Work Text:
The day should never have ended the way it did. Surely not, surely not as horrifically as it had.
Tubbo’s memories were shattered, giving glimpses of the past and present in fractured combinations of sound and sight. Michael, Ranboo, the balcony overlooking the nation, the scream, the pig mask, pain, colours, agony. Nothing.
Tubbo opened his eyes. Or, he tried, but something felt off, not right. His right eye could barely open a crack with something pressed over it, and his left eye could only see a ceiling overhead. He wasn’t sure he recognized the pattern above him, but he also was barely certain about anything. He knew who he was, Heir Apparent of Snowchester, with a husband and son, but he could not hear them.
He could not really hear anything at all. Something felt wrapped around his entire head. He couldn’t even lift a hand to feel what was around him, his body felt as heavy as obsidian blocks.
Best as he could, Tubbo slid his gaze around, unable to move his head as if the connections between his mind and body were severed. He could not see much given the angle, and given how little he could open his left eye, but then, movement.
“Boo…” Tubbo breathlessly mouthed, the action of simply moving his lips to mumble the nickname almost too much for him.
Ranboo swam into view, more of a rough draft rather than the clear vision Tubbo recalled from the pieces he could recall. He looked worse than usual, which was saying a lot given the half-Enderian was always a scare away from shaking apart like some small dog. His eyes were wide, desperate, but also smokey. He was crying. Oh Prime, he was crying.
His lips moved, but hearing wasn’t back yet, evidently, but Tubbo could understand. He always could understand his husband. He was trying to explain what had happened.
“I can’t…” Tubbo mumbled, blinking heavily, struggling to open his eye again.
Ranboo’s mouth snapped shut, his long Enderian ears twitching cutely. His husband was cute, even when he was frantic, which was often given his memory problems and he could only keep track of the important things if he was calm or had his memory journal. Tubbo should tell him how cute he is.
But when he tried to open his mouth to say just that, he found it impossible. His eye felt heavy again, and all he could do was breathe, but he twitched a couple fingers and felt Ranboo’s hand encase his own, holding on as Tubbo drifted back to oblivion.
It took a while for Tubbo to truly regain consciousness. Everything happened in pieces, while his memory stitched itself together to remember exactly what had happened.
An address to the nation. It was supposed to open a celebration for the next few days. Michael held his parents’ hands as he stood on his tippy toes, smiling widely over the edge of the balcony to the people below. His official adoption was meant to be celebrated.
But then the screams happened. Over Ranboo’s shoulder, Tubbo saw a figure, tall and lean, face obscured by a piglin mask. He raised a weapon in his hands, pointed straight for Tubbo’s husband, and then…
Tubbo recalled agony after that. He recalled he had come in front of Ranboo and Michael, as if to shield them from whatever attack came their way. Bursts of colour before his eyes, and the sensation of overwhelming agony before he woke up in the infirmary.
Once Tubbo was deemed safe to leave the infirmary, he was told what had happened after his memory faded. An attempt on the lives of the royal family, committed by the Empire. The assassin was the Heir Apparent of the Empire, Technoblade, who had escaped capture, but not unscathed.
It was unknown if the Emperor of the Empire had known his own son would commit such an act, according to recent gossip between the nobility as they fled the colder nation for Snowchester. Even Tubbo was troubled by the news, he had always been cordial with the neighbouring nation, as had his parents, and their parents before that. Prime, he and the youngest prince Tommy would regularly correspond with one another - Tubbo struggled with reading the chicken scratch that was the other prince’s handwriting, so he would have a transcriber aid him - and had been friends since they had been young!
After the attack, news spread across the lands. Tensions rose to levels Tubbo had never seen before, and he hadn’t seen his father since before the attack. He was swamped with demands and simply trying to figure out what to do. Nobility from the Empire were more or less forced out of Snowchester, at least until explanations and some kind of understanding was reached.
It would take a lot of time to reach any sort of understanding, Tubbo knew. Given the attack, and the aftermath - although no one had been killed, Tubbo had in fact taken the brunt of the attack - Tubbo now physically could not escape the fact an assassination attempt had been done to him and his family.
The first day he was awake for the bandages to be replaced, he saw half of his body had been burned beyond recognition. He had been told he may never see out of his right eye again, nor would he hear from his right ear - which now explained why he could barely hear people even if they spoke directly in front of him - and it would take months if not years to regain proper mobility in most of his right side. He was lucky to be alive, the physicians repeated, practically marveling at the luck Tubbo had.
He didn’t feel lucky. He felt angry, confused, and like he wasn’t in his right body anymore.