Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At first, it didn’t seem like the world had ended. 

The sky had still been blue, up until a point. Birds had still sang, until they had run out of birds.

People still roamed the streets. Maybe it was the people who changed the most.

Tubbo slammed his axe into the head of the corpse next to him. It screamed and died, like they always did, and he preemptively covered his face from the spray of small pollen-like spores that puffed out of the wound. 

“The gate!” He screamed, pointing to the large ornate fence. The gas mask on his face muffled the sound, but he saw both of his friend’s heads turn, their eyes registering the sound through the clear plastic of their goggles. 

“Fuck!” Tommy screamed back, tossing a crowbar Ranboo’s way. The taller boy ducked, Tommy avoiding another corpse’s hands before stumbling over the one Tubbo had just killed and landing face-first in the dirt.

Ranboo, to his credit, killed both Tommy’s wayward corpse and the other one, the machete in his hand slicing cleanly through the infected. He cracked the last of them in the skull, diseased green-yellow brain matter splattering all over the wrought-iron fence and his mask.

Tubbo gagged, helping Ranboo push the damned gate through rough grass and piled-up dirt and lock it shut with the rusty old chain. Tommy laid in the grasses and trembled. 

Ranboo’s pocket crackled alive, Tommy’s  head whipping to the sound. 

“Toms?” the radio crackled. 

He leapt up, grabbing madly at Ranboo’s cargo shorts. “WIL?” He cried. Tubbo rolled his eyes as Ranboo shoved him off, calmly taking the radio out of his pocket and handing it to him with the look of a disappointed parent. 

“Wil, come in!” Tommy commanded. Tubbo sighed, grabbing his backpack and handing Ranboo a wipe for his face. “WIL! What happened? Are you guys okay?”

The noise of his friends faded into the background as Tubbo looked around. He scanned from the iron fence over- it ran as far as he could see, a small thicket of trees beyond the blackened iron dotted with corpses, yellowed and rotting bodies bobbing like boats on the sea. The grass was soft under his worn-through nikes, littered with broken glass and burnt-out syringes. The tall wrought-iron fence was thick enough that the corpses couldn’t get through, though the occasional goopy hand reached through and got stuck.

Behind them, a small building sat, maybe three floors at most, glass windows and wood board casting its watchful eye over them. 

“Looks like a plant shop.” Ranboo said, coming up beside him. His mask was clean now, the white and black smudged with leftover bits of yellow-green. 

“You’d like that, Boo.” Tommy wheezed, sitting up in the grass and kicking a few syringes aside to pull up his pack. He held the radio up to his ear. 

“Wilbur?” he asked softly. 

Crackled static came from the radio. 

“Wil?” Static, again. 

Tubbo shook his head, glancing out at the forest. He patted Tommy’s shoulder instead of talking, glancing back at the building. 

“They’re probably out of range, Toms,” Ranboo tried gently, pulling on the radio clenched in Tommy’s fist. 

Tom pulled it back out of his way, yelling into it. “Wilbur! Come in!” 

Through the silence Tubbo heard the roar of corpses outside; the creak of jawbones and the pounding of fleshy fists at the gate. Another hand scraped itself through the gap, and through the iron Tubbo thought he heard screaming.

“Wilbur! Wilbur, please!” Tommy screamed. 

The static cuts off, and, for a few more minutes, there is absolute silence. 

Tubbo looked in panic at Ranboo, who gently folded Tommy into a hug, the golden-haired boy breaking down quietly on Ranboo’s shoulder, the radio in his hands silent… dead . 

“We aren’t that far off,” Ranboo gently reminded him, rubbing circles into his shoulder. “We’re much closer than you think.” 

“We’re not that far, we’re not that far, he’s just not answering me. He’s just not answering me and it’s a dick move, he’s just a prick who doesn’t answer his fucking radio, that’s all, that’s it…” Tommy babbled hysterically. Ranboo held him tighter against his shoulder and looked up at Tubbo. 

“Family sticks together, remember?” Tubbo sighed. He gently rubbed Tommy’s shoulder, ignoring the prickling on his hand. He slid the radio out of Tommy’s hand, watching as Tommy tucked his head under Ranboo’s chin and cried.

He switched the channel, instead trying Phil. 

“Phil?”

Static. They weren’t supposed to be this far out of range.

“They’re not picking up,” he said, tossing the radio to Ranboo, who fiddled with it and tried again. Nothing. 

“I am going to kill him when he gets here.” Tommy huffed, Ranboo letting him go and standing up to try a little further off. 

“We can explore this in the meantime. Maybe they’ll come and find us.” Tubbo gestured to the building, helping Tommy up and hefting his fireman’s axe over his shoulder. 

“Is it really a plant shop?” Ranboo asked, Tommy grinning and slinging an arm around the taller boy’s shoulders. 

“It’s creepy!” He announced loudly. “And we like creepy.” 

Tubbo looked through the dirt-encrusted glass pane, trying to look inside. It was dim, but he saw a couple tables, flickering sunlight illuminating a generally corpse-free area. He stepped closer- the windows were boarded up, but he could see a couple of flickery yellow spores. 

He pulled at the gas mask around his face. “Mask up just in case, Toms.” 

Tommy grumbled but pulled the green bandanna across his nose, pulling his aviator goggles down over his eyes. Ranboo adjusted his too, nodding at Tubbo. 

“The door’s here,” Tubbo muffled, smacking the wooden boards that were nailed over the door. 

Ranboo pulled the forgotten crowbar from his belt and handed it to Tubbo. Tommy hefted his bag back on his shoulder, the old bayonet swinging dangerously from the bottom. Ranboo avoided the swinging blade and grabbed the gun, sighing. 

“You can’t just attach this to the bottom of your bag!” he argued. Tommy sputtered, arguing back. Tubbo tuned them both out, continuing to pry the boards from the door. 

He pulled the last board from the glass door. It was faded, but the dirty off-white graphic read “pl n t  an c   e,” the  door creaking slowly as it opened for the first time in presumably a while. Ranboo visibly jumped at the creak. Tommy, next to him, snickered, smacking him. “Scaredy-cat,” he teased. He brushed past both of them, poking his head in the doorframe and then going in. 

Ranboo sighed, taking a few steps forward before stopping again. Tubbo frowned. The taller boy was trembling, staring into the empty doorframe. “I’m not doing this alone,” Ranboo whispered to himself, reaching back for Tubbo. 

Tubbo squeezed his hand reassuringly, passing him and heading into the shop. Ranboo followed obediently, his hand in Tubbo’s nearly shaking. 

Inside the shop, spores floated to the ceiling and danced above dead hanging pothos, their leaves shriveled and brown. Tommy’s flashlight swept across the room. 

It was big, for a plant shop, tables set in the middle and sides. Stools lined the side of an antique-looking kitchen counter near the back, along with a glass case too grimy for him to see inside of. The floor was a rough, dark wood, and he could feel broken glass and sticks and unknown things crunch and break. Tommy stepped in something slimy and screeched, flailing his awkward way over to them. 

“What is this place?” Ranboo whispered, poking at a dead plant on one of the tables. 

“A fucking glass graveyard,” Tommy snorted, “Where glass goes to die. There’s so much of it on the floor--” 

“Let’s split up and explore,” Tubbo interrupted, letting go of Ranboo’s hand. He subconsciously wiped it on his dirty pants, ignoring the almost hurt look Ranboo gave him. 

Tommy agreed, wandering off to the left. Ranboo slowly floated off to his right, and Tubbo started walking off to the back wall, where the stools and glass case sat, looking like they hadn’t been touched since the explosions at Fukushima and Chernobyl and Three Mile the radiation turned the sky orange- that had been… forever ago, it felt like. He’d lost count.  

He went slowly, picking his way through the glass, breathing in through the filter on his gas mask, measuring each breath. To his right were a set of iron-rail stairs, and to his left the open shop, where Tommy picked through glass on the tables. The walls were a patterned wood back here. He reached the glass, flicked his flashlight on. 

The wall beside him had a lightswitch… he sent a prayer up and flicked the switch on. 

Light, yellowed and old, flickered in slowly. 

“THANK FUCK!” came from his left, Tubbo huffing at Tommy’s yell. In the opposite direction, a corpse’s dying scream rang out, spores shooting out into the air. 

“BOO?” Tubbo yelled in response, starting immediately towards where the spores floated in the air and joined their fellows in among the pothos.

“FINE! It was alone!” Ranboo yelled back, the eminent relief in his voice calming Tubbo’s nerves. 

He went back to looking at the glass case- he flicked his flashlight into it. 

Something slammed into the glass.

He startled back, pulling his axe from where he’d secured it to his hip and pointing it, on instinct, at the glass. 

Something snarled from the inside, the glass reverberating as it tried to scratch its way out.

Tubbo’s eyes focused in on the shaky tip of his axe. It was suddenly all he could see- the red-painted silver finish tip of his axe, the groove that he’d never been able to file out, the scratches in the paint from the soft skulls of corpses that had scraped by the metal… he lost himself in the thought, the killing thoughts and the feel of corpse beneath his hands… 

“TUBS!” Tommy yelled in his ear. 

He swung .

Halfway through his arc he realized that this was Tommy , of all people, and stumbled back, the axe’s toe missing Tommy’s chest by mere inches. 

“WOAH-” Tommy shouted. Tubbo took another deep, measuring breath. He dropped the axe into the glass on the floor. 

“FUCK, Tubbo!” Tommy laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. It hurt. 

“Dude,” Ranboo said from around the corner. Tommy let go. “You good?”

He nodded, took a breath, and went back to searching.

Now that the light was better he could see the inside of the shop better- the tables would have been display cases once upon a time- now, though, they were littered with dirt, rocks, sticks, and a variety of plants. He picked up a green stem, peering at the tiny rounded leaves before tucking it into a pocket and moving on. 

Along the walls, lines of shelves and knocked-over cabinets sat, each one in a more deteriorated state than the last. On them hung a variety of dead plants, cracked glassware and ceramic. Clearly whoever had knocked them over didn’t give a shit about the place. Tubbo sat one up, huffing as dirt and dust puffed up into his mask’s filters. 

Overhead, among the pothos and hanging, shriveled vines, spores danced into the lamplights and flickered, bumping into each other, spinning around the dead plants and the hanging, cracked pots. 

To their right, stairs led upward. Ranboo headed up them, one hand clenched on the rail. Tommy headed over to help him, clearly bored with their new discovery. Tubbo continued behind the counter, eyeing the corpse in the glass case. It snarled at him, yellow-green staining the thick glass as it tried to get out. 

Behind it sat a fully-functional kitchen. He sighed in relief- it looked ransacked, but there was a big metal sink and a coffee machine, and the cracked countertops looked okay- he set his bag down on one of them and settled his hands on his hips. 

“Tubbo!” Ranboo called excitedly from the stairs. “We found bedrooms, kinda!” he looked up, frowning. 

“Bedrooms?” He asked, padding up the stairs to see Tommy come out of a door on his right. 

“There’s actual rooms,” He confirmed, hooking his thumb over his shoulder. Tubbo crossed his arms uncomfortably, picking at his sleeve. 

“Guys-” he started nervously. “Where… where are all the people?” The gas mask muffled the question even more. It hung in the air like a spore and spiraled down towards the ground. 

The silence broke with Tommy; “I bet they all died in here!” he giggled. 

“That’s not funny, Tommy.” Ranboo reminded him, Tommy sighing and rolling his eyes.

“I bet this was abandoned before Chernokushima,” he huffed. “I bet it’s hauuuuunted ~” he jabbed Ranboo in the sides, making the taller boy jump and shiver. 

Tubbo rolled his eyes. “It’s not haunted,” he huffed back, “the counter isn’t picking anything up. No beeps.” 

“It wouldn’t pick up a ghost,” Tommy defended, crossing his arms. 

“Ghosts aren’t real-” 

“The radio would pick up the EMF!”
“That’s not what an EMF reader is anyway, dumbass-” 

“GUYS.” Ranboo interrupted, pointing to the glass windows downstairs. They cast their long shadows into the cafe, the lights getting slightly brighter in the darkness. “It’s getting dark. We should set up camp.” 

“Here?” Tubbo asked, gesturing to the ceiling. Ranboo shrugged, putting his pack down and taking the hose and vacuum system Tubbo had rigged up a couple months ago out. 

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Really?” He groaned. “That’s gonna take forever!” 

“Safest way to set up camp, big man.” Ranboo shrugged. “You can catch them, if you want.” Tommy grumbled but took the vacuum system offered. He paused, biting at his lip. 

“It’s getting really dark out there.” He murmured. “I want to try Wil again before dark.” 

Ranboo handed him the radio, shooting a worried look at Tubbo. Tubbo simply nodded, patting Tommy’s shoulder. 

“They could be in trouble, y’know.” Tommy muttered to him, clutching the radio tight in his grip. “I don’t want to leave them on their own, not out there-” 

“I get it, Tommy.” Tubbo answered. “You try that, and Boo and I will get the place in order-” 

“Can we just drag some of the beds into the hallway?” Ranboo interrupted hastily, twisting his long fingers together. “We-” 

“Yeah, bossman. We’ll do that.” Tubbo reassured. 

He sat Tommy down on a nearby overturned stool, Ranboo going into one of the rooms and dragging two seedy-looking mattresses out, stacking them on top of each other. Tubbo set to unloading their general setup, rifling through the packs. He listened carefully to Tommy’s worried whispers into the radio.

Tubbo sighed, setting up their small bunsen burner they used to cook. He took noodles out, pouring water into Ranboo’s old small pot. Tommy came over, the radio lightly clutched in his hand. He handed the golden-haired boy the spoon and went over to help Ranboo situate the beds. 

“They’re pretty thin,” Ranboo remarked quietly, Tubbo shrugging. 

“They’re beds,” he chuckled. “They can be as thin as they want as long as I’m comfy.” 

Ranboo snorted in agreement, dragging the final mattress into the pile and grabbing the vacuum-thing. He switched it on, pointing it up. Spores were sucked into the chamber, Tubbo watching, enthralled as the glowy yellow ovals swirled and tossed themselves into the sealed glass. It reminded him a little of fireflies, of green fields and blue skies… of happier times. 

He used the backpacks to section off a little piece of the mattresses for himself. 

“Food?” Ranboo sighed, finished with the vacuum. The air was virtually sporeless now- Tubbo breathed a sigh of relief and pulled the gas mask off, inhaling the stale air. Ranboo hooks his pinkie under the strap of his cloth mask. 

