Archive of Our Own ^beta

Here are the reasons why Tubbo is okay:

One, his best friend is alive.

Two, he’s married.

Three, his son is safe.

Four, Dream is in prison.

Five, Technoblade decided Snowchester isn’t enough of a government to be blown up.

Six, Wilbur was revived a hell of a lot more reasonable than anyone thought and decided to fuck off into the woods rather than kill anyone.

Seven, Tubbo has nukes, so if reasons four, five, and six turn out to be untrue, Tubbo can fix that real quick. Even if one of them is missing. He’s 90% sure that whoever stole it won’t be able to set it off without his lab, anyway— even the manual way requires a bit more equipment than one switch— so he’s mostly trying not to think of that.

Logically, there are no reasons why Tubbo should be torn up about anything. His life is, honestly, going pretty well. Foolish finished the mansion. He and Ranboo and Michael are going to move in together in a few weeks, which is going to be pretty fucking fantastic because Tubbo is getting kind of sick of reading the same picture book every night to put Michael to sleep. His fingers work better than they did when he first got his scars, but turning thin pages still sucks. After they move, Ranboo is on bedtime duty for the next three months.

Ranboo is also on babysitting duty today, because he is a deadbeat who slacks off childcare to go mining. He has a crippling hoarding problem. Tubbo has told him this before, multiple times. Mostly because it is a banger excuse to slack off childcare to go burn shit down with Tommy, which in his opinion is a much more valid hobby.

Tubbo is pretty sure that parenting is an increasingly elaborate game of tricking the other parent into taking care of the kid with copious amounts of lighthearted guilt tripping. He intends to win it.

“Tubbo, what the fuck,” Tommy says when Tubbo tells him this.

“I mean, it’s worked so far,” Tubbo says. Ranboo is very easy to guilt trip. He hops the fence at the edge of Tommy’s property. It’s short enough that it’s easy even for him, since it’s only there to mark the boundary, not keep anything in.

“No, I mean—” Tommy pauses by the fence gate, reaching up to readjust the straps of his chestplate. The leather armour today came as a bit of a shock. These days, Tubbo rarely sees Tommy without full diamond at least.

The last time he saw him without it was… building the hotel, maybe? No, he’d had leather then, too. It was before that. In Dream’s vault.

Anyway, Tubbo can’t really talk, considering he nearly always forgets to take off his netherite when he’s in the house. He’s only got the boots today, though. The rest has thorns, and he and Tommy show love by affectionately beating the shit out of each other.

Or, well. They used to.

“That’s fucked up,” Tommy continues, although he seems more taken aback than anything, eyebrows scrunched together in reluctant amusement. “Are you in a loveless marriage? I feel like you shouldn’t be enslaving your husband. Unless it’s for profit, in which case it is still morally wrong but I’m willing to overlook it.”

“I don’t, I have a guy for that,” Tubbo tells him, thinking of the list of demands he gave Foolish. Most of them, he actually delivered on. And Tubbo didn’t even have to pay him a single piece of gold. Score.

“I have a therapist,” Tommy says, apropos of nothing.

Tubbo blinks.

Tommy’s tone is casual, but his shoulders hunch slightly inwards in a way Tubbo recognizes. It’s not supposed to be a big deal. He shouldn’t make it a big deal. This is where he should say okay or cool or nice and then move on.

What slips out instead is, “Why?”

Tommy stops walking, turning around to scowl at him. “The fuck do you mean, why?” he repeats incredulously. “For fucking therapy, what other reason is there—”

“No, I mean why do you need a therapist for that,” Tubbo clarifies. There’s buzzing around his ears, and he reaches up to swat the air as he speaks.

Tommy stares at him. “Tubbo,” he says slowly, “I think we have different understandings of what a therapist does.”

“No, I—” Tubbo cuts himself off, frustration starting to burn up in his chest. He tamps it down, making himself take a breath to relax. “You did the exposure thing fine by yourself, didn’t you?” he asks rhetorically. “Why would you need to… involve someone else?”

“Exposure therapy is probably supposed to involve less choking,” Tommy mutters, crossing his arms. His voice rises again. “And I wanted to involve someone else, alright? It’s not a— you don’t have to make something out of it.”

Tubbo frowns. “Okay, but—”

Tommy interrupts him with an explosive sigh, uncrossing his arms to reach out and grab Tubbo by the shoulders. “Repeat after me.”

“After me,” Tubbo parrots, mostly just to be a dick.

Tommy briefly releases him to punch him in the shoulder. “Fucking asshole. Okay. Say this: I’m happy you’re dealing with your trauma.”

He pronounces the word in an odd way, near-rolling the r and emphasizing the ah. T-rau-ma.

“I am happy you’re dealing with your trauma,” Tubbo says back blankly.

He gets the weird emphasis now. The word sits heavy and strange in his mouth.

“Thanks, Tubbo,” Tommy says, rolling his eyes. “Now— you saw what Jack did to my hotel sign, eh? Motherfucker. I’m gonna set that shit on fire.”

And things don’t really change after that. Tubbo didn’t expect them to. Like Tommy said, they don't have to make something out of it.

He drops by Tommy’s house on Friday to invite him to come around for supper, like he usually does.

“I won’t be cooking,” he says reassuringly, leaning against the door frame. Tommy, sitting on the floor with his arms buried elbow-deep in his chests, does not look reassured.

“Will Ranboo be cooking?” he asks, wrinkling his brow.

“No.”

“Will I be cooking?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Please?” Tubbo considers the benefits of flopping down dramatically onto the dirt beside Tommy, decides there are more cons than pros, and does it anyway. “I don’t want fucking raw beef again.”

“Shouldn't have married the asshole with the cow farm, then.” Tommy pauses. “Is it really raw?”

“Steamed,” Tubbo says mournfully. “He doesn't even season it.”

Tommy shuts the chest decisively and stands up. “That's fucking atrocious, tell him to get out of my kitchen.”

“My kitchen,” Tubbo corrects, checking the contents of the chest now that Tommy’s distracted. Hey, diamonds!

“Mine now, bitch,” Tommy tells him over his shoulder, ducking into some cubbyhole to grab a jacket and some supplies. He doesn't seem that bothered by Tubbo rummaging through his stuff, so he pockets the diamonds. He’ll toss him a mending book or something once they get back to Snowchester.

Speaking of— he pulls out his comm to message Ranboo.

Tubbo_ whispers to Ranboo: coming back for dinner in 5
Ranboo whispers to Tubbo_: ok
Ranboo whispers to Tubbo_: should i make anything
Tubbo_ whispers to Ranboo: no tomys cooking
Ranboo whispers to Tubbo_: oh cool
Ranboo whispers to Tubbo_: is it a special occasion
Tubbo_ whispers to Ranboo: yes
Tubbo_ whispers to Ranboo: whyd u forget my bday
Ranboo whispers to Tubbo_: WHAT
Tubbo_ whispers to Ranboo: its not im fucking with u
Tubbo_ whispers to Ranboo: he just wantd to idk

Tubbo slips the comm back into his coat as Tommy sweeps past, letting himself be towed along by the grip on his arm.

Tommy’s jacket puffs out awkwardly around his armour. Leather again today, netherite boots. Tubbo flicks his hood. “You look stupid.”

“You look stupid,” is Tommy’s quick-witted comeback. “Do you wash that uniform? Once? Ever? Yeah, didn't fucking think so. Prick.”

Despite the argument, they've both been heading down to the soulspeed highway without pause. Stumbling slightly over the uneven terrain, Tubbo waits until Tommy’s wound himself down and then flicks his hood again. “Well, at least I don't look like a marshmallow.”

“You look like a wanker, that's what you look like.” Tommy squints down the highway. “There's no holes in it this time?”

“You made the last hole,” Tubbo reminds him absently, leaning out to peer at the half-visible glass tunnel. It doesn't look broken. “Are you gonna run along on top?”

Tommy lets go of his arm to head over to the highway and rap on its side, like that’ll tell him if it's stable or not. “Why would I do that?”

It is stable, obviously. Tubbo doesn't build faulty things. Not when he's paying attention. “‘Cause you don’t have soulspeed.”

Tommy glances back at him. His expression flickers with confusion. “Yeah, I do?”

“You do?” Well, that's kind of shitty of him. Tubbo was under the impression he’d broken out of the tunnel wall last time because he hadn't been going fast enough to be able to hold his breath the whole way.

“You literally gave me soulspeed boots, Tubbo,” Tommy huffs, exasperated. He flourishes a hand in the direction of his netherite boots. Looking closer, Tubbo can recognize his own writing, wobbly runes etched into the metal.

He… doesn't remember doing that. Weird.

“Huh,” Tubbo says, deciding not to think too hard about it. “Guess you're right!”

Tommy’s eyes linger on him for another uncomfortable moment before he shrugs and turns back to the highway. “Bit claustrophobic, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, little bit.” It’s a tight fit, but it doesn’t really bother Tubbo.

“Goes by quick though,” Tommy mutters, and then he steps in and disappears across the ocean.

Tubbo pulls himself in after him, squeezing his eyes shut against the water and letting it carry him through. He staggers out onto the Snowchester-side platform, momentum throwing him right into Tommy’s back and sending them both sprawling.

“You’re supposed to move,” Tubbo says, muffled into Tommy’s jacket.

Tommy rolls him off his back. “You’re supposed to move,” he mocks, high-pitched, “how was I supposed to know that?”

“I mean, it seems intuitive.” Tubbo leans down over the edge of the platform, running his hand over its side. There’s a button here somewhere. Should’ve automatically triggered, which means he fucked up the redstone somehow. Damn it.

“Fuck off— oh, holy shit.” Tommy interrupts himself when Tubbo finds the button, sending a sudden rush of hot air shooting up from the grates underneath them. Tommy stares down at them, wide-eyed. “That’s new.”

It’s not exactly convenient to walk around in the snow with soaked clothes. Tubbo had mostly just ignored it until he’d seen faint burns over Ranboo’s arms from water leaking through his armor, and, well, he likes fixing things.

“We’re not wet,” he says by way of explanation, rocking smoothly back up onto his feet.

Tommy latches onto his wrist and pulls himself up as well. He frowns down at his jacket, still damp and heavy with water. “Speak for yourself.”

Tubbo makes a mental note to try and improve the fans when he redoes the redstone. “Told you not to wear it.”

Tommy swings at him. Empty-handed, almost no force behind it. Tubbo jumps back and out of the way anyway, turning to run to his house.

