Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part One: Conviction

(A strongly held belief; or, a verdict of guilt)

Crimson

The white cell walls got really boring after a while. That’s why Tommy made sure to leave bright crimson smears everywhere. There, slapped across the doorframe, lay a tally of all the times he’d left. Which, admittedly, wasn’t that frequently, but Tommy was happy enough that the top was a consistent carmine. And ok, maybe some of the sides of the frame were also a little red—which wasn’t because he was short, it was because sometimes he didn’t have time to jump for it. The guards liked to pretend time mattered, that there was always a rush to get anywhere to fit in some schedule. Tommy knew for a fact time didn’t mean anything, a testament to his least-favorite wall. When they first caught him, he’d started a counter. The scarlet fingerprints numbered to about thirty, but then he’d done something wrong. He couldn’t remember what, only that he hadn’t been able to continue the tally because of the restraints. He’d lost track, and when he was finally trusted enough, Tommy didn’t know what the count was supposed to be. He didn’t have the motivation to continue, and there wasn’t a point, as he’d realized neither the ‘night’ nor meal periods were consistent enough to mark the days, and gave up. He knew he was sixteen, but he’d been that age for a while. Maybe one day, he’d just declare himself to have a birthday. Probably while visiting Philza, that way he could maybe get something. Well, not that Phil would have anything other than a toothbrush, plastic cup, and one of those terrible anti-shank razors, but Tommy was ever the optimist. Maybe Philza would shower him with compliments, and declare Tommy his most favorite Collected. Which was definitely a thing. Probably. Tommy wasn’t sure of all the rules to it. Anyway, he didn't want to have the party in his own cell, even if it did look nice. 

The next interior design project had been the border, in which Tommy demarcated every corner he could. The nice thing about the padded cell was it offered creases in between the paneling, offering him the option to scale the walls to the best of his ability, handprints forever remembered in bright vermillion. He hadn’t ever made it to bordering the ceiling. It didn’t really matter that much, and climbing was very exhausting. The walls were at least four times his height, that being the only metric available to him. A few trails reached the ceiling, but only when there was a goal, primarily to cover the cameras or investigate the vent. It was about half way up the wall, and he’d done it once when he’d been desperate to leave (the early days being the worst by far) and so his scrabbling sanguine fingernails scratching at the screws was to remain there as a badge of shame. There wasn’t much security against him, but even the most basic was effective. It was...embarrassing, but really the only person he actually bothered about and was allowed to see was Philza, and since they thought Tommy a lot safer, Tommy was always the one to move. Philza said they had some sort of hierarchy of threats that structured protocols. (It couldn’t have been all that accurate if Tommy wasn’t at the top, but, hey, they’d never met him in a dark alley. Ooooh, if he had a knife, who knows what he’d do. Well, probably accidentally drop it or something, but big talk was part of his charm, Tommy knew.) All it really meant was no one he actually cared about would see his feeble escape attempt, but sadly also never see any of his other design choices. None of his new ones, anyways.

Another concentration of handprints was on the observation window. The architects had rudely made it a one-way window. Tommy decided to make it a no-way not-window, just to rub it in their faces. They could wash it off all they wanted; Tommy always made more of the pigment, and had all the time in the world to meticulously repaint the surface. If they ever rewashed it too often for his liking, Tommy would relent and offer them a few gaps— from in between the various curse words and insults he painted on. Tommy had gotten pretty good at writing backwards, and would be fairly proud of his efforts, if only the words would stay as he wrote them. Tommy wasn’t sure what caused it, but any cuss word would always rearrange its lettering into the word ‘muffin’ of all things. He wasn’t sure why, and only knew that it made him more irritated, leading to more...inventive insults for the onlookers to receive. Tommy knew they deserved it, though. If they wanted to observe him, they could at least do it from inside. It was more entertaining that way, and Tommy was always bored. 

Because it was always sooooooo dull. 

Thankfully, some god (probably Philza, or Jesus) bestowed on him entertainment for the day, because alongside his meal tray arrived two twitching new employees. One of them (who Tommy was Definitely taller than) had wide fearful hazel eyes tucked behind round glasses that traced Tommy’s interior design choices. His pale skin went, if possible, paler, causing the freckles to stand out. His breathing became more and more rapid, legs tensed and ready to bolt away from Tommy. The other one, a woman, held his meal. Short and heavy, with bronze skin and curly hair pulled back. Her lab coat was a tad too large, and had a big rip down one side, threads fraying into a downright hazardous level of green. Presumably, the previous owner’s dying blood had been successfully scrubbed out of the fabric, making the fact the viridian stayed rather impressive. Tommy perked up at the sight. It had been a while since he’d seen a girl. She gingerly sat down his tray. Tommy scowled at this, both in the fact that he’d have to retrieve it as well as the fact it was Brown day. He much preferred the Grey nutrition they tried to pretend was real food to that of the Brown. Alongside it was a juice box. Tommy brightened at this. Maybe he’d done something good this week, and this was a reward. He didn’t know what for, though. What was the point of conditioning him if he didn’t see the correlation? The pair stepped back, still fairly far from the door, but equidistant from the tray. The guy was slightly farther back, looking like his terror had doubled. “You can eat now,” the woman enunciated clearly, if hesitantly. 

Tommy padded over, plopping down on the soft white flooring. He wrinkled his nose, snatching the Brown bar and raising it to his mouth before freezing. “Are you just gonna watch me eat or…” The woman looked shocked at his words. The man, oddly enough, scowled. “Cause, I’m not going to offer you any Brown...unless...you’re new, right? That could be my welcoming gift. Let me just say, Brown is wayyy better than Grey, trust me, so if you’d trade me some I’d be happy to let you have some Brown. As a treat, for being new here.” Hopefully they’d fall for it and give him some Grey. If they did they’d be fools; everyone knew Grey was better than Brown. They’d deserve it at that point, really.

The pair stood still, before the man seemed to weigh some sort of decision in his mind, and booked it. The door, as always, was locked from the outside. It was...annoying that the Foundation would use him as training. It was probably worse for the employees who started off in Tommy’s room, anyways. Yeah, Tommy was a Big Man, and Alpha Male, and all that, but his intentional mortality rate at the Foundation was pretty low...zero, actually. Not that Tommy’s intentions really meant anything. Regardless, it was probably a disservice to lower their guard this much. Once the higher ups decided they’d been ‘shown the ropes’, in all likelihood the next assignment would leave them hung by the necks. Eh. Wasn’t in Tommy’s power to stop bad management from getting the newbies killed. It was actually kinda funny, once he’d lost all pity. No one who wore that lab coat deserved sympathy anyways. Whatever choices led you to don it meant you had what was coming to you. He could tell himself that at least.

The man was banging at the door, but all sound was lost in the plush fabric. Practically the only thing that wasn’t padded was the window. He clawed at the place a doorknob might have been, echoing the scarlet scratches Tommy had left from the same fruitless endeavor. Eventually, he ran out of effort, flipping to press his back against the wall. The woman had turned to the side, keeping an eye on her partner as well as Tommy, who was gnawing at the Brown sustenance. The Foundation better have a good dental plan, since Tommy was sure he’d break a tooth eventually. He knew for a fact there were tons of ‘doctors’, but they didn’t count and shouldn’t ever be remembered. He hadn’t managed to crack a molar yet, but it was probably only a matter of time.

“I didn’t know you talked,” the woman said slowly. She caught him off guard, and he awkwardly looked up mid bite. Her accent wasn’t American, so that was fantastic. It also wasn’t British but, hey, they couldn’t all be winners. She fiddled with the end of her long chestnut ponytail, which might have been a nervous tic. Her enunciation was slow, like she was talking to a child, which Tommy definitely wasn’t. Unfortunately, teeth sunk halfway into a bite of Brown, he found himself unable to respond. She filled the silence with a mutter he probably wasn’t supposed to catch. “They didn’t say there'd be children…” And in one sentence Tommy had a mortal enemy. His murderous thoughts were interrupted when the guy yelled out suddenly. 

“That isn’t a child!-” Hey, Tommy was starting to like the guy! Respecting his age was a great way to score Tommy points. “-it’s not even human! That’s a monster, you know that! It’s only pretending to be human!” Oh, ok, scratch that, the lady could be his second nemesis; this guy was now numero uno. Tommy finally wrenched his teeth from being entrenched in the Brown, dramatically spitting out the remainders from his mouth and preparing to speak. This was interrupted by a series of coughs. Some voice in his head whispered, “That’s why you finish chewing, m̷̱͖̜̍̌ų̴̔f̸̛̲f̸͚͛i̵͍̅ń̴̬er. Choke to death, that’s a great way to go.” It was probably Philza, and also probably right. The new hires thankfully stopped to watch him, and he raised a finger in a gesture that asked for a second. Then, a second passed and he was still coughing. When they eventually subsided, Tommy was fairly annoyed at that point, and the employees were just kinda. Standing there. Awkwardly. The guy had only suspicion in his eyes, the woman holding something in her gaze that was almost concern. 

“Ok, first off, I am NOT a monster! That is very rude, I am offended. I’m going to cancel you. Second off, go to m̷̖̚u̵̧͌f̸̗̅f̷̃͜i̶̕͜n̷̏͜, man, and third-”

The man broke into hysterics, crying out, “You literally smeared the walls in blood! Your hands are dripping with it!”

Tommy was brought up short by this, wrinkling his nose. “That’s not blood.” Currently, the Red was at about wrist level, which was its typical amount. Safe. It was safe. Fine. Nothing to worry about. It hitched up a smidge, defying gravity in order to crawl up his arm, and he frowned at the looping tendrils of fluid.

“Oh, suuuure. Then what is it then?” The man scoffed. 

“I dunno,” Tommy shrugged. He wasn’t exactly sure how to go about explaining Red, and didn’t feel any pressing need to, either. “If it were blood, tho, it'd be all dried and brown, wouldn’t it? Hmm big man? Ever think about that?” Honestly, had they never seen dried blood coating the walls and floor, spilling and crawling towards you, gushing forth from throats and sides and heads, unending, unceasing, seeping into the floor, the building, the dreams that kept you up at night? It looked nothing like Tommy’s walls. Well, maybe when it first started, but blood always darkened quickly. He was very aware of the fact, of all the shades blood could be given time. Tommy’s Red was always freshly vibrant. Maybe he should sell it as paint. It didn’t have any effect when dry, so it could work. Then he’d make loads of cash and be very rich and successful. But paint didn’t wash off...of course, that’d be part of the scam! He could be very rich and successful from selling people bad paint just as easily. If he was rich and successful then maybe he could afford to eat Grey every day instead of the gross Brown he was currently consuming. Or, maybe, he could buy actual food. It had been ages since he had food. 

Once he finished his meal, the woman mulled something over, redoing her ponytail twice. The pause stretched on, but, really, Tommy had all the time in the world. She fixed him with a bright if blatantly false smile. “We’ve been tasked with…enrichment, I believe Dr. Blake said…” Tommy nodded. That sounded about right. “Do you have a preference for how we proceed, Mr….” She looked down to a clipboard, scanning it. Her brows furrowed, and after a moment she began to slowly run through a terribly familiar string of numbers. Ugh. Tommy hated his number. She winced meeting his scowl, ducking her gaze back to the information. “Do you prefer being referred to as The Instigator, then?”

Tommy didn’t like either of the designations the Foundation gave him. The numerical moniker always felt so dehumanizing. Or de-personizing, given he wasn’t human enough for them. But the other name…it made him feel like a person. A bad person.  “I go by Tommy, actually, seeing as it’s, y’know, my name,” he said shortly. 

“Oh,” the worker sighed. “Good. The other two seemed so awkward to use and difficult to remember. Um. Nice name, it suits you.” Tommy allowed himself to be mollified. She was right, after all, since his number and title sucked and Tommy was obviously the best name ever. 

“Mind giving me your names?” He might as well return the civility. 

The lady almost responded, but the guy quickly interjected, “Don’t! It’s a trick! It’s like the fey!”

Tommy pouted at this. “I’m not some fairy! I’m not small and winged and sparkly! Ooooooh if I was, I’d fly all around, zoom, zoom, right into they eye sockets. I’d be so powerful. No one’d expect me going for their eyes. They’d just be going on, walking through the forest and BAM! Who’s blind now, m̸͈̑ů̶̦f̴̳͋f̴̮̚i̵̧͒ń̶̪head?” The workers shared a glance that Tommy didn’t bother decoding. The ginger man looked enraged, and she retreated her gaze uncomfortably to her report. It piqued the teen’s interest. “Oooh, can I see? I love reading about myself.” The woman debated, probably weighing the likelihood of it getting her killed, before cautiously walking over and tilting the clipboard for him to see. Tommy snatched it, slamming it down to use the floor as a table. A glaring error jumped out at him, and he looked back up at the employee. “Can I have your pen?”

“What for?”

“Corrections.”

“I didn’t know the data was flawed, that’s all they would give me…I didn’t even have sufficient time to plan...” she trailed off while handing it over. Tommy immediately scratched out the Very Incorrect data under the height section, writing in 6’3". 

“They always get this wrong no matter how many times I tell them,” he informed her. He skimmed over the other information. Red levels, irritability factor, connections to The Blade, a section summarizing Philza’s Collected Covenant... Honestly, it was all pretty boring, so Tommy flipped over one of the pages and began to draw. The woman leaned over, not quite daring to sit down and limit the option to run. 

“What are you sketching?”

“Paper girlfri- m̵̜̿u̶̹̿f̴̖͑f̴̥̿ì̷̜ṋ̵̇, not again,” Tommy groaned, watching his art get ruined as a large vermilion splotch trailed down from his grip on the pen and onto the page. 

“It, uh, looked lovely,” she offered, the man shooting her a glare. He seemed a killjoy, and Tommy decided it would likely be a lot more fun to ignore him. If he were lucky, it might irritate the bespectacled man even more. 

“Thanks. Can I uh...keep it? The clipboard? I don’t really have much in here.” Tommy desperately tried to keep his face neutral. This just had to work. The next option would be to get the pair to fight and then steal it, but then they might take it away again since it wouldn’t be authorized. And he would be punished, but that was a given.

“I suppose so...here, next time I can bring you more paper, ok?” Now he had white walls, rose pigment, a toothbrush, cup, razor, and clipboard. It wasn’t much, but it was Tommy’s. He practically cheered at the addition to his existence.

“Yes! Then I can write ‘How to M̶͍̜̍̌u̸̬̅̑f̴̧̬̓f̸̣͔̓i̵̬̣̽͜͝n̶̞̐̈́’!!!”

“You really like muffins that much?”

Tommy’s mood fell. “You try to cuss, see what happens. I’ve been trapped here for ages and I don’t even get to swear. I’m in m̷͇͆ũ̵̻f̸͖̈́f̴͓͝i̸͓̓n̶̞̔, I am. Oh come on! M̸̦̰̝̆ư̵̳͙̥͋̕f̴̙̑͐̿f̴͚̬̠͆̂̓i̶̫̠̔̚n̶̜͒͛ isn’t even a curse word!”

The woman smiled. “I’m sure that really just muffins, doesn’t it?”

“I know how it works, you just said muffin,” Tommy scowled at her. She looked a little embarrassed at having been caught, and took to messing with her hair again. 

“I tend not to profane,” she admitted.

“M̷̢̒̈́͝u̸̙̺͛̿̈́͝f̸̱̩̓̿̉͘f̸̧̧͎͓͔̖̀i̷͙̗̪͈̤͖͝ṉ̸̙̖͎̂. M̷̢̒̈́͝u̸̙̺͛̿̈́͝f̸̱̩̓̿̉͘f̸̧̧͎͓͔̖̀i̷͙̗̪͈̤͖͝ṉ̸̙̖͎̂ing coward m̴͎̑̾͝ü̸̡̢̯͌f̸̣̤̐̀̈́f̶̮͚͋̄ͅi̷͍͈̿͋̏͜n̸̨̙͆ty m̷͇̖̃͜ù̶͓͚̈́f̷̜͎͐f̸̲̚í̸͉n̷͉̩̩̕.”

Tommy would have continued hurling invectives at her, but a loud metallic knock came from the other side of the door. She stood up, attempting to straighten her lab coat (which was impossible, given the tear in it). “I’ll bring gloves next time, so your art can remain pristine, alright?” she threw over her shoulder. She felt far too chipper to understand the threat she’d used. Or, maybe she was the sadistic sort. Tommy felt his heart rate spike, along with his Red. The pigment slithered up his arms, curling along his elbows in snaking tendrils. Panic closed like a vice around his heart.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it please I was good wasn’t I?” His words came out swift, scrambling over each other as fear colored them. “Please don’t make me I don’t want the gloves I haven’t done anything, I’m sorry, I-” Tommy never had a choice when they decided to use the gloves. They’d been a favorite punishment of the doctors. They didn’t care if removing Tommy’s ability to feel things left him spiraling into panic, if the sensory deprivation felt near torturous. The gloves were always a guarantee that things were about to get much worse, because they didn’t want him to have the option of fighting back. He hadn’t even done anything to deserve punishment…or had he? Had he somehow messed up again? Tommy thought he and the woman had been getting along well, but to find out she was just like all the others- 

The door opened, and the man slipped through. She nearly followed, before hesitating and walking back towards him. Tommy tried to hide his hands, tucking them into his chest and drawing away from her. She halted, holding her palms in a pacifying motion. Her smile was fixed in confusion, the sort that was used to try and be polite when one wasn’t sure how to respond. “It was just a suggestion, you don’t have to use them, alright? You can say ‘no’.”

“No, no, no, no, I’m good, see? I’ve been good I don’t want them thank you.” 

“Then I won’t bring them,” she said brightly. And with that, she disappeared through the Red-topped door. Tommy was left with only his thoughts, the clipboard, and a guarantee of what horrors his dreams would feature for the night.

——

There wasn’t a way out. 

Tommy knew several facts. He was sixteen. He was 6’3", despite what the Foundation insisted. His eyes were usually blue, a bright cyan if he remembered correctly. The one way mirror, when not covered in his vermillion rebellion, always distorted the color and shape, making it impossible to know what he looked like currently. He knew he was incredibly hot and very attractive, naturally, but not much else beyond what he could see in the one way glass occasionally. Made styling his hair just a nightmare. It was blonde and very curly, and he knew that for a fact because sometimes he’d awake and find they had cut it again, gold locks strewn on the floor. They didn’t want him measuring the time by how fast it grew, which was ridiculous because why would Tommy even know how fast his hair grew? That’d be weird. He knew his hands were Red, because that was pretty obvious, and he had also (literally) hand dyed his hospital gown garnet, just for the style. Made him look cool. (Plus, one time he’d painted his skin along with the observation window, and left a hole for him to stand at. He couldn’t see the reactions the observers made once he had suddenly jumpscared them, but he heard a muffled crash and knew his camouflage was good.) He knew that the Foundation couldn’t really see him, since he covered the cameras and window, which meant observation had to take place in person. Tommy also realized that sometimes that wasn’t a good thing, but he’d long ago decided privacy was going to be one of his few rights that he’d hold covetously. Every so often it would be cleaning day, and for the brief period before he could reapply it he was left feeling exposed because without the color how else was he to ever feel safe? Not that his room was, but the ruby layer made him feel more secure. The closest he ever came to true safety was with Philza, but that was severely limited, and for the large swatches of time in between he needed any protection he could afford himself. His limited visitation hours was a fact he was acutely aware of. His favorite fact was that Philza had Collected him. That one always made him feel all warm and stuff. 

His least favorite fact was that there wasn’t a way out. He knew all the other data points could change, that he would get older, taller, could dye his hair. He didn’t know if his hands would ever be flesh-colored again, but the doctors had certainly tried and they were smart and probably right, even if they hadn’t figured out how yet. Maybe one day they’d improve Brown, but he doubted it. And, he supposed, Philza could abandon him. UnCollect Tommy. Decide that maybe he didn’t really care at all, and then Tommy would never see a kind face again except in the most dire of circumstances, left to himself and, of course, the observers. That wasn’t one of his usual nightmares, but it featured occasionally, usually because dream Philza discovered what the doctors had made Tommy do.

…Yes. Presumably, the other facts could change, but he knew that escape was impossible. 

Once, when he’d confirmed Philza’s visits were assured through the Collected Covenant, he’d tried to run while the guards were transporting him. He hadn’t gotten far, but the sound of a gunshot (a warning shot) ringing out in the hall froze him, crimson tight around his chest. Tommy had let them drag him back to his cell because he found himself unable to walk or move at all, petrified just as surely as if the bullet had rearranged his internal organs. Sometimes the sound echoed in his head and he’d loudly sing to the empty room to make it stop, or list everything he hated about Americans. (Those Americans and their stupid guns. Well...if he even was in America. He wasn’t sure, but the Queen would definitely put a stop to this if she knew.) Drowning it out didn’t work in dreams, but he considered it a good night if the single ringing gunshot was the only thing in his nightmares. He wasn’t always so lucky. Sometimes the weeks afterward would replay. He wasn’t allowed to see Philza at all, or anybody for that matter. They cut the lights every time someone brought a meal, and sometimes randomly for hours just because they could. In his dreams they never turned back on and he’d be trapped in the dark and the quiet, never to see anyone again. Existence waned. The void opened beneath him, but he wouldn’t even be able to tell if he was falling. 

That was the standard punishment when he’d been bad. He just hadn’t been used to it then. Or now. Or ever. 

...If he was really unlucky, he’d remember how Philza had reacted. Tommy had actually been right; he did have assured visitation, legally. They’d postponed it for too many cycles to be considered punishment. It hadn’t been wise for the Foundation to bend the agreement. Really, the only reason they kept Philza contained at all was because of the deal, and the fact that they had all of Phil’s Collected to use as bargaining chips. With it, he was Euclid, an idea that was laughable if you knew him. But preventing Philza from being assured of his people’s safety had a cost. Tommy still remembered the way the sound of guns and screams grew in volume alongside his dread. The way his heart pounded, almost drowning out the sound of death, until he was sure it would burst, each pulse almost painful. The way the door shattered and revealed Philza, grin sharp and toothy, a strange emotion resembling relief filling Tommy in a way that didn’t quite cover all his fear. The way Philza had pulled Tommy’s petrified self to him in a tight embrace. The way the smell of smoke and blood engulfed him along with his Collector’s arms. 

Conversation had been one sided, Philza failing to draw Tommy into responses that weren’t monosyllabic in nature (How have you been? Good. Did you miss me? Yes.). Tommy had stared vacantly through the broken door to the hallway beyond. Philza had stayed precisely an hour, per the contract, before returning to his own cell. His last question that hung in the air (Are you alright?) went unanswered. Philza had ruffled Tommy’s hair before going, leaving hot liquid to trail down into his eyes, cooling by the time it traced to the bottom of his jaw and fell away to stain the collar of his already red hospital gown. Tommy had stared numbly after him through the place where the door once stood. The hallways haunted his vision. He didn’t care about the employees, but seeing the...remains was terrible. For hours he was left there, alone, hiding in his room, staring through the doorway at the pieces and viscera that Philza left. Entrails and blood spilled out, illuminated by eternal artificial lights. Sometimes he really did think he’d sat there an eternity, unblinking, not even daring to breathe as if the very act of his living wasn’t allowed. Tommy got to watch all the shades blood could be, bright and fresh then cooling and darkening to almost black. Splatters coated the entire hallway, and on the walls it weighed down with gravity, forming sharp lines like claw marks, except the real claw marks were much more obvious, cracks splintering through concrete, blood pressed into the canyons. 

Eventually, more employees had arrived. A guard had been put in with Tommy as they rebuilt the door. It was almost hilarious (in the sort of hysteria that immense, overwhelming fear produced), the idea that Tommy would have tried to leave. Physically, he could have fled at any time in the hours he spent alone staring down the hall. Not like there was anyone left to stop him. Only the dead guarded the exit, sentries even post-mortem. Ghosts stuck in old routines, blocking the exit just as completely as they had when alive. Sometimes, right after having left another handprint on the doorframe, Tommy would freeze in the hallway right outside, remembering the corpses. Grey stains outlined the worst areas. The smell of burnt flesh lingered. Weeks after, Tommy would resist the impulse to scrub the memory of the blood from his scalp. It only led to his hair being covered once again in sticky vermillion liquid. He couldn’t tell his own sanguine from the smears Philza had left. It was hard to resist, because his scalp crawled and itched with the memory of human blood sinking into his skin as sharp talons affectionately stroked through his hair. Sometimes, Tommy imagined Philza’s hands freezing in their comforting motion, then claws pressing into his flesh until breaking the surface. Thick lines demarcated in bright crimson as Philza’s talons sunk down past the side of his face, working their way to the familiar place along his neck where so many hands had been before. Claws constricting around his throat, just another effortless death at the hands of his Collector.

But no. Those were stupid thoughts. Bad ones. Philza said he’d never, ever, ever hurt Tommy, and Phil always kept his promises. 

Still. It didn’t stop his nightmares, and especially didn’t mean Philza had any issue harming anyone else. He knew they deserved it, though. They were the Foundation, the observers, the guards. Everything was their fault. Philza had to have killed them for a reason, so surely the brutalization was justice. Tommy knew this. Tommy knew a lot of things.

Escape was impossible and only made things worse. That fact was imprinted on his memory, seared into his retinas, burned into his very being alongside the husks of charred people. There wasn’t a way out. 

Which definitely meant there wasn’t a way in, either, unless, he supposed, Philza really wanted to, or if he accidentally summoned The Blade. And yet, somehow, there was an intruder in his room. Well, the employees and observers and guards and doctors were intruders as well, but they were authorized. The small honey bee buzzing around his head probably wasn’t meant to be there. Its flight movement seemed sluggish, but it had been a long time since he’d seen...really any other creature other than the humans and Phil and, occasionally, when things were really bad, The Blade. Maybe looping up and down, drifting closer and closer to the ground before collapsing was normal for bugs. Tommy glanced around before getting down on his hands and knees to observe it. The window and cameras had been long coated in crimson, but still. What if they thought he was crazy? The doctors might have their interests drawn, and then he’d start drawing their focus again. He’d worked hard to be uninteresting to them, which was very difficult because he was the most interesting person he knew. Being the center of attention could very well be a death sentence, however, and Tommy had enough self-preservation to manage it. 

The small bee started crawling to him. They made cute little buzzing noises, antenna flickering, and small segmented wings fluttering as they bumbled over toward him. Maybe it was on the attack? No, from what he remembered they didn’t do so with out provocation. Hmm. Maybe he should be worried. Provocation was sort of his entire existence summed up. He tried to think back to the tests, and whether his irritability worked on animals. Another concern popped into his mind, and he curled his fingertips into a fist, drawing away from the bee right as they were about to try to crawl onto his hand. They looked up at him, tilting their head. Was he projecting people-like qualities onto them? Well, probably, but really he didn’t interact with non people-like entities, so it probably wasn’t unusual. 

“If you get Red on you, you might be too heavy to fly,” Tommy explained. Well, according to all known laws of aviation, the bee really shouldn’t fly anyways…

They buzzed again. Oh. He’d said that out loud. Great, now the bee was judging him. He needed to shut up, he didn't get a lot of friends. “You can get on my arm instead, if you want,” Tommy said, repositioning. Strangely enough, the bee complied, scrambling onto the bare skin. “Oh! You understand English! That’s so cool!” The buzzing returned. “Hi! I’m Tommy! I don’t understand Bee. If I did tho, ohhh, I’d be so powerful. I could talk to all the bees. Take over the world. Hey! What if we do one buzz for yes, two for no! We can talk in code! Like secret agents!” They buzzed another note. “So how’d you get here?” The honey bee stayed silent, twitching an antenna at him. “Oh...so you don’t understand…” Two strong drones, the wings vibrating quickly together. “Oh, yeah, that wasn’t a yes or no question was it? Huh. Are you trapped here? Have you been here long?”

Yes

“How long? Months?” Two buzzes, and the same answer when he asked about years. Deep dread built in Tommy’s gut. “Decades?” 

No

“Even longer than that??” Relief flooded him as the denied it. “Ooohh, I thought you said you’d been here a long time,” Tommy said. 

Yes

“Here, buzz once for every week.” One long, sad, chord rang out. “See! One week! That’s barely any time at all! I’ve been here-” the abandoned tally mark wall was carefully avoided in his gaze. It had been...quite a while since he’d stopped. But it couldn’t have been too long, he was still sixteen after all. “...I’ve been here longer than that. Wait.” A half remembered fact whispered through his thoughts. “Don’t you only live for like three days?” 

No

“How many days?” They paused, before dutifully buzzing out a string of notes. Tommy stopped it quickly. “How many weeks, then?”

Four buzzes. 

“And how old are you?”

Four again.

“Oh. You’re dying soon. Er. Sorry about that.” 

A tentative two buzzes. No

“Are you special then? Cause you can understand people? You have a longer life span?" Their no seemed quieter. “Do you want to...I guess stay here? I can do Bee CPR. B-CPR! Hey, if you last long enough I’ll take you to Phil! It’ll be great!” The bee nodded —which, the little m̷̡͕̂ů̸̝̀͠f̸̞͓̞̍̿̃f̵̛̟̭̉ͅi̶̟͘n̷̨̯̎̕̕ could have been doing that from the start— but it seemed slow. At the start of the conversation it had been crawling all around his arm, a strange tickling sensation that wasn’t quite unpleasant. But it seemed to be slowing down, the pauses between responses being softer and taking longer. “Don’t worry,” Tommy promised them. “I’ll save you.” They looked at him a long time. Then, they softly began to hum, gradually increasing in volume until it was likely the loudest the small bee could manage. But then they didn’t stop. The drone grew louder and louder, filling the room. The sound burrowed into his head, the sound of millions of bees swarming in his skull. And, just when Tommy thought his ear drums would pop, it cut off at once, save for the single hum from the honey bee before him. But there was a strange echo to it, like not all the noise was real. Tommy imagined that, should he be deaf, or maybe listening to really loud music, he’d still hear their buzzing. Like he heard the sound right before it actually existed. The intention before it was fully realized. 

“What the m̵͍̈̌́͆̊͘͝ů̸̮̭̟͑̿̃͝ͅf̸̘̺͇̦͕͍͐͛͋͝f̸̖͓̘̜̏̅ͅi̷̝̱̺̣̭̳̓͜n̵͓̜͓̰̑̈͒͘ was that!?” The bee couldn’t answer, or maybe just refused to. They stopped completely, perched upon his arm. “...are you dying? Right now?” Whatever just happened could be ignored for now. It might have been a little pathetic to be already fearing the bee’s inevitable demise, but...who could begrudge Tommy his meager handful of friends? He could count the number on one hand, and the number he was allowed to see consistently on one finger. 

A soft double hum. The sound made his ears twinge. Relief. 

“Sleep?”

One. 

“Goodnight then.” Tommy spent the rest of the night thinking of names.

——

Chapter Text

Time didn’t matter, or maybe Tommy just needed it to not matter. If time didn’t matter, then he couldn’t fret about the gap between visits with Philza, or the next test the Foundation created. He was sure that the space between meals and nights were inconsistent to further mess with his chronological experience. But if time meant nothing, he didn’t have to know, and could assure himself his next meal was soon, however long that soon took to arrive. If time didn’t matter, Tommy could tell himself that his situation was temporary, and if by some miracle he was released then the world would be just where he left it. All his friends waiting, his dogs wagging their tails at his return, his parents ready to hug him and treat him as if he was never gone. He’d still be sixteen, and life would be just as good as it once was.

But time did continue and as such had consequences. And, for a life as ephemeral as that of a honey bee, the consequence was death. 

When Tommy awoke, Clementine was not on his face. That was understandable. Sometimes in the night Tommy would thrash and scream, unable to escape the icy grip of a nightmare. (The first night Clementine witnessed, the nightmare featured faceless humans tearing each other apart with their bare hands, blood and flesh and Red under their fingernails, and Tommy’s own laughter ringing out until mercifully drowned out by the sound of a bullet piercing his skull.) For a bee, such a size difference could result in the bad dreams becoming an issue. Really, it was better for them both if Tubbo avoided proximity during those nights. 

So while it wasn’t unusual for them to keep a healthy distance, the fact that Clementine wasn’t awake yet was odd. Bees didn’t need nearly as much sleep as, say, a Tommy did, but he supposed that writing must have taken a lot of energy. Surely Tubbo had spent just as much effort to clean up afterwards, using the small puddle of water Tommy had poured into the small plastic cup in order to scrub off the ruby pigment. They spent just as long drying off, a process that involved constantly flapping their wings, resulting in a discordant drone that lasted far too long for Tommy’s sanity. He was certain that the noise was twice as loud as it should be, and it didn’t change in volume despite going to the other end of the cell. It was like half the buzzing originated in his brain. But, it was the price to pay for better conversation, and so Tommy bore it without complaint. Well, without much complaint, since it was funnier that way. The entire process was very fatigue-inducing to watch, and must have been even more exhausting for the tiny little bee accomplishing it. Certainly Clementine deserved to be tired.

But it wasn’t sleep that claimed them, at least not the kind anyone ever woke up from. Gently, Tommy slid a page under their corpse, but found himself unsure what to do next. Mourn, maybe. They hadn’t known each other long, but Tommy had always known he got attached to people too easily. The Foundation knew it too. Rosalind wasn’t the first nice one. He never hated the ones who stopped pretending any more than any of the others, though. Betrayal stung, yes, but it was better to have some good, if fake, interaction than none at all. Tommy wasn’t new to loss, but it usually was an intentional cruelty. Clementine didn’t choose to die, and so Tommy wasn’t sure what to feel, because bitterness didn’t sit well with him. There had to be a different emotion to feel, but Tommy didn’t know what it would be.

So he sat there, holding the paper upon which Tubbo’s small body rested, staring at the husk of his friend. Their legs were scrunched at odd angles, but it was possibly the most peaceful version of death he’d ever seen. Probably because bees didn’t have blood to spill everywhere. They were hard to stab, too. Or burn, or shoot, or dismember. Too small for ivory tusks to pierce their body or penumbra creatures to care to rip them to even tinier shreds. It was strange to think that the bee was dead, due to the lack of the typical signs of demise, but they were even more lacking in the signs of life, so the fact had to be true. He wanted to tell himself Tubbo was only sleeping, but he knew better than that. He wasn’t delusional.

But then Tommy heard the strange double buzzing, and in that moment his sorrow sharpened into fear. Clementine was dead, so how was he still hearing them? Was something wrong in his head? Was he ha-llucin-ating? On drugs? Had they drugged him? Well, definitely, but he didn’t think they’d use these kinds before. 

A honey bee hovered in the air. He looked down at the dead bee before him, then back at the flying one. They were identical. “Are you real?”

One buzz. Yes

Well, he supposed that if one bee could get in, it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for a second one as well. Except why would it know the code? “Clementine??”

No. The Not-Clementine flew down and landed on an empty page. They tapped a foot impatiently. Then, when Tommy didn’t cotton on fast enough, they flew over and landed on the paper that used to hold Clementine’s message prior to Tommy hiding it in a dose of sanguine. Tommy looked at Clementine’s corpse, then back up at Not-Clementine, who was waiting expectantly. Gently, he sat the page with Clementine down next to him. Tommy dolloped a drop of Red onto the blank page and watched in bewilderment as the bee dipped themself in and began to write. It was a slow process, and Tommy watched on, unsure of what he was supposed to feel about it. 

Our naem es Tubbo

“Tubbo?”

Yes, Tubbo buzzed. 

“Are you Clementine also?”

No

“Huh.” Tommy had no idea what to make of that. “Does that mean you need a different name?” A hesitant single buzz. Tommy sat for a bit, trying to come up with another name, but his mind just kept circling back to Clementine. It had been a really good name (of course it was. Tommy came up with it himself, hadn’t he?) and really fit them. Any others that came to him just weren't as good. “I'll come up with one later.” He gulped. “Clementine is dead.” The words were foul on his tongue. 

Yes

“And-and you’re probably going to die, too.”

Yes

“Are there more of you? More bees?” That felt terrible. Like he was trying to replace Clementine. Like he was already trying to replace this new honey bee. Tommy wasn’t fond of guilt. He was accustomed to it, the way his stomach clenched, the bitter taste in his mouth, but he hated it anyways. Tommy had adjusted to many things in his time in the Foundation, but guilt never sat right with him. 

Yes

“Why do you bees keep coming here?” After all, once was a coincidence, twice was a pattern. Tubbo-but-not-Clementine paused before tapping at the paper. The carmine coloration had dried again, and after it was refilled the bee began to slowly write. 

Freind :)

Tommy ignored the pleased little fountain of bliss that welled up inside him, making him feel all soft and warm, driving away his budding grief and guilt, instead preferring to focus on the fact that a bee understood people facial expressions enough to use them as shorthand in an effort to convey emotion. Bees had, like, mandibles, right? Little chompy jaw things, not mouths like people did. Weird. That was weird. 

“You’re weird,” Tommy replied. It was true. The bees had been very strange, what with comprehending English and all that. The fact the new bee understood the code and Clementine and Tommy’s writing scheme was also weird. Plus, Tubbo-but-not-Clementine didn’t seem to notice how strange it was, so really Tommy was doing them a favor by pointing it out. They made argumentative buzzing noises, which made sense. The bee routinely washed the ruby off, however, so it probably wasn’t too big a problem. Tommy was glad, because he knew the outcome of bee fights, and the bee didn’t tend to survive them. 

“Where are they? The rest of the bees? Other Tubbos? Maybe I can meet them.” Tommy cut over the disgruntled hums, leading to the bee pausing before re-coating their side.

Out

No. There was no way out. Tommy knew that, he knew the consequences of trying anyways. The long hall flashed in his mind, the pieces of humans left overs. Tommy wasn’t supposed to leave. “I can’t go outside,” Tommy stated flatly. They flicked their antenna at him. 

No

“What do you mean, ‘no’?!” Another two buzzes. They fluttered their wings, then started to write again. 

Cell

Oh. That made more sense. That was much more manageable. He tried not to let his relief be too apparent. “Oh, that’s alright then. I can visit for a little while, maybe. I could negotiate a contract like Phil did!” Visions of what he could demand floated in his head. Make them use the right height, only ever deliver Grey, refer to him as Alpha Male. Or even Tommy. They liked to call him a number, which was silly since he already had a great name for them to use. Let him visit wherever the numerous Tubbos came from. Except…except bargains were two way, and Tommy couldn’t think of anything they’d want from him. Nothing they couldn’t get already, anyways.

“Wait— no. No. I’m not dangerous enough. They don’t need to make any deals with me. Huh.” The Foundation knew his exact capabilities. They’d tested to his limits, and then some. Don’t think about it. Nothing that happened during the tests counted. Tommy wasn’t the one to blame, it was all their fault. Besides, the Foundation knew fully what Tommy could do, and they didn’t care enough to offer a deal. Compared to other occupants, he really wasn’t a threat except in certain situations. Really, they even gave him opportunities to cause mayhem, just to see what he’d do. Of course, Rosalind and the other unnamed employee didn’t have weapons, but Tommy knew for a fact that humans had other ways of killing each other. They were offering him the option to become a threat, but Tommy recognized it only as a way to garner undesired attention. They mostly ignored him, now, and that was the safest way to be. 

An idea sparked in his mind. “Wait, you’re new. Are you dangerous? Maybe you could negotiate a contract! Slip in all sorts of secret requirements!”

No

“Hey don’t worry! Just wait until I get to you, I’ll teach you how to use a knife. It’ll be great! You think it’s just a swarm of Tubbos, but uh oh! Now there’s a knife in they backs! They’ll never see it coming.” It was just as well that the bees weren’t a threat; after all, what if they were dangerous to Tommy? But still, the issue remained. He couldn’t think of an authorized way for them to see each other. Of course, Tommy loved crime, but it always resulted in consequences. If he broke the rules, he would deserve to be punished. He looked at Not-Clementine. “How am I going to get there?” Hey, it couldn’t hurt to brainstorm together. Tommy expected Tubbo to go to the paper again, or maybe be just as stumped as he was, but the little bug immediately darted up to the vent shaft. “Oh! So that’s how you got in! But...I can’t get through there. I’ve...I’ve tried.” Tubbo paused in the air, hovering while they thought it over. Then, darting to Tommy’s spread out papers, they landed on the clipboard. “Do you need more paper?”

No

Tommy still didn’t understand, and so the little bee flew back and forth from the vent to the clipboard. It looked exhausting. “I don’t see how that will open it- oh! The screws!” Tommy’s constantly slippery fingers had been unable to open it, but if he could wedge the thin metal clamp end into the screw tops, maybe it could work like a makeshift screwdriver. Still, dread filled him at the thought. The consequences would be brutal should anyone find out. For so long Tommy had abandoned any thought of leaving, flinching at the thought.

But that strange buzzing rang in his ears, beckoning and warm. It had been so, so long since he'd last seen anyone that wasn't an employee, his last visit with Philza unbearably long ago. Tommy ached for company, and the hum of nonexistent bees worming through his thoughts promised solace from his loneliness. It wasn’t escape, no. Tommy wouldn’t leave the building at all. It was merely...visiting a new friend. He’d get to meet all the bees named Tubbo. And then he’d come right back and it would be fine. The Foundation needn’t know at all. 

——

The best time for it was night, Tommy decided. Night was never a consistent thing in the Foundation, either compressed or elongated to further cement the futility of time. But at least 5 hours of solid darkness was guaranteed when he was on good behavior, as far as he could tell. It was usually more than that, but it was best to work with minimums. 

Working during the night offered a few benefits. For one, that was always when secret missions happened in the movies he used to watch, and they obviously knew what they were doing. Another was that it meant he wouldn’t have any visits, either from Rosalind or to Philza. It had been a while since he’d last seen Phil, so that probably meant another visit would happen soon. At least, he hoped it would be soon; it had been quite a while since he’d last seen the old man, and he had so much to talk about. Finally, it gave him time to prepare. Tommy redid his monochrome mask on the observation window, as well as the cameras. He practiced climbing the walls, and though it made him tired he was sure he could manage it in the dark. He gathered his dwindling supply of blank paper and tucked them securely under the metal clasp. And then, unsure of what else he should do, he knelt before three papers: The one of him, Clementine, Philza, and Rosalind; the one with ‘Freind :)’ written on it; and, lastly, the paper upon which Clementine rested. 

Really, he knew he should get rid of the evidence of either Tubbo, both the message and the body. But it felt wrong. He decided, should anyone ask, he would lie, say he wrote the word himself, but that still left Clementine. 

Tubbo-but-not-Clementine hovered in the air, before settling on their message. Tommy appreciated the comfort. He ended up folding a piece of paper into a little makeshift envelope, to mimic the act of burial. He wasn’t sure, but it felt right, or the closest thing to it he could manage. He carefully transferred Clementine into the pocket, and hesitated before using an index finger to draw Clementine’s name in big, drippy ruby letters. Graves usually had dates. Just another way Tommy couldn’t provide Clementine the rest they deserved. He tried to think up something poetic, but nothing really sounded that good.

“Clementine was really great, you know,” Tommy announced. The bee looked up, before offering a soft affirmative buzz. It still echoed in his mind like all the other times, but it felt more comforting. A note that was almost-but-not-quite pleasant. “I still need to name you. I’ll figure something out soon, promise. It’ll be a great name, too, you’ll love it. I just...I don’t know what to do with them. You’re supposed to bury bodies...at least that’s what humans do. But there’s not really a place to put them.”

Yes

“Do...did you know Clementine?”

Yes

The bee, of course, couldn’t expand on this. Instead, Tommy ended up talking about his experiences with Clementine. There weren’t many stories, but it felt nice to remember. Tommy was still sad, but it didn’t hurt as much to think about it. Talking about Clementine was cathartic, and the nameless bee was a good listener, offering soothing buzzes and dancing around his hands whenever the story grew too big for his words, spilling over into wide gestures and smiles. And maybe it wasn’t entirely accurate, their meeting a little more dramatic, hiding from Rosalind and the man a little more daring, but the holy act of remembering far outward trivial things like truth. Tommy was used to lying to make himself feel better.

——

They ran out of light before they ran out of story, and Tommy knew it was time to act. Carefully he rose, tucking the clipboard into the front of his ruby hospital gown. Hopefully it would be secure enough for the climb. The sound of the nameless bee guided him, and he began to scale the wall, jamming fingers and toes (the Foundation never bothering with shoes) deep into the fabric panel crevices, for once cursing his hands. Well, he did so every time he thought about living a normal life and never being here at all, but constantly producing gooey garnet liquid meant gripping things was difficult. Once he got to the vent (thankfully only halfway up the stupidly tall wall), another problem arose. The clipboard had thankfully stayed put, but retrieving it would be another hurdle. But Tommy managed to cling on with three contact points, fishing the clipboard out of his gown. It nearly slipped from his grasp, the stress of it all increasing Red output. He could feel it creeping up to his elbows, and tried to calm down. His heart was racing and he told himself it was all from the excursion. The last thing he needed was to be even more slippery. 

The nameless bee buzzed around, leading him through auditory clues to the location of the screws. Tommy, after a few attempts, slid the metal part on top of the clipboard into the flat head screw, using the rest of the board as leverage to turn it. Once it got far enough, he tucked the clipboard under one arm and twisted it out. Unsure where to put it, but knowing he’d need to rescrew it later, Tommy ended up biting onto one end of the screw, having run out of hands long ago. 

His arms began to shake with the effort, and his calves burned, but Tommy determinedly got rid of the other three, guided by Tubbo. Tommy winced as the gate cover went crashing to the ground. Agonizing moments passed as he waited for someone to come rushing in. When no racing footsteps and shouting guards came, he exhaled a sigh of relief, and slid the clipboard into the opening. The next problem came when Tommy tried to get into the vent. Sure, it was comically oversized, but the inside was completely smooth. He ended up pressing against the sides of the vent so the friction would keep him stable. Eventually he was about half way in and army crawled to get his legs inside. All together, a very dignified endeavor. He grit his teeth into a grin, remembered the screws in his mouth, and spat them into his hand before gingerly setting them near his entrance. And then, just because he could, Tommy lay in the vent, panting. It was very exhausting, executing an escape very normal method of transportation for visitation purposes. The broken up fizzing noise of bee laughter echoed strangely in the cramped space. Tommy grinned at Tubbo in the dark. 

“We’re climbing in the vent! It’s just like a movie! Like Toy Story! I’m like Woody. All I need is a gun.” He whispered. Well, half whispered. It bounced around in the vent to the point where he might as well just be speaking at a regular volume. Tommy softly gasped. “That can be your second name! Buzz Lightyear!” 

Yes!

The volume multiplied in the vent and Tommy’s head, and he clasped his head in his hands, damping the sound slightly between his palms and liquid. It didn’t matter, it still rang in his skull. “Shhhh! We need to be sexy! No wait, the other one. Stealthy! Got it, Lightyear?”

A much softer ‘yes’ this time. 

Buoyed by the satisfaction of another great name, Tommy began to slither through the vents. Some odd tank was set up near his shaft, with an odd serial number (fg-277) scrawled across one side. A few pipes led up to the entrance of his cage. As he crept past other vents, he found a few others like his, but the vast majority were far smaller and didn’t have such mechanisms. Strange. He continued on, following the little bee. It was...very loud. The movies were apparently full of m̶̥̏u̷̲̐f̸̻͠f̷̣́i̸̙͌n̴͙̐, it wasn’t very stealthy in the slightest. Buzz Lightyear took to checking the vent slits ahead of him, buzzing when there were no Foundation employees to hear them. It led to slow progress, and several times he had to hold still for a very long time, unable to speak. Whenever he came across a fork, they’d direct him, and the promise that Tubbo seemed to know the correct direction was reassuring. At first, he’d look out on the gates (most much smaller than the one in Tommy’s room, much closer to slits, really) that led to other cells, but soon he killed the practice. Apparently the artificial nights weren’t at the same time for everyone, offering Tommy a good view of many of them. And, as loud as he was, offering them the option to stare back. A large majority of the inhabitants were barely humanoid, nothing at all like how Tommy or Philza (usually) looked. At first it wasn’t too far from human (and there were actually a handful that were probably closer than Tommy), with creatures like the tall, wispy, pitch black demon with arcing wings and glowing eyes, or the azure crystalline golem. He even recognized a few of them from certain...tests. But then they got progressively weirder. Tommy had thought The Blade to be the strangest looking (consistently formed) individual he’d ever met, but then (poking through sharp green vines) Tommy had peered into the room of a pile of some sort of moss-like substance. It was slumped into an almost human shape, shoved into a shiny gold chest plate. Creeper vines spiraled out from it, moving like viridian snakes in the air. And then, as if suddenly realizing his presence, the vines had frozen in their movement, and the creature had turned an approximation of a head around 180 degrees to look at Tommy with dark, drooping pits for eyes and a gaping, perpetually frowning maw. Tommy had stopped looking after that. 

Eventually, Lightyear halted at a gate, and crawled through the slits. Tommy banged on the gate, but stopped once he heard the noise it created. Just like Tommy’s, some sort of device was perched on the outside. The tank was far larger, and he had to squeeze around it awkwardly. The label (sg-706) was a bigger number than he’d had. Huh. Maybe it meant something, but Tommy certainly didn’t know. If he had thought the discordant tone of one bee had been bad, the inharmonious symphony of thousands was near torture. The sound of scraping metal joined the orchestra, as the beings on the other side found a way to remove the vent. 

Tommy hadn’t expected, once the vent was removed, to see a face. Well, he expected a lot of faces, bee faces, so to be viewing a fairly human-looking visage was very unexpected. Tommy stared in slack-jaw amazement. He hadn’t really had many expectations, but after the sighting of the moss thing he’d sorta been picturing just a HUGE pile of bees. A mental image of them all hugging him, looking like a beekeeper without the ugly suit, if anything. Yet in front of him was a fairly human-esqe person, leaning halfway into the vent, propped on their elbows. Their alien features made telling their age impossible, but Tommy guessed they were in the same cohort as him. 

Their face broke into a grin. Well, the shape of it. They didn’t really have teeth or tongue or anything else, just a hole from which more insects spilled. At least it explained why Lightyear had drawn a smiley face. It was a little unsettling, between the wide hole mouth and abnormally large compound eyes that were far bigger than a human would possess. They were made up of thousands of little hexagons, and the deep dark of the night sky, but the light of the fluorescent scattered shades of color across them, and they were undeniably scrunched up as their face radiated pure joy. The big bug eyes were actually kinda cool, Tommy decided. The facial hole suggesting a lack of bodily structure beyond from which creatures poured through was…a little uncomfortable, but he was used to Wilbur and so far the only thing inside Tubbo seemed to be bees. Tubbo also seemed to have decided to have no teeth at all, which was vastly different to Wilbur, who preferred Too Many Teeth, and probably added more just when he felt like it. He wasn’t sure which was worse. Probably the bees. He briefly imagined hundreds of insects crawling around inside his own mouth, legs and wings batting against the insides of his cheeks and throat. He curbed his gag reflex. 

“Tommy!” It wasn’t quite a voice, more like the notes needed to replicate words were being used. The cadence was odd, lilting, worming into his head and making his thoughts feel all mushy. He was pleased to note it was British, the thought making him happy and homesick in equal measures. 

“...Tubbos?” 

“We are Tubbo, yes.” The voice grated in his ears. They leaned into the vent, propping up their elbows to rest their chin in their hands. There wasn’t quite enough space, so their legs presumably dangled out the other end. The whole thing was very odd. The two bees had both been Tubbos, and that made sense, but while certainly bee adjacent, the newest Tubbo was a lot more human like. Maybe Tubbo was a much broader term than he suspected. Could be bee speak for monster, maybe? It certainly was a very funny word, perhaps he’d only mistaken it for a name. 

“If they’re Tubbo,” Tommy pointed at the independent bees, who were gathering to land on him, carefully avoiding the crimson to assure their later flight. “And you’re Tubbo,” he pointed at the bee guy. “Am I Tubbo?” Tommy pressed his dripping hands to his chest.

The same snickering buzz came from all around him, echoing in the vent at a painful volume. “No, you’re Tommy. Tubbos’ friend...unless...do you want to be Tubbo? You could join, if you want. Be part of the Hive.” The last part trailed off, almost soft, almost shy. Their large eyes peered at him, hopeful, sorta like a puppy. 

Awww. Wait. No, ignore that. “The Hive? Is that a cult?” 

“...no…?” The human Tubbo blinked at him, speaking tentatively. Was speaking the right term? Their mouth didn’t move with the words, cupped into a slightly open gap. It sagged a bit at the edges, dripping literally. It was terrible to behold, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away.

“Then why would I want to join if it isn’t?” 

“...yes?”

“Which is it? ‘Cause one of those must be a lie, idiot. They contradict.”

“It’s...a collective?” Tubbo seemed very uncertain.

“You’re sale pitch sucks m̶̗̿u̸̩͐f̴͍͘f̵͕̚í̵̟n̷̳̒,” Tommy laughed. 

“So do you wanna join?” Tubbo shivered. “It’s your choice. We’d be happy to have you.” Tommy wasn’t exactly used to the chatter of insects mimicking speech, but something about the last part sounded different. Less full, deeper. It was warm and welcoming just as it had been before, if in a different manner. He was sorta tempted to say yes, despite having only met them. Like some part of his soul was being called. But…

“Nah, Phil might get jealous,” Tommy said breezily. With the decision, the noise suddenly cut in half. Not that the bees got any quieter, but the reverb stilled. The buzzing wasn’t overwhelming anymore, a much more tolerable level. His thoughts were less crowded. It was like being in high elevation, not noticing the mounting pressure until suddenly your ears popped and relief you didn’t even know you needed rushed in.