Tubbo wouldn’t ever get used to Ranboo’s full face. His lips were strangely puckered, pockmarked with white, branded scars that ran across his otherwise pink lips- he couldn’t stop himself from staring- they stretched all the way across his lips and cheek, what would have been neatly healed stitches morph into jagged, nightmarish scrapes.

Ranboo hesitated, frowning at him. The scars curve down. Tubbo shook his head, flushed, and went back to his own food. Tommy handed Ranboo a bowl. 

“Did you get Wil?” Ranboo asked, digging into the mushy ramen. 

“No,” Tommy murmured softly. “Nothing.” 

Tubbo shoved a forkful in his mouth, ignoring the shudders that his body gave as the slimy substance slid down his throat. “They could be in that one spot on the map that would have been out of range, Tommy.” 

“Yeah, or they could be out of batteries,” Ranboo added, pushing Tommy’s shoulder a bit. “Don’t worry so much about it.”

“I guess,” Tommy admitted. “Or Phil has the walkie and just forgot, the old bastard.” he huffed, settling against Ranboo’s shoulder as he ate. “These are terrible.” 

“He forgets more things than I do.” Ranboo giggled. Tommy nodded. 

“Remember when he left Wil in that jail for a week because he completely forgot to open the door?” he snorted, Ranboo busting out in laughter. 

“I do!” He giggled. “He was so pissed!” 

“So was Phil- apparently Wil had just been shagging some guy who was stuck in there and forgot-” 

Tubbo chuckled along with Tommy’s reenactment, miming Phil’s face when he saw Wilbur walk out of the jail. He remembered that day- he’d seen everything from afar, opting to stay with the gear in the diner across the street. 

He’d almost been killed then, actually, Phil grabbing the corpse with a fishing rod just in time- a clutch move that officially gained Phil a spot on Tubbo’s list of favorite adults.

“-remember, Tubs?” Tommy’s voice interrupted. Tubbo shook his head, staring wide-eyed at Tommy. 

“What?” He asked, frowning. Tommy huffed, shoveling more food in his mouth, the ramen hanging in strings from his lips. Tubbo cringed. 

“I asked about Phil and the fishing pole,” Tommy pouted. Ranboo huffed, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. “I was there, Tommy-” he chuckled. 

Tubbo shrugged. “It was cool,” He muttered, “I almost got infected, though. It was inches from my nose. Scary.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, remembering how the air had stood still for once, the breath of the too-close corpse, the feel of the freezing tile underneath his hands as he scrambled away… 

“It wasn’t that bad,” Tommy huffed. “Phil saved you anyway.” He put his bowl back in his bag, going over to the mattresses and laying down. He kept the radio, turning onto his back and whispering into it softly. 

Tubbo could hear the tears in his throat as he quietly begged Wilbur to answer. 

“What do you think is the best plan for the morning?” Ranboo asked him quietly, the fire of the bunsen burner crackling to life as Ranboo reheated his bowl, sighing as the last of the petroleum can sputtered out.

Tubbo took a new one out of his bag and attached it, Ranboo gratefully placing his plate on top as he shivered in the cold. 

“I think we stay,” Tubbo muttered. “I’m curious about this place… and- we need to give him some time…”

“To adjust,” Ranboo finished, Tubbo nodding. He looked around, fingers twitching on the sides of his bowl as he stared at the door behind Ranboo’s head. 

“Okay. We can clean up a little, scrounge around.” Ranboo suggested. “See what’s useful and what’s not.” 

“I think I saw a couple canisters of gas on the first floor,” Tubbo murmured. “We can check them in the morning.” 

“Alright.” Ranboo got up, packing away his bowl. “Night, Tubbo. Wake me when you’re tired.” 

“G’night.” He answered softly, watching as Ranboo crawled into the beds with an already-snoozing Tommy. Tommy instantly wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him closer and nuzzling into his hoodie. 

Tubbo smiled softly, his friends snoring peacefully as he kept watch for the night. 

He pulled his ukelele out of his bag on the bed. Tommy reached up in his sleep, whining. Tubbo guided his hand back towards Ranboo, huffing in annoyance when Tommy grabbed onto him instead. 

“I’ll play you a lullaby if you let go, asshole.” Tubbo whispered, Tommy instantly letting go and snuggling closer to Ranboo. 

Tubbo sat back down in his spot, turning on a torch and plucking a few strings. 

“Can you play Wil’s song?” Tommy’s soft voice whispered from the bed.

“I don’t know that one.” Tubbo admitted, strumming softly. 

“Oh.” 

“Wilbur will be here soon, Toms.” Tubbo murmured.

There was no reply. Tommy’s gentle breathing reassuring Tubbo as he played something, his fingers doing their own thing as his mind wandered off.

Before the sky had turned orange, before Three Mile went haywire and started spewing again, they raided a small town, no bigger than his own small hometown in the Before. It had been fuller than they’d expected- Wilbur had gone into the police station, thinking maybe he could score some easy shock blankets and maybe a couple protein bars. 

Tubbo’d told Phil that the door was gonna bar after Wilbur had gone in. He’d been cleaning out a diner by himself- Wilbur was in the jail, and Tommy and Ranboo had gone off somewhere by themselves, because Tommy needed Ranboo to take care of him anyway, and no one wanted to partner with him, as per usual-- he’d barely managed to get the diner all clear. The others had dropped their packs off with him and headed out to do some necessary shopping instead. 

That’s when he’d noticed the fires behind the station. He’d radioed Phil, who came sprinting out of a shop down the street, cursing. The older man had kicked in the police station door- Wilbur had walked right out, supplies on his shoulder and a strange-looking man in his arms… Tommy had come running as soon as he heard the radio and stared, mouth open, as Wilbur barked orders at Phil. 

Tubbo felt the skin on the back of his neck prickle. 

He shuddered. The feeling dissipated. 

The torch beam flickered- Tubbo frowned, tapping it gently. The damn thing fizzed out, and the darkness of the shop settled over them like a downy blanket. 

“Fuck,” he hissed. 

From the hallway of the second floor, he could see the small yellow lights outside the tinted windows, floating through the air. The sight was almost beautiful, if you could ignore the paths of corpses, meandering just outside the iron fencing.

“Tubbo?” Ranboo whispered. “Everything okay?” 

“The flashlight went out.” Tubbo explained. “I have batteries, though. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Okay. Are you tired yet?” Ranboo asked, shifting so Tommy was pressed against the wall of backpacks Tubbo had set for himself and sitting up. 

“No, no I’m good.” he answered instinctively. He paused, thinking for a minute. “Actually- can I trade with you? I need to piss.” 

Ranboo got up, stretching, and Tubbo left, hefting his fireman’s axe over his shoulder and taking the dead flashlight. 

Sporelight from outside flickered in from the windows. Tubbo crunched through the broken glass on the floor, haphazardly bumping into tables and chairs and the like on his way to the furthest corner. He supposed- it was a plant shop, they had to have an actual bathroom somewhere… he looked around, spotting a near-invisible door in a corner. 

It was strangely beautiful, the wasteland of glass… paths he’d kicked into the floor looked like rivers on a map, a clear trail from the door to the stairs and now to the small bathroom. The light trickling in reflected off the glass and made it seem like the sea at night- he chuckled a hazy memory of a far-off life by the sea from the Before in the amber memories of his childhood. 

He carefully opened the door- it creaked, and something seemed to move - he whipped around, hefting his axe. “Hello?” 

Nothing. He shrugged, going about his business with the door opened- if something happened- easy escape- he zipped up and hefted his axe back over his shoulder. Somewhere outside, a corpse screamed.

Ranboo’s worried voice came from upstairs: “TUBBO?” Accompanied by Tommy’s grumpy murmur; “shuddup…” 

“I’m fine!” Tubbo called back. “It was outside!” 

Glass tinked behind him, and he spun around, axe ready- 

Nothing, again. 

He frowned, heading upstairs. 

“I thought you were dead!” Ranboo worried, fussing over him and instinctively reaching for his hand. Tubbo pulled back, hands itching- Ranboo took his sleeve instead, hiding the hurt in his face and picking a piece of lint off the green and black plaid. 

“You’re a worrying machine, bossman.” Tubbo huffed. He sat down on the makeshift bed, scooting away from Tommy’s sleepy affection. 

“I know,” Ranboo said softly. “With good reason.” 

He sat on the floor, Tommy’s bayonet beside him. “You should get some sleep.” 

Tubbo stared at the ceiling instead.

Ranboo hummed softly to himself, some strange song he’d heard somewhere. His voice lulled Tubbo to sleep- he found his eyes closing, against his will his shoulders pressing themselves, heavy, into the mattress. 