“You did not!” Tommy shouts from behind him. “You did not, you did not—”

Tubbo takes the porch stairs two at a time, catching himself against the door frame. “I did!” he protests.

“You did not!”

He opens the door— there’s no lock for it, which is another reason why Michael has to stay upstairs when no one’s watching him. “I said you looked stupid, it’s implied!”

Tommy catches up to him, nudging his way through the door before Tubbo. “Why can’t you just say what you mean, man?” he complains. “Stop it with the ‘it was implied’, it’s ‘intuitive’, just say what you’re thinking—”

“Um,” Ranboo says, staring at them from where he stands next to the kitchen counter. He’s balancing Michael on one hip. Both of them look like they would rather be somewhere else, probably for different reasons.

Tommy immediately turns his attention to Ranboo. “Out!” he orders, pointing imperiously at the living room as he shucks off the wet jacket. “Out of the kitchen, out of the kitchen, you don’t feed people raw meat, what is wrong with you, you make me sick.”

“...What?” Ranboo asks in bafflement as Tommy shoves him out of the doorway, quickly adjusting his grip so he doesn’t drop the squirming toddler. “I don’t—”

“Just go with it,” Tubbo stage whispers to him. He waits until Ranboo stops looking at him to shake his head solemnly at Tommy.

Tommy makes a face back— Ranboo looks even more confused— and turns to their cabinets. “Ingredients,” he demands.

Tubbo comes over to peer over his shoulder, patting Michael’s head absently as he passes. “That’s the weapons cabinet,” he informs Tommy.

“I can see that, where are the ingredients?”

“Why is the weapons cabinet in the kitchen?” Ranboo asks curiously, wandering over to them.

Tubbo leans back into his side, half for affectionate purposes and half to be annoying and make him readjust Michael again. “Convenience,” he answers.

“I… I think that’s the opposite of convenient, actually.” Michael reaches down for a golden knife, babbling gleefully, and Ranboo pulls him back. “No,” he scolds softly.

“Why can’t he have it?” Tubbo objects. It’s not like Michael’s never held a sword before.

Ranboo glances over at him incredulously. “Because he’s three?”

“So?”

“I don’t trust that thing with a sword,” Tommy interjects, scowling suspiciously at Michael. Michael reaches out to him with a happy giggle. “Maybe a little one,” Tommy relents.

“Why am I the only one who’s not being a pushover to a baby right now?” Ranboo asks disbelievingly. “Me, of all people? Really?”

“I just don’t see why we can’t give our toddler bladed weaponry,” Tubbo says. Tommy chokes on his laughter. “What?”

Ranboo gives a long-suffering sigh. “Michael doesn’t have very good hand-eye coordination,” he says patiently, reaching over to shut the cabinet as he does, “and I get anxiety very easily and don’t want there to be a small child running around my house with a sword.”

“Pussy,” Tommy says.

Ranboo side-eyes him. “Aren’t you supposed to be cooking?”

“The pantry’s over there,” Tubbo interrupts before Tommy can reply, nodding to the door in the corner with the paper tacked up next to it. He keeps a list of preferences and dislikes near there because Ranboo forgets often and gets embarrassed to ask again.

Tommy nods and heads over, throwing open the pantry door with a flourish. Ranboo tilts his head at Tubbo. Without being asked, Tubbo holds his arms out to take Michael.

Ranboo drops him into Tubbo’s arms with a relieved smile, clearly glad to have his hands free again. Michael pushes against Tubbo’s chest, pouting ferociously. Tubbo promptly sets him on the ground.

Ranboo shoots him a betrayed look as Michael makes a happy noise and runs off to go try and break the table legs. “You’re hovering,” Tubbo accuses with a grin.

Tommy surfaces briefly from the depths of the pantry. “What?”

“Nothing,” Ranboo says hurriedly. “I brought some stuff over from my house, it should be in there?”

“What’d you bring?” Tubbo asks with interest. Ranboo is very rich and Tubbo is not ashamed to be a gold digger on occasion. He prefers to think of it as being an incredibly successful scavenger.

Oh shit, he took some diamonds from Tommy. Right. Incredibly successful, as he said.

Tubbo is about to head downstairs to the enchanting room when Tommy appears again, apparently also interested, and Ranboo replies, “Nothing much, mostly potatoes, some carrots—”

“No!” Tommy interrupts loudly, and Tubbo pauses. “No, no. Won’t be doing that, we won't be having that. Nope! Sorry.”

He doesn't sound particularly apologetic, instead continuing to spew random denials. “Uh,” Tubbo says.

“Can't handle that,” Tommy elaborates, spinning to put his back to both Tubbo and Ranboo. It is a bad elaboration, because Tubbo is just as lost as before. “Don't get along, we don't.”

Ranboo looks equally bewildered when Tubbo glances at him. “Why not?”

“We had a fistfight once,” Tommy says, like that makes any fucking sense at all. “I won. Kind of. Eventually. But I hold grudges— believe me, I do— so, yeah. Trigger. Don't like ‘em.”

That also does not help even a little.

Tubbo looks back to Tommy, checking to see if he's opened the weapons cabinet again and just threw a random descriptor of what he saw in the middle of an unrelated sentence. He does that. But he's on the other side of the kitchen.

The fuck?

Whatever. Tommy just says things sometimes. Tubbo throws Ranboo another look, assuming they’ll be sharing in the amused confusion together.

Except Ranboo isn't looking at him. He's pulling out his memory book, nodding like he gets it, like he's caught some detail Tubbo didn't. “Oh, sorry,” he says sympathetically, reaching down to fish a pencil out of his pocket.

Tommy spins around again, leveling a wooden spoon at Ranboo. “No fucking pity,” he says threateningly, and then scowls when he sees the book. “What's that for?”

Yeah, Tubbo would also like to know that. He opens his mouth.

“No pity,” Ranboo replies before Tubbo can ask anything, flipping the book open. “I mean, I get them, too? I just have to write them down so I’ll remember.”

The spoon lowers. “Oh. Really?”

“If I didn't have any, I would not be lying about it,” Ranboo says dryly.

Tommy looks at him consideringly. “That's shit.”

Ranboo shrugs, looking resigned. “I deal with it okay.”

Tubbo stands by the ladder, a heavy feeling making itself known in his stomach, and feels distinctly like he's missed something important.

He's not sure what they're talking about. He's not sure when they switched from jokes to seriousness, or why Ranboo needs his book right now. Is it another taste thing? Ranboo likes knowing food preferences, so maybe Tubbo just zoned out when it got clarified that that's what they're talking about, or maybe he misread something they said. The thought sends an itch up his spine. He didn't know Tommy had any sort of opinion on potatoes.

Listen, he thinks. Don't ask for clarification, listen for it.

“If you're okay with it, you could tell me the ones you know sometime,” Ranboo is offering, memory book still in hand. “That way I could write them down and then I wouldn't accidentally do anything.”

“No,” Tommy says shortly, already turning back to the kitchen counter. And then, “Obsidian.”

“Oh, me too, that’ll be easy to remember,” Ranboo says, and obsidian is not a fucking food, and Tubbo doesn't know what the fuck they’re talking about. This is the conversation driving the room right now, and he can't jump in if he doesn't understand it, and it's clearly important somehow, and he doesn't like not knowing—

“Tubbo?” Tommy asks, and Tubbo is suddenly aware that he's humming softly to himself, matching the buzzing in his ears.

“I’m going to go grab a mending book,” Tubbo says, his own voice ringing too loud, and climbs down onto the ladder.

“Mending?” Ranboo repeats from above him. “What? Tubbo, are you—”

Tubbo closes the trapdoor before he finishes.

They’re walking along the prime path one day— not really going anywhere, just enjoying each other’s company. Tommy is complaining about some conversation he’d had earlier today.

“And we were talking, right?” he’s saying, gesturing widely. “Talking about hobbies and stuff. You got any hobbies these days, Tubbo?”

“Nuclear science,” Tubbo tells him.

Tommy nods sagely. “Pogchamp. Anyway, I was telling her my work is my hobby, because I am a man of business.” He pauses expectantly.

“Mhm,” Tubbo says, just so Tommy knows he’s invested. He’s not, actually— he’s only partially listening— but it’s nice to hear Tommy talk about whatever weird bullshit he’s gotten involved in this week. Familiar territory. Nostalgia or whatever. “What’s your work?”

“My hotel. Obviously.” Tommy points up to the tall red building looming over them. And then, after a moment, also points back near his house. “And the quarry business, but that’s going along very smoothly without me ever since I asked Ranboo if he had some extra. He goes mining a lot. Apparently.”

“He has a crippling hoarding problem,” Tubbo interjects.

Tommy laughs, short and loud. “Does he? Yeah, bet he does. So then she said, no, do you have hobbies, and I said, no, no, I don’t think you understand, I’m just incredibly efficient. And then she reminded me that it was a confidential session, and I said, in that case, comedic and politically motivated arson.”

“I don’t think it counts as a hobby if you’re burning down rival businesses,” Tubbo muses, thinking of setting the hotel’s sign on fire a couple days ago. Technically it’s a rival, considering they’re not the ones currently running it.

“Yes, but I’m not allowed to burn down rival businesses.” Tommy puts finger quotes around ‘allowed’, looking meaningfully at Tubbo.

Tubbo crosses his arms. He slips easily into lighthearted bickering as he steps over a broken plank and argues, “The Bee N’ Boo is my work-hobby.”

“You don’t need a work-hobby, you run a country,” Tommy points out, crouching down to fix the plank.

Tubbo sits next to him. “Commune.”

“Whatever.” Tommy tugs at the bent wood, mouth running absently as he does. “And then we talked a bit more about running a hotel business and my life goals and apparently, I’m ‘overcompensating in the business world as a coping mechanism for dealing with neglect in my personal life’.” He uses the air quotes again, rolling his eyes. “Whatever that means.”

He’s glad he’s sitting down, because all of a sudden it feels like Tubbo is standing on a wobbly foundation. “Oh,” he says stupidly.

“Yeah, exactly!” Tommy agrees, still working on the plank. He doesn’t look up, and Tubbo smoothes out his expression before he can see. “She says to me, Tommy— and listen to me— Tommy, I think you are maybe leaning too hard into this corporate respect thing, and I said, no! No, I don’t think that’s right. That doesn’t sound like me.”

“It doesn’t,” Tubbo says. He knows Tommy. This doesn’t sound like him at all.

“It doesn’t!” Tommy, still distracted, wrenches the wooden plank back into place, wedging it in between two more and pressing down to test how it holds his weight. “And I said so, and I said, not that I am doubting your therapizing ability, but are you sure you’re not mixing me up with another, more sad patient?”