“Phil?” Tubbo asked curiously, twitching slightly. They seemed a tad disheartened that Tommy had decided to not join the weird not-exactly-a-bug-cult, but accepted the decision with grace. 

“Oh! You’ve never met him, have you? Well actually you and I’ve never met, either.”

“Yes we have.”

“No, we haven’t,” Tommy interjected.

“If you say so. It’s good to see you! You’re a lot smaller than last time tho.”

Tommy scowled. “I’m lyin all horizontal aren’t I? I reckon if you get me out of this vent I’ll be taller than you. I’m-”

“6’3, yes.”

“Huh? How tall are you?” Tommy squinted at the insectoid. They were an odd sort, weren't they? Maybe they were really good at guessing heights, even without him even standing. 

“5’5, but like 6’10 if we stretch out our antenna.”

“Those don’t count!” Tommy refused to be shorter than a bee.

“They don’t? Well then 5’5. Do you want us to get you out?”

“Yes please.” Tommy noticed a big problem almost immediately, that climbing would leave handprints, and handprints left evidence, and evidence meant the Foundation would know about his visit. 

“We’ll carry you,” Tubbo assured him. Tommy wasn’t quite sure how that would work, but figured the bee person knew their capabilities.

“Wait—what about my hands? You’ll get all Red’d.”

Tubbo tilted their head, floppy antennae bouncing with the movement. “That wasn’t a problem before?”

“It’ll leave marks tho,” he replied quickly. It was a reason, if not the one that actually drove him.

“Alright, we’ll grab you from behind then.” Tommy ended up slowly shimming backwards on his back to the end of the vent. Thin, vaguely honey colored arms wrapped around his chest. The touch was warm, vibrating slightly. Tommy embarrassingly melted a bit in the hold, relaxing subconsciously. It wasn’t his fault, he hadn’t seen Phil in a while and was missing contact. Or, maybe it was…? Maybe he’d done something wrong, and the lack of visits was a punishment…?

Tubbo also melted, but it was a bit more physical of an effect. Similar to his own arms, they dripped, but instead of producing substance it instead seemed closer to the action of dissolving. A divot formed as Tommy looked, and he watched as part of Tubbos’ arm collapsed, slumping away in sticky yellow liquid. Odd hexagonal tubes formed a hole riddled wall to the dark inner cavern of Tubbo. Bees crawled out the tubes, and when Tommy looked he didn’t see any end to the hive beneath them. It wasn’t very assuring for the person that was supposed to be catching him to be falling apart before his very eyes. Even less the fact they seemed to not have any...bones or whatever. But the Tubbos’ grasp seemed secure, despite apparently missing their pinky finger on their left hand. 

“Are you ready?” Tubbo whispered from right behind Tommy’s ear. It tickled oddly and sent shivers down his spine. Sickening. At least he wasn’t entomophobic, but he suspected there was a very good chance he could become so in the aftermath of the encounter. Bugs were crawling all over him, soft, fluffy, tickling him and making his hair raise. The effect was incredibly disturbing, even if he didn’t think any of them would sting him. 

“Wait—what about the cameras?”

“We covered them, just like you did. Ready now?” He nodded, and suddenly he was flung out backwards from the vent, the sound of thousands of wings drowning out his screams. Red skyrocketed up his arms as panic took him. His body dragged downwards in gravity’s cruel grasp, tumbling in the air, Tubbos’ arms desperately grabbing at him from above, slowing the descent somewhat. Impact happened twice in quick succession, once when his face landed on the padded floor, and twice immediately after when Tubbo slammed into him from above, bouncing away in the collision and rolling away about a meter. Both of them paused to collect their bearings. “Sorry about that, we lost more strength than we thought…” 

Tommy had really only fallen about 15 feet onto soft padding, and it was closer to gliding if anything, but never had things like facts gotten in the way of complaining. He stood up, shaking himself a little. Tubbo decidedly stayed on the floor, and Tommy walked over to loom at the pile of bugs. Wilbur had taught him well the menace that towering over someone else brought, and Tommy used that same ability now. It was dampened in effectiveness, as Tubbo seemed fairly content to lay on the floor and not be properly intimidated like a polite person would be. “I coulda died! I coulda broke both my legs there! Then they’d have to put me in a wheelchair, and I’d go zooming around everywhere, and when they ask how I got all messed up I’d say, “M̸͈͝ŭ̷͖f̶̲͂f̵̫͑ĩ̷̩n̶̜̿ you that’s how!” And then they’d look at me all sad in the face!” 

“We could have dropped you instead.” Tubbo squinted up at him, eyes almost alien looking.

“YOU. DID.”

“Nuh uh! No way! ...did we?”

“Yes!” Tommy stressed emphatically. 

“Ohh.” Tommy’s inventory of the new space began with Tubbo. He was still sort of confused how that all worked, since now two different bees and one humanoid claimed the name, but maybe it was what they were? Not bees, but Tubbos? He wasn’t sure. Most of the insect-shaped Tubbos were fairly uniform, looking like generic bees. But the young human-shaped Tubbo was pretty close to human, with fluffy hair, gangly limbs, and an oversized hospital gown. They looked younger than Tommy, but that could just be the height and inhuman features. Their skin wasn’t quite…skin at all, so it was difficult to tell. The clothes were different in design from Tommy’s, and he recognized it to be the ones made for winged inmates. Overall, they were actually pretty close to human if you ignored the wide, shimmering black eyes, the gaping pit of a mouth revealing bees crawling in and out, the large flopping antenna, the shivering insect wings attached to their back. Occasionally, their skin would slump, dripping off to reveal the fact that the only thing underneath was (surprise surprise) more bees and what he guessed was honeycomb, though he wasn’t sure. The yellow liquid trailed off, pooling around them on the floor. A few bees wandered out, from either the mouth or various gaps, finding some business to tend to in the room. There were possibly hundreds of thousands of bees in the room, bumbling around and giving an atmosphere of shallow background hums. 

Tommy glanced around at Tubbos’ cell. It didn’t look anything like his or Philza’s. For one, it wasn’t empty at all. Rows and rows of stubby little flowering plants lined the room in long, dirt filled boxes. It was…really beautiful, actually. The flowers were white and star shaped, with little yellow centers that attracted several Tubbos to each. Where the observation window was supposed to be, a writhing mass of insects covered the view, and beneath it held a stained yellow table with a collection of equipment, a number of cute little watering cans and a variety of shovels, hoes, and trowels. One of the shovels, a small hand held one, lay beneath the vent, offering Tommy a guess as to how Tubbo had undone the screws. Oddly, there were three doors instead of just one, the third massive. “Right, what’s all this then?” Tommy gestured at the flora. Tubbo looked up from the floor at him, craning their neck at an awkward angle. Tommy crouched next to their head, careful to keep his hands from dripping into the floor or bee person currently occupying it. 

“Plants,” Tubbo said simply, looking at Tommy like he was the dumb one, which was very much not true.

“I can see that! Why are they here?”

“It’s part of a contract, as far as we can tell,” Tubbo explained. 

Tommy hesitated. “You-you said you weren’t dangerous.” Tommy didn’t think he’d be able to run fast enough, and escape to where? Trusting another inmate was a terrible idea, Philza had warned him about others, he’d been stupid, he’d-

“It’s for someone else, we think. They put us in here, and then when we woke up they had moved all these dirt boxes in. And then the plants grew out of them. We’re not supposed to mess with them, except for pollinating or whatever. We get moved to a different room sometimes, and leaving scouts doesn’t work because of the sleeping gas. Something is taking care of the plants, though. They’re always watered when we return.”

Tommy scratched his head. It certainly sounded like a threatening entity had made a bargain, one that would be dangerous to Tubbo if they met. Why would anyone make a contract that guaranteed a gardening period though? They sounded not only like a dweeb, but a stupid one to boot. The deals were always heavily stacked in favor of the humans, and, anyway, gardening was really boring. It didn’t seem like a good trade in Tommy’s opinion. But, assured that Tubbo was probably safe, he settled from a crouch into crossed legs, which was much more comfortable. “That’s weird.”

“Yeah. If only there was more variety; potatoes get boring after a while.”

Tommy’s eyes grew round, and his mouth watered. Food? Not Brown or Grey but actual, honest to Philza, food? “Can I have some?”

“No!” Tubbo yelled, sitting up sharply, rattling their wings in the two buzz code for the same word. Tommy pulled back to avoid getting bonked on the head. Tommy hadn’t realized it, but for all their strange features the big Tubbo was very easy to read. The features may have been a facsimile of a proper human face, but they were generally very expressive in a way similar to people. And so, shiny black eyes widening, wings tensed and ready to launch into flight, fear was very easy to recognize in Tubbo. “No,” Tubbo repeated, softer. “Don’t…don’t eat them.”

“Greedy.”

“No, they don’t let us,” Tubbo explained. “Trust us. We’ve…we’ve tried.” Their voice merged in and out of the greater drone, blending in almost to the point of disappearing entirely in the sound of discordant drones. They settled back into a reclining position, arms loosely wrapped around their middle.

They fell into awkward silence. Well, not silence, because of the constant drone of bees, but a definite lull in banter. It was odd that now he could better talk to a Tubbo that the conversation got harder. But he had other options available. “Could I talk to the other Tubbos? I brought the clipboard, and I figured since Buzz Lightyear figured out how to use it the others could talk as well. Though…” Tommy hesitated. “I don’t have that much paper. Maybe the Tubbos with the smallest handwriting? Or bee writing? Or maybe only the most interesting ones.”

The humanoid Tubbo tilted their head. Tommy copied the gesture. Maybe they couldn’t see straight. Wouldn’t be surprising, what with the segmented eyes. Tommy had read something about bug eyes once, he remembered how weird they peepers were. Like hundreds of little cameras all pointing different directions. “There aren’t other Tubbos.”

“Are you delusional? Your head all fulla bees? Bee brain? There’s loads of Tubbos, you got a Tubbo infestation practically.”

“No—you—m̶̗̿u̸̩͐f̴͍͘f̵͕̚í̵̟n̷̳̒. Ok. Ok. We’re ALL Tubbo.”

“Yeah. Like, that’s your type, right? Tubbo is a species?” Tommy said it slowly, to make sure they understand. Maybe Tubbo was really dumb. Head chock full of bees would do that to anyone, really.

“Tubbo is all of us. Together. It’s a hive mind thing. All experiences are shared with The Hive. There aren’t any individuals.”

“So you’re saying you’re a communist!?”

“A what? No, we’re a Tubbo, not a communist. We think. Dunno. What is a communist?” They canted their head again, rolling it to the side. Tubbo seemed fond of the gesture. It was already annoying Tommy. 

“It’s-uh. You know,” he smartly informed Tubbo, arcing his hands out to helpfully express the concept of communism, just in case bees were visual learners. Tommy liked to be considerate like that.

“We don’t.” There was a sort of sharpness to their gaze, and Tubbo wasn’t quite able to keep the smile off their face. 

“I reckon you do, actually.” Tommy wasn’t actually entirely sure himself, and he didn’t want to mess up and look stupid. He was pretty sure Tubbo was just waiting for him to mess up so they could make fun of him. He cast his eyes around, looking for a different conversation topic. He bit down a yawn. Then Tommy noticed where his hands had brushed against the floor, leaving sharp scarlet smears. He winced. “M̴̦͕͚̓ų̶̰̗̓̀̈́f̸̡̞̔͌̉f̷̡̲̥̑į̶̝̭̍̚n̷̺̞̖̏͋. Is there a way to clean it? I didn’t mean to make a mess. If I did, it’d be a lot more obvious, of course, I’m excellent at messes, really,” Tommy rambled. Tubbo lifted a hand, pointing to the water can. Then, the hand settled back on their stomach, almost perfectly interlocked, save for the missing digit. “You realize by touching the can I’ll just make even more of a mess, right? Just get it yourself,” Tommy commented. Really, Tubbo was being lazy. Well. So was Tommy, but he came up with an excuse faster, so obviously he was in the right. 

“Ohh,” Tubbo droned. They looked indecisive, wings twitching. Then, all at once, thousands of bees rose from their various places, gathering into a thick swarm that blackened the air, distorting the space beyond. Tubbo converged on a watering can with a cute little daisy painted on its side. When the covey rose once again into the air, Tommy was astonished to find the watering can was absent. The Tubbo swarm drew closer to what was also Tubbo, as well as Tommy, depositing the watering can next to him. Tommy whirled around to stare in disbelief. 

“You can do that?” Tommy's eyes widened. You could hide so many knives in there and no one would be the wiser.

“No,” Tubbo replied, scrunches appearing at the corner of their eyes, giving them a rather mischievous air. Their mouth (or lack thereof) drew into a bright grin. Probably. Still a gaping hole filled to the brim with bees, but Tommy could interpret the gesture.

“Bull mu̷̪̿f̴͉̊f̷̫̕î̵͙ñ.”

“Ok, you caught us, that was bull m̶̡̍u̶͍̐f̵̙̀f̵̹̑i̵̳̔n̵͓̒.” Tubbo sat up, then picked up the water and poured it out onto Tommy’s handprints. The pigment diluted enough that it could be mistaken for a (slightly pink) spill. 

“Of course I got you, I’m incredibly observant to—to even the slightest hint of deceit.” Halfway through his sentence Tommy was stopped by a deep yawn. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, but his body was beginning to lag. He probably needed to get back, since going through the vent again would probably drain him. Tommy stood up and stretched. Tubbo remained sitting on the ground. It wasn’t uncomfortable, given it was made out of soft white padding like the walls and ceiling. “Do you reckon you could fly me back to the vent?”

“No. Maybe if...no. Probably not.”

Tommy pondered the problem. “Oh! You could fly up some water and wash the walls afterwards!”

“Why?” Head tilt. Maybe there were too many bees in the humanoid Tubbo head, and that’s why it kept falling over?

“Pass without trace! Being all stealthy, like in the movies,” Tommy explained.

“No, not that. We can’t go through the vent,” Tubbo stated. “That’s where the sleeping gas comes from. They used it too recently, it lingers. We can’t go through there.” Their voice wavered more than usual.

“Well, I’m just built different. I didn’t feel anything. Besides; you don’t have to come at all. I’m probably just going to fall asleep the moment I get back to my room, anyways,” Tommy consoled. Tubbo seemed distressed. Tommy understood, he had that effect on people. Who wouldn’t want Tommy to stay? 

“You’re room? You’re—why are you going back?” Confusion seeped into their visage. 

Tommy pulled a face. “You’re being all clingy. I have to, don’t I? Otherwise they’ll figure out I’m missing.”

“Well, yeah, at some point they will, but we’ll be long gone by then, won’t we?”

“No???”

“But…” Tubbos’ replica of a voice trailed off. Their wings and antenna drooped. They looked up at Tommy with wide sad eyes. “But weren’t we going to escape? You promised you’d save us.”

The lights in the hallway were shattered. Tommy sat at the doorway, shadow streaming out before him. Broken pieces of weapons and people. Splatters of dried blood. This was the price of trying to leave. “No.” It came out harsher than he intended.  

“But we can’t do thisssz anymore, Tommy.”

Their voice broke oddly, dissolving into static. Tommy frowned. “It gets better after a while. You get used to it. They have to figure everything about you first, but once they do it isn’t so bad, really,” he offered. Today we’re testing how many people you can affect. Today we’re testing how much stress you can handle. Today we’re testing what happens after you break. Today we’re doing it again, just because we can. But after a while, they got bored. Stopped doing so many experiments. Really, Tommy hadn’t had to do anything too bad in…how long? He wasn’t good at time, but it had to be a significant amount of time. Maybe a month? Was a month a long time? Maybe two months.

“We don’t want to get usszzed to it! We wa—nt to get out!” 

“I can’t help you with that,” Tommy stated flatly. He turned, stalking over to the wall. Tubbo swarmed around him, pushing against his efforts. It was pointless, like walking through a stiff wind. 

“Please!” Tubbo yelled. Tommy tossed a glance over his shoulder. They surged upwards, stumbling into a standing position, making it a few steps before careening towards the ground. Tommy pivoted, lunging for Tubbo and catching them by the arm. To his horror, Tubbos’ wrist burst into thousands of bees, dissolving into furious coveys that billowed up around Tommy. A discordant scream burst in his ears as every single bee cried out in shock. The flesh beneath Tommy’s touch gave way to swarming insects. Tubbo collapsed onto the ground. 

Tommy stared at the chunks of Tubbo in his hands, gooey flesh and swaths of comb and honey splattering all over him. Vermillion crept upwards to match his stress. He could feel it settling over his chest like a blanket, constricting his breathing. Tubbo pulled their arms tightly to their chest. His hands were shaking and he dropped the chunks of Tubbo to the ground. An ugly mixture of viscous honey and Red remained. M̶̨̐̈̈̒͂ư̸̳̹̤͑f̶̢͂f̴̱̗̲̱̭̕į̶̭̿͂̕͝ṋ̵͉̺̠̖̀ ̷͙̃̋m̵̰̜̰̀͊̓̓ǘ̸̖̩̬̳ͅf̷͎̰̠̅̿f̴̧̬̾̕̕͠i̵̗̐̚n̸͙̬͇͇̈́̉͛͜ ̸̠͎͔͉̟́̈m̷̰̝͚̎̈u̸̳̐̇́̓͠f̷̫̲̤̪̔̎͘f̴͍͛͒i̴͍̖̫͛n̴̤̦̝͙̈́̇͜͝ ̴̨̮͈̉̍m̷͇͐̃ŭ̵̧͈̲̦͌f̸̯̣̜͕̋́͆f̸̠̅̒i̷̬̰̔͐̐́̚͜ṇ̸̍͐. He shouldn’t have done that, he should never have touched Tubbo, that wasn’t-̸̠͎͔͉̟́̈-m̷̰̝͚̎̈u̸̳̐̇́̓͠f̷̫̲̤̪̔̎͘f̴͍͛͒i̴͍̖̫͛n̴̤̦̝͙̈́̇͜͝ what was he thinking? Red laced over his chest, constricting his heart. Tommy glanced to the observation window. Insects writhed over the surface. Ok. Ok. No one watching. Tommy looked at Tubbo fearfully. 

But...but nothing happened. Tommy cautiously crouched down to be close to Tubbos’ eye level, but they avoided looking at him. They didn’t seem aggressive, or angry, or anything, just...just sad and small. Nothing changed. The icy grip of fear loosened around Tommy’s chest. Alright. Alright. It was ok. No one to target. Ok. Good. You’re fine, Tommy told himself. It’s fine. You aren’t going to force Tubbo to do anything. It’s fine. No one will die. Except there, in a sharp carmine outline, lay a hole in Tubbos’ flesh in the memory of Tommy’s grip. The skin facsimile was torn exactly in his hand print, the comb beneath it stretching a bit farther and broken into odd clumps of hexagons.

... what?

Small coveys of aggressive bees darted around. He could hear frenzied buzzing, and insects dropped from the sky, speared on stingers. A few plunged into Tubbos’ body, and their face flinched with each one. In the confusion, his Red sunk down, slipping away from his chest to just his arms. The attacks died away, or maybe just all the bees enthralled died. It hadn’t affected all of Tubbo, but the result was almost worse. Tommy somehow literally burned holes in Tubbo. It didn’t make any sense to him. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work at all. Had it somehow gotten worse? Did that mean the doctors were going to need to run new tests? No. No, stop thinking about yourself. You just ripped holes in someone and you’re worried about its effect on you? Disgusting selfish child. 

Tommy’s eyes darted around the room. He snatched the watering can. “Here, let me...let me get it off you.” Tubbo watched vacantly as Tommy carefully poured water over the wounds. “Does it hurt?” Tommy asked quietly.

“...no.” There were shards of Tubbo scattered around them. Little pieces of things half flesh and half honey comb. Bees crawled beneath the gaping imprint of Tommy’s fingers. He wasn’t sure if Tubbo was lying or not. Guilt gurgled in his stomach, rippling up and coalescing in his throat. “We can’t do this much longer,” Tubbo whispered.

“I didn’t mean to,” he swore. Except he had chosen to touch Tubbo. He hadn’t known it would explode them, but he’d done it anyway. 

“It's not you.” Still his fault. Tommy collected his breath into something he hoped was resembling normal respiratory patterns. Just don’t think about it. “We just...it's everything else. We can't bear it anymore.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that. You’ve been here, what, two weeks? I’ve been here-I’ve-well, you made it two weeks, so you can last another two weeks, right? And then that’s a month. And once you’ve done one month, really it’s like two, which is close to three, and that’s a fourth of a year done. And it gets easier, too, ‘cause you got experience.” He hoped that was calming. Tommy couldn’t quite remember what a week felt like, let alone a month. He couldn’t really remember what calm felt like, either. The closest he’d ever been was...well, before the Foundation. And after... The fragments of half remembered reassurances drifted in his mind. It had been long ago, when Tommy himself had first broken down with Philza there to build him back up. You’re not going to die, Tommy. And Philza was many things. Old, cool, godly, wise, and, most importantly, correct. It had been a comfort to hear him say it. But...Tommy didn’t have that kind of reassuring presence. Well, mayhem, mischief, and general irritation were certainly assured, but it didn’t lend itself to calming down melting bee people. In fact, he was built to be anti-calming down. He was the Instigator for a reason. It was going to be difficult, Tommy knew, but he was great at everything, so he could probably do it. Maybe. Hopefully.

“We don’t want to last another two weeks. We don’t want to be here a single day, we can’t do this Tommy, please, let’s just leave,” Tubbo begged. 

“Tubbo, listen to me,” Tommy began, trying to imbue his voice with every ounce of gravitas he could muster. It was vital that Tubbo understood his next words. “Escape is impossible and only makes things worse.”

“Then what do we do?” 

Here, we’ll come up with a plan. You’ll see, they aren’t going to break you because we’re smarter than them.  “Here, let’s come up with a scheme,” Tommy offered, hoping he’d matched Philza’s words. “We’ll think up all sorts of ways to make it easier. Let’s brainstorm solutions then, hmmm? Put all those bee brains to work.” Act exhausted when you aren’t, pretend to break sooner than your limits, and above all: don’t be interesting.

Tubbo was silent for a while, or as silent as hundreds of thousands of bees could manage. “Food?” they offered hesitantly. 

Tommy grinned. This would be easier than he thought. “Which do you like better, Grey or Brown?”

“We don’t know.”

“How do you not know? It’s an opinion, moron. You got to have one. Anyway, if you like Brown, there’s a solution already: I can trade my Browns for your Greys, and we’ll both be happier.”

“That wouldn’t work,” Tubbo softly stated. 

“You like Grey better then? I guess that could still work, split it even, in case they aren’t proportional.”

“No, we-” Tubbo melted into the rest of the bee noise. “We don’t have anything to trade with.”

Oh. Tommy tried one last time, smile fixed, stomach sinking. “It’s ok if you don’t want to exchange them, really.” 

“We...we want to, really but— but they haven’t given us anything in four days. They stopped ever since the potatoes started flowering.” Ah. Deprivation. That was always a fun one. 

There was something in the dark with him. Crawling at the edge of his room, waiting. Its breathing was heavy, halfway mixed between respiration and a deep, throaty growl. It paced around the room, footsteps padded but distinct. Tommy lay awake for hours, fear and Red creeping, knowing only that should he fall asleep it would attack. It traced the same path every time. In the mornings it was gone, and logically he knew it was just an audio clip. Just another attempt to make him more fearful, more powerful. But every night it felt so real. The monster was a marker of worse things to come, the first step in wearing him down again. And even once they were done breaking him again, the insomnia stayed, laced with nightmares. For a time, his only peaceful rest came in one hour increments, curled into Philza’s lap, great wings covering him like a blanket, finally assured nothing could get him.

Tommy breathed in slowly and exhaled in the same fashion. Ok. Ok. Solutions. There had to be some, there always were. “You could eat the potatoes,” he posited. There. That wasn’t so hard. 

“We...we tried, on the second day, dug one up and ate it. Then another, and another, ate maybe five or six. It hurt to move, but it felt so good to finally eat, we didn’t care. But then came time to move us into the next room and...and...oh god Tommy, you can’t imagine the screams. We were stuck, half asleep, and then the screams were so loud but we couldn’t even really wake up to do anything, couldn’t help them at all. And the laughter...We still hear it sometimes, you know. And the sound of weapons firing, and the snap of bones...and...and it sneaks up in our dreams. We wouldn’t have slept on our own at all, except it was the only way to not feel hungry.”

Ok...that was like really not what he expected. How was he supposed to know Tubbo had a- a potato demon for a roommate or something? “Listen, the dreams? They go away after a while,” Tommy lied. 

“You still get nightmares,” Tubbo replied reproachfully. Oh, right, m̶̨̈ŭ̴̝f̸͕͘f̴̣̌i̷̧̕n̴͖̐, the shared consciousness. That would have worked on any one else, though, if they hadn’t known like Tubbo did. It wasn’t Tommy’s fault his friend had thousands of little spy cameras with wings. 

“Ok, so, that was a lie, but you know what isn’t? I’ll bring you food next time. And-and if you really need to, you can eat the potatoes.”

“No! We’ll get people killed!”

Breathe in, breathe out. “Listen, you’re more important than them. If it’s your life on the line, choose it! Be a little selfish! Besides, you didn’t kill them directly, did you?” 

They didn’t have weapons. They didn’t need to. Tommy watched as they tore into one another, clawing and biting, tearing into flesh and hair. Each fighter was marked in bright ruby that mingled in with the blood they drew. Fear gripped his heart, building, the attacks growing more and more vicious alongside his Red, taking over his entire body. He chanted a lie over and over to himself. It's not your fault. It's not, it's not, it's not. It’s not yourfaultthey deserve todieyoudidn’t choose todothisit’snotyourfault. When he opened his eyes, The Blade stood atop the slain. Laughter. Tommy hadn’t done anything and yet dozens of people lay dead at his feet.

“No, but…”

“Then it's not your fault!” Tommy assured. (Philza had assured.)

“Their deaths were the consequence of our actions,” Tubbo insisted. 

The hallway.

Tommy knew he was supposed to be arguing against Tubbo, had to in order to prevent Tubbo allowing themselves to starve. Tommy could see the flaw, that Tubbo was actively sabotaging their survival in order to save people that Tommy knew didn’t deserve such mercy. But the hallway kept creeping into his vision. He closed his eyes, trying to keep his breathing even. “You didn’t intend for them to die when you ate it.”

“No, that wasn’t what we wanted at all,” Tubbo insisted, as if afraid Tommy would think that.

“Phil says if you didn’t want to kill them and you didn’t directly kill them, then it isn’t your fault.” (Of course, Philza had never done anything he didn’t want to, didn’t know what it was like to be forced against his will. Philza didn’t care if he hurt someone that wasn’t his Collected, so Philza really didn’t understand at all.)

“Of course it’s our fault!”

Tubbo didn’t seem convinced. That was fair; Tommy wasn’t entirely convinced either. He knew it had to be true since Philza had said it and Philza was always right. But Tommy also knew that happened in the hallway and tests were his fault. He knew both to be facts, even if he wasn’t sure how, if they contradicted. It was all getting too confusing. And, as Tommy often did when faced with something far too complex, he did the noble thing: gave up.“You don’t have to, then. Besides, I’ll be sharing my food so it probably won’t get that bad,” he conceded. Tubbo looked consoled at this.  “There, problem solved. I’m awesome at this!” Tommy tried to whirl up the feeling of victory, but it was hollow. His brain was all messed up, kept adding the remains of the hallway to the rows of tubular vegetables, trying to replicate whatever Tubbo had witnessed.

Tubbo uncurled slightly, antenna raising along with their hope at the promise of food. They looked down to their arms, wrists seared in the shape of Tommy. Tommy’s faux good mood chipped a bit. One step forward, two steps back. He wanted to...to apologize, or something, but also didn’t want to talk about it at all even more. But the ruby marks weren’t Tubbos’ focus at all. Their attention lay entirely on their hand, particularly the one that was...missing a finger. Everywhere else was just missing not-quite-skin, but the structure beneath was gone entirely. There was some sort of stopper in it, like a cork. The skin splintered a bit, fading into hexagonal designs that crept onto the rest of the hand, but was otherwise smoothly and uniformly disconnected. M̸̮̀͠u̷̝̍f̸͙̃̄f̵̳̠̐̓ͅí̴̭͒ṋ̴̞͂͝. How had Tommy skipped over that one? He knew what surgical cuts looked like, knew they liked taking pieces. But he never thought the Foundation would take an entire finger. He was uncomfortably aware of his own digits, twitching them a bit just for the assurance he still had them.

“They’re...trying to see how much we can grow back. What if...what if they cut off our hand next time? Our head?” Tubbo clutched the pinky-less hand to their chest, right over their heart and the crimson dot Tommy had left. Most of the gaps in Tubbo were much more irregular and lumpy; Tommy cursed himself for not noticing how precise the cut on Tubbos’ missing finger was. Surgical precision was always a warning sign. Combine that with the fact that Tubbo had been too weak to even sit up for half their conversation...How many other warning signs had he missed?

Hands clasped at his throat, gloved hand tearing at his assailant, useless. Weight shifting, pressing his wrists down. Trapped. Pinned like a scarlet butterfly. Black spots filling his vision. Ink blotting out the world. Unable to draw either a breath or a notion as to why they were doing this. His air cut off with practiced precision, as everything the Foundation did was with practiced precision. The hands released just as he was sure he’d die. Then they reclasped, stealing the single gulp of air he’d desperately gathered. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat repeat repeat re—. Deep, throaty laughter.

Breath in. Out. He could breathe, right? There was nothing stopping him this time. So why was it so hard? Tommy didn’t have a solution to the Foundation purposefully cutting off Tubbos’ limbs to see what would happen. It wasn’t something they’d ever tried on him personally, seeing as it wasn’t related to his powers. But maybe more general advice would work? “Can you try…not rebuilding it? Or if you can’t, do it reeeeeally slowly? So that they don’t notice?” Philza had always impressed on Tommy the power of underestimation. Not that anyone ever dared underestimate Philza, but Tommy could manage to fly under the radar. 

Tubbo contemplated this. “We could try?” Tommy grinned. He was pretty good at sorting out Tubbos’ problems! He’d never had anyone to give advice to before. Shame they all tied into tips on how to survive torture, but, hey, at least he knew it would go to good use. Combined with the technique of covering viewing points, Tommy was shaping up to be a pretty good teacher to the newer captive. He should be a life coach for entities being rounded up and experimented on! He’d charge loads of money! Er, well, they wouldn’t have money to give him. And Tommy didn’t have anywhere or way to spend it. But it was the principle of becoming stupidly wealthy (more than the practice) that was so attractive. Maybe he’d accept payment in the form of Grey, which he could then give to Tubbo.

“Sweet! Anything else?” Tubbo contemplated this, before slowly shaking their head. Their face broke into a hopeful smile, bees spilling out. “See! It’s a lot more manageable once you got a plan,” Tommy proclaimed. His triumph was dampened as the exhaustion hit him. Tommy couldn’t remember how time worked, but he figured it had been a few hours. The lights back in his cell wouldn’t turn on for a while, but he planned to utilize the remaining dark for slumber. Of course, he could always sleep past when they turned on the lights. Tommy didn’t exactly have any pressing business to attend to, but he needed to be sure any notions of escape were appeased. Don’t phrase it as not fleeing, but as triumphant endurance, as spitting in the eyes of those trying to tear the both of them down. “So...we can do this?” he prompted.

Tubbo smiled at him. “We can do this,” Tubbo affirmed, buzzing their wings in a long single drone. The old code for “Yes.”

Tubbo didn’t end up flying Tommy up to the vent, which really wasn’t surprising since they didn’t even have the energy to stand properly. (Honestly, he wasn’t sure how Tubbo even managed to get to the vent to greet Tommy in the first place, let alone think themselves to be in any state to try and fly Tommy down. What an idiot.) Tommy ended up scaling the wall, a swarm of honey bees flying in his wake and pouring out the watering can to erase his presence. Tommy slipped into the vent, pausing at the opening to look back at the rows of potatoes that surrounded his friend. Friends? He still wasn’t sure. He waved a glistening ruby hand. Several bees landed in his hair, and stayed there for the rest of the long crawl back.

He still avoided looking at the other inmates, but the thought of them didn’t scare him as much. Tommy reached his gate, sighing in relief when he noticed the lights were still off. Tommy wormed his way out of the vent, hooked his toes into the divot between padded paneling, and began the climb down. Then, he picked up the vent cover that had fallen many hours ago, and climbed back up. Tommy was actually getting pretty good at climbing, now able to spare a hand to clutch the gate. Back at the vent hole, he started twisting the screws back in loosely. With luck he wouldn’t have to use the clipboard next time. 

Tommy returned to the floor, standing with his sanguine hands on his hips. He’d done pretty good today. He’d found a secret passageway. Learned a lot about Tubbo and their condition. Done some problem solving. Altogether a very productive night. He couldn’t wait to tell Philza everything, once he got the chance. An hour of unmonitored conversation didn’t seem enough, but it never was. Since the floor was the same consistency for the entire room, Tommy decided the place he was standing was as good a spot as any to collapse upon. To say he didn’t have nightmares would be a lie, but, well, they really weren’t so bad. You got used to a lot of things, after a while.

Chapter Text

Apparently it was cleaning day. Tommy scrambled, trying to snatch his drawings to him. He’d made a beeline to Clementine’s envelope as soon as he’d seen the water bucket and scrubs, next snatching the picture of him, the fire breathing Clementine, Philza and Rosalind. Tommy searched wildly for Buzz Lightyear’s message, but as he couldn’t find it, he took to scooping up piles of paper and hugging them to his body, guarding them against theft. One of the cleaners tossed a bucket of water against the observation window, sending torrents of carmine coloration streaming down. They didn’t bother cleaning any other paint, which was something at least. Tommy had spent the morning beginning to color the walls. He’d started with a solid stripe at the vent to cover his tracks, then spread out so it didn’t seem specific and thus suspicious. The other employee gathered up Tommy’s pages, and in their arms Tommy could spot the bee’s writing. Usually he tried to stay out of the way during cleaning day, but then again he’d never had anything to lose, save for his privacy. They didn’t get rid of any of his other decorations, so why take his pictures away? 

“Can I have that?” He pointed to the collection of papers the man held. Really, they were just going to end up in some biohazard waste bin. “You won’t have to throw them out if I keep them.” There. He could do logic! Be all persuasive! Be charismatic. Tommy was a pacifist. Like...like...well he couldn’t think of a comparison, but he sure there was a cool one! 

“No,” the cleaner said roughly, picking up more of the pieces. Now, there comes a time in every person’s life when they encounter a difficult situation. Maybe something didn’t pan out like they’d hope, or something didn’t go their way. At every instance of hardship, sometimes it is a good idea to step back, and think rationally. This can usually be obtained by using a simple guiding phrase, a reminder of one's belief in a moral imperative to act in a manner that would demonstrate the judgment of Him through the actions of the adherents. It was a reminder to use wisdom in all facets of life. It takes the form of a question, one which you have to ask yourself truly, really ponder what the answer would be, and then use that response to guide your choice. The inquiry was this: What Would Philza Do? 

The answer was obvious: kill them.

Ok, maybe time to ask a different question. What would...The Blade do? Kill them twice, somehow. Tommy was starting to get a little concerned. What would Wilbur do? Not kill them! Finally! But…probably a fate worse than death, to be honest. Wilbur was downright creepy, along with being a tall m̴̯͝u̶̟̓f̸͍̽f̶̧̾i̸̬͆n̸̾͜er. Tommy started frantically trying to come up with role models that didn’t inspire violence. 

Tubbo! Tubbo? Tubbo. Tubbo, who was starving to death because of the Foundation. Parts of Tubbo watched from the vent grid, silent. Anger twitched in Tommy’s heart, curling painful fire around his innards. It wasn’t really working, in retrospect. The cleaner seemed to have gathered all the papers that Tommy hadn’t managed to snatch, turning towards a trash can that had been wheeled in. Soon, Buzz Lightyear’s message would be gone. He’d run out of options. So. The real question was this: What would Tommy do?

Tommy slowly and carefully set down his protected papers. Then, suddenly he made a dash for the cleaner, yelling out a warcry. It wasn’t on par with The Blade’s, but it was probably the closet that a human throat could replicate. The cleaner whirled around in bewilderment, right into Tommy’s desperate lunge for the papers. Or, more specifically, one paper. Tommy grasped on, wrenching it away from the cleaner’s grasp. The sharp sound of paper tearing filled the room. Tommy looked down, horror seeping into his visage, at the torn scrap of the ‘Freind :)’ paper. It had ripped horizontally, Tommy clutching the top of the message. Bubbling wrath curled up inside him. “You m̵̨̓͒̉ù̴̡͚̰͌f̶͕̬̫̂̂f̴̧͇̐̽͜͠į̶̬̮̈́̋ņ̷͕͔̌̓ing m̴̯͝u̶̟̓f̸͍̽f̶̧̾i̸̬͆n̸̾͜s.”

The cleaner panickedly shoved the pages into the garbage can, positioning it between them. After all, he didn’t know what the monster would or could do. “Get. Out.” Tommy was trembling now, breathing growing louder and louder as he clutched the torn declaration of companionship. The cleaner at the window abandoned their buckets, darting towards the door. The one with the trash can full of Tommy’s work backed slowly, far too cautious for Tommy’s liking. He surged forward, shouting, “I SAID TO LEAVE, M̵̨̡̡̧̗͚̪̳̮̈́͛͛̌ͅÙ̸̮̹̺̜̘͓̆̋́͛̀̑͘̕͝ͅF̵̧̻̪̪̭̍F̸̩͇̋̊̀̇͌̾́I̴̖̲̙̜̜͕̍N̴̡͙̺̺̯̓͐̒̈͝ERS!!”

And maybe shouting muffin wasn't all that intimidating, but the staticky corruption would hopefully sound scary, and, really, at that point Tommy was far too angry to care. The door slammed shut behind the cleaners. Maybe they knew his abilities, maybe they didn’t. It didn’t really matter. They left either way. Tommy paced, yelling censored obscenities to the empty room, pulling at his hair and shouting some more. He froze when he caught sight of the observation window in his periphery. Oh. Oh, those m̴̡̘̭͐͘͠ǘ̵̢̱̘̆f̸̫̜͋ḟ̷̙͊́i̸̖̍n̶͓͑̆́es, they did this on purpose. They were trying to tempt him into using his powers on them, that’s why there were two cleaners.

They were hoping Tommy would try to kill them. Practically begging for him to mess up and get punished with the gloves again. He lunged at the glass, pounding his fists on it and sending splatters of Red across the surface. He couldn’t hear anything inside, but surely if they were testing him then someone was watching. He screamed at them. Tommy began the task of covering up the window, sprawling large curse words that always faded back into the word muffin. It really only helped his endeavor. He could put in a small amount of paint for a short cuss word and have it transfer into a much longer word. It was useful if irritating, and it really only added to his aggression. He hadn’t covered much when the door swung open, Rosalind and the unnamed...well, not new hire, they’d been here a bit too long. Semantics. Tommy was too irate to care. “Hi Tommy!” Rosalind waved a thick stack of papers, meal tray balanced on the other arm. “I brought mo-”

“They stole them!” He shouted, angrily swiping a hand across the window, leaving a bright red arc. “They destroyed my work!” 

Rosalind balked. “What?”

Tommy seethed. “Is that it then? I don’t get rights? I don’t get to have things that make me happy??” He punctuated each syllable with his fist founding on the observation window. Of course, Tommy had known it before, but he’d never had anything tangible to lose in all his time. They took his freedom, his control, his slumber. They’d coated his hands in blood. He didn’t know why he was surprised, really, that they’d ruin Tubbos’ message as well. They didn’t even know what they’d done, and yet could still manage to hurt him in the worst way imaginable.

“Tommy, just...just calm down.”

“I don’t want to! It’s not fair! They shouldn’t get to keep...keep abusing us like this!” The drawing had just been the last straw, because, really, he was angry about what they were doing to Tubbo. Tommy had gotten used to the Foundation’s antics, but Tubbo had reminded him how unbearable they could be. His blood boiled. There wasn’t anything he could do, and that had always been the case. The fact chafed at him. He didn’t know what to do.

“What can I do to help,” Rosalind softly prompted. Tommy’s brain stuttered to a stop. It wasn’t that his anger died, but it was swallowed by confusion. Slowly he turned away from the window, staring at the human. Her fingers were twisted in her chestnut ponytail, as she was wont to do when nervous. The large, poisonous green tear in her lab coat had been stitched closed with plum colored thread. And human. Undeniably human. And yet here she was. Offering assistance. Tommy had interacted with humans a good portion of his 16 year lifespan, but never since he’d encountered the Foundation had one offered help. He’d forgotten that some could be...good. Philza’s words echoed in his head, regarding the employees. They deserve to die.

“Why?”

“Basic human decency, I suppose.” The same response as earlier. 

“But you work here,” Tommy reiterated.

“That’s sorta the reason I do. I signed up to help humans.”

“I’m not one,” Tommy scowled.

“You’re a person though. They’re close to the same thing.” Tommy mulled this over. Most of the Foundation actively disagreed vehemently with that statement, and he didn't often hear anything in contradiction to what the Foundaiton wanted. “How can I help?” Rosalind reiterated when the silence stretched on. “What do you want?”

“I...I want…” Tubbo to have food. The nightmares of gloves and choking and beasts and blood and the hallway and his actions to end. Help. To know what to do. To be wrapped in the arms of his Collector and be told everything would be alright, be told how to save Tubbo because surely Tommy was already failing. “I want Philza.” Well, not really. Want didn’t cover it at all. It was an intrinsic need pulsing in his chest drowning out the sound of his own heart beat. Need was a far better word, but he didn’t like it. It made him sound needy, because he was and it was the truth but he hated it nonetheless. “Can I see him? Or...or I want to know when I get to see him next,” he admitted. Anger still clutched him, but it could be ok. Philza knew how to deal with anger and would help him.

“I can go ask if you want? I could...I’m not a high security classification, but if I asked Mr. Loiseau, maybe...swung it like wanting more information to be safe. Technically, they only offered me a small selection of your files up to a certain level, so I could...yeah. I’ll see what I can do!” She lit up with the plan, a fire sparking into motion that sent her disappearing through the door. Tommy continued to paint the window. Anger still bubbled inside him, but he told himself it could wait till Philza. Afterwards, he’d know what to do. They’d come up with ideas on how to help Tubbo. He added broad streaks to the window, jumping up in some places to reach the top. 

“So that’s what you do? Throw a tantrum after a minor inconvenience?” Now, Tommy realized that the bitter worker didn’t know everything he was thinking, couldn’t know what was happening to Tubbo, or anything that had happened to Tommy. All he saw was unproportional anger over his things being thrown away. Actually, m̵̭͑u̴̩͛f̴̭͊f̶͇͆i̴̪͝n̵̡͌ this, it was totally justified rage. The paper was the first personal thing he’d had in here! He’d like to see the man try to survive for however long in a featureless room! 

“M̸̫̏u̵̙͐f̶̳͛f̷͇͐i̶̺̍n̶̤̉ you, man,” Tommy threw over his shoulder as he worked on a strongly worded commentary on the small size of the observers’ smooth brains. 

“That’s the worst you can come up with? What? You can’t manage to rip out my eyes with your bare hands? I thought I’d be helping protect humanity, not babysit poor excuses for bloodthirsty monsters,” he spat. 

“I’m not-” Tommy began angrily. He was neither a child nor monster and he took great offense to both! He was a person.

“Really, now. How many innocent people have you killed?” the man interjected. 

The humans shot each other, then stabbed each other, and then when left with no weapons at all, clawed at each other with their bare hands, ripped each other limb from limb. The popping sound of arms and legs being removed from sockets. The padded floors and walls didn’t steal all the blunt force as skulls were dashed upon them. The crack of bones. Tommy sat in the middle of it all, chanting to himself, covering his ears as best he could. It’s not your fault. You didn’t choose to do this. They deserve it. The words blended together, drowned out by the screams (both final sound and warcry, each indistinguishable from the other). Tommy hadn’t killed them. Tommy hadn’t done anything at all. The humans did it for him.

At some point he’d stop coating the window, and couldn’t bring himself to restart. Tommy drew a shaky breath. “Zero,” he said shortly. It was true in a number of ways. Tommy had never taken a life with his own hands. The humans had done it themselves. Philza had said that if he didn’t want to, it didn’t count. Tommy was forced to do it. It wasn’t his choice. The man had said ‘innocent lives,’ and Tommy knew that anyone who worked in the Foundation deserved it. Technically, on many accounts it was true, even if he didn’t really believe it.

“You hesitated.” And he had, but the comment still made Tommy seethe.

“They deserved it,” he snarled. “Everyone here does.”

“Really? Would Rosalind deserve it, too?”

“No.” 

“Why not?”

“Because-because she's nice! She calls it human decency, but she’s wrong! Humans aren’t decent! Out of the both of you, she’s going to survive, because she doesn’t purposefully aggravate people!” Tommy tried to collect himself. His distorted reflection in the one way glass didn’t look like him. He turned around to pin the human with a glare, unable to look at himself. White lab coat, slicked back red hair, glasses a touch too large. Permanent scowl. A bitter, resentful man. The both of them were lashing out at one another, for surely Tommy could think of no real reason for the man to hate him so. Tommy himself knew his real anger was reserved for the Foundation, knew he was projecting their actions onto this one human. Neither cared. “You’re going to die, you know that?” Tommy stated, less question than fact. 

The man snorted derisively. “You’re going to kill me then? You don’t scare me after what I’ve seen.” 

“No,” Tommy said simply. “I won’t have to. The Foundation’ll do it for me.” The Foundation was the true culprit for all of the deaths. The thought tickled at him, before vanishing the moment he tried to examine it. “You get that, right? You’re disposable to them.” Tommy held the human’s gaze for a time, before returning to his work. He had maybe a third left, and started at the top, standing on tip toe and hopping when that wasn’t enough. He could see the distorted reflection of the man. Their fists curled and released repeatedly. Some petty corner of Tommy was glad that someone else felt as terrible as he did. Scratch that, all of him was pleased. He wasn’t above pettiness.

The padded floors made movement hard to pick up. Certainly, the worker did not announce their intent verbally. Tommy watched, almost detached, as the one way mirror depicted the distorted figure of the man in the lab coat silently surge towards him, fist pulled back to deliver a blow. Time slowed. What was he supposed to do? He knew if he fought back he’d be punished. His fingers curled in the memory of the gloves. And...and if something went badly and he got in serious trouble, he might not have a dark period to sneak away to Tubbo during. But...he itched for conflict. A way to release his anger at everything. 

The Blade always said to attack second. There’d been reasons (probably) attached to that tenet, but Tommy didn’t remember. Something about deniability. He could work with that. Tommy promised himself that, should the man deal a successful blow, then he’d have no inhibitions about attacking the man. Besides, he’d deserve it. Tommy waited, feigning oblivion as he watched the fist reach its farthest contortion before launching towards his skull. Then, just when he judged it too late for the man to readjust his aim, Tommy ducked to the side. The man’s blow landed on the window, rebounding with nearly equivalent velocity. Tommy himself had struck the window enough to know how much it had to hurt. The glass was bullet proof, after all.

Tommy allowed himself retaliation. The caveat was this: the man had to manage to touch him first. And, though he was rusty, Tommy had spent far too much time training with The Blade to not learn how to avoid the attacks of a far superior fighter. Wait, that sounded bad. Tommy was just as good a fighter as The Blade! Even better, probably! Tommy definitely would have won any duels should they have had them. You know. If the whole ‘The Blood God always wins’ thing didn’t exist. And even then they would tie. Yes. Definitely. 

A distant memory played. It was maybe a few weeks before he’d been captured. He was lying on the dirt, breath pressed out of his lungs from hitting the ground too hard. A few minor bruises peppered his skin since The Blade tried to be careful but wasn’t perfect. Even without direct attacks, Tommy managed to get a little battered. The first time though...The Blade hadn’t been too good at holding back. Obviously he had, since Tommy was very alive, had all his limbs, and hadn’t gotten any scars (even though that would’ve been very cool), but his mum had gotten really angry and only allowed Tommy to go back if he promised not to do any training. Of course he’d done it anyway, but they’d been a lot more careful. Thus him lying in the dirt. Clouds swirled overhead, white and fluffy feathers dotting the azure sky. The Blade leaned over, blotting out the sky, asking if he was alright. Tommy had nodded breathlessly, pretending to be more winded than he was, accepting the offered hoof that pulled him to his feet roughly. The moment The Blade released his grip, Tommy launched upwards, head butting his friend in the stomach, who hadn’t seen the attack coming since Tommy was still in his blindspot. It wasn’t as if the Blade was hurt by it, but the point was he hadn’t expected it. He’d looked down at Tommy, dark eyes blinking behind large glasses. His face split into a toothy grin, and he clapped, hands clattering loudly against one another. The Blade had scooped him up to perch upon giant shoulders, and the pair had gone inside to share the news with Philza and Wilbur, Tommy boasting the entire time. It was the first time he’d managed to get a hit on The Blade during practice. Wilbur had complimented him on the dirty trick, and Philza had tousled his hair affectionately, saying he was proud. Tommy had practically glowed the rest of the week, chest tingling with warmth. Maybe he was leagues away from The Blade, but he’d still managed to impress his friends a little bit and it had been enough for him.

But the fact still remained: the man in the lab coat was nowhere near the league of the Blade, and, by proxy, Tommy. He put too much force into each blow and didn’t plant his feet, meaning his body would stumble after it. The employee made wide, aching swings that were telegraphed a mile away. Tommy was a lot faster than him, and used dexterity to his advantage. Really, it was trivially easy to duck and dance away from attacks, twisting around behind the man as to not be driven to a wall. Tommy wasn’t prone to bragging, as he was so unbelievably humble, but he was doing fantastic. 

He kept glancing at the observation window. He hadn’t finished covering all of it so surely someone could see what was transpiring and should be stopping this. Right? Sure, Tommy hadn’t retaliated yet, or had been injured at all, but obviously the man was attacking him. The ginger worker paused, panting, and readjusted his glasses. “Stop. Doing that! You can’t. You can’t dodge forever, you little m̸͌ͅu̸̜͌f̶̉ͅf̷̟͌į̸̇n̴̗̏ !”

“What, you reckon I’m just going to stand there and take it? I’m not stupid.” 

“Just stay still! I’ll just do everyone a favor and neutralize you, won’t be the first time.” The scarlet picked up a bit. He’d heard the threat before, usually on the glove days. As much as Tommy wanted to fight, it was getting kinda concerning, the fact that no guards had been sent in. Tommy had wished many times that it was a two way glass, but never had it been so dire. He wanted to know what prevented his rescue.

All of his friends would have made fun of him for what happened next. Philza would snort, The Blade just say he deserved it, and Wilbur would hold it over his head for the rest of Tommy’s life long past the point of being funny. He wasn’t quite sure what Tubbos’ response would be, actually. Maybe Tommy had finally found someone who wouldn’t laugh at his misfortune. Tommy himself knew he deserved it for being distracted. The man’s attacks had gotten slower overtime, and Tommy had stopped paying as much attention as he really should have. So, yes, he probably should have not been focusing on the window, since the man used the opportunity to land a blow on Tommy. The boy staggered back, clutching at his eye, which was really a stupid idea. Tommy looked up, glaring with one eye at the man, the other blinded by Red and pain. Oh, m̸̙͝ ū̵͙ f̸̮͛ f̵̬̒ i̸̫͌ n̷͛͜ no. 

The man looked shocked at having finally landed a hit, but equally surprised when Tommy surged at him, planting a solid headbutt into the man’s stomach. The redhead bent over, catching his breath. Tommy bounced on the balls of his feet, fists raised and poised to strike. “Oi! M̴͈͖̒̓̔̌͌͒ͅͅǘ̷̙̻͙̘̪̖ͅf̶̛̖̱͓̈̓̿̔f̶̯̝̳̗͍͌͠ͅi̵̗̹͐̒͒ͅņ̸̘̙̰̜̣͓̈́͂͒͘͠hole! You’ve really m̷͖̗͓̊̀̈́̌͐u̴̧̝̥̔̈̽͐f̴̡̲̘̖͍̀̌̓͗f̶̣̱̠̽̔̾̑̚͠i̴̡̢̡̻͚̩͒̑͜n̵̮͇̍͒̃͑ͅed up now! You’re gonna regret that!” When the man lunged at Tommy, the teen slid to the side, letting momentum carry the opponent and tossing a kick to the back of the man’s knees. Slowing down his speed would only be a good thing. See, Tommy really liked lying, and that was really all a good fight was about. Pretend to be winded and then attack. Raise your fists so your opponent expects punches. Tommy found that the bright red targets were easier for people to focus on, opening their defense to well timed kicks and the occasional headbutt. Tommy tossed in a few elbow jabs to the man’s ribs, a tactic he liked to use to remind people of the possibility of a punch. It was best to employ the arms when he still could, so no one would realize that he didn’t use them. As long as he wasn't scared, the vermillion pigment couldn’t grow and limit his options. All he had to do was be brave, and Tommy had that in spades.

Against a better opponent, other forms of deceit were available. Create fake tells, look to dodge one way and go the other. But those only worked when the enemy paid attention and had a modicum of skill. The man in the lab coat did not. 

