream shouted back. Tubbo slowly thumped his head against the open book in front of him
“If we look at the bright side, all government is finally abolished.” Techno contributed with a laugh that synced with another slam of Tubbo’s head. “No offence, Eret.”
“None taken.” Eret sounded like they were smiling. They chuckled, “I’ll admit, I think I am kind of upset, but part of me is still in shock, so I haven’t quite gotten around to it.”
Tubbo hit his head harder. Faster. No sensation.
“I was already dead. And Tommy’s probably just upset we can’t play solitaire.” Wilbur contributed.
never caught
“Pff. You clearly don’t know Tommy.” Dream countered.
never caught
“Oh, and you do?!”
never caught
“I’ve spoken to him.”
Tubbo’s head froze inches away from the paper.
“Have any of you?” Dream challenged. His voice went mockingly sugary, “Tubbo?”
“Shut up.” Tubbo grumbled, voice reflecting back at him off the seam of the book. His shoulders started trembling. He never knew his shoulders could tremble.
“He’s scared you’re in pain.” Dream continued.
“Shut up.” Tubbo insisted, words sliding through clenched teeth and clinging to the spaces between them, sticking to the inside of his mouth like a bad taste.
“He knows Ranboo is, but I doubt you visited them either—”
“Shut the fuck up!!” Tubbo screamed, lifting his head. The statement broke into a laugh at the end. “Shut the fuck up! Just shut up!”
He didn’t give Dream time to reply wittily and just screeched into the book. Childishly, sure, but it came straight from his throat and tore at something, finally feeling right, feeling sharp and viscerally carving and something Tubbo deserved.
Dream was silent after that. All of them were silent. Tubbo groaned, shoulders convulsing a without his permission as he pathetically slumped against the book.
He mumbled, muffled against paper, “I hate you.”
“Well.” Dream replied simply, annoyance clear. Tubbo exhaled heavily, and then got up, looking around. He felt a prickle of the room around him without even seeing anyone.
Wilbur’s book lay discarded at the edge of a pile, chucked there hatefully and just slightly open from where it’d caught on another book. Tubbo stalked over.
“Tubbo, don’t.” Wilbur commented softly as Tubbo crouched to pick it up. “Isolating yourself won’t—”
Wilbur’s book snapped fully shut, cover water damaged from the past and pages bent from how it’d been resting. Tubbo kicked it once for good measure. Wilbur didn’t get to be sympathetic. Not anymore.
“You can talk to me anytime.” Was Eret’s hurried addition before Tubbo nudged his book right side up with his hoof. Theirs was more hurt than Wilbur’s was, and Tubbo felt bad. He knew Eret couldn’t feel it, and wouldn’t know, but he didn’t deserve it.
Technoblade said nothing. Tubbo was used to that.
He started to close Dream’s book, which he’d been holding. Waiting.
“In another world, Tubbo, I think you might’ve mattered.”
Tubbo’s hands hovered where they gripped the cover. He swallowed, hesitated, but Dream left it at that.
Tubbo gently shut the book and set it on the shelf.