Oh. Therapy. Tubbo hadn’t been paying attention to that part. He’s actually kind of been putting that out of his mind ever since Tommy had told him.

It just seems weird to think of it? The idea of walking up to some stranger and spilling all his secret feelings, getting categorized like something under a microscope, does not sound like Tubbo’s definition of a good time. It actually sounds more like his definition of suicide, even if he hasn't been a spy for awhile now and has completely gotten past the slight aversion to telling the truth. For the most part.

“And she said no, you’re my only patient,” Tommy continues to ramble. “And in that case it sounds more like you’re the one overcompensating, eh? Really. What would I even be compensating for in the first place? I’m tall, already. And muscular. Women love me.” He stands up, stomping down on the plank. It holds.

Tubbo looks over the patch job. The wood’s not shaped correctly, so it sticks awkwardly out of the path. Might have been more convenient just to leave it as it was, but he doesn’t voice that to Tommy. For some reason, it feels like there’s something balled up in his throat.

“Tubbo?” Tommy prompts, tilting his head. “You coming?”

Tubbo shakes himself out of it. “Sure, yeah,” he replies, getting to his feet. “How many women do you get, again?”

“So many women,” Tommy says, and they continue down the path.

They're in the lobby of Tommy’s (Jack's? Tubbo's not totally sure of the legalities there) hotel a week or so later. Tubbo is checking the register while Tommy searches the front desk for some papers or something.

Tubbo tugs another drawer open. Only some iron nuggets. Darn.

“Stop stealing my profit,” Tommy tells him from under the table. Tubbo kicks his ankle gently, since that's the only part of him that he can see.

“Technically it's Jack's profit,” he remarks, taking the iron.

“No, it's mine,” Tommy huffs. A banging noise comes from underneath the desk, like he's hit it to emphasize his point. “Who do you think built this place?”

“Sam,” Tubbo says promptly, setting the iron down on the desk, and there’s another banging noise.

“Do not mention him, don't say his fucking name,” Tommy snaps.

Tubbo blinks. “Because of the prison thing?” he asks tentatively, and, too late, notices the labored breathing.

“Don’t— I don't want to— fuck, shit,” Tommy hisses, exhaling with a sudden gasp, and then he's scrambling out from under the desk and Tubbo is stumbling back.

Fuck, shit is a very accurate assessment of the situation. Tommy is nearing some kind of panic. Tubbo doesn’t know why, but he doesn't need to know why, really. He reaches out to take Tommy’s hand, getting ready to count breaths the way the two of them used to do in Pogtopia when things got overwhelming.

Tommy doesn't reach back.

Instead he swipes a scrap of iron off the table, gripping it tightly and staring at it, suddenly concentrating. “Uh, what’s this,” Tommy says to himself, and before Tubbo can say anything, he starts to rattle off a description. “It’s... small? It’s metal, iron, cold, kinda round? It’s smooth.”

Moment of silence. Tubbo is like 50% sure that he’s actually lost it this time. “Um,” he says.

Tommy gets up onto his knees and then flings himself backwards onto the desk chair. “No panicking!” he announces proudly to empty air. “Take that, bitch!” That's directed towards the prison. Tubbo doesn’t know if the bitch is Sam or Dream, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna ask.

“Congratulations?” It comes out as a question.

“Congratulations,” Tommy agrees brightly. “I’m so fucking good at this, Tubbo, I’m like a— a— what's something calm?”

“A butterfly,” Tubbo suggests, only half listening.

“I’m like the calmest butterfly there is, I’m going to start flying and then fucking die because I’m too calm to flap my little butterfly wings,” Tommy declares instantly. “I’m the calmest man there ever was— give me back my profits, please, I deserve it.”

He reaches over and snags the rest of the iron nuggets off the table. “Sorry for freaking out on you, Big T,” he adds in as an afterthought.

“You stopped yourself from freaking out on me,” Tubbo points out, and for a moment he thinks he sounds bitter. Tommy doesn’t notice, grinning at him instead of responding and turning to flip off the world outside the hotel windows.

You didn’t need my help, Tubbo doesn’t say, and Tommy doesn’t respond to that, either.

They're heading to the spider spawner, and Tubbo checks out Eret’s museum as they pass. The new white stone he’s using looks good, Tubbo thinks— less dirt clings to it, so it must be easier to clean. He’ll have to go look at the rest sometime, even if he doesn’t really like the recreation of L’manburg’s walls.

Suddenly the space beside him is empty, and Tubbo pauses, looking back. Tommy is lingering near the entrance of the museum.

Tubbo notes the deep frown lines etched in his face. “All good, big man?”

“Fucking trauma responses,” Tommy grumbles in response, turning and walking purposefully away from the entrance steps. “I hate that room.”

“The… Final Control Room?” Tubbo asks doubtfully, hurrying up to keep pace. The replica is visible from the entrance, but he hadn't thought Tommy was that bothered by it still. “I thought you exposure’d yourself enough to get over it by now.”

“Well I didn't,” Tommy snaps back at him, actually sounding kind of hurt, shit, “Do you think I’d still be getting trembly fingers at the sight, the sight, of blackstone, if I’d gotten over it already? It's traumatic and I don’t like it and I don't want to see it, alright?”

That's a lot of information all at once, and it takes a moment to absorb it. Tubbo is not the best at quick reactions. Casual emotional vulnerability is not his strong point, and he's not really sure what he can do here.

“It's not like that for me,” he says, and thinks of being detached from his body and at the same time frozen where he stands, and thinks of the impossibly crushing feeling that he's dying when he's scared, and means to continue. He means to reassure, or to speak some comfort into existence, or to say that if he endures it for long enough then he’ll get used to it and it won't be as bad—

“Yeah, I know,” Tommy says, elbowing him lightly in the side, and Tubbo snaps his mouth shut. “But we already know you’ve got the thicker skin, yeah?”

And he doesn't mean it like that, Tubbo knows he doesn't. Tommy’s tone is softer than it usually is, a bit more self-deprecating. He means it as a compliment, as envy, as admiration.

He means it in a good way, Tubbo tells himself, and his thoughts of speaking and of sharing shrivel up into nothing.

“Yeah, guess so,” he says with a smile.

Tubbo is stretched out on his couch, surrounded by all his favourite people, and he actually feels really good today.

He’s put up paper lanterns around his living room, so the whole place glows with soft pink and orange light. Earlier today, Tubbo had spent the afternoon making them with Michael. He’d made sure to stay away from the red, yellow, white, and blue tissue paper. Good memories only.

He thinks it looks nice.

Ranboo is curled up on the small section of couch that Tubbo isn’t monopolizing, Tubbo’s feet kicked over his lap. He doesn’t look like he minds. Michael’s down here as well, but Foolish is coming over right now to talk about bartering the rest of the payment for the house, so they won’t be able to watch him too closely. Meaning—

“I don’t like your zombie baby,” Tommy affirms indignantly, ignoring the fact that said zombie baby is currently climbing all over him.

“Sure you don’t,” Ranboo says, looking more smug than placating. Sitting on the leather pauldron over Tommy’s shoulder, Michael looks over at Tubbo and shakes a tiny hand at him in a mimicry of a wave. Tubbo wiggles his fingers back.

“However,” Tommy continues loudly, and nearly startles Michael off his shoulder. He tips forwards, wrapping his hands in Tommy’s hair to hang on. Tommy doesn’t appear to notice.

“There it is,” Ranboo says, grinning.

“Shut the fuck up. However, you two are the worst possible people to raise a baby on your own,” Tommy tells them. “Neither of you get any bitches. There are no bitches to be found around here.”

“Hey,” Tubbo says, offended.

Ranboo looks pained. “I really don’t want that to be Michael’s first word.”

“One bitch,” Tommy amends.

Michael babbles at them over Tommy’s head, distinctly bibibibibi, and Ranboo drops his face into his hands.

“Why do I live?” he asks his palms. “Just to suffer?”

Tubbo knees him in the stomach, and Ranboo’s hands jerk down to shield himself. “You live to make money so I don’t have to,” Tubbo says cheerfully. “Breadwinner. Derogatory.”

“Yes, I forgot that you only married me for my riches,” Ranboo replies, something undeniably fond in his tone as he shoves Tubbo’s feet off his legs. Tubbo gets his revenge when he leans forward and gets hit in the face with the paper lantern above his head. Tall fucker.

“I could win bread if I wanted to,” Tommy says petulantly to Michael, who squeals in agreement.

There’s a knock from the other room. Tubbo sits up. “Speaking of,” Ranboo says, rising to get the door.

“Hello!” Foolish exclaims from down the hall. He strides into Tubbo’s living room with a bounce in his step, and Ranboo just barely manages to duck around him before he shuts the living room door with an enthusiastic thump.

Foolish plops down on the couch without hesitation. “You robbed me once!” he says brightly to Tommy.

“Sure did,” Tommy replies, occupied with trying to wrestle Michael off his head.

Ranboo slides into the spot on the couch on Tubbo’s other side. “So, we’ve already talked about payment, right?” he asks, changing the subject with the grace of an anvil.

“We did!” Foolish agrees, his grin still cheerful but suddenly a good deal more threatening. “I’ve just done a little more than you said, so…”

Tubbo doesn’t hear the rest. His ears buzz.

He’s still looking at the door.

The room feels smaller than it should be, even though Tubbo logically knows that nothing’s really changed. The gentle glow of the lanterns looks like it’s shifting. For a moment, Tubbo can smell the ghost of ash and earth and smoke, the gunpowder and the strong scent of the poultices in the bandages wrapped over his arms and chest.

Something twists in his chest, heavy enough to feel like a physical mass collecting just behind his collarbone. A crack in the ground, a cracked wall, cracks of light through yellow (orange, pink) concrete, and Tubbo wants out, right now, but his body is growing downwards into the ground.

His ears buzz like live wires. Redstone hums when it’s activated and working correctly. Redstone fuses work the same. There’s TNT under the floorboards, and he’s listening desperately to hear the redstone activate.

His hands itch. There’s buzzing over his hearing. TNT? No. Maybe.

The door is closed. The room is small.

This is the part where Tubbo casually strolls over and nudges the door open and leans out to pretend to check if anyone else is near. It’s a good excuse. No one ever questioned it. Presidential business is supposed to be secret. It took him awhile to get around that rule.

But he’s sitting sandwiched between Ranboo and Foolish, and they’ll notice if he stands up. So Tubbo can’t stand up.