Tommy had experience, and that helped, but it had been a long time since he’d been in a real fight. He had speed as well, and that helped some. But with one working eye he had to be careful, which was really boring. His real handicap lay in his hands, however. Tommy had never been one to pull punches, but ever since the scarlet pigment had appeared he had to literally do just that. He knew that using Red would only result in punishment, really even fighting at all, but the Foundation got extra fussy about using powers without being told to. But at least when he forgot and let fly a punch, he could misdirect it into a fake out to distract the man into getting another kick to the knees. Tommy wasn’t scared, and so his Red level wasn’t high, and so the man likely wouldn't get too aggressive. Use more force than necessary, as opposed to straight up murder. He spared a second to glance at his arms. Just below the elbows. Good. Not quite to physical violence, then. Tommy tried not to remember the tests, or worse, the summons. Every time he’d curl into a ball, whispering reassurances to himself, and wait for it to be over, dread and crimson creeping up and consuming him. The Foundation had sacrificed hundreds to discover his limits, find the maximum number of people he could entice to conflict. They found no capacity. 

Each of them drew away from the other, the man scowling and panting, Tommy grinning wildly and trying to pretend he wasn’t just as tired. The observation window was to his back. It was funny, sort of, that when the Foundation had been purposefully trying to get him to start a fight, he’d managed to hold himself back, but once it was only one person he’d broken. 

Wait. Only one person. Oh god, oh Phil, Tommy was an idiot. The man wouldn’t have anyone to target at all! So the Foundation couldn't get mad at him for getting anyone hurt! But- but they'd punish him if he used his power...directly. If Lawrence managed to contaminate himself that wasn't his fault, was it? Tommy smirked at the man in the lab coat, tauntingly. His back was to the covered window, distant from the abandoned cleaning supplies so as to not have the bucket hinder his escape. The man jolted into a run, growing closer to the teen by the second. Wait. Wait. Now. Tommy dropped, rolling to the side. The man’s blows landed once more on the window, this time splashing into the still-moist crimson coating. Perfect. 

The man whipped around, scowl morphed into an almost animalistic snarl, but he didn’t attack Tommy. The teen released a deep sigh. De-escalation was never his forte, so it was really a miracle it worked. 

Well that was...anticlimactic. The red-haired worker paced back and forth, searching for conflict. He was fuming, and shouting quite a bit, but couldn’t actually direct any of that anger to the Instigator specifically. After catching his breath, Tommy watched the employee, eyeing the door and window for any sort of reinforcements. Shouldn’t someone have come by now? If not at the spark of the conflict, at least when Tommy had used the Red. Not directly, he knew better than that, but still. Weren’t guards supposed to be rushing in? Wasn’t Tommy supposed to be punished? Carmine crept up his arms, palms itching. He couldn’t stop jittering, adrenaline still stitched into his limbs. The man started to make laps of the room, Tommy twisting around to keep track of the movement whenever his peripheral vision failed. 

And then, the rap of knuckles against the metal side of the door. Both Tommy and the man tensed, hyper fixated on the exit. It swung open, Rosalind streaming through the threshold, clutching a stack of papers, expression mixed but ultimately glowing with determination. The door thumped shut behind her. “It took longer than I expected, because Mr. Loiseau said I have to advance a security level to get the papers. I think he’ll vouch for me though so I can probably manage it in a few days.” Tommy’s face broke into a smile. He’d expected a harbinger of bad news, the promise of punishment, and instead the excited face of possibility strode through the door. He leapt to his feet, ready to race to her, see what she had, but the man beat him to it. The employee broke into a sprint, lunging at the oblivious Rosalind. 

“Run!” Tommy shouted, fear dripping into his stomach as he chased after the worker. He was slightly faster because of the man’s battered knees, and caught up, wrapping his arms around the enthralled employee and trying to slow him down. The man struggled in Tommy’s grip. Rosalind looked up, and froze like a deer in headlights. It was a familiar reaction. He could almost see the thoughts in her head blurring into empty panic, erasing all possibilities aside from inaction. Oh, Tommy was incredibly familiar, but he needed to stop it.

“RUN!” Tommy commanded. The worker lunged at her, and Rosalind finally broke into motion, dropping her papers and scrambling away.

“You’ve always been too soft with the monsters! How dare you even think of them as anything other than the beasts they are!” the man shouted.

“Lawrence what are you—what’s wrong with him?” She shouted, first addressing the other worker, then the stressed Tommy. 

The males grappled, roughly equal in strength but fueled by fury and desperation respectively. Lawrence continued to shout arguments at his peer, strength and effectiveness at struggling out of Tommy’s grasp increasing by the second. “He’s all aggressive and m̵̰̑u̵̙͋f̸͍̀f̴̼͐i̸͙͆n̶̢̑! Don’t let him touch you, Ros—he’s got Red on his hands,” Tommy gritted out. If she got contaminated too it would all be over. The pair would rip into each other, Tommy tucked away and trying to ignore the screams. Eventually one of them would be victorious, coated in the remains of their coworker, snarling for the next encounter till the Red dried. He wondered what Lawrence’s reaction would be, when he looked down to find the corpse of his coworker at his feet. Would he be the type to scream? Weep? Stare at the blood on his hands, shell shocked, trembling as the realization struck?

“Stop believing its lies! It’s not real, Rosalind! Just a trick to get your sympathy, to make you lower your guard. Why can’t you see that!? It can’t be real. It’s. A. Lie.” Tommy dug his fingers into the flesh of his biceps. The sanguine pigment laced up to his elbows. A tipping point. The verbal assault faded as physical violence grew in likelihood. For now, it was almost manageable, and he could go mostly slack, letting his body serve as dead weight, slowing Lawrence. The man kept trying to shake Tommy off, and Tommy knew his grasp would fail if the scarlet grew to his hold as once grippable skin would turn slick and slippery. 

He knew that Lawrence’s aggression would only rise along with his stress, and for now he would probably leave a few bruises on Rosalind. The problem was the feedback loop. Tommy knew from experience that the conflict would only frighten him more, increasing the brutality of the fight. The ruby skin grew closer to his grasp, this wasn’t really helping the attempt to calm down. 

(The whole situation was kind of ridiculous, actually. Lawrence wasn’t all that fast with his battered legs and the added weight of Tommy, and so Rosalind just ended up jogging around in circles around the cell.)

Think of good things, Tommy told himself. Philza! Rosalind was going-Rosalind-well he was going to visit soon, probably. They’d brainstorm together. And then Tommy could run back to Tubbo and claim all the credit, and Tubbo would be so gracious that they’d be Tommy’s best friends forever. But that led him to Tubbo. Starving, cut up Tubbo. Crimson inched up further, coating his upper arms, greasing his hands. If it got far enough, Tommy knew that Lawrence would begin to use deadly force. Tommy knew that there weren’t weapons in the room, but that had never stopped people tearing each other apart limb from limb, crazed and bloodthirsty like Maenads. 

And finally, Lawrence managed to pry open his grip, flinging the inmate off and renewing his dash for Rosalind. He was bellowing, no longer using words anymore. 

Tommy flew backwards, rolling, crashing into the observers’ wall. He tucked himself between the abandoned cleaning supplies, forgotten in an effort to flee from Tommy. The boy shut his eyes tight, and curled into himself even tighter. He’d failed.

It’s not your fault.

Except it was.

They deserve to die.

Except what had Rosalind ever done?

You didn’t choose this.

Except this time there wasn’t anyone that made him do it. This was a disaster of Tommy’s own creation. 

He clutched his ears when she first screamed. It was brief, more surprise than agony, but it echoed with the past, intertwined with death cries cut short. In response, he could feel the Red rush to wrap around his chest, squeezing his heart. Well. That was it, then. A threshold had been reached, both for his fear and Lawrence’s wrath. Tommy was achingly familiar with his own capabilities to know murder was eminent. He mentally braced. It would suck to lose Rosalind. She’d been nice, and he’d started to believe it could be genuine. Tommy didn’t exactly think he’d miss her, not for long anyways. It was his fault for getting attached anyways. He berated himself for caring. This was only a matter of time, after all. He still heard the shuffling of feet, the dampened sound of running. Youdidn’tchoosetodothisit’snotyourfaulttheydeservetodieyoudidn’tchoosetodothis.

“Tommy!” Rosalind shouted, breaking the mantra. Tommy’s eyes snapped open in response to his name. She just barely dodged a swing from her coworker, swerving back into a different direction. “Tommy please!” He couldn’t do nothing. Not again. Her death was inevitable, but he refused for his own inaction to feature in his nightmares. He desperately looked around for a weapon, finding a sponge and hurling it with all his might to painlessly bounce off the pristine white lab coat of Lawrence. It left a slightly pink stain, and then lay on the floor. Tommy panickedly reviewed his other supplies, but there were only sponges and water pails. Wait. Water. 

“Rosalind! Run past me!” he commanded, armed with a bucket and a hope. She traced a lap, Lawrence racing after her. Steady. Steady. She blurred past him, Lawrence immediately behind, right into the torrent of water Tommy splashed into the air. It soaked all of him, carmine pigment streaming down from his hands and torso. Cleansed of bloodlust completely.

The man stilled, shaking. Then, he turned to Tommy, looking utterly irate. “What was that for????” Tommy and Rosalind sighed as one. Tommy’s Red sunk back to his arms, then picked up again a few centimeters. Lawrence had very much been fighting Tommy before the Instigator had stupidly halted it with the vermillion fluid. He looked at the dripping redhead, then down at the (mostly) empty bucket. 

“Uh ohhhh…” Tommy whispered, then he dropped his bucket, darting to Rosalind and peaking at Lawrence from behind her. It wasn't exactly the most useful cover, since she was quite shorter than he was. 

Lawrence’s visage twisted into one of confusion. “When’d you get here?”

“I’ve been here a few minutes, actually, you were just mindlessly trying to attack me so you probably don’t remember,” Rosalind responded, but then she paused and looked back at Tommy. “Er. Is that how it works?” The teen nodded. 

Lawrence looked deeply sickened, staring at his hands. He clutched them to himself, absentmindedly rubbing his ring finger. Tommy had expected a few more questions, but the man seemed lost in thought. “How’d you stop it?” 

“Splashed you with water,” Rosalind explained. Tommy nodded from behind her. He was soooo glad he didn’t have to explain. Lawrence didn’t exactly like him, which was just a complete mystery to Tommy. Everyone liked Tommy, after all. 

Lawrence flinched at this news. Which. Really, could he not tell from the fact he was soaked? He must be pretty dumb. Gingerly (which was the only way Lawrence could do anything at all given his hair’s coloration) he felt at his eyes, touching them through closed lids. “Is...is there anything I can do? To help?” Half way through the words, he started laughing, bitter and disbelieving in equal measures. “Oh God. Oh God! Ok. Alright. I suppose karma is real. I’d always suspected.” Lawrence, after that very confusing reaction, went to sit in front of the door, head held in his hands. Rosalind and Tommy shared a glance. 

“So that’s what Red does?”

“Yep. I’m an influencer,” he said airily. God, he really didn’t want this conversation. Hopefully he could deflect as quickly as possible. Just be calm. Don’t make it a big deal. Use charm and humor if he could. Maybe he could manage to keep a friend. He thought he’d have longer with Rosalind before she turned on him. 

“Influencing people to attack each other?”

Tommy wrinkled his nose. “I mean, that’s one use for it. Obviously it’s much better as a paint, in my opinion.” 

“Does it affect other monsters?”

“Ehhhhh...mostly.” There were outliers, of course, since The Blade already had too many voices in his head to care. Tubbo didn’t seem to be affected. Maybe that was part of the hive mind? Too many thoughts, head full? Probably didn’t work for the same reason as The Blade, then. Now, it dissolved them, but into angry bees. Like it was targeting specific individuals instead of all of Tubbo. Still. Tommy really never ever wanted to touch Tubbo if it meant them breaking. Well, he didn’t want to touch many people at all, or, actually, he did very much want to, a need that ached constantly as his skin almost hungered for contact, but he knew what would happen.

It worked like normal on Wilbur though! Or...well that wasn’t really a good thing. That had been very terrifying to learn, and slipped into his nightmares sometimes. If his sampling size was limited to just his four friends (give or take hundreds of thousands of bees), Tommy would probably have said no, with Wilbur being a (freakishly tall) outlier, but his time in the Foundation had made it exceedingly obvious it worked on other inmates. Sometimes, some of the other captives refused to hurt others, and the Foundation liked to use the Instigator to convince them otherwise. Nightmares of the things the other inmates could do faded after about a week usually. Some didn’t, but, well, nothing to be done for it. At least he (usually) only had to convince them once and never had to see them again.

There was a thought. It started off slow, with one murder, and then two, and then five, and so on, or at least for Tommy it had. The second time wasn’t as bad as the first, the third even less so. And then by the time he was getting dozens killed it was the same level of awful as doing the same to a handful was. When it was hundreds it had just felt the same. The other inmates must’ve felt something similar, right? Because they stopped resisting the Foundation’s orders after the first or second time. Well...most of them. One particular prisoner stuck out in his mind. A tall hazy shadow with dark feathered wings and a glowing white smile stained in blood. Someone’s throat hung from needle teeth. The human wasn’t connected to it anymore. Tommy had seen that one so many times because he just wouldn’t give in. But eventually the visits had slowed, and he hadn’t seen the person in a while. Tommy wondered if that meant the inmate or the Foundation relented. He figured it was the prisoner. The Foundation always got what they wanted, Tommy was just another tool for them to use to get it. 

“This...this...oh what was the number again? SCP-”

“Philza,” Tommy said shortly. He hated when they were called by their numbers.

“Yes, Philza, thank you. Does it...does it also get violent?” 

“Nahh. Of course not, Ros! He’s too old! And wise! Besides, he says that he’s constantly angry anyways, so he’s just really good at controlling it,” Tommy said confidently. Well, it wasn’t exactly anger, now that he thought about it. How had Philza described it? Like wrath, but calm. Choler but controlled. It didn’t make any sense to Tommy. Anger had always been hot, like bubbling lava or devouring fire. But whatever. Philza said he already wanted to kill everyone anyways, so Tommy didn’t really make much difference. He didn’t really care how it worked, because it really just meant he got to actually touch someone without fear. Sometimes he physically ached with want of contact, stomach writhing and sickening longing filling him. Visits to Philza always cured him, wrapped in warm embraces. They would be inseparable for an hour, an arm slung over his shoulders, a wing cupping his side, talons carding through his hair. To be honest, Tommy felt embarrassed for wanting touch so much, but Phil never teased him about it, so he figured it was fine. It was practically the only good contact he had, so Tommy wasn’t going to squander it even if sometimes he felt a little like a cat pressing into strokes. So no. Of course Philza wasn’t a threat. He was practically the only safe thing in Tommy’s life.

Rosalind sighed in relief, releasing her chestnut ponytail, which she had been twisting. “Good. With all the security hoops I had to jump through, I was concerned that he was dangerous...Lawrence, can you pass me those papers?” Lawrence looked up, then looked around for the pages. They’d been dropped at the beginning of the chase. The man snatched them, offering them up to Rosalind. Then, he returned to...sulking, or whatever, Tommy didn’t really care.

“Oh, he’s very dangerous,” Tommy assured Rosalind. Philza was probably the strongest person he knew, and was even stronger when he wasn’t pretending to be human! Tommy thought that was silly, since Philza wasn’t very good at it, but his Collector was a lot easier to hug and interact with when small, so he wasn’t complaining. He’d only ever really seen what he supposed was the true Philza once, when he was being Collected. Likely Philza had had to be very careful then, since Tommy had easily fit in his palm. Clouds had swirled around him as he looked out between talons the same size as him into loving golden eyes. 

As immensely powerful as both were, he wondered who would win between The Blade and Philza. It was a stupid question, because Philza would never hurt one of his Collected, and The Blade never lost. But Big P was just so big and cool. More importantly, who would Tommy want to win? Philza had chosen Tommy, but The Blade also always showed up whenever the Foundation got too harsh, saving Tommy from certain death innumerable times. It was unfair to the both of them, and they wouldn’t even have a reason to fight, so really it was just a bad concept. Why pit two or more people (who were usually always on the same side and were equally awesome) against each other? That was just stupid and would only end in angry people on both sides. 

“I’m sorry, but what?” Rosalind inquired. Uh ohhh.

“Moving on, when do I get to see him next?” 

Rosalind slowly returned her gaze to the stack of papers. “Once I can get clearance, I can retrieve the relevant documents. Should take a day, maybe two.” Under her breath, she muttered something unflattering towards bureaucracy. Tommy hummed with pleasure. Sweet! It had been so long since he’d last seen the old man. Being patient would be agony, but he’d already been waiting before. “Also, is your eye injured? I can’t discern whether it’s Red or blood covering it.”

“Red, but that m̵̤̎̊ǔ̵̝̼̒f̶̜̩͛̍̓f̴͕̺͒͜i̵̮͇̾̉n̷͎̐̽ face over there socked me.” She rose, gathering up the cleaning bucket. A handful of water was left in the bottom, and the pair used it to wash out his eye. Tommy blinked a bit, resisting the urge to rub at it. Rosalind noticed, and used a corner of her lab coat to help awkwardly dry off his face. Tommy had to bend down, since she was far shorter than him and figured it was better to be close than to get his eye poked. It was already stinging quite a bit since the adrenaline had worn off. Her touch was quick and light, careful. It felt almost like electricity sparked from it. Tommy held perfectly still, arms stiff at his side. Careful to make sure she wasn’t marked by Red. 

“It appears you’re going to have a bit of a bruise,” she admitted. “Did he get you anywhere else? You would’ve been trapped with him longer than I was in that…” she mulled over the terminology. “Affected? Aggravated? State.”

“I am so incredibly good at fighting, I’ll have you know. I’m the best, actually,” Tommy explained boastfully. “Though, eh, he wasn’t Red’d when he got me. Red doesn’t let people hurt me.” That was sort of its whole purpose. To protect him however it could by directing conflict elsewhere. Literally summoning death upon others just to avoid his own. Twisting the universe just to ensure his survival. It didn’t work, of course. It was so easy to negate with water and biohazard clothing. Red couldn’t really do anything at all to prevent him getting hurt, no matter how much it tried. Though in his specific circumstances…yeah, he really should’ve remembered that detail quicker, if he was going to do it at all. Best scenario was he hadn’t marked Lawrence, but it seemed to have worked out. So maybe it was alright that he’d done it, albeit a bit late. But he supposed he couldn’t be blamed for not coming up with the idea quickly, since his immediate understanding for his carmine curse was in the context of it causing a massacre. 

“Wait. He attacked you on his own? He hit a child?” Outrage inflected her tone, words hissed softly. She shot Lawrence a disgusted look, but he was too self-consumed to catch it. 

“I am not a child,” Tommy responded petulantly. 

“Sure,” she offered in an absentminded appeasement as she cleaned up his wound. It stung...but Tommy didn't want to admit how nice it felt to be fussed over. Each touch was gentle in a way he hadn't felt in so long. The yearning almost strangled him. He wanted to see Philza so badly, needing someone whom he could hug without fear of the consequences. “But he still bruised you.”

“Yah. Think it’ll look cool?” He knew it wouldn't scar, but maybe Tubbo would be impressed. 

A knock sounded at the door, interrupting them. Lawrence rose slowly, Rosalind dragging her feet just as much. “I suppose I should go…I’ll see what I can do about Philza. Here’s some more papers for now.” Tommy accepted them happily. He'd been running low on drawing supplies. The pair exited, but Rosalind stopped in the middle of the doorway, discussing something with the guard just outside. She leaned back out of the doorway, calling out. “Tommy?” 

“Yeah?” He looked up from his pages. A few drawings had survived, along with half of the torn up ‘Freind :)’ message. His tray had been taken, but the half eaten Grey sat beside him, carefully demarcated so he’d remember when to stop so that Tubbo would have some. 

“They said to give you these. That…” whispers came from the hall, the person speaking hidden by the door. “You have to put them on? For…” more mutters. “For attacking people. What? He didn’t…Oh! There’s an ice pack as well, for your eye. How nice.” She trotted back in, setting down the aforementioned cold pack as well as a pair of gloves halfway into the room before rushing out again. Oh. He’d forgotten about punishment. “I remember that you didn’t seem to like them all that much, but I presume it’s a cautionary thing. Better safe than sorry!” 

With that cheery note, she abandoned him to his fate. Tommy knew he deserved it, he’d gotten Rosalind hurt after all, he’d physically assaulted Lawrence. He could feel crushing carmine settle on his chest. Already enough to get someone killed, but he knew full well he’d done much worse than that. When he rose to shaking legs, he could see scarlet wrapping around his knees, just barely visible, poking out from the hem of the hospital gown. He could do this. He knew he needed to be punished, he’d hurt people. All on his own. There was no Foundation to blame this time, and that had always been a flimsy excuse to begin with. He took a trembling step towards the gloves. Slowly, he bent down and snatched both items from the floor. He pressed the ice pack to his eye and it stung. He tossed it aside, leaving only the smooth plastic gloves in his grasp.

Tommy put them on. 

See? It wasn’t so bad. There was not even any hissing noise from the vents, so, really, it probably wouldn’t get too bad. Ignore the way his hands burned. Ignore the way he couldn’t feel anything, texture and tactile lost to him. Ignore the way that vermillion liquid pooled at his bare feet. Ignore the promise of the gloves.

They only ever used them when they wanted to be sure Tommy couldn’t fight back. Phantom hands grasped at his throat, and he wasn’t sure if he could breathe. The cool press of metal to his temple, the finger resting lightly on the trigger. Water pooled in his lungs, skin peppered by the memory of thousands of bruises. Various other threats wormed through his memories, maybe less stark in his mind but no less real in the visceral fear they evoked. All the ways they’d tried to kill him replayed in his memories, and even a few he didn't remember when not in the throes of panic. The only constant in the memories was mortal terror and the gloves. 

He couldn’t breathe. The ghost of large fingers dug into his windpipe. He tried to chant his reassurances, like Philza had taught him to, but he couldn’t speak the lies, throat squeezed shut by imagined hands.

He couldn’t feel anything, he couldn’t feel anything at all. The lights flickered, then vanished, plunging him into darkness. The world died, devoid of sight and sound and touch. He collapsed, falling into nothing and himself. He curled into a tight ball.

Nothing was real. He was in a void, trapped by pressing nothingness and his own body. Existence decayed, memories and senses clawed and torn shreds of what they once were, until all he could feel was nothing. He choked on it. The last bastion of existence was held in his all consuming terror, the burning of his lungs, the hands around his throat. The only real thing in the world was pain. Would it be better or worse if that, too, left? At least he knew something was real. His last protection against the abyss. He danced on the edge of a knife blade but maybe even that was better than falling entirely. If he screamed, he didn’t even know if it would be audible in the vacuum. 

But then he heard something. He couldn’t tell what, didn’t hear it as much as know he was hearing. Something about it slowed his frantic pulse. An island of calm in the thrashing sea of fear. 

And then he could feel something. Not with his hands. Instead, it appeared on his head, crawling around to the line of his jaw near his ear. 

The phantom hands loosened their deadly grip, if slightly. He sucked in air, just enough to hiss out into words. “Tubbo?” he choked out, voice hoarse. A soft, single buzz. Yes. And then a few more bees followed, landing his shoulders and the crown of his head. He couldn’t see them, couldn’t see anything, but the soft buzz of twitching wings was reassuring. It was a small comfort, but it was far more than he usually had at the start. The gut-twisting fear didn’t go away, of course it wouldn’t, thick claws buried deep in his organs and refused to be dislodged. But maybe they weren’t sunk in as deep as they should have been.

——

The lights relit after a time. A bored voice called out from the window, telling him to take the gloves off. Tommy did as instructed, frantically peeling off the plastic cage. He felt embarrassed. Tubbo shouldn’t have been there to witness. Really, they shouldn’t have interfered at all. Tommy deserved to be punished for what he did. 

Still. He couldn’t quite kill the gratitude bubbling up inside his lacerated heart.

Chapter Text

When the dark period began for real, Tommy was ready. He scaled up the wall to the vent, turning the screws carefully. He tossed aside the gate with abandon, sliding the half eaten Grey, Clementine’s envelope, four screws, and himself into the vent. Tubbo, in the form of a handful of bees, rested in his hair like a crown. They always seemed to avoid flying in the vents, and weren’t as energetic. Not that it really bothered Tommy, since they weren’t heavy by any means, but sometimes they crawled around and it tickled. It took a lot of control not to swat at them, but he’d gotten better at reigning the instinct. Tommy shimmied through the vent, assured of his direction this time. He peeked through the slits in Tubbos’ gate, affirming that no one was inside that would result in trouble for either Tommy or Tubbo. The coast was clear, and Tubbo sent up a swarm that unscrewed the vent with a shovel, letting Tommy through. He slid through, awkwardly climbing down with one hand clutching the food and the envelope. 

“Hi Tommy!” Tubbo buzzed. “Are you ok? That Lawrence guy got you pretty good, and then with the gl-” Tubbo was cut off by a brick of Grey slamming into their face. Tubbo fell over. Oops. He didn’t mean to deck them that hard. Oh well. Shouldn’t have been a nosy little hive mind, then. Tommy very much did not want to talk about his very embarrassing...thing, thank you very much. In fact, he would very much appreciate it if Tubbo never, ever mentioned it ever ever at all ever for the rest of their lives. Collective lives, for Tubbo, because he figured they’d weasel out of it by counting one of the bees, since they were the absolute worst like that.

“What level of ‘messing with the potatoes’ gets you in trouble?” he demanded. Tubbo sat up, blinking their large segmented eyes. Their antenna drooped. 

“What was that for??”

“I asked a question, idiot! Is it just the plants or does the dirt count?” 

Tubbo thought this over. “Probably just the potatoes,” they responded. Tommy nodded sharply, then surveyed his options. He chose the row closest to the vent and plopped down. He glanced around, before finding the shovel Tubbo had used to unscrew the gate and yoinking it. Carefully he started digging a small hole in the corner, mindful not to get any vermillion on the potatoes. He wasn’t sure what exactly constituted ‘messing with the plants’ so maybe washing off the ruby pigment would result in people's deaths and maybe it wouldn’t, but Tommy certainly wasn’t going to chance it. When he figured it was deep enough, he opened the makeshift envelope. From there he was stumped. Tommy couldn’t really pick up Clementine and move them because then they’d be coated in carmine. But shaking them out into the grave seemed disrespectful. This was sorted out when two bees flew over and picked up Clementine, flying them into the grave. 

“Thanks, Henry. You too, Tommy Jr.,” Tommy said solemnly. 

“Why do you keep naming some of us? We have like…” the counted it out on their fingers, not quite making it far enough for the missing pinky to hinder them. “Eight names at this point already, any more and it’ll be too much.”

“It’s so I can tell which ones are my favorites.” 

“But we’re all the same??” Tubbo protested. “You can’t like some of us and not the others?”

“Of course I can, don’t be stupid.” 

Tubbo clutched their head. “You’re too confusing,” they groaned. Maybe, yesterday, the sound would have grated at his ears, but now it was mostly just annoying. They sighed in defeat. “Fine, which ‘Tubbo’ is your favorite?”

“Well, I like Buzz Lightyear and Tommy Jr. and Rose and Burrito and Red and Tubbo.”

“Wait...Tubbo? As in all of us?” A stupid wholesome expression filtered over Tubbos’ visage. Tommy scowled. 

“No, Tubbo is a single bee I just named Tubbo. It’s a coincidence. Very common name. Anyway, shut up, I’m trying to mourn here,” Tommy said, sticking his tongue out pointedly before turning to Clementine’s grave. Gently, he shoveled the soil back over their body. Tubbo watched for a bit as Tommy had a moment of silence, and then began to consume the Grey, which was incredibly weird. Tommy watched, revolted, as Tubbo just shoved the whole brick into the absence of a mouth. Hundreds of bees started dragging it to who even knew where. Did Tubbo even have a stomach? Internal organs at all? They clearly didn’t have normal skin, since it drooped everywhere. Honestly it was all way too distracting, and, besides, silently staring at a pile of dirt got boring. Most of the real grieving had been spent when he’d told Lightyear about Clementine, anyway. Which was really just telling Tubbo about themselves, now that he thought about it. Complimenting a bee when they were dead was one thing, complimenting them directly to the hive mind they were attached to was another thing altogether. Maybe he should insult Tubbo a bit more, just in case. Couldn’t have them getting a big head…or heads. Tubbo was already literally full of themselves, wouldn’t do to add to that. “What’s your skin made of? It’s all weird lookin’.” 

“Honey, kinda,” Tubbo explained. “It’s our food storage. That’s why we can rebuild it, when we have supplies to. We don’t normally have gaps, that’s just where we ate too much and it...yeah.”

Tommy thought this over. “Does it taste any good?”

Tubbo paused. “Well...it’s really all we’ve eaten for a week, aside from this Grey. We don’t really think about the flavor anymore.”

“...can I eat some?”

“No!” Tubbo said, looking scandalized. 

“But it’s honey! I could eat it!”

Tubbo went to protest again, but thought it over. “You could though…”

“Exactly!”

“Wait!” Tubbo suddenly looked triumphant. “That’s cannibalism!” Tubbo nodded sharply, assured of their victory. 

“Is it though?”

“Well...probably. Well, actually…” Tubbo twitched oddly. When they spoke again, their voice was deeper and cadence tamer. “Legally, Tubbo falls in a category outside existing laws, and you do too, presumably,” Tubbo explained, making an odd pointless gesture near their temple. “Cannibalism would technically not be illegal, since those laws typically specify ‘human’ due to the definition of cannibalism and anthropocentric nature of human laws. So, to my understanding, there aren't any legal quarrels with you...doing that.” The two of them looked at each other. Tubbo shuddered again. “So we guess it isn’t cannibalism legally?? Still doesn’t...doesn’t necessarily make it a good idea, though.”

At least Tubbo seemed to have managed to convince themselves out of the cannibalism angle, because Tommy was pretty sure if they’d pressed it it would’ve made him feel weird enough to give up. “Wouldn’t you want to know if you’re delicious to people?” Tommy tried.

“Well...that does seem like useful information to have,” Tubbo posited tentatively, still mulling it over. 

“See, I know for a fact that I’m not all that tasty, so I don’t worry about cannibals,” Tommy declared. 

“What do you taste like, then?” Tubbo challenged.

“Red, obviously,” Tommy claimed, rolling his eyes. 

“That’s not a flavor,” Tubbo said doubtfully. 

“Orange is a flavor tho, innit? So red is as well.” 

“Ohh,” Tubbo replied, accepting his wisdom. After some deliberation, they reached over to Tommy’s forearm, and rubbed a trail of honey from their missing finger. The touch was warm, heat preserved by the viscous liquid. “Tell us if it’s good, alright?” Tommy promised heartily, then held his arm to his mouth. His tongue darted out, swiping at the amber liquid. It filled his mouth and a sigh overtook him. It had been so long since he’d tasted anything good. The sweetness was almost overwhelming, a slight undercurrent of flavor humming through it, almost earthy. There was so much more to it, but it was indescribable, a task far from Tommy’s palette (starved of real flavor as it was) to manage. It was like asking the dehydrated man what the first taste of saving water was like. Like asking the flavor of ambrosia. The aftertaste, more the remembrance of heaven than anything, was amazing. Tommy eagerly licked the rest of the necter. “So? Do we taste good?” Tubbo asked, like a foolish mortal asking the gods what divinity was like. 

“No,” Tommy said shortly. “Now give me more.” Tubbo refused, instead pestering Tommy, until he declared that Tubbo “was the most delicious person he knew.” Tubbo seemed satisfied with this seal of approval, throwing up their arms with a 'hurray' to celebrate, like it was some kind of award. Reminded by the motion, Tommy covertly checked Tubbos’ hands. The missing finger looked to be losing some of its medical precision as small hexagons extended, rebuilding. It had gotten to the first knuckle. Tommy wasn’t sure if that meant Tubbo had taken his advice, or if the process really was so sluggish. Faster than Tommy could regrow digits (seeing as he couldn’t) but still kinda slow. The indents on their wrists certainly looked more grown but it was difficult to tell, and looking at it just made Tommy’s stomach writhe as guilt tore ugly claws through his guts. But at least it wouldn’t last. Given time he thought he might be able to look at Tubbo and not hurt at all. “So you regrow with honey. You’re like Deadpool but edible!”

Tubbo groaned. “No, not like that at all! We still can’t believe he did that in the third movie! And then all the memes about what Deadpool would taste like...ugh. That was terrible.”

“There’s a third Deadpool movie??? And he what? Eats someone?” And Tommy didn’t get to see it??

“Nah, cannibalism is the villain's gimmick, Deadpool just sells parts of h-wait have you not seen it yet?”

“No,” Tommy said shortly. Stupid Foundation. Ruining his life. Torturing him and his friends. Not letting him see movies. 

“It only just came out,” Tubbo consoled.

“Well don’t tell me any more, I don’t want spoilers,” Tommy warned. Tubbo complied, which was good, because otherwise Tommy might have to hurt them. They fell into comfortable silence after that. Except comfortable silences were so boring. Tommy decided that he’d had a veritable lifetime of dullness staring at white walls. For now he had nearly unlimited access to a person for the first time in ages, and he wasn’t going to waste a second of it. “What’s the worst word you know?” Tommy challenged. 

Tubbo squinted at him, saying, “what are you, twelve?”

“No,” Tommy scowled at the bug pile. “Come on, tell meeeeeee.”

“We don’t want to.”

“It’s censored anyway!”

Tubbo considered this. A swarm of bees collected near his head, humming in the approximation of a whisper.“M̴͓̯̋̾͂̽̂̌̈́͜ṵ̷̉̏̆̓͌̀͂̈́͛̏̔̒͂͛̓̓͑̉̚͠͝͝f̶̖̭̜̳̟͎̓͐̾̕f̶̘̺̙̣͖̤͉͕̦̩̃̏̃̌͋̑̆̑͂̈̃̐͐̈́̓̀̐̾͜͝͝í̴͓͍̰̰̮͇̺̙̠̩̲̹̙̼̀̍̈͋̂̾́͂̏̔̓̀͒̋̈͂͊̚͘͘͠ň̵̢̡̛̛͔̬̲̮̳̗̺̯̌̂́̏͗̐̎̇̄̉̋̓̓̂̕̕͝͝. It fizzled into sharp static, probably the most Tommy had ever heard. It hurt his brain to listen to, between the corruption of the word and the buzzing that already composed Tubbos’ voice.

Tommy gasped in mock horror. “Tubbo! You can’t say that! That’s incredibly offensive!”

Tubbo looked baffled. “It replaced it with muffin though.” 

“I still know a slur when I hear one. Think about my poor ears! They weren’t ready! They’re so young! I’m only a minor, Tubbo, you can’t say that to me, legally.”

“But-what? Wait—stop.”

“My mum will never look me in the eyes! She’ll know I’m unclean. I think I need to take a shower-”

“No wait Tommy stop really. You’re a minor???” Tubbo looked completely confused. 

“Yeah? And?”

“How old are you?”

“16!” He said proudly. Tubbo looked stricken. They froze that way. After some time passed and nothing changed, Tommy waved his hand back and forth in front of Tubbos’ segmented eyes. They didn’t react. “Hullo? Earth to bees?” 

Tubbo suddenly seemed to focus on Tommy, and they groaned, face pulled into a look of revulsion. “We said ‘M̷̡͈̝̥͖̼̦̱͕̔̕͜u̷̧̡̗̘̱̥̙͎̖̗̬͚͇͎̩̓̽̓f̶̨̧̡̧̟̖̖̤͙̙̭͎̮̻͖͕͎͓͖̘̟̓̄̏̓̽̽̽̒̐̀͛̔́̃̌͆̊̚͜͝f̴̥̳̟͔̒͂̏͊͆̃̅̏̌͛̍̔̑̍̑͜͠͝͝ḭ̴̢̡̛̳̤̪̙͚̠̰͓̹̟̯̅͆́̄̍̓͆̇̃̒̀͂̕̕̚̚n̵̥̫͔̩̦̗͂̈́͛͒̂’ to a baby! We’re going to jail! We wouldn’t survive in jail! We’re too delicious!” Tubbo wailed. 

“I’m not a baby!” Tommy protested vehemently. 

“The FBI is after us! Our crimes are unforgivable! There’s no legal defense!”

“Shut up! Come on! I thought we were the same age!” Actually, he’d thought he was older. Tubbo was, like, tiny. “Why would you betray me like this? Tell me how old you are,” he demanded.

“No,” Tubbo denied him sweetly. 

“Ṃ̸͈̭͒̓͐ȗ̷͖͠ͅf̷̛̱̘̏͊f̸̪͉̿͝i̴̅̾͜ñ̴̥̯̮̾̄ you! Just tell me how old you are!”

“21. Well. Mostly? It’s complicated.”

“What!? You’re so old! Ancient!” 

Tubbo nodded sagely. “We saw the birth of the Earth. The Earth Birth, or Bearth, if you will.”

“Nahh you’re not that old. Philza’s probably seen it though, I’ll ask him.” Tommy paused. “Wait, Clementine died. So it’s like a cycle of bees? How do you get more? How did you get the first bees?”

“We will not explain that to you. You are too young, too innocent.”

“Hey! I wrote, ‘How to M̶͍̜̍̌ȗ̸̬̤̱f̴̼́̚f̶͇̍͒ĩ̵̺͝n̶̖̦̖̅͂̽’! I know all about everything! You saw me writing it, you know that!”

Tubbo wrinkled their nose, a mannerism that was Tommy Trademarked and therefore Tommy could legally sue them for infringement. “Didn’t read it.”

“Was I not good enough?” Tommy scoffed, a little hurt. He’d spent a long time working on it, after all. Spent ages fact checking, making sure all the details were right. Done tons of peer review, read over dozens of articles and incorporated them to support his work. His editor had thrown out half the papers, claiming the public wouldn’t be ready to handle the truth of the full thing being published. Ok, that was a lie, albeit a funny one, but he had put a lot of effort into it. 

“Nah. We can’t read real great,” Tubbo reassured. 

“Oh. Ohhhh you got those weird bubble eyes don’t you?”

“No, it’s dyslexia actually. The Foundation also thinks it's the segmented eyes too, since they didn’t bother to ask.”

“Eh, they wouldn’t do anything about it even if they knew. They’d probably try to make things worse actually. Phil said they took The Blade’s glasses. And Wil’s monocle which, honestly, good on ‘em he looked creepy and evil with it. Or more than he usually does anyway. Really, probably for the best they don’t know,” Tommy consoled. Philza had complained about The Blade accidentally stepping on his tail enough for Tommy to remember that discussion. 

“Who’s the blade? You’ve mentioned them a few times now.”

“You said it wrong. It’s pronounced ‘The Blade’.”

“That’s what we said?” 

“No, you said ‘the blade’ not ‘The Blade’,” Tommy helpfully pointed out. 

Tubbo huffed, but decided to humor him, though they were a little condescending about it. Stupid adult. “Fine, who’s The Blade?”

Tommy’s face lit up. “The coolest person ever! Ok, so, it all started when I was being held at gunpoint-”

“Bull m̷̨̬͇̎̈͘ǔ̴̯̪̖f̵̬̊͛f̶̘͚̓ḭ̴̭́n̶̹̣̑͛̇.”

“No it’s true!” From then on, their discussion devolved into stories of Tommy’s friends. The memories were fuzzy in some places, actually most places, but they still had fun nonetheless. He hadn't, like, actually known them for very long before the Foundation got him, but they were a colorful bunch, him and the rest of Philza's Collected.

“Wait—you keep using that word,” Tubbo (VERY rudely) interrupted.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I use a lot of words,” he scoffed. 

“No, there’s one in particular. You say ‘collected’ all weird. Like it means something else.”

“You’re saying it all wrong and stupidly~” Tommy sang. 

“What? No. Now you’re just pranking us,” they accused.

“Actually, I was kinda messing with you the first time. Collected is for real said differently. You gotta add like...reverence or something. Make it sound cool.”

“Sure, but what does it meeeeeaaaaan,” Tubbo droned. 

“It’s like...well it’s when...umm…” Tommy paused, thinking. His nose wriggled. “Being Collected is like…”

“You don’t know?”

“Shut up!” the teen protested. “I’m trying to think how to explain it to a dumb person! People! Whatever! Ok. So. First off, it’s not actually the real word. Just the best...translation? Except it’s not very accurate at all. But that’s why you gotta say it all special,” Tommy explained, using his carmine hands to try and articulate the concept. 

“What’s it a translation of? Can you say it anyway, even if we don’t understand?”

Tommy pinned with Tubbo with A Look. He couldn’t the believe someone could be so incredibly Stupid. He stuck out his tongue, first to underscore Tubbos’ absolute foolishness, and pointed to it, as a demonstration. “Obuwislee naugh-” he put it back in. “Obviously not. I got a human tongue. Plus, I think he said something about volume affecting meaning…? I don’t know, I didn’t pay attention.”

“Well, can you describe it then? Maybe we can try to replicate it.”

“What did I just say? Human tongues.”

“Ah, but we don’t have a tongue. See?” Tubbo opened the gaping pit of their mouth wide, revealing the writhing mass of insects inside. Tommy looked away immediately, pulling a disgusted expression. Tubbo didn’t really open their mouth to speak, so Tommy didn’t usually get to see the inside and he liked to keep it that way. “Rude. But really though, we wanna know what it sounds like.”

“It’s like...a...an earthquake except warm. But like mix in a bit of jet engine??? So it’s kinda like wind but...crunchy. Honestly it’s a little terrifying but oddly nice at the same time. I dunno, it’s been...a while. They make him pretend to be human when I visit anyway.” Philza wasn't even good at being human, but it was probably easier to keep him in a little cage that way. Really, Tommy had very little idea why Philza stayed in the Foundation, since he could obviously break out if he wanted to. He didn't question it too deeply, though, since whatever it was meant he got to see Philza his legally mandated two hours a month. It was good enough for Tommy, anyway.  

“...not what we were expecting, but ok. Don’t think we can make that noise.”

“Yeah, not unless you’re like, I dunno, a dinosaur or something. And Jurassic Park still doesn’t measure up at all.”

Tubbo eyes grew wide with genuine excitement. “Phil is a dinosaur!? ”

“No, stupid. Phil is a Phil. Through...he is really old, probably older than the dinosaurs are. That's just the closest comparison I can think of.”

Tubbo slumped in disappointment, shaking oddly. “Aww, that would’ve been awesome. Ok then, what’s it mean? Is it like…a gathering?”

“That’s the hard part!” Tommy groaned. “None of them can make up their minds! Wilbur describes it like a family thing, but The Blade thinks that’s weird. He says it’s more like an ally, like a promise to fight by your side in battle. To stab cho enemies in they backs if you need it.”

“Those are...pretty different.” Exactly! Tommy huffed. “What’s Phil’s interpretation, then. He’s the Collector right?”

“He says it’s like...like seeing a person and thinking, 'I want them,' and then getting them.”

An odd shadow passed over Tubbos’ visage. The bees swarmed dangerously. “Tommy? Is this Phil guy a predator?”

“I...yeah? Definitely. I mean, I can’t imagine anything eating him.”

Tubbo face palmed. “No, we mean—that’s not—is he dangerous?”

Tommy’s face lit up. “Yes! It’s awesome! He’s like super strong, and has a beard, and he can fly and br-”

“No, Tommy-”

“-and that’s just when he’s pretending to be human! Well, I guess he can do all that either way, but it’s really cool is what I’m saying and-”

“TOMMY. We meant. Like. Is he dangerous to you?”

Tommy froze a second, incredulous, then began to laugh wildly. “Pffffff. No! Of course not, he’d never hurt any of us. What!? Why do you ask??”

Tubbo hunched defensively. “You worded it weird! We thought he was a bad guy or something!”

“Nooooo! He’s not a wrongun at all! It's like…I’m not explaining it right. Ok, so, he’s immortal, right? So that means he-”

“Sorry, what?”

Tommy laughed at their dumbfounded expression. “Immortal, keep up. So basically, when he Collected me, it was like saying 'I want to watch over the life of this person.' Like, see what I do, or whatever, and help out. ‘Cause he thinks it’ll be interesting, which of course it will because I’m Incredibly Interesting. Phil gave this whole speech about how the only thing special in life is the individual, because they’re unique and blah blah blah I got bored but basically he finds cool people and decides he wants to watch over and protect them or whatever and I’m one of them.” Tommy beamed, glowing with warmth. Philza’s Collection of him was one of his favorite facts. Philza was a bastion of safety, a spot of warmth in the frigid world. Like a fire lit and kept ready for him, always there when he needed shelter or a place to rest for the night. Philza was the promise that Tommy would be alright, erasing every shadow of doubt because of course he would; he had Philza, didn’t he? 

The Blade was his savior, yes, but Philza was his solace. 

He broke out of a soft, tender expression when he realized Tubbo was beaming at him. “Hey! Get that stupid look off your face!” Tommy ordered.

“Sorry! It’s just, to be honest, we thought it was probably a cult, but that actually doesn’t sound evil or anything, which is a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.”

“Hypocrite! The first thing you did when you met me was invite me to join your weird, creepy bug Hive!”

“Ok, but, that’s different! We know we aren’t weird and creepy, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is good. Some cults are actually very pleasant! And besides, we...wait. Did he give you the option to say ‘no’? Did he, Tommy?” The question was pressing, seemingly very important to the insectoid.

Tommy tried to think it over. He couldn’t really remember what all had been said. “I think so? It’s been awhile. I was visiting and then...yeah! Yeah he did ask, because then I was really confused and told him I already had a dad, and then Wilbur was laughing because The Blade got super weird about it.” A flash of a scene played, everyone freezing at his words and then The Blade spluttering while Wilbur teased him and Philza just smiled. “But then Phil explained that it wasn’t really like that, unless I wanted it to be I guess. I don’t know. It’s very different between Wil and The Blade.”

He wondered if, given time, it might have become a father thing. Or if it already was. Tommy wasn’t entirely sure. He thought it would be nice to have two dads. Double games of catch or something. Two allowances. Maybe that’s what it could have been. But Tommy didn’t even see his real father anymore, hadn’t for a long time. Not like the Foundation would imprison him, he was a human after all. And then with Philza...well, Tommy didn’t see anyone else on a regular basis that was undeniably not the Foundation. Sure, he saw The Blade, but that wasn’t in any sort of normal or safe circumstances. The Blade was a comfort just like Phil, but usually only when he desperately needed a shield. Philza was there for everything else, the cornerstone of times of relative safety. Tommy hadn’t felt safe ever since the Foundation had captured him, but at least with Philza it came close. It wasn’t that Philza had become his dad, it was that Philza had become his everything. He was the only one to fill the absence of everyone Tommy once had. Philza was always there, waiting, ready to sooth his wounds, wipe his tears, and envelop him in a tight embrace.

“So which do you use, then? What does Collection mean to you, Tommy?” 

“...it means there’s always someone who’ll want me.” Tommy smiled warmly. 

“Huh." They blinked, head canting to the side. "That was a lot more wholesome than we thought it would be.”

“Hey!” Tommy protested. “Shut up!” Embarrassment flooded him. 

“We thought it was gonna be super creepy but it sounds kinda sweet!” Tubbo hummed, ignoring Tommy.

“The only thing sweet here is you, and it’s overpoweringly, disgustingly sweet. I take it back, you’re not the most delicious person I know.”

Tubbo gasped as if genuinely hurt. They pulled an injured expression. “Now that’s just rude. Who dethroned us?”

“Uhhh...The Blade. Bacon, y’know?”

“...what?”

“You know, fourteen foot tall hyper-aggressive boar?”

“You said that was a joke!” Tubbo accused him. 

“And you believed me, like an idiot. I can’t be blamed for that.” That was pretty squarely chalked up to be Tubbos' fault. 

“What, for you lying and us trusting you to be a better person than that?”

“Exactly.” Their bickering carried on for quite some time. It was nice, Tommy decided. Like Wilbur but not as mean. Tubbo even laughed at some of his jokes! It was great. He couldn’t wait to tell Philza all about it. Certainly, Tubbo was entertaining at the very least, which was high praise given being trapped in a padded white cell 24/7. They suggested stupid things sometimes, like Philza was bad or escape was possible, but Tommy figured that was just inexperience. Tubbo would figure out the correct way given time. Plus, Tommy could be their teacher. What was that word The Blade had been fond of? Sensei? Yes. That sounded cool and wise and powerful, so obviously it was meant to refer to Tommy. 

Tommy yawned and stretched. Probably time to head back. “Tommy?” Tubbo called out.

“Yah?”

“Are you alright? After yesterday?”

Oh. M̴͇͈͗͂ủ̵̩̃͗f̴̯̀̾f̸̭̂̓̽i̴͈̝͆̕n̶͖̭̏̍̈́. Tommy thought he’d sidestepped that one. Stupid bees. Of course he was alright, that was a stupid question. Stupid Tubbo. Stupid. “Course, why wouldn’t I be?”

Tubbo frowned. “Aside from being attacked by a grown man, you seemed pretty messed up over the glo-”

“Don’t say that word at me. Don’t ever say that word at me.” Tommy tried to keep his voice level, so it came off very flat in a way that made things more serious than he really wanted them to be. It was better than shouting though, or even worse, crying. 

“...ok. But you still sounded trau-”

“Not that word either.”

“Tommy it sounded like you had a pani-”

“Nope. That one’s also not allowed~” Tommy sang. 

“Tommy, stop-”

“Lalalala look at us, we’re Tubbo, we got big ol’ bug eyes but can’t see when to mind our own beeswax, because we’re stupid and full of bees and lalala I’m not listening~”

“Well then what can we say?” Tubbo tried.

“How about...good night? See you tomorrow? I promise I’ll never bring this up again?” 

“Fine, if-”

“Done! Bye!”

“IF, we said if. If you tell us what happened with the...hand...sock things.”

“It’s fine, Tubbo. I’m used to it.” Tubbo just stared at him for an uncomfortable amount of time, face twisted in pity. It chafed at Tommy. He didn’t want it. He was specifically trying to avoid Tubbo being worried, but he was just making things worse. “It just-” ughhh why did Tubbo have to be so difficult. “It’s ummmm...my kryptonite. Yeah! It’s my kryptonite. Makes me go all soft, and since I’m normally so huge and strong it’s just very apparent.”

“So...you’re telling us Red...as a power...means gl- hand socks are your greatest weakness?” 

“Well, no, obviously, like I’m pretty sure a bullet through the head would be a greater weakness. Or like if you blew me up or something. Boom. No more Tommy.” He made exploding gestures with his hands. He figured it would take a fast death to get rid of him, but the Foundation had always preferred slow ones. The crimson was sunk to his elbows and racing up his biceps. “Who’d have guessed a nuclear bomb would’ve taken care of him? Shocker.” Keep it light. Fun. Joke, because nothing is wrong. His words weren’t quite jovial but he was trying so hard for them to be.

“Pretty sure guns are everyone’s weakness.”

“Nope! Not The Blade’s. Or Phil’s. Pretty sure Wilbur has a way around them, too. Snatches the bullets out of the air or something wild. So uh. Just me then. Actually, are you bulletproof too? Have they checked yet?”

“Tommy?”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to be embarrassed.” He spluttered. That was definitely not happening! Nope! His face was’t reddening at all! They cut over his hot protests. “It’s ok to be scared. Everyone’s scared of something. Like the dark, or spiders. We’re terrified of bears, if it helps. And biased judges…and mean people with guns… But the point is that fear is a natural part of life and so you can tell us about it.” Nope Nope Nope. Not happening. They were not going to have a conversation about this.

“Like how The Blade is scared of due dates?” 

“We’re sorry, the towering pig monster guy is daunted by what?” Score! The deflection worked! Tommy relaxed a bit, smiling. He was an absolute genius. 

“Deadlines. He had this really tough English teacher for college. Still gets nightmares I think.” 

“Alright, so fears like the dark and injustice and people hunting you down a-” M̷̜̦̺̭͔͛ǔ̴̼̤̰̈́̂̀̂f̸͎̤͑͋f̵̨͓̝̌i̶̼͇͓̓̓͗ň̴̻͍͚́͋̃̂ͅing m̵͎͔̅̔̇̈́̒ͅṳ̷̣̋́̍f̶̤̙͙̖͠f̶̰̀i̵̡̛͙̹̝̞̅̑̕n̶̜͑ty Tubbo. Not being properly distracted. Making a beeline back on topic. Yes, Tommy was mad about the pun, too. “-nd bears and...due dates are all perfectly common. It’s fine, you don’t have to be defensive about it. Everyone has irrational phobias.”

“It’s not irrational,” Tommy muttered. 

“Alright then. Explain it.” 

Tommy shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want Tubbo to think he was being stupid by being worked up over something so silly, but he also never ever wanted to explain exactly why the gloves were so terrible. Maybe more general would work? He didn’t want Tubbo to think he was being a baby. “It’s like...it’s just I can’t feel anything. Right? And I don’t like it. Makes me feel all constricted.” The walls caving in, shrinking to fit him. The void was infinite, but it pressed at him with its magnitude. Was it claustrophobia if there was nothing at all? It was the vastness he was scared of, so large and encompassing that he became a tiny speck, swallowed completely. “And then they turn the lights off, too, so I can’t feel, and I can’t see, or hear anything except for me, and it’s just—nothing's real. Right? It’s just me, alone, and nothing exists except my panic. All alone. And I can’t fight back, or do anything other than just exist because nothing else is real. It’s just gone. And all I can think is that I’m dead. That I’m dead, or dying, or about to-”

No. Stop. Too far. That was enough, that was all they needed to know. Tommy had said too much. And now Tubbo was giving him A Look, all sad in the face. It stabbed at Tommy’s insides. Tommy looked away so he wouldn’t have to see the large segmented eyes filled with concern. He hadn’t wanted any of this to happen. He didn’t want to talk or even think about what had happened, but Tubbo had insisted and now neither of them were happy and it was just a mess. 

