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Tubbo thought himself a clever, two-steps-ahead sort of logical person. He had escape holes throughout the capital, little burrows that only he knew how to dig to fall the rest of the way to reach the underground tunnels. He had plans half-formed that diverged if things worked out for the best or the worst. Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
An Enderian - it was tall enough to be one, although it also looked awfully human, unlike most Enderians Tubbo had ever encountered before - collapsed at his front door, clothes torn and darkly stained, was not something he could have ever anticipated.
“Hello?” He looked out to the streets, wondering if someone had dumped the creature at his door or something, before he focused on the Enderian itself. “Are you… Prime, are you even alive?”
His ears twitched as he crouched before the creature, hoping to hear any hint of a breath or something to signal a sign of life, and he had to practically hold his breath to do so. But, soon enough, a hitch was heard, and Tubbo released the breath, and looked around the small stoop the Enderian had been collapsed on before deciding it would probably be better to take him inside.
Despite the facade that was his appearance, Tubbo was stronger than most teens - most adults, to be fair - his age, and he barely had to push himself to pick up the creature - this thing was lighter than some logs Tubbo has had to chop back in the early years of L’Manburg - to drag into the main landing of his temporary home.
Once the Enderian was inside, and no longer crumpled up in a mess of limbs and tattered cloth, Tubbo had a better look at him. He looked to have been wearing a suit, what once had been a suit anyway, but it looked like he had gone toe-to-toe with a weed whacker and clearly lost. He was sliced up and down his ridiculously long body, and what looked like old and new scars across his face, which gave him pause. It was a rather youthful face. Young. And split down the middle between Enderian features and faintly humanoid-pale. Tubbo had never met a half-Enderian before.
After he got a good look at the creature before him, he went to check that moving him hadn’t killed him or anything bad. He had to make sure this creature was able to regain consciousness.
He checked for a pulse, grabbing a wrist and carefully finding the line down from the thumb where the heartbeat could be best felt, and was relieved to feel a steady, constant beat under his fingertips.
“Okay. Alive at least. But who the fuck are you?” Tubbo muttered down to the Enderian.
A buzzing sound perked his ears up, and he pulled back from the unconscious teen to grab his communicator. A message from Tommy in Pogtopia, complaining about Wilbur, was read aloud to him.
“He’s lost his fucking mind Tubz! Idk how long until he does something stupid.”
Tubbo bit his lip before he replied, glancing quickly at the Enderian before him. “Wish I cuoid help, but smth just dropped at my doorstep. Little busy bossman.”
He tucked the communicator back into his pocket and turned his attention back to the Enderian, and promptly fell backwards with his heart in his throat when he saw glowing purple eyes staring up at him.
“Bloody fuck!” He exclaimed, heart hammering against his ribs hard enough he was temporarily worried he’d have a heart attack.
“Tub…bo…” The mouth opened weirdly for an Enderian, and…
“What did you just say?” Tubbo froze in shock.
“Tubb…bo…” The Enderian said again, his voice shaking like he was trying not to cry, and he blinked rapidly. “Prrrro…tect…”
“Protect?” Tubbo echoed, wondering if he had even heard correctly, but the Enderian’s eyes brightened, and he was moving to him so fast Tubbo couldn’t even make a sound before the Enderian was in his personal space.
“Prrro-tect. Tub-bo.” It seemed the common language was only semi-used by the Enderian, with every syllable practically its own individual word, and weirdly like he was purring out the words too. This was a weird creature, Tubbo decided.
“Wh-what are you trying to tell me?” Tubbo demanded once he could get his jaw working again.
“⎅⏃⋏☌⟒⍀. ⊬⍜⎍ ⏃⍀⟒ ☌⍜⟟⋏☌ ⏁⍜ ⎅⟟⟒.”
Well, okay then. Tubbo didn’t know Enderian gibberish. It was more like clicking and harsh breaths mixed with a cat’s yowl, with absolutely no common language to pidgin the two languages together.
The other teen reached forward, grabbing the oversized suit Tubbo had been wearing by the jacket, but just as he grabbed it, like a puppet with its strings cut, he suddenly dropped, his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Tubbo couldn’t help but exclaim to the interior of his home, not expecting an answer.
And an answer did not come.