He looks over at Tommy.

If Tubbo can’t move, then this is the part where Tommy does. This is the part where Tommy gets fidgety about the small space and instantly notices the stiffness in Tubbo’s shoulders. This is the part where he complains and gets up and throws the door and the windows open and makes a scene so Tubbo can compose himself without anyone looking.

Tommy is sitting on the ground with Michael, letting Michael tap at his hands. He’s not fidgeting.

He’s not standing up.

No one is going to stand up.

The realization knots itself in Tubbo’s lungs and lodges in his throat. He blinks just so he can close his eyes for a moment. Dry-eyed. Good.

He might be dying. There is TNT under his feet and there isn’t and Tubbo might be dying alone.

He wants to get up and leave the room. He wants to say that he isn’t feeling well. He doesn’t want to die. He doesn’t do anything.

Ranboo asked him a question, something well-trained whispers in the back of his mind, and Tubbo puts on the right smile. “Yes, of course, I agree,” he says politely, diplomatically. “Pardon me, I think I may have left a package in the mailbox.”

He stands up, brushing invisible dust off his pants, and walks briskly out of the room. The balled-up thing in his chest collapses in on itself when he steps out into the hallway.

Tubbo has to go outside. He has to check the mailbox. If he doesn’t and they catch him, then they’ll realize he was lying.

He walks down the hallway and out into the snow. He’s not wearing a coat, which means he’ll have to be fast, Tubbo thinks with a dim sort of disappointment. He pushes down the feeling of dread at the idea of returning to the small room. He can’t not go back. They’ll suspect.

His ears buzz. He checks the mailbox. Empty.

Tubbo doesn’t want to go back.

He could look through the rest of the mailboxes. Tubbo considers it. He could say he was being efficient and making sure no one was conspiring at the same time. A reason to stay out longer and a way to look more innocent.

He sets off to the neighbouring house, snow soaking through his socks. Nothing in that mailbox either.

Someone is behind him, the well-trained thing in his head tells him. Talking. A question.

Tubbo turns around. “Of course,” he agrees, nodding. “If you’ll excuse me.”

The person is shorter than him. Female. Long hair. Captain Puffy. She doesn’t move out of his way. He isn’t dismissed. She has a sword. Tubbo doesn’t have anything. Do his hands work? Yes. He could use those if he had to.

“Tubbo?” she asks, and the concerned tone breaks through the buzz. It could be a lie, Tubbo reminds himself.

He smiles. “Yes?”

Captain Puffy tilts her head at him, frowning. “Are… you feeling okay?”

“I’m doing fine,” Tubbo says instantly, and then waits a few seconds so he won’t be taken as snippy and get shouted at, and asks, “Do you need anything?”

She doesn’t reply to that, instead stepping back. Tubbo searches her face. She looks worried, but also sure, and the confusion is gone. “Where are you right now?” Captain Puffy questions him.

“Manburg,” Tubbo answers.

She still looks sure. Captain Puffy bends down and scoops something off the ground. Tubbo holds out his hand without being asked.

“You’re in Snowchester, Tubbo,” Captain Puffy tells him gently, and drops a handful of snow in his palm.

He stares at it for a moment, confused.

He breathes.

Some of the snow melts between his fingers. It makes the scars over his knuckles ache, and then Tubbo is outside in the tundra without a coat or boots and he’s not totally sure how long he’s been standing here and his feet are cold and his hand is wet and there’s nothing blocking out his ears. All of a sudden, he’s aware of just how illogically he’s been thinking.

Water drips through his fingers. Tubbo looks at it. “Oh. Oops.” He shakes the snow off. “That’s cold as shit, I’m going inside.”

“Let me walk you back,” Captain Puffy offers, wiping her hands on her coat. Tubbo’s just in his button-up. Why the fuck didn’t he take a coat? He can’t remember what he was thinking.

What was he doing?

He kind of wants to say no, but he’s like ten feet from his door and she doesn’t look like she’s going to be weird about Tubbo getting a little mixed up, so. Whatever. Tubbo shrugs and turns around.

He doesn’t think those ten feet provide much space for conversation, but Captain Puffy manages. “So,” she says casually, keeping pace with him, “does that happen often?”

Okay, she is going to be weird about it. He shrugs again. “Does it matter?”

“If you regularly forget where you are, that seems pretty important.” Her tone is dry, and it kind of makes Tubbo want to lean back into the buzzing. Five feet more.

“Don’t we all do that sometimes?” he asks rhetorically, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans to escape the wind.

“No, we really don’t.” Instead of leaving him at the porch, Captain Puffy goes up the stairs with him. When he looks at her, her eyes are sharp and concerned and kind, and Tubbo really wants to shut the door in her face but he forces himself not to.

“It’s not a big deal, I just got confused for a minute,” Tubbo dismisses the worry, reaching back for the doorknob. It slips out from under his hand as the door opens behind him.

Tommy stands in the doorway, already opening his mouth to shout. He stops. “Puffy?”

Tubbo blinks. Maybe it’s a little presumptuous, but he would have assumed Tommy would ask after…

Captain Puffy waves. “What’s up, Tommy?”

Tommy looks like he’s about to answer before he catches sight of Tubbo shivering on the doorstep. He reaches out to tug him inside. “Put on some fucking shoes, man, you’re an embarrassment,” he scolds, yanking a Snowchester jacket off its hook and dropping it over his shoulders.

Tubbo pulls it on, even though he’s indoors. Captain Puffy lingers on the porch.

“I mean, if you’re sure,” she says to Tubbo, doubtful but thankfully letting it go. “If you ever want to talk though…” She trails off.

“Thanks, but probably not.” Tubbo steps back, meaning to close the door.

Tommy leans on it before he can. “Talk about what?” he asks. Oh, now he picks up on shit. Great. Fucking baller.

“Nothing,” Captain Puffy tells him, which is both a surprise and a relief.

Unfortunately, Tommy negates that relief immediately. “Tubbo?”

Tubbo doesn’t particularly want to talk in front of Captain Puffy, but he has talked about this with Tommy before. In passing, mostly. Because Tommy gets muddled up too sometimes, and it’s really not that big a deal. “Feathers,” he says.

Tommy stares at him. “Eh?”

“Tubbo, you good?” Captain Puffy looks a lot more concerned than before.

Tubbo straightens involuntarily, automatically wiping the emotion off his face as the memory he’s calling on starts blurring. All of a sudden, he’s not sure if that’s how it really went. “You said it felt like feathers?” he tries again. “In your head?”

Tommy blinks at him for a second before realization flashes over his face. “Oh, dissociating?” he asks, his expression thoughtful. “Shit, I did call it that.”

“What’s fucking dissociating,” Tubbo says flatly.

“You’re fucking dissociating.” Tommy pauses. “Are you still?”

Tubbo is trying to figure out what the fuck he’s supposed to say to that when Captain Puffy interjects. “No, we’re all good. I think it was more of a flashback, though. What were you doing before this?”

“Uh, right, Ranboo needed you for something,” Tommy says, sounding oddly cautious as he glances over at Tubbo, and— he doesn’t look pitying, because Tommy never looks pitying. Still, when he looks at Tubbo, for a second he looks impossibly sad.

And Tubbo doesn’t fucking like that. He doesn’t want anyone to look at him like that. Especially not Tommy, who should fucking know better.

“Maybe chill out for a little while?” Captain Puffy suggests.

Tommy waves her off easily. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ll make him sit down or something.”

“Do you two know each other?” Tubbo blurts out.

He asks it mostly to change the subject, but he’s also starting to get confused in a different way than he was earlier. Captain Puffy tells Tommy what to do with confidence and he doesn’t tell her to fuck off. He asked about her before Tubbo. Even just looking between them, listening to their tone as they talk, Tubbo can tell that they have some sort of relationship.

Tommy breaks off the sentence he’d been starting, furrowing his brow as he looks at Tubbo. He looks surprised, and Tubbo feels again like there’s something he doesn’t know.

What’s he missing here?

“I’m his therapist,” Captain Puffy provides.

Oh.

Right. Captain Puffy runs a therapy office.

He should’ve guessed that, probably.

“How did you not know that?” Tommy demands.

Tubbo scowls at him, affronted. A cold sort of feeling snowballs in his chest. “It’s not like you ever said a name!”

“I said she.” Tommy crosses his arms. “We know four women, and half of them want to kill me.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Captain Puffy mutters.

And— Tubbo wants this conversation over.

Only in part because of the strange weight over his lungs. Only in part because of how his ears are buzzing. Captain Puffy is fine on her own, she’s one of Snowchester’s citizens, she’s alright, but for some reason, Tubbo really does not want to spend any more time talking to Tommy’s therapist.

“Right,” he says. “Uh, good to know, I’ll keep it in mind—” He’ll try as hard as he can to keep it out of his mind, actually— “—You said Ranboo needed me?”

“Yeah, something about arranging a visit,” Tommy tells him. He frowns. “You are good, right?”

“I’m fine,” Tubbo insists, stepping back. “Can we just get back into it?”

He honestly just wants to put this in the past. Tubbo of two minutes ago can deal with therapists or dissociating or flashing or whatever the fuck. Tubbo of right now, the Tubbo that’s Snowchester’s founder and Ranboo’s husband and Michael’s father, is going to think about the housing market, and god damn it, he is going to enjoy it.

...There’s a sentence he never thought he’d think. Damn. That's kind of sad.

“...Okay, guess I’ll be going,” Captain Puffy says after a second, backing up towards the porch stairs.

“Cool, see you,” Tubbo says. He reaches over and shuts the door.

He reaches down and peels off his wet socks, tossing them in a corner. He’ll pick them up later. The wooden floor is cold against his bare feet.

Tubbo built this house himself. There’s nothing under the floorboards. He was just overreacting.

“Come on,” he tells Tommy, turning briskly to head back down the hallway. “Let’s not make them wait.”

Tommy stays by the door for a moment, something working over his face, but it smoothes over before Tubbo can figure out what it is. “Alright,” Tommy says, and follows him.

When Tubbo reaches the living room, he doesn’t shut the door behind them. He crosses the room to open the windows in a smooth movement and swerves around Michael before sitting back down between Ranboo and Foolish.

Tubbo leans back into the couch. “Where were we?”

Like he’s mentioned before, Tubbo is not a fan of putting children to bed.

Controversial, he knows. However, he is a proud advocate for letting babies do whatever the hell they want, because babies have very little energy and will eventually just flop over when they wear themselves out. This is a method tried and tested by Tubbo himself, so he doesn’t listen whenever Ranboo tries to tell him that’s child neglect. Tubbo turned out fine, didn’t he?