Movement in the corner of his eye. A hand reaching out to him, battered with the memory of Tommy and the Foundation. Seeking only to comfort him. Tommy jerked away. No. He couldn’t let Tubbo make themselves burst. A coldness gripped his chest, a yearning for contact. Stop. You’re just overreacting and selfish. You don’t need touch. They measured a response before speaking. “If it helps, that’s not what dying feels like at all." Oh, Tommy knew exactly what dying felt like, that wasn't the problem. "We know what it’s like, have experienced it countless times. You aren’t in a vacuum, existing. It’s just...well it’d be like if everything was gone. You included. It’s not an eternity of being awake and alone. Dying is like...like falling asleep. The way you guys do it. Where all the consciousness shuts off at once. There aren’t dreams, but there aren’t nightmares, either. You’re just...gone from the Hive, or the world we guess. You wouldn’t have to experience that forever,” Tubbo soothed. 

Huh. That was kind of relieving, actually. To know that if one day the Foundation accidentally went too far that he’d be free. He wouldn’t have to think ever again. There was a grim safety in that. Tommy nodded slowly. “Do you want a hug?”

“No, you m̷͍̜͖̆̒ͅǔ̶̔̆̏͘͜f̶̦̥̋͂͘͝f̶̻͔̄͝ì̷̞̳̱̮̌̈͘n̵͍͋̎̓̆̓ing moron. You’ll dissolve.”

“Some people are worth melting for.”

Tommy scowled. “You m̷̛͓̹̫̽̊̎ͅu̸̜̽̈͂͝f̷͔͍͐f̴̨̹̼̀ị̶̱͔̩̽n̷̖͛̚ing m̵̬̾ũ̶̙f̵̌ͅf̷̜̂i̶̢̓n̵̲̄. You’re quoting Frozen? Right now? M̸̥̠͇͝ͅu̶͉̞͌́̇͘f̸͍̗̥̫̪́f̸̙̟̕i̵̯̱̬̇̿̈́͜͠n̶̹̳̥̐̌͋͊͆ you.” Tubbo rose, stumbling a bit, and marching over to Tommy. “No! What did I say about dissolving! Bad Tubbo, bad!”

“Fine. We won’t hug you that way.” A covey of insects rose, surrounding Tommy. Thousands of bugs landed on him. 

“...what are you doing?” he asked.

“Hugging you! We’ve never gotten to before, so this’ll have to do.” The swarm was careful around his arms, but even the distance physical contact should probably be discouraged, because what if Tubbo forgot or something stupid like that? Tommy didn’t need things like hugs or high fives or fist bumps or anything at all like that from Tubbo. Tommy didn’t need even the possibility of getting Tubbo killed or hurt in any way. And it felt strange, millions of small legs shifting around and making his skin crawl. It was really creepy. And weirdly soft and fluffy and warm. He hated it. Yes. Definitely. It could only be a bad thing for Tubbo. Tommy had to be reasonable and put an end to it.

“I’ll squish you. Don’t think I won’t,” he threatened. Tommy could see Tubbo grin, which was also stupid and weird looking and not at all nice, silhouette filtered through the lens of a swarm. Bees crawled in and out the smile, making his skin crawl. No, wait. That was just the actual thousands of bugs walking all over him. He was sure this was somebody’s nightmare. Actually, he was pretty sure this was his nightmare. Currently. And very real.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Tubbo said sweetly. And also very threatening. Why were they so creepy? Tommy had really messed up befriending Tubbo. 

“Fine, I wouldn’t,” he grumbled. “But if you sting me I won’t hesitate.”

“Oh, there’s far too many of us. Really, only takes, what, a thousand stings to kill an adult? You’re a kid, so that’s really around five hundred. Eh. Sorta in between, wanna put it at seven hundred? Eight? Come on, guess! It’ll be a fun bet.”

“Alright, now I have another, very rational fear.”

“What of?”

“You, you creepy little insect freak. What the ṁ̶̻̒̃ȗ̷̳̖̮f̴̜̬͖̽͌f̶͖̕i̸̡̠̥͂n̷̰͍͌͗͝, Tubbo??? How many people have you off’d?” Tommy personally had lost count long ago. He pushed the thought down. He was having a conversation and didn’t need interruptions. A small worry grew nonetheless. Had they already made Tubbo…? Or had they done so before getting captured? Was this really something he wanted to know? It seemed a terrible path to go down. 

“...well, no one,” Tubbo admitted. “Of course we haven’t.”

It was as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders and a different burden placed there in its stead. Because eventually Tubbo would have to kill someone whether they wanted to or not. Many someones actually. They’d brushed the idea off as ridiculous but Tommy knew how looming the event horizon was. Tubbo couldn’t even see the black hole just behind them, waiting to swallow them utterly. 

He wondered how it would change Tubbo. He thought it had shaken his own world, had toppled the very pillars of his existence. He’d been so alone the first time, terrified and isolated. He’d still been tallying days in bright ruby fingerprints, that’s how new to the Foundation he’d been, though it was a practice soon to be abandoned. Tommy had just been so scared by all the tests and the lack of familiarity and kindness. It had been so long since he’d seen his parents or any of his friends or even any human at all that didn’t seem determined to hurt him. He’d tried to resist so hard, but rebellion only made things worse. Of course he’d kept at it, but slowly it just didn’t seem worth it because it only ever netted him even more pain. 

But then came one test that was too much and he’d refused. Tommy could not ever kill someone. And the Foundation had let him be and Tommy had thought that, for the first time, he’d won. Tommy had finally had a victory against the Foundation, finally stood his ground and kept it. And then everything had gotten so much worse, breaking him down utterly and culminating in an ultimatum: kill someone or…or something. Probably an extension of whatever they’d already been doing, or an increase of it. Tommy found he couldn’t remember. Probably meant it hadn’t actually been that bad. He’d been weak then. 

Whatever it was he’d been facing, that younger Tommy had shattered, accepting he couldn’t survive if he didn’t submit to the Foundation’s demands. 

He couldn’t remember what that first kill even looked like, either, only that it had wrecked him completely. Honestly in retrospect it was an overreaction. It was only one person, the threat clearly wasn’t bad enough that he could pick it out from the menagerie of horrors. Tommy wasn’t even sure entirely how he’d changed, only knew that that first forced kill fundamentally altered something about him in a way he couldn’t quite understand. Maybe it was the fact it was his own choice. Intentional. There was no accident to it, simply an ultimatum he’d failed to withstand. 

So Tommy wondered what it would do to Tubbo. It was strange. He knew Tubbo was his elder by a large bit, but Tommy just felt so old and tired. Weary from his time, wary of what he knew would happen. Tubbo couldn’t yet feel the grip of gravity sucking them into the crushing pressure of a black hole, but Tommy knew already it was wrapped around them. He knew he’d only be able to watch. There was no way to take Tubbos’ hand and pull them out, not when Tommy was already sunk in deep. He’d only succeed in causing them to fall faster. No need to warn Tubbo, it would only make them panic. Based on their response to the gloves, Tommy could only imagine what their reaction would be if Tommy told them. Sad and pitying him, maybe horrified by what he’d done, but determined to do better somehow. 

Of course we haven’t, they’d said.

Their resolve would be crushed just like his had been. The Foundation always got what it wanted, it wanted empirical data of how much of a threat they could be and it would get it by whatever means necessary. He just felt so old compared to Tubbo, not by years but by experience. He could imagine Tubbo insisting they’d never hurt someone no matter what just like a younger Tommy had, like somehow Tommy was less for having crumbled. Tubbo, wonderful Tubbo, filled with resolve and naivety, and it would be crushed. Tommy could see the trajectory of the whole thing and it was terrible. 

But that wasn’t now, wasn’t yet. There was no need to warn Tubbo; they’d only hurt themselves in the struggle to escape the inevitable. Tommy untangled himself from introspection, tucking them until they almost disappeared, likely to unfold later and consume him. But it could wait until he was alone. It was his epiphany alone to bear. 

“…But google has all sorts of lovely statistics. Knowledge is power, and power is a threat, and since we like to be a threat it’s good to sound smart about things like that. Did it work? Were you scared?”

“M̴͖̱̎̏̔u̶͔̹͆̆̋f̶̤̻́͆͑f̷̰̱͘i̷͇̕ņ̷͋ off. Of course not.” The words didn’t quite feel right on his tongue. Clunky, almost. He ignored it. 

Tubbo pouted. “Guess we’ll have to try harder next time.”

“I reckon I’d definitely not appreciate that thank you.” 

“Why? Are we just that terrifying?”

“Pssssh, no way,” Tommy scoffed. “You’re nothing compared to Wilbur. I took the last beef jerky stick once and...oh boy.” He shuddered artistically for effect. It wasn’t difficult to do. The memory of creeping shadowy things after him wasn’t easy to forget. “The things I saw Tubbo. They haunt me. Half my nightmares were caused by that one delicious meat tube.” 

“Really?” Tubbo seemed a bit more serious. Uh ohhhh. 

“He’s just so tall, Tubbo. My very manhood feels threatened. And normally I’m very secure with my masculinity because I understand how huge I am but...ohhhhh Tubbo. You’ve never seen him. He’s just too tall, Tubbo. No one man was ever supposed to wield that much power.” All jokes and deflections aside, his friends did regularly feature in his nightmares. It wasn’t that he was scared of them. That would be preposterous. They weren’t terrifying to him, just...around him. Naturally dangerous, that’s all it was. 

But most of the time, when they appeared, it was as Tommy was being kept from them, forced into isolation of some kind. But that was hardly a nightmare at all, just the truth, really. Tommy hadn’t seen Wilbur since he was captured, the last memory was an image of the man fighting off waves of enemies, splattered in blood. The others he got to see more frequently, but The Blade only showed up when things were really bad. Philza was the only consistent one, the most common, the best. Visits didn’t mean death, like they did with The Blade, and happened at all, unlike Wilbur. The reminder of Philza nagged at him. It was a nonissue, he told himself. Rosalind was working on it. 

“What’s his height?” Tubbo queried. 

“Around me, it’s like...6’10 probably. But with The Blade he’s like 15 feet tall. Looks ridiculous, too. And with Philza...it depends. I’d say with you he’d probably be 6’3, since that’s how tall I am, and I can loom over you all intimidatingly.”

“It changes? How inconsistent of him.”

“Yeah, it’s always just tall enough to dramatically loom over the tallest person in the room.” 

“Well, what’s it when he’s alone?”

Tommy shrugged. “He won’t say.”

“What if like...there’s only a baby in the room?”

Tommy burst into laughter. “I’ll have to ask! That’s genius, Tubbo!” 

The bee person preened. “Of course it is. We’re Tubbo, after all. The best.” Tommy scowled at the parody, feeling like he was being mocked a bit.

“What? That’s my line! Get your own persona, that one’s mine.” 

“Nahh. We like this one. Think we’ll keep it.”

Tommy spluttered. “Tubbo? Is that supposed to be wholesome or creepy? Tubbo?”

“Goodnight.” 

“Tubbo answer me.”

“See you tomorrow~”

“Tubbo stop.”

“We promise we’ll never bring this up again.”

“That isn’t—stoooppit.”

“We thought that was the only thing you wanted us to say?”

“I take it back. Tell me if that was nice or scary.”

“Nope. Goodnight.”

He scowled. “Fine. Be like that. I think I prefer it when you don’t speak. I’m leaving now.” Tommy scaled the walls, escaping to the vents. He huffed, but their conversation had been nice. It was good to see Tubbo was bouncing back now that they had food, and...and it was nice, too, that they’d been concerned about him, even if it wasn’t necessary. 

——

Rosalind brought food and a thick stack of papers. Lawrence came, too, but he sat on the wall again, and Tommy didn’t think he’d be an issue. His stomach grumbled a bit at the sight. Half portions weren’t exactly pleasant, but it had to be far better than starving. “Hungry?” 

“Mmm. I’m a growing boy.” An idea struck. “Maybe you could ask for double bricks? Actually, they might not let you since they might be like giving an extra weapon. Pretty sure you could totally brain someone with one of these.”

“Growing? I doubt it, you probably have a foot over me. I can’t imagine you have any more to do, unless that’s an unnoticed anomalous property. But, I’ll see what I can do. They have thousands of these made daily just to feed everyone. Who’d notice a single one?”

“Yeah!” Tommy cheered. “That’s it, Ros, steal from them!”

She looked taken off guard. “No, I…oh, I do suppose larceny could be an interpretation of what I said…I’m not going to be a thief, there’s requests and forms I can likely fill out, just like there was for that document about your Phil you wanted.”

“Mu̵̗͎͑ͅf̴̯̭̤̖̹͚̝̣̎̀̾̅f̵̧͚͕̝̗͇̦̉̂̂̄̃͐̾́ì̷̡̦̺͈́̆͊ņ̴̨̛̥͈̫͍̺̗̎͆̽́͝ing finally. That took months!”

“Or two days. Apparently it was a much more complex inquiry than I thought it would be. I’m told this explains it,” she said, placing a decent amount of pages in Tommy’s expecting hands. Then, she turned, heading back out the door.

“Wait,” Tommy called. “Why are you leaving already?” 

“Part of getting clearance. I have to take care of more dangerous people now.”

“Oh.” Tommy’s heart sank a little. He knew she’d have to move on eventually, he was only training after all. But he’d hoped it’d take a little longer. “Will I still see you?”

“Sometimes,” she promised with a smile.

“Stay safe!” Tommy called after her. She’d need it, after all. Rosalind disappeared through the doorway. Well, he’d known it'd only be a matter of time. It’d been nice, while it lasted, but she was still a Foundation employee at the end of the day. Wait. Nope. He beat the thoughts back with a stick. Not yet. Don’t ruin a good thing, even if it isn’t real. She’d gotten him information about Philza, after all. It wasn’t her fault the Foundation attached strings to everything. 

Tommy skimmed through the Collected Covenant. He’d never actually read it before. It seemed pretty normal. He’d never seen it before, so Philza had just sort of summarized. That had probably been a good thing, since it was incredibly dull. It was legal jargon, after all. 

But, more than that, it was horror wrapped in a nice bureaucratic bow. The closest it got to politeness was when it said, 'the individual herein designated as,' and then his or one of his friends' names. It didn’t actually use their numbers, but it also didn’t uphold their dignity. Implying that their names weren’t real, or were used only for the purpose of the contract. And that was only the beginning.

Tommy winced as he got further. He’d known the contract was unfair. It had to be, if short visits assured Philza never leaving. According to the contract, the exact parameters were two hour long visits per month. Of course, things could be delayed or cancelled at the Foundation’s disclosure, mostly for things like misbehavior or injury. He searched his memories. Had he done anything recently? It felt like he hadn’t seen Phil in ages. Maybe he’d messed up somehow? He didn’t feel great. 

But when he read that Philza had to submit to any tests the Foundation thought up, he wanted to puke. Sure, he knew that he himself had to deal with that, but for Philza? So old and wise and godly? Tommy was used to being a lab rat, but to take a lion and try the same seemed degrading. The worst part was he was the reason Philza had to. It didn’t seem fair to take up chains just to see Tommy. Well, and the other Collected as well. His exchange with Rosalind echoed in his mind. 

“What did you think happened?”

“I don’t...I thought they studied you.” 

“I guess that happens, too.” 

He thought he’d been so superior for knowing the true nature of the Foundation. Philza had been sheltering him. Something inside him diminished, sinking into the pit of his stomach and sitting like a rock. A knock on the door, and Lawrence left. Tubbo flew down, a few bees landing on the page and looking up at Tommy expectantly. Right. Tubbo probably couldn’t get through the font and legal jargon. Probably didn’t care to, either, it was boring and about people Tubbo didn’t really know, mostly.

“I’ll explain later,” Tommy promised. Burrito nodded, then flew to sit behind Tommy’s ear. Well, maybe it was Burrito. Tommy couldn’t actually tell them apart, just pretended he could. Tubbo couldn’t tell the difference at all though, and it was funny to confuse them. 

The part about him, Wilbur, and The Blade being a third party and thus not needing to consent for the contract to be executed didn’t sit right, either. Few things did, but that one was personally annoying, even if he was a minor and it wouldn’t be legally binding. Wait. Would Philza count as a guardian? They probably wouldn’t get his actual parents to sign. He...he didn’t actually know what they thought or knew about any of this. He wondered if anyone had ever told his parents or if he'd simply just gone...missing. There one day and not the next. Would the Foundation tell them? He couldn't imagine what they'd have said, but there must've been something. His parents were humans, just like he should have been. The Foundation cared about humanity, if nothing else. What was the story? Sorry, your little boy has become a monster, and for your safety you'll never see it again. Surely they'd have objected though. They wouldn't let this happen, if they knew. Their signatures weren't anywhere on here, so that was a comfort. His wasn't either, though. The whole mess was cleared by the fact that he didn’t have an option to object. Not that he would, but he imagined being a random person and suddenly being forced to interact with a very dangerous Philza. Tommy thought it was nice, but maybe someone else wouldn’t. 

He tried to remember the day that Philza had Collected him. It had been maybe a month before Tommy had gotten captured. The recollection was fuzzier than it probably should have been. All that remained was the hazy impression of his friends' smiles, elation swelling up inside him, and the majesty of the true Philza. Really, it couldn’t have been that long ago. The Foundation seemed to suck away the past, leaving only the terrifying present. Made him forget what life used to be like, what it should have been like. Time didn’t exist, and so all that was left was the engulfing now that promised no change. 

Next was the article discussing the Collected, and how others could be added or removed with consent of both the Foundation and Phil. Wait. What if he convinced Philza to collect Tubbo? Then Tubbo would have two people to help them! Tommy knew that he’d only survived because of Philza. He didn’t know what state he’d be in sans the man’s aid, but surely not a good one. Philza was the only way Tommy had been able to endure everything. So, if he could get Philza to Collect Tubbo then they’d be all set! It couldn’t be too hard. Tubbo was cute and charming or whatever, and desperately needed help. Well, Tommy didn’t actually know Philza’s criteria for selecting people. Tubbo seemed pretty similar to Tommy, but wasn’t anything like The Blade or Wilbur. Certainly those two weren’t helpless. He’d said he liked interesting people, which was good for Tubbo at least since in Tommy’s opinion they were incredibly interesting. Although, Tommy’s context of monotonous imprisonment probably meant that wasn’t such an impressive statement. 

Actually, Tommy wasn't entirely sure why Philza Collected people. Something about companionship? That seemed a good enough reason for Tommy, but friendship served the exact same purpose and wasn’t nearly as encompassing as Collection was. He dug through memories for scraps of recollection. 

“Because it makes me stay me.”  Huh. That didn’t make much sense at all. But Philza certainly seemed to think it sufficient. Regardless, wouldn’t more friends only be a good thing? 

No. No, they wouldn’t. Maybe once, but...that had been outside. Here, in the Foundation, they really only served as hostages. And...and Tubbo would just be one more chain keeping Philza tied to the Foundation. Just like Tommy. His mood dropped the further he read. So far, nothing was really telling him when he’d see Phil next. It had been so long since the last visit, and he hadn't done anything wrong, right? Nothing to delay it. He needed to know, needed help with Tubbo. He needed-

Wait. 

Wait. No. 

That couldn’t be right. Something bitter swirled in his gut, rising until bile coated his tongue. His stomach and thoughts churned in disgusting, turbulant waves. 

There. An amendment. The paper was smooth and uncrinkled compared to the other sections. Newer. 

[...the individual herein designated as Tommy, by the agreement of both parties, shall be stricken from this contract, and no longer considered under the term Collected as defined in Article I, Section 1. This decision has been made through the proper negotiations required for amendment and has been accepted by both the individual herein designated as Philza and The Foundation. This agreement results in the suspension of several lines of this contract, as agreed upon in negotiations, and detailed as follows…]

Surely not…?

That couldn’t be real. It can’t be, he wouldn’t do this to me. He wouldn’t…wouldn’t…

Down at the bottom, splashed upon the page lay Philza’s signature authorizing the amendment. Tommy flipped to the other page with the signature. They matched exactly. The same tight font in a matching heavy hand. The iotas were identical. For a single moment right before everything hit, his thoughts were blissfully still. Shock ate through every inch of him until there was nothing left. Then, the truth hit him sharp and fast, slamming into his guts and driving every scrap of breath from his lungs as his mind went reeling. 

No. No, this was real. Philza had...had abandoned him. Decided he was one chain too many. 

And Tommy’s world came crashing down. He reread it several times, desperate to find any other sort of interpretation of the text. But it was designed to be as clear and eliminate any loopholes it could. Tommy desperately searched his recollections. Had Philza already made up his mind during their last visit? Tommy hadn't noticed anything off, but then again it had been so long ago. He didn’t remember if Philza’s toothy grin was genuine or not, if their hug was warm embrace or merely pretense. 

He wanted to curse. To scream invectives at him. To call Philza every foul word he knew. But…but Philza had saved him too many times. Tommy knew he’d be dead or worse without him. And...and, really, he couldn’t blame Philza for getting rid of him. Tommy knew he was needy. Knew he’d demanded Philza’s aid and never offered his own. And now he wanted nothing to do with Tommy.

He could understand it. He wanted nothing to do with himself, either. 

Chapter Text

Or: On the Subject of Growing Together, Apart, and Up

Tubbo was five and darting through the branches of the apple orchard. Bright ruby produce appeared in the trees, glowing like jewels beneath broad Spring leaves. They pulled fruit from the highest branches, careless letting it fall to be caught by honey bees. They fiddled with a small red top. It had been set out at the edge of the farm, right before the Wilds started. That usually meant it was for Tubbo. They weren’t entirely sure how to use the new toy, weren’t even entirely sure it was a toy, but at least it was a nice crimson color to the insectoid eyes (or a lovely fiery orange to the bees).

At the edge of the orchard, a human approached. They had dark features and greying hair, a face scored by time. As one, all of Tubbo took to the sky, their body carrying dozens of apples in their arms, everyone else collecting fruit and flying through the air in clusters.

The human took to running after them, slowed with age but fueled by determination. Tubbo giggled and quickened their pace, spiraling into the expansive sky, untouchable and free. “You could just ask, kiddo!” The old man shouted. The air itself laughed as Tubbo fled with their apples.

——

Tubbo was six and there was a cake in the center of the apple orchard. The trees were bare, but slowly peppering with leaves the longer Tubbo stayed. The dessert was covered in crisp white frosting, with “Happy 1st Anniversary Bee Kid” written in coral pink icing. Tubbo squinted at it, puzzling out the words slowly. They couldn’t figure out the big word, but the rest sounded nice, and like it was meant for them! They dug a finger into the frosting, and stuck it into their mouth. Dozens of bees crawled over it, sharing the memory of its taste. Tubbo melted. Delicious.

They ripped out a chunk of the cake and shoved it into their mouth, and then another and another. Rich chocolate filled their thoughts. “You know, Martha was sure you’d like strawberry more, but I was dead certain you’d be a chocolate lover.” His voice was dry and raspy like the wind through reeds. Tubbo looked up, halfway between shoving another handful of cake down their throat. Frosting coated their guilty face. The old man leaned against a tree a safe distance away. He seemed content to stay there, which was good, because Tubbo didn’t really want to leave until the dessert was finished. Tubbo slowly lowered the fistful of cake, putting it back on top of the pile of sugar and sort of spreading the frosting around to try and hide the evidence. It wasn’t very effective since a third of the treat was already missing. Maybe getting more would help? Tubbo reached inside their mouth, fishing around. They stretched farther, fingers tickling the inside of their throat and then chest. Insects inside carted up one of the bigger chunks, and Tubbo grabbed it, starting to pull the arm out. “No, no. It’s for you kiddo.” 

“Thanks!” Tubbo said brightly, dropping the piece back in and pulling their arm back out. They proceeded to pick up the whole cake, split it into chunks, and dump the whole thing into their mouth. The treat was torn apart inside. The old man raised an eyebrow. 

“I’d chide for not chewing but I suppose that isn’t a problem for you.” Tubbo rose, not really sure what to do. They fidgeted a bit, and attempted to wipe the icing from off their face but just ended up smudging it more. Tubbo twitched, hovering in the chilly air. They were probably supposed to be going. You had to be careful around humans. He didn’t have a stick, but, well. Better to be safe. Tubbo waved goodbye, and slipped away to their home. 

——

Tubbo started visiting Rhodes's orchard more and more since he didn’t drive Tubbo away with loud noises and pain. The old man kept leaving small gifts as well. Things like sweets and a variety of small toys that Tubbo had hoarded in their tree and played with when it rained. Jasmine helped them understand what most of them were for, and said the dinosaurs were the best, but Tubbo really liked watching the little top spin around and around. The color would blur across all their visions until suddenly lining up correctly and looking completely still. Mesmerizing to watch. Plus, they could sit a single bee on it and it served as a very cool ride, albeit a very dizzying and slightly dangerous one.

On that day, Rhodes stood in the middle of a row, holding a strange object. He usually wasn’t there when Tubbo arrived, or at least stayed out of the way. Tubbo cautiously hovered near him, wanting to see what Rhodes had but not wanting to be too close. The human held out the item. It was about the same size of his large, calloused palms, which were lighter than the rest of him and filled with deep lines. Tubbo cautiously drew near, then snatched it, dancing away a safe distance into the air. They fiddled with the metallic object. It was black and red, with a clip on the side. Tubbo found out that a part of it unraveled into a stiff yellow strip, demarcated by uniform black lines and numbers. When they let go, it sharply retreated back into the item. They dropped it in surprise, and dipped back to the floor to retrieve it. Their toes squished into the mud, and the object was kind of dirty. Tubbo wiped it off a bit. Tubbo looked up to the wrinkled face of Rhodes. “What is it?” they inquired. Jasmine was just as stumped as they were.

“Tape measure.” 

“Is it a toy?” If it was, Jasmine didn’t know how to play with it. Of course, they could make up their own rules, which could be just as fun.

“No. Can you guess what it’s for?”

Tubbo thought it over, looking at the numbers. “Does it help you learn to count?” Tubbo could already count to 100. Well, by tens, but it was still a very big number. Not big enough to count all of Tubbo, but probably close. 100 was a very large number, after all. 

“Sort of. Counting distance.”

“That sounds boring,” Tubbo pointed out helpfully. 

“Well, we’ll use it to measure you so you can get clothes.”

Tubbo looked down at themselves. They wore a long forest green men’s dress shirt they’d picked for the color since it reminded them of their home’s leaves.  It was on backwards, so that Tubbo could leave holes for their wings to get through. Most of the buttons were mismatched (because buttons were very difficult even when they did face forward), and the collar stuck up and covered part of their face. The sleeves were rolled up but still slunk past their hands. One of them was caked in mud. Their pants were closer to kid sized, but were rolled up as well. Grass stains coated the knees, and a plethora of rips and holes dotted the denim. Tubbo looked back up at Rhodes. “We have clothes alrea-dy,” they told him. 

“But Winter will be here soon, kiddos.”

“Clothes won’t stop that,” Tubbo replied reasonably. 

Rhodes reached down and ruffled their hair. “They can’t hurt.” Tubbos’ antenna flattened with the motion. It felt weird. Not bad, per say, just unusual. Plus, Rhodes had never been mean, and gave them things, which meant he could probably be trusted. So Tubbo stood still, eating apples and trying not to fidget while Rhodes knelt and measured them. Their wings shivered as he spread the metal tape along them, but Tubbo stayed until he was done.

——

Tubbo was not fond of shoes, they decided. They’d been compliant for almost everything, and had even liked most of it. The shirts were nice and stretchy, and had slits on the back for their wings. Plus, some of them had dinosaurs! Everyone approved of the dinosaurs. The other shirts were also nice, with things like shiny cars and weird bugs and cool flowers on them. Rhodes had given them some pants, too, but they liked the shorts better. They were comfy and easy to wear. 

But the shoes? Pinched their toes something awful. They felt so constraining, and Tubbo refused to wear them, instead preferring to throw them at Rhodes and hide in the canopy, giggling. 

Rhodes eventually lured them back with a brownie, but ultimately failed to get Tubbo to wear shoes. Tubbo couldn’t be completely domesticated. There was too much of the Wilds in them.

——

One day, there were a few books sat out, along with a bar of chocolate. Tubbo sat on the soft grass, looking at all the pictures, running a finger beneath them and sounding the words out loud just like her mum had taught her. Their mum. Jasmine’s mum. Actually, she was very nice, so she could be Tubbos’ mum as well. Or. Well. She’d been nice to Jasmine, but not Tubbo. Tubbo didn’t know how to feel about that. It was all too confusing and scary. They preferred to think about nicer things, like the book.

Which was difficult since the sentence wasn’t making sense. It had been much easier for Jasmine, why wasn’t it working? The letters were all weird and the words swam which they didn’t do for Jasmine. They even closed almost everyone’s eyes, and it still was hard! Tubbo scowled at the page, and then slammed the book shut. It was dull and stupid and didn’t make any sense. Chocolate made sense though. Tubbo ate it happily, then took to chasing a squirrel down, which darted through the trees as and every bee soared after it. They disappeared into the arboreal canopy, still tracked by scouts, but losing Tubbos’ interest. Their collective thoughts kept returning to the book. It was stupid and frustrating, but they still really wanted to know what it said.

Rhodes was at the edge of the orchard, cutting off runners with a pair of clippers. Tubbo flew over to hover in front of the old man. He startled a bit. Tubbo had never initiated interaction before, but this was very important. “What does this say?” Tubbo shoved the book into Rhodes’s face. 

“Well, hold on, let me get my reading glasses…” Rhodes patted around his work clothes. 

“Po-cket.” They wiggled a few bees around it so he could find them better. 

“Ah, thank you," he said, donning the spectacles. "Alright, let’s see. What do you have so far?”

“An oat tree and a...a boe-bos-bow? A bow push grew. Green and young to-and-and it doesn’t make any sense!”

“Hmmm. No, you’re right. Now, poetry can usually get a pass for nonsense, but somehow I don’t think that’s right either. Let’s go over it.” The pair —or hundreds of thousands, depending on one’s perspective— bent over the page. “Alright, so let’s look at this again…” Slowly, they worked out the proper arrangement. 

An oak tree and a rosebush grew,

Young and green together,

Talking the talk of growing things-

Wind and water and weather...

“Does that make more sense now, kiddos?” Tubbo nodded, satisfied. “Can you picture it?” Tubbo hesitated, then shook their head. They understood the words of course (they weren’t a baby after all) but they were still just words. “Well then, I think we should remedy that.” Rhodes and Tubbo, hand in hand, left the orchard, trailing a path that skirted the edge of the Wilds. The dirt path dissolved to bricks that were smooth underfoot and worn with time, leading past a semi-well kept fence and to a kind looking house. Rhodes stopped at the fence. An archway made of crisscrossing wooden planks created an entrance between the Wilds and garden. Long snaking vines crawled up it, covered in sharp thorns and tapered leaves. “So this is a climbing rosebush,” Rhodes explained. “Rosa Setigera.” Tubbo bobbed their head, pretending the words made sense. Rhodes liked to use weird names for all the plants sometimes. “Do you remember how the poem ended?”

Tubbo nodded enthusiastically, but it stilled into a more solemn gesture. The ending had been kinda sad. “They stopped havin’ things to talk about. So they weren’t friends anymore.”

...“And now you have no time for flower talk, 

Now that you’ve grown so tall”

“It’s not so much that I have grown,” said the tree,

“It’s just that you’ve stayed so small.”

“Exactly. But notice how the roses climbed up the side of the gate? The rose could have grown on the side of the tree, and they would have still been friends. So it was the rose’s choice.”

“Ohhh.” Rhodes said it like it was some grand important thing, but honestly Tubbo wasn’t too interested. 

“Does that make the poem make more sense?” Tubbo grinned. “Now, if it were Spring or Summer, we’d probably see some rose flowers. But I can still describe them, alright? So imagine a sort of rounded triangle. You know what a triangle is, right?” Tubbo nodded vehemently, then held up their fingers in the correct shape. Rhodes affirmed it, and Tubbo wiggled a bit, happy to have gotten it right. “So you have the triangle. It’s all soft. Now, this here bush is a lovely pink, but they come in all sorts of colors.” Tubbo stared intently at the bush, trying to picture it. “So, all the petals, they don’t spread out like a fan. Instead, they circle up into a cup shape, sorta like-”

“Like they’re all on top of the others!” Tubbo hummed.

“Exactly. And then they unfurl a bit, and then all the bees…that’s you, I suppose, pollinate them.”

“Can we pick one?” Tubbo asked. 

“They’re not in season,” Rhodes began. Tubbo pointed at the various buds lining the plant. As they watched, bright petals split into full bloom. 

“Well I’ll be…” Rhodes muttered, adjusting his bifocals. “Sure, just be careful about the thorns and don’t take many.” Tubbo plucked one, then thought about it and got another, handing it over to Rhodes. He examined the flower critically, looking over at Tubbo occasionally. Tubbo wasn’t really sure why, but figured that Rhodes would say something when he wanted to. He was fairly fond of rambling on, after all. But that was ok, because Tubbo really didn’t have anyone else who wasn’t Tubbo to talk to. They liked hearing him speak about things, voice deep, adjusting his glasses when necessary. 

But Rhodes did not share his thoughts. Instead, Rhodes offered them a sly wink, then strolled confidently through the archway, waving at Tubbo to follow the path through the garden to his house. There was a wide porch, and an old woman with long wavy grey hair dozed in a rocking chair. The sun filtered through between hanging pots, highlighting beams onto various images. A book held loosely in a wrinkled hand, a tomcat sprawled across the floor, glasses slipped down a nose. 

Rhodes tapped her shoulder lightly, and her eyes fluttered open. She shifted the frames of her glasses back up, catching sight of the rose offered to her. Her face split into a beam, lighting up smile lines in her worn visage. She took the flower. 

“How ever did you get these to bloom this late?” she wondered. Rhodes gestured to Tubbo, who wasn’t quite onto the porch, unsure of the territory. They weren’t ever invited into houses. They waved to her, however, since Rhodes (as well as Jasmine’s da) had said manners were important. “Ah, your little Nymph friend,” she realized, pleased with the understanding. 

“You’ve been listening to too much gossip, Martha,” Rhodes smiled. 

“You haven’t been listening to enough! Even after all these years you’re a city boy at heart. Never believed enough.” She sent a wave to Tubbo. “Careful with the fairies, love.”

Rhodes shook his head and chuckled, then bent, pressing a kiss to her forehead. When he rose, he clutched his back a bit, and then turned to Tubbo, taking their hand again, and setting off back down the path. Tubbo looked at the ground as they walked, occasionally stopping to pick up cool rocks and snail shells. “Do we get to see an oak tree next?” Tubbo asked. 

Rhodes thought it over. “There aren’t too many over here, since it’s mostly fruit trees that I work on.”

“What about the Wilds?” 

“Well, we could try, but we also might not find one. And it’s fairly dangerous there.”

“Could you de-scribe it then? Like the roses?”

“Hmmm. Well, kiddos, I can try. Ok, so, imagine the biggest tree you know. Its branches reach all the way into the air like a big crown, and some reach down to the ground because it’s too heavy. Its shade stretches far. The leaves are large, sort of like a ruffled fan, and instead of fruit it creates acorns, which are like little smooth brown cups with bumpy beige hats on.”

“Oh! We know where one of those is!”

“Do you now?”

“Yes!” Tubbo bounced. “That’s where we live!” Tubbo thought about it. The only other person they’d ever shown their home to had been Jasmine. But...it’d probably be fine. Rhodes was really nice! Plus, they’d just been invited to Rhodes’s house. It would only be polite to return the favor. 

——

“Climb up!” Tubbo commanded. The field around was dotted by flowers, and in the very center grew their home. A great oak tree, but that was a pale descriptor. In a sense it was the great oak tree, the greatest of them all. A titan stood alone in a plain. Branches dipped into the ground before rising once more into the air, weaving together. Nestled in between branches were cubby holes and shelves made of honeycomb and pieces of scavenged wood and metal sheets that Tubbo used as platforms and places to store their treasures and extra food.

“Would love to, kid, but my back just isn’t like it used to be.” Tubbo huffed. They really wanted to show Rhodes their house! He wouldn’t get to see all their wavy hives, or their cool bed made out of grasses and bird feathers and leaves and flowers and every soft thing they could find, or all of their toys! Tubbo hovered over the man, brow furrowed and thinking hard. An epiphany struck, and they buzzed down, clasping their arms tightly around Rhodes’s chest. All of Tubbo gathered around the man, struggling to lift him. They got maybe a few centimeters into the air before giving up and setting him back down upon the roots that snaked in and out of the ground. 

“How do we show you our things then?” Tubbo pouted. 

“Bring them down,” Rhodes suggested. Tubbo brightened, zipping up to the heart of the tree and snatching up toys from where they’d left them scattered around on branches and ledges made of honeycomb. Some of them slipped from their grasp, but were caught by other bees and carried behind them in a wake of overflow. 

Rhodes examined each one, finding some value to praise in each. He’d make comments on certain ones, like adding interesting facts on how the airplane worked in real life, or that the small cheetah figurine was the fastest land animal in the world (which Tubbo insisted they already knew). When Tubbo showed him their battered little truck, Rhodes had snatched it away, admonishing that things like rust were very dangerous and that Tubbo should keep metal toys out of the rain. He’d promised to clean it up and make Tubbo a box to put toys in to help with the rain. “But the leaves and hives keep most of it off,” Tubbo complained. 

“What about the Winter, when the leaves die?”

Tubbo laughed. “It doesn’t lose leaves. It’s one of those trees you were talking ‘bout, the not dec-deecid-” Tubbo struggled with the word. It was one of the really big ones. 

“Non-deciduous? No, oak trees lose their leaves. In fact, this one shouldn’t be green right now at all, since it’s Fall.”

Tubbo squinted at him. “Are you sure you know what you’re talking about?”

Rhodes hmphed. “Of course I do. If there’s one thing I know, it’s plants, and this one isn’t acting right. It’s too large for one, and should be all sorts of oranges and yellows and reds.”

“Ok,” Tubbo conceded with a shrug, excitedly showing off more toys. If Rhodes wanted to be wrong that was his problem. They had more toys to share, and that was far more important than not understanding how trees worked. 

Later on, Rhodes’s eyes narrowed. “Where did you find a bullet?”

“Huh?”

“The little gold shell that’s all bent. Normally they’re more cone shaped, but this one’s parted like a flower at the top. That means it’s been fired.” 

“Ohhh so that’s what it was…anyway, look at this ball! It can bounce really high, look!” Tubbo didn’t like the bullet, but it looked cool, so they’d brought it down for Rhodes to see. But it was kinda boring (and mean!), and there were much better things to play with. Or, not to play with at all, such as... 

“What on Earth happened to that stuffed animal?”

It only had one button eye left, and three limbs. Half of the stuffing was ripped out, and it was covered in mud. “It’s a bear.” Tubbo explained. 

“So?”

“They eat bees.” Tubbo said slowly, as one would to a dumb person. Really, that should have been obvious. “His name is Bad Stupid One Eye, and he deserves ev’rythin’ that’s ever happened to him.”

“Ah, of course.”

And, with the least favorite toy out of the way, Tubbo could get to the best one. Or, ones. Tubbo was split on the decision. Literally. “So. This is very impor-tant. Which is better, tops or dinos?” Tubbo demanded. They presented both for Rhodes’s examination. 

“A very difficult decision,” Rhodes stalled. Tubbo shoved them closer to his face. He adjusted his glasses. “Dinosaur,” came the verdict. Tubbo groaned immediately. 

“Nooooo! Jasmine can’t be right! The tops are so cool! Here, you just haven’t seen it spin yet.” Tubbo twisted it, but it only twirled a few times, leaving lines in the soil, before falling down. Tubbo frowned at it, betrayed.

“...Jasmine? Can you describe her?” There was an odd look on his ancient face. 

Tubbo tilted their head. “Why?”

“Maybe I know her.”

Tubbo blinked. “Sure, we guess. She had hair like yellow snakes pulled up with bows. And she kinda sounded like a snake, too. There was a scratch on her lip and she said bandaids didn’t work on it.”

“When did you last see her?” There was something pressing in his voice. 

“We dunno.”

“Think. What were the trees like?”

“Oh! They were all bare, so that means it was...Winter!” Tubbo smiled with the information, feeling smart. They’d been working on getting the seasons right, since there were a lot of them (4) and they had an order you were supposed to be particular about. That seemed boring to Tubbo. It’d be much more fun if you could choose which one it was for the day instead of having to wait forever.

“What were you doing?”

“We were showing her our toys. We didn’t have that many yet, but she brought her dinos and climbed up inside and we had lots of fun. Except she kept insisting that dinos were the best, and we believed her, until we got the top which is o’viously better.” Though that was less for how much fun it was (and it was! Tubbo would fight on that subject!) and more about how it was a reminder that nice people still existed.

“Tubbo this is important. Was that last time you saw her?”

“Uhhhh. Yes? We didn’t see her after that..?” Tubbo was a little confused. Rhodes was acting weird. “Why?”

“Jasmine Fletcher has been missing since last November.”

——

There had been gossip about the fairy. It wasn’t surprising, and such rumors rose and fell like the tides and the moon. No one really had any true convictions about any of them, but they flourished nonetheless. Superstition had always held a little more weight in the country. That had been one of the harder things for Rhodes Bannister to learn. In his younger days, facts and truth were his bread and butter as a lawyer. But he’d followed Martha to the rurals, and never regretted it. Over time, he’d soften, grown almost as fanciful as the natives. Stories were a staple of the community, and Rhodes had adapted. Life was slow, there wasn’t too much to talk about in their personal lives beyond stories, gossip, and the occasional scandal. So of course people turned to tall tales. 

It was the sort of thing you nodded along to in the telling. They garnered the same belief that fireside ghost stories had, where just for a shining moment the veil between the real world and the imagined thinned and you could make out the silhouettes of creatures prowling in the night. It wasn’t a true belief, it faded in the morning light and under close examination, but there was some holy weight during the actual moment of the tale as words painted a picture of what could be. You believed it, if only for a moment, and even once you’d gotten ahold of yourself that one seed of belief remained. Typically, it withered, forgotten as one went about one’s day. 

But sometimes it grew larger. 

The whispers about the fairy had been more consistent in their telling than most. A child in adult garb, tiny in reality, but large in truth. An army contained in one. Hollow eyes, the young Jessabel (just back from college, isn’t she so smart?) had reported. Empty false child, swore Mendez (the taller one, who made good jams), a person filled with bugs and lies. A bright stretch of lips, the facsimile of a smile, from which only a never ending sea of bumblebees poured, offered Gwynn (but she’d always been a bit too fond of the bottle). Scary, little Riley (starting kindergarten next year!) had insisted, but then again they were afraid of bugs already. 

What they all agreed on was the bees and the wings. They draped down its back like a cape, translucent and strong, impossible to carry such a being. They whispered of magic, but then again they always did. Most agreed it was a fairy, however. It had to be. It was a creature composed of nature, partially dissolved into the old world or perhaps emerged from it to remind humans of their crimes. They started calling it the Nymph, because Miss Mionette thought herself clever about word play. Of course, old woman Josie insisted it was an angel, citing the wings, cherubic face, miracles, and divine glow. Most people argued that the radiance Josie was seeing was actually the honey that the Nymph left as residue. It was in fact divine in flavor. 

Regardless of what they thought it was, everyone who’d encountered the Nymph swore up and down it was a blessing. Encounters started as glimpsing an over abundance of pollinators from the corner of one’s eye, a realization that there were too many. Over a week such encounters increased, until—there, darting through the trees. Do you see it?—the child could be spotted. In that time, the tree growth would accelerate, bursting into full bloom and harvest. The Nymph would take some, a sort of payment the farmers agreed, then leave, disappearing into the wilds. A few brave ones, like Jessabel and the Hawkins’ boy, had followed after it, but the bees had known of their presence and disappeared with only the trace of a giggle left behind in an empty woods. The adults, of course, familiar with the way of the world, did not go looking for the fairy. That was just common sense. Things lived in the Wilds, not all as benevolent as the Nymph may or may not have been. Going into the Wilds was just asking for trouble, and if you were going to do so regardless of sensible, rational thought...well, you probably deserved it for tempting the beings inside like that. Whatever got you, be it wolves or something far worse, was just following its nature by that point. 

In the wake of a visit from the child, the speeding growth of the agriculture would slow, eventually leaving the trees just as they were before the sudden Spring. Almost like a dream, with only the harvest as evidence. That had really been the surest proof for the story, since you could track things like sales and hired workers, and all around the community people had had sudden bursts of profit. Harvest was a big production, and didn’t go unnoticed. Produce sold for better prices out of season. It was too obvious that something real had to be going on, only further cementing the belief in the Nymph. Our own little fairy, the community had said. 

Timothy Hawkins had insisted that he saw the Nymph steal his toy truck. His parents were less convinced since he was the forgetful sort, but an older sister had used it for proof when she told about their family’s encounter, and so an idea came about surrounding leaving little toys out for the fairy. Who wouldn't want to attract such a boon? Over a year, it became a sort of tradition to leave a toy at the start of the orchard or cropland or what have you. Like a good luck charm, almost. Every time someone had an encounter with the Nymph, questions would always turn to what their offering was. If it seemed too extravagant or expensive, talk would turn and say that they'd just bribed the fairy into helping, more stemming from jealousy than anything. 

Rhodes Bannister hadn’t been sure what to believe. Really, he hadn’t believed any of it, reserving an air of disbelief, and Martha had been the one to set out the crimson toy top, humor twinkling in her eyes. But then the Nymph had shown up, the trees blossoming into Spring. 

It was like a miracle, really. Unearthly, almost heavenly. Time racing forward to harvest, flowers bursting into existence in mere moments. He never believed in anything until that moment. Oh, sure, he had ideals like justice and kindness, but those were things that humans could accomplish if they really tried. What happened that day simply was not. He hadn’t really realized, until that day, how little he really knew of the world, if it could hold such wonder and have him never even suspect it.

But for all that power, unmatched by human machinations, Rhodes had discovered they were really only a child, who cared about things like dinosaurs versus tops, and what the words in a poem meant, and if he was going to bring more of the double fudge brownies next time. There wasn’t anything malicious in them. A little odd, maybe. Didn’t have a formal education, which Rhodes was planning to fix, and they insisted on being referred to as a plurality. No, the Nymph was simply a marvel. So he’d started leaving treats too, because they seemed to like it just as much as the toys. Offerings, gifts, charity, lures. He gave no mental designation to them. It was just something he did.

Apparently though, there was one thing that worked better, except people weren’t so lenient as with the offerings. The Nymph would stay longer when there was a child to play with, usually elementary school or younger. Some people reckoned that was how old the Nymph was; others suggested that was just how old the fairy pretended to be in order to lure them in. There had always been stories between the fairies and children. Kids stolen away, coming back a hundred years later different and timeless and hollow, always looking back to the Wilds, unsatisfied. Tales of changelings and false people, of rules and names and poison truth. The fairies had always liked children the best, after all. People had been wary, yet the children refused to see the danger, unless they were the entomophobic sort. But most of the rural community thought that the wary were just listening to the wrong stories. After all, those were fairy tales, and this was real life. For the most part, they had treated the Nymph as a stroke of good luck, a blessing of plenty. An odd one, to be sure, but superstition had always held a little more weight in the country and you didn’t worry about good things if you were the sensible type. 

But then the Nymph had visited the Fletcher farm, and little Jasmine had gone missing. A sweet girl, kind, with bright eyes and a cleft lip. And, well, people were superstitious, but they weren’t stupid. You didn’t give things a chance to happen twice.

Though it deviated against the new attitude, he welcomed the fairy, even if all the others in the community bristled. He may have been gravely mistaken in believing them to be a child, but he doubted it. Tubbo was far too genuine a creature. Rhodes hadn’t hired any helpers, or attracted attention to the off season sales. He knew what would draw suspicion, and as far as he could tell the kid didn’t need any more enemies. They’d done nothing to deserve hatred, after all. 

Or so he’d thought.

——

“What? She isn’t missing,” Tubbo insisted. 

“Have you seen her then?” 

“...no, we haven’t seen her.”

“And you don’t know where she is?”

Tubbo patted their chest. “She’s right here!” 

“Just because she’s in your heart doesn’t mean she’s here.”

Tubbo frowned, and repeated the gesture. “No, she’s in here.”

“Tubbo that’s not...that’s sweet, but she’s still missing. Her parents don’t know where she is, haven’t for a while.” Tubbo scowled. Why wasn’t Rhodes listening to them? Tubbo was trying to help, but he wasn’t understanding! Frustration bubbled up inside them. Wait! Idea! Jasmine could just tell him herself! Tubbo split apart into individual minds, holding back their original selves until only Jasmine remained. 

——

Tubbo shivered, but when they stilled something about Tubbos’ demeanor had shifted. They put their hands on their hips, and stamped a bare foot into the ground. “You’re not lisstening to me!” Tubbo shouted. Their cadence was different, their ‘s’ stretched and hissed, voice a degree higher. “I’m right here mister Rhodes!”

“Tubbo, that’s not-”

“I’m not being Tubbo right now. We’re letting me talk becausse you’re being sstupid.” Tubbo tossed their head, a gesture diminished for the lack of flouncing pig tails. “I like being Tubbo. So sstop saying I’m misssing because I’m NOT.” The strangest part was how clearly it echoed Jasmine Fletcher. Her stance, her gestures, her lisp, all replicated exactly by Tubbo. Rhodes had known her in passing, usually when dropping off baking goods around the community. It could be Tubbo was mimicking her, but…again, they weren’t really capable of elaborate deception. Pretending to have taken less sweets, yes. Insisting they knew a word when they didn’t, yes. Replicating a long missing child down to the mannerisms and speech patterns? Somehow, Rhodes thought not.   

“...Jasmine?”

Tubbos’ face cleared into a bright grin. Rhodes could almost overlap Jasmine’s gap tooth smile over the writhing mass of inner insects. “Yep!” The ‘p’ was popped. Then, their body twitched, shaking Jasmine out until all that was left was Tubbo. “So stop saying she’s gone! We’re right here.”

It was odd how easy it had been to think of Tubbo as a human. Somewhere in Rhodes’s head he’d just put them in the same category as all his other grandchildren, save being a little uncivilized. Now, he wondered, faintly, morbidly, what had become of the body. If somewhere in the hearth of the Wilds, a small girl's body rotted. They'd never found one, the whole community had combed the forest. A forest that had always hidden the fairy before. They'd never had a chance of finding Jasmine, did they? Horror struck his parental heart. The alien features seemed to sharpen as Rhodes watched. Their eyes were far too large for their chubby child’s face, segmented and emotionless. You couldn’t actually glean any information from their dark, glossy depths. Eyes were the window to the soul, and Tubbos’ were one way glass. He’d thought their smile to be bright, but really it was just far too large, dripping at the edges, pulling a canyon through their face. A replica of human emotion. Long antenna twitched, wings shivered. The very air was composed of Tubbo. He was surrounded on all sides by them. Rhodes became acutely aware how dangerous the Nymph likely was. This was the creature who thrust Spring upon the world on a whim. This was the creature who’d stolen a child. 

This was a creature who was a child. Learning and growing. They’d never become fully realized if barred help. The thorns were just as much a part of the roses as the flower, after all. To pretend the plant was only one or the other would be to deny the reality of its whole being. “Will you let her go?” Rhodes asked gently.

Tubbo tilted their head. “But she likes it here. She wanted to join the Hive.” That was a little reassuring, since it meant Tubbo hadn’t...inoculated? Gathered? Jasmine without her consent. Trapped, but not unwillingly captive, at least initially.

“And would you ever...take someone even if they didn’t want to be a part of Tubbo?”

“No? If they don’t want to be here, why would we want them? They’d be stuck in there forever,” Tubbo replied sincerely. Forever. Was that forever in the true sense of the world, eternity and infinity, till the end of time? Or was that the words of a child who thought years to be just as long as if they truly were infinite? The Nymph made it so hard to tell. Unearthly, but at the same time new to the world. It was to be expected either way.

“Fair enough. But you need to let her go, her parents miss her very much,” Rhodes explained. 

Something nasty grew in the pit of Rhodes’s stomach as Tubbo immediately drew themselves into the air. It was not so much they rose, Tubbo hung in perfect suspension, but their legs lifted up as they partially curled into themselves. Naked fear gripped their features. It was almost laughable, the thought Tubbo could be dangerous, impossible in the picture of a creature so vulnerable. “They don’t like her anymore. They’re mean, a-and scary, and-” their voice began to break a bit, buzzing overwhelming the words.

“Tubbo, what happened?”