He slept. 

~~~

“Tubbo. Tubbo, wake up.” 

Tommy shook him gently. Tubbo shot up, shoving Tommy’s hands away from his shoulders and instinctively pushing himself away from him. 

Tommy frowned- Tubbo took a breath.

“Sorry, sorry.” He muttered, taking one of Tommy’s hands and putting it back. “You okay?” 

“Fine,” Tommy reassured him, patting his shoulder and clambering off the beds. “Ranboo’s cooking.” 

“Oh.” Tubbo snorted, rubbing his eyes. “Interesting.” He stretched his arms out and pulled someone’s sweater from a bag, sliding it over his shoulders and tucking his hands in his pockets. 

“I made eggs!” Ranboo chirped happily, grinning as Tubbo blanched. 

“... are they… cooked?” He teased hesitantly, staring into the pan of what LOOKED like scrambled eggs.

“They’re in the pan,” Ranboo protested, stirring the concoction around. It looked like soup, with lumpy bits… Tubbo swallowed back a gag and smiled, patting him on the shoulder. 

“I’m eating a granola bar.” he decided, Ranboo shrugging and scooping some liquidy eggs into his bowl. 

Tommy did the same, not really looking, slurping down the eggs quickly and grimacing. “You’re never allowed to cook again,” he declared, leaning on Tubbo’s shoulder. Tubbo froze, chewing on his granola bar and hoping Tommy wouldn’t notice the stiffness in his posture. 

“I like to cook!” Ranboo protested further, taking a bite of his own cooking. 

He immediately spat it back out, hacking. 

“I am never allowed to cook again.” he spluttered. Tubbo laughed and patted him on the back.

“That’s why I usually do,” he huffed, Ranboo nodding wildly as he slid the soupy eggs back into the pan. 

“I’m not touching the stove again,” he promised, Tubbo shrugging and getting up. He threw his wrapper in the small trash bag he’d set into his backpack. It may have been the apocalypse- but he certainly wasn’t a litterer. 

Tommy stood too, done with Ranboo’s cooking. “I’m gonna try Wilbur again.” he said indifferently. His shoulders twitched in that way they did when he was trying not to be angry. Tubbo looked away. 

“He’ll come get us, Tommy,” Ranboo said gently, taking the water bottle Tommy handed him to wash out both bowls. “We planned these routes together, remember?”

Tommy paused, the walkie in his hand as he considered. 

Ranboo took it from him gently, one by one prying Tommy’s fingers up. “He knows our route too. So if we don’t meet up at that outpost, he’ll come looking for us.” 

He soothingly rubbed Tommy’s back, handing the radio to Tubbo and pulling the younger boy in for a hug. Tommy’s head thudded against his chest. Tubbo sighed as Ranboo rubbed calming circles into Tommy’s back. 

“I just wanna know if he’s okay,” Tommy’s muffled voice whispered. Ranboo nodded. 

“You can radio, we’re not saying you can’t.” Tubbo said gently. He placed the radio back in Tommy’s hand. “Just be careful about it, y’know?” 

Tommy sniffled. His hand clenched around the radio, and Tubbo let it go, Ranboo releasing Tommy and getting out a tissue to wipe his face with. 

“Besides,” Tubbo continued awkwardly. “We could be in a cell dead zone-”

“That doesn’t affect radios,” Tommy huffed, pushing Ranboo’s hands busy hands away from his face. “It’s not a phone.” 

“Works on wavelengths! We’ve had this argument-” 

“Wil called before!” Tommy crossed his arms, pouting. Ranboo shot Tubbo a Look . He scowled, throwing his hands up and turning towards the stairs. 

“He barely called us- outside. I’m gonna explore- hopefully there’s some supplies we can pick up.” he huffed, grabbing his axe and mask from his bag. He slid the mask over his nose and mouth. It smelled and tasted like plant waste- he needed to clean the filters soon. Tubbo made a mental note as he paused at the top of the iron-wrought stair railing. 

“Fine,” Tommy scowled after him. “I’m calling Wilbur.” 

Tubbo headed to the ground floor, side-eyeing Ranboo as he left. The taller boy hesitated before turning back to Tommy and giving his arm a squeeze. 

“I’m gonna look around with Tubbo.” He said softly. “Come along?” 

Tommy shook his head. He sat by the wall, the radio clenched in his grip. “I’m staying.” 

“Alright.” Ranboo murmured. He slid his mask on, pulling his hair back. “Holler if-” 

“I know, I know.” Tommy rolled his eyes playfully. “I’ll tell you if they answer.” 

Ranboo nodded, padding softly down the stairs. He met Tubbo at the bottom. 

It was daylight out. The sun trickled through the glass panes on the floor. It was bigger than he’d originally thought- there were at least five bigger tables, along with shelves and racks along the back wall. He could imagine it in its prime- the stools set up near the bakery bar, the tables set with all sorts of terrariums and plants, fresh pastries in the glass case and coffee brewing- 

Ranboo bumped into a table, the loud screech it made jarring Tubbo’s bones for a second. He turned around, the annoyance on his face unreadable under the mask. 

“Sorry,” the taller boy said sheepishly, avoiding the crunchy pieces of glass underfoot. 

Tubbo shrugged, frowning. Ahead, four-tiered shelves were pushed up against the wall. Each held at least fifty little glass pots, labeled individually- Ranboo pushed ahead and read them, a sort of half-smile warping the black-and-white mask. 

“Basil, lettuce- tomato…” He murmured, “strawberries- blackberries! Tubbo, these are seed capsules!” he shoved one into Tubbo’s hands, peering into the depths of the shelf. 

“Really?” Tubbo stared at the small black pot, looking into the healthy dirt inside. It was dry, but heavier than he’d thought. The label read “ pmupkin .” he squinted, the letters rearranging themselves in his vision. 

“Pumpkin?” he guessed. Ranboo nodded, staring eagerly at the shelf. 

“There’s tons of seeds-” he marveled, looking around. Identical shelves sat at each corner of the showroom. “We could grow so much…” 

“Yeah…” Tubbo muttered. His hand tightened around his axe. “But no people.”

“Definitely weird.” Ranboo agreed. “It’s a huge place. You’d think-” 

Tubbo finished the trailed-off thought. “Yeah.” he agreed. “Very strange.”

They headed towards the cafe part of the store. Ranboo frowned, suddenly, his head whipping to the stairs- Tommy came running down, his face covered in tears and snot. The radio was still in his hand… he threw himself into Ranboo’s arms, letting out a gut-wrenching sob.

Ranboo held him tight, kicking one of the stools up and placing him on it, rubbing at his arms. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong!?” He rushed out, his hands running through Tommy’s curls, over his back and arms- Tubbo grimaced, standing awkwardly away from the two, arms crossed. 

“I- I can- I can’t- reach- W-Wil-” Tommy sobbed out, burying his face in Ranboo’s shoulder. “I-I-I-It’s- just static-” 

“Okay,” Ranboo soothed. “We can try again later, how’s that?” 

Tommy half-sobbed and reached for Tubbo, sniffling. 

He sighed and wrinkled his nose as he was pulled in behind Tommy, the boy wrapping Tubbo’s arm over his own and pulling him closer. 

“Tommy-” 

“I can’t reach him, Tubs,” Tommy whispered, Ranboo’s hands rubbing soothingly over his shoulder, and, by default, Tubbo’s, too. “We’ve lost our brother.”

Tubbo nodded against Tommy’s shoulders, frowning. “I’m sure he’s fine,” he lied, gently removing Tommy’s hand from his own and getting up. “I’m going to go check upstairs. I think I saw the gas canisters up there.” 

He went up, hand clenched around the railing, looking over his shoulder to make sure the others couldn’t see him before he dropped his axe with a clang and shuddered hard , waves of pure discomfort running up and down his body before ebbing into manageable pin-pricks, his hands, arms, and under his chin tingling badly. He couldn’t stop his head from shaking- it shook back and forth like a bobblehead, his eyes shaking with it.

The shuddering stopped eventually, and he picked up the axe again, sighing. Downstairs, Ranboo and Tommy now leaned up against the counter, their shoulders brushing, Tommy’s face now clean but puffy and red around the eyes. 

The first floor was still covered in glass, even though the paths they’d traced last night were still there. He kicked at some, wincing at the sound of pieces clinking along the rough wood floor.

Between him and the other side of the stairs were tables, the same plants and overturned shelves as before. The pothos that hung shriveled from the ceiling spun in their planters. He kicked a new path in the glass making his way back to them. 

Tommy stood, his shoulders hunched to his ears. “I’m going back to sleep.” He muttered. “There’s nothing else to do.” he brushed past Tubbo on his way up the stairs. 

Ranboo stayed at the counter, his empty hands now wringing themselves together. Tubbo hopped up on the marble too, his shoes kicking softly against the counter. 

“He’s really upset about Wilbur,” Ranboo said softly.

“I know.” Tubbo huffed. He kicked a wayward piece of glass with his shoe. 

“Are you?” Ranboo asked quietly.

Tubbo frowned. “Am I what?”

“Upset,” Ranboo clarified, softly tilting his head, “About Wilbur and Phil not answering.” 

“Oh.” Tubbo thought for a moment. “Yeah, I am. They’re making Tommy upset.” He kicked another piece of glass under an upright table. There was a little plant under there, tumbling out of its terracotta pot. He hopped off the counter and picked it up, inspecting the small broken pot and plant, brushing a finger over soft near-dead leaves. 

“But are YOU upset about it?” Ranboo pressed. Tubbo looked over his shoulder at him- Ranboo looked so tired… the deep bags under his eyes spoke for themselves, creating a new worry in Tubbo’s mind. 

“Boo,” he sighed, hopping back up on the table, plant in hand. “I’m worried about them, okay? But- I’m also… worried about you.” he passed Ranboo the plant, the broken terracotta pressing a sharp edge into his hand. “You spread yourself too thin sometimes-” 

“I know that.” Ranboo interjected. His hands started to shake around the pot. “But Tommy-” 

“Tommy isn’t your responsibility, Ranboo.” Tubbo shook his head. “He’s a grown person, he can do what-”

“It’s not like I don’t know that.” Ranboo stood abruptly. “I know that.” his tone shifted, Tubbo frowning as the taller boy crossed his arms, his fingers tugging on one of his jacket sleeves. 

“He can take care of himself,” he said quietly. “But- but things happen, and I… I can’t not worry about him. He’s my friend, y’know? I don’t want to see him in pain. After everything we’ve been through… I hate seeing him in pain.” 

Tubbo shrugged, turning away from him. “I get that.” he said quietly. 

Silence fell. 

“Just… be careful, then,” he muttered. “Of yourself, and how you feel-” 

Ranboo nodded. “I will, Tubbo. Don’t worry about me.” he half- smiled, his eyes crinkling up. Tubbo could see tears behind them, though, the two-toned eyes scanning him over, how Ranboo always did, when he was worried about something.

He kicked more glass. “We should clear this,” he muttered, “if we’re going to stay a while.” 

Ranboo obliged, not saying a word while the two scooted most of the glass to the side, ending up with a large amount of clear wooden floor. Tubbo kicked at a downed sign- “BAKERY,” it read, in large white print, the border decorated with little yellow and white flowers. There were chains hanging from one side of it. He looked up to the ceiling, where little hooks sat, nestled in among the pothos. 

“Help me lift this,” Tubbo muttered. Ranboo came over, huffing as he saw it. He picked it up, and Tubbo hopped up on the counter, helping him hook the chains to the ceiling. 

The glass bakery case shook- Ranboo jumped, Tubbo nearly dropping the sign as Ranboo backed up in fright. 

“It can’t get out.” Tubbo rolled his eyes. “Its stuck.” He hooked one of the chains on, struggling with the other. Ranboo came and lifted the bottom of the sign, warily eyeing the glass case. Tubbo hooked it into the ceiling, blowing a couple cobwebs off of it.

“Cute.” Ranboo huffed drily. Tubbo hopped down, brushing his hands off and looking at it. 

It looked wrong- the cheery flowers hanging above the glass case, that goddamn corpse in the glass still scratching at the glass, its hands slamming against the case- he looked at it closer and saw disintegrated flesh melting off the green-yellow body... its hands were nearly slammed off. 

He grimaced. 

Steps came down the stairs, hurriedly, Tommy rushing back to Ranboo’s side and crashed into him, the taller boy staggering back, nearly falling into their glass pile. 

“ Don’t leave me up there alone like that,” Tommy screeched, his arms wrapped tight around Ranboo’s middle. 

“Alright, alright- you said you were gonna nap, I thought-” 

“Don’t do that,” Tommy whispered, “not after… you scared me.” 

Ranboo’s eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Toms,” he whispered, brushing a hand over the blond curls. 

Tubbo stood to the side as Tommy was comforted. He scooted a bigger piece of glass further under a table. 

“What are you guys doing?” Tommy sniffed, his face still buried in Ranboo’s arm. He raised an eyebrow.

“Cleraing the glass!” Ranboo chirped, gesturing to the big yellow bakery sign. “We just found that on the floor.” 

Tubbo kicked more pieces, bumping a heavy table with his hip to reach the wayward pieces under it. 

“Oh- wait, there’s brooms over here-“ Tommy opened the bathroom door and rummaged around. “Fuck, wait-“

Ranboo looked helplessly at Tubbo. His eyes filled with tears as he scrubbed at his masked face. Tubbo frowned, hesitantly moving closer and picking at the taller’s sleeves. 

“You didn’t leave him,” he said softly “it’s not your fault.” 

Ranboo sighed, giving his face a final wipe with one of the sleeves of his cardigan as Tommy bscked out of the bathroom, proudly holding two brooms and one mop in his outstretched arms.

“I found these yesterday!”he cheered proudly, tossing the mop to Tubbo and handing Ranboo the other broom, a smile plastered over his face.

Tubbo could tell it was fake, the way Tommy avoided touching Ranboo as he began cleaning a section of the floor, and the way Tommy’s shoulders hunched in on themselves when he wasn’t facing them- he pushed another table aside.

It wasn’t his issue to fix. They would work it out- they always did. 

“Why are we doing this?” Tommy asked, leaning on the handle of the broom. Ranboo stopped too, looking to Tubbo for guidance. 

He shrugged. “I just wanted a clear place to stay.” Tubbo turned around so Tommy couldn’t see his face, frowning. “It was bothering me, that’s all-“

Tommy frowned. Tubbo could hear his own heartbeat, thumping an unsteady rhythm in his ears. 

“We’re not staying here, though.” Tommy pouted. Ranboo looked between the two of them, anxious. 

“Tommy…” Tubbo hesitated. “It’s safer if-” 

“Tubbo, WILBUR is out there. We have to go find him,” Tommy raked a hand through his hair, scowling. “He could be hurt or captured or poached or dead-” 

Tubbo sighed, grounding himself for a minute. “Ranboo and I agreed to stay for a little while. Since Wilbur isn’t answering us, we need to see if he’ll get out of the dead zone and-” 

Tommy turned to Ranboo. “You agreed to that?” 

The taller boy flinched and nodded, hands tightening on the handle of the broom.

“I-it’s safer to stay-” he muttered quietly, eyes on the floor as Tommy stared at him, his blue eyes wide and filled with questions. 

“Ranboo-” 

“Please,” Ranboo pleaded softly, placing the broom in a corner and wringing his hands. “If we stay here, just- for now, okay? It might give us time to… to figure out what to do. Which path to take. And we could load up on supplies, there’s supposed to be a town not far off.” 

He began making his way over to Tommy, offering an outstretched hand. Tommy sighed, took it, and pulled the taller boy in for a hug. 

“If you say so, Boo.” he murmured. Ranboo shot Tubbo another look over his shoulder, one that said; humor him. 

Tubbo sighed and rubbed at his temple. He turned- 

Clank. 

He froze. Ranboo and Tommy both jumped, Tubbo feeling the change in floor underneath his nikes. Tommy spoke up, breaking the silence. 

“What was that?”

Tubbo lifted his shoe gently. Nothing exploded, nothing fell or snarled or creaked. Tommy yanked him back, his hand leaving a bad tingling over his chest and arm. 

“It’s a cellar.” Ranboo noted, inspecting the metal doors. 

“Supplies.” Tommy whispered. He poked at the door, scraping glass off the surface.

The very obvious cellar doors were stained wood, same as the rest of the floor. Two metal handles stuck out, the rust coating them giving Tubbo very bad feelings about where this was going.

“Or corpses,” Ranboo added, twisting his hands together anxiously. “This could be a reason that people aren’t-” 

“There’s no way.” Tommy scoffed. He crossed his arms, pouting.

“Maybe that’s where they got infected,” Tubbo offered. “I don’t think we should-” 

“I’m going down there.” Tommy said firmly. He grabbed one of the metal handles and yanked. The door creaked loudly, and Tubbo’s entire existence narrowed to Tommy’s fingers on the metal, the creaking, rusted hinges on the cellar doors, the rust digging metallic microbes into the bare, pale skin of Tommy’s hand… he barely noticed Ranboo flinch away, feeling his body twitch in response to the creaking-Tommy scowled, yanking harder. Tubbo snapped out of it and pulled Tommy away. 

“They’re rusted shut.” he shrugged. Ranboo, behind him, visibly relaxed. 