Even so, Tubbo puts in the effort to make a bedtime routine with Michael. This is for a few reasons.

Firstly, Michael is really goddamn energetic. It would probably take too long to just let him tire himself out. Secondly, Michael is a zombie, so he and Ranboo don’t actually know if he can tire himself out the normal way. Thirdly, he’s from the Nether, and although Tubbo knows about circadian rhythms (it was useful to keep track of sleeping patterns, way back when), he isn’t sure if Michael’s is different from a normal kid’s. And lastly, well. Tubbo can be sappy sometimes. He likes having time to spend with his son.

Having a kid is more work than Tubbo anticipated when he and Ranboo first brought Michael home. He sort of assumed he’d just make a little more food every day and let the little guy run around in the backyard sometimes and that’d be it.

Instead, he spends hours holed up in his attic, watching Michael stumble around his room and catching him every time he loses his balance. He commissions a whole new house just so Michael can live with both his parents. Sometimes, when Tubbo can’t sleep, he wraps himself in his blankets and goes to sit in the nuclear bunker and stares at the control panel until its image is burned into his eyes. When he turns over the possibilities in which he would have to use it— the three lives that he would need to lose in order to hit that dead man’s switch— Michael’s name is tucked right next to Tommy’s and Ranboo’s.

Tubbo knows responsibility. He’s held other people’s lives in a fragile grip before. Tubbo has been a president, a partner, a soldier, a spy, and a sacrifice.

He has never welcomed a responsibility more than being Michael’s dad.

He’s never telling Ranboo that, though. He’d never let Tubbo beg his way out of babysitting again.

At least he didn’t have to make dinner today. They decided with Foolish that they’ll start settling into the mansion tomorrow, which meant Ranboo’s stayed over. Tommy left for the night, but he’ll probably be back tomorrow to bitch about the 1%.

Tubbo’s current job is to hang out with his kid while his husband cleans up dinner, and then put him to bed. Which, like he said, is cool. Tubbo’s kid is great.

He leans forward onto his elbows, watching Michael fumble with a pack of crayons. After dinner is quiet time, meaning no running around, and through that Michael has recently discovered a love for scribbling over every available surface with anything he can find. Ranboo’s had to bring over every scrap of paper he has from his sugarcane farm to save their walls.

Shit, he sounds like such a parent. Tubbo considers letting Michael draw on the walls just to prove to himself he isn’t a buzzkill.

A few feet away, Michael makes a tiny, happy noise as he manages to pick out the right colour. Tubbo props his head up on his hands and watches him.

Michael is absorbed in his drawing, tracing careful lines onto the page. It looks more comprehensible than usual. An image instead of a collage of colourful shapes. That’s a good sign for his development, Tubbo thinks, and wonders again when he got so into this parenting thing. Maybe he should stop bullying Ranboo for hovering all the time.

He can hear Ranboo clunking around in the kitchen downstairs, and a particularly loud thump startles Michael, his hand jerking over the paper. It leaves a long streak of pink over his drawing. Michael stares at it with a peculiar expression, like he’s not quite upset enough to cry but doesn’t know what else to do about it.

“Aw, buddy.” Frowning in sympathy, Tubbo sits up, scooting over to Michael and holding out his arms.

Michael crawls immediately into his lap. He hides his face in Tubbo’s stomach, wrapping small arms tight around him. Tubbo pats his head. “Hey, it’s okay, I’m sure it’s not that…”

He sees the drawing and his voice dies in his throat.

It’s not a bad drawing. It’s not creepy or gory or anything. If anything, Tubbo should like it— it’s a babyish copy of the pictures hung all around Michael’s room. Family portraits.

There’s a long, gangly black line that can only be Ranboo, hunched slightly over the two smaller figures. His white half is replaced by gray where Michael got frustrated with not being able to see what he was drawing, with a splotch of red at his neck. There’s a dark pink collection of angles and circles, with green crayon scratching out the zombified parts of Michael’s body. The slightly taller figure on the left is Tubbo, peach-coloured with a blocky brown jacket and his own stripe of a red bandanna tied over his arm.

Tubbo should be pleased to see this. He should be thinking it’s cute. He should be hugging his son and telling him what a good job he did.

Instead, he’s looking at the pink scribbles Michael drew over his face.

He stares.

His hands ache.

Tubbo isn’t ashamed of his scars.

It would be pretty silly to be uncomfortable with them, since they’ll be there for the rest of his life. He’s lucky, too. The injury didn’t end up fucking with his face or his senses, only his hands, and he relearned how to use those well enough.

He might have been self-conscious back in Pogtopia, when memories of the Festival were still healing on his skin instead of pushed to the back of his mind. But when the bandages came off for the first time, Tommy had told him with a grimace and then a grin that he looked like a fucking badass, and then Tubbo had nodded and never let himself think too hard about it since. It’s no use wishing it never happened, because it did. The scars aren’t scary or strange, that’s just how he looks.

Tubbo has never let himself wonder what his past self, his clear-skinned, pre-exile, pre-presidency, pre-festival self would think about the life he has now. Normally he doesn’t let himself care.

Looking down at this drawing, the pink scrawled over his own face, Tubbo is suddenly hit with the realization that his son will never know that version of him.

Michael is never going to draw Tubbo without scars.

He doesn’t expect the grief that comes with knowing that.

The sudden, desperate wish that Tubbo had met Michael before any of this had happened. Distantly mourning two possibilities that never could have existed simultaneously.

A knock on the floor behind him. “Hey,” Ranboo greets softly, pulling himself through the trapdoor. “Michael in bed yet?”

He catches sight of Michael curled up in Tubbo’s lap. “...Or not. That’s cool, too.”

Tubbo pulls his eyes away, back towards his husband. It’s just a drawing, he scolds himself. And he’s fine with how he looks anyway, so he shouldn’t be getting this shaken up over it. He’s overreacting again, just like this afternoon.

He’s been absently carding through Michael’s hair, Tubbo notices, and he lets himself continue as he answers Ranboo. “No, not yet. Sorry.”

“No, no, that’s fine.” Something in his voice puts Tubbo on alert, and he notes the way Ranboo shifts where he stands, the way he clutches his leather-bound book tight to his chest. Nervous. Anticipatory, maybe.

Tubbo’s first thought is that he’s forgotten to write down something important. That’s happened before; Ranboo forgetting and being left only with the knowledge that there was something he was supposed to know but didn’t, being nearly too ashamed or anxious to just ask Tubbo if he knew. The memory book he holds seems to support the theory.

Tubbo nods to the spot beside him on the floor. “Sit down?”

Ranboo sits, crossing his stupid long legs underneath him. The tension in his face vanishes for a moment when he looks at the child Tubbo’s holding.

“Hi, Michael,” he whispers to him, reaching out to tap his shoulder. Michael grumbles and bats his hand away, burying his face into Tubbo’s stomach. Ranboo laughs and sits back with a tiny smile.

“So,” Tubbo says, keeping his voice hushed because he’s pretty sure Michael is falling asleep, “did you clean up?”

Ranboo startles, his smile disappearing. Tubbo feels a brief flash of guilt. “Oh— yeah, that’s done.” He swallows, and then blurts out, “Can we talk?”

“‘Course we can.” Tubbo shifts carefully, starting to rock slightly back and forth where he sits. Fall asleep, he tells Michael mentally, and Michael sniffs, small fingers grasping at his coat. Tubbo tilts his head at Ranboo, waiting for him to ask about whatever he’s forgotten.

Ranboo takes a deep breath. “I have to tell you something,” he says, the words coming out nearly too fast to comprehend.

...Huh. Tubbo had been thinking he was the one who would be doing the telling, but okay. “What’s up, big man?”

Ranboo’s face crumples at the nickname and Tubbo resists the urge to sit up straighter. Is this something serious?

Ranboo isn’t making eye contact— he never does— but he’s looking at the bottom half of Tubbo’s face, which is about as close as he can make himself go. “I…” he starts. “I—”

His voice chokes out. Frustration flashes over his face.

Tubbo holds back a frown.

He’s not a stranger to struggling to find the right words or forcing himself to talk, but that didn’t look… natural.

What exactly is Ranboo trying to say?

“I want to tell you,” Ranboo says, near desperate, fingers digging into the cover of his memory book. He repeats it to himself, quietly distressed, “I want to tell him.”

Unconsciously, Tubbo wraps an arm around Michael. There’s a faint buzzing at the edge of his hearing. He doesn’t like how much Ranboo’s beating himself up over this. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. “Tell me what?” he asks.

With a jerky movement, like he’s fighting himself with the motion, Ranboo thrusts the book towards him.

For a moment, Tubbo just stares at it. The memory book is clenched so tightly in Ranboo’s grip that when Tubbo reaches out to take it, he has to yank, hard, to pull it out of his hand.

What the hell?

Tubbo holds the book above Michael, careful not to disturb him, and looks for the label. Do Not Read. Definitely Ranboo’s primary notebook, then. There are indentations in the cover from his nails.

Tubbo looks back up at Ranboo, bewildered. “You want me to… read it?”

Because Tubbo isn’t misreading the situation, Tubbo doesn’t misread situations, but he has to check. He read Ranboo’s book once, an earlier version. He knows the type of thing that’s written in there. It’s private. It’s supposed to be private.

“Please,” Ranboo pleads. His hands twitch like he wants to take it back.

Tubbo can’t hold back the frown anymore. Something about this is… off. He doesn’t think he wants to do this. “Can this wait until I put Michael to bed?”

“No!" Ranboo bursts out, catching an inhuman screech in his throat. The hairs on the back of Tubbo’s neck stand up. In his lap, Michael stirs with an unhappy murmur, but doesn’t wake up.

Despite his distinctive appearance, sometimes Tubbo almost forgets Ranboo isn’t human. Moments like these serve as a glaring reminder.

Ranboo visibly bites down another enderman noise. “You have to,” he says urgently. Tubbo thumbs over the pages of the book, but he still hesitates to open it. Ranboo is upset about something inside it, but he doesn’t...

“I— I’m not—” Ranboo struggles with the next few words, finally managing to force out, “I’m not safe.”

Tubbo’s ears buzz.

“What?” he hears himself say, setting aside the memory book like he’s puppeting his own body on a string. “No, you are.”