Tubbo fidgeted a bit, then searched the toys scattered around, picking one up, and handed Rhodes the used bullet. His heart went cold. “Jasmine had just started being Tubbo, so we went to go show them but-but they wouldn’t even let us talk! They just—they had this stick, and it made so much noise! And then our leg really hurt and we went home. We couldn’t even move for a really long time cause it hurt so much. It was so scary, and then after that everyone had more of the sticks and so we stayed away from everyone e’cept you ‘cause you didn’t hurt us and-” 

“It’s ok kiddos. Can you calm down for me? There you go. It’s alright. Can you tell me what the ‘stick’ look like?” Rhodes cut through the growing dismay infesting their words 

Tubbo stretched out their arms. “It was reeeeally long, and kinda shiny. Looked like a stick, e’cept part of it was grey. It sounded like thunder.”

“They shot at you!?” 

“What’s that?”

They stared at them curiously, obsidian eyes wide. They didn't know. They didn't know what had been done to them. That their own community had threatened their life. No...that their own parents had. “Just…keep telling me what happened, kiddos.”

Tubbo stuck out their leg, pulling their shorts up a bit. They pointed at a spot on their calf. “And then the...bullet? Yeah, the bullet got in our leg and it really hurt! Like touching birth’ay candles but worse!” Rhodes frowned. Milo Fletcher had sworn he’d shot the fairy, but Rhodes had been certain he’d been exaggerating. But he’d actually shot a child? That was the sort of offense one spent serious time in jail for, regardless if Tubbo was human. Old instincts bubbled in Rhodes. He wanted that man exposed to the full weight of the law. Justice needed to fall terrible and swift upon his head for hurting Tubbo. “The hole is gone now,” Tubbo explained. “But it was really big!” They circled their entire calf. It was thin and felt terribly small, but held no marks of what had befallen them. It couldn’t be a lie, as Tubbo didn’t understand the crime itself enough. Too young to even know what a gunshot wound was and yet apparently old enough to have experienced it. What if they’d died? Maybe their head or chest had been blown out? They might’ve died regardless of where they’d been shot. How had the child survived? Either infection or starvation or any number of things, it wasn’t as if there had been anyone to take care of them while healing. 

There was a certain terrible irony in the Fletchers unknowingly attacking their own daughter in an effort to avenge her. The kind of narrative twist that seemed inevitable in myths. Rhodes wasn’t sure if there was any sort of moral to it. Something could have been done to prevent the tragedy, many things even. The Fletchers shouldn’t have lashed out, Tubbo shouldn’t have taken Jasmine, but it all came down to not knowing any better. The Fletchers saw a monster and reacted accordingly, and Tubbo...Tubbo was a child. Naive and still not aware of their wrongdoing. They hadn’t meant harm, but still Jasmine would never be able to leave, forever stitched into Tubbos’ being, it seemed. 

“Tubbo, listen to me, alright?” Tubbo looked at him, too large eyes set into their too young face, attentive, or at least replicating it. “Please don’t ever do this again. Can you do that?” 

Tubbo tilted their head. “Why? It's so great! It’s like never being alone because your best friend is right there! It’s-” their face lit into a triumphant smile. “It’s like we’re the tree and she chose to grow on us! We’ll never grow apart ‘cause we’re the same!” He could see the way it would play out. Tubbo was such a gregarious child. They’d probably try to collect everyone into their Hive. People would be torn from their lives, and even if they were fine with it they’d still leave gaps. Others would notice, and may not feel the same. And, as Tubbo suggested, they might well be in there forever. Rhodes could imagine someone with ill intentions luring Tubbo in. They were naive and young, it wouldn’t be hard. It was clear that Tubbo had immense power between the harvest and the healed bullet wound, and Rhodes could just picture the dastardly sort joining the Hive and pushing the more passive Tubbo down much like Jasmine had done. What if Tubbo never resurfaced, the child replaced by some villain abusing their body, mind, and powers? 

Rhodes didn’t say any of that, though. That wasn’t the sort of thing one ever mentioned to a child, even one as odd as Tubbo. He reached down, smoothing down the fluffy hair on the top of their head, careful not to mess with their antenna too much. “But she'll never get to grow for herself,” he offered simply. 

“Oh.” 

Rhodes let a time pass. Tubbo seemed to be pondering it, but then again was a small child with inhuman features so it was hard to really tell. Could be reflecting internally, could be thinking about the clouds or a cool mushroom they’d seen. “So, do you promise not to?” Rhodes pressed. 

“Ok,” Tubbo agreed simply, holding out their pinky. Rhodes wrapped his own around it. Tubbos’ finger was soft and sticky, but not much more than a typical kid’s was. 

“We promise.” Tubbo seemed to think something over. “You’ll have to spit twice ‘cause we don’t have any.” Rhodes, familiar with the vows of children, obliged. 

——

Tubbo was thirteen and had to wake up suddenly. It had been a lazy afternoon, and they’d been playing Pokémon Y, lazily grinding to level up their Chesnaught. The warm sun had gotten to them, their attention waned, and Tubbo had drifted off in the nice warm sun. Besides, it only took like five bugs to press a button, and Wulfric wasn’t going to beat himself. Other focus was set for various pollen gathering, dotting the field, or observing a colorful bird making a nest. A fairly typical Summer day. But a couple hundred eyes started tracking the movement of a human. They paused at the edge of the field, then burst into a wild sprint, racing towards Tubbos’ dwelling. Frantic alarm bells rang in Tubbos’ thoughts, jerking the entirety of the Hive into sharp awareness. Tubbo shot upward into the air, accidentally running into a branch. They rubbed their head. Ouch. 

Tubbo adjusted their flight path, disappearing into thick foliage. Likely, they wouldn’t be able to fly away completely, since the human was already so close and would easily see them in the sky. Craaaaaap. 

The human reached the base of the Hive Tree, staring up in wonder. “Awesome,” she whispered. She held up her phone, snapping a picture. Oh that wasn’t great. She slid the device into the back pocket of her jeans, which were ripped in a way that suggested fashion instead of use. An alien decal decorated her shirt. Her hair was short and dirty blonde, streaked through with violet strands. She walked around the base of the tree, stumbling a bit on the roots as she was too preoccupied with looking at Tubbos’ home. She found the rose-wrapped ladder that Rhodes had moved over from the orchard, and scaled up it to the largest platform.

The human got to the midst of the Hive Tree, looking around at Tubbos’ house. It wasn’t particularly tidy at the moment, blanket nest disheveled from recent use, a variety of Rhodes’s assigned schoolwork spread about haphazardly. Tubbo settled on a branch far from view, watching the human via scouts. What was she doing here? All of the locals knew better than to get this deep into the Wilds. She looked about the same age as Tubbo, maybe a few years older. Her clothing wasn’t particularly practical, and her climbing on the ladder wasn’t nearly on par with the local kids, who grew up scrambling up rungs as easy as walking. Probably a visitor then. Tubbo wracked their numerous brains for who she might be. Wait! Hadn’t Rhodes mentioned Mrs. Hayden’s grandkid visiting from the States for the summer? But Mrs. Hayden was the sensible type, she’d have made sure to warn about the Wilds.

Clearly, it hadn’t worked, and now Tubbo was dealing with an intruder. Home invasion was a very serious crime, probably. She wasn’t taking pictures any longer, preferring to take everything in. Her eyes narrowed, and she walked over to Tubbos’ nest, stepping on nice quilts to get to  the middle of it. Rude. That was Tubbos’ bed after all. She snatched up the DS. Crap! They’d left it on, leaving a clear indicator of recent activity. She glanced around, searching for another person, but not finding anyone because Tubbo was amazing at hiding. Plus, she didn’t look up, a rookie mistake. “Hello? Anyone here?” Tubbo didn’t reply because they were so incredibly stealthy. “Your treehouse is pretty cool,” she called out. Which was true, of course, but Tubbo remained quiet. She squinted at the DS. “Taste in Pokémon sucks tho,” she muttered.

“Hey! Chesnaught has great defense and looks cool!” Tubbo protested. 

Her head shot upwards. Oops. Tubbo stayed perfectly still, which was actually a very difficult thing to do when one was composed of hundreds of thousands of bees. “How are you so far up?”

“Climbed,” Tubbo lied simply. “What are you doing here? It’s pretty dangerous.” Shouldn’t someone have stopped her from going into the woods all by herself? 

“Yeah, everyone kept saying that, isn’t that cool?”

Tubbo frowned. “There’s bears and stuff.”

“I’m not scared of bears,” she responded confidently. Stupidly.

“You should be,” they muttered.

“Besides, you’re here, so obviously it’s fine.”

True, but Tubbo also belonged to the Wilds in a way a human never would. That was like saying a mountain was good to climb because a bird had managed it. “Well, we live here and you don’t. What if you get lost?” Tubbo settled into sitting on the branch. It swayed with the breeze, far more than they’d have preferred if they couldn’t fly.

“Naw, I won’t. I’m great with directions. Anyway, are you gonna climb back down? Hard to have a convo with you all the way up there.”

“We can have a perfectly good chat from here. Nice to meet you, nice weather we’re having, what’s your name? See? Works fine.”

“Willow. Yours?”

“Tubbo.”

“That’s a weird name.”

“Well Willow is weird too.”

“It really isn’t, but whatever. Also, your voice sounds absolutely wild. How are you doing that?”

“It’s called vocal cords.” At least, they were pretty sure it was. Tubbo really just used thousands of insects buzzing to get the right pitches, so. Human anatomy was weird. Needlessly complicated, in Tubbos’ opinion. “Right, well, Willow, you shouldn’t be here. Could you leave? It’s our house, and you’re breaking and entering.”

“What? You live here?”

“What? No. Of course not. It’s our tree house. Just forgot a word,” Tubbo stumbled out quickly. 

“That’s just selfish. And besides, I’m bored. Grandma said there was loads of crazy stuff in this forest, but I haven’t seen anything cool yet except for this.” Oh. So Mrs. Hayden had warned Willow; she was just a rebellious idiot who ignored common sense. Great. “She absolutely refuses to go in the woods any more than necessary. It’s wack. But hey! You’re a local! You got any actual stories?”

“Nope. Nothing interesting here,” the Nymph, blessing of nature, promise of Spring, collective and Hive, person made of literal insects, assured her. 

“Dang. Can I still hang out though? Even if you think nothing is real, we can still talk about it. Come on, y’all got Bigfoot here? Or the British equivalent? Grandma was saying something about, like, werewolves and ghosts and some bug person that seemed kinda specific.”

“We don’t believe in that kinda stuff,” Tubbo sniffed in a superior tone. The community had so many stories, but Tubbo could see everything. If something was in those woods, they would've seen it by now. 

“Alright then, tell me the most outlandish one you’ve heard and we can laugh about it. I’ve got literally nothing else to do the entire Summer.”

“If we do, will you leave us alone?”

“Yep!” she assured them.

“Ok, we’re not stupid. We see your fingers crossed behind your back.”

“How!? I can’t even see you at all!” Willow cried out indignantly.

“We see all. The universe unfolds before us and reveals everything.” 

“B.S.”

“Mirrors?” they tried. 

“Alright, that’s it,” Willow decided. She kicked off her shoes, peeling out of her socks. 

“What? What are you doing?”

Willow grinned. She had teal braces. “If you can see everything, then just watch me, Toby.”

“We’re NOT Toby! We told you to call us TUBBO.”

“Tomayto, tomahto.” Her head swiveled around, looking through the branches of their home.

“Who says ‘tomayto’??” Tubbo asked.

“I do? I’ve literally never heard someone say tomahto.” She nodded determinedly, then picked a branch and started walking out on it, holding her arms out like a trapeze artist. 

“Wait, why are you-”

Willow found a spot where two branches grew close, scrambling up to the higher one. “If you won’t come down, I’m coming up.” 

“We’d rather you didn’t, actually?” Tubbo hummed anxiously. Crap. That wasn’t good. They repositioned to stand on the branch. 

“Then come down.” She was looking for the next branch to get to. Most of the ones close to the heart of the Hive Tree were close together, but further out, where Tubbo perched, the options were much less easy for a human.

“Don’t like that either.”

“Well then. You can’t stop me.” She jerked her chin up, determined, violet hair streaks vibrant in the dappled shade. 

“But…but we got a horrible skin condition that gets worse every time someone looks at us! That’s why we were in the Wilds.”

She paused. “Really??”

“Um. No.” She resumed climbing. Well. Time for advanced tactics. If she was going to follow the sound of their voice, all they needed to do was have their voice not lead back to their body. Tubbo would have to keep up the conversation for it to work, plus remember which wings to vibrate to get the pitches right. Difficult, since they practiced keeping their voice in their body, but doable if they tried really hard. Tubbo started projecting their voice a bit further down. 

“You should be careful, it’s pretty hard this far up.” It sounded hollow from the lack of the echo chamber of their throat and chest. Even less human than normal, and Tubbo already wasn’t the best at sounding human. They gradually shifted the words away, getting both further from Willow and most of their body.

“It’s fine. Wait, are you moving away? Come back!” She squinted into the foliage at nothing. She was saddling a branch, and shimmied closer to the voice. 

“No, we don’t think we will.” They led the voice away from Willow. If they could just get her to follow it...well, Tubbo didn’t know what the plan was, but she couldn’t see them that was for sure. Willow had to take a detour because the next highest limb supported a large swath of hives. Tubbo had chosen the branch because it offered a really lovely view of the sunrise. She went under instead, having to spend a bit of time getting a new route.

“Man, you really got a wasp problem. Do the exterminators not come out this far?”

Righteous anger burned through Tubbo. “Bees! Bees! Not wasps! Honey bees!” they buzzed vehemently. 

As she shifted around a vertical branch, she huffed, "same difference." That was incredibly offensive. Wasps were terrible! They were mean and jerks and altogether very rude. Bees were nothing like wasps! They were superior in every way! “Well don’t get a wasp in your bonnet,” she smirked at their very vocal protests. 

“The saying is ‘bee in your bonnet’. BEE. Not wasp.” Tubbo led the voice even further away from Willow. She was a terrible and stupid person, after all. “And besides! A bee in your bonnet would be nice. Because then you’d have a friend.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s not whatever,” Tubbo grumbled, dropping the voice about twenty feet. Ideally, they could get her to the ground. She wasn’t particularly good at climbing, and so if they could twist the words to come from the opposite side of the tree, they could pretend to run off into the woods while she was still getting down and then just fly the voice ahead, slightly faster then she could keep up with. Lead her back to where the Wilds ended, and pretend to have gone into a house. It could work. 

“How are you going so fast!?” Willow stood up, wobbling a bit. 

“Practice.” She awkwardly got to the next limb, and then the next. Her progress was slow and unfamiliar with the proper techniques. Inexperience shone through with her. Tubbo silently drew closer with their body, smoothly gliding through the arching branches, mostly climbing, but using minimal amounts of flight when necessary to avoid noise. They knew how to blend in sounds with the rustling of leaves, swaying with the branches and pausing in the space between the sky’s breaths. The Hive Tree was one with Tubbo, and would never betray their movement. “Wait, not that branch!” Tubbo cried out suddenly. She froze, one foot against a deceptively sturdy part. 

“Why not?” she called out distrustfully.

“It won’t support your weight,” Tubbo explained. 

“How do you know?”

“It just won’t!” Tubbo insisted. There wasn’t a clear explanation in their mind, it was just a fact. Maybe it creaked oddly, or sent the wrong vibrations to the bees perched on it, or it was just plain experience. Tubbo didn’t know how, it was just something they knew. 

“Ok...which way do I go?”

“Umm…” Tubbo took in dozens of possible routes. “If you go closer to the trunk, there’s one that dips down a bit. Makes a sort of ‘v’ shape. It’s only a meter above another limb, you can get to it and from there…” So she continued following the fake words of a human who wasn’t there, carefully guided down. Tubbo watched from above and behind, unnoticed completely. Progress was slow, but eventually she gained speed, losing attentiveness in the process. She wasn’t good at climbing, not like any of the local kids. Unfortunately she had the confidence of one, which wasn’t a good combination for someone about forty feet up in the air. Tubbo continued to point out the best routes. Eventually, it got to the point where she’d ignore their guidance downwards, instead preferring to go forward, trying to get closer to Tubbo. “Willow, stop taking the wrong paths,” Tubbo insisted. 

“But I still can’t see you!” She leaned forward, arm hooked around a forking part of the tree, searching for a person who wasn’t there. Right, a person should’ve been marking more noise. Tubbo had forgotten. They were supposed to be human, of course they’d have to leave a presence. Tubbo crashed into a handful of leaves near the general location of their speech. The collision shared with the rest of the Hive, but wasn’t bad, and besides, the Willow girl actually seeing them would be far worse so it was better a few sore heads for a better deception. Not close enough for her to really see much of the swarm bumping into the leaves, but hopefully the motion would make it seem legit? From below them, Willow leaned out further, trying to see Tubbo. 

And then the branch cracked, and she was tumbling through open air. Willow caught one hand around the tree limb, but couldn’t stop the plummet. Her grasp failed, sharp lines scoring her arm. She screamed. Tubbo launched from the branch they were perched on, streaming between the canopy to the falling human girl. Tubbo knew for certain she wouldn’t hit the ground, but that was only because of the plethora of branches. It was possible they’d break her fall, but just as likely they’d break her back. Tubbo wrapped arms around her chest, desperately flying up with all their might. They slowed from a plummet to a fall, and then to something that was almost flying, except Tubbo could tell they were sinking. Normally, they didn’t carry so much weight. 

They carefully set down on a branch, holding onto Willow until she’d gotten her footing. Tubbo led her back to the Hive Tree heart. They buzzed around, searching for the honeycomb cubby hole with the first aid kit. Up and to the left, right? Or was it more diagonal? Shared eyes looked, until Tubbo was crawling over the package, and their body followed over, snatching it. Tubbo flew back over to the heart of their home, settling bare feet onto sturdy wood. 

A flash occurred, and Tubbo dropped the bandages in surprise. A small covey caught the box, flying it back up to their hand. Willow lowered her phone, mouth agape. Her arm was scratched pretty bad from where she’d half caught her fall, but she didn’t seem to notice. She looked between Tubbo and the picture she’d just taken. “The internet is going to go WILD over this,” she whispered. “I just knew something was going on in the woods! There were far too many warnings for someone to not be covering up the truth.” She tapped at the screen then frowned.

“There isn’t a signal out here,” Tubbo explained helpfully. 

“Dang. But uh. Holy cow you’re awesome. I was thinking for a second it was a ghost, because you moved way too fast and didn’t make any noises, but this is wayyy cooler.”

Tubbo frowned. “It’s not that hard to move silently while climbing, you just suck at it. Though uh. Yeah, that was just us projecting our voice.”

“Sick.” Willow snapped another photo. 

“Can you please not post that?” Tubbo asked politely.

“Why? Scared for the public to know the truth?” she challenged.

And, well, yes, incredibly terrified, but Tubbo wasn’t going to let her know that. Complete stranger, after all. Tubbo wasn’t going to go sharing all their biggest fears. “Nah, we just weren’t ready. Probably won’t look good.”

She stared at them. “...I’m about to prove to the world that monsters exist and you’re worried about if it looks good? Tubbo, this is higher quality then any Bigfoot or alien out there! You don’t hear them complaining about the quality!”

“You’re not exposing anything. We post selfies all the time, everyone just compliments us on the photoshop and moves on with their lives.” Of course, Tubbo heavily filtered it to look more fake, but eh. Kinda hurt their argument, so they weren’t going to bring it up.

“Oh, cool, can I follow you?” The teens exchanged social media information. “Sweet,” she said. “But for real though, you’re about to become the British Mothman. I don’t even know how you’ve made it this far without becoming more known.”

Well, for one, the locals were smart enough to mind their business. Stupid outsider, sweeping in and crashing down their entire existence. “Ugh, don’t compare us to him. He’s really rude and kinda dumb.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you just confirm Mothman too?”

Tubbo gave her an unbelieving stare. “No. We’ve never been to America. How would we have met? Not like we can just hop on a plane.”

“Cryptid social media. Secret underground communication through Morse code. Gmail. I don’t know, the possibilities are endless!”

A swarm flew over a water bottle, and Tubbo took it as well, walking over to Willow. “Well, we don’t. Never spoken to him. We don't think Mothman is real. Hold out your arm.” Willow complied, and Tubbo poured water over her injuries. They handed over a disinfectant wipe, and she scrubbed it roughly over the scratches from the tree. “You sound like a conspiracy theorist,” Tubbo continued.

“I consider myself a conspiracy factualist, thank you very much. Plus, it must be true if you’re real!”

“That’s dumb. We don’t believe in stuff like that. There isn’t proof,” Tubbo proclaimed. 

“What!? How could you not?” Willow asked, completely flummoxed. 

“Just doesn’t seem reasonable to us.”

“But you exist.”

“And? You keep bringing it up like that’s some sort of evidence,” Tubbo buzzed flatly. Tubbo dropped a handful of bandaids into her hand, then started unpeeling some, applying antibacterial cream, and slapping them on haphazardly. 

“It is! You’re real! Wait, do you have any band aids that aren’t dinosaurs?”

“Nah, sorry. And that still doesn’t mean anything.”

“But you’re right here! Large eyes and wings! Your mouth doesn’t even move when you talk! Wait—large eyes. Did people mistake you for an alien? Actually, how old are you?” Excitement lit her eyes. “Have you been the real cause behind alien sightings??”

“Fifteen,” Tubbo lied, wanting to sound older and more authoritative. 

“What even are you?”

“Tubbo,” they said, a little annoyed. They’d already told her that. 

“No, like...species.” Tubbo shrugged, unpeeling another bandage. It had a velociraptor depicted on it. “Ok, well, what do people call you?”

“Tubbo.”

She huffed, piqued. “No, like your title. The Chupacabra might be named George for all I know, but that still doesn’t mean that’s what people call them.”

“…They call us the Nymph.”

Her brow furrowed. “Aren’t those girls usually?”

“They’re also bugs. And some of us are girls.” Kinda? Scientists had a bad habit of applying human genders where it made absolutely no sense. 

“But all those people just...don’t tell anyone about you?”

“They do. They told you, right? And they tell each other. But a lot of them don’t believe it too much...” It was only when Tubbo had been younger and naive that they had interacted too much with the humans. Over the years, it had faded in the minds of the community. Rhodes remarked that a few believed Milo Fletcher had managed to kill the Nymph with his rifle, while others reckoned they’d been sufficiently frightened off, or perhaps just biding their time. 

“Well, they’re stupid. I’m going to make sure everyone knows! This is a huge scientific breakthrough! Soon, the world will know about you Tubbo. It’ll be awesome. This place is gonna get so famous just cause you’re here.”

“...and no one actually comes to the Wilds to check because they aren’t dumb.” Tubbo frowned at her, both for her interruption and for what she said. “It really is dangerous, you know. There’s snakes and stuff.”

“And you!” Tubbo frowned at the words. 

“We said ‘dangerous’, like bears or something.”

“What? Really? Are you saying you’re not a scary monster?” She almost sounded disappointed. 

Tubbos’ antenna dropped and they scowled. “That’s mean. We’re not a monster.”

“Kinda are.”

“Are not.”

“Are to.”

“Are not!” Tubbo yelled, upset. “You don’t get to show up, threaten to ‘expose’ our existence, and call us mean names! We just live here! How would you like it if we broke into your house and got the cops called on you!”

She looked a little taken aback. “But...but don’t people deserve the truth? Come on, Tubbo, you’ll be famous.”

“Don’t we deserve privacy? Our own life? We don’t want to be famous. People will be fine if they don’t know about us; we won’t be.”

“But if someone found Bigfo-”

“Bigfoot doesn’t exist, Willow. We do.” For the first time, an odd look crossed her face, as if glimpsing an idea of what the actual fallout could be. She shook it off.

“Nothing bad would happen. You're still a person even if you aren’t human. And think how much we’d learn! Like finding out about a different culture! Plus, there might be others like you out there who feel safe to come out once they see you do it. Then you’d get to meet all the others.”

“They could shoot us again,” Tubbo buzzed flatly.

“...again?”

“We were five. They shot us. We stopped interacting with humans after that.” Well, except for Rhodes. And Martha. And, they supposed, Willow, but they weren’t really sure they wanted her to stay all that much if she was planning to actually try to get people back on Tubbos’ tail.

Willow paused for a long time, short streak-dyed hair shifting in the breeze. “...oh,” she whispered. “I hadn’t thought about things like that happening.” Tubbo had. It was the sort of thing they had to think about, an assurance always at the back of their mind. Every time their soul ached for companionship, Tubbo sternly reminded themselves that it netted pain, too. “I won’t tell anyone. Cross my heart and hope to die,” she promised, holding a hand up as she solemnly swore. Worry melted away from Tubbo. Oaths were sacred, after all, plus Tubbo would always be able to see if she crossed her fingers again. “But!” Willow said sharply. “But! I still firmly believe that everything else is out there, too. And by the end of the Summer, I’ll have you believing in them also!”

——

The rest of the Summer, Willow tried desperately to live up to her oath, setting up a hotspot and showing Tubbo tons of ‘incriminating’ videos on her phone. Tubbo went along for most of them, holding a private suspension of disbelief. Half of them didn’t seem reasonable at all. The ones Tubbo found the hardest time believing were the combination monsters, where a bunch of different animals were shoved into one creature. Just seemed indecisive to Tubbo. At least pick a theme and stick to it. It was just so unreasonable.

Even if part of them desperately hoped each one was true, that there was someone out there like them. But no. Wouldn’t they know by that point? There just wasn’t evidence. 

Other times, Rhodes would make popcorn, and all of them would gather in his living room, watching cheesy movies and laughing at the special effects. It had started as found footage films and other cryptid based media, but had dissolved into just a typical movie night. They’d done so for going on a month by that point. That afternoon had been...the Bee Movie. Both Rhodes and Tubbo had possessed several quarrels with its depiction of the courtroom and insects respectively. Willow had just quoted the various scenes, laughing at their reactions. It was nice, actually. They'd never really been able to interact with anyone their age, scared to breech that first step and reveal themselves. By Willow finding out for herself, they finally had a fellow kid to talk to in person. Social media helped, of course, it wasn't that Tubbo had no friends or social interaction, but this just felt different. 

Rhodes and Martha had gone to bed for the night, which wasn’t saying much seeing as it was barely nine o’clock. Tubbo was sorting through various movies, when Willow turned off the T.V. “Oh, are we done? Alright, see you tomorrow,” Tubbo waved, drifting towards the door. 

“Nope! We’re just getting started!” Willow shuffled around through her bag, eyes alight with mischief. She pulled out a board, crying out in triumph. “Tada!” She proclaimed. 

“Sweet! Monopoly!”

Willow scowled. “It’s an Ouija board, moron.”

Tubbo released a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. To be honest, we weren’t really that excited about Monopoly.” Well, they liked sitting inside the thimble, but other than that it wasn’t fun. Now, cheating at Monopoly? A much better game on the whole. It had taken Willow a while to realize they were covertly moving the game pieces around when she wasn’t looking. She’d banned sitting in the thimble after that, which honestly was half the fun. Still hadn’t noticed they were slipping extra money into their pile, however. Tubbo hadn’t mastered the art of rambling long enough to distract the others from noticing when Tubbo was on their property, but figured with enough time they’d be just as good as Rhodes was. Sometimes, the old man still managed to trick Tubbo that way.

“So, now that we’ve confirmed ghosts are real-”

“We really haven’t-”

“Stop interrupting, wasp. Right, so, since ghosts are very real, I did a little researching to find out which ones could be hanging around here. Looked up recent deaths, missing persons, yada yada yada. The whole nine yards.”

“So like two minutes on google?”

“Five actually, I spent time on this one. Trying to narrow down unfinished business-”

“Which we still don’t get! Like, if you’re half way through a sandwich, does that count? What if it’s an ongoing project that doesn’t have an end goal? How does-”

“-which I’ve definitely found! So, let’s get started! Time…” her eyes narrowed, glittering. A slightly manic smile split her face. “...to summon the dead!” She dramatically stage whispered. She slammed down the ouija board. “Alright! Let’s get started! First off, we got a missing children’s incident! Very spooky. Said she wandered off into the Wilds, never to be seen again.”

Tubbo frowned. “Isn’t this kinda disrespectful? Like, that’s a real person.”

“Don’t be a spoil sport. Plus, I plan on being incredibly respectful. Now, I’m trying to set a mood here. Shut it, wasp.”

“We aren’t wasps!” Tubbo protested. Willow stuck her tongue out, which was also rude since they couldn’t return the gesture. She dug in her bag, pulling out a variety of oddly shaped candles. She placed them around the board, pulling out a lighter.

“I said shut it! Now. Picture this,” she began, skidding her thumb against the flint wheel. It sparked, but didn’t produce fire. Willow frowned. 

“You gotta try harder,” Tubbo explained.

“I know!” But the lighter wouldn’t work. She shoved it towards Tubbo. After a few tries, a small flame danced, and they tilted it to light the candle wick. They moved a bit too fast to get to the next one, and the lighter went out. Tubbo tried a few more times, but couldn’t get it to work again. Willow looked disappointed. Tubbo got up and knocked on Rhodes’s bedroom door. They could hear the creak of the bed as he shifted, but couldn’t see anything because, y’know, privacy. 

After some shuffle, Rhodes came out, unfolding his glasses. A newspaper stuck out from beneath one arm, crossword partially completed as Rhodes liked to do one before bed. “Ah. Talking to ghosts I see,” he said dryly, lighting the candles.

“Exactly! We’re going to the remains of missing people so they can tell us what happened!”

Rhodes scoffed. “That’s what an autopsy is for. Kiddo, if that worked I’d have used an ouija board for every single murder trial.”

Willow pouted. “You just don’t believe hard enough.” 

Rhodes nodded seriously. “Ah, of course. Alright, I’m heading back to bed. Don’t burn down the house.”

“Don’t tell us what to do,” Tubbo and Willow responded at the same time. 

“Well, have an airtight alibi then. Night, Kiddos.” 

“Sure thing Rhodes.”

“Of course Mr. Rhodes.” The door shut firmly. Willow turned back, an intense look in her eyes. Her smile was sharp and determined. “As I was saying. Picture this: a cold November morning. Frost clings to the windows. Your breath hangs in the air. It was supposed to be a typical day. Everything was calm, and uhhh….what’s the word? Tranquilizer?”

“What? That doesn’t sound right. Transitive?”

“Got it!” She snapped. Her voice dropped back into a smooth whisper, deepened into a dramatic and mysterious cadence. “A calm and tranquil day. But for one girl, it, quite possibly, was her last. A lovely Winter morning, and off you crept into the Wilds. Just the edge. You’re safe about it. Everyone warns about the forest, after all, but you’re…” she trailed off, flipping over a paper and scanning it quickly before slamming it back down. “You’re only six. A young kid. Naive. Curiosity burns in you, a fire that strengthens you against the cold morn. You creep to the woods, slip through a gate. It’s not so bad, you think. You go a little further. The wind bites at you from between the trees, rustling your skirt, but beyond that the woods are quiet. Seems fine.”

A sort of somber expression fell over Willow’s face. “You go a little further. Soon, you can’t see your house at all. And then...well. We don’t know. Maybe you got lost. Maybe you fell, and got hurt, or maybe a bear got you, or maybe…” her voice faltered, a pained expression crossing her face. Willow stared deep into Tubbos’ eyes, looking for something. Her next sentences were almost a murmur. “Or maybe something worse killed you. All we know is you’re never seen again.” At her last words, the lights went out, plunging them in darkness. Willow let out a yelp. The candles flickered, casting strange shadows on the walls from the two humanoid bodies and the thousands of bees hung in the air. Stark trepidation swallowed Willow, her face illuminated by shifting fire light. Her eyes caught on Tubbos’ smirk, and she scowled. “You jerk!” Willow hissed, reaching over to thump Tubbos’ head. 

They let her, grin widening. “We really had you for a second there, though,” Tubbo laughed. 

“Shut up!” she hardly whispered.

“Really, it didn’t even take that many of us to turn it off!” Tubbo snickered. Really, the only difficult part was finding the most dramatic moment to kill the lights. 

“Tubbo, please!” she insisted, an odd sort of desperation in her words. “This is really important.”

Tubbo stifled their giggles. “Fine,” they scoffed. “We’ll participate. No more pranks.”

“Thank you.” She looked troubled in the candle light. The violet streaks in her hair were a strange shade in the warm illumination, losing some of their vibrancy. 

“Alright. Put your hand on the planchette,” she ordered solemnly. Tubbo complied, lightly resting fingertips on the strange triangle piece. “And you’re not going to ruin this, right?” She pressed. Tubbo nodded. Willow gently started moving the planchette in circles, and Tubbo joined it. “So, for this to work, we need to spell out questions for the spirits.” Tubbo nodded again, shadows shifting across their face. “Then let’s begin.” 

ARE THERE GHOSTS HERE?  The friends spelled out. The planchette glided over to the yes, printed out in large lettering. Tubbo could feel the stronger tug of Willow guiding the answer. They wanted to roll their eyes, but it was a biological impossibility. Tubbo often felt shorted by lacking the gesture in their arsenal. Whatever.

HOW MANY? They asked.

1, came the answer. 

ARE YOU GOOD?

YES.

AGE?

6.

The planchette meandered, Willow trying to think up another question. 

9, the board continued. Nice.  Willow pegged them with A Look. What? If Willow got to decide how the ‘ghost’ answered, why couldn’t Tubbo? They grinned at her. She kept a disappointed expression, one of the quiet and melancholic variety. Tubbos’ smile dropped a bit when her visage didn’t even crack a little bit. All right. Seemed it was a serious one, then. 

Willow was always thoroughly convinced of every one of her conspiracies, defending each one. But it usually didn’t mean she lost her silly nature. She understood Tubbos’ disbelief, and never tried to actually force a conspiracy on them, only possessing an earnest attempt to share her idea of truth. She accepted that they just saw the world differently, but still reserved the desire to have Tubbo at least have a glimpse of the world she had. But if they didn’t, it was fine, because they were friends first and foremost, and the conspiracies were never put before that. Really, they were just her way to connect to Tubbo.

But now, in the flickering candle light, there was a certain conviction that took grip of her. Some desperate need that Tubbo wasn’t quite sure of. But it was ok. Tubbo often didn’t really understand her view of the world, but that didn’t make her less of a friend in any way. 

DID YOU LIVE HERE?

YES.

Willow shut her eyes, inhaling carefully. “Alright,” she breathed. 

ARE YOU JAS-

An odd sort of apprehension began in Tubbos’ core. Where was she going with this?

-MINE FL-

Their eyes widened. No. Wait. That wasn’t—no. Tubbo had made sure to never tell anyone other than Rhodes. There wasn’t—why Jasmine? Why was Willow asking for Jasmine?

-ETCH-

Tubbo yanked their hands off the planchette. No. No, this had gotten to be too much. “Tubbo,” she hissed. “What are you doing?”

Tubbo responded at a normal volume, frown flickering with the glow of flames. “No. This is a bad idea. This isn’t—that’s a real person, Willow.” There wasn’t a ghost, of course not. But they couldn’t just pretend part of them was dead. It felt like a betrayal unto themselves. Tubbos’ head split a bit as Jasmine briefly tore herself from the tapestry of their mind. (I’m not dead) She quickly wove back into the comforting fabric, threads neatly intertwined until indistinguishable from the whole, as if never having been separate in the first place. 

“That’s the point. I need to do this, Tubbo,” Willow insisted. “Put your hands back on the planchette. We want to do this the right way and not have anything bad happen.” You know what? Fine. If Willow wanted to go about raising spirits, Tubbo would oblige. If she wanted Jasmine, she’d get Jasmine. Besides, it would be just like turning the lights off. A fun prank. It’ll be hilarious, Tubbo thought, directing it to Jasmine, unraveling her out of the Hive. Her vines were rooted deeply through the trunk, and Tubbo yanked them out. Her giggle echoed through their thoughts. It grew louder, until Tubbo shrunk away, tucking themselves into the crevice of Jasmine’s mind.

Jasmine shook, getting used to the body. She didn’t come out often, and it took some getting used to. The memories of being Tubbo were hazy, falling to the back of her mind. She could summon them at any time, examine them, but it was sort of foggy when left unattended. 

Her hands were bigger. All of her was bigger. Not just her body, but all her bodies. All the visions poured into her head. It was hard to keep straight. The bees saw things so differently from the body! It was like the whole world was more purpley-yellow in a way her brain couldn’t really process. Jasmine giggled. She really liked purple. All the eyes were hard to keep track of though, and keeping everyone flying was very hard to remember. Jasmine carefully set everyone down so she wouldn’t have to focus on them. It made her head hurt a bit, since Tubbo was usually the one to handle everything since they were everything.

But oh! Oh look at her hair! The violet was vibrant in a way Jasmine was sure her human eyes wouldn’t have been able to see. It almost glowed, like light illuminating amethysts. The body eyes didn’t see it the same way, so she shut them, leaving the looking to the insects. Amazing! She switched between the big eyes and small eyes. The fire was dazzling when she used the body, but the glow of the girl’s hair was so pretty! Willow, Tubbo reminded her, thoughts buzzing in her skull. Oh yeah! That’s it. Willow. 

“Tubbo?” she asked apprehensively. “Are you cold? You were shivering terribly.”

“I like your hair. It’ss pretty,” Jasmine told her. Willow gave her an odd look. 

“Can you put your hand back on the planchette? You’re not supposed to interrupt the conversation. That usually leads to spirits being let into the world, instead of just contacting them.” That sounded super serious. Jasmine wanted to help, but...what’s a planchette? That was a very big word. (It’s the triangle on the game board) Oh! Thanks, Tubbo! She knew what a triangle was. Of course she did. Why didn’t Willow use a simpler word then? (She’s trying to sound official and smart) Jasmine tossed her head. Why use big words if nobody knows them? That was just dumb, which was the opposite of smart. 

Wait! She tossed her head again. Her pigtails were gone. But there was a similar motion. Jasmine reached up. Oh! She had antennae, didn’t she! She had forgotten she was being big Tubbo. Cool! The antenna flopped over, falling into her line of vision. She could kinda control them, but like the bugs it was difficult and she had to think about it really hard. Jasmine reached out, poking the end of one. It oscillated slightly. A sensation trailed up, nerves delivering information to her brain, signals that didn’t fully make sense to a human due to their alien nature. She did it again with a bit more force. 

“Tubbo? Tubbo please, this is important.” Jasmine giggled a bit. Silly Willow. But she put her hands on the triangle. A memory flashed, and she copied the way their hands were placed in it. Willow was frowning. “This isn’t a laughing matter.” Well, it kinda was! Willow thought she was being Tubbo, which was very incorrect. Willow began to move the triangle around in circles a bit, then started guiding it to a question. Jasmine mouthed the letters.

A B E  Y O U  J A Z-

Jasmine frowned. The letters were all weird. (You’re just not used to it) Oh. She’d thought she’d forgotten how to read. It had been a very long time since she’d last done it. Or maybe no time at all. It was very hard to tell. She’s asking if you’re here, Tubbo said.

“I am,” Jasmine said. Oops. She’d meant to think that.

Willow glared at her. “You’re not supposed to talk.” Jasmine wilted. Willow’s hard look weakened, and she averted her eyes, shoulders slumped. “Fine. I get it. You don’t care. Let’s just...let’s just thank the spirits for their time and say goodbye.” Willow tugged the triangle into a farewell, until their hands rested on the sharp black GOODBYE. “Alright. Turn on the lights, Tubbo.” Jasmine giggled again.

Willow frowned. “Really now, what’s so funny? You were the one so uppity about being respectful.”

Jasmine just couldn’t contain it anymore. It was just too funny. “Well, it’s just you keep calling me Tubbo!” she burst out. Snickers filled the back of her mind. Jasmine stood up. Woah! We’re tall! Her legs wobbled slightly. She’d been told to turn on the lights. But where were they…? Another memory flashed, and she thanked Tubbo. Jasmine crossed over, flicking them on. When she turned back, Willow was blowing out the candles. No fair! Jasmine wanted to do that! She stumbled over, bending down on her knees and trying to whoosh the fire out. 

She couldn’t. She couldn’t breathe. Air couldn’t flow through her lips. Jasmine tried again. Insects poured from her mouth, tumbling down until she remembered to make them fly. “Why can’t I—” Tubbo why can’t I breathe?? (Don’t need to) But she wanted to breathe! She wanted to blow out the candles! (But you’ll win every breath-holding contest!) Tubbo tried to appease. Oh alright. That seemed a fair trade. Jasmine calmed down. 

“Tubbo?” Willow asked, concerned. “Are you alright? I...I know I got kinda upset earlier, and I’m sorry, but you’re being kinda strange right now and it’s freaking me out. You’re not acting like yourself.”

“Of course I’m not acting like Tubbo! I’m not Tubbo! I’m…” (Possessing) Tubbo supplied, a hint of mischief mixing into her. “Po-sess-in’ them!”

Willow’s eyes darted from the ouija board, then back to Jasmine. “Are you...are you pranking me again?” 

Tubbo was snickering again. A few memories dripped into Jasmine’s head, various half-recalled tricks. Right. Jasmine had to be just as good. This was going to be the best prank of all! She put her hands on her hips. “Well you assked for me, didn’t you? So here I am!”

“Wait...wait. You said ‘me’. And ‘I’, too. Dang it, why didn’t I notice that sooner? You’re not...you’re not actually Tubbo, are you? Why are you possessing Tubbo?”

“‘Cause I like them,” Jasmine said. She wandered into the kitchen, opening up the fridge and scanning the shelves. There wasn’t anything good. She closed it.

“Wouldn’t that mean you wouldn’t possess them? Because that would be mean?”

“No, dummy. It meanss I like Tubbo so much I want to be Tubbo.” Well, usually. But it was a very special circumstance, because Jasmine specifically was required for the very important purpose of pranking Willow. Jasmine didn’t mind coming out for something like that. She pulled a cabinet door ajar. Baking supplies met her examination of its contents. Eww. (Third cabinet from above the sink) She opened it, finding a variety of sweets. Score! Jasmine snatched a wrapped up biscuit. The cellophane was a bit difficult, but Jasmine figured it out. She sat on the counter, swinging her legs happily. It was partially crumbly, so she raised it too her mouth, ready for a big bite-

Her lips chomped down on the sweet, but nothing else did. “Tubbo! You didn’t ssay I wouldn’t have teeth!” she protested. The hazy memories of being Tubbo expanded, drawing out of the fog a bit. “Oh.” Jasmine shoved the treat in her mouth. With a bit of focus, bees began to crawl over it, breaking it into pieces and sharing the idea of its taste. Yum!

“Who are you then?” Willow pressed. 

“Jassmine.” Wait! That worked! That meant she could talk all she wanted with her mouth full! Ha! Mum could never admonish her again! Or, wait. A memory surfaced, her mum’s face contorted, screaming at Tubbo. Her da, raising a stick, metal gleaming in the winter light, thunder rolling despite the clear day and agony in their leg. Curled in pain for weeks, barely moving at all, clutching their fractured calf and bawling. Tubbo whispered for her to calm down. (That was a long time ago) It didn’t feel like it. But then again, time was hard. If Tubbo said it was fine, she believed them. 

“Jasmine Fletcher?” She nodded. An amazed look crawled over Willow’s visage. “Omg,” she whispered. “OMG! I did it! I summoned a ghost!” Willow threw her hands up in the air. “It worked! It actually worked!” (Rhodes is sleeping!) Jasmine shhh’d Willow, whose expression turned apologetic. “Sorry! It’s just—that actually worked. And I managed to get you, too. I have so many questions. I...this would revolutionize crime investigation. If I could find a missing girl, who’s to say how many cases could be solved?”

Jasmine nodded, sharing the teen’s enthusiasm, then paused. “Wait. I’m not missing at all! I’m right here.”

“You’re...you’re dead, though,” Willow said softly. Like someone trying to gently break news, which was weird, since...

“Nuh uh! Am not!”

Willow relented. Her next words were soothing in a condescending type of way. It wasn’t immediately obvious, but Jasmine could tell she was being talked down to, which was rude because she wasn’t a baby. “Ok, Jasmine. If you’re sure. You said you liked Tubbo, right? How do you know them?”

That was kinda a stupid question. Jasmine was Tubbo after all. Of course she knew herself. But then she was reminded by Tubbo that Willow couldn’t be informed of that, because it wouldn’t work with the prank. She was supposed to be a scary ghost, after all. Jasmine thought it over. (Use your actual memories, maybe?) “I played with them. They sshowed up one day, and I let them borrow my dinos and we had lots of fun.” She finished the biscuit, and reached for another. Delicious!

“Was this when you were alive?”

“I’m not de-!” Jasmine began hotly. (She’s supposed to think you are) “Oh. Guess so.” 

“Alright, what’s the possession like?”

“It’s like Tubbo stepped down and let me do things. But they wake up to talk to me and give me thoughts sometimes.” Sort of the reverse of how the Hive normally worked, then, except she was already Tubbo then. 

Willow collected a breath. “So, you have a body to work with now. What are you gonna do? What’s your unfinished business?”

“What’ss that?”

“Your...your reason for being here, I guess. Something you feel you need to do that you didn’t get the time to before you passed. Like, if you had a song to complete composing, or a message to tell the living, or never got to make amends, or...or you never got to finish growing up.”

There was a strange look on Willow’s face. Kinda like scared…

Tubbo mentally cheered. (Yes! It’s working!)

...but kinda like sad, too. Tubbo, are you sure about this? Yeah, it’s fine. We’ll laugh about it after, just like all the other tricks. Alright then. If Tubbo said it was ok, it probably was. “We just wanted to stay and keep playing,” Jasmine offered simply. That was why she’d joined Tubbo after all. Willow lightened a shade. 

“And have you had fun?” she asked, offering a smile.

“Yep!” 

“What’s it like?”

Jasmine thought it over. She wasn’t really a ghost, and she didn’t wanna lie because lying was bad and you shouldn’t do it. But she also didn’t want to ruin Tubbos’ practical joke. “It’s like...it’ss like you’re asleep? But you wake up occasionally and do things.” All her experiences of growing as Tubbo were all distant, a few shining memories of brief separation. Jasmine preferred to stay as Tubbo, so they were few and far between. She wasn’t sure she’d even spent even a whole week as herself over the...years? Were those years? (Yes) Huh. It was sorta like all the time had passed and yet nothing had happened at all. Her brain was all cloudy! She could shine a torch and breach the mist with a single ray, revealing a golden slice of the hidden forest.

“What wakes you up?” How was she supposed to answer that? Say it was untwisting herself from the Hive, slipping away from buzzing consciousness and untangling thoughts until she was left alone, traces of vines still strung between the two? There wasn’t really a reason for it, just that Tubbo and Jasmine had decided to be different for a bit. Or was waking up the realization of having a body all to herself? Being forced to control everything all on her own? Being a being was very difficult. There was so much you had to think about, how the feet moved and remembering to blink and just how arms worked. Keeping all the bees straight was just impossible for one mind. It was much easier as the Hive.

Jasmine shrugged. It wasn’t something that really fit into words.

Willow steeled herself. “This next one might be a little hard, ok?” Jasmine nodded. She was a big girl…or a big bug. She could handle it. “How did you ‘fall asleep’?” 

“Huh? Uhhh...I don’t know? I just go back to bed and then wake up a bit later.” That was a very silly question. 

“No, the first time.” Jasmine just gave her a confused look. “I mean...how did you die?” Willow whispered the word, as if almost afraid to say it.

Jasmine shrugged. “Dunno.” (You could’ve come up with something gruesome) Tubbo criticized. “...a bear got me?” She tried. Good one, Tubbo approved. 

“You sound unsure. Are you positive? It’s ok if you don’t remember.” Jasmine didn’t respond. She wasn’t really sure how to. She wasn’t entirely sure what was supposed to be funny about the prank, either. Whatever. She kicked her legs a few more times. They were so long now! And moving was weird, too. She couldn’t just move her leg, she had to move all the bees inside to do it. It made her insides feel all buzzy, a constant soft vibration. The whirring gears of some great natural machine. She felt like magic personified. “You don’t seem to remember a lot.” Well, most of her memories were of being Tubbo, not Jasmine. It was hard to recollect experiences that weren’t completely one’s own. Not surprising that everything was fuzzy. “What do you recall last? What happened leading up to your...um, before you fell asleep?” 

Jasmine thought it over. She had a faint recollection of Willow telling the story of her own disappearance. “It wasn’t actually that cold. Not even a little bit of snow.” Which had been a disappointment, because she’d wanted to make fossilized footsteps with her stegosaurus toy. She was pretty sure that was how fossils worked, after all. Her belly had been warm with hot cocoa that her da had made, and she was all nice and toasty.

Tubbo hadn’t been, however.

“But it was a little cold, so we gave our jacket to Tubbo, since they didn’t have one at all.” They’d had a long-sleeved shirt, but it wasn’t enough. Tubbo didn’t have an inside to go to when it got too much, nor any hot cocoa to warm their belly. It seemed they were always shivering, like the cold never left them even when it was warm out. Like the frost lived inside their hollow shell. 

“...Tubbo was there?” It was a quiet sort of question, broken in a few places. Jasmine nodded enthusiastically. 

“Yep! We played a lot together. It was so much fun!” Tubbo hadn’t known how to use toys very well. They’d brought a few with them, after the second visit, but weren't very knowledgeable in how playing with them was supposed to go. Of course, Tubbo had tried anyway, and was close in a few spots, but it wasn’t at all the correct way to play, and so Jasmine had been all too happy to help them learn how. They didn’t even know which dinos were supposed to eat the others! Jasmine had been swift in correcting their lacking education. “But then we realized that I’d never been to their house at all, so Tubbo and I went into the Wilds so I could get to see all their toys.” Tubbo had been able to bring a few, but Jasmine wanted to see all of them. After all, Tubbo needed professional advice on how to use them, and also a treehouse sounded very cool. Riley had one, but Tubbo insisted their tree was much bigger, which obviously meant it was better in every way, even if it didn’t have a swing (yet, according to Tubbo, who swore they were trying to get enough rope to make one).

“...and you went with them? Alone?”

“Yep! Tubbo said nothing would happen, so it was ok.” The Wilds were dangerous, her parents had told her that, but Tubbo had noticed her fear and promised they’d make sure she was safe. They’d told her how they could see REALLY far, and that nothing would even get close to them at all, and if it did Tubbo would fly her up to the trees and they could sit in the canopy and laugh at whatever thought it could hurt them. Tubbo held her hand and led her through the woods. Nothing happened, just as they’d promised. It was the last time she’d ever felt any sort of apprehension about the Wilds, as ever after she’d been part of it. 

It was kinda weird how the memories overlapped. Most of them were her own, but dusty echoes would surface, and so sometimes she was herself, following after Tubbo, and sometimes she was Tubbo, looking back at Jasmine and tugging on her hand. It was like getting extra of the same experience. It was like a dream. Her sense of self shifted, a ribbon of truth to each perspective. “And then we got to the Hive Tree! It was so big, and cool, and Tubbo had so many things to show me.” A smaller collection than the present had to offer, but impressive nonetheless. They’d played for hours, until eventually the sun was setting and she had to go home.

Except she hadn’t. 

Tubbo had shyly asked if she wanted to remain, and the answer of course was yes. Their smile had brightened, and then Tubbo had taken her hands and bees coalesced along her skin and then she was bees and she was Tubbo and she was the Wilds. “And then I got to stay forever,” Jasmine smiled, closing her eyes and drifting into the memory.

“And that’s all you remember?” Willow whispered. Sort of. It was all Jasmine remembered, but she hadn’t been limited to Jasmine any more. The foggy memories of being Tubbo were wispy, but sharpened into existence whenever she reached a hand into the cloud, collecting rain, collecting parts of the person she’d become. It was all Jasmine remembered because Jasmine just wasn’t entirely Jasmine anymore. Tubbo though? Tubbo had loads of memories. 

“That's all I need to remember.” She turned to look at Willow, beaming. The bliss dropped immediately. 

The teen’s tears splashed down onto the tile of the kitchen floor. 

“No! No, I was trying to prove it wasn’t Tubbo! It wasn’t supposed-” Willow rubbed at her eyes. It didn’t stop the downpour. Her breathing was hitched and hissed through her teeth in shudders that wracked her shoulders. “It wasn’t supposed to be them, it wasn’t supposed to be true."

Panic welled up in Jasmine’s hollow chest. “Tubbo, why's she crying—you said it’d be funny! You said it—Tubbo, why is she sad!?” she yelled in distress. (No she shouldn’t be-no, she was supposed to get excited about ghosts being real, Willow stop-Willow it’s ok, stop cry- “-ing it’s ok, it’s ok Willow, stop crying it’s fine-” Tubbo shuddered, sliding back into themselves, hopping off the counter and drawing towards Willow. They reached for her, trying to be comforting somehow but incredibly uncertain what to do. “Just please stop crying, it’s alright ok? It’s ok Willow, so please stop- OW!!!”

Pain exploded in their nose as Willow’s fist connected with their face. It made a nasty crunch. Tubbo stumbled back into the cabinets, clutching their nose. Tears blossomed at the corners of the body’s eyes, summoned by the pain. “OW!! WHY DID YOU HIT US!?!?!?” Tubbo shouted. 

“HOW COULD YOU?!” Willow screeched. Jasmine was also yelling, demanding to know what was happening, scared because it didn’t make sense. It was all too loud. 

The door to Rhodes’s bedroom burst open, the old man standing in the door frame, glasses clenched in one hand and a concerned expression lining his visage. He slipped the bifocals on, squinting at the scene. “What on Earth is going on?” he demanded. Tubbo and Willow began to shout simultaneously, each trying to yell their explanation over the other. “Silence,” Rhodes commanded. “Tubbo, get ice from the fridge. Willow…” he patted down his pockets, then pulled out a crumpled handkerchief. “Here you go, kiddo.” 