Tommy pulled away from him. “They’re just stubborn,” he insisted, “help me pull them open.” 

He reached for Ranboo. Tubbo shook his head in silent warning. Ranboo hesitated, looking from Tommy to Tubbo, his face uncertain. Tubbo huffed, waving his hand. 

“Whatever,” he muttered, grabbing Tommy’s bayonet from where it sat against the stairs. “Do what you want.”

“Fine,” Tommy threw his hands up, stalking back to the bakery bar and hopping up on the counter. He pulled up a piece of steel piping from the counter. 

Ranboo sighed, taking the bayonet from Tubbo. 

“We’re almost out of ammo,” he muttered regretfully, “and the rest is in Wilbur’s pack.” 

“Then save your bullets.” Tubbo muttered back, grabbing his axe and sliding his mask into place. He hissed out a slightly satisfying breath, the gas filters pulling breath from his lungs.

Tommy shrugged, taking a swing at the handles with his pipe. “There’s nothing to shoot anyways.” The metal pipe BANG-ed against the metal handles. “The rest of this place is empty as hell.” 

The handles and the pipe BANG-ed again, sending a shock wave of discomfort through Tubbo’s nerves. Ranboo jumped too, looking around the floor. He tapped Tommy’s shoulder as he aimed again for the handles. 

“Look,” Ranboo said, “they’re bolted shut.” He pointed to the top, where a clearly locked deadbolt was rusted into the wood. 

Tommy blinked. “Oh.” 

Ranboo slid the deadbolt over, the creaking metal making him and Tubbo both wince. 

“Time to explore!” Tommy whooped, smacking Tubbo on the shoulder and heaving one of the big doors open. It slowly creaked up, Ranboo taking reluctant steps back as the cellar doors raised up, an expanse of darkness in the wooden floor. 

A set of crumbling, decayed steps led down, poorly lit and obviously old. A hiss of stale air escaped, dust particles floating past his nose. He coughed, backing into Ranboo, who wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tugged him further back. He watched as Tommy leaned forwards, peered down into the darkness. 

“Tommy, be careful-” Tubbo hissed, pulling the man’s sleeves so he’d stumble back into the two of them. Ranboo pulled him back by the elbow, instantly letting go once he was safe. Tommy elbowed him and kept moving forwards, down the crumbling steps, into the darkness. He poked at the lights that were stationed on the wall. He tugged on Tom’s sleeve. 

“Bayonet first.” Tubbo murmured, reaching for it. Ranboo pulled it back, taking a deep breath. 

“I’ll go.” He murmured, pushing past Tommy and heading down. Tommy followed, excited- Tubbo stayed behind, fiddling with the gas mask on his face. He hefted his ax and shakily went down after his friends, regretting every step.

The lights flickered out, and suddenly the darkness felt a lot more real. 

“Ranboo?” Tubbo whispered, his axe over his shoulder. The wood handle was slick with sweat. 

“Tubbo?” 

A hand gripped his arm. Tubbo spun, knocking it away. 

“OW, you ASSHOLE-” Tommy’s voice squealed. A flashlight beam blinded him- Tubbo squinted into the beam of light. 

“Sorry, sorry!” He apologized. His axe sunk into his shoulder, resting gently on his jacket. “Where’s Boo?” 

Tommy looked around, his hair glowing in the bleak light. “He was right behind me-” 

A shot rang out. Tubbo’s head whipped towards it so fast his neck cracked- yellow spores drifted into the air. His eyes widened. His hands went slack on the axe. 

“RANBOO!!” Tommy screamed, heading towards it, flashlight swinging wildly. It crisscrossed the walls of the cellar and-

“TOMMY! RUN- GO GO GO GO BACK -” Ranboo came barrelling towards them, bayonet in hand as he shoved Tommy backwards, pulling him along as he ran like mad towards the steps.

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” Tubbo screamed, running the same direction, scrambling up the stairs. Ranboo pushed Tommy up past him, panting. 

“CORPSES!!” He screamed. Tubbo stopped short, glancing behind them. 

He shouldn’t have. 

The basement behind him was filled with silent, moving bodies, each a different shade of sickly yellow-green, the smell of rotting plants and flesh growing stronger by the second. The pop and crack of bones jumbling into each other was practically the only sound besides Ranboo’s frantic screams. Sickly yellow pores floating through the air came dangerously close- Tubbo scrambled up the stairs, almost reaching the top- he could see the light at the top of the stairs.

A scream shattered the air behind him. He looked back. 

One of the corpses had Tommy by the ankle. 

Ranboo shakily lifted the bayonet, firing-- it hit the corpse in the shoulder, greenish sludge leaking out of the wound. It dropped Tommy’s ankle. 

The golden-haired boy scaled the steps in record time and brushed past Tubbo, collapsing on the glassy floor, skidding himself over the sharp pieces.

Tubbo reached a hand out for Ranboo, who was climbing as fast as possible. His long legs weren’t making things any easier- their fingertips brushed, and Tubbo breathed a sigh of relief-  

Ranboo was  y a n k e d  back, the bayonet falling to the stairs with a clatter. 

A feral scream ripped itself out of Tubbo’s throat as his friend was pulled back into the mass, the corpses silently pulling him down to his death- 

Ranboo’s shotgun was in his hands, and he was shooting- everything but Ranboo, anything and everything until he was safe, until… 

Tommy yanked him back, Ranboo safely past him up the stairs, lying on the cold floor, panting… 

Tubbo scrambled over to him, scanning over the green-slimed clothing his friend wore for any sign of red, anything that could possibly lead to infection… 

“Tubbo,” Ranboo panted, holding his hand up. “I’m okay.” 

Tubbo took it, pressing the long fingers into his chest for a second before letting go, scrambling for the open cellar doors and slamming them shut, sliding the deadbolt in place with a final clank . 

He breathed, long and hard, through the gas filter, glancing at his friends, who were holding each other tight, breathing slowly. 

They looked up at him, Ranboo's eyes concerned, roving over his body to check for injuries. Tubbo shivered. Tommy, on the other hand, tucked his face into Ranboo’s collar. The tops of his ears were red- Tubbo reached out, hesitantly… 

“Tommy?” he said softly. “What’s--” 

“WE JUST ALMOST DIED!” Tommy shouted, Tubbo cringing at the sudden increase in noise and taking a step back. The other boy stood, ripping his aviator goggles off, angry blue eyes scalding and accusing as they burrowed holes into Tubbo’s memory. “WHAT THE FUCK?!?” 

“Why are you yelling at me?” Tubbo argued back, standing his ground. “It’s not my fault--” 

“You’re the one who just wasted all our ammo!” Tommy screeched, gesturing to the empty littering of shell cases now mixed among the glass. 

“That THING almost had Ran!” Tubbo argued. He pulled his gas mask off, hooking it to his belt. “What did you want me to do, let it have him?!” 

“Maybe!” 

Tommy’s voice cut through the air like a hot knife. 

Tubbo’s breath stilled. He would have let Ranboo… 

“YOU just wasted all the ammo, man!” Tommy screamed. 

“At least I didn’t miss.” Tubbo said hotly, wringing his hands together. “And you were the one that wanted to go down there in the first place--” 

“No!” Tommy laughed, his eyes swiveling to the side. Tubbo frowned. “--no, no. YOU wanted to come in here, this hellhole of a fucking building-- it was all YOU!” 

Tubbo scowled, crossing his arms. “Ranboo and I both agreed to stay--” 

“DON’T bring him into this! You know he’s a pussy at best!” Tommy scoffed, ignoring the hurt look Ranboo shot his way, the other boy slowly curling up on the floor, knees to his chest. 

“Don’t call him that.” Tubbo’s tone went low, a dark anger pulsing underneath. 

“Oh, what are you gonna do?” Tommy taunted, hands on his hips. “Phil’s not here to stop you like he always does-- in FACT,” He pauses, his eyes swiftly moving from one side to the other-- “I bet you planned this whole thing! You… You were the one who suggested we split, YOU brought us in here so we couldn’t reach Wil, YOU wanted to stay-- this is all YOU!” His pointer finger jabbed into Tubbo’s shoulder suddenly. 

Somewhere deep he had the notion to grab it, twist. Listen to Tommy scream and wail and writhe. 

“Don’t blame this on me. I have nothing to do with the fact we’re stuck here.” Tubbo said harshly, batting Tommy’s hand away from him. Tommy clutched it back like he was wounded. 

“You had EVERYTHING to do with it!” He screamed, “You fucking PLANNED this shit, you DID, you little SHIT! YOU hate us all! You do!” 

Suddenly, everything in Tubbo’s head was very quiet. He could hear the glass crinkling underfoot as Tommy stalked back and forth, accusing fingers pushing at his shoulders, and, for a second, he almost wished he’d never bolted those cellar doors… 

“YOU HATE US ALL! YOU HATE WILBUR, YOU HATE PHIL, YOU HARE RANBOO AND ME AND OUR FAMILY AND YOU WERE NEVER A PART OF IT, YOU NEVER WERE!” Tommy spat angrily. “You were always dead. fucking. weight.”

Everything was so silent, as he stared at the cellar doors. He could see the faint yellow glow of the spores slowly gathering underneath them, eating through the flesh of the corpses and the shop and the silence, and to Tubbo, everything was so silent… 

“No one ever wanted you in our group.” Tommy huffed. “Ranboo was the only one who did and look where that got him. Look what YOU did to him--” He pointed to their friend. Ranboo was still curled up, face hidden in his knees as he visibly shuddered through wave after wave of panic. 

“Boo,” Tubbo murmured. He pushed past Tommy to check on him. 

“Oh, PRETEND to care all you want, Tubbo.” Tommy hissed angrily, arms crossed in front of his puffed out chest. He stood in Tubbo’s way, blocking Ranboo from view. “Pretend all you want, but you’re not like us. You’re not family. ” 

“Move.” Tubbo shoved him out of the way, slowly putting a hand on Ranboo’s jacket-clad shoulder. 

Ranboo cringed away. 

He’d…. He’d moved away? 

“SEE!” Tommy crowed, cackling meanly. “He doesn’t want you either!”

Tubbo stepped back, letting his legs carry him to the floor. What ?

“This is why we never should have trusted you.” Tommy forcibly pulled Ranboo up, the taller not even protesting as Tommy led him to a stool, sitting him down. “We should have left you where we found you.” 

The silence was so loud .

Tubbo’s hands shook. 

“I need to find Wilbur.” Tommy rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Wilbur will know what to do--” 

“Tommy--” Ranboo weakly protested, scrubbing at his face with a gloved hand. 

“No, Ranboo. HE endangered us. He nearly got you KILLED--” 

“That’s not my fault!” Tubbo heard himself day. “It’s not my fault. You wanted to go down into the cellar, Ranboo and I didn’t, and I said we should leave it alone--” 

“No you didn’t.” Tommy hissed into the quiet. “YOU brought us here.” 

“I wasn’t even the first one in the door!” Tubbo protested. “And even if you DID reach Wilbur, what then? He’s probably stuck miles from us, and we’d end up staying here because that’s what Phil would’ve--”

“They never would’ve endangered us. They’re not like you. ”

“I didn’t endanger anyone!” Tubbo protested. “You guys are my brothers, I would never--” 

“He was never your brother.” Tommy snarled viciously. “And neither was I.” 

Tubbo’s heart felt like it stopped. But the beating in his ears was there, and the blood pumping through his veins felt like a waterfall, and everything was too quiet and too loud and too much, and Tommy’s shoulders were heaving, his eyes boring holes into Tubbo’s head… 

“We’re done here.” Tommy spat. He whirled around, marching towards the stairs, dragging Ranboo with him. The taller boy didn’t protest-- he looked weak, still, pale… Tubbo almost reached out, almost grabbed Ranboo and pulled him down with him, to sit on the floor, to lay among the broken glass pieces like the discarded bullet casings… 

Tommy stopped halfway up the stairs, glazing over one shoulder. 

“I’m fucking leaving,” he scowled. Tubbo blinked in surprise at the words. “I have to go find MY brother.” 

The silence was deafening. 

The words echoed around in Tubbo’s head. 

MY brother. Not ours. Not HIS-- 

Tommy’s loud, angry footsteps faded on the top of the stairs. Tubbo stayed on the glass-covered floor, his knees skidding on the broken glass pieces. He barely noticed the blood dripping from his knees. 

His palms moved over his thighs, fingers slowly curling-uncurling-curling-uncurling over the khaki cargo pants. They’d always rubbed him the wrong way, those pants. They were uncomfortable, really, and too big, but the black ones were in Tommy’s bag, and-

Tubbo’s head spun. The room slowly fell apart. His head hit the floor. Glass cut into his cheekbone. Loud arguments and soft, calming murmurs came from the floor above. Loud stomps came down the stairs. A door slammed.

Tubbo couldn’t hear anything over the Silence. His eyes swept lazily up to the balcony.

Ranboo stood there, quietly, his bag in one hand, and the cooking pot in the other. He was looking down, at him… 

Tubbo sat up, slowly, head spinning as he tried his best to get up.

Ranboo’s eyes widened… He put down the bag… 

Tommy stormed out of a bedroom, angrily slamming the door.

Tubbo fell back into the glass. Ranboo picked up his bag again. 

“Come on, Boo Boy, we’re leaving.” Tommy spat out, his voice ringing out in the empty space he was sure to leave. Tubbo could feel it in his chest. Tommy pulled Ranboo down the stairs, the taller boy recoiling. 

Tubbo watched as they both left. 

And that was it.

Chapter Text

Silence floated down, everything in the glass building seemed to quake in the aftermath of the abandonment- It wasn’t an abandonment, though.

They’d come back for him, they would. They were just playing around, is all. 

Tubbo chuckled, hands sliding on glass as he got up, the cuts barely stinging as he wiped his face with the back of his hand- blood dripped down his sleeves, the green plaid ruined, even though Phil had JUST found it for him and he was going to be so, so mad when he found out that Tubbo had done something as dumb as cut himself on a bit of glass and ruined his shirt- 

He stumbled towards the stairs, picking at the stain. Phil wouldn’t be as mad as Wilbur would be, no. But he probably wouldn’t like Tubbo all that much, after that. Yeah, after that he was probably Phil’s least favorite child. 

Which didn’t matter, since he was everyone’s least favorite anyways- Tommy had said so, he was just a burden to them, he never should have joined their group- 

He collapsed on the second step, running his hands through dirty brown-blonde hair and scrubbing at his eyes, which had decided to tear up and just- just cry. Like a pussy, Tommy would say. Tommy said that every time he’d start crying, really, and it wasn’t in the joking way. 

At least he didn’t think it was. 

He curled his knees up to his chest, heaving in big breaths of air. The gas mask on his belt clanked against the step. Deep breaths. That’s what his mum had always told him. Deep breaths, T. 

He took them, really tried to. But that thing in his lungs was there again, pushing, shoving against the boundaries and Tubbo felt like he could just- explode. He could explode and be done with this world in an instant and no one would be there to witness it, because he’d just been abandoned. 

He’d just been left behind. 

Tommy, of all people, had left him behind. His brother- his own brother had left him behind- no. Not possible. No, no- Family stuck together . That was what Wilbur always said. And Wilbur was in charge, he was the leader. Tommy repeated it constantly- Family sticks together.

He always did stuff like this, it was so stupid… This was a gag, a bit. Surely. He was probably waiting outside, waiting for Tubbo to run into his arms scared and play the big manly man and comfort him. 

He laughed into his hands,  rubbing them over his nose and mouth -he could still smell the dead-plant smell of the corpses- and stood, staggering to the door. He pressed a hand to the glass, the warm blood from his hands heating the otherwise frosty windows and making a thick coating of window-fog. 

He struggled getting the handle open a bit; it was metal and his hands were slippery and it took him three tries to get it open but he did, he did and he staggered outside to where Tommy was supposed to be waiting for him-

But there was no one there. 

There was just the green, green grass littered with syringes and the white-yellow-green fence splattered in corpse guts and no golden hair and blue eyes and no black-white mask and no cold hands. 

Tubbo laughed. 

This must be a gag, truly. Truly, surely Tommy and Ranboo wouldn’t leave him behind like this, not like this. He was fine, he wasn’t infected or anything, he was just- just- 

His knees hit the grass as he watched the gate. Surely it would open any moment now.

Surely… surely they would come back for him. 

The sky grew from its clear blue to an angry, stormy gray. Sudden thunderstorms were common, it was nothing to worry about, nothing to worry about at all. The changes in the ozone were enough to make it worse. 

Tommy had his raincoat in the bottom of Tubbo’s bag, and surely he had it with him- and Ran had his, and the wellies that were constantly on his feet, at least he wouldn’t get sick. He huddled up by the door, curled hands clenching bleeding knees as he watched the gate- 

Any moment now, they’d come back for him, any moment now. 