Ranboo shudders, pulling himself away from Tubbo and Michael. “I’m not,” he argues, voice shaking. “Tubbo— the book, please—”

Tubbo looks down. Gently, he brushes Michael’s hair out of his face. “No, I don’t need to,” he says dismissively. “Obviously, you’re safe.”

“No, but—”

“I’m safe. We’re safe,” Tubbo continues, reaching out to nudge the book further away. Whatever’s in there, he doesn’t want it. It doesn’t matter. “I don’t have anything to worry about with you. The most loyal citizen, remember?”

Ranboo gapes at him, the memory taking a moment to register. “Yeah, and then I betrayed you!”

He looks… really upset. Tubbo winces. He didn’t want to bring up the past. “No, you didn’t,” he says soothingly. “You were just trying to help, you didn’t mean to—”

“But I did!” Ranboo leans forwards, hands curled into fists. “Even if I don’t mean to, I could still—” He struggles again, trying to find words. “There’s so many reasons that I have to—”

“There’s no reasons,” Tubbo says firmly, meeting Ranboo’s eyes. “We don’t… There’s nothing bad, okay? We’re fine.”

Ranboo’s face twists. “What happened to the package, Tubbo?”

Tubbo blinks. The buzzing goes quiet for a second. “What package?”

“Earlier today,” Ranboo says sharply, “with Foolish. You left to get a package and then you came back twenty minutes later empty-handed and covered in snow.”

Tubbo’s hand, still cupping Michael’s face, freezes. Behind Ranboo, the trapdoor is open. He is, suddenly, very glad that Michael’s attic doesn’t have a door.

“There wasn’t any package,” Ranboo says accusingly. “You made up an excuse, and I don’t know why, because you don’t tell me anything and that’s— fine.” He fumbles. “But, that, it’s all secrets. That’s not—”

“So what?” Tubbo demands, skin crawling. He doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that Ranboo noticed that and he didn’t know.

“Things aren’t okay!” Ranboo’s voice raises. “It’s not, and I have to tell you, and I can’t!”

“Why do you have to tell me anything?” Tubbo snaps, matching his volume, growing louder. His hands itch and ache. “You don’t have to! We’re fine! There’s nothing going wrong!”

“Mm?”

Tubbo stops.

Michael sits up, blinking unsteadily. He looks between Tubbo and Ranboo in confusion.

Tubbo’s been leaning towards Ranboo aggressively. Ranboo is trembling violently, near vibrating with anger and distress. He’s looking Ranboo straight in the eyes, Tubbo realizes, and immediately ducks his head. Shit. Wait.

Michael’s eyes go teary.

“Ooh, no, no,” Ranboo mutters, carefully unclenching his fists. He reaches out, lifting Michael off Tubbo. “You really need to go to bed.”

Tubbo stays sitting where he is, still feeling stunned. The buzzing’s mostly faded out, but he clings to it anyway.

Ranboo glances down at Tubbo, reaching over to grab his memory book as he stands up. He hesitates, looking back to Michael. “I… Sorry,” he says quietly. “I don’t want to argue with you. We can talk tomorrow, okay?”

No. No, Tubbo doesn’t want to talk tomorrow.

Ranboo carries Michael over to his bed, and Tubbo stands up, heading over to the trapdoor. Something wrinkles under his feet, and he looks down.

Michael’s drawing. Himself, Michael, and Ranboo. Pink scribbled over his face. Pink itching over his skin.

Tubbo bends down and grabs the drawing. He folds the paper and tucks it into a pocket of his coat.

“Goodnight,” Ranboo whispers from the other side of the room. To Michael, probably.

“Goodnight,” Tubbo replies anyway, and slips out of the room.

He doesn’t want to argue with Ranboo, either. The whole situation is, in a word, fucked.

Here’s the thing: Tubbo knows Ranboo wouldn’t actually do anything to hurt him. Like, ever. Not even for laughs. He wouldn’t do anything to Michael, either.

So that whole conversation they just had? Bullshit. Utter bullshit, and Tubbo doesn’t know why the fuck he’s trying to pull some problem out of the air just to convince Tubbo there’s something wrong, because nothing is. Except kind of the missing nuke, but that’s only really stressful, not a real problem.

What’s bothering him the most is how Ranboo brought up what happened this afternoon.

He’d seen. He’d noticed. Ranboo had known Tubbo was lying.

He’d said it like an accusation, that Tubbo didn’t ever talk to him, that they were keeping secrets from each other. And… he’s not wrong, really, but it still pisses Tubbo off.

He can’t say he doesn’t mean to keep secrets, because he does. But it’s not like they’re anything important. It’s just the things he tries to live with, and he doesn’t need anyone trying to pry into his head and psychoanalyze him about it.

Thanks, Captain Puffy, but no. He doesn’t need fucking therapy or some professional wording just to deal with his own everyday life, that’s stupid. He’s got his own ways to get through living with himself.

Ranboo doesn’t need to occupy himself with all of Tubbo’s quirky bullshit. Tubbo’s version of normal isn’t anyone’s business but his own.

It used to be Tommy’s business, too, but he doesn’t think it is anymore.

And, well.

That’s the root of the problem, isn’t it?

Tubbo doesn’t have issues— he doesn’t have some fucking asterisk tagged onto his personality labelled ‘traumatized’ or whatever the fuck. Shit happens and he lives through it and sometimes he makes some changes to accommodate it. Like everyone does.

And for as long as he can remember, Tommy’s been right there with him. He and Tommy are far from the same people they were when they first met. They don’t always change in the same way— in opposite directions, even— but it’s always still been the two of them at the end of it all. They deal with things as they come and they deal with themselves and they deal with each other and then they move on.

Except Tommy’s stopped doing that.

Tommy doesn’t act like their normal is normal anymore. He singles out little things he doesn’t like and avoids them instead of just ignoring them, he does weird fucking rituals when something makes him freak, he goes and gets a therapist just so he can talk shit out. Tommy acts like there’s something about himself that he wants to fix.

And it’s working.

Tommy managed to map out his mind and smooth over the scuffed bits, and it worked. And Tubbo doesn’t know how to feel about that.

If Tommy found something to fix, and it worked, and he got better, that means there was something wrong.

More than that, it means the wrong thing was unnecessary.

That he didn’t just have to… get used to it.

Tommy and Tubbo dealt with things together, and there was nothing wrong. And then Tommy decided there was, and he was proven right, and then he fixed it.

Tubbo… didn’t.

Where does that leave him?

And it’s not like he doesn’t want Tommy to heal from whatever shit that’s happened to him, if that’s an option. If Tommy’s not happy with the way their life was, then he should try to fix it. He should, and he is, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but...

But.

Tubbo misses it.

The way things were. The way they’d talked about it. The way they’d dealt with it, when it was just the two of them.

Tubbo misses when Tommy described bad days as a bunch of feathers stuffed in his head, so it was hard to think but also warm. He misses hearing Tommy say some incomprehensible bullshit to make sense of what he’s feeling, and he misses immediately being able to relate it to his own mind, to the buzzing always present at the edge of his hearing that he tunes into when conversations get uncomfortable.

Now Tommy talks about dissociating and trauma responses and coping mechanisms. It’s still Tommy— he puts the accent on odd syllables. He draws the words out like he’s tasting every sound. But he uses them like it’s instinctive.

Tubbo feels small and stupid, unfamiliar terms buzzing around his head and never quite settling inside. He feels like he’s staring at a page, desperately trying to resolve nonsense scribbles into letters while everyone else flips through the book with ease. He feels like he’s not in on the scheme. He’s not used to feeling like that with Tommy.

Is this what Tommy felt like when he came back to life? The image flashes through Tubbo’s mind; Tommy, skinnier and jumpier than he should be, staring down at his and Ranboo’s intertwined hands and matching rings, confused and impossibly hurt for some reason Tubbo didn’t understand. The way he avoided Snowchester and kept snapping at Ranboo.

Was it like this? The nagging feeling of being left behind, forgotten about, like he’s missed out on the context that explained why the world was moving on without him? Tubbo isn’t particularly inclined to avoid Tommy or his house— the opposite, actually. But when Captain Puffy had dropped by today...

Tubbo hadn’t snapped at her. He’d been quite polite, actually. But he’d been leaning into the buzzing in his mind to get away from the cold knot of resentment in his chest.

Tubbo hadn’t understood the feeling at the time. He thinks he gets it now.

Captain Puffy is the one who taught Tommy the right words. Tubbo should be happy about that. He is happy that Tommy is doing better.

But he’s doing better without Tubbo. Tubbo is sitting in a cottage in the tundra, pushing the past away but never letting it go, trying desperately to freeze a peaceful moment so he can live in it forever and unchanging. Tommy is moving on. Letting himself learn everything that’s twisted into his mind. Learning how to untangle it.

Tubbo is left trying to balance the weight of every unknown about himself while Tommy gets to shed pieces of that burden. Tommy has always been taller than him, but now it feels like he’s standing straighter.

Is it horribly selfish of him, to feel like Tommy getting better means he’s leaving Tubbo alone? Is it unfair of him to think of it as a betrayal?

It must be.

God, he's a fucking awful friend.

Tommy gets to talk to a therapist and learn the right words and use them to know how to get better and move on. Ranboo gets to figure himself out and find the problems and talk about them and move on.

Tubbo doesn’t want to talk about it. He doesn’t want to change the way he’s always dealt with himself. He doesn’t want there to be anything wrong with him.

He’s trying to move on anyway.

He doesn’t think it’s working.

Ranboo doesn’t mention their conversation the next day. He busies himself with getting Michael up and ready to check out the new house and doesn’t really talk to Tubbo at all. Tubbo thinks he should probably be grateful for that. Mostly he just feels tired.

Tubbo glances at the clock after breakfast. He clears his throat. “Foolish said eleven thirty, right?”

Ranboo’s occupied with clearing the table, and for a moment, he’s afraid that Ranboo won’t answer him at all. Then Ranboo looks over at the clock and mutters, “Right, yeah, he did. Can you get Michael’s shoes and coat?”

He’d normally say no before ultimately doing it anyway, just to be difficult— Tubbo considers lightly pushing his husband’s buttons as a staple of their marriage. He’s not sure how Ranboo would feel about that today, though. He goes to get the coat and shoes.

When Tubbo returns to the kitchen, Ranboo is trying to convince Michael that his socks are not going to eat his feet. This is a discussion they’ve had several times before.

“Come on,” Ranboo coaxes, trying to keep the alarmed toddler from squirming off his lap. “Just for a little while, okay? We don’t want you to freeze.”