Tubbo snatched a bag of frozen vegetables, pressing it to their nose. It was way too cold, so they fetched a hand towel from a drawer, wrapping it around until it was a tolerable temperature. Rhodes collected a glass from the sink, filling it with cold water and passing it to Willow, who held the cup but didn’t drink. A few minutes passed in silence. Willow’s tears slowed, and she started to sip her water, breathing still hitching in places. The ringing pain in Tubbos’ face dulled a bit. 

“Alright. Kiddos, opposite sides of the kitchen. Rock paper scissors for who gives their testimony first.” Tubbo, generally familiar with Rhodes’s method of solving disputes, held one hand up in a fist. Willow glared daggers at them. 

Tubbo turned to Rhodes. “She can go first,” they offered, which was really quite chivalrous and polite of Tubbo considering the fact Willow had just punched their freaking nose.

“Alright Ms. Willow Hayden, where would you say the incident began?” Rhodes asked, adopting his important city voice.

“I was-I was using the Ouija board, trying to contact spirits, and then Tubbo got possessed by one, and then-”

“Hold on, can you explain that?”

Willow gave him a wet glare. “They were possessed.”

“I don’t mean to be combating you. Can you give the...symptoms of possession? How did you know this was the case?”

“They got all shivery, and then they weren’t acting right at all, called themselves ‘me’ and stuff, and-and they were just different! But that’s NOT important!”

Rhodes rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, but kept a serious face. “Of course, Ms. Hayden. What happened next?”

“Well, it-the important thing is who possessed them.”

“And who was ‘possessing’ them?” 

“Jasmine Fletcher. She’s a girl who went missing-”

“I know who she is, Ms. Hayden,” Rhodes interrupted, breaking his professionalism to give Tubbo a heavy look. The insectoid shifted uncomfortably. “Alright. Carry on.”

“Well, because she’s missing, and clearly dead, I was asking her about how it happened, because-” she looked to Tubbo, and her face crumpled, lip trembling and tears streaking down. “Because Grandma said Tubbo killed her and I was trying to prove they didn’t, but then Tubbo did and I couldn’t-I was trying to prove them innocent and I was wrong and I couldn’t-” Willow buried her face in her hands. 

“No!” Tubbo shouted, horrified. “No! We didn’t! We’d never! She’s not dead, Willow, she not-”

“Mxes. Tubbo. It is not your turn, please wait.”

“But we didn’t-”

“Tubbo,” Rhodes said seriously. “It is only through logical examination that we can arrive at a conclusion. Yelling is not constructive. It will not help.”

“We didn’t kill Jasmine, Rhodes,” Tubbo pleaded, trying to keep their voice level. “You know that. We didn’t-”

“I know,” Rhodes said softly. “Trust me.” Tubbo held the old man’s gaze, found it steadfast, and nodded. “Ms. Hayden, how do you know Mxes. Tubbo killed Ms. Fletcher? Did she tell you that they did?”

“No, she couldn’t remember dying, but-but the last thing she remembered was Tubbo luring her into the Wilds, promising to show her their toys and house, and then-and then she went missing, and now she’s a ghost, and Grandma was right!”

“So, to be clear,” Rhodes began. “You used the ouija board to summon Ms. Fletcher for the purpose of disproving Mxes. Tubbos’ guilt, but instead, through your conversation with her, came to the conclusion Mxes. Tubbo had committed the murder?” 

Willow nodded. “I don’t want it to be true, but...but…”

“Duly noted. I have no more questions for you at this time. Mxes. Tubbo No-Last-Name, where would you say the incident began?”

“We...we wanted to prank Willow,” Tubbo admitted, ashamed. 

Willow made a cry of outrage. “Please let them speak, Ms. Hayden,” Rhodes told her gently. “Mxes. Tubbo, how did you go about this?”

“We let Jasmine come out to pretend she was possessing us.”

“Can Ms. Fletcher, to your knowledge, possess people?”

“No.”

“Is Ms. Fletcher, to your knowledge, a ghost?”

“No, because she isn’t dead.”

“So how did this prank go?” 

“Well…” Tubbo hesitated. “Well it worked at first. Willow was all excited about ghosts being real, which was sort of the aim. Then she started asking Jasmine questions, and we thought it was going fine. But then Jasmine was telling Willow about her last memories. Er. Last memories before joining us, and then we looked over and she was crying, so Jasmine rejoined because she was frightened and we went to try and calm Willow down but she punched us!”

“And, for the record, you maintain you were at no point possessed and that Ms. Fletcher is neither a ghost nor dead, correct?” Tubbo nodded, shifting the bag of vegetables around. “That concludes your testimony, Mxes. Tubbo. Thank you for your time.”

“But that can’t be true!” Willow burst out. “She’s dead and Tubbo killed her! Grandma said so! And I have...I have evidence.” Willow slammed the handkerchief down on the kitchen counter and stalked over to the ouija board. She snatched up the paper from earlier, and shoved it at Rhodes. 

A bee settled on the old man’s shoulder, peering down at the page. It was a print out from an old article about Jasmine’s disappearance. Rhodes shifted his reading glasses. “Ah, but this says she’s missing, not dead.”

“It’s years old!” Willow protested. “Surely she is considered dead by now!”

“Hmmm. Well, a declaration of presumed death can be made after seven years…” he tapped his chin. “And we are just about there. Of course, that is only if someone cannot be found, and Jasmine most readily can.”

“Her ghost can be. That just proves she’s dead!”

“Ms. Hayden, what you experienced was most certainly not a possession, as you will find shortly. I call Mr. Rhodes Bannister to the stand.”

“Can’t question yourself,” Tubbo interjected, grinning.

“Alright,” Rhodes replied drily. “I call Rodney Bannister, no relation, to the stand, as an expert witness. Mr. Bannister, can you explain your relevancy?” Rhodes slid his glasses down his nose and adopted an exaggerated rural accent, much more similar to his typical speech than his ‘lawyer’ voice. The words were far raspier than normal, and rambled like the caricature of an old man. "Of course! Now, you see, I was telling my wife the other day, very lovely lady, and she was-” Rhodes pushed his bifocals back up, speaking in a clipped tone. “Please answer the question, Mr. Bannister.” Tubbo smiled. The point of the mock trials, after all, was really to get everyone to calm down. Settle the argument, yes, but mostly to break tension. But Willow only narrowed her eyes. The trials were usually held for things like deciding whether to get chocolate or strawberry cake that night or who had to do the dishes, not things like whether or not Tubbo had killed someone. Their smile slipped.

“Of course, Mr. Bannister. I, Rodeny Bannister, am the foremost expert on the Nymph, and am a highly respected Tubbo-ologist. You see, the phenomenon witness Hayden identified as possession was actually a very simple Tubbo ability. The entity we in the scientific community like to refer to as ‘Tubbo’ is not a singular creature. Tubbo is actually a collection of different beings, most of which are bees, some of which are humans, and all of which are Tubbo.”

“What!?” Willow cried. “That doesn’t make any sense at all!” 

“Now, Ms. Willow,” Rhodes began, dropping to his normal voice. There was a gentleness to it, the game abandoned. “I am no expert on ghosts, but I’d like to say I’m fairly familiar with Tubbo. What you saw was Tubbo separating out consciousnesses. There was no ghost, and it was wrong of Tubbo and Jasmine to pretend there was. But this is very important, so will you listen to me?” She nodded. “Tubbo did not kill Jasmine because Jasmine is part of Tubbo.”

Willow looked at Tubbo, unsure. “You promise you didn’t kill her?”

“Cross our hearts and hope to die,” Tubbo swore.

Willow nodded, finally convinced. She rubbed at her eyes, smearing away the last vestiges of tears. “Ok. Ok,” she said. “I believe you.”

——

Another month had passed. For a bit after the ghost incident, things between Willow and Tubbo had been a little weird, until Tubbo had the bright idea to let her talk to Jasmine without the shadow of the ghost prank, and the two had really hit it off. They’d bonded over the Pokémon Aurorus in particular and dragon types in general, since Jasmine liked that most of them were dinosaurs and Willow swore up and down they were the best type in the meta because of the plethora of pseudo legendaries. Tubbo preferred fighting types, but whatever. What? You thought it’d be bug type? Wow. Way to stereotype. Despicable. 

Regardless, Willow’s most recent project was trying to convince Tubbo about drakes. They sat in the heart of the Hive Tree, warm Summer sun filtered by the canopy. Willow had dozens of notecards scattered about, each covered in quickly jotted down ‘evidence’. Small pinpricks of sun rays highlighted words partially. That afternoon had been focused on dragons as an actuality in general, and a certain green one in particular. “We just don’t think something that big can stay hidden,” Tubbo reasoned. “If it's ‘as long as a river’ where would it go?”

“Underground, like the article said.”

“But where underground? That’s still a lot of snake to tuck away somewhere. Here let’s see it…” Tubbo snatched a page. “See! ‘As long as a river, with golden hair and harolding thunderstorms’. You can’t fit a whole dragon underground, it’s too big. Plus, the rain thing seems sketchy.”

Willow stared at them flatly. “You’re literally the embodiment of Spring.”

“You make it sound way cooler than it is,” Tubbo mumbled. 

“Well, I imagine so did the people who saw the jade dragon! So just dull the edges a bit, but every story has to start somewhere. There’s too many accounts of the same thing for it not to be real.”

“Have you heard of like...religion? Just ever in your life? We’re not saying it’s all fake, but you can definitely get consistent characteristics down.”

“But over centuries? Think about all the myths and stuff, like the Greeks. It switches around like crazy over all that time.”

“Alright, sure, but those are whole stories. A long green snake with yellow hair? Not that complicated,” Tubbo dismissed.

“Yeah but think about how much they show up! All different places, spanning centuries!”

“Diseases do the same thing, too, the green lizard isn’t special.”

“Tubbo!” Willow giggled. “Have some respect, would you?”

“We feel very confident in saying that we’re never going to meet a dragon, so they shouldn’t feel bad for us insulting them a little bit. Like. Come on. If you’re a dragon, can you even be bullied at that point?”

“You’re like a nature deity and I still get to tease you.” 

“Why do you keep saying that? Listen. Either you stop, or you start actually worshiping us. Can’t say we’re a god and not give us, like, offerings.”

“What am I supposed to offer? Toys like you got all the farmers to do?”

“That wasn’t our idea!”

“Here, how about plastic dinosaurs?”

“Jasmine likes them,” Tubbo muttered thoughtfully.

“You didn’t say no~”

“Shut up.”

“Fine. But you can’t look at how basically every ancient culture somehow came up with the idea of a dragon and say they can’t be real!” A covey picked up a small T-Rex, and wiggled it in front of Willow. She rolled her eyes. “Ok. Fine. Some of it could be early archeology. Gotta explain the skeletons somehow, sure. But what about modern sightings?” She fiddled with her phone, pulling up a video. It buffered, then finally played. The pixels were chunky, but the feed filtered into an almost clear image filmed vertically. Ugh. Couldn’t hoaxes have standards?

The camera was pointed at the sky, which was mostly clear of clouds. A thin ribbon of viridian crossed the entire screen, undulating gently, like a snake slithering across the earth. “You’re saying that’s a dragon? It’s tiny,” Tubbo scoffed.

Willow sorted through her prepared notes, finding a small card with messy letters scrawled across it. She took the video, fast forwarding to a specific time. “There! See? The cloud blocks a bit of it, meaning the dragon is flying over the clouds! Imagine if it’s flying at the same altitude as a plane,” she ordered, fumbling for a note card with numbers scattered on its surface. “I did some comparison, and its width looks to be about half that of a plane’s wingspan, so it would be roughly fifty feet wide if that were the case, and I can’t even imagine how long they’d be since we don’t even see the start of the dragon in the video.”

Tubbo thought it over a bit. “Counter: clouds aren’t at uniform levels. So, if like a private plane or something was flying really low, and it streamed out a banner you’d get the same effect.” 

“Yeah but why would they?”

“It’s a hoax, Willow. That’s sort of the point of it, right?”

She checked her timestamp card again. “Alright, then explain...this!” She turned the volume up to maximum and held it out. The video buffered. Her expression wrinkled. “Can uh...can we pretend it didn’t freeze there? ‘Cause I was hoping that would be a dramatic moment.” Tubbo judiciously agreed to strike the sluggish hotspot from the record. When the video finally began, Tubbo crowded both a covey around the device as well as leaning in, since hearing was different between the body and bees.

They jerked back when the sound played, however. Willow giggled. 

The noise rang through Tubbo, sending shivers through their hollow body. The vibrations shook the bees, a frequency that shot fear through them. It was impossibly loud, even when confined to digital replication. Some atavistic instinct inside Tubbo screamed for them to flee. They subconsciously took to the air without even realizing it. The roar stretched on, rumbling away into a sound that was almost thunder. Various fumbling noises came from the film, footsteps pounding on gravel as the recorder fled in panic. The video cut short, one last image of the ground and someone’s foot. Autoplay suggested a video, and Willow canceled it. “Freaky as heck, right?” She grinned, teal braces flashing.

Tubbo settled back on the ground, embarrassed. “Sounded like a jet engine,” Tubbo said airily. Sounded like some ancient predator about to kill them, more like. Whatever. Tubbo had taken a firm stance as the skeptic for the joke of it all, and wasn’t going to stop for a little thing like sketchy (possible) evidence.

“What!? No!” Willow protested, scandalized. “Here, I’ll prove it.” She got a video of a jet engine, and after a few minutes of buffering they listened to it. The internet was trudging along, as always, like a snail lugging a brick.

“Well, the audio was clearly distorted. But really, think about it. No way it would be that loud if the dragon was really so far up.”

“Can’t you hear whales for miles?”

“Pretty sure sound carries different underwater.”

“Oh, you’re just impossible, you know?”

Tubbo grinned. “No, what’s impossible is all the things you show us!”

“That makes you impossible, too!”

Tubbo nodded. “Yep. We’re CGI, thought you knew that.”

“Ah, so this is just another of your pranks? The flying? The bee mind control?”

“Yep! You’ve been tricked from the start!”

“Uh huh, and that’s why I can-” she wrapped her arms around Tubbos’ chest, lifting them with almost ease. “Lift your scrawny hollow body.” She let go, and Tubbo hung in the air, a little embarrassed to have been moved too easily. Not like it was their fault for not being weighed down by stupid things like bones and organs. Who even needed them? Honestly, the humans were just probably doing it because they felt like it, not because they needed internal stuff.

“You’re just fat.”

“It’s called not being the bee version of a chocolate bunny.”

“No, it’s called not having stupid amounts of meat everywhere.”

“Your mom’s a stupid amount of meat.”

“We are our own mum,” Tubbo stated haughtily.

“Wasp.” The two stared at each other. Tubbo cracked first, snickering. Willow smiled, then leaned forward and shoved Tubbo back. Their arms pinwheeled, and they corrected equilibrium with ample amounts of flight. Willow laughed and raced off to an outer branch, leaping to the next one. Tubbo landed back on the ground and chased after her. 

They played an impromptu game of tag through the limbs of the great tree. Flying was strictly off limits, but Tubbo still had years of experience. Willow, to her credit, had been a fast learner, and her recklessness meant she’d take routes Tubbo wouldn’t expect her to be able to, lending to a few more switching of who was ‘It’ then there had been when they’d first started playing. Willow was slower by far, but hardly ever fell anymore, so it was still lots of fun.

Eventually, she ran out of breath. Tubbo, of course, was fine, since they couldn’t breathe. Still exhausted, but she didn’t need to know that. The game slowed, until they both ended up back at the hearth, Tubbo pulling water bottles from a cubby hole and the pair chugging in accordance to their biologies. 

A while later, Willow was laying down, head propped on an extra pillow purloined from Tubbos’ nest. Her hair spilled across it, dye faded and dirty blond hair growing out at the roots. It had grown over her visit. She stared up to the canopy of Tubbos’ dwelling, phone resting on her stomach, forgotten. Tubbo was on their DS, but wasn’t really invested since they’d beaten the Elite Four ages ago. Maybe they should ask Rhodes for another game soon.

“Did I ever convince you on any of them?” she asked suddenly. Tubbo set down the game, thinking. Afternoons of friendly bickering over various cryptids played in their minds. As far as Tubbo could tell, the point had never been for either side to convince the other to believe or discredit, really it had just been something to talk about. It was just the way they interacted. Tubbo wasn’t sure either way, it mostly boiled down to having fun.

The sun peeked through broad canopy leaves, breaking into warm beams. Tubbo felt decidedly content. The point had never been the truth, only companionship. “Does it really matter?” Tubbo hummed.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because…” she frowned, trying to gather her thoughts in order to articulate them. “Because you’re alone, right?”

Tubbo sat up, tilting their head. “Huh?”

“Well, it’s just...it was just you and Rhodes right? And Martha. And Jasmine, kinda. And then I came along and you got me, too, but that’s just temporary. And I get some of that, some people aren’t good, so I got to thinking...what about someone who really did understand you? With the Jasmine thing, I got all freaked out because I didn’t know how you worked. Also, you were being a jerk so that isn’t all on me! But maybe there’s another Tubbo out there. Or, if there’s not, there’s some else out there that’s also not human and you could be not human together because you both understand what that’s like. 

“So I guess...I was just trying to see if I could convince you of at least one of them. Then, I dunno, you could go out one day and find them. Not be so alone.” She twisted her head to look them dead on. “So. Any of them seem real? Because you cried a whole lot of ‘impossibility’ for someone who shouldn’t exist, so I don’t think you really believe that.”

Willow had the same intensity she always did when trying to convince Tubbo, but only now did they realize why. They filtered through their memories, trying to see if any of them rang true. The experiences were shaded by the realization, brimming with colors that hadn’t been there before.

But Tubbo kept coming back to the core of the situation. They’d thought it all to be jokes, but at the end of the day there was a tangible resistance to the idea of other cryptids. Tubbo was surprised to find it there, a wall they’d never realized to be so strong. “It’s...it’s easier if they aren’t real, though,” Tubbo admitted.

“Why?” Willow challenged, catching their earlier cadence of the same question.

“Because then we don’t have to find them. Because that means leaving our house and going into the world.” Tubbo was five, and had learned the world didn’t want them. “If there’s others like us, that means we’d have to go looking, because we couldn’t just know and not meet them.” Tubbo had always had a pressing need for other people, a want they held at bay with reminders of the bullet and impossibility. It was some instinct stitched in their biology that longed to gather people around and be them. If others were real, they’d have no excuse. Tubbo knew they wouldn’t be able to resist, and would go off into the world.

And they didn’t know what would happen. If they’d be hurt again, or if they’d turn out to be wrong and get hurt that way too. It just felt so dangerous and foreboding. The life they had was safe and nice and certain.

“And in half of your stories, we’re the bad guys, aren’t we? What if we go meet others and they’re evil? And they kill people and stuff.” A hush fell around the Hive Tree. A summer breeze rustled through the leaves, causing the sun to dance over the interior where it bled through. 

Willow sat up. “Well crap, Tubbo, I don’t know. Could be good, could be bad, or anything in between! Just think of all that’s out there, waiting for you!”

“We are.”

“Isn’t it exciting?”

“Isn’t it terrifying?”

Willow rose and crossed over to them, squatting down. She poked them in the chest. “I just wanna make sure you believe that anything’s possible.”

“That’s sorta the problem.”

“Tubbo,” Willow said. “All the bad things are possible, sure, but all the good things are too. If even one good thing exists, don’t you think it’s probable others do too? I just there’s people out there just like you. You’re not alone.”

Tubbos’ chest felt cold and hollow. Empty in the way it usually was, but sharper than they normally felt it. Like the absence almost became a pang. 

Like they were missing a soul.

Oh, they had one, had many, but needed just one more. Tubbo started to call out, asking softly to be joined. 

“Tubbo?” She waved her hand in front of their face. “Why are you buzzing so loud?”

Tubbo suddenly realized what they were doing. They lurched back away from her. “Crap, sorry, we didn’t mean to-” They could tell their voice was bordering hysterical, but couldn’t calm it down. 

“Huh? It’s fine, just didn’t know if you knew,” she said casually. “Anyway, I was thinking I’d give you some space so you can think about which ones you think or want to be real. Maybe we could try to find them?”

“Yep! Sounds great!” Tubbo managed, a bit too loudly. She smiled and waved, scaling down the rose woven ladder, and racing though the field to the Wilds and then to her grandmother’s house beyond that.

Tubbo, for their part, was flying in circles, mentally berating themselves. You can’t collect Willow into the Hive! What are you thinking!? The coldness in their chest grew. Well, deal with it. It had always been cold and empty and hollow. 

A brief snatch of memory played from so long ago. It was blurred with time, a mere fragment of recollection. Jasmine sat before them (or maybe Tubbo sat before her). A snatch of a smile. A disappearing girl. And warmth. So much warmth. Filling their chest and core with the bliss of the sun as Jasmine became Tubbo. 

The ice spread. The instinctual longing to fill the void, to fill Tubbo. The Hive craved people. Tubbo wanted so desperately to ask Willow to join, to help them truly see the world, to look at it with excitement and find others like them. Help us to believe, to not be alone, they wanted to say.

No, Tubbo told themselves. No. No. They weren’t going to.

And then the chill was gone completely. Their core ached with the memory of bitter frost, and then that, too, faded. Tubbo settled gently on the floor. The grain of the oak wood pressed against their bare toes. An odd sort of elated laugh escaped them, hanging in the air, disbelief and relief in equal measure. Huh. Just...huh.

——

“Tubbo, where were you at breakfast!?” Rhodes called up. Tubbo yawned. Of course they’d known when it was time to wake up —part of them had watched the dawn, after all— but they just hadn’t felt the need to. Rhodes came up the ladder, carrying a basket in one hand. He was a little slow, but it gave time for Tubbo to wake up completely. “Martha was a little worried. Are you alright?” Rhodes inquired, setting down the wicket container. Tubbo opened it up, snatching a muffin from inside. Blueberry. Yum. They shoved it in their mouth, not bothering to go through a more standardized consumption method. Tubbo thought about the question. Alright? Sort of. They just mostly felt confused. “Slow down, kiddos,” Rhodes admonished. “Good baking needs to be cherished."

Tubbo grabbed another, breaking it into chunks for Rhodes’s sake. The older man settled down, pulling out his cross word and reading glasses. Tubbo ate their breakfast at a more reasonable pace, having a swarm pull out an old battered book to flip through while they ate. Tubbo frowned, having once again caught themselves on the old familiar poem. “Rhodes?” they found themselves asking, unsure if they even really wanted to. But suddenly doubt overwhelmed them. Were they doing the right thing?

“Hmm?” The old man hummed. 

“It’s...it’s bad right? That the oak and rose grew apart?” 

“Is this about Willow going back home when Summer break is over?” Rhodes asked, immediately cutting through Tubbos’ disguise of careful curiosity. Curse his sharp old eyes.

“Yeah,” Tubbo lied. Or it wasn’t really a lie at all, because that definitely was a part of it but it didn’t nearly encompass the whole of it. Yes, she was leaving soon, off to some state in America that Tubbo didn’t even remember the name of. She’d been upfront from the start, her parents didn’t believe she’d be coming back next year. Or maybe any year, ever. Flying overseas was expensive. But mostly, it was the idea that she was slipping through Tubbos’ fingers, that Tubbo was losing the opportunity for her to join the Hive. They’d already quashed the idea, or tried to, but it kept nagging in the back of their minds. They still wanted to, even if they weren’t going to. 

And, sure, they were planning to keep in touch, but still. It would be different. Oceans apart.

Rhodes pushed up his spectacles, as he was wont to do while thinking. “Here, let me scan it again.” His dark eyes danced quickly across the page.

…And while the rosebush sweetly bloomed

The oak tree grew so high

That now it spoke of newer things-

Eagles, mountain peaks and sky.… 

“Hmm. Well. The oak and rose are very different, yes? I think from the start their experiences were going to be very different as well.”

“But you said the flower can climb up and match the experiences of the tree,” Tubbo...not necessarily argued, but brought up. 

“I did. But here’s the thing: should it? They are two separate beings after all, and need different things. It takes all sorts to make the world go ‘round, so if everyone has the exact same perspective things would only be more boring, no?”

“So...so they were always going to be different no matter what?”

“Well not necessarily. The rose can still choose to climb. I think it can go either way. Two beings who are separated and chose to stick together, or two that are separate, realize as such, and go about their different lives.” Now Tubbo was even more confused. They had sort of been thinking they were one plant and humans were another, and trying to figure out which was the right decision. Willow had been right, Tubbo needed a fellow oak, but they just didn’t have the option. 

The Hive Tree sat in the midst of a field of flowers. A tall and striking figure. An isolated figure. Its branches stretched far, wooden fingers caressing the sky in a way the flowers never would. Some roses grew up its trunk, but most did not. 

Tubbo was starting to think trying to use a metaphor was a terrible idea, since they still weren’t sure which was supposed to be the correct way to do it. “So which is it? Is growing apart good or bad?”

Rhodes tapped his chin. “Well it might be bad for their friendships, but it might also be good for the individuals. People grow in different ways. Their worlds were just different, and that’s not a bad thing. That’s a part of life. People change, and sometimes they just don’t fit together anymore. Really, I think it’s more impressive that the two could grow together for any time at all.” Tubbo thought about it, trying to sort everything out. Rhodes let them stew for a bit. “Of course, that’s just another interpretation.You can probably spin it any way you like if you really want to. The real question isn’t about plants at all, but rather what you’re going to do about it, kiddos.”

Eventually, Rhodes got up, patting Tubbo on the shoulder. He descended the ladder. A pathway formed by footsteps and little else cut through the wild grasses. 

And Tubbo thought.

——

(Tubbo was thirteen and hugging Willow tightly. She was a little taller than they were. They stood on Martha’s porch. It was night, the patio light on and attracting moths. She drew away, giving Tubbo one last high five. She turned, offering Rhodes a fist bump. A dark hand reciprocated the gesture. Then, she swung her bag up on her shoulder, gripping a suitcase. The metal of her braces flashed in her final smile. Willow turned, burrowing into the dark of the night. The suitcase wheels scraped across the rough stone path. Pausing at a waiting car, little more than a ghostly silhouette in the twinkling starlight, Willow waved to them before ducking into the vehicle to catch a midnight flight.

Farewells are a part of growing up, after all.)

——

Tubbo was sixteen and picking apples, then tossing the fruit down, catching them moments before they landed with hundreds of honey bees that gently lay them in Rhodes’s hands. From there they’d be put in their appropriate buckets, to be sold. Rhodes never hired workers, since his orchard wasn’t really in time with the seasons. With Tubbo around, the trees were in perpetual harvest, peaches and apples and apricots and cherries all together. The fruits would stay ripe up to a week without Tubbo, but their visits were daily. Harvest was perpetual, and thus at their whim. The system they’d worked out aligned roughly with everyone else’s harvest schedule, so as not to draw suspicion. And, since Rhodes’s back wasn’t too good, that usually meant Tubbo did most of the picking. They gave practiced, deft twists, pulling the apples from the trees. It was mindless work, which usually meant Rhodes would try to integrate lessons. 

Tubbo had been unable to escape the education system, unfortunately. Rhodes insisted on trying to give them one, and for the most part had done pretty well as far as Tubbo was concerned. They usually preferred lessons during harvest, since it meant they had to use their hands for picking instead of writing. Verbal had just always been easier for them anyway. From time to time when Tubbo got frustrated with maths or reading, they’d insist there wasn’t a real reason to learn. But Rhodes always reminded Tubbo that he wouldn’t always be around, and Tubbo would eventually grow up and do something else with their life other than just pick some else’s produce. Rhodes was checking that they’d read the chapters they were supposed to, which, of course Tubbo had. The old literature was kinda boring, but they had, even if literally anything else would be preferable. Once, around ten or eleven, Tubbo had left out their assigned literature in the rain. Rhodes may or may not have realized Tubbo was trying to get out of reading it, but nevertheless had worked to create a better canopy, stretching out large tarps across the heart of the tree, as well as a few other places where Tubbo had made platforms for various uses. Sturdy ladders once used for harvest offered a way for Rhodes (and Willow, when she’d been there) to get up. Really, Tubbo didn’t know what more one could ask for in a home. Well. Electricity, probably, but they couldn’t exactly hook up to the power grid in the middle of the Wilds. Really, Tubbo just went over to Rhodes’s house whenever they wanted to see a movie or play on one of his grandchildren’s Xboxes. 

After Rhodes was done fishing for details about the novel, a lull in the conversation appeared. It was a comfortable sort of quiet, broken only by the swish of the wind, the snap of twigs as fruit was pared from tree, and the soft hum of Tubbo. “They’ve started talking about sending me to a nursing home.”

Dozens of apples dropped suddenly around the orchard, released in Tubbos’ shock. They spat a curse, and caught them. A few splattered on the ground in uneven chunks. Tubbo was glad they’d been perched on a sturdy branch, otherwise they’d have fallen as well. 

“Not for some time yet, kiddos. I’m still kickin’,” Rhodes reassured. “They’ve been doing so for a while, ever since Martha died. But I think they’re beginning to debate it more seriously now.”

“Yeah, could have started with that.” 

“It’s just something we need to keep in mind for the coming years. I’m not going to last forever. If I could, I’d leave these orchards to you, but I suspect the government isn’t exactly aware about you, and that probably shouldn’t change.”

“Yeah they’d probably arrest us for all our terrible crimes,” Tubbo buzzed solemnly. “Just-just so much drugs. All of them. Amazed we aren’t incredibly dead right now from just the vast amounts of drugs. And all our violent actions against children and men and women and just...just everyone.”

“Exactly. I’m harboring a criminal here, we can’t let them cotton on to that. I told you I wouldn’t talk you outta jail anymore and I meant it.”

“Awww. Even if it’s on a weekend? We could make sure to get arrested at a convenient time for you.”

“Well, maybe if nothing good is on the television, and my suit isn’t in the wash. But what I’m trying to say here, kiddos, is that you need a plan for what to do afterwards. You’re bright, don’t have a formal education, but you’re miles ahead of that Hawkins boy. I don’t see why Madeleine keeps yammerin’ on about him. I don’t know how many times I’ve told him off for playing in the rose bushes. He shouldn’t be surprised he keeps getting pricked by the thorns…” Rhodes rambled, falling victim to the gossip and complaining that flourished when one had nothing else to do. He’d become more prone to reminiscing as time went on. Tubbo didn’t mind. 

“Point is, you have plenty a opportunity to make something of yourself. There’s tons of good people out there that won’t get hung up on strange notions about you. You’re not limited to pickin fruit the rest of your life, kiddos.”

The thing was, Tubbo liked harvesting. They were good at it, the thousands coming together fully for one goal in a way that most other tasks just didn’t need. Tubbo was a creature composed of split attention, and they wouldn’t have it any other way, but arranging everything, the mastery of gears fit perfectly together into one great, perfect machine, was like watching the top align into one still image. Everything still and tranquil even as you knew the immense speed and rotational frenzy of the reality. True harmony.

At the same time, though, they yearned for other people. Tubbo wanted to get out into the world. The terrifying, possible world. They’d resisted for years, but the longing was still there. There had to be others like them, and even if there weren’t, even if Willow was wrong and there were only humans, surely there were ones like Jasmine and Rhodes and Martha and Willow who’d accept Tubbo. 

It was an odd feeling. To be at once content and restless. To see their life suddenly stretch out before them, because Tubbo could picture every second of it, the twisting of seasons and harvest after harvest, a simple, ouroboros cycle, yet at the same time they could imagine nothing at all, a dark, mysterious future that promised nothing and everything, terrifying and alluring in equal measure. “It doesn’t have to be now. It won’t be for a while. But think about it, alright?”

——

Tubbo was twenty one, and Rhodes was leaving. It didn’t feel right, for the infinite cycle of growth and tending and harvest and decay to be cut short. A chain snapped in half, leaving bits of link debris. In truth, the cycle had been stilled ever since Tubbo had come to his orchard, even if the Nymph and farmer had kept the pretense. 

Or, really, Tubbo had been the one doing so. Time had worn Rhodes, slowing his motions and pressing chronic pain into his limbs. Over time it had fallen to Tubbo to do most of the manual labor, not that they minded. Like passing the torch down, giving the world’s work to the next generation. But Rhodes’s family had grown insistent, and maybe they were right. And so the cycle finally ground to a halt in mid March. 

One last day. Tubbo was going to make sure it was perfect.

The day started before dawn. Breakfast had been large and prepared by Tubbo, to mixed success. Rhodes had said it was good, but then again he wasn’t going to hurt their feelings by saying otherwise. Of course, Tubbo had taken the more burnt toast slices for themselves, so maybe it hadn’t actually been too terrible for Rhodes. Swipe enough jam on it, and it was bearable.

They’d gone to the porch after that to watch the sun rise over the garden, lighting up frail petals and illuminating the world. It was in full bloom, but then it always was. Rhodes whistled old songs and hymns while Tubbo hummed along off key. Distant stress swirled in the pit of Tubbo, some urge to squeeze as much out of the day as possible. The hourglass' sand tumbled through their fingers, a deadline looming over and casting everything behind it in shadow. Rhodes would be gone the next morning, and everything beyond that just seemed terrifying and impossible. Tubbo wasn’t sure what would happen afterwards, the promised absence of Rhodes cutting the bright future into pitch black nothing. Tubbo didn’t know what would happen and it was terrifying.

But they knew what was happening currently. The sun was inching up by degrees, filtering through the leaves. A gentle Spring breeze swished the foliage lightly. That was something at least. The future was fast approaching, but settled in as gentle present. The day was slow.

After a time, Rhodes finished his tea, Tubbo never having been a fan of liquids, and they went inside. Tim Hawkins rode by on his delivery route, and Tubbo flew it in through a window that was ajar for such purposes. Rhodes accepted the newspaper from the swarm, and then he and Tubbo had worked on the crossword puzzle. 

Tubbo itched to do something. Like they weren’t doing enough with their time. Sure, the day was good, at least so far, but it wasn't perfect. They didn’t know how to remedy that. It felt like everything was spiraling out of control and yet nothing moved at all. Just a normal day. 

They watched some of their favorite movies together, eating popcorn and saying the lines in time with the actors. They tended the garden a bit, more gesture than work thanks to Tubbo. Rhodes ran appreciative hands over blossoming ruby poppies and vibrant blue cornflowers, or Papaver rhoeas and Centaurea cyanus respectively. Ostentatious old man, Tubbo thought with a soft smile. Regardless, the roses were always his favorite. He had the tired blissful expression he always fell into in the garden. It reminded him so much of Martha, Rhodes had admitted once. All her effort poured into the flowers over the years, forever preserved by Tubbos' presence. Pressed flowers, pressed memories, forever kept in perfect bloom. Forever fresh. 

The day passed in tranquility. Calm and slow like all the days before it. Not nearly as monumental as Tubbo thought it should be. The world was about to change entirely and yet it felt like any other day, indistinguishable from the others in the long string of similar time. Tubbo was a creature still so unaccustomed to farewells. They thought they’d be able to handle it, years later, but somehow it was worse. The difference between months and years, between a friend and a guardian, perhaps.

The afternoon dragged on, a bright azure sky dappled with fluffy white clouds. The sun slunk closer to the horizon. Tubbo led Rhodes along the path to the orchard one last time, and then beyond, slipping between trees as the forest rose around them. A trail had been worn by their footprints over the decade and more of their friendship. Sharply, the Wilds gave away to the field, tall grass swaying, dotted by perpetual flowers. Rhodes wasn’t able to climb the ladder that day, so they sat at the base of the great oak among snaking roots and soft grass and dark soil. Roses weaved between the steps of the orchard ladder, entangling the base of the tree. Wildflowers glowed in the dusk rays.

Slowly, slowly, the sun began its retreat in full. The sky started to discolor, stained with fire. 

And the day had been good. But it hadn’t been perfect because Rhodes was still leaving. 

“Well, kiddos,” Rhodes began, rising from his spot. He stretched, rolling his back to help with the aches. “Seems like this is where we say goodbye. I hate to leave.”

“Then don’t.” Oh. They hadn’t meant to say that. They’d been trying so hard to not be selfish about it all.

Rhodes smiled kindly. “I’d have to at some point. Either the nursing home takes me now, or death takes me later. It was always going to happen, Tubbo, was always guaranteed, see?”

Tubbo frowned. “Don’t say that.”

“What? The truth? I’ve been going for a long time. That’s just life. Or the lack of it, to be precise. Certain as the seasons.” The cycle of existence. Except…except every day was just like the last. No alteration. There was no Winter in Tubbos’ world, merely eternal Spring. The possibility of it froze them all. If they had breath, a heart, anything at all, they were sure it would’ve caught and stilled. All the bumblebees certainly did, hung in the air like minuscule unmoving stars. Tubbo wasn’t sure how the idea felt, any emotion or conscience refusing to speak. It was engulfing however. 

Forbidden. 

But Rhodes would live. Rhodes would stay. 

“You don’t have to,” Tubbo said, words hovering in the air but too late to take back. They looked away, almost ashamed, but they needed to say it. With Jasmine, Tubbo had been so young they could barely recall why they'd done it. But they could vaguely remember what Rhodes had told them, that she should’ve gotten the chance to grow up by herself. Tubbo didn’t know what life they’d robbed her of. She was such a cornerstone to their existence Tubbo wasn’t entirely sure they’d be the same without her, nor even understood how they’d be two separate entities at all. They were too intertwined to tell apart.

But with Willow they’d known for certain. Willow was going to have a very different life from Tubbo, had countless possibilities laid out before her. They’d known that to become one would be to diminish it to a single set of infinity as opposed to two. Again, to snatch independent growth.

But Rhodes had nowhere to grow. He was sliding to decay, time claiming him. The cycle of life drawing to a close.

And, well. Tubbo had always been able to preserve Spring.

(It’s a difficult balancing act, knowing when to let go and when to grasp on tight.)

“You could alway join us.” A terrible silence fell. “O-or not.” Tubbo decided they really did like how their field looked. The flowers were nice. Grass was green. Yep. Lovely. 

“Tubbo.”

“Hmm?” they hummed.

“Tubbo, look at me,” Rhodes commanded gently. He shifted back to the ground slowly, sitting down next to Tubbo.

“We are. Just not...that many of us are.” Tubbo caught the amused expression that passed his face. It convinced them to turn back and look more directly. 

“Tubbo, there's nothing wrong with collecting people to your Hive. That’s part of who you are, and as long as they want to, it’s perfectly fine.”

“But you said-”

“Kiddos. I said that when you were, what, five? Six? You’d have tried to get anyone and everyone into your little covey.”

Tubbo offered an airy laugh. “We really would’ve,” they conceded. They nearly had. The only bar was the few handful Tubbo had encountered over their life and their own reservations.

“And now you’re an adult. You’ve got discretion. You’re free to do what you want, kiddos, as long as they agree to.” His expression sharpened suddenly. “They have to agree to it, yes, Tubbo?”

“Of course! Promise to always ask. And right now we are asking but you still haven’t answered us.”

“Hmmm. You’re right,” Rhodes admitted, adjusting his bifocals. He rubbed at his chin, thinking it over. “You know…” he began slowly, voice low and raspy. “If you’d have asked me, oh, twenty years ago if I was ready to go, I think I’d have said yes. I figured I’d seen everything the world had to offer. But then…” he looked off into the distance. Heavenly fire danced across the sky, the sun hovering just over the earth. Rhodes looked back, a smile stretched into his face as if carved into dark ancient stone. 

“Well, I met you Tubbo. And all I could think was that there was so much to the world I hadn’t known about, if you could be in it and I have no idea. There was so much more to learn. And now...now I don’t think I’m ready to die anymore. There’s too much left for me, too much possible. I still have time, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I want to be here, outside in real life, not hidden away in some white-walled nursing home. That doesn’t sound like living to me. 

“And kiddos? I’ve watched you grow since you were little, and now you’re ready to launch into the world. I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next. So I think...I think the answer is yes. I want to join you, just so I can be there every step of the way.” A soft smile formed in Tubbos’ face, then burst into a bright beam. 

Tubbo took Rhodes’s large hands in their own. “Do you really want to join the Hive?” Something cool pressed in their core. Longing was its name. 

“Yes.”

Tubbo called to each member of themselves, asking about Rhodes. Hundreds of thousands of confirmations poured in. (Do it, dummy) Jasmine giggled. “We want you too,” Tubbo buzzed warmly. Then, as one, every Tubbo began to sing, calling out to Rhodes. The invitation of every insect, an offer of harmony. A loud, overpowering appeal. 

And Rhodes accepted. Tubbo could feel the precise moment their souls clicked, overlapping. A bridge still barred by flesh and reality. Tubbo squeezed his hand in reassurance. Rhodes and Tubbo smiled at each other. The coveys descended from the sky, gathering upon Rhodes. He was buried beneath Tubbo, the outline of a human. Suddenly, his hands pulled on Tubbos’, drawing them into an embrace. Tight and warm and perfect. 

Slowly, Rhodes disappeared out of Tubbos’ arms. Not that he drew away, more that he stopped existing as much. Swarms took to the sky once done, leaving gaps in the places Rhodes should have been. Stealing away sections of his back, and then his legs, finally leaving him nothing but the arms wrapped tightly around Tubbo, hands pressed to their spine, warm against their wings. Then, those, too, were gone, and there was nothing at all to separate Rhodes and Tubbo because they were one. 

Warmth coursed through Tubbos’ chest with the acquisition, almost burning, but not quite hot enough to hurt. A pleasant heat that spread out from their core, coursing through and filling their hollow body for a split second. They twitched, shivering almost, arranging into parts. Tubbo reached to their face to readjust their glasses and found none.

“Well I’ll be…” Tubbo said slowly, soft, deep, and raspy like the wind through reeds. The sun touched the horizon, sinking down beneath tree foliage. It blazed across the sky, triumphant and glorious. “It’s been so long since I last saw the sky like this,” Tubbo whispered. “Us. We. Sorry, not used to this yet.” Tubbo rolled their neck, uncoiling the tension. They leaned back onto the oak tree, not minding the sharp prick of rose thorns that rose up its trunk. “That’s fine,” they reassured themselves. “It takes some time.”

And now they had time. All the time in the world it seemed. 

They watched the sun go down, staining the sky, stealing the warmth of the world and leaving only the splatter of stars, cold embers that couldn’t truly breathe fire onto the Earth. The moon rose, a cool sort of illumination, reflecting the memories of the sun. Constellations shone through the canopy of their home, a swirling kaleidoscope in millions of eyes. They danced, blurred, finally being quenched completely by Tubbos’ slumber. 

The perfect day.

All that was left was Tubbo, the sunset, and the old, strong, oak tree. 

——

They’d been taking care of Martha’s garden. Pruning, watering, general maintenance. She’d planted it the year after they’d bought the house. The roses had been the first ones, and Martha had sworn one day they’d climb up the gate and look marvelous. She was right, of course. But then again, they’d had nothing in comparison to her own beauty. (Ewwwww) Tubbo laughed awkwardly. (I’m not wrong) Rhodes grumbled.

A sharp thorn stabbed the pad of their thumb, splintering into hexagonal shapes but not quite breaking through. Tubbo jerked back slightly. Ah, karma. It wouldn’t do to get distracted around roses after all. A swarm delivered a watering can, and they gently poured the liquid onto the base of the climbing bush. Tubbo stood at the entrance beneath the gateway, observing the garden with pride. Decades of work had gone into it. They remembered placing down stones for the walkway, replacing old hanging pots with new ones after a baseball incident, tying up the rope swing in the corner. 

Tubbo gave themselves a week. After that, they’d be ready, adjusted to the recent addition. The world was large and they wanted to see everything, finally ready. They were already three days into their allotment. Things were peaceful, and Tubbo felt a lot more confident about moving on. 

A truck rolled up, trailing the path to Rhodes’s house. Tubbo stepped into the air, rising. But, oh, it’s just Keegan. Just got his learner's permit, oh look at him. Cut that last right corner a bit wide actually...no harm on a dirt road, but in traffic that would be dangerous. Tubbo blinked, and the shiny bronze truck was stilled in front of the gate, engine cut. Instinct reminded Tubbo that they should’ve been escaping. (It’s just Keegan) That was how it had happened with Jasmine’s parents, too. Of course, Keegan was a terrible shot, so that wasn’t an issue. The vehicle door slammed closed. The human stared at them, frozen. Tubbo settled back onto the ground. 

“What the hell,” Keegan breathed. “What the hell are you?” Your grandfather probably wasn’t going to fly. They twitched awkwardly. It seemed Tubbo wasn’t going to fly, either. For now, at least. 

“Hi. We’re Tubbo!” they said brightly. They held out a hand, since technically they needed to introduce themselves.

Keegan stepped back, dark eyes squinting. “What are you doing?” he demanded. Tubbo let the offered handshake fall to the side. 

“Don’t mind us, just taking care of the garden.” The watering can was still clutched in their hand, and they raised it as evidence. 

Keegan’s head swiveled, and he lunged suddenly, picking up a big stick. He pointed it at Tubbo threateningly. “Let me in,” the teen demanded. 

Tubbo shrugged. “Alright.” They turned, returning to their gardening. The lilies were looking parched. Slowly, Keegan entered the garden, stick aimed at Tubbos’ back, inching over the path and darting to the porch. He gave Tubbo a suspicious glare, then ducked inside. Tubbo could hear him calling for Rhodes frantically. They spilled water over the lily roots. There. Much better. They moved on to the peonies. Tubbo wondered lazily what Keegan was up to. Hopefully his grades were better this semester. He’d never been a fan of history. Why was he here though? 

The watering can dropped and Tubbo buzzed out corrupted invectives as the realization hit. He was looking for Rhodes, who was supposed to be at the nursing home. He hadn’t shown up, obviously someone had to go looking. And Keegan wouldn’t find him. Tubbo froze a bit with the thought, jolting out of it when the screen door swung open, banging against the wall. Keegan charged at them, kid sized baseball bat and voice raised. He let loose a war cry, bringing the bat around in a fast swing for Tubbo. The bee person launched into the air, slipping out of range, and spasming.

They face palmed. “Keegan you knucklehead you’re allergic to bees! What did you think was going to happen!?” Tubbo of course wouldn’t have stung him, and didn’t tend to sting at all. Martyrdom wasn’t appealing if you felt every single death. But he wouldn’t have known that, and chose to literally swing a bat at a hive. The baseball bat connected with their ankle, and they sharply ascended a few more feet. Right. Keegan was actually fairly tall for a sixteen year old. One of their tallest grandkids, actually. And he’d been in the little league, even doing fairly well when he was at the bat. Really, such an accomplished young man.

“Where is Gramps!? How do you know my name!??” he shouted, trying to jump high enough to reach Tubbo, who was hovering overhead, shaking back into themselves.

“Stop attacking us and we’ll tell you!” Tubbo buzzed angrily, rubbing at their ankle. 

“Tell me and I’ll stop!” Tubbo, for some reason, didn’t find Keegan’s counteroffer enticing, as the order of events didn’t particularly favor their continued wellbeing. 

“We can just leave, you know. If you’d let us sit back down we’ll explain, but not if you’re hurting us.” Keegan continued wide swings at their legs. He’d always been a bit too hot headed for his own good though. Tubbo rose a bit, looking to the trees. They didn’t really want to explain everything at the moment. It was all recent, and Rhodes wasn't entirely settled in yet. Of course, they’d have to eventually. He couldn’t just disappear on his family after all. Didn’t mean they couldn’t wait a bit to get informed on the matter though. 

Keegan made another leap, but they were far from his reach. “This is assault, you know! It’s very illegal! You could be fined,” Tubbo tried. Well, it wasn’t like Tubbo would call the police to arrest their grandkid...or call the police at all. Not like they were a citizen...or human. Actually, Tubbo wasn’t entirely sure how they existed, but they probably weren’t a legal citizen. They weren’t entirely sure what the police would do between a hive mind bee person and the kid attacking them. Arrest them both? Would they have to share a cell? They could do a prison break, like in the movies. That would be fun. 

“You! Hurt! Gramps!”

“We’d never! Plus, that’s a very big assumption. We’re just minding our own business. You don’t have means, motives or opportunity.” 

“Get down here so I can avenge him!” Keegan shouted. He actually looked pretty upset. 

“Hey, hey,” Tubbo soothed. “It’s ok. He’s fine.” They dipped a bit closer to Keegan, hands out in a placating gesture. “Just calm down.”

“Then where is he!” Keegan cried. “Just tell me where he is! He never showed up to the nursing home.”

“It’s-ahhhh. It’s complicated? But he’s fine! Better than fine.” Ok, maybe that was a little conceited, but whatever. Keegan had stopped swinging, so Tubbo slipped back to the ground, landing bare toes onto the cool soil. 

“Is he hurt?” Keegan demanded.

“No! No, he’s perfectly good. No pain at all.” Well, except for their ankle.

Keegan frowned. “That sounds like you killed him.” Why is it everyone always assumed Tubbo was out and about killing people? They’d never done anything of the sort. Well, accidentally stepped on a snail last week, but that hardly counted as premeditated murder. There really were some rude stigmas related to being an insectoid. Probably all the stories about the Nymph, to be honest. Dirty human propaganda. 

“Nah, we didn’t.” Keep it casual, right? 

“Then prove it. Show me where he is!”

“Have you ever considered that we don’t know?” Tubbo tried. 

Now, to be fair to Tubbo, it’s very difficult to imagine a loved one attacking you. Well, unless it was an abuse situation, in which case hopefully they weren’t a loved one anymore and you got out of there as fast as possible. But it wasn’t, and besides, the conversation had been de-escalating, so, really, they couldn’t have seen it coming.

‘It’ specifically being a kid-sized baseball bat slammed into the side of their head. Tubbo went flying, unfortunately not in the literal sense of the word. They landed in the lily patch, the long curving leaves and petals crushed beneath them. Tubbo clutched their head, beginning to sit up with a groan. Their cranium was pounding. Dirt covered one side of their face. 

Oh no. All their flowers! Jeeze, they weren’t looking too good. All their poor lilies. It was an odd thing to fixate on, but was really the only thing Tubbo could bring themselves to think about. Thinking was very difficult, after all, and hurt a lot. Keegan was approaching, and Tubbo looked up. His shadow loomed over, his head blocking the sun from the body’s perspective. Their grandson pointed the end of the baseball bat at their nose. Its metal gleamed sharply. Tubbo carefully blinked up at Keegan, who was scowling, eyes glossy. They rubbed their head a bit for artistic effect. Then, the Nymph launched into the air, exploding into escape. Keegan tackled them, pinning Tubbo easily. One hand dug painfully into Tubbos’ shoulder, the other gripped tight on the bat and raised high in the air as a threat. 

Something wet fell on Tubbos’ ear. Then, another drop splashed down, landing on their cheek. Keegan glared through his tears. “Tell me what you’ve done to Gramps,” he ordered through shaky breaths, drawing the bat even higher.

“We’ve done nothing,” Tubbo explained softly. 

“Liar! Why’s he missing, then? Why are you here, then? Tell me, or I’ll...I’ll…” he glanced at the metal bat in his hand. The minute tremors translated into greater movement along its length. Keegan looked back at them and sniffed. “Or I’ll hurt you. I-I’ll do it. You’d deserve it.” His lips were trembling. Something hurt inside Tubbos’ chest. Some deep ache. They thought it would’ve been their heart if they’d had one. Tubbo shivered beneath Keegan, drawing away. They were no use here, after all.

“Keegan,” Rhodes said softly. Gently. A voice of whispering wind and love.

“How do you know my name!?” he screeched. 

How did they know his name? What? Was Rhodes not the one to walk his daughter down the aisle, her hand wrapped tightly around his arm, hope and excitement dancing in her dark eyes? Was Rhodes not the first one she called when she’d realized she was with child? Was Rhodes not the second person to hold Keegan, a squalling babe, and watch his howls die and a bright toothless grin emerge on his face? What a silly question. “I was there when they named you, kiddo. Keegan, after my father. Keegan. A fiery name that you’ve tried to match every day of your life.”

His watery eyes widened. The bat lowered. “...what?”

“I’m your grandfather, Keegan,” Rhodes smiled warmly. Keegan withdrew, retreating from Rhodes quickly. He sat up, dusting off the sides of his face and clothes. Rhodes went for his pocket for a handkerchief and found none. Well. Something for Tubbo to start carrying. “I’ve known you your whole life. Taught you how to stop using training wheels. You called me just the other Sunday for advice on your History project. I get it, it’s a little difficult, but don’t worry. It takes all sorts. And you’ve grown since last time, too, you’re probably taller than I am!” Rhodes paused, looking down at the Nymph’s-his-their body. “Ah. I supposed Tubbo is too short. Probably malnutrition early on. Just wish Martha and I had found them sooner…”

Keegan took a step back. “How-how are you doing that? How do you know what he sounds like?”

Rhodes huffed. “I’ve spoken like this my whole life...oh, well, not all of it, but ever since I moved here in...oh, was it 1978? Or 9? Bah, it’s been too long.” His words had grown slower, comfortable and unpressed for time, settling in to match his rural surroundings. 

Keegan was shaking. “What have you done? What have you done with him? How are you copying Gramps?”