~~~

Sunlight reflecting off of the glass hurt his eyes. He blinked them open, scowling. The door was cracked open, the cool air from inside soothing. Any moment now. 

Any moment. 

~~~

The night was cold. Tubbo scooted closer to the door- he was half in it, now. How would Tommy know when he came back to look inside? Well- he could leave the lights on,  Tommy would see that it was lit up and maybe he’d knock. 

Yeah, he’d knock. Tubbo could leave a note. Yeah, he’d do that.

~~~

It was so warm… he went upstairs and bandaged his blood-covered hands. They were scratched up, real bad. It was okay. He’d get an apology from Tommy later. And maybe Ranboo would bandage ‘em with that pain cream he’d found in that one store. Yeah, it would be fine.

He dragged a mattress down the stairs, collapsing on it and settling in to wait… to wait… 

Slowly, Tubbo closed his eyes, tears leaking out from the corners of them. From his hands, yeah. It was fine to cry right now- 

Right now he was alone and there wasn’t anyone around- there wasn't anyone around to see.

~~~

He woke up, hair damp and matted to the mattress. It was forever since he’d showered- 

He scowled at the mess around him. 

Really, it wasn’t that hard to clean up spilled glass. It was the apocalypse, for the love of god- you survived the longer you were clean.

He sat up, hands twitching. 

Maybe- maybe they were close by. Just hiding. Tommy wasn’t stupid enough to go all the way back to where they’d started… he’d be back soon and Tubbo needed something to do- 

Yeah. Something to keep him busy, something to pass the time. 

He stood, stretching. His back popped- god, how long had he been asleep for?

Tubbo grabbed the brooms Ranboo had placed in the corner and tied his flannel around his waist, huffing as the glass tinkled under his steps. Maybe Wilbur would consider living here if it wasn’t such a mess-

Yeah, there were four bedrooms upstairs right? Maybe more? They could all have their own rooms, and maybe pets- pets would be nice. They’d run into a group that had dogs, once. They were hostile, and it hadn’t gone well, but they had dogs and they let him and Tommy pet them-

He started sweeping, wondering at the amount of glass. It had to be something huge, that broke- something massive, for all this glass. The floor underneath his feet was dark concrete, the near black a nice complement to the structure built around him. He took a moment to look at it again… 

It was near midday, and the sun overhead shone through the three-sided glass structure. It made patterns on the floor, soft bits of light that reflected rainbows up at the fourth wall of the pyramid. They danced around as Tubbo swept, making him chuckle. 

Ranboo would like that- maybe they could make something that did that all the time. A chandelier or something like that, so he could see all the colors go spinning around. 

Maybe when he got back Tubbo would show him that, yeah. 

When he got back. 

The rest of the room was pretty big; store-front size, the glass reached to the top point of the pyramid on three walls, the fourth paneled in dark wood, where the stairs, bedrooms, and attic-space were. 

He shook himself, suddenly feeling something hit the broom. He’d pushed all the glass into an upended table on the floor- just one of many. He scowled, abandoning the broom to lug it upright. 

Maybe they could have dinners at an actual table for once. A family dinner, like that one they’d had in that park once. It had been nice- he’d gotten two sandwiches instead of the usual one this time, because Tommy had been sick and declared that he wouldn’t eat two, instead choosing to toss the sandwich at him and collapse into Wilbur’s side, sniffling about how unfair it all was. 

It had been a good meal, really. 

He pulled another table up- 

A sound skittered in the corner of the room. He whipped around, hands out, eyes wide. The room was empty- but the diner had been empty, too- 

He took a deep breath, reaching hesitantly for the gas mask that hung on his belt. It clanked, and he froze- 

Something was there, something was there and he knew it. 

Maybe it should just take you, you’re useless anyway. 

Tubbo froze. 

Tommy?

You are, really. It’s not that hard. Just stay there.  

He shook his head, fingers clenching on the side of the table. Tommy- was back? Tommy was back- where was Ranboo? He- 

Tubbo rushed to the front door, throwing it wide open. Outside, the heat hit him in the face like a baseball bat slamming a car window. It shattered something in him, the bright sun shining on an empty lawn. 

No Tommy. No Ranboo. 

No one.

~~~

Tubbo moved his legs into a new position. The numb limbs tingled, but he didn’t particularly care. It wasn’t like he was planning on getting up again- no, he should get up. The world around him buzzed, the air thick and heavy.

He hissed as his spine crackled, sitting up.

Pathetic . Tommy’s voice hissed in his head. 

He’d been here for days now. Days on end- how many days had it been? It didn’t really matter, did it? Time was passing, fluid as it had always been. 

Time passed so fast, in the apocalypse. Phil had always said it was a flat circle, but Tubbo didn’t really understand what he’d meant by that.

Tubbo slowly pulled his legs off of the bed, some internal instinct to survive helping him stand slowly to his feet and take a first step. It felt like he hadn’t been able to walk in… well, forever. 

His legs and feet hurt, the tingling needle-like pain getting worse in every step forwards. God, it was like getting out of that old red truck- 

He smiled faintly, remembering the pain he used to get in his calves and thighs when that old asshole had driven six straight hours… 

He made it safely to the steps, sitting down for a minute and taking a deep breath. The clean air poured into his lungs like water- he let it out, taking a minute to appreciate the spore-less oxygen. 

God, he remembers suffocating in that old truck, the old asshole he’d been with refusing to do anything but recycle the air in the car. It had been horrible, really. But Tubbo was grateful for any chance of survival at that point… It hadn’t been that bad, really… 

He took another breath, the air clearing his head just enough to let him get up the stairs. The pile of mattresses was still there, cold and abandoned. 

He huffed, kicking one in the side and collapsing on it. Ranboo’s imprint was still there, and he rolled into it, the mattress sagging under him. It was like he was wrapped up in one of Ranboo’s sweaters again, like the one time he had gotten sick and was the center of attention for a week. A fever brought on by him not having any proper sleeves to wear and being pushed into a stream by Tommy one winter had him shivering and coughing, Phil’s shoulder being the only place that they had for him to rest at the time. 

He remembers being petted, hesitantly, Phil’s always-warm hands brushing softly through his hair when they stopped in an abandoned garage to rest. Ranboo had taken his place at one point, he remembers faintly, turning his face into the indent in the bed. 

It wasn’t easy to think about. 

Tubbo felt tears well up in his throat. It took everything he had to push them down again. 

The imprint of his friend’s body on the bed was so familiar- he could almost imagine Ranboo’s body there, sleeping peacefully- he’d just been there. 

He was there, he’d just been here, yes. And he- maybe he was just up. 

Tubbo scowled, mentally smacking himself for thinking like that. Ranboo had left with Tommy. Ranboo wasn’t coming back. He was going to find Wilbur and Phil, and- 

he’d just gotten up. His brain whispered traitorously. It pulled him back to the haze he’d been in for the past couple of days, the sweet sweet feeling of just being gone clouding his thoughts. Ranboo just went to get something, he’ll be back. He’s coming back, he’ll be right back . 

Tubbo blamed the deep imprint on the bed. It’s so soothing, just to be held like this. No skin, no contact, just the warm feeling of his friend’s presence. 

He’ll be right back, he’ll be right back. Family sticks together, remember? 

Tubbo huffed in amusement as he thought about Ranboo, the long, gangly limbs that never seemed to move right, the awkward curve of his back that simply fit when he pressed against Tubbo in his sleep, the fluffy blonde-brown hair that he was so intent on keeping short… he should really grow it out, Tubbo liked it more long. 

He’s just up at the moment, He’ll be back in a second. 

Ranboo’s hands were chronically cold. They were never warm- too big and thin to be warm. But they were pretty, really. He’d leaned into the cold of them, once, Phil off dealing with separating rations with whoever they’d been joined up with at the moment. 

You’ll be okay, Ran had whispered, fingers fiddling with a piece of Tubbo’s sweat-soaked hair. You’ll be fine. Your fever’ll go away.

He’d put his hands over Tubbo’s eyes, then, feeling his forehead. Tubbo had leant into the coldness of his hand- Ranboo had kept still, kept the light out.

Phil had come back with medication for him- he could barely swallow, his lips were so swollen and dry. There had been an argument about that- Phil had yelled at Tommy for something, and Tommy had come over to sulk, sneaking under the pile of blankets Ranboo had made him and curling up with his head against Tubbo’s shoulder.

It had made him cringe, and Ranboo had made him sit up and put his sweater on. It was so soft, and it smelled so much like the taller boy that Tubbo had fallen asleep instantly.

He turned around, kicking a nearby blanket over himself. 

Maybe Ranboo would come back if he slept. Yeah, he’d wake up and be tucked into the curve of his friend’s back again. 

He let his eyes close slowly, breathing evening out. 

A scuttle in the corner drew his attention, but he was too sleepy to care, instead gripping his axe tighter. Just in case. 

~~~

When he woke up again, it was nighttime.

The stars he could see from the mattress twinkled brightly- that’s another thing the apocalypse had done, cleared the smog out of the sky. Some people on the radio had once said that you could see the milky way now, the sky was so clear. 

He agreed, looking at the sparkling bits in the sky. Stars weren’t star shaped, had anyone ever noticed that? 

He flexed his fingers around the axe. Stars were more dots than anything, really. It was a shame they were drawn so weirdly; maybe one day they would be drawn differently. 

Tubbo pulled his blanket up, turning around in Ranboo’s space and letting out a sigh. 

They must have gone further than he thought - no. They weren’t coming back, he told his brain sternly. They weren’t going to come get him, probably ever. 

He was stuck here, by himself, until he died. The fingers wrapped around the axe begged him to stretch them more, and he obliged, putting the thing under the blanket-pillow he’d made himself. 

Something scuttled around on the floor below- there was a lot of that, recently. Something was in here with him, and he didn’t think that it was friendly. But he didn’t have any motivation to move at all- he couldn’t really. He was going to stay here and die with the slowly-fading imprint of his friends.

Tubbo moved again, slowly, watching the mattress rise up under his hand. It faded quickly, disappearing into thin air. Ranboo’s imprint was doing that, slowly. He could feel it- he could feel Ranboo leaving him.

Just like Tommy had- Just like Wilbur had and like Phil had and like Schlatt had and- everyone, ever, had disappeared, faded like his small handprint on the old pink-brown surface of the mattress. A sob choked its way out of him, and he curled his hands around his head, pleading, begging them not to leave him.

Not again. 

Please, please don’t leave me , he begged, please don’t leave me again. 

I’ll be useful. I promise, I’ll be useful and quiet. No hassle, please, just- don’t leave me. 

Tubbo curled his knees to his chest, tears soaking the mattress below his face. The little voice in his head whispered, shunning him for crying-

You really think they’ll come back for you? You think they care? 

“They won’t come back.” He whispered to himself. “They’re not coming back for me.”

Ranboo just got up, his brain soothed, you’re being a child, he just got up and he’ll be back in a second, what are you doing crying about this? 

Tubbo hesitantly let this soothe the panic rising up in his chest. God, what a pathetic loser, crying because your friend got out of bed, don’t you think that’s stupid? Another part whispered. He cringed, his mouth opening and closing, lips trembling as he tried to tell his own mind to stop.

He knew, he knew it wasn’t realistic. He knew Tommy wasn’t coming back- Tommy was never going to forgive him for this, no. He would drag him to hell personally if it meant finding Wilbur alive, because to him Tubbo was so worthless, Tubbo was unimportant, and it meant that even in the grand scheme of the universe-that-was-Tommy's that Tubbo, while entertaining, was what he considered expendable . 

Tubbo quietly choked back a sob, listening to the glass tinkle around on the main floor.

He hoped, silently, that it had come to end him.

~~~

“-can’t believe he’d do that to us-”

Ranboo tucked his coat hands back into his sweater sleeves, grasping at threadbare mustard yellow cords he’d already pulled on too much in the past two-four-seven-thirt een-twenty-something-forty-something-sixty-days -past-hell. 

“And he said those awful things about Wilbur and I and I can’t think of wh-” 

Tubbo was so alone back there. He was alone. 

Ranboo remembered Tubbo being alone.

A thread frayed to bits beneath his fingers- twist-untwist-twist-unt wist-twist-untwist-twist-

“And even PHIL had said that he-” 

Tommy was- just walking on. Back where they’d come from. He was going back and it had been one-two-three-four-five-six-se..ten- eleven twelve-sixteen days since they’d left Tubbo behind and just kept on walking. 

“-and that group that we were with that one time that-” 

His feet were sore, so sore, and Tommy didn’t bother stopping, just went on and on and on and on and on and on and- they pulled to an abrupt stop. 

“Ranboo?” Tommy turned back, blue eyes blinking up confusedly at Ranboo as he stood in the middle of the path. Ranboo looked back at him, mouth quavering. The words were stuck in his mouth. They were stuck in his mouth and crowding up his lips and throat and he was suffocating he was drowning again he was with Bill and he was drowning and-

“We have to go back.” 

The floodgates open. He claps a hand over his mouth trying to keep them in, but it’s too late and Tommy looks so impossibly hurt, he looks so sad, oh god you made him sad what will everyone think what will Wilbur think of you look what you did- 

“I thought you were with me on this?” Tommy asked. 

Ranboo swallowed, began to nod. He started to nod, to assure Tommy that yes, yes he was with him, he’d always been and always would be and- and- 

But Tubbo was back there. 

This… this felt wrong.

“I am.” he assured Tommy, taking his hand again. “I am, but-” 

“You’re either with me or against me.” Tommy said, voice low. His eyes had turned into thunderclouds, raging, silent, threatening to spill over with lightning and hail and-

“I’m with you.” Ranboo heard himself whisper. His hand tucked itself back into the safety of Tommy’s. Family always stuck together. 

Tommy moved on. 

Ranboo followed. 

Chapter Text

Reluctantly, his limbs stretched upwards, the numb things tingling and barely making it onto the wooden floor. His back practically screamed in pain as he stood for the first time in… days, now, he’d been lying on that bed for days - 

Tubbo yawned, feet clumsily taking steps towards his backpack, only to nearly fall as one of them turned sideways, wrenching his ankle. 

“Ow,” he hissed, pulling the limb towards him and inspecting it. Nothing was really hurt, he was just clumsy from spending days in bed-

Something moved down on the main floor. He could hear it scuttling through the swept-up glass, the crunching of feet on wooden floorboards. 

He’d gotten good at recognizing footsteps. 

“Hello?” He called out, grabbing his axe from where it sat up on the wall beside the overstuffed pack. “Who’s here?” 

No strange noises, no shifting feet, no spores. Tubbo pulled his mask on just in case. 

He stood, wincing as his ankles took weight, and looked around, peering over the balcony just to see if anything was down there. 

Nothing was; there wasn’t any path in the glass, and as far as he could tell no one had disturbed anything. He shrugged, carelessly tossing the axe by the bed and sorting through his pack to find… wait. 

Things were missing.

His garbage bag, for one, was gone. And the miniature stove he’d been lucky enough to find- ramen, gone, and his m&ms he’d been hiding from… 

Tommy. 

Tubbo huffed, flopping back down on the mattress and dragging his backpack closer to the bed. 

Tommy must have taken things, he reasoned, he must have taken the things he wanted and left the rest.

Which includes you. His brain whispered, the thought not uncommon for the last few days. 

He laid down again, not bothering to check in the pack for food anymore as he rolled over and covered himself in the blankets. 

He left you here. He probably said good riddance as he left, too. Tubbo shuddered- 

The thing on the floor moved again. 

He sat up, scanning as far as he could. Nothing was moving- why was there noise, then? There weren’t any cracks in the glass structure, right? 