Tubbo drops down into a crouch next to them, barely thinking about their previous conversation in face of parental woes. “If your feet were going to be eaten, it would’ve happened last time,” he points out.

Michael pauses his thrashing, apparently not having considered this excellent point.

Ranboo takes the chance to tug on one sock. Distracted from his epiphany, Michael opens his mouth to scream.

“If you keep them on, I’ll give you one of Ranboo’s gold blocks,” Tubbo says quickly. Michael quiets immediately. He stares up at them with starry, delighted eyes.

“One of my gold blocks, huh?” Ranboo mutters, pulling the other sock on.

Tubbo passes him Michael’s boots next. “Well, yeah,” he says, hoping his voice sounds casual. “I’m not gonna go digging for it myself.”

“Seems to me that’s what you’re doing already,” Ranboo says, but his tone is teasing, and something in Tubbo relaxes.

“What can I say?” He sits back on his heels, watching Ranboo wrap Michael in his coat. “I’m a very successful scavenger.”

Ranboo scoffs, lighthearted. “Yeah, sure you are. Sure.” He zips up Michael’s coat. “Should probably get going.”

“Probably,” Tubbo agrees, still tense, but not as uneasy. Nothing quite like raising a child to bring people together, apparently.

Tommy and Foolish are both waiting for them outside the mansion. Tommy’s sitting on the railing in the front hall, complaining. No armour today, Tubbo notes, surprised.

“Man, I learned what gentrification was the other day, and you are a part of the problem,” Tommy is saying to Foolish. “Fucking… chandeliers? Really? My good friend Ninja lives in a six by four wooden shack, you tacky bitch.”

“It’s what they wanted me to build,” Foolish says indignantly. “I’m under contract!”

“They got married at seventeen, I don’t think anyone should be trusting them to make proper life decisions,” Tommy tells him.

Ranboo clears his throat. “...Hey, guys.”

Foolish looks incredibly relieved to be escaping that conversation. “Hi, Ranboo! Tubbo!” He catches sight of the small figure holding Ranboo’s hand and his eyes brighten. “Michael!”

“What’s up, Ranboo, we were just talking about how incredibly poor your judgement is,” Tommy greets, sliding off the stair railing.

“I heard,” Ranboo says dryly. He steps aside to let Foolish crouch down and say hello to Michael, who reaches out to boop Foolish on the nose. “You do know Tubbo commissioned most of this, right?”

“What’s up, Tubbo, we were just talking about how incredibly poor your judgement is,” Tommy says, immediately switching tracks. “Particularly in marrying this dickhead. Not your smartest move, my friend.”

Tubbo decides to ignore the second half of that, mainly because right now he’s unsure how he could respond. “I’m actually here to see the results of that poor judgement,” he tells him. “The fruits of my labour, if you will.”

“My labour,” Foolish interjects, standing back up.

“My money,” Tubbo reminds him.

“My money,” Ranboo corrects.

“Shared bank account, bitch.” Tubbo turns to Foolish. “Tour time?”

“Tour time!” Foolish claps excitedly. “Okay, so I made you guys stairs right here, some nice indoor balconies— don’t worry, though, there’s a rail so Michael won’t fall or anything, and up here…”

Foolish leads them up the big staircase in the centre of the front hall, talking all the while. Tubbo stays with him, near the front of their little procession. Not at all because he’s trying to avoid being awkward with Ranboo in front of Foolish and Tommy or anything. He’s just very interested in how Foolish did the wall paneling. Really.

“So I was choosing between spruce and oak for this bit, and— oh!” Foolish notices something down the hallway opposite them and immediately changes their course, leading the five of them to the left. “Look, look, look, this is one of the best parts!”

In front of them is a massive carved wooden door inlaid with sparkling stained glass. “Holy shit,” Tubbo says, staring at it, and hears Tommy echo the words a few seconds after.

Ranboo whistles. “That must’ve taken forever.”

“Oh, it did! It really did! Had to use the panic room a few times, but I finished it! And all the other ones, too!” Foolish beckons them forwards, grabbing something off a hook on the wall before setting a hand on the door handle. Both the hand and the handle are the same shade of shiny gold.

Michael squeals happily, reaching for the handle as Foolish unlocks the door. He hangs the key back on the peg as he heads through. “Lots of security!” he assures them.

“Awesome,” Ranboo says, looking wide-eyed up at the high ceiling.

“Cool as fuck,” Tubbo agrees absently, nudging Michael through the door so he doesn’t stay fixated on the gold and then get lost.

“Class traitor,” Tommy mutters.

“I don’t think that’s what that means,” Ranboo remarks.

Foolish waves them forward. “There’s more over here!”

Tubbo follows along with him, through several more hallways, through more and more decorated doors into more and more enormous rooms. Contrary to his earlier words, though, he is not feeling cool as fuck. He’s actually feeling a little bit uneasy again. The feeling strengthens as they step past another door into the hallway.

He’s overreacting, Tubbo tells himself. It’s just a house.

Foolish is leading them down the hallway towards another set of doors, Ranboo and Michael close at his heels. Tubbo doesn’t realize he’s slowed down until Tommy stops walking next to him. “What’cha looking at?”

Uh. Shit. Tubbo nods vaguely over at the bookshelves on the wall opposite them. “There’s lots of… potential for books.”

He ignores the baffled look that gets him, instead hurrying a bit to catch up. He reaches the next room just as Foolish is bringing Ranboo over to one wall to look at something, some mechanism he added to a closet. And Tubbo thinks of yesterday.

He still can’t remember exactly what he was thinking when he’d left the house. Even the details of what he did are kind of fuzzy. He doesn’t want that to happen again. Especially not with the same people as last time.

Tubbo needs to step out for a moment before that happens. Just to calm down.

He can’t make himself step through the doorway.

“Tubbo, you coming?” Foolish calls from across the room, and— Tubbo can’t think of a lie that he can use here. He can’t say he forgot something or needs to go get something. Ranboo noticed, last time. He’d notice this time.

“In a minute, I’m going to get some air,” Tubbo ends up saying, and then turns on his heel and walks back down the hallway, ignoring the questions coming from behind him.

Just for a minute. He’s just got to clear his head.

...Tubbo’s not actually sure how to get outside from here.

That’s not helping. His lungs feel like they’re being squeezed.

It is possibly due to this perceived lack of oxygen, and the impaired judgement that comes with it, that Tubbo doesn’t hesitate when he sees the open window.

It is surprisingly easy to crawl out and maneuver himself onto the roof, Tubbo finds. It’s angled in such a way that Tubbo can sit down on the shingles without any fear of losing his balance and then falling and dying with no one ever knowing how it happened.

He really needs to calm down.

Tubbo buries his face in his knees and breathes. The lack of walls around him helps, morning air cool against his skin.

Counting breaths. One, in. Two, out. Three, in. Four, out.

The roof creaks. Tubbo looks up.

Tommy slides down to sit beside him. “Fucking stuffy in there, isn’t it?”

Tubbo… didn’t expect anyone to follow him.

Tommy tries to shift to sit with his legs crossed underneath him and nearly pitches off the roof, but Tubbo snatches the back of his shirt before he can fall. “Why’re you out here?” he questions.

“Well, you’re clearly not doing too hot,” Tommy says.

Tubbo stiffens slightly. He can feel his hands balling into fists and lets them, since it’s a good way to express distress that isn’t visible on his face. “Didn’t think you’d…”

“Notice? Tubbo, you told me you got distracted by the potential for books,” Tommy says incredulously. “You hate reading.”

...Yeah. Not his best excuse. Fairly on par, really, considering that he once pretended he was pregnant.

Tubbo doesn’t reply.

He doesn’t know if he wants to talk to Tommy about anything like this. He doesn’t know if that’s changed.

He doesn’t particularly want to find out.

He can feel Tommy eyeing him keenly, and holds back a shiver. Don’t let it fucking show when he’s uncomfortable.

It’s Tommy, though. Tubbo shivers.

“Claustrophobic?” Tommy asks after a second, and Tubbo doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that Tommy can still read him so well.

“I shouldn’t be,” Tubbo bites out, irritated. His fingernails are digging into his palms. Even on the roof, he still feels tense. There is open air in front of him. The closest window is three feet to his left and up a bit, the one they came in through. Tommy scooted around him when he sat down, so there’s nothing blocking the window from Tubbo. “It’s all fucking giant.”

“Yeah, but it’s not really small spaces for you,” Tommy points out, annoyingly casual about it. “More… I don’t remember the L’manburg podium having many escape routes. ‘Specially not while you’re in a box.”

“You’re a bit of a bitch sometimes,” Tubbo says.

“You’re a bitch all the time,” Tommy shoots back. “And a pussy. You’re pussying out of telling me why you’re actually up here.”

Tubbo drops his chin back on his knees, sullen. “Well, you fucking said it, didn’t you?”

He’s not looking at Tommy, but he hears him huff in frustration. “What about it’s giving you claustrophobia? Give me something to work with here, man.”

“Why do you need to work with anything?” Tubbo makes himself release his fists, latching onto the shingles instead. He knows his tone is sharp, but he doesn’t really care. “You could just go back inside.”

“Nah,” Tommy says simply. “Don’t want to. We’re talking about your feelings now, bitch.”

Tubbo digs his fingernails into the shingles and tries to decide whether or not to talk.

Tommy leans back onto the shingles, reclining as much as the slope of the roof allows. “What is it about the house?” he asks, uncharacteristically patient. “Not enough secret tunnels? Is it ‘cause it’s a fucking maze and you don’t know where everything goes? Did you come around and realize it’s pretentious as hell? Fucking big fancy doors everywhere—”

“The doors,” Tubbo says, surprising even himself. He hadn’t meant to talk— Tommy had been devolving into more jokes than serious concern, but in a weird way that made it easier. Not as serious. Not that much of a confession. “Doors are fucking everywhere. They’re in every room. And they all lock.”

Because Tommy had been right, before. Tubbo doesn’t like not having a confirmed exit plan.

It would be very easy for someone to close a door in the mansion and lock it, maybe even by accident.

Easy to be trapped in.

Easy to be boxed in.

“Get Foolish to take out the doors, then,” Tommy says, like it’s obvious.

Tubbo wraps his arms around his knees. “I don’t know if he’s paid enough to do that,” he tries.

“You have a goddamn bee dome,” Tommy says flatly. “Make him take out the doors.”

“Ranboo might want them still.”

“Ranboo bumps into every door frame he sees. He’s disgustingly tall. I guarantee you he will not care if you knock them down. He will probably help you.” Tommy knocks his shoulder lightly into Tubbo’s. “Shit, I’ll help you. Make a fucking day of it. It’ll be worth it if, uh. If we get to vandalize stuff.”