“I’m the real thing, kiddo,” Rhodes assured. “Now, do you want some cake? I made one recently with one of Martha’s old recipes, and I think it’d do good to sit down and chat-”

His grandson stepped back. A confused mix of fear and rage combined in his visage. “No! No! What are you!? What have you done!?”

Pain twitched in Rhodes’s expression. He stepped forward, reaching to his grandson, but they backed away, shaking. Keegan dropped the bat, then sprinted to the truck. “Now, hold on-” Rhodes tried. Keegan scrambled with the keys, throwing the door open and jamming them into the ignition. “Keegan, please just listen-” He slammed it into reverse, speeding away, door open and seatbelt not even bothered with. Rhodes ran after him, then spasmed. Tubbo flew towards the vehicle. Keegan swung the truck around, shifted to drive, and sped off. Tubbo dropped back to the ground, watching the glittering vehicle race off. 

That...that wasn’t how they’d hoped for that to go at all. 

Their first course of action was to fix the lilies. It was something they knew how to fix. Easy. Re-burying the uprooted plants, carrying away the snapped off parts that had no hope. Calm, predictable motions. Simple. Uncomplicated. When the lilies were in the best shape they could be, Tubbo moved on to the rest of the garden. They’d been interrupted, after all. 

There was an odd emptiness inside them. Like they weren’t sure how to deal with what had happened. Or, at the very least, weren’t quite ready to deal with it yet. A small idea was sprouting, and Tubbo figured it would be their best bet. 

From what Tubbo could tell, Keegan had a few options. He could go to the police, and either mention Tubbo or not. If he didn’t, a regular search team would likely be sent out. Tubbo could reasonably avoid them. If he did, however, things became a lot harder to predict. Laughed at and no one came, or specialized unit? That came down to whether their grandson was believed, and whether there were others out there. Tubbo by that point was still unsure.

But that had been the point of giving themselves a week. One last week, and then Tubbo would go find out for certain. 

Of course, Keegan could tell no one at all. Well, some of his family, but then again they mostly lived in the city and weren’t likely to believe him. Or maybe something else entirely. Keegan could be unpredictable, even after so many years. Tubbo found themselves sitting in the garden staring off into space and doing nothing. Right. Well. 

Then they found themselves sat in the Hive Tree’s hearth, staring down an empty page. Crumpled discarded versions littered the area around. Rhodes picked up the pen one more time, and began again.

Then, they were a swarm carrying a letter, dropping it into a neighbor’s mailbox just to be safe. A missing persons investigation would definitely check the mail, so it was safer to be delivered from somewhere else.

Its contents had been hard to get out. A few pages from both Rhodes and Tubbo, explaining how events had come to transpire. Rhodes’s was longer by far, building up his relations with Tubbo over the course of their life, laying down a firm vouch of character and credibility for Tubbo, words for once precise and poignant. It mapped out Rhodes’s reasoning, gently reminding his family that this was not goodbye in any sense should they choose to accept Tubbo as who they were. Tubbo, for their part, just tried really hard for it not to sound like a cult or something, attempting to explain the more technical side of how it worked while assuring Rhodes’s family that there was no malicious intent or terrible curse that Rhodes becoming Tubbo meant. A final paragraph softly asked if they'd let Tubbo remain in their family. Tubbo left a number at the bottom of the page, so the relatives could contact them during their exploration of the world.

Tubbo wasn’t entirely sure how things would work out. Rhodes seemed sure they’d come around given time, though, and Tubbo chose to trust him. When Rhodes finally settled back into them, the end result was a fragile sort of hope. 

Tubbo had spent so many years pretending that there wasn’t a longing for people pressed deep inside them. Just to see others and know others and love and be loved by others. Hopefully, their family would stay by their side. Hopefully, there were other oak trees. Tubbo craved so much for someone with the same perspective, the same kinship and yet separation from humans. 

And if Rhodes’s family no longer recognized them, Tubbo would find family elsewhere. If Tubbo was alone in the universe they’d find friendship anyways. 

Besides, how alone could Tubbo ever really be? They were a multitude unto themselves. If truly they were the sole improbability, so be it. If no other human could find it within themselves to care, so be it. Tubbo knew they could never truly be alone, and the thought made them brave enough to go out and know they’d be content with whatever they found. 

Tubbo was ready to find the world.

——

(But the world found Tubbo first.)

——

Everything was on fire. 

That was all Tubbo could think as they jerked awake, a stab of consciousness from a warning sent from one of the few honey bees remaining. It was the night before they’d been planning to leave. A cool, Spring, night, and Tubbo had been snuggled under a light blanket in their nest. They struggled out of it now, legs tangled and movements frantic. 

Smoke billowed around them, dark and choking. It slipped down their throat, trapped in their chest and causing the insects inside to slip away from the Hive, consciousness stolen. Tubbo snatched the travel bag they’d been planning to use, throwing it over their shoulder and leaping into the air.

It got worse higher up. Tubbo darted between the branches of their home, weaving down and bursting through canopy clusters. Tubbo didn’t care that they were scratched and clawed by their home, just trying to blindly flee. One last layer of leaves, and they stumbled out, crashing to the floor. Tubbo scrambled for their bag, snatching it up and wobbling to their feet. 

The half moon shone overhead, quickly enveloped by wafting plumes of dark smoke that blotted out the stars like ink. Black clouds poured out from their home, swallowing its silhouette in the night. 

Chunks of Tubbo were torn away, eyes and minds shut down in sectors as the fumes became too much. Tubbo found themselves mimicking coughing, not that it helped. Smoke wafted from their mouth, a sharp chemical cold, indistinguishable from the pitch black world. What? Tubbos’ thoughts whirled sluggishly, pushing against fog to get across ideas. How is it cold and dark? At no point could Tubbo see flickering flames. At no point did they burn. They backed away on shaky legs. It didn’t make sense. 

They didn’t understand anything. Smoke curled in their minds, swallowing their thoughts, and leaving the ashy residue of primal panic behind.

Tubbo adjusted their hold on the backpack. Their grip felt weak, strength sapped by the insects inside falling asleep. Then, Tubbo turned, stumbling into a sprint, and then picking up slight elevation, flying low across the field. Grass scratched at them, shapes dark and terrifying, like snaking arms reaching up to grasp Tubbo and trap them. Tubbo zipped upwards, eyes darting to try and see anything, anything at all. The moon was blotted out, the stars slain alongside their only home. 

Something glowed on the edge of the field. A sharp beacon of white. Tubbo darted towards it, not realizing how far they’d drifted down until they crashed into the ground. They slid across the dirt painfully. Tubbo stumbled to their feet, tried to jump back into the air, only to land back on the ground roughly, pain shooting up their ankles. Ok. Not enough of us to fly. Tubbo sprinted towards the beacon, the hope, feet catching on terrain, movement sluggish.

It was a person, Tubbo realized, still too far away. A person robed in white. An angel, maybe. Except how could they be? Tubbo wasn’t completely dead yet, oh they were close, oh they could feel the steady depletion of minds as parts of themselves became victim to the thing destroying their home, but how could it be an angel? Everything hurt far too much for them to be dead yet. Torpidity gripped Tubbo in swaths, chunks gone numb as the bees inside died, but in the sections where sensation was still available it was sore. It must be a mirage. 

But there the figure was. Tucked slightly behind the tree line. Their features blurred, and Tubbo couldn’t quite tell if they were real. The Nymph stumbled after them, abandoning the fields to enter the Wilds, hands catching on trees to support their sagging weight as they pressed forward. The person drew away. Tubbo reached out, trying to call for them to stay. Please, we need help. We don’t know what’s happening.

Their voice wouldn’t form, dissolved into buzzing static. Tubbo screamed, pleading for help. The person paused. They were blurred, a shining star in a world blotted out by night and smoke and Tubbos’ all consuming fear. 

Almost in reach. Tubbos’ hand stretched, trying to touch them.

A lab coat, some distant part of them realized. Mere centimeters away. Almost there, almost saved. Out of the fog swirled the snatch of a smile. Tubbo tried to match it, confused, thoughts scattered and hiding away from them. 

Something dropped down overhead. It tangled around, pressing Tubbo to the forest floor. Rocks and roots stabbed at their belly. They tried to rise. The edges were weighed down. Minds bleared in panic, Tubbo struggled, only becoming more entangled in the net. They screamed, as any other captured animal would. The figure stood before them. Tubbo reached out a web snared hand, pleading for help in a voice that meant nothing.

Words floated in the night air. “Subject secured. Administer Class B amnestics to Keegan Bannister.” The person drew out a canister. Sharp red lines scrawled across it, and Tubbo thought they might have been words, or runes, or nothing at all because the world was swimming. The human —Tubbo was sure of it now— held it up. Metal glinted in the distant light of a cold and weak moon. Deep shadows covered it from the swaying arboreal canopy overhead. The human made a sharp pulling gesture on one end of the cylinder. Smoke burst from it, pooling over Tubbos’ prone form. The last thing they saw before their life was destroyed, before Tubbo for the first time in their life was blotted out completely and utterly, hundreds of thousands dimming and darkening until the Hive followed in their footsteps, before Tubbo learned the true cruelty of the world, was a cold, sharp, smile. 

——

(Tubbo was twenty one and terrified. White walls engulfed them. Hunger clawed at their hollow insides. They’d become accustomed to their existence being crushed over and over, because Tubbo was really just the sum of their parts and the gas enveloped and stole away portions of themselves. They were being torn apart from the outside and inside, souls separating out, unable to handle the pressure and breaking away. So, so many hundreds of thousands of bees never woke up again, and Tubbo had no way of know what massacre culled them. 

Tubbo was twenty one and terrified because they knew with grim certainty they weren’t the only one. Tubbo was trapped in a whole forest, separated out by those horrid white walls. And they were terrifying. Monsters, every one of them, and Tubbo realized they, too, were just the same. 

But there was a man in a stained room. The walls dripped with crimson color. He talked with the humans, and smiled, and joked in a way that seemed so impossible to Tubbo but that they wanted so desperately. Tubbo wanted so desperately to not feel scared anymore like the way the man acted.

And then he’d promised to save Tubbo.

Tubbo… (terrified, a person born of the Wilds, accustomed to the never ending freedom of the sky, accustomed to a belly always full, to kindness, stripped of each of these because everything hurt and they were just so, so scared) 

…Tubbo couldn’t help but hold on tight. 

So Tubbo called out to the man’s soul, hoping only for companionship. Bitter cold spread along their chest, sharp pangs crept inside their abdomen, their mutilated finger ached, but Tubbo could wait for Tommy. After all...

Tubbo was twenty one, and for the first time in the Foundation they didn’t feel so terrified.)

Chapter Text

The door opened. They startled onto shaky legs, since the doctor got mad when Tubbo didn’t stand. They almost fell, but adjusted to the new center of gravity. Black spots danced across their segmented eyes, and Tubbo felt dizzy. They were surprised when two forms entered, even more so when the person behind the doctor was not a guard. Tubbo grinned at a rather wide eyed Rosalind, who stared at them curiously. Tubbo was pleased to finally get to see her formally. Size judgment was alway so difficult from the perspective of a single set of eyes. Tubbo was much less pleased to see the Doctor Blake. She was a sharp featured woman, skin a frigid ivory and inky hair cut short and sharp. There was a genuine joy to her work that silently terrified Tubbo, since her amusement was typically inversely related to their well-being. A bone saw swung in one hand, a clipboard and odd container clutched in the other. A familiar set up that didn’t bode well. Tubbo unconsciously curled their hand, tucking it behind them. The digit may have regrown, but the pain lingered. The hunger sharpened from the memory of the doctor’s orders, but it wasn’t so bad now that Tommy was sharing his food. Tommy, sitting in his cell, reading papers in gigantic print that blurred. Tubbo watched from Tommy’s jaw, shoulders, dozens of viewpoints from between strands of blond hair. The doctor drew closer, and Tubbo snapped back to the room where most of Tubbo was. It wouldn’t do to get distracted right now. But it was so much more difficult to pay attention, these days. 

“Hello Dr. Blake! Hello Rosalind!” Wait, m̵͓̎u̴͓̐f̷̹̒f̸̪̅ḭ̵͠ǹ̶̩, Tubbo wasn’t supposed to know her name yet. 

“Test hand out,” the doctor ordered. Tubbo complied, as always. At least she didn’t notice their mistake. Tubbo had tried to slow down the process, making sure to fill in the handprints that Tommy had left first. Tubbo could manage it when concentrating, but whenever they got distracted rebuilding efforts resumed at typical efficiency. It was made harder by the difficulty that thinking brought. When not carefully watched, their thoughts returned to food, always food. It wasn’t as bad as the first few days, but Tubbo was still severely underfed. Occasionally their stomach cramped in piercing jabs of pain, and all they could do for hours was just wait, mind blurred, for it to end. Slumber was the only escape, but Tubbos’ body would wake frequently, unable to fall back asleep because of the gnawing hunger. Talking to Tommy was the second best option. Third was to dive into fantasies and hope it was enough. 

Words murmured at the edge of comprehension. Oh. Tubbo had spaced. Dr. Blake was rotating their pinky, which had regrown completely. Checking for dexterity and fine motor movement. She was saying something, and Rosalind looked horrified, form rigid. “What? Can you repeat that?” the insectoid asked. They were better about paying attention when Tommy was there, which didn’t exactly make sense because the consequences of failing to do so when the doctor was present could be far more dire.

Dr. Blake scowled, then released their hand. She penned something on a sticky note, narrating as she wrote. “Reminder, check intelligence. Again.” Tubbos’ antenna dropped. That wasn’t fair. Tubbo could usually think better when not consumed with ravenous hunger. "Interact. Whatever...form that takes. Just as a reminder, if you try to attack me the consequences will be...unfortunate.” With that, she wove between rows of flowering potatoes, inspecting them, leaving the other occupants to their own devices. The bone saw and strange glass cylinder were placed neatly to the side of one box of dirt and harvest. Notably, Dr. Blake hadn’t mentioned punishment for harming Rosalind. Tubbo didn’t appreciate the implied offer. Rosalind hesitated, before being directed to move closer to Tubbo. Well, actually the doctor used a number. Tubbo wasn’t sure why she called them a number. Tubbo had offered them a name to use. Tommy, too, had decided to give Tubbo different names. It didn’t bother them, but still. Peculiar. Tubbo had collected many names over their short stay, and had a few from before even.

Equally odd was Rosalind's presence. So far, the only visitor that Tubbo had received had been Dr. Blake, guards, and, of course, Tommy, but that wasn’t exactly allowed. Tubbo wasn’t entirely sure what she was here for. Maybe Tubbo should congratulate her on the recent promotion! Wait, they weren’t supposed to know that either. Rosalind was a complete stranger, technically. Even if Rosalind had been the real start of conversation with Tommy through the papers. Really, Tubbo probably wouldn’t have made it as far, since Tommy wouldn’t have known how or had the ability to get to them, and they wouldn’t have gotten food from Tommy. 

But no, Tubbo wasn’t supposed to know her. Honestly, they had no problem telling Rosalind, since Tubbo was certain she wouldn’t tattle. The only issue was Dr. Blake, who was likely monitoring the conversation. But what if...what if Tubbo tipped her off? All stealthy like? “Hi, we’re Tubbo.” They centered the voice around her, to be polite. 

“Hello,” she replied nervously. “I’m Rosalind.” 

“Did you bring food?” they asked hopefully. There. Dr. Blake wouldn’t bat an eye at that. Maybe punish Tubbo later. Or now. Having another person in the room wasn't likely to stop her. But it wasn’t suspicious at least.

“No, sorry. No water, either.”

“Ohh.” Tubbo wasn’t concerned with water, since it was supplied for the caretaking of the plants. Really, they weren’t actually wondering about food, either, knowing already it was going to be absent. Tubbo had to get this next part right. “It’s been a while since we had real food,” they complained. Dr. Blake would think they were talking about the difference between pollen and food. And Rosalind...

“Yeah, the bricks just aren’t the same, I’m told. What food do you miss the most?” Perfect. 

Tubbo stared her dead in the eyes, hoping she’d make the catch. “We really miss clementines.” They winked, exaggerating the motion. Rosalind just looked confused at the paired sentence and behavior.

“Yes...I’m a fan of citrus as well.” 

“It’s been too long since we last had a good clementine,” Tubbo tried again. They threw in a few more winks for good measure. She squinted slightly, as if searching for the connection. Tubbo knew she’d seen Tommy’s picture of Clementine a few times since he was rather proud of it, but it had been a while. Tubbo wracked their collective hive mind for ideas. Ḿ̶̳̭̻̈́u̵̺͊͊f̵͉̝̈́͝f̶͇̈̊͜ì̶̮̩ṇ̷̽͒. That was supposed to work. Why didn’t that work? Had Tubbo been too subtle? Keep trying. What other details of the kiddo’s picture had they discussed? “We also really miss hot sauce. But not too hot, otherwise it feels like we’re breathing fire,” Tubbo said, raising their eyebrows and flying several bees past her vision. All at once, Rosalind’s eyes widened, first in epiphany and then in bewilderment. She opened her mouth, probably to crash down all of Tubbos’ attempted stealth. Tubbo shot her a warning look, twitching an antennae in the direction of Dr. Blake, who was still lazily writing, moving a leaf here and there to better examine it. Rosalind made the catch. She twisted her fingers through the end of her chestnut ponytail, thinking. 

“What else do you miss? Did you, I don’t know...have any pets? Like a dog, or a little...tomcat?”

Tubbo smiled. Yes! Their wings buzzed once in the old code, not that Rosalind would know it. And since Dr. Blake refused to use names, she wouldn’t suspect at all! “Had a cat. Blond. Gets in fights but means well. Liked to play in the mud and get all dirty and Red. Pretty sure it stained his...paws.” The two shared a knowing smile. Excellent! Tubbo could imagine the use of such a code system. A further connection between them and Tommy, and even better, Rosalind could move freely. She could go outside, maybe sneak in resources. That couldn’t be too hard, right? That way Tommy and Tubbo could get full meals instead of half, maybe more actually. Excitement blossomed alongside the opportunities, the warmth of hope. 

It’s a lot more manageable once you got a plan, the memory of Tommy whispered. For once Tubbo could be the one helping. Speaking of Tommy...Tubbos’ eyes narrowed. He’d finished reading, but wasn’t explaining it. Tommy said he’d relate the contents to Tubbo. Wasn't he supposed to be finding out his next visit to Phillip or something like that? He’d seemed excited. Tubbo thought he’d be bouncing off the walls or something. But no. In fact, Tommy  was curled up. Smaller. Head buried in his knees. His breathing stuttered, creating earthquakes beneath Tubbos’ various feet. Tubbo crawled around, trying to get a better perspective, but couldn’t see his face. What was going on? 

Then, as they watched from various points, Tommy drained of color. Vermillion retreated, sinking into pale, sun starved skin. It sunk back to his hands, past wrists and then knuckles. A few droplets hung at the tips of his fingers, then were absorbed. Tommy’s blank hands curled into claws that dug into his own flesh. Something was wrong. It had to be. Tubbo had never seen him without coloration. It was like he was saturated. Less than himself. Diminished. 

Tubbo knew high quantities of the fluid was really bad, but they weren’t sure what a complete absence meant. It had to be bad though, Tubbo was sure of it. They’d seen Tommy be a lot of things. Angry and helpful and scared and determined and bubbly and bored and all manor of things in between. Whatever it was Tommy felt, it was always to the extreme, exaggerated and filling him completely. Emotion overflowed from him, spilling over and influencing the atmosphere. 

And Tubbo didn’t know what it meant, because as far as they could tell Tommy was empty. Completely and utterly devoid of life. 

They needed to do something. Tubbo fluttered around Tommy, screaming ‘no’ over and over again. He didn’t acknowledge the code. Tubbo darted to his ears, desperate to get a response. Nothing. Tommy was black hole, sucking in input and letting nothing out. Tubbo snapped open their eyes in their cell. No. They had to do something. Tubbo fidgeted. Around the room, bees launched into frenzied flight, darting around and anxious. A drone filled the air, rising to deafening volume. Tubbo frantically whipped about the room. The vent. Never mind the sleeping gas, they needed to go help Tommy, something was very wrong, Tommy was-

Tubbos’ eyes caught on Dr. Blake. As one, the bees stilled, then settled. Tubbo was useless. Tubbo couldn’t do anything at all. If she found out, Dr. Blake would certainly stop the visits and punish them. And, as of now, she didn’t even know what was happening to Tommy. No one did, save for Tubbo. Drawing attention would likely only lead to more testing for their friend. The Foundation wouldn’t fix it, they’d make it worse. No one could help him. 

Except...except Rosalind. There was a way. Tubbo could send a message, send help. Tubbo would find a way. Hope swelled inside their hollow chest. Dr. Blake was still staring. Tubbo crossed their hands at their stomach. It caved slightly at the touch. That wasn’t good. “Sorry,” Tubbo hummed quietly. Her eyes narrowed softly, but Dr. Blake turned back to the plants and notes. 

“What was that?” Rosalind inquired. Tubbo could tell Dr. Blake was still mostly focused on their conversation, since her pen wasn’t moving frequently. Tubbo responded, mostly looking at the doctor. 

“Just...hungry.” 

“You think a lot about food,” Rosalind laughed. 

“Rosalind,” Tubbo said, trying to prevent desperation from seeping into the word. They locked thousands of eyes onto her. The message needed to be clear. “We need you to check on our tomcat. He was sick when we last saw him. Please, he’s not safe.”

Rosalind’s startlement morphed into concern. “What? What do you mean-”

“Rosalind, you need to check on him, it’s important.” Tubbo flicked an antenna at Dr. Blake. Hopefully she’d interpret the signal. The next bit would be just for the doctor’s ears. “If you go to our file, it might say where we were captured. If you can find him, could you please help?” 

Rosalind traced the movement. Naked worry filled her visage. “How urgent?”

“Very.” 

Rosalind turned towards the door, walking briskly towards it. She stopped before the threshold, looking back to the doctor. “May I be excused?” 

Dr. Blake glanced up from the potatoes. She jotted down a few last words, then rose. For a long, terrible moment, she held Tubbos’ gaze. Slowly, a smile unfurled across her face. “No. We haven’t done the tests yet.” Tubbo winced. Their pinky finger twitched with remembered pain. They curled it. The motion was stiff, still not used to existence. Fingers were so complicated after all. Hunger tried to claw its way through their abdomen. Remembered indignities and deaths. Right. Experiments. 

“We don’t need Rosalind for that,” Tubbo reasoned. 

The doctor weighed this. “That depends. The next test is to see which experiment you prefer.” Huh. Tubbo had never been given a decision in the experiments. Well, there was an option between compliance and resistance, but that was really just the illusion of input. Tubbo was certain the Foundation would get their results with or without their help, furthermore it would likely only be worse if they rebelled. And it seemed Rosalind’s involvement was optional, meaning Tubbo could just choose whatever test meant she got to go to Tommy quicker. “The first test is regeneration. Finger regrew nicely, so the obvious next step is to cut off a larger section and see how volume correlates to time. For this test, your hand would be cut off.” It was sorta funny, how quickly hope gave way to overwhelming fear. Bees poured out from gaps in Tubbo, streaming out like water, taking to the air. Tubbos’ wings and antenna flattened. Sharp fear curled inside their hollow body. Their mind split into pieces under the pressure. 

(Tubbo I’m scared) Jasmine's whimpered in their minds. (I don’t want to do that it’ll hurt so much please don’t do it) It’s ok, Tubbo told her. We’ll pick the other test. “Or?” Tubbo buzzed out, struggling to get the right pitches needed for English. 

“Kill the worker,” Dr. Blake said simply. 

“No!” Tubbo yelped. They launched into the air as if physical escape would fix the situation. All of the bees swarmed, the room thick with distressed insects. Tubbo couldn’t kill someone. No! They couldn’t-no, that wasn’t an option-Tubbo couldn’t- the mere thought was revolting. Tubbo couldn’t bear the thought of getting more people killed. The rows filled with the memory of viscera. Parts of humans strewn about, blood soaked into soil, seeping into roots. A harvest of potatoes and pieces of people. Tubbos’ fault. No. No. No. Their thoughts dissolved from words to visceral rejection of the concept. It was an intrinsic value they refused to betray. 

“Hmmm,” Dr. Blake hummed. She noted something down. “Interesting. Your choice?”

(It’s our only option, a heavy voice whispered, old and wary. You know that, Tubbo. We know that) “We’re not going to kill anyone!” Tubbo yelled, hurling the words at her, a projection that didn’t phase the doctor.

“Final answer?” 

“No. Take...take our hand. The first experiment.”

“Interesting,” Dr. Blake reiterated. “Hypothetically, what if we alter the choice? After test two is complete, you’ll be fed.” Ravenous hunger, summoned by her promise, wracked sharp pain through Tubbos’ body. A reminder that Tubbo was actively consuming their own flesh to live. And for a horrible moment, they almost thought about it. Almost said yes. Greedy voracity danced in their many eyes. With a bar and half, the agony would leech away, satiated. Tubbo would be able to think clearly, be able to sleep without waking. Twisting abdominal pain wouldn’t claw through slumber and drag them into the nightmare of reality. They could be free from esurience. 

“...nno.” Tubbo droned, settling back onto the ground, knees nearly buckling. They needed Rosalind to go help Tommy. Think about the long run. 

“Interesting.” Dr. Blake wrote for a minute, then looked up. “Proceed to the table,” she instructed. Tubbo walked towards it, but found their legs shaking too much. Flying was safer then. Tubbo hovered over, landing roughly, using the table to catch the weight. They cautiously cleared off painted watering cans and gardening utensils, but found the soil bags far too heavy. They knelt on the padded floor, left arm placed atop the surface, just above their main eye level. The surface was stained from the last time. Brace. It would probably take longer, hurt worse. Save her so she can save him. Simple. 

Footsteps behind, perspectives affirmed it was Dr. Blake. She sat her clipboard and glass container on the table. “Ms. Parra-Cardozo, hold The Pollinator down,” the researcher commanded. The worker was paralyzed, watching them with wide eyes and horror. Dr. Blake frowned, repeating the order.

“What?” Rosalind breathed. 

“Keep it still while I perform the operation. Simple.”

“Why? How does this help anyone!?” 

“We need to discover the extent of its abilities, to know how dangerous it is. That’s the protect half of the slogan. How are we to fight a threat we know nothing about? Ignorance doesn’t serve us.”

The employee looked appalled. “By killing me? By dismembering them?”

“Tests offense and defensive capabilities. Now, do as you’re told.”

“No! This isn’t—no, this isn’t humane!”

Dr. Blake’s eyes narrowed. “This is why I was against your promotion. No, this isn’t humane. In case you haven’t noticed, these aren’t humans.” 

Rosalind looked furious, face contorting, spluttering. “Fine!” she sibilated. “There’s still laws about animal experimentation!”

“Still not about SCPs. Nothing at all to protect the poor monsters. Now, hold the subject down.” 

“No! This isn’t right!”

“Do you want to be fired?” Dr. Blake pressed. 

“You might as well, because I refuse to-”

“Don’t!” Tubbo interjected. If Rosalind left, there’d be no one to help Tommy or Tubbo. No one would care then. Leaving would absolve her of abetting, but not actually accomplish anything for the prisoners. Better to do evil for the sake of latter good than do nothing at all. “Rosalind,” Tubbo softly hummed. “Just do it. It’s fine. It’ll regrow. It’s better than the alternative.” 

“Won’t it hurt?”

“No,” Tubbo lied. They couldn’t stop the buzzed out ‘yes’ of thousands of wings. Well. It was ok. Nobody knew what it meant. “Just do what she says. It’s better that way.” Compliance had always been the safest option. 

“Are you sure…?” To her they were a stranger. The only thing she knew of them was their name and connection to Tommy. 

“We’re not gonna kill you. That’s just basic human decency,” Tubbo said. She blinked, hearing the echo of her own words in their buzzing voice. It wasn’t true. This wasn’t normal by any stretch, Tubbo wasn’t human enough, and it went far beyond any general courtesy. But really, what could their promised pain be compared to death? Really, there wasn’t a choice at all. No matter who had stood in the sacrificial role, their answer would’ve been the same. “Besides. It’s our choice, isn’t it?” Hesitantly, she did as instructed, placing cautious hands on Tubbos’ shoulders. Dr. Blake took her pen and demarcated a dark wine colored surgery line, just at the wrist. Dr. Blake gripped their hand, pinning it down on the honey-stained table. The surface was rough, composed of bumpy plastic. Parts were smoothed over by crystallized honey from the last time. Above was the firm, cool hand of Dr. Blake, compressing Tubbos’ hand onto the cheap table top. Tubbo couldn’t imagine all that tactile sense being torn away, the ghost of a hand. But it was the only option. 

As one, all of Tubbo in the room closed their eyes. Tubbo didn’t want to watch. Instead, they limited their view to that of Tommy. Just him. Only him. Pretend that’s all you are. Forget the hundreds of thousands, you’re just those handful of bees. In a room far from here, resting, watching over your friend. Think about him. Something is wrong, and this is how you fix it. You're just sitting by him, concerned. He hasn’t moved at all. Shoulders tense and large, expanding across your vision. Golden hair that spills over on his arms. Face hidden away. For once, you can dance over his hands, fluttering from knuckles to nails and back again. They’re large hands, with short fingers and broad, flat nails that are a tad too long. Soil gathers under the edges from Clementine’s burial. Breathing stutters, chest quivers, shaking the view of your friend. That’s the only problem you have. Ignore any other part aside from those with Tommy. You don’t feel warm human hands gripping your shoulders. You don’t feel the teeth of the saw setting on your wrist. You don’t feel fear, why would you? You’re just with Tommy. 

The escapism failed with the first cut. The teeth of the bone saw dragged roughly across their skin. Tubbo screamed, a sound composed of every aspect of them in tandem. It was discordant. It was raucous. It was the sound of agony in its purest form. 

The second pass split through the wrist, exposing its hollow nature. Insects absconded, flying out of the slit and racing to the other side of the room. All of Tubbo tried to flee, escape, anything to get away from the pain, but Rosalind kept their body still, holding Tubbo up to the table. She whispered apologies, but Tubbo couldn’t understand. They tried to wrench their hand from the doctor, but she held it firm. 

M̶̧̜͖͍̅ų̵̫̜̼̓͐̍̈́̇f̸̛̞͑̚f̵̨̛̺̻̋͗͜͝i̶̦̎͋͌͐̀n̶̢̰͍͗. ṁ̶̨͔̖͙̊u̷̪̪̻̮̓̍̂͑͜f̶̲̟͈̉̀f̵͕͈̌̓͐̐͝ĭ̷̭̻͉̃̾͆̋n̴͇̰̉̔̈́͛ m̸̢̖͈̘̞͍͇͊͌͆̓ų̶̨̛̛͉̦̬̳̓̇̍̽̿̒f̵̣̜̻̰̣̀̆͆f̵̢̢̱͕̃͒̉͝i̶͉̺̣̳͂́̓̿̆͌͌̉ň̶̛͔̪̄̽̋̕ͅ m̵͈̤̤̺͗̃̐̏̽̏̿͝ͅư̸̡̫̻̺̮̭̫̬̦͉̪̼̱͙͇̣͒̒́́̋͝f̷̫̘̻͛͐̿́̔̏́̇͝f̸͇̗̥̎̿̐̾͋̓̇̈́̌̚͠͝í̶̺̭͈͕̫͍̣̙͕͉͇̻̱̦͍̇̀́̍n̶̻̗̘͕̠̠͍̯͔͇͇̩̠̠̥̈́̿̑̎̀͋͗  m̴̢̢͉͉̼̬͉̠͚̫̦͖̱̻̟̘̦͈̫̺̮͖̻̩̱͈̖̀̅̾̂̓͐̏͛͋͜͜u̷͇̥̖͈͉̙͙̦̤̘͈͊̀͒̾͆̎̐͊͑̕͠f̴̢̧̧͇̥̹͍̝̙͔̰̟͚̯̖͇̮͍̣̩̪͈̾͛̿̓̽̈́̀̕͜ͅf̷̢̡̡̠͉̟̗̝̥̫̺̝͕͖̩̫̞̥̙͙̠̖̣̘̬̭̤̱͌̀̓̃͂̐͆̇̅̋̿͐͑͜͠͝i̶̧̧̲̰̜̯̥̲͔̟̖̜̞̲̤̗͎̤͈͈͓͚̲͓̝̹̺̲̐̉͛̄̂̄̕ͅņ̴̡̧̢̣̣̞͎͔̖͎̰̦͕̗͚͇̳̳͈͓̗͔̯̹̣̲͔̭̀͋̔ͅ .̵̶̧̛͙̣̦͎͕̖̼̥͈͍͙̫̯̹̻̗̻̲̙̰͉̺͎͍͖̣̰̹̦̹͓̟̖͇̂̈́͋͛͐̿͗͗̉̂̈̀͛͠͠ͅ ̴̩̩̲̲̲͈̹͍͈͓̆̏͊͒͑̂́͘͜͝͝ ̵̫̭̳̘͉̬͎̠̼͎̹͉̤̙̰͔̣̘̣̲͙͍̯̫̮̃̈́̈͌̍̔͋͒́͐́͘̕̕͠m̵̡̡̛̦̬̼͇̙̰̘̩̣̳̅̽͒̇́̂̃̎͋͒͌̇͛̀̀̎̓͑͘̚ͅú̷̧̧̧̧͉̟͍̲̻̝͈̺̯͚̻̣͇͍̱͕̞̯͒̔̌̇̂̈́ͅf̸̡̡͉̘͕̩̞̝̯̹̻̼̗̝͇̫̳̳̫̋͜ͅͅf̵͙̰͙̱͎͔̫̘͈͓̝͊̀͘i̵̡̡̬̭͉͉͎̘̺͈͓̯̩̱̖̰͊̒̍̐̐̇̌͛͆̍͗̈́͛͛̔͘͠n̵̨̢̡̩̤̻̜͖̰̟̩̪̹̹̰͚͐̅͗͐͆̌͆̃͑̒̈̈́̄ ̷̳̳̥̗̻͂̌ͅ ̷̡͖͓͈̩͎̀̅̉̄͜ ̷̧̙̺̰̰̮̠̬̱̫̥̬̻̥͙̹̟͖̫̰̑̒̔͋̑̓͆͒͐̅̓͑̽̈̐͂̂̍͂͗̈́̓̈́̿̓.̸̨̨̠̬̯̠̟̦̳͈͕̼͉̬̤͈͖̦̼̰͔̦̺̭͛̏́̈̃̏͌̀̍͗̆̄̒̈́͆̎̆̂̈́́͒͘͝͝͝

Chunks of insects dropped to the floor, overtaken by pain to the point of blacking out. It wasn’t a true escape. Awareness spread across thousands of entities meant unconsciousness couldn’t offer true release. They tried to separate from the hurt. Cut away chunks of consciousness until all that was left was the Tubbo in Tommy’s room. The Tubbo with Tommy was uninjured. Safe. They got juice and affection and didn’t know hunger or pain. Pretend that’s all you are. Droplets instead of an ocean. 

But it didn’t work. Agony pulled Tubbo away from their illusion of peace, clawed hands that dug into flesh and refused escape. It b u r n e d. 

Tubbo was screaming and it meant nothing, the very room itself screeching with their agony. It was a cacophonous sound, grating, as every single part of them screamed the pain of the whole. The blade sawed back and forth and back and forth, each swipe eating further through their wrist in uneven edges, slicing through honeycomb flesh. Dozens of bees were caught in it, sliced through by the bone saw. The deaths chipped at the Hive. Time dragged on, years compressed in a single minute, until all of eternity was encompassed in a single second of unbearable agony. Somewhere in their collective, a young girl was weeping. She wasn’t the only one. Golden tears filled their body’s eyes, spilling over and joining the pools of honey forming on the ground. 

One final cut disconnected the hand, scoring a line on the table top. Tubbo couldn’t feel their hand. Tubbo couldn’t feel their hand. Sensation ended at the wrist. Void consumed what should have been feeling. Pain sparked from the ending, honey and insects spilling out across the table. Dr. Blake set aside the bone saw, teeth coated in honey interspersed with parts of legs and wings. She picked up her pen, writing.

Tubbo slunk to the floor, curled into a fetal position, cradling the stump of their arm. Warm, sticky honey gushed out, and Tubbo tried to block it with their right -only- hand. It slipped between fingers, filling their lap, spilling out onto the white floor. Tubbo pressed into a ball, world dissolved into hissing, static nothing and agony. For a time, that was all Tubbo could do as they split into pieces, souls tearing apart from one another, each aspect unable to do anything except scream. A warm human hand pressed on their back. A soft female voice speaking words that didn’t have meaning. A sharper voice. Arguing. Yelling. Tubbo tucked further into themselves, not wanting the world to exist at all. Ripping fabric. Hands grasped at them, pulling Tubbo apart. They resisted feebly. Something was shoved into the stump of their arm. 

“That should stop the...bleeding,” Rosalind murmured. The edge of her lab coat was torn off from the section with the viridian rip. It now filled the absence in Tubbos’ biology. The fabric did seem to be absorbing some of the pouring honey. Tubbo twitched. How was there cloth inside them? There was supposed to be a hand there, where did it go, why wasn’t-(where’s your hand, Tubbo? Why isn’t) (she can't do this to us! She can’t) (where is our hand!?) Hundreds of eyes found it, staring uncomprehendingly at Tubbos’ hand. It was laying on the table. Honey gushed from it, spilling over and pouring over the edge of the table like a waterfall. Dr. Blake picked the limb up and transferred it into the glass canister. No, she couldn’t do that, that was Tubbos’ hand, she couldn’t just take it, she couldn’t-

Dr. Blake glanced at the cloth filled stump of their hand. She looked at Rosalind in disapproval. “Really now. You’re lucky germs aren’t an issue for it.” Dr. Blake snatched Tubbos’ wrist, pulling it back up to the table. The Pollinator struggled, yanking it away from her, tucking it back inside their lap as if that could keep it safe. “Fine. If you prefer a dirty cloth instead of the medical bandages I brought, I’ve no qualms.”

“Cristo- You…you brought the canister for the hand. You’d already planned for it to happen,” Rosalind realized. 

“I suspected I knew what its decision would be. Still, the choice matters little aside from the order.” She turned to the insectoid, retrieving two pills from a bottle. Tubbo didn’t hesitate, unlike last time. They dissolved in a swarm, resources added to the Hive. The effect wouldn’t take effect for a while. Gratitude tried to fill them, but Tubbo curbed the instinct. Dr. Blake didn’t deserve it. “Excellent! I can't wait to see the defensive ability play out in the coming weeks. Now, test two. Kill her. I’m curious to see how your offensive capabilities.” Pain and fear tangled into each other. Really, they weren’t so different in effect, tearing through their mind, distilling reason until all that was left was raw panic. The room blurred in color as input became too much. The only real thing in the world was terror, anything else was just distraction from the true nature of existence. 

“What-no—-you ssszz—zaid-We chossse the ha—-nd, we-that wazn’t-” Rosalind was supposed to get out, supposed to go help Tommy. Save Rosalind, save Tommy, save every one of you. That was the plan. The sharp image of their friend’s corpse pressed across their consciousness. They couldn’t do that to her. They couldn’t do that to anyone.

“If you’ll remember, the parameters of the test was, and I quote, 'see which experiment you prefer,' unquote. We were testing behavioral preference. At no point was there an actual option given. Now, kill her. Any method at all, we can narrow down technique later.”

“No!” Tubbo refused to become a murderer. Vile repulsion rose its ugly head, a snake writhing inside the pit of their stomach. It slithered up Tubbos’ throat, and they gagged. 

“Oh, come now. We only found you because of that missing person report, Rhodes Bannister was it? His grandson made it clear you were behind it. Only difference now is you have an audience.”

“Rhodes isszn’t dead,” Tubbo gritted out, seething. Tubbo had saved Rhodes. They might’ve told Dr. Blake as such, but that seemed a lovely way to make everything ten times worse. They’d dealt with accusations before. 

Dr. Blake frowned disappointedly. “No? Pity. That would’ve made it easier. I loath having to coax out the first kill, it’s always so tedious. Fine. I suppose he might not be dead, but I can’t say the same for you, given time. Don’t you want food? That was part of the altered deal.”

“You ssszzaid that wazz a hypothe—tical!” 

“Ah, catching on, are we?” Dr. Blake sounded almost pleased, and it made them feel sick. “Here, I’ll make it official. Trade her life for a resumed nourishment schedule.”

Tubbo glared up at her, clutching at their missing arm. Famine grew, piercing their insides with sharp tendrils. Their vision dissolved, but Tubbo still glared up at her, seething, words dispersed through the room. “No. We— will not—harm her.” 

“Fine. I’ll wait. I’m not impatient. Change your mind whenever you like; I’ll uphold my promise.” 

Chapter Text

“You said it wouldn’t hurt!”

“W-well. Compa...compar...next to dying it wazzn’t zo bad.”

——

“I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve-I could’ve done something. At the very least not assist.”

“You woul—d’ve been fired. Or. Or well that’sssz what we thought at the...time. When we thought there was a choicccczzze.”

“Good! Then I should’ve been fired! Not help you be tortured!”

“And that would’ve zztopped it? If you leave-well. If you left that woul-d’nt have acczzzom-ackkomp- done anything. If all the good people leave, what do you th-ink will happen?”

“...oh.”

——

“We need a plan.” The sacrifice had been pacing awhile. Tubbo lay on their back, staring at the ceiling and clutching their wrist. The pair had washed the injury, using an entire watering can in the process. Amber water pooled on the padded ground between the raised rows of crops. It soaked in, staining the floor. Then, they redid the makeshift bandaging. The rolled up fabric fit better, shoved into the socket at about Tubbos’ mid arm. Already, it was discolored. It felt strange. Stiff cloth pressing from the inside of their limb. The fabric overflowed from out of the arm and doubled back, held in place by Rosalind’s elastic hair tie. It made Tubbo feel worse whenever they looked at it. They could pretend the hand was still there as long as they didn’t look. 

So Tubbo didn’t, preferring to watch Rosalind instead. Her unbound hair flew out as she sharply turned back, beginning another countless path between long, raised rows. She was wasting her energy, but Tubbo couldn’t blame her for restlessness. Honey bees gathered on Rosalind, intertwined with her lengthy chestnut hair, capping her shoulders like a fine dust of snow over mountains. “We could ambush the door whenever they come to feed us,” she announced. 

“That w-won’t work,” Tubbo explained.

“I can fight, we could do it.”

“I juzt don’t think they’re going to. Feed us, that is. Don’t sssee why they’d start.” They felt tired, knowing the days to come. 

“They have to eventually, it’s the obvious weakness in the schedule. We can exploit it.”

“Oh, they do—on’t have to do anything,” Tubbo scowled. They didn’t like how their own voice refused to work. They didn’t feel scared anymore, a little anxious definitely, but for the most part it was vitriolic bitterness that swirled in their chest. The fact the words wouldn’t come out right felt like their own bodies were undermining them. “Dr. Blake wouldn’t give a reward for disobey-ing her, that’s counter intuitive.”

“What? I didn’t say a reward. Take advantage of the routine basic necessities. The monotonous things are probably easier for surprises since they’re so repetitive.”

“Nahhhh.” Tubbo droned. “That’s her plan. Starve us out.” Wasn't a new tactic, just repurposed. Really, she could have been much more creative. Given enough time to scheme, likely she would be. Time was most certainly not on their side.

“What!? That’s barbaric! That’s inhumane!”

Tubbo conceded with an inclination of their head. “Well. Now that you’re involved, probably.” They had thought Dr. Blake had justified her actions due to Tubbos’ lack of humanity (legally it was the only reason Tubbo could think of), but since she was doing this to Rosalind as well it probably meant she’d never had any inhibitions to begin with. Tubbo had seen the law fail many times before, and didn't doubt she could get away with it if she had enough resources, secrecy, and protection. An old injustice, bitter, but familiar.

“Cristo," Rosalind whispered under her breath, horrified. "Only now? Tubbo, when was the last time you ate?”

“Oh-well they haven’t fed us for-” Tubbo had to think that one through. That was concerning. Already, time was starting to blur together. Days indistinguishable from each other. “A week maybe? But-but we got a way around it! Tommy shares his food with us. So don’t worry. It won’t be as bad as you think.”

“How? How do you even know him? He’s been here far longer than you, according to the files.”

Tubbo grinned slightly. “We slipped into the vents and found him. Only managed to get a single bee through, since they kept gassing us, but we only needed one. Your papers allowed us to communicate, the clipboard got the vent open. So now, during night periods, he gives half his food.” The slip of a smile dropped. “Except now he’s not responding.”

“What happened? You seemed adamant I check on him.” That had been the plan. Tubbo had thought, once Rosalind knew, everything would get much better. She could sneak in resources, serve as communication, maybe help them escape, even. But things had gone wrong. Then, things had gone very wrong. 

Tubbo frowned. Tommy was still in the same place, hunched into himself. Unmoving stone. Despondent. “We don’t know. His Red disappeared. He’s not doing anything. Hasn’t moved in hours. We were hoping you could get to his cell and figure it out but…”

“Don’t worry, I will. We’ll get out of here. I don’t know what all this place is up to, but it certainly can’t be doing good if it’s torturing people.” Her voice dropped, self disgust inflicting her words. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before, there were so many signs. But...I know now, and I won’t stand by it. We’ll break out here, figure out how to stop them.” There was a sort of passion to her. Some drive to make the world better. As far as Tubbo could tell, the world could use all the help it could get. 

But Tommy’s voice echoed in Tubbos’ memories. Tubbo, listen to me. Escape is impossible and only makes things worse. Tubbo couldn’t see how it could get much worse. 

——

Time passed, or maybe it didn’t. Tubbo wasn’t good at keeping track anymore. There was no way to check, but Tubbo thought there was a good possibility that they were spacing out. It was fine either way, since there wasn’t anything external to pay attention to. Nothing internal, either. It was like they just stopped thinking at all. It was odd. Not bad, per say. But definitely strange. Another peculiar thing was that they didn’t feel hungry. At first Tubbo wasn’t sure, since it had been so long, but it was true. Something like a day had passed and they hadn’t had any episodes of intense, debilitating gluttony. The ceiling was swirling. Grew abstract. Surreal. It swam in and out of vision. Reality was fuzzy. It wasn’t all that bad, Tubbo decided. A thick fog undulated, wrapping around their thoughts. 

And then the mist broke, fleeing from bright, piercing beams of light. Focus was suddenly thrust upon Tubbo. Pain erupted from their hand, Tubbo made to launch up from the floor, but their strength crumpled. Their head slammed back onto the plush ground. They curled to the side. Agony exploded from their hand, Tubbo went to clutch it, to see what happened. Their fingers slipped through the air. Nothing. There was nothing and it was torture. Tubbo pressed their cloth wrapped wrist to their chest. They could imagine the exact motion needed to twist fingers into the hospital gown, could almost feel the action of it. A ripple of effort that went nowhere, led to nothing. 

They didn’t understand how nothing could hurt so intensely, and yet it did. Phantom pain traced up their arm, striking precise daggers through nerves that didn’t exist. Tubbo curled into themselves. Think about Tommy. No good. They could see Tommy. He was still drained and unresponsive, face buried. Think about the oldest tree. The home Tubbo would never see again. Ripped away to the Foundation, tortured for no fault of their own. Tubbo hadn’t been bothering anyone, wasn’t a nuisance. Tubbo couldn’t understand what they'd ever done to deserve it. 

Ice traced the shape of their lack of hand. A torpidity that was encompassing. Not numb; non-existent. The chill of void, searing shards of ice beyond comprehension, the failure of warmth and life to even consider themselves concepts. Memories failed Tubbo. Combine them. Force escape. 

Tommy sat among the tree branches of Tubbos’ dwelling, swaying in a gentle wind. Sunlight filtered through summer leaves and dappled his heat-starved skin. It would darken a bit, right? So picture it less pale. Rosy. Details. What are you doing, you have to be doing something. Harvest. You must have been working in Rhodes’s orchard again. Your (Rhodes’s) memories whisper, learning from a parent (his-your mum) the signs of ripeness. There. Tommy bit into a pear. Juice trailed down his square jaw, dripping onto his hands. It was warm. Tubbo could have one too, and it was delicious. They couldn’t remember what pears tasted like. They couldn’t remember what anything tasted like, they couldn’t remember, why couldn’t they remember, why did everything hurt, why did-

That was ok. Maybe Tubbo wasn’t hungry. Tommy finished his fruit, licking the juice from his fingers. Wait. They were supposed to be sanguine. Colorless meant something was wrong. Tubbo didn’t know what, but something must be horribly wrong if they weren’t-Of course they were Red. See? It left crimson smears around his mouth. Everything is fine. Tubbo dipped in and out between branches, flying familiar routes. Tommy leapt from branch to branch. Wait, he wouldn’t know the paths like Tubbo did. Jumps were uncertain. The memories overplayed with an old friend from years ago. She-no, Tommy slipped occasionally, eyes dancing as he tried to keep up. His cries of elation turned to shock and fear as he missed a branch and fell. But it was ok. Tubbo was there to catch him. The kiddo gripped onto their left wrist, hanging on. Far below the dangling Tommy lay the roots of the tree, dirt kissed by gentle shade, grasses long and interspersed with flowers. The climbing roses were sharp, the ground far. Surely he’d break his back if he were to fall. But it was ok. Tubbo had him, it was fine, it was-

His carmine grip sunk into Tubbos’ wrist. Bees flew up, rushing from the arm in furious floods. The rose fingers melted through Tubbo, Tommy’s hand squeezing until his hands were in a tight fist, snapping through hollow honeycomb structures. Tommy and Tubbos’ hand fell to the earth together. Neither hit the ground because they stopped existing. Tubbo stared at the stump of their wrist in horror. It was tinged in Red acid, eaten in the echo of Tommy. And then it wasn’t, organic cut giving away to surgical precision, fantasy melting into horror, reality dashing dreams.

Escape failed yet again. Tubbo waited for it to pass. It’s just like hunger, they reassured themselves. Pain is temporary. Just hold on, it’ll get better. It has to. 

——

Rosalind had stopped pacing a few hours in. Maybe hours. Tubbo didn’t know. Rosalind had stopped pacing after a while, they corrected mentally. She’d taken to staring at the door. “Preparing an ambush,” she’d declared. After a while, she sat down. “It’ll only take a few seconds to stand,” she’d reasoned. 

And then she’d just hunched in herself, arms across her stomach. Growling sounds emanated from her. She hadn’t needed to explain that one. It was just cruel, really, that by the time Tubbo had stopped feeling hunger that Rosalind had begun to feel the pangs of starvation. Like it had merely transferred instead of dying. The clawing gluttony had disappeared completely for the bees, replaced by waxing and waning phantom pain. Similar, but by then Tubbo was a lot better dealing with it. Tubbo wasn’t sure where the hunger went, and the fact concerned them. Like seeing a spider, turning around, and finding it missing. It had to be somewhere, large piercing arthropod legs waiting to stab them through, patient. But Tubbo didn’t know where it was. They felt grateful, sure, but anxious for when it would return. 

For now though, it seemed satiated by attacking Rosalind. There wasn’t anything Tubbo could do for her, not on their own anyway. Distantly, the lights in Tommy’s room cut off. Relief filled Tubbo. “It’s Tommy’s night now. He should be bringing food,” they reassured Rosalind. Tubbo flew up to both vents, buzzing softly to guide their friend to the screws. They waited a bit. Tubbo couldn’t hear any movement. They shot an apologetic grin at Rosalind. “He’s, uh, dragging his feet a bit but should be here in no time!”

The room was pitch black. Tubbo flew around cautiously, until a honey bee bumped into a mass that was presumably Tommy. Tubbo settled all parts of the Hive in the room, crawling around and asserting the shape of Tommy through small pinpoints of information. Tactile data confirmed that the teen was in the exact same position. That was worrying, not merely for the state of Tommy, but for Rosalind and Tubbos’ outlook as well. 

Tommy’s night dragged on. Tubbo kept offering reassurances to Rosalind, halfway between reason, excuse, and hope. They faded in frequency and conviction as the dark dragged on. In the shadows, they could hear a faint hissing noise similar to when they were being gassed. But the honey bees with Tommy didn’t seem to get drowsy. They did grow distant though, faint echoes of fear slipping into the main Hive. It reminded Tubbo of when Tommy had touched them, not the part where their flesh broke apart as the bees inside burst free, the part immediately after, right before they’d started to kill themselves. The Red-tainted parts of Tubbo had been distant, less controllable. Almost like individuals, but that was a silly notion. Anger at the edge of their awareness, right until the shock of death drowned it out as they stung or were stung. The experience of death stabbing the whole of them. Whatever the Foundation was pumping into the kiddo’s room had a similar effect, except this time it was unreasonable fear creeping in the periphery of Tubbos’ minds, not hatred. Likely not a good thing in the slightest. 

Tubbo hadn’t realized Tommy was asleep until the nightmare started. Tubbo jerked back, familiar enough to know the danger of such an occurrence. Tubbo hovered, before carefully setting down various insects far from the range of their sleep-terror gripped friend. It sounded bad. Tommy kept desperately screaming for Phil. It tore at Tubbo to be unable to do anything. It lasted for ages, dragging on and on, the nightmare refusing to release the boy. 