He hadn’t seen any… then again, he hadn’t been looking. Besides, what did he care, he was going to lie here until something bigger came and ate him up anyway. 

He mushed his face into the mattress, huffing. 

It wasn’t fair. 

Here he was, still on the mattress he’d been on for the past… however many weeks, and he’d cried and curled up into a ball and yet nothing had heard him, nothing had come along to fill his lungs full of toxic glowy yellow spores and make him less than human, nothing had happened to him that had been even remotely bad, so why was he like this? He should- he wanted to get up, he wanted to be able to move and make himself food and get up and run, he- 

Tubbo choked back a sob, tears welling up as he banged his fist softly on the mattress. 

It wasn’t fair . 

It wasn’t like he ever meant to hurt Tommy or Ranboo. He didn’t mean it, he really didn’t think that- 

Another clinking sound from the glass below. 

He sat up, annoyed. 

“Hey,” he yelled over the railing, his heart pounding as he realized that it could very well be something dangerous, “If you’re down there, come up! I dare you,” 

I dare you. 

Tubbo had never dared anyone before. It felt powerful- and reckless. Like Tommy. 

Tommy was reckless. He never took anyone’s feelings into consideration, he never let anyone else have a say and always took the most dangerous option when they were deciding where to go next. 

Even splitting up had been his idea. 

He and Phil had voted against that- Tommy had argued saying that there was no reason not to, and Wilbur as always played the mediator when Tommy had egged him on.

Tubbo felt anger rise up in his chest. WHY was he always such an asshole? He didn’t have to be- Tommy was kind, sometimes, and funny, he never really CARED about much but at least he tried his best to do his part…

He felt like screaming into the pillows, he felt like screaming into the void, he felt like crying and shaking his fists and- and- he turned away, fingers loosening on his axe.

He could just put it down. 

He could put his axe down and just… let go. Whichever corpse this was could have him, it’s not like he had anything to live for anyway. 

The creaking of the stairs stopped worrying him, and he breathed out, eyes closed, chest breathing in and out shallowly.

It wouldn’t do any good for him to keep breathing like this, he didn’t have anyone that cared enough about him to- to- 

He stopped that line of thinking, taking deep breaths, like his parents had taught him to…He’d taken off, they’d been out with his parents when Chernobyl had done its thing and he’d tried to look for them, for his car on any of the neighborhood streets. 

Nothing- he missed them. God, his family probably thought he was dead. 

His sisters… They were so young. He hoped they were okay- but it was best not to think about it. Yeah. It was better if he’d just stopped breathing, or even better yet just inhaled and became one of those things, at least they were only filled with hunger… 

Tubbo gingerly took out the wallet he kept in the bottom of his backpack and flipped through it, swallowing hard as he thumbed at the pages. His old life was so far behind him… the polaroids were old and crumpling, but he drew a finger over the face of his mother anyway. The memories of her arm around his shoulders and the knowledge that they never would be again brought the tears back to his eyes. He flipped through the pictures before they could fall. 

The first was of a younger him, grinning in the back of a rusted red pickup truck, his hair smashed down by a blue baseball cap, the hand smushing it into his head blurry and out of focus. 

It was a memorable hand, though, strong and hairy. A ring sat on the finger; the nails pressing into the hat’s blue fabric ragged and chewed. A father’s hand- not that that had been his father. But it had been the first sort-of kind human contact he’d had since the Before. 

Schlatt had been… interesting. It wasn't every day you were saved from a group’s worth of zombies by a redneck in a pickup truck, but hey, he wasn’t dead, so there was that. 

Schlatt had taken him out of pity, really, but he was glad for someone’s company after two whole weeks on his own. It had been awkward at first, sure, but once he’d gotten used to the man’s gruff demeanor it was tolerable.

The next one of Tommy and Ranboo, the latter’s surprised face at the camera making him smile for a second before he remembered just how much he missed them… 

He missed them so much… 

Tubbo crawled back into Ranboo’s faded spot in the mattress, holding the picture close to his chest, fingers stroking over his brother’s faces.

The cruel words echoed around in his head. 

MY brother. 

MY brother, his brother- Tommy’s brother, not his . 

That made sense for Wilbur, yeah. Wilbur had always liked Tommy better, everyone did, he was- carefree, nearly, and light and funny and- and… and Ranboo, he guessed, wasn’t much of a brother either, more like- like a friend, he’d had siblings, he knew what that felt like and it wasn’t this- and Tommy…

Really, from the day they’d met everyone had loved Tommy more. It wasn’t exactly- the best meeting. But that sunshiny, bossy demeanor of his- 

“I’m Tommy!” The hand stuck out in his direction had wavered in front of his face. “That’s my older brother Wilbur, over there.” he’d pointed, the taller man across the room sparing a glance for him. 

It was faint, but he could see a smile on the man’s face. A leader from the group he’d been… he’d been- a leader pointed to the corner Tubbo was in, Wilbur’s face wavering slightly. Oh god, god he was going to be taken like all those other children, he was going to see Wilbur’s hands exchange money with the man who’d cuffed him and then maybe they would take him out of here and shoot him, maybe they’d shoot him in the back of the head and let their dogs eat him, like they’d done with Vikk and- 

“Hey, hey-” Tommy had shoved his shoulder and pointed to a nervous-looking boy in the opposite corner, standing behind a very friendly-looking man. “That’s Ranboo, he’s a little bitch boy, but family sticks together, so.” 

The snickers that had come out of Tommy’s mouth had made him giggle too, slightly, just a little bit, from how absolutely childish this was, calling someone a bitch boy here and now, while he was being bought and sold and- and- 

“RANBOO!” Tommy called the kid over. 

The long, lanky boy came over, nervously sitting on the other side of Tubbo and raising his hand in salute. 

Tubbo nodded back, immediately tuning out Tommy’s stream of jargon. God, he could talk so fast- Tubbo only caught a few words of it but it was all going fast in his head and then the kind-looking man was there, crouching in front of him and tugging on the bonds they’d put on him, frowning.

He pulled out a knife and Tubbo scrambled back ripping his hands out of the man’s grip, chest heaving- 

“Woah woah woah wait, I’m sorry mate, I’m sorry-” the man said, hands up in surrender. “I’m cuttin’ you free, okay?” 

Free…? Okay, okay maybe he could run, he’d get his hands free and he’d run and- and- Tubbo hesitantly held his hands out. 

“Eyyyy dadza adoptin’ another kiiiiiiid~” Tommy sing-songed, smacking the older man on the back. The guy chuckled, offering his hands so Tubbo could get free. He hesitantly gave them over, this ‘Dadza’ cutting through the zip-tie and taking it off. He rubbed his wrists, wincing at the raw skin there.

“You want pain cream?” Ranboo offered quietly. Tubbo nodded, the boy pulling a small tube out of one of the pockets in his cargo pants and offered it up. 

Someone started yelling- he shrunk back, Ranboo’s head whipping around towards the commotion. “Oh lord,” Dadza sighed, seeing Wilbur arguing loudly with the leader that he’d been talking with. “Alright boys, come on.” 

Tommy hopped up, pulling Ranboo with him. “Come on!” he tugged impatiently at the other boy’s sleeve.

Ranboo turned to him and offered a hand. 

He hadn’t let go.  

Tubbo shoved the pictures away angrily, tossing them on the other side of the room. 

What did they matter, anyway? They’d left him, they had left him alone and he hadn’t followed, because it felt wrong, it was wrong, the way Tommy blamed everything on him, the way he teased and taunted Ranboo and made him upset for fun…

Tubbo’s shoulder jolted, and he turned his back on the photographs, angrily wiping away the tears that had started falling who knows when. 

Brothers didn’t do that. Family didn’t do that- He hadn’t let go of them. He would never. 

Not even- not even when they’d let go of him. 

He remembered when they had- every time they had let him go. Even Ranboo had. 

Ranboo had promised him that he wouldn’t do that…

He didn’t want to remember that, he didn’t want to think about how Ranboo’s sweaters felt, or the way that he’d chalked it up to delusions when Ranboo had laid down next to him, that time he’d gotten sick, and quietly told him about Bill and the well, and about the stars, and kept a finger laying on his pulse, just in case- Tubbo squeezed his eyes shut, breathing shakily as he let go of his axe, one finger at a time slowly unwrapping itself from the rough wooden handle. 

Just let go, Tommy’s voice taunted him, let go and die.

Before he could drop the axe, something moved his blanket.

His eyes snapped open, and he shot up, scrambling away. He took a deep breath and stared at the hands that had been on his shoulders.

The small hands belonged to a smaller thing, a smaller body. Pink tufted hair shadowed over a round face, one eye wrapped clumsily in bandages ( HIS bandages, Tubbo realized,) and the other, wide and scared, blue eye looking him over. 

Tubbo blinked, his mind calming down and focusing on this child- what the hell was a child doing here?

The kid moved closer, cautiously, putting his hand out on the ground in between them. Tubbo frowned. Weird. He shuffled back a bit, glancing over the dirty clothes, the upset, matted hair, the scraped knees and skin. No veins popped out, no green, rotting flesh or cavities marking his neck- nothing suspicious that said ‘corpse.’ 

He was so thin… god, when was the last time this kid ate ? Tubbo watched as the kid retracted his hand, slowly getting up. His full height wasn’t even to Tubbo’s waist , he was so small… 

“Hi.” Tubbo croaked out.

The kid murmured something he couldn’t make out. 

“Sorry?” Tubbo asked, the kid putting his hand out again- on the edge of his blanket. 

Was he… cold? Tubbo took the blanket off, slowly reaching out and handing it to the child.

Immediately the kid ran off, tucking Tubbo’s blanket close to his chest. The tiny echo of his footsteps against the glass reverberated in Tubbo’s mind. Had someone left him there to die? That was just wrong- 

“H-hey.” Tubbo called out, standing up. His bones crackled- he winced, and kept going, making his way towards the stairwell on unsteady feet. “Kid!” 

The tinkling glass on the first floor stopped. “Kid-” Tubbo hesitated. “A-are you hungry?” 

The tinkling resumed. Tubbo shrugged. 

Guess not. 

He crouched over his ruffled-through backpack, huffing as he saw that the propane tank and cooker were now missing. 

There was a clunk from below, and the scuttling feet disappeared, Tubbo immediately going over to the stairs and trying to look below for any sign of the kid.

Nothing.

Tubbo went back to the bed, opting out of thinking about it. 

It wasn’t like it mattered, anyway, he was still going to die here, in this gore-stained glass building, curled up in someone else’s shadow left in the coldness of their bed.

Like a pussy, that traitorous voice whispered. Like a coward. You’re a coward. 

A screech erupted from the floor, the clattering of bones and shifting of glass suddenly interrupting the still silence the terrarium seemed to be entrenched in. 

The kid. 

Tubbo raced down the stairs, axe in hand. 

He stopped short on the third one, eyes wide in horror. 

The kid was trapped behind a table, a corpse twice Tubbo’s size trying to grab at him. 

The child’s arm was dripping in blood, the bandages that had been over his eye now covering his mouth, protecting him from breathing in the toxic yellow spores that floated gently around the corpses’ gaping wounds. 

His right eye was… gone. The empty socket was visible from where Tubbo was, but there was no infection there- he’d be able to see it, the tell-tale greenish-yellow on the corpse giving him something to compare to. 

He leaped down the last few stairs, skidding on broken glass and slick yellow-green pus as he headed straight for the corpse, a scream from somewhere deep inside him ripping itself out of his chest as he drove his axe through one of it’s already nearly severed limbs, the corpse flailing around and facing it’s new target. 

Tubbo heaved a breath in, pulling his shirt up to cover his mouth as he maneuvered his way in between the thing and the kid, scared whimpers from behind him driving sense into his rage-filled brain. 

“Kid,” he said over his shoulder, keeping a watchful eye on the corpse as it tried in vain to stand up. “When I say run, you run upstairs to where I was and hide, okay?” 

The child nodded frantically, eyes locked on the corpse as it slowly got its bearings. 

Tubbo looked at the door to outside- 

Could he make that? Really- he could try…

Or you could just let it kill you. Tommy’s voice whispered. You don’t want to live anyway- 

Tubbo gritted his teeth and looked back at the kid- no, he had to live. 

For the kid, to make sure he was okay. 

If nothing else.

“One,” he breathed, the child taking a shaky breath and dropping the wrench, clutching his bleeding arm to his chest. 

“Two…” he twirled the axe in his hands like Phil had taught him too a long time ago, the corpses’ eyes glittering with dead hatred as it shambled towards him, limp arms and legs carrying it shakily towards them. 

“Three- RUN.” Tubbo dove at it, the kid shooting out from behind the table and running as fast as his legs could carry him towards the stairs. 

The corpse’s jaw dropped like it was going to roar at him, but nothing came out, just the sick grinding of its jaw. Tubbo drove his axe into the thing’s neck, the cold, dead eyes falling slightly as the head snapped back, a spew of green-black pus slowly leaking from the wound. 

He yanked the weapon out and moved quickly towards the stairs, the thing behind him falling to the ground in a heap, clicking bone and shattered glass grating on his ears. 

He looked back at it, the sprawled moving body trying to get up. The kid was safely upstairs, Tubbo looking to see before going back and slicing the corpse’s head off in one clang of the axe.

God, that felt good.

He shook his head. No, it wasn’t supposed to feel like that. It wasn’t supposed to feel good… he chalked it down to dehydration and moved on, pulling the axe up. 

Do it again. His mind taunted him. It felt so good, you know it did.  

The voice in his head sounded a lot like Wilbur’s. 

He gritted his teeth and looked back at the corpse- it was still moving, after all. 

And he’d seen Wilbur do the same thing, once, to a corpse that had attacked Tommy- His arms moved before he could stop them, bringing the axe up. He chopped the arm into two, splitting the forearm off from the elbow.

That wasn’t supposed to feel good , he reprimanded himself, it’s not supposed to feel good.  

He chopped another limb off, this time not hitting all the way through. He pushed down, feeling something crack, splinter, and break under the axe. 

The blade dragged like butter through the dissolving flesh, little spurts of black, oozing liquid slipping out of the arm. He took a deep breath through his shirt. This wasn’t right , this was mutilation , it wasn’t ethical - 

Forget ethics. What happens if you use the poll…? His brain whispered, that sweet-honey voice purring over his thoughts.