The shingles underneath Tubbo are cold, cold enough that he can feel it through his clothes. He mumbles the truth into his knees. He almost hopes Tommy doesn’t hear it. He almost hopes he does.

“Eh?” Tommy asks, leaning forwards again.

He’s listening for it this time. It makes it harder to say. “I don’t want to tell them,” Tubbo repeats, staring determinedly forwards, at the small, wintery town only a couple hundred feet away.

Beside him, Tommy hums, a deliberate noise that sounds nothing like buzzing. “Who said you have to tell them?”

“I don’t think Ranboo would like it very much if I wrecked our house for no reason.” And he’s already ticked off at me, Tubbo doesn’t say.

“Clearly married the wrong fucking guy, then,” Tommy mumbles, but gets serious again quickly. He grasps Tubbo’s shoulder and turns him around so he can look him in the eyes. “Who made me soulspeed boots, Tubbo?”

Tubbo hesitates. “...I did?”

He still doesn’t really remember doing that, but the idea is familiar. Tubbo may have an idea why. He thinks of going out to check the mailbox yesterday, how blurry those details are.

Tommy doesn’t wait for him to get past the realization that the buzzing may be slightly more of an issue than Tubbo had convinced himself. “Who put up a list of all the foods you and Michael like and don’t like in your kitchen?”

“I did,” Tubbo repeats. He’s not sure where he’s going with this.

“Why does the soulspeed tunnel have an automatic dryer?” Tommy prompts.

“It’s convenient,” Tubbo says. Tommy raises his eyebrows. “...Ranboo doesn’t like to be wet.”

“Why do we go a different way every time we’re going to the spider spawner?”

Tubbo blinks at him. “...Because you don’t like seeing the stuff in the museum?”

Tommy leans back, looking pleased. “There you go,” he says. “Did we have to tell you all our reasons for any of that for you to do it?”

“You did,” Tubbo points out, “with the museum.”

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Well, you still fucking did it, didn’t you?” he asks rhetorically. “Ranboo doesn’t ask you to do shit, but you still do it. Be a bit of a hypocrite if he didn’t return the favour.”

He doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it, though, especially after yesterday. “It’s different, it’s not something he’d just know,” Tubbo tries to explain. “We’d have to have a whole fucking conversation, and it’d just suck, okay?”

Tommy grabs his arm and pulls him down to lie next to him on the roof. Tubbo yelps, scrambling for a moment, but Tommy doesn’t let him go until they’re both stable. “You don’t have to have some serious talk to admit you’ve got a problem with it.”

“I can deal with it, though,” Tubbo protests, disgruntled. “We don’t have to make something out of it.”

Tommy, lying across from him, frowns at Tubbo and goes quiet.

Tubbo doesn’t know what that means. It might mean he’s just won this argument.

He doesn’t know if he wants to win this argument.

He doesn’t want to tell anyone about his shit. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to make himself do it.

He almost wants Tommy to argue him down, just so he can have an excuse to.

“I really fucking hate wearing armour,” Tommy says out of the blue.

Too startled by that to school his expression, Tubbo gapes at him.

Tommy’s always wearing armour.

“What?”

Tommy shrugs, the motion made awkward by his position. He looks, briefly, very uncomfortable, but he talks anyway. “Yeah. It’s too hot and it’s tight and it’s fucking awful. Never feel like me when it’s on.” He pauses and then rushes out, “Just don’t feel safe enough not to wear any, usually.”

“Oh,” Tubbo says, not sure what else to say.

“And you never say shit when I turn up at your house in full iron, eh?” Tommy rolls slightly to prop his head up on his hands and looks back to Tubbo. “It’s just a fucking accommodation, man, it’s not any different when it’s for you.”

“You’re not wearing any now,” Tubbo points out. He doesn’t want to try and make an argument for the second part. He doesn’t know how he would.

Tommy exhales in a long sigh. “Yeah. I’m working on it. But I should get to walk around and feel safe, alright?”

By the meaningful look Tommy gives him, it’s pretty clear that Tommy is not only talking about himself.

“Oh,” Tubbo says again, quietly. He sits up.

“Yeah, oh,” Tommy huffs. “Bared my fucking soul and all I get is an ‘oh’? Asshole.”

He’s going for a joke, Tubbo thinks, but he doesn’t laugh. “Ranboo wanted to tell me something yesterday. Got real upset about it.”

Tommy glances back at him. “Eh?”

Tubbo brings his knees up to his chest. “I told him I didn’t want to hear it ‘cause I didn’t think we had any problems.”

“Oh,” Tommy says, and squints at him. “That was a bit shit of you, but he’s pretty fucking stupid if he doesn’t know that’s a lie.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo says. It was a lie. “It was pretty shit.”

Tubbo lies a lot, doesn’t he?

He lies about a lot of things.

He wants to stop doing that. It'll be hard to break the habit, but it will probably be worth it.

It would be a lot easier, Tubbo thinks, just to say what he means.

“It’s disgusting how soft you two get with each other, though, so I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Tommy continues, ignoring how Tubbo’s thoughts turn over in his head. He’s being reassuring, in his way.

Tubbo rests his forehead on his knees. “Ranboo is a good cook,” he says, muffled into his legs.

He hears Tommy go quiet beside him, and then, “I know.”

“Sorry.”

“Nah.”

“I am.”

“I know.” Tommy bumps their shoulders together again. “I get it.” Another pause. “I, uh, I didn’t mean what I said a couple days ago, by the way. You’re… fragile. Delicate. Easily pierceable.”

Tubbo lifts his head, unsure whether or not to be offended. “Huh?”

“Never mind,” Tommy dismisses. “I’m fucking freezing, wanna go back in?”

Tubbo considers it. He feels like he can breathe. There’s no buzzing in his ears.

“...Yeah.” Tubbo gets up, carefully getting to his feet on the slippery shingles. “Let’s go.”

Tommy steps around him, leaning forward to grab the edge of the window. “I swear to god if you fucking push me off,” he mutters as Tubbo slides through, back into the house. “You’re paying my therapy bill if you kill me.”

“Sure,” Tubbo snorts, leaning against the hallway wall so Tommy can climb through after him, and then pauses.

It’s not different when it’s for Tubbo, Tommy had said. He should feel safe. He should feel like he’s safe with people.

He doesn’t like not knowing. He wants to say what he’s thinking.

“Tommy,” Tubbo says as the two of them start down the hallway, “what’s dissociating?”

“You know how I said you feel like you’ve got a bunch of feathers all stuffed in your head?” Tommy starts to explain, and Tubbo thinks that they'll probably be okay.

He avoids Ranboo for the rest of the tour. Not really on purpose, but it feels a bit awkward to talk with Foolish around. But he waves them off in an hour, and Tommy makes his exit— something about an appointment— and then it’s just Tubbo and Ranboo and Michael again, and Tubbo doesn’t have any excuses to put it off.

“Hey,” Tubbo says after he’s helped Michael take off his boots. “Uh. Can we…”

“Were you okay?” Ranboo blurts out before Tubbo can finish. He looks slightly apologetic at the interruption, but pushes forward. “You and Tommy were gone for a while there.”

And— if he’s honest with himself, then Tubbo knows he doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that Ranboo could tell that something was wrong.

But there’s something warm, too, at the thought that Ranboo cared enough to notice.

There’s buzzing in his ears, but Tubbo doesn’t listen to it.

Tubbo doesn’t like thinking of problems he has as obvious, or abnormal, or that big a deal. He likes to deal with things as they come.

Still, he can’t exactly deal with anything if he’s pretending those things aren’t there. He thinks that’s where he’s been fucking up a little, with his family.

Ranboo and Michael and Snowchester are a new start for Tubbo, not a blank slate. He’s still himself. Being part of their family doesn’t magically erase his problems, and he doesn’t want caring for them to feel like running.

“Yeah,” Tubbo tells Ranboo. “About that.”

He doesn’t want to talk it all out, really. He doesn’t want to put himself under that microscope. Tubbo doesn’t want to feel like there’s something wrong with him.

But it’s so fucking lonely, doing this on his own. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with him, maybe this is just the way he is, but if there’s a way to make that life easier to live, then Tubbo is tired of pretending he doesn’t need it.

He’s tired of hurting himself by pretending things are okay. He’s tired of hurting his family by pretending things are okay. There’s no one left to hurt them if Tubbo stops pretending things are okay. He doesn’t know what he’s so scared of happening if he stops.

Tubbo likes to fix things. And if that involves talking about it?

It will probably suck. It will be uncomfortable. Tubbo won’t like it.

But here are the reasons why Tubbo can do it anyway: he has Tommy, and he has Ranboo and Michael, and Dream is imprisoned and Technoblade won't touch them and Wilbur's not a threat, and Tubbo doesn’t have to be afraid of setting off this nuclear bomb sitting in the back of his throat.

He doesn't have to say everything out loud. He doesn't have to sign up for Captain Puffy's next available time slot. He doesn't have to give anyone an itemized list of all the ways he's been fucked up since Dream first stole those discs. He doesn't owe that to anybody.

But this? This is something he owes to himself.

“I want to talk,” Tubbo says. “About what you wanted to tell me last night. And there’s some stuff I want to tell you, too.”

He’s going to ask Ranboo to help him take down the doors.

Ranboo is staring at him, and his eyes are both confused and desperately relieved. Soft pink and orange light spills from the living room into the hallway, and in the other room, Tubbo can hear Michael running around.

“Now?” Ranboo asks, hesitantly, hopefully.

Tubbo tries to smile. It comes out a little shaky. “Yeah. Now.”

“Okay,” Ranboo breathes. He shifts on his feet nervously. “Okay. Living room?”

“Sure,” Tubbo agrees.

As he steps forward, he feels something crinkle in his jacket pocket. Confused, Tubbo pulls it out.

“What’s that?” Ranboo asks, leaning over his shoulder as Tubbo unfolds the paper.

It’s the picture Michael drew, the paper slightly battered but the three figures still standing out in stark colour. The pink line streaks through it. “Michael drew it,” Tubbo answers.

“Oh.” Ranboo reaches out, tracing the edges of the paper with his fingers. He touches the pictures of Michael and Tubbo. “I like it. Can we hang it up?”

Tubbo looks down at the drawing. A drawing of him and his family. There’s pink scribbled over his skin.

It’s a good drawing.

“Yeah,” Tubbo says. “Yeah, we can.”