Tubbo blinked, the axe in his hands feeling so light, so freeing- he lifted it again, flipping it over hesitantly so the blade was facing up, facing him- 

The swing down was so easy. He’d forgotten how good it felt, to do this- the butt end of the axe clanged against the forearm, crushing it underneath the metal. When it lifted, there was a flattened, pulpy section of the arm, bones crushed into shards, smashed into softened flesh and oozing pus. Glass from the floor broke upwards, mixing into the mess and making it seem like the corpse’s blood was sparkling in the light…

He did it again, this time smashing the shoulder of the corpse into the glass it was laying on.

Again, he lifted it and hit the flattened pieces of body, unleashing something he’d been holding back for a while, something darker than he wanted to think about… he hit the body again, and again… again, and again and again aga in again again again…  

When his arms felt like jelly he stopped, the axe dropping from his hands onto the glass-covered floor. His knees felt weak, and he backed up, staring in shock at what he’d done- 

The corpse was simply a puddle of goop on the floor, broken bone, plant matter and crushed flesh melding together in something that he didn’t even recognize- oh god, the kid - 

Tubbo quickly looked up to the stairs, eyes wide in horror as he thought about what he must have looked like, doing that- he was covered in corpse, bits of flesh and hair and god-knows-what stuck to his clothes and his face…like a madman, like he was insane…

The kid wasn’t peeking over the railings, Tubbo frowned. It was safer up there anyway, and with this recent development he didn’t know if he could trust the ground floor anyway- he slowly made his way up the stairs, hand gripping the railing.

“K-kid?” he called.

Nothing. 

He walked around a little, looking in all the rooms. The kid was nowhere to be found. 

Shit.

Why do you care so much about one kid? His mind fought, Tubbo huffing and putting the axe down on Tommy’s side of the bed. The black pus oozing from the blade seeped into the “pillow” that was there, Tubbo immediately taking it off in a panic and flipping the pillow over, wincing. Shit, shit  Tommy was going to be so mad- 

Tommy’s not here anymore.

The voice whispering in his head meant it cruelly, his brother wasn’t here for him, no. no one was here for him, and no one was coming back for him… but- strangely, he didn’t care- no. no, he cared. 

It wasn’t like Tommy was the BEST brother. But he was still his brother, and that- that meant that he had to care, right? 

Family sticks together… right? 

Tubbo shook his head, getting up and hugging himself, fingers tightly gripping his own shirt. He had to find that kid.

Downstairs- god, had he seen all that? 

Tubbo took a quick breath, quickly scanning the floor he was on- it didn’t seem like the kid was up here. He looked up, to where another floor blocked out the point of the pyramid. 

No, that was a lot of stairs. Would… would he? God, if he was on the first floor that meant that he’d seen… he hoped not. No one- no one deserved to see that. He paused, looking at the pulverized corpse on the ground. It wasn’t moving- every part of a corpse moved. 

Phil had taught him that. 

You were supposed to burn them- so that they couldn’t emit spores. 

There weren’t any spores floating out from the pile of goop on the floor, though. Maybe this method worked too…? 

Cutting them apart only made them unable- he’d seen entire fields of corpses, burning- he shuddered. It wasn’t- god, it was disgusting. And dangerous, considering how flammable it was. 

He’d have to clean it later, just in case the lights had decided to spark and flame up, he’d hate to burn to death- like Schlatt had, just like Schlatt, just like ted and minx and charlie and tucker had- no,  no he couldn’t think about that, he wouldn’t, no- 

He whirled around, choosing instead to focus on finding the kid. He had to find the kid. 

The only other place he could have gone was outside- outside wasn’t that safe, if a corpse could have gotten in here then… He’d have to find the breach and block it up with whatever he could find- this wasn’t good. 

Tubbo hurried back upstairs, grabbing his gas mask and heading back down, hand pausing on the door handle. 

It wasn’t like he was going to go outside, anyway, and nothing was outside for him except a whole host of other problems- 

He just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe he could sleep forever, maybe he didn’t have to wake up- no. 

No, somewhere out there was a child, and even if he didn’t want another mouth to feed, that was still a child, someone should take care of it regardless… or maybe just hand it supplies and make sure it had a place to sleep before leaving. 

IF he left. There wasn’t much benefit to leaving, not when he could just lay there and die on his own, from starvation or dehydration or whatever.

He headed out the door before those thoughts could take control. The kid. He had to find the kid. That was his new purpose, for now. To find the kid and make sure that he was okay. 

He huffed, creaking the front door open. Nothing attacked him, so he crept out, propping the door open with a large rock.

As far as he could see, there wasn’t anything there. Just tall grass, syringes littering the front step, and small daisy bulbs pushing themselves up from the ground. He smiled, picking one and tucking it among his curls. 

Wild daisies always had a way of coming back- even in the apocalypse they stayed unbothered. 

He took a deep breath through the mask and moved, slowly, along the glass of the wall. Nothing moved at him… He reached the first corner and turned, blinking in surprise. 

There was a creek running through the ground, the water gray and murky but still running freely. 

There was a water wheel stuck in the middle of it, attached to the big wooden wall of the structure he’d been staying in. it was slowly turning, the water pushing it along seemingly pulling the whole thing down into the depths.

That’s how the place still has electricity, he noted, pulling at the straps of his gas mask. It’s hydroelectric. 

He moved on quickly, making a note to come back and see just how the wheel worked. The ground near the creek was muddy and soft, his beat-up converse squelching as he moved along. 

No good for stealth, but at least the white plastic fencing was tall enough that no corpses could reach over it. There were nearly no gaps, either, meaning that unless they were in here with him, he couldn’t see how many were out there at all.

Tubbo imagined the outside piling up with bodies, black pus and yellow-green entrails staining the fence like paint splattered on a canvas. He shuddered. 

He’d heard somewhere that these things could climb- as long as there were enough bodies piled up, some of them would scramble up and get over the fence quickly. Mostly corpse children- the smaller corpses were cunningly fast, and lethal. That was the least of his worries at the moment, though. They were only RUMORED to climb, after all. And where there were rumors, there were liars. 

Right now, he was supposed to be thinking about the kid. Tubbo refocused, frowning under his mask. This piece of land seemed huge- he wasn’t about to explore the whole thing, either. 

You could just go back to sleep… The traitorous voice whispered. It was tempting. 

The bed upstairs was safe, a safe place  to die to let himself rest, just for a while. And it wasn’t like this kid wanted his help or anything. He hadn’t asked for it. And he certainly hadn’t wanted to wake Tubbo up- he probably thought that he was dead or something. 

The water wheel churned its slow path as he trekked through the tall grass, kicking ahead so that there were no surprises. 

There wasn’t much else to the land- a small shack stood off to the side of the water wheel, alone in the tall grass. Tubbo inched towards it, grimacing. This is the type of thing people in horror movies do, he told himself sternly, and then they die. 

The shack wasn’t very big, he noted. No full-fledged corpse could fit in there. Its wood-paneled sides were overgrown with moss, no doubt from the moisture coming off the creek, and the door was partially broken, a medium-sized hole in the bottom of it making a sort of crawl space that a kid could easily fit through. 

Tubbo took a deep breath in. If the kid was anywhere, this was it… 

He knocked lightly on the wood. 

Terrified whimpers came from inside, and his heart broke a little bit, knowing that the kid had probably seen him… do what he did.

That was no image for a child, no matter what the circumstances- 

“Kid?” He hesitantly called out. 

God, he’d probably terrified the poor thing. 

Tubbo didn’t have anything against kids, sometimes they made the most sense to him. He knew that most people during the first stages of the apocalypse kept theirs with them, kids were supposed to be precious, why would anyone leave one alone…? 

“H-hey, it’s okay.” He tried. “I’m Tubbo.” 

He cleared a space in the grass and sat down in front of the hole in the door, waving to the darkness inside of the shack. Tubbo had never been particularly good at this part. The talking. 

Tommy had always- always told him that he’d never been good at it. 

He’d never been okay at talking to people. Wilbur didn’t take him along to make deals or anything, Phil didn’t even trust him to read recipes out loud from the cookbook he had.

He hesitated for a while. What would he say? What COULD he say? Hey, I’m the guy that smashed a zombie into the floor in front of you? That sounded horrible, especially to the small child hiding from him… oh god he had probably scared him to death like that- 

The child’s hands shoved his old blanket out the door, trembling. They were covered in blood. 

“You can keep that.” he pushed it back, surprised when it was quickly snatched back into the darkness. Clearly this kid was scared- well. Tubbo pulled a roll of bandages out of a cargo pants pocket, putting it in front of the hole. “Here. for your arm.” 

The hands reached out hesitantly and took the gauze. Tubbo nodded to himself, searching his pants for bandages. He didn’t have any- damn. Usually he was stocked… the hands returned, shyly offering up a half-burned candle in a little silver tray, the wick nearly burnt down all the way. 

He blinked.

“Uh- you- you can keep it, don’t- yeah. It’s okay.” he pushed it a little towards the door, the hands taking it back slowly. “You don’t have- you don’t have to pay me back.” 

He got up, slowly, bones aching. God, was the kid going to be out here this entire time…? What if something happened and he was trapped in this tiny shed- Tubbo shuddered. 

“I’m gonna go inside,” he said awkwardly. “I-”

The hands pushed the candle at him again. Tubbo huffed. “Keep it.” he said, putting it directly into the door. A scrambling noise, the kid moving away from the door. 

“I’ll leave the door unlocked, okay?” Tubbo shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m gonna try cleaning up the place, there looks to be a small kitchen on the first floor, so…” 

There was no answer, so he just left, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to see if the kid maybe followed him back into the glass pyramid. He didn’t see anyone, only the glass moving slowly in the breeze. 

He left the door propped open with a rock. 

Just in case. 

Tubbo took a deep breath and looked around, noting the unswept piles of glass, the dead plants on shelves, the corpse laying on the floor, mashed to bits. He sighed, pulling the broom from the corner where he’d left it. He’d sweep the piles of glass into the basement where- where- he shuddered, thinking about Ranboo’s cold hand in his, racing up the stairs with him right behind- and the sudden loss of the cold fingers, turning around and seeing Ranboo get yanked back into the void, mouth open in horrible, gaping surprise as the yellow-green hands tried to rip him to shreds- 

He snapped himself out of it, hurriedly sweeping glass into a bigger pile and pushing it closer to the basement door. 

It was a huge pile, dead plants, broken jars, and glass shards all jumbled together on the floor. He frowned, picking at some of the dead plants. Some weren’t SO dead, he could probably salvage them, make them grow again with all that stuff in the attic of this place- 

The door to the basement was locked- he slid the bolt across with a clank , taking in another deep breath and pulling on the handle. 

The creaking hinges resisted at first, but then opened, the void in the floor opening into utter darkness. Tubbo hurriedly swept the pile down the stairs, not looking into the darkness, trying desperately to keep his mind from thinking about the basement, thinking about what happened there and what happened after… his brother abandoned him because of what happened in that basement…

A single yellow spore floated out of the darkness. 

Chapter Text

Tubbo inhaled as quickly as he could and ducked his head away from the yellow spore floating dangerously nearby. He slammed the doors to the cellar shut. Nothing pounded on the doors, nothing came roaring out at him… just that singular glowing seed. He looked around for anything to help him, god, a flame, a box of matches, anything… he frantically searched for his one-click lighter that was usually in one of his pants pockets. The spore floated dangerously close to him… he scampered away. 

It’s ridiculous to be afraid of something so small. 

He’d been covering his mouth and nose with some old rag, when Schlatt found him. The old redneck had pulled him up by the scruff of his neck, like he was some stray kitten off the streets. Tubbo had whimpered, hands clutching at the arm grabbing him.

“You’re a long way from home, buddy boy.” The old man had said. Tubbo had nodded- next thing he knew, he was being wrapped up in blankets and patted on the head, being fed spaghetti-os that had been warmed up in their can with a lighter, and sleeping in the back seat of an old red pickup truck. 

Schlatt hadn’t been the most kind, or the most reliable… but he was something, someone who vaguely cared about him. Or at least cared enough to teach him how to kill corpses on his own.

Tubbo found the lighter in the pocket of his pants- it had been Schlatt’s, too. He put it to the air, watching as the spore got closer and closer… He flicked it on, the spore catching fire in an instant and leaving its foul rotting plant smell behind. 

It’s ridiculous to be afraid of something that small. At least that’s what Schlatt said. And he was -or… had been, at least- immortal. Unchangeable- like the disease that had taken the blue out of the sky wasn’t able to take his freedom away. 

He breathed a sigh of relief and went up to get his gas mask. The spore couldn’t have come from the basement- which means that the corpse he had taken down wasn’t the only one. Somehow, the dead bodies piled up in the basement didn’t worry him. It was like it was normal- having bodies in one’s basement. He’d been in several basements since this started, and they all had some sort of bodies, whether they were alive or dead. 

Tubbo grabbed his gas mask and pulled it onto his face, flicking the left filter on habit. It used to click, like the filter was loose- Ranboo had fixed it somehow. 

He went back downstairs, sighing. The basement door was unlocked, ready for him to sweep the glass into it and close it forever… Tubbo adjusted his grip on the broom he was holding and got ready to get rid of the heaping pile of glass forever… 

But what if there were supplies down there? He hadn’t actually looked, before, when… 

He shook his head quickly, sweeping the glass down the steps and slamming the door closed. It didn’t matter. What was done was…. Was done. There was nothing he could do about it. 

They obviously weren’t coming back for him- they weren’t looking to see if he was okay, no one cared if he was okay, they were all far too busy with their own things to notice anyway. It had always been that way, why was he surprised? He shouldn’t be, no one in that group actually cared about him. They didn’t care that he was alone… by himself… 

Tubbo sat down on an overturned table nearby, swallowing hard. He’d simply have to accept it- Tommy and Ranboo had left him, denounced him, and they didn’t care about him. 

They never had. 

Tears sprang to his eyes at that- there was no way that that was true. His friends loved him. They did! Why else would… would they hang out with him? Take him along on everything? Insist that he was there to watch the bags and to watch the car, and to cook and make sure everyone was… was okay? How could they not love him…? They did, right? 

Tubbo kicked his legs against the wood, looking up to keep the tears in his eyes. He was already dehydrated as is, and there was no telling of the water outside was safe to drink- 

He could filter it though, maybe, through a shirt or something, and he could maybe hunt something for food…

He hopped off the table, heading upstairs and collapsing into the bed. His bag lay turned over where he had left it- he pulled it towards him and emptied it, shaking the thick fabric to make sure nothing was stuck in the pockets. 

A bottle of gatorade, two packs of nuts, six packets of ramen. Three refillable water bottles - his trash bag, he supposed there should be some fruit cores in there if he opened it- and a packet of old dots candies. 

He swore, turning away from the meager food supply and wrapping himself up in his blankets. The bed sank under him, a sinkhole pulling him back down to the depression he’d never really escape. 

He was running out of food. Water would go quickly after that, if he conserved it it might last him at least a few days but… not that it mattered. 

He was going to die in here anyway, probably starve to death slowly. The hunger would get to him eventually and maybe he’d go mad; get the crazies. Do something insane.

Maybe he’d jump out one of the windows.

The thought made him laugh- imagine, leaping out a window. He probably wouldn’t even die, just break something. Maybe his best bet would be just to go outside. Become one of them . Let the spores have his lungs. He didn’t care- 

He didn’t . 

A sudden sadness overwhelmed him- this was life? This constant spiral of anguish was life? What was the point?! 

He buried his face in the mattress. It wasn’t worth it, none of it was. Tubbo felt a tear leak out of his eye- dammit. He had to conserve water, he couldn’t make it without water- 

A small cooing noose interrupted his thoughts. The kid stood at the end of the bed, staring down at Tubbo. 

He couldn’t help but sniffle. 

Damnit , he was pathetic. Letting a child make him cry. How very Tubbo of him- how WEAK , how COWARDLY , how very TUBBO of him. 

Tommy’s voice hissed in his head, reminding him of all the things he’d done wrong, all the things he’d failed at… 

The kid tapped his foot, his face worried and tense. 

“I’m okay,” Tubbo sniffled. He sat up, hands nervously picking at his wet shirt. “Um-”

The kid seemed frozen, staring at Tubbo like he was… oh. Oh, he was still covered in gore- Tubbo waved his hands frantically, gesturing to the corpse guts all over his clothes. “I’m not bit, I’m fine, this- this is… um- this is from- the… yeah.” he calmed down, offering out his arm for the kid to check. 

Hesitantly, the child came closer, Tubbo nodding as the kid took his arm, examining it closely. 

“I’m Tubbo.” he said quietly. “A-Where are your parents?” 

The kid let go of him, scurrying away and pointing at Tubbo’s shirt. 

Tubbo frowned. “What-” 

The kid’s finger shook, Tubbo inching closer as he followed the child’s finger, to where a chunk of flesh was sliding off his shirt. 

“Your… parents?” Tubbo whispered, the kid nodding shakily. Tubbo blinked. 

“Th- this?” 

The child nodded.

Shit.

Shit. 

Tubbo backpedaled, his breathing erratic as he stared in horror at the black-yellow-green pus staining his arms, his hands- shit. 

“I’m- I-” Tubbo stammered, the kid’s face distorting in front of him as his eyes filled with tears, tears for what he’d done, for what he’d just put this child through, for Ranboo and Tommy and phil and wilbur and everything that he’d gone through, for the countless nights he’d spent lying there, tears and snot staining his pillow and for the closeness of his friends, for his family and for what had been… 

A small hand picked at his arm. 

Tubbo tuned back in, eyes focusing on the kid, who was holding onto his arm, hands wrapped around it like he was holding Tubbo up all on his own. 

He wiped at his eyes with a clean part of his shoulder, breathing shakily the way Ranboo had taught him. In, hold. Out. in, hold. Out. in, hold-- out. 

“okay?” a tiny voice asked. 

Tubbo’s head whipped up, staring in shock at the small voice that had just come out of this kid.

“Y-yeah,” He croaked. “Yeah, I’m- I’m okay. A-are you? Okay?” he rushed, the kid letting go of his arm.

The child nodded, shakily, and let him go, awkwardly moving away. He sat down on the floor, one hand fiddling with something in his lap, the other loosely at his side, ready. 

Tubbo cleared his throat- “What’s your name?” he asked, filling the awkward silence in the air. God, he felt so bad- he’d… he’d just killed this kid’s parent. In front of him, no less- talk about awkward . 

“Michael.” The kid mumbled. His hands moved faster. 

Tubbo wiped some of the gore off his face, which didn’t really help much considering that his hands were filthy, too. God, what was- what was this kid doing here? 

Maybe his parents had stopped on the way somewhere, thought this place was safe? Could he have made it this far on his own? Maybe he’d been- no, no one would willingly abandon their child these days. Children were… precious. If not because they were children, then… could he have been…?

Tubbo gave Michael a once over. Besides the missing eye, no scars, no bruising that suggested anyone had been rough with him- no stitches anywhere. Cuts and dirt, yeah, but- 

Tubbo shuddered, thinking about what might have happened. Michael was so young , how could they-

“Food?” The child’s voice interrupted his thoughts. 

Tubbo frowned. Food…? Hadn’t Michael already taken most of his? 

“You hungry?” He asked gently. The child’s more-than-frantic nods were enough to get Tubbo moving. He hopped out of bed- the kid scooted back a little, fear clouding his eye as he scurried away from Tubbo. 

“Just getting my bag,” Tubbo promised, reaching for it. The kid didn’t relax, instead flimsily holding out the thing he’d been fiddling with- Tommy’s whittling knife. 

He must have left it here. 

Tubbo reached in slowly and pulled out the pack of Dots. Michael’s eyes were glued to the dim yellow packaging, the knife pointed at Tubbo shaking in his hand- Tubbo tossed them to him, the kid scooping them up and stuffing them in a pocket. 

“Thank you.” Michael muttered, getting up. The knife was still in his hand- Tubbo frowned, pointing at it. 

“Where’d you get that?” he asked. The kid clammed up, holding the weapon close to his chest and scowling at him, backing up towards the stairs. 

Tubbo didn’t do a thing to stop him as he scampered down. 

Instead, he laid back down, resting his hands on his stomach. 

He was too young to have been poached. Too young. 

Poachers…. They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t. He’s so young. Tubbo thought. He’s too young. Poachers look for- for older ones. Certainly not this young. His lungs wouldn’t be developed- no, they couldn’t. They couldn't . 

Tubbo sat up, looking down towards where Michael had scampered off. 

He’d probably have the scar, if he was- and if he was… god, he probably needed so much more than what Tubbo had. 

He got up anyway, running a hand through his hair. It was so ratted- god, he needed a comb. Ted would be so disappointed- at least he’d try and get clean while he was here. That was a given. There was water outside. He could have a bath. Or three. 

Downstairs was still a mess. He’d have to clean it up before the kid slipped in the corpse goo- he sighed, pulling the covers over his head. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair. Not to Michael, not to him, not to his family, not to anyone.

He let his feet clunk down on the stairs, loudly, just in case Michael was down there. 

The balcony was too far over the shop to see the remains of the corpse, but he could smell it, the rotten vegetable smell wafting its way up his lungs and sinking deep into his bones. It gripped his memory with its smelly claws and sank them into his head, a pounding headache as a result. 

He nearly doubled over as a wave of nausea crept over him, the pain in his head inexplicably familiar. It felt like needles, poking and prodding around on his skin, tracing their ice-cold paths along the surface of his forehead. 

They were trying to pick his brain out. 

Tubbo tried his best to not fall down the steps, rushing down the last few so that he had the floor beneath his feet, the ground beneath the floor, the earth spun around under him and he didn’t need to worry because he was spinning with it, he was turning ever-so-slowly with the orbit- 

He shook his head. The feeling of needles vanished. 

He’d find the kid, yeah. Make sure that he was okay. 

That was the least he could do, give the kid his stuff and then- 

Then… 

He reached the last step, hand gripping the banister. 

He blinked in astonishment. 

Michael was kneeling at the edge of the goop, scrubbing at the floor with a rag. His shirt was up over his nose, and he was concentrating hard, his little hands pulling and pushing the rag across the tile. 

Tubbo frowned. Clearing his throat. Michael looked up, eyes wide. He stood quickly, trying to hide the rag behind his back, like Tubbo would get him in trouble for cleaning- It made him laugh, almost. 

“What-” the words stuck in his throat like a cough. “What are you doing?”

Michael’s one good eye stared at him, frightened. 

“You’re- cleaning?” Tubbo gestured to the pile of goop. (He tried not to think about how it got there.)

Michael nodded sheepishly. “Gooder. When clean.” He mumbled, kicking at the floor.

He huffed, nodding. “You got that right.”  Finally, someone who understood that. 

Michael offered him the soaked-through rag, hand shaking. “You want it?” he murmured, scuffing a beat-up sneaker on the floor. 

Tubbo shook his head, holding his hands up in surrender. “Just want to know why you’re on your own.” he said, looking Michael over again. “You’re kinda little for that.” 

“I’m not little!” Michael huffed, crossing his arms and puffing out his chest. Tubbo raised an eyebrow, narrowing his eyes. The kid faltered a little, his hands gripping his arms before he let go and stuffed the rag back into his pockets, his face hard to read. 

“I’m a little bit little.” he admitted finally. 

Tubbo nodded. “Where are-” he paused, remembering what the goo on the floor was. “I mean. Do you have anyone who can take care of you?” 

Michael shook his head, twisting his fingers together in a familiar way, the way Ranboo used to- don’t think about that right now. Now is not the time to remember him. He told himself sternly. Now is time to focus on Michael. 

The kid backed up a bit, looking Tubbo over. “Okay?” he asked worriedly. 

Tubbo nodded, blinking a few times so he could refocus. The kid edged away from him, foot stepping into the goo on the floor. Tubbo cringed a bit- that would be tricky to clean up. 

“Why are you here?” He asked instead, pushing down the instinct to grab the kid and scrub til he was clean. “Who- who brought you here?” 

“Mama.” The child muttered. Tears fell from his one good eye. “Seen my mama?” 

Tubbo froze, the child in front of him continuing to cry. “I-I haven’t, sorry-” he stammered. The kid sniffled, wiping the snot from his nose. He turned around, wiping at his face. 

“Um. do- do you know where your mama was?” Tubbo asked. 

Michael shook his head. “Her job is here,” he sniffled, “mama is a gardener.” he turned back, looking at Tubbo with his one good eye. 

“Is she gone? Like-” Michael paused, mouth quivering as he tried to speak, “like them?” 

The sentence was accompanied by more tears. Tubbo shook his head, hands instinctively reaching out to calm the small child.

Michael backed up, whipping the knife out from his pocket and holding it, shaking, towards Tubbo, eye wide open and wild. Tubbo stopped short, backing up quickly. 

“Okay,” he scrambled. “Listen-” 

Michael inched around the goop, looking at the small clumps of flesh left in the black goo. Tubbo swallowed, tucking his hands into his pockets. Michael had seen what he’d done- you were angry, Wilbur’s voice whispered in his head. You are so angry… keep it to yourself, no one else deserves it. 

Tubbo ignored his brother’s voice in his head. He nodded to the kid, turning around and going back up the stairs. His legs wobbled, nearly making him fall, but he caught himself on the bannister. 

You have no right to be this angry, Wilbur continued to whisper. Anger isn’t for you. What have you done to deserve it, hmm? 

Tubbo gritted his teeth. Just like Wilbur to say something like that. 

He never did like Tubbo. Just tolerated him for Tommy’s sake- 

“I’m sorry,” Tubbo blurted out, his mouth moving faster than his brain could catch up. “I’m sorry, your parents are gone.” 

The child’s eyes burned holes in his back. Tubbo stood still on the stairs, hands tucked into his pockets. 

He clenched his fists, his lips forming words he didn’t mean to say. “They’re gone like the corpses, Michael.” 

A high-pitched noise choked its way out of the child’s throat. Tubbo spoke through the lump in his throat; “They’re not coming back.” 

His feet moved back down the stairs, towards the child. Michael was crying, his eye gushing with tears as he swallowed lungful after lungful of air. 

He was choking on them- he tripped over the skull of the corpse and fell, a strangled wail erupting from his small throat. 

Tubbo snapped back into it, like coming out of a dream rushed over and wrapped the boy in his arms, picking him up out of the corpse’s goo and holding him to his chest. 

Michael seized up, his sobs becoming small whimpers as he wiggled around, arms beating against Tubbo’s chest, feet kicking into his stomach. 

“I’m sorry,” He apologized, letting go. Michael relaxed, eye wide and frightened as Tubbo held him by the shoulders. His face was covered in tears and snot- Tubbo wiped it gently with his sleeve. 

“Your parents-” he hesitated here, not sure what to say. “They’re not gone. I lied.” 

He wasn’t sure lying to this kid was right, or fair- you’d want to know, he thought. You’d want to know if everyone you loved was okay.

“They’re looking for you,” he continued. “But they’re… far away.” 

Michael wiped his face, shoulders softening under Tubbo’s hands. “Far away?” 

Tubbo nodded, thumbs rubbing small circles into the kid’s shoulders. “They’re far, far away.” 

He didn’t dare look down at the goop.

Michael sniffled. “You finded them?” he whispered, his hands tapping anxiously against his pants. 

Tubbo blinked. “Can I find them?” He asked hesitantly, the small boy nodding. He carefully wiped some of the goop off of his face. “I don’t know, bud.” 

The kid shrugs Tubbo’s hands off, his shoulders defensively up near his ears. “I can find.” He determines, a set, driven look coming across his face. 

He reached for Tubbo’s hand. 

Tubbo gave it to him- he’s unsure of why, he doesn’t know this child- and let the child lead him outside, where the sky sported an ugly gray-green and the withered grass was covered in syringes. 

He realized that he hadn’t been outside in days. 

Michael led him to the white plastic fence-post, pointing at the latch. “Open please,” he demanded.

Tubbo blinked. 

“The gate?” He asked, frowning. 

Michael nodded. 

“Why?” Tubbo asked, “There are corpses-” 

“I want my mommy!” Michael stomped his foot and it hit Tubbo just how YOUNG his counterpart was- he looked to be barely four, Tubbo would even say three- He’d watched his sisters grow up, and this was very much what they had been like- Michael crossed his arms in defense and scowled. 

He shook his head. “I can’t,” he said gently. 

He half expects the boy to cry. 

Instead, Michael scowled at him, clearly frustrated. 

“You’re not my mommy!” An accusing finger was pointed Tubbo’s way. “I want her!” 

Michael banged a fist on his knee- Tubbo held his hands up in defense. 

“I can’t open the gate, bud-” 

“MOMMY!” 

The piercing scream from the lungs of the child made something creak on the other side of the gate. 

It snapped Tubbo out of the haze he hadn’t realized had been over him. 

“Inside.” He insisted, grabbing Michael’s arm and dragging the screaming, kicking child into the glass house. 

Michael wrenched his arm away from Tubbo and ran, crying, into the further part of the shop’s first floor. Tubbo ignored him.

That wasn’t his child. And if it died, it died.

He went back to the cold bed he had been in for weeks. 

Ranboo’s imprint was long gone.