But then it did. Tubbo was familiar with the sharp gasp of Tommy startling awake. Usually, once his thoughts were gathered, Tommy would talk to Tubbo. Not about the nightmare; Tubbo was never privy to those. But Tommy would find a distraction, a joke to deal with it. Except Tommy didn’t. Said nothing. It was unprecedented that Tommy had gone so long without saying anything. He was starved of conversation, always had something to tell Tubbo. But all day he’d been silent. Tubbo hadn’t realized the absence had been so glaring until the only break in it was Tommy’s screams. And then the quiet remained, eating the echoes of cries for help. Tommy didn’t go back to sleep, wouldn’t for days, not that Tubbo knew it then.

Lethargic miasma swirled in Tubbos’ thoughts. Just be patient. Just wait. Time dilated and diminished, or maybe it didn’t. 

The lights flicked back on, far sooner than they should have. He was in the same position, arms wrapped around himself. Tommy had failed to get to them. That…ok, not great, but it couldn’t be too bad. He’d missed one night, he couldn’t have known how extra urgent it was. It was ok, he’d come the next night. “He-he doesn’t normally do this, usually he would have come. We’re sorry Rosalind, but don’t worry he’ll come the next night, alright? You won’t have to—it won’t be that bad.”

Tubbo knew from experience that the first day was fairly awful. But she offered a shaky smile anyway. “That’s fine. I trust you.” It didn’t make sense that she did. They hadn’t even known each other for a day from her perspective. But people always grasped onto any hope they could, any belief that meant they might survive. A trust born of need, not proof. 

——

Their own dark period came and went. For once, Tubbo had managed to get some rest. At no point did all consuming hunger claw at their insides, scraping out a beast made of esurience and want. A monster composed of nothing.

Well, there was a different creature made of absence. Twice, Tubbo awoke sharply to the same throbbing agony that originated from nowhere. It was like they could feel every single nerve in their hand scream at once. It didn’t make sense to the fog-filled thoughts of Tubbo. Bleary fatigue gripped their mind, searing pain gripped their arm. But eventually it released, or lessened at least. To describe it as a dull pain would do it a disservice, but it certainly wasn’t as active about it. The pain meds had worn off long ago. Then, Tubbo would drift back off to sleep. Tubbo had gotten good at that. Technically, Tubbo was always partially awake, but they found it best to have at least most of them asleep at the same time. Less pain that way.

Rosalind hadn’t gotten much rest. She was curled in a way that was achingly similar to Tommy. Arms not thrown around knees, instead her abdomen, but her face was buried all the same. Her loose hair billowed around her in warm tangled cascades.

“Don’t worry, the second day is the hardest,” Tubbo murmured. She didn’t look up

——

Her thoughts were clouded, lay in shambles at her feet. Every time she tried to pick one up and examine it, the trail would crumble in her hands, slipping between her fingers. This hadn’t been the plan, nothing even close to it. She’d wanted so desperately to help but it had just been a trap. Rosalind was paralyzed, unsure what to do, unable to even move.

She felt like she was floating. She felt like she was dying. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. It didn’t solve anything. Her breathing was steady. She thought that maybe all of her was air, untethered completely. But no, she had to have a form, otherwise why would it hurt so much? It was all distant save for the sharp pain to ground her. Rosalind needed to touch back onto Earth.

What do you see?

The baren white ground, specks of dirt scattered across it. A row of plants with broad leaves and pale veins. A hand, honey trailing from its split, dark and hollow on the inside, crushed and sliced insects spilled around it. Tiny little bees drifting around the room. No way out. 

She’d barely been able to get any rest at all. It was sort of like it though. Like almost falling asleep. A trance of bleary, thoughtless, nothing. Except everything hurt. Some long, terrible snake curled around her, constricting her insides. How had Tubbo lasted so long? Rosalind didn’t think she’d be able to withstand another hour, let alone days. 

“It goes away after a while,” Tubbo promised. “You know, it’s kinda funny, but we don’t feel it at all anymore.” 

“Shouldn’t you be worried about that?” She ran her fingers through her hair in a nervous tic. It pulled at her scalp too much sometimes, but even that was better. Scratching at an itch helped even if it was only because it brought a different kind of pain. 

“...probably.”

Hot embers sat in the pit of her stomach. A fire built, an inferno contained for now. She thought it might burst through her somehow, release on the world and turn everything to ash. It wasn’t that she tuned out—more that she occasionally tuned in to the world. Awareness shoved upon her suddenly, the gravity of the situation.

I’m going to die like this if I don’t do anything. 

If only action didn’t seem so impossible to grasp. 

——

“Was there anything for you outside?” she inquired of the insectoid, looking for a distraction. They’d taken to distractions like deer running to the underbrush. Hiding away from danger if only for a little while, even as fire ate through the grasses and stole away their meager cover. That’s what Tubbo had been doing with Tommy anyway, and Rosalind quickly caught onto the value of conversation however meaningless. Distractions were the only thing they had left.

Rosalind had to reiterate the question. Tubbo blinked, emerging from a daze. “Our home.” Warmth dripped from the words as they floated through the room. 

“Describe it for me.”

“Imagine the biggest tree you know. Its branches reach all the way into the air like a big crown, and some reach down to the ground because it’s too heavy. Its shade stretches far. And right in the middle is our hive. Home.” Tubbo’s visage was crossed by a dreamy smile, echoing Rhodes. They could see in their memories the tangle of branches, stark against the bright cloudless sky. Rippling waves of smaller hives dotted the tree, drawing in density the closer to the center of the tree they were. At the very middle was the main hive, a sprawling platform for their body. At the heart lay a nest built out of leaves and woven grass and the blankets and pillows Rhodes had offered them. The perfect tree house, if house is what it could be called. A stretch of honey comb and leaves created a canopy, shelter whenever rain came. All of Tubbo would gather home then, soaking in the humid air and lazily planning out the next day’s adventures. Their own haven.

“In the wild, then?”

“Yes. Not too far, though. Rhodes lived maybe a few kilometers away, and his orchards were even closer. We’d help him pick the tallest harvest, since his back wasn’t too great.” The various fruit trees would spill over with delicious white and pink blossoms, and then even tastier produce. Tubbo gestured excitedly to encompass the orchards, display the fullness of the leaves since words failed to describe the beauty, then winced. The motion was clipped from the missing limb. Tubbo returned the arms disappointedly to the ground. It stung as it was remembered.

“Rhodes?”

“Our…dunno. He raised us, along with Martha, though she’s been dead a few years now. He found us when we were little, lured us in with treats and kindness. There wasn’t a whole lot of either for us at the time, it worked really well. Never got us to live in his house though, as much as he tried. The fields were too beautiful. All the wildflowers would pepper the tall grass. Poppies and dandelions and daisies...and buttercups and…” Their voice dripped. Slurred. Tubbo knew all the names of the flowers thanks to Rhodes, but didn’t use the scientific name because they weren’t an ostentatious old nerd. Rhodes peeled out from Tubbo a bit, grumbling at the jab. He stitched back in, and the memory continued. Clusters of star shaped anemone and puffed orchids and spiky cornflowers danced in their collective memories. Picking them with old, calloused hands and soft honey ones alike. They’d made long chains of flower crowns for Rhodes’s grandchildren. Being taught and teaching and learning rolled in an ouroboros pedagogical cycle. Memories overlapped, repeating twice with shared experience. “...all so pretty. We-” Tubbo was cut off by a cough, or the replication of one. “-miss the colors…”

The walls were monotonous and white. It swam in and out of view, looping and bland. The pentagonal potato petals had curled and died, giving way to small berries. Tubbo knew they were toxic thanks to Rhodes, not that they would have eaten them anyways. The leaves blurred together. The air was thick and smelled burnt, nothing like the open, infinite sky and gentle breeze. Tubbo missed their home so much it hurt, like a physical pain thrust inside their hollow chest. “I bet that was beautiful,” Rosalind said softly.

“...It is. Or...was.” Tubbo droned. Their eyelids were heavy. 

“It’s still there, Tubbo. We can get you back.” 

“...we think...we’d li...ke…tha...” Dissolved into billowing fog, an inky cloud swallowing the last image of their home, indistinguishable from the rest of the terrifying night. The world collapsed into colors, piercing white and swirls from vantage points that could see anything else. Around the room, honey bees spiraled down to the ground. Tubbos’ head rolled to the side. 

“Tubbo? What’s happening?” Rosalind’s voice called out, but it was clouded and distant. 

“...Awww ḿ̶̰̖̌̀͑̕u̶̮̦̝̪̐͘͜f̴͔̖̥̈́̿͂f̴̯̟͖͒̑i̶̧̻̒̓ͅṉ̶̀̓͗̐̀…not again…” Tubbo managed. They could hear Rosalind shouting, concern etched in her voice, but it was so small now. Unimportant. Tubbo relaxed, letting unconsciousness take almost all of them. 

——

Rosalind surged to her feet. The world was overtaken by nothing as large inkblots spilled over her vision. She tumbled to the ground, catching her fall with her hands. A sharp stab of pain raced up her wrists, but it was the temporary sort. She waited for the darkness to fade from her eyes, then got up again more cautiously.

The room was silent. Terrifyingly so. She hadn’t realized the extent of the atmospheric buzzing until it was absent entirely. All she could hear was her own movement, the gurgle of acid in her guts, and the pound of her heart. A faint hissing sound whispered at the edge of her hearing range, conjuring images of curling, venomous vipers in her mind. A section of the wall was previously covered entirely by bees, forming a writhing mass of opaque insects, but it fell away, revealing the observation window. Thousands of bees flooded down in a torrent, pouring over the ground and table. The air was empty. Not a single aspect of Tubbo moved at all. Artificial light filtered from overhead, and in the beams it cast she could see particles dance in the air, clouding the room. The world tasted bitter. She pulled the collar of her lab coat up, breathing through the fabric instead. Something was wrong with the air. 

It got worse as time went on. The air was thick and dark, the lights above coming through in uneven stripes. She choked on the vile air, coughing. Tears gathered in her eyes. Rosalind dropped to the floor. There was less of it near the ground. Above her, thick fog rolled along the ceiling. The poison crawled down her throat. Rosalind wheezed. 

Suddenly, the door lazily opened. She staggered to her feet, battling to keep her vision between the dark mist and the void in her eyes. A bored looking worker in the exact same uniform as herself froze as they saw her, before rushing back out of the room. Rosalind stumbled towards the door, and almost made it before someone else came through. 

A glimpse of a tall man with bright, toxic green eyes was all she could see before he was upon her. He wrenched her hands away from her makeshift mask. Rosalind struggled, pulling back, but she was weak from the starvation and vapor. A different cloth replaced the fabric of her lab coat. It was sickeningly sweet and damp. She jerked away from it. A strong hand threaded itself through the unbound hair on the back of her head, yanking her into place and pressing her into the cloth. The scent overpowered everything, driving out sour air and replacing it with terrifying sweet. Rosalind wrestled with the man, movements slowly weakening over the minutes. Fog pressed at the spaces between her thoughts, cushioning her joints and putting cotton in her ears. She crumpled as the world died.

——

Nausea overwhelmed her. She bent over, but found she could only dry heave. Bile coated the inside of her mouth, and she spat it out into the floor. The acid burned on its way out. Her insides convulsed, contracting as she tried to vomit and had nothing to lose. The shudders calmed after a while, and she wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. She tried to calm herself with breathing exercises. The air tasted bitter. She tried to ground herself. There was nothing to see. She was surrounded in darkness. Rosalind reached out, scared somehow that the world would be gone. Her fingers quickly met a wall. It felt like concrete. Crosses hatched it in what was likely a brick pattern. Definitely not one of the containee’s rooms, then. Prisoners. That’s the right word. 

Patting the ground revealed a smooth cool flooring that she couldn’t easily discern the composition of. She felt something, a small lump. It was soft and fuzzy and-and, oh, it was a bee. That had to mean Tubbo was around somewhere. She wasn’t alone. That was relieving. Carefully, Rosalind felt around. The concentration of bees became higher to her left, and she followed them, cautious to gently slide any honey bees out of her path so as to not harm Tubbo. 

“Tubbo?” There wasn’t a response. She came upon the larger mass of their body. Rosalind tapped Tubbo on the shoulder, but they didn’t stir. She repeated their name, growing louder and louder, but they didn’t respond. A heart beat. She needed to find a pulse. It would be difficult in the dark. She traced down an arm, but found nothing. A lack of pulse from a lack of hand. Fabric sealed the missing limb. Guilt rose its ugly head at the price of her survival but she killed it. No time. Go to the other wrist. Rosalind shifted, pulling the hand to her. She pressed her fingers to where she thought the veins were. Nothing. Try again. With inexperience and the dark, she probably got it wrong. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Rosalind clasped her entire hand around their wrist. She could almost encircle it completely. Nothing. 

Her blood turned to ice. Plan. She needed a plan. She didn’t know enough to do anything. Gather better information, then. Tubbo couldn’t be dead, it didn’t make sense. It’s fine, she probably just missed it. She trailed back up the arm, landing on Tubbos’ chest. Was there a heartbeat? Hand splayed out, pressed flat on the sternum. Nothing. The chest gave slightly, squishing. Where else? Panic slipped through her thoughts. Temples. There had to be something there, the pulse of life. She traced up to their face, fingers dusting over jaw and cheek bones and arching brow to the side of their temple. Just beyond the eyes, right? Nothing. Was there something at the neck? There had to be. There had to be something. There had to be, she didn’t know what she’d do, what if they were dea-

Nothing as well. Try it again, there has to be, try the neck again, the wrists, the heart-

There was no pulse anywhere. She held completely still until even her thoughts were motionless. Feel. Come on, there had to be something. There had to be the fluttering pulse of life. There had to be, she didn’t know what to do if there wasn’t. She couldn’t imagine herself locked in some dark, tiny room with thousands of corp-

Tubbo wasn’t even breathing. 

Fear mixed with revulsion mixed with horror and nausea and sorrow and the lingering effects of whatever the fog and rag had held all rose up, twisting her hollow insides, rising up until she had to turn away, wracked with dry heaves. Acid burned her insides, but she had nothing. She gagged on vile, vile nothing. The air itself was still toxic, trapped in a small enclosure with the fumes that had killed Tubbo. In the dark, she curled and wept. It wasn’t that she knew Tubbo particularly well. She didn’t know much at all, other than they were willing to sacrifice a limb for her. Only that Tubbo seemed to understand the Foundation in a way she fundamentally hadn’t. Rosalind had been so foolish to think they were actually good. Tommy had told her, but she hadn’t realized the truth even then, mistaking it for a teenager's melodramatic edginess. But the true nature had revealed itself, and she’d been left alone with only Tubbo. That had been some sort of relief because even if her entire world was being overthrown at least the insectoid knew what it was like. Together they’d had a sort of miserable camaraderie. 

And now that was gone. Rosalind wasn’t completely naive, she figured the Foundation would just sacrifice her some other way. There wasn’t an escape that way. 

There was a person lying dead around her because of her. Maybe guilt was why she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Maybe it was just for herself that she wept.

——

Light poured from a seam. A bar of blinding white. The painful glow peeled into a rectangle, sharply contrasting the depths of the room, spilling over and pushing back the shadows. Rosalind covered her eyes. They were puffy and itched, and the light stabbed into them. Illumination pooled around her and Tubbos’ corpses. Gas uncurled lazily, seeping into the other room, distilling. Footsteps padded across the floor. A second door swung open and shut. Everything was silent save for Rosalind’s shaking breathing. Her vision adjusted. She could see into the other room. It held the same raised boxes. Dirt was flung about the floor, green vegetation scattered in hap-hazardous heaps. Roots spiraled into the air. She didn’t care. Rosalind remained in the small room. It didn’t matter where she was trapped, really. 

Light spilled over Tubbos’ vacant features. They were sprawled over on their back. Bees spilled out from their mouth and other natural gaps. Honey oozed out, puddling in a few places and staining the sky blue hospital gown. Their eyes were closed, head tilted by gravity. Almost peaceful. They appeared to be steaming, whispers of vapor curling out from gaps in their being. Unearthly, completely and utterly. The silence was deafening. It whined almost, a ringing sound just at the edge of her hearing range that made her cringe. Her own pulse filled her ears, like distant footsteps or the ocean. But it was all in her own head.

Except it wasn’t. Slowly, the buzzing noise slipped into reality, cementing itself until she had to be sure it wasn’t just her own thoughts. Around her, bees began to twitch. 

Hope exploded, warm and filling, across her chest. No. No. She had to crush it. It didn’t make sense, Tubbo was dead. It had to be her imagination, it didn’t make sense, it- And then Tubbo was coughing. It wracked their body, convulsions shuddering their small frame. It wasn’t exactly coughing, not really, but she couldn’t put her finger on what made it different. Smoke poured out of their mouth. Tubbos’ eyes, when they opened, glittered dark obsidian. “That’sssz just the-” coughing. “The worst.” 

Rosalind spluttered. “But-But you’re dead!”

Tubbo blinked. “...we are?” They looked around. “Is thisss Heaven? ...no, it can’t be. There aren’t any flowerz. Awwwwww. It lookzz like our cell. M̵̩̳͊u̸̦̙̹͆f̵̞͝f̴̙̖̔͛ị̸̙̈́̕͜n̷͉̱̐͊́ñ̶̫̩n̴̻̊n̸̳̺̜̑̍́n̸̨̐͒. Alwayz knew we were going to Hell, we juzzt didn’t think it'd be thizt bad.” Their words were oddly slurred, just as they’d been right before they’d passed out. The voice grated at her ears. They paused a bit to cough. “Are you dead too? Man, that ssucks. Even worse, everything still hurts. We thought that would stop once all of us were dead.” Their voice was loopy, broken by yawns, slurred into a constant buzz. 

“No, Tubbo-stop. You were dead. You weren’t breathing, and it was horrifying, I didn’t know what to do, and-”

“Huh? No, of course we weren’t breathing.”

“You didn’t have a heartbeat, Tubbo!”

“Rosalind. We’re like...like a hundred thousand bees in a human-shaped honey trench coat. Why would we have a heart?”

“It’s impossible to live otherwise! You have to have one!”

“Well, we suppose in that sense we got thousands of hearts. In the bees? Probably organs and other stuff too. Like, do you know the exact composition of your body, other than what people have told you? No? We have no proof how you work either, aside from the fact you’re clearly not dead.”

Rosalind felt...a little silly for assuming the bee person worked like humans did. “I was still worried.” 

“About the sleeping gas? Don’t be. They do it every so often, whenever the farmer comes.” 

“They had to…chloroform me, or something. It made me drowsy, but other than that…”

Tubbo frowned. “It doesn’t work on you? Why wouldn’t…oh!” They explained suddenly, wings rattling with the epiphany. “Ohhhh we’re so dumb. It’s probably smoke. Huh. Well, at least you’re sorta immune. Might be useful. Unless you die from carbon monoxide poisoning or something.” Tubbo tried to stand and was unable. Instead, they flew awkwardly over to the larger room, feet dragging along the floor. Their shoulders slumped in relief. “We’re always worried about that. That we somehow messed up the plants.” 

The potatoes certainly were messed up, dug up and pared from the rest of the plant, the harvest taken and leaving only the ugly sections of roots, but that hadn’t been Tubbos’ doing. It was an odd concern, given everything else. Rosalind brushed it aside. “Who is this farmer person? Are they with the Foundation?” A third party could be useful.

“...probably not.”

“Could they help us then? We could work with them to escape?” 

“We don’t think that’s a good idea. The farmer is very dangerous.” Tubbo looked deeply uncomfortable and a little scared. 

“But are they dangerous to us?” She twisted her fingers through her unbound curls. 

Tubbo contemplated this. “...maybe? But they don’t have an opportunity to be.”

“Is there a way to contact them? You were able to communicate with Tommy.” 

“Can’t. The sleeping gas lasts for the entirety of their visit, and we don’t have paper. But...but they didn’t kill anyone when Tommy buried Clementine, so- wait!” Tubbos’ voice buzzed with excitement. “We could write a message in the dirt! They probably wouldn’t have seen it before because of all the leaves, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask!” She examined the rows. Small mounds at intermittent spots rose. She wasn’t sure what good it would do, but it was worth a shot. “Or...or actually it could very much hurt to try,” Tubbo mumbled, enthusiasm eaten away by doubt.

“Let’s do it!” No point in not seizing an opportunity. The insectoid’s visage cleared with her words.

“Rosalind,” Tubbo whispered, elated. “Do you know what this means? We might be saved! Between Tommy’s nutrition bars and the potatoes, we wouldn’t have to worry at all!”

Chapter Text

Another night passed, or at least for Tubbo and Rosalind, and Tommy failed to show. Tubbo was getting worried. The lights had never returned, and periodically the same hissing fear creeped in. Tubbo was left trying to feel what was going on, which was difficult when the parts of them with Tommy seemed almost disconnected from the Hive somehow. He’d moved a bit, but was listless. In fact, all three of them were gripped by terrifying lethargy. Rosalind was the best off, having periods of energy before hunger pains claimed her again. Things were probably even worse now that the potato flowers were gone and Tommy wasn’t showing up. Presumably worse. Tubbo still didn’t feel hungry. Just...empty. The memory of lifeblood soaked into the dark earth wouldn’t get out of Tubbos’ thoughts. They worried the farmer might get angry again, but if they could bury Clementine then surely the message would be fine, right? 

Starving. Eat please? 

They’d made sure it was short and small, and at the row furthest from the main entrance. Neither of them were sure what the Foundation would do if they discovered the words scrawled into the soil. Kill them faster? And what would the farmer think? At worse, ignore it, or deny them. Well, true nightmare scenario was the farmer broke into the cell somehow and slaughtered them. And even then...once again, just a quicker demise. Tubbo wasn’t sure when that had become a better option. When death had become certain and the only question was how soon. Tubbo had possessed ample time to stare the choice in the face. Starvation was a slow death, after all. Was that Tubbos’ preference, then? A quick and violent end to a slow one? None of them wished to die, but it was inevitable.

Tubbo wasn’t unfamiliar with death. They were dying constantly, after all. Everyone was, Tubbo could just feel it better. They were a cycle of fatality and rebirth. Inhale and exhale. Every aspect of them on a monthly cycle. Waves of ephemeral insects contributing to the whole of the community and self. Huh. All the time spent in the Foundation was doing weird things to Tubbos’ thoughts. 

Nonetheless, familiar with death though they were, it was on a much smaller scale. It wasn’t the mind that died, just the body. Tubbo couldn’t imagine what a permanent absence of consciousness would be like, let alone the genocide prerequisite for it. Could be they were immortal. Tubbo doubted it though. Nothing in their 21 year lifespan suggested that. But what would death be like, then? Maybe it would be like the smoke, thoughts looping until they disappeared. Maybe it would be like their hand, immense pain and then nothing at all save for periods of the echoes of agony. Tubbo had never slept entirely, but memories of still-individuals-not-yet-Tubbo whispered through shared experiences. Releasing your thoughts to construct wild fantasies. So maybe that was closer to death. 

“Do reckon you’d prefer...no.” Tubbo began, but realized how terrible it would sound. Even worse, what if she said yes? 

Rosalind rolled to her side, looking at them. She raised a brow. “Would I prefer what?”

“Nahhhh.” 

“No, say it.”

“Well-well, we might as well consider it. It’s going to come up sooner or later, might as well be now. Do you reckon you’d prefer us killing you or starving to death.” Tubbo didn’t know what they wanted her answer to be. But it was a choice she’d have to make at some point. They could see the shape of Dr. Blake’s plan. Time sprawled out into a future cut short. The exact ending was hazy, dark clouds obscuring the precise hour, but it was certain. “No, we shouldn’t have asked. It’s fine. You’ll probably outlast us, and they’ll let you go.” Dr. Blake had often reiterated that it could be anywhere between one to two months for a person to starve to death. Maybe Rosalind could do it, with her hourglass set back a week before Tubbos’. She also had more volume than they did by the sheer fact she wasn't hollow inside, along with a figure that was decently plump. Maybe she could, with such advantages. Maybe not. They’d probably have to wait and see how it was going before making a decision like that. 

“I don’t want to die,” the sacrifice said gently. 

“We don’t either,” Tubbo protested. “We want to escape, get out of here, never see these ugly white walls one more time. See the flowers again.” The image of the field surrounding their hive burst into their mind. It was in full bloom, a rainbow of colors. It was fuzzy at the edges. The flowers didn’t have detail beyond a bright splash of color unless Tubbo focused on it. “But we don’t see how we’d escape.”

“I don’t either, but this can’t be it.”

“There’s only two options.” 

The conversation died. The people having it were dying, too, they were just taking longer.

——

Rosalind carefully unwrapped the fabric around Tubbos’ wrist, wincing at the injury.  It was a little lumpier than before, the once crisp edges growing out in hexagonal shapes. She wrung out the cloth as best she could, then a swarm descended upon it, buzzing furiously. When they dispersed the rag was a little cleaner. With biology so alien, it was hard to tell if the amputation was improving. Her stomach churned, but Rosalind cupped her palms together. Tubbo tilted their arm, and honey sluggishly poured from the stump into her waiting hands. Their brow knit. Less was coming out than previously. “Sorry,” Tubbo muttered. “The Foundation drained a lot of it when they first captured us.”

“It’s alright, dear.” Rosalind swallowed her guilt and raised her cupped hands to her mouth, drinking the warm honey. At once her hunger sharpened to a ravenous, howling thing, unsatiated by what little sustenance there was to be found in a mouthful of honey.

It felt wrong in a way she couldn’t describe, as if she drank their blood that she might live. Tubbo thought the notion absurd, honey wasn’t analogous to blood at all. More like she was eating their regurgitated vomit. Rosalind, unsurprisingly, was even less pleased with that metaphor. And regardless, it was moreso that she was taking their already dwindling resources. Every day, thousands more bees were dead, and though Tubbo swore that was natural she couldn’t believe it.

And yet, Tubbo was determined that she shouldn’t starve. “S-so. Technically we do have another food source. Not much, but it’s not pure sugar like the honey. But, um, as a disclaimer, legally it’s not cannibalism?”

“Tubbo that’s the most horrendous way to introduce an idea.”

“It’s meant to be eaten!” Tubbo defended. “Yeah it’s not ideal, but it’s not like we can eat your skin, so-“

“Parden, w h a t ?”

“We’re starving, Rosalind, there aren’t a lot of options. You’re thinking about it like we’re a human, and it’s just not the same.” Their arms spread wide, gesturing at places where their skin slackened, or patches of honeycomb became exposed. “We’re the bees, not the body remember? This is just a hive. Parts get damaged and we rebuild them. The skin is just protein storage. Keeps out water and traps in heat, but that’s not really the concern when we need food. Technically it’s just like how you use your own body fat.” Except it wasn’t, not really. Tubbo was a hollow creature, they had no fat storage at all. Neither of them had any idea what that meant for how long they’d survive, so completely unlike a human. Funny that doctors had spent Rosalind’s doctors that her weight was a health risk only for it to prolong her life now. Tubbo didn’t have anything like that, and yet what little they did they tried to give to her. “We’re a hive. It’s meant to be shared.”

“I’m not going to eat you, Tubbo, I’m just not-“

“You ate the honey,” they insisted. “This is no different.”

“Of course it is!”

“We can’t watch you die, Rosalind!” Tears brimmed in their eyes. “We can’t. Not if we could try to stop it.”

“And I can’t let you sacrifice more of yourselves for me.”

“Fine,” they said quietly. “Just tell us when you change your mind.”

——

It was the third day. Tommy still wasn’t moving and Tubbo was getting desperate. Once, he’d been dragged out of the room by a guard. Tubbo of course had followed, tucked in the Instigator’s hair. The experiment had mostly boiled down to a blood sample and a handful of increasingly confused and annoyed Doctors not understanding why the Red was gone. Tommy didn’t say anything when verbally interrogated, but the overall atmosphere wasn’t particularly hostile, which was a relief to Tubbo. Despite coming to no conclusion as to what had happened to Tommy (much to everyone’s chagrin, save for the despondent boy in question), the Doctors ended the test by congratulating themselves for having managed to neutralize all of Tommy’s risk. The kiddo had returned sporting a bandaid, assuming the exact same position. 

Tubbo was restless and unable to sleep, sharp phantom pain blowing away the fog of fatigue. The handful of Hive swarmed around the teen, but he was still catatonic. Tubbo wanted to scream, but it would do no good. Communication was just out of reach, impossible. Tubbo couldn’t speak with only one voice.

Except...it wasn’t just Clementine anymore. It hadn’t been for a while. 

The conversation with Rosalind after the farmer’s visit was a clear reminder of Tubbos’ differences. The lack of heart and other such organs also meant the lack of vocal cords. The Pollinator communicated exclusively by overlapping thousands of vibrations to mimic the pitch of a human voice. Theoretically, the handful of bees in Tommy’s room could create a voice, but Tubbo wasn’t sure. It likely wouldn’t be recognizable, but they had to try. Without the Instigator, their plan was not sustainable. There wasn’t even a fraction of a chance for survival if Tommy stayed like that. Tubbo arranged into a choir around their friend, thinking through what syllables they could manage. 

“Tsssszzzz—ooaooaaaahhh—-.” They scowled. That was no good. Sounded more like static than speaking. “Chaaa—-nhzz-eeee.” Even worse! Tubbo distantly pulled a face, wrinkling their nose. “T-aaaahh—-y! ——om—-me!” Almost the ending for that last one, come on. “Tchaaaz—oooohh-my. Tchamy. T-aommy! T-aoohmmy!”

Tommy’s head shot up. His gaze at first was glazed and unseeing, but then it sharpened into focus. His visage contorted. He buried his face in his hands, pigment-less fingers intertwined with his hair. But Tubbo had enough time to see his eyes. They were dead. Once a bright cerulean, now only the bland grey of stone. Lifeless, listless, careless. Curled smoke from a long killed fire, leaving only cold ashes. They were ringed in dark indigo from sleepless days, one surrounded by bruises from Lawrence’s blow.

Tubbo couldn’t help or be helped when they were separated. They needed Tommy to pick himself up and try, not get lost in apathetic nothing. “T-oooh-mmmmmmhhzzzzzzz-zy.” 

Tubbo crawled on the back of his hands. Slowly, he lowered them, revealing dull steel irises. His visage curled in self disgust and horror. “Ḿ̴͕͐u̸͍̬̠̱̎͊̐̏̿͠f̶̗̭̯̖̦̲̌͗͋͛̊̿f̸̡̛͕̼͕͇̌̌i̶̧̬̱͋̀̅̿̈́ṋ̴̡͍́̈́̄̿͘,” Tommy hissed. 

——

He was coming. Things were going to be better. Tubbo pulled themselves into a sitting position. They wished that all of them could be soaring about the room, looping circles into the air. Sitting was the most they could manage. Rosalind was up though, waiting patiently beneath the vent. Soon, various thumps and shuffling noises echoed through the shaft, drawing near. Tubbo danced around Tommy despite the lingering sleeping gas. They undid the screws with a trowel, pulling the gate back. “Tommy!” Tubbo exclaimed, happy to be able to say it fully. 

Several bricks of nutrition thumped down. Rosalind threw up her arms to protect her head. Tubbo beamed up at the vent, legs neatly tucked beneath them. Soon, they could get to the bottom of whatever was happening, come up with a plan to deal with Dr. Blake, and all would be solved. Then, the noise retreated, Tommy returning to his cell. Tubbos’ brows knit. “Tommy! Come back!” they yelled. 

From in the tunnel, Tubbo could see Tommy’s eyes shut, his tense shoulders rising until releasing with a deep sigh. The exhale slipped through his lips. “No,” he whispered, continuing back. Tubbo shot a worried look at Rosalind. 

“Please!” Tubbo pleaded. “We need to talk!”

“I don’t have anything to say,” Tommy muttered. 

“Tommy, this is important,” Rosalind added. “We need help.”

From in the vent shaft, Tommy’s dull eyes blinked, ringed by dark bruises. Vague recognition crossed his features. He stilled, then contorted into switching directions, crawling back to the gate. He peered out, staring uncomprehendingly at Rosalind down below in the cell. “Oh,” he intoned after a while. “Guess you like them better.” 

The sentence was more breathed than uttered, but Tubbo caught it easily from their favorite position behind their friend’s ear. They didn’t have time for...jealousy, or whatever. “Tommy, you can’t just disappear for three days! We’re worried about you, and we depend on you too.” 

“Three…?” Tommy’s ashen eyes darted over the nutrition blocks that Rosalind was gathering up. A crease folded between his brow. There were two and a half bricks. The Foundation had constantly fed him, even if it had given Tommy two less night periods then Rosalind and Tubbo had had. Tubbo could spot various patches of nibbling, but it seemed Tommy had done roughly the same amount of consumption as they had. 

Voluntarily. 

Rosalind went to the wall, pausing a bit, before slipping a hand through the crevice of a panel, jamming a booted foot into another and using it for leverage. Her muscles trembled with the effort, and she got a mere meter off the ground before giving up. The malnutrition and her short if heavy build made for a difficult combination. Tommy stared down at her apathetically.

“Tommy, can you climb down?” Rosalind asked, panting slightly. Slowly, the boy began to nod, and compiled. The worker stumbled over to Tubbo, offering them an entire bar, then sitting down and beginning to devour her Brown. Tubbo tried the same, offering up their own block of Grey to their mouth, honey bees tearing off chunks and pulling them inside. Tubbo quickly sat it aside. The act of eating was physically repulsive. Warning bells rung in the corner of their collective minds, but had been doing so for weeks now. 

Tommy got to the bottom and came to stand before Rosalind and Tubbo, swaying slightly. Then, he sat down roughly, curled in almost the exact same position as before, save for his steel eyes peeking over his knees. He looked incredibly rigid, like a person carved out of marble, immovable and unfeeling. Alright. Time to fill Tommy in. “The Foundation is making us choose between starving to death and killing Rosalind,” Tubbo said bluntly. Mincing words seemed stupid given the circumstances. 

Tommy blinked, the rest of his face covered by bright crimson cloth. Its stark coloration made the rest of him look pale and washed out in comparison. “Huh. Ok,” Tommy measured out. 

“What!? No, it isn’t. They’re trying to make us kill someone.”

“It was only a matter of time.” It was a weary and half hearted consolation, and the words were terrifying for all their blandness. Tommy’s gaze shifted to Rosalind. “Sorry it had to be you, I guess.”

“It isn’t me though. You say that like I’ve died. I haven’t, and I’m not going to.”

His expression clearly wasn’t convinced. “Ok,” he offered, like a shrug. 

“Dr. Blake cut off our hand.” Tubbo held aloft the bandaged arm stump as evidence. They thought maybe the shock of it would impress upon the boy the weight of the situation. Tommy’s gaze shifted to follow it. 

“Ok.” 

“And we’ll have to split rations in thirds now.”

“Ok.”

“It really isn’t, actually. Ok, that is. Do you have anything else to say?” Tubbo asked, slightly frustrated. 

“...You can have all of them.” 

“All of what?” Rosalind inquired. “The bars?” He nodded into himself at that point. She frowned.

“Tommy, you can’t not eat,” Tubbo explained. 

“Not hungry.” Tubbo themselves didn’t feel hunger, but they were also well over a week into starving, far from baseline humanity, and knew that was ṃ̶͔̂̓u̸̺̠̘̽̂f̷̯̊͗̽f̶̖̣̀͗͐í̵̼̣͘͜ṉ̵̙͋ed up. 

Tubbo squinted at their friend. “Tommy, that can’t be true,” they declared. Tubbo could remember the first few days, and they were torturous. Rosalind could attest as well.

“Well it is,” Tommy stated flatly. 

“Tell us what’s wrong.” Tubbo desperately needed to know what was happening. It was vital to their and Rosalind’s survival. But more than that, they were deeply concerned about their friend. It was so far from his typical behavior that Tubbo couldn’t even imagine what must’ve transpired to so thoroughly change Tommy. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Tommy muttered into his knees. 

“Tell me or else we’ll-”

“What? Or else you’ll what? You’ll abandon me too? Newsflash, Tubbo, you can’t. You’ll die. You depend on me too much.” The words were flat and toneless, barely above a whisper. They lacked any real acerbic bent or heat. Tommy’s eyes were narrowed slightly, but that was the only tangible sign of anger.

“...we were going to say ‘or else we’ll be really worried’ but now we already are. What? Why would we? Aren’t we your friend?” 

“Tommy are you alright?” Rosalind asked. 

“Fine,” Tommy insisted. It was frustrating, because most of Tubbo was really worried about what was going on, but an ugly, practical voice piped up that teenage angst was going to get two people killed. That wasn’t fair to Tommy, Tubbo knew full well the things the Foundation did. They could picture various malevolent actions that could have occurred. The closest hint they had was it could have something to do with the contract dealing with that Phil guy. Maybe Phillip died? That didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility given Tubbos’ own experience. Tubbo didn’t know how to help, or even what was wrong. It was like trying to coax answers from a stone wall. They weren’t going to survive if it wasn’t dealt with. Why did everything in the Foundation have to be so difficult?

If there was an impenetrable wall, then the only way to get in was to lower it. Chip away, solve one problem at a time. Tubbo placed the half bar right in front of Tommy. “Eat,” they commanded. 

“M̶͇͔͉͂͆͐u̵̧͌͆̓f̸̻̅f̴̥̣̍̈́i̴̫̗̎̍ṇ̵̓̕ off, hypocrite.”

“We’ll take a bite if you do,” Tubbo offered. 

“Don’t be stupid, you need to eat.” Tommy reasoned coldly. 

“And you don’t?” Tubbo tilted their head. 

“Not hungry,” Tommy grumbled. 

“Same.”

“...what?” His empty eyes narrowed. “That can’t be right. You need to be eating.” 

“And you guarantee that how?” Tubbo side eyed Rosalind (not that she could tell), lips pulled into a slight sly smile. Tommy glared at them, but slowly unwrapped a hand from his tight grip around himself and snatched the bar. He expanded a bit, lifting his head up to take a bite. Tubbo returned the favor, tearing off a chunk to mimic. The nutrition brick sat like, well, a brick inside them. The very act of consumption was disgusting, but logically Tubbo knew it was desperately necessary. Tommy took another bite, and then another, finding his hunger.

“You need to eat very slowly or you’ll get sick,” Tubbo informed the newly voracious teen. “Same for you, Rosalind.” Experience from the potatoes had taught them that lesson well. Rosalind looked up from three fourths of the way through her Brown. Oops. Tubbo probably should have warned her sooner. 

Tubbo matched Tommy’s intake. They felt nauseous, and took smaller chunks out of the bar. It hurt, but Tubbo was used to abdominal pain by that point. Tommy only had a half bar, and finished first. “Do you want the rest of ours?” Tommy nodded, but then hesitated. When Tubbo handed him a bar, he didn’t take it. “Come on, you're a growing kid. You need it. Your height is probably stunted as is.” Tommy’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he took neither bait (either about his age or size) nor brick. Tubbo wasn’t happy about either. (Though, admittedly, belittling the teen’s size wasn’t really an angle Tubbo could exploit, seeing as he was quite a bit taller than they were. It was honestly wild to Tubbo that Tommy was a kid.)

“You’ve been underfed longer,” Tommy mumbled into his knees, tucking back down. 

“Fine. But do you want to talk now?” Tubbo gave up on one tactic, aiming for another. Tommy released from his closed position entirely, shooting up and turning for the vent. Tubbo reached after him, but it sent pangs through their abdomen and they stopped.

“Tommy, don’t leave. I don’t think isolation is doing you any good,” Rosalind said softly. “I know I for one could use company.” Tommy stilled at her words, turning back after the second part. 

He sat roughly back down into their partial semi circle, tucking back into himself. “Whatever,” Tommy grumbled. There was a period in which they all just stared at each other...which, actually, wasn’t unusual for Rosalind and Tubbo, each lost in internal trance. But with the surly Tommy, it was more awkward than typical. He still wasn’t moving, but at least Tubbo could see more of him. Slightly unraveling the coiled boy. Rosalind, after a time, broke the silence, trying to reach for an optimism that had oscillated wildly over the past few days. Maybe it was at a high, or maybe she was trying to draw Tommy out into something like hope. Wallowing only had time for the past and the present—the future therefore had to be the solution to it.

“What are our escape plans?”

“No.” It was the first thing Tommy had uttered at a normal volume, harsh almost. “No. Escape is impossible and only makes things worse.” The mantra was verbatim what Tommy had told Tubbo the first time. “I know that. Tubbo knows that. Learn it, or you won’t like what happens.”

“Tommy, Dr. Blake was clear. I perish at Tubbos' hands or starvation, and with the latter, I take them down with me. I don’t plan on letting that happen, so we need to get out of here.”

Tommy shut his slate eyes. “Escape is impossible and only makes things worse,” he reiterated. 

“Who told you that?” Rosalind pressed. “That sounds like brainwashing to me.”

“Nobody told me it. I learned the hard way, alright? Because there was nobody to warn me. Nobody. If you don’t want my help, fine! Don’t come crawling to me when you face the consequences,” he sibilated. “You’ll be like, ‘oh, Tommy, you were so right, I was so incredibly wrong and stupid and I got so many people killed in the process. Meee meee me.’ And I’ll just laugh and laugh because I saw it coming.” Tommy stood. His voice was scarily level, not even loud enough to be at a normal volume. He cut his colorless hands in sharp gestures through the air, the whole of him rigid, motionless aside from jolting and precise gestures. His purple-ringed eyes were piercing iron cutting through the others. “You ask for my help, fine. But you don’t get to pick and choose from me, say you want my food but not my advice. You don’t get to decide how much of Tommy you want and then cut off the rest. If you want to abandon me, cast aside your chains, that’s fine, but at least have the decency to tell me yourself.”

Rosalind and Tubbo stared at one another with matching expressions of bewilderment and worry. “Tommy, what does that mean? What’s going on?” Rosalind begged.

“Stop prying and answer me. Do you want me or not?” Tommy gritted out. Tubbo slowly nodded. Rosalind affirmed it as well. Tommy squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling through clenched teeth. “Alright then. See you tomorrow.” Tubbo watched as their friend scaled back up the wall, slipping through vents to his room and the exact same position. Tubbo didn’t understand what was happening, what was wrong, least of all how to fix it. At the thought of all the impossibility and hardships of the Foundation, something crumpled inside their chest, falling away. 

——

“Did you read it before giving it to him?”

“Not really, I presumed it was just a legal document. Just a long winded way to bury the information he wanted. From what I skimmed, it was pretty dry. And you’re sure nothing else happened?”

“He got all weird directly after he finished reading. Just kinda...shut down.” They accompanied the words with sharp gestures. “We didn’t see anything else.”

“What does it say?”

“We don’t know, it’s upside down.”

“Any other clues?”

Tubbo hummed. “He seemed overly eager to be helpful, unless we’re thinking too much.”

“No, I noticed it too. Half the time he cooperated was to be useful. That could stem from whatever happened, but, again, we’re in the dark there.” Rosalind sighed. It was a lot easier to problem-solve with a full stomach, even if they still weren’t getting anywhere. Once again her thoughts circled back to escape, if still through the lens of Tommy. He had lots of resources, between the food and his experiences. Clearly their best shot. And after all the time she’d spent with him, it was painful to see him like that. The only solution she could think of was to get him out of the toxic Foundation, but it wasn’t an option yet. “It can’t be Stockholm syndrome, right? Because he clearly thinks the Foundation is bad, even if he rejects escape as possible,” she mused.

“But he also might be right. He’s been stuck here for ages, right?”

“That’s what the documents they allowed claimed. What’s sticking out to me is when he said we’d get people killed in the process. Does that mean he…? Christo. I can’t imagine how he’d-oh. I think I can, actually.” The memory of Lawrence’s animalistic rage targeted at her played across her eyelids. She could remember the killing intent, the way it pressed at her, the prey instincts screaming in her mind.

“No. Tommy would never. Come on, you know him better than that. He’s such a people person, far too friendly to ever do that. Sure he jokes about violence sometimes but that’s just how teens are. He’s only a kid, Rosalind.”

“You’re likely barely drinking age yourself.”

“Maybe in the States,” Tubbo grumbled. A memory flashed in their mind of getting totally wasted after losing a case in a pretty horrendous way, trying to drive out the guilt of knowing a truly despicable man was acquitted. 1970, was it…? Tubbo hadn’t often drunk. Actually didn’t really drink at all, alcohol or water or anything. It just sloshed inside them all terribly, making it hard for everyone to fly by wetting their wings. Rhodes, on the other hand...well, when he still lived in the city. And occasionally, for the holidays. 

Rosalind snorted. “He still almost has a foot over you.” 

“...his brain is still developing probably.”

“You don’t even have one.”

“That’s actually very false as we have loads of them.”

“But they’re bug brains.” 

“Not only was that very rude, that's also very wrong. Not all of us were always bees. Still though, it’s a little m̸͍͒͊ṳ̷͌́̄f̷̖̣͛͂f̷̮̂̈́ị̸̔̽̂n̶̫͌ed if you think about it. The fact a kid had to deal with all this.”

“We have to deal with it, too.”

“...Yeah. Pretty m̶̜̮̈́û̶̹̺̞̎͐f̸̢̣̑̊͝f̵̦̤̘̆͑i̸̭̗̞̐̾͘n̵̙̉̾͝ed for us also,” Tubbo buzzed quietly. The brief moment of respite ended. The fact they’d had one at all was heartening. Proof of high spirits. Everything was a lot better with the ravenous monster of greed satiated. Tubbo thought it over. “Couldn’t he have worked with Phillip to escape?” 

“I thought his name was Philza…?”

“Pretty sure it’s Phillip.”

“Well, Tommy’s likely discussed him more with you,” Rosalind amended. “But Tommy insists Phil is dangerous, so they probably have much stricter security…” Rosalind paused. “Huh. So far, the main flaw seems to be when us weak people unexpectedly help each other.”

“Like the clipboard for the screws and Tommy for food. The vents were completely Tommy proof before, and we would be so much worse off if you had never helped him.”

“Exactly! They don’t know we’re cooperating, so they can’t stop it. The Foundation excels at containing everyone, but it’s very specialized and that’ll be its flaw. Like the gas. It’s potent against you, but they neglected me.”

“Not just us—think about all the gardening supplies. Like the shovels for the vents. Let’s see...the trowels are kinda sharp and pointy…”

“And I know which halls lead out once we get there. Knowledge is an asset too.” From then on, discussion turned towards strategy and advantages, few though they were. They traded ideas back and forth, but after a time that became just Rosalind bouncing off ideas, Tubbo more adding input. 

“No, that wouldn’t work,” they droned. “The one at the door right outside has...has insecticide, right, so he wouldn’t...wouldn’t...m̸̙̏ǔ̵̡f̶̭͂f̵̰̋í̵̘n̴̼̑,” Tubbo suddenly hissed. 

“What?”

“No wonder our thoughts were so cloudy, they’re gassing us again. We didn’t...ṃ̴̟͛u̶̼͎̟̐f̶̠̞̋f̴̥̭͋̄̕ḯ̸̟͚̜̾͘ṉ̷̘̓́, they don’t normally do it...so soon...thought there’d be...more...time…” Tubbos’ eyes drooped, but they fought it. Insects dropped out of the air.

“Should we do it…? I thought there’d be more time to plan,” Rosalind worried, gripping a trowel in one hand and a rather wicked looking dandelion picker in the other. Her expression was nervous. The plan as it stood was bare bones, more scaffolding than any real guide. Rosalind made it abundantly obvious it likely needed to be far more fleshed out to function, and Tubbo agreed. They hadn’t even told Tommy anything yet, hadn’t the time to. Speaking of the boy…the Pollinator frowned, closing their eyes to focus better.

“They’re taking Tommy out of his cell, don’t-” Tubbo broke into a cough. “Don’t do it, we don’t know...how long he’ll be gone...don’t...later, ok? When he’s there…”

“Of course,” Rosalind reassured Tubbo. Their eyes fluttered closed. She sat down the tools at the table so as to not draw suspicion. When the green eyed guard came in again, she put up a struggle —not too much of one, she was supposedly starving to death after all— but just enough to hopefully guarantee he’d use the chloroform rag next time as well. She carefully counted as long as she could until her thoughts grew loopy. Sickly sweet unconsciousness claimed her.

Chapter Text

The first time they’d used the sleeping gas, Tubbo had been afraid upon waking up. The idea of the entire Hive being smothered completely was terrifying to an entity composed of memories. With a handful of consciousnesses stashed away with Tommy, it wasn’t so scary, since part of them would still be awake. It was restful, actually, since none of the bees with Tommy were injured or hungry. At that point, the Foundation was doing them a favor during the farmer’s visits. Of course, now that Tommy was...in the condition he was in, it was a bit stressful, but still. After the first (and only) Tommy night during the colorless state, the observation window had been cleaned, but Tubbo was fairly certain that after days of staring at an unmoving kid the observers had moved on to more interesting prisoners. Now, it seemed the Foundation was going to be more proactive in studying Tommy’s new state, in whatever form that took.

A single bee stowed away with Tommy, tucked in his golden hair. Tubbo wasn’t sure where Tommy was going, but they certainly didn’t want him to be alone. They passed beneath a vermillion handprint coated door top. Tommy didn’t add another (couldn’t add another), and froze a bit once he got into the hallway. His accompaniment huffed and grabbed him by the shoulder, dragging him along until Tommy shook out of it and walked under his own power. The kiddo was led by a single (if heavily armed) guard. The Foundation was being careful to limit Tommy’s powers, even given the clear absence of them. 

The trio twisted through winding hallways, doubling back occasionally in what was likely an attempt to hinder Tommy’s sense of direction. It was wasted on the prisoners, since the Instigator didn’t seem to care and the mental map of the Hive wasn’t so easily confused. Oddly enough, the guard brought them very close to Tubbos’ enclosure, maybe a room or so away. They entered higher and higher security checkpoints. A long, narrow hallway stretched for a distance, finally emptying the group into a cell far larger than Tubbos’ or Tommy’s, nearly triple the length and height. There wasn’t an observation window at all. The walls were lined with guards wielding a variety of heavy duty guns. Tiny red lights dotted the corner of the room from active cameras.

A person stood in the middle. They were dressed in solid cloth from head to toe, and had some sort of plastic shield around their face. Completely Tommy proof. They raised a walkie talkie to their mouth and barked a long string of code. Shortly, a large, thick panel of the wall slid down, thumping into place. Metal scrapped as mechanics whirled, locking the door into place.

“Sorry,” Tommy murmured to the room. He carried himself indifferent and calm, visage devoid of interest, voice level. But Tubbo, pressed close, could feel the faint tremors wracking his body like earthquakes beneath their many feet. The guard in the middle held out a pair of gloves. Tommy tensed. “...do we really need to?” he breathed. The guard insisted, and Tommy took them. He exhaled deeply before putting them on. Tubbo only grew more worried, memories of the last time flashing through their thoughts. But Tommy seemed to be keeping it together, if barely, thread frayed but holding on. Tubbo didn’t know how long it would be before he unraveled completely, but suspected it would only be a matter of time. They supposed Tommy didn’t feel it was safe enough to fall apart amidst a sea of enemies. Their hearts ached, but there wasn’t anything Tubbo could do except witness. Be someone to recognize the Foundation's actions and be there for him. Maybe that was justice, of a sort, the only kind Tubbo could provide.

Tommy finished putting them on and nodded. He closed his vacant eyes and held his breath.

A blow to the gut knocked it out of him. Tommy doubled over, wheezing. A kick to the back of his knees and he fell to the padded floor, kneeling. Another boot slammed into him, and he toppled over, curled into a ball on his side. Sharp panic overtook Tubbos’ hive mind but there wasn’t anything they could do. For once in their life, they wanted to sting someone, to inflict as much harm as they could. What was one death if Tommy could be saved? But they were just one bee, and the guard was completely covered. It was all Tubbo could do just to stay still and not get caught. 

Tommy wasn’t reacting to any of it, other than a few sharp cries of shock or pain. From what Tubbo could see, his face was a mask of bland disinterest, or a desperate imitation of it. Tommy had been expecting the blow. It was like an old familiar dance to him. 

The guard reached down, pulling Tommy apart. He sat atop Tommy, pinning him with weight as if to prevent an escape that was never attempted. The soldier wrapped large hands around Tommy’s throat and constricted. Tommy’s gloved hands tried to pry the guard’s fingers off, but failed. He scratched uselessly at their arms, thrashing beneath the man. It was a meaningless struggle, but that didn’t mean it lacked desperation. The frantic need for release grew, but it was a pitiful rebellion against an inescapable situation. A minute dragged on like an eternity, effort waning until suddenly his hands collapsed. Tommy went slack, finally having run out of resistance against his fate. The tremor of fear shaking the surface beneath Tubbos’ feet stilled. What was there for the boy to be afraid of now? The world meant nothing to him. The guard released the hold. 

Horror filled Tubbo, sharp and writhing. 

The Foundation had just killed their friend. 

Was that it, then? He dies? You and Rosalind follow? The Foundation wins as it was always going to? Surely not. Surely-

Suddenly Tommy gasped for air, a rattling inhale that was broken and shattered. Aching coughs shook his frame. He writhed beneath the man. Steel eyes snapping open, disorientated. The exact picture of the end of every nightmare, except this time it was all backwards, unconsciousness being the only escape from terrible reality. The guard renewed their grip, Tommy renewed his feeble struggle, and the cycle continued. Wake, fight, sleep. Except it wasn’t waking up, because the nightmare was in the real world. It wasn’t fighting, just the useless struggle to survive. It wasn't sleep because someone was choking their best friend to death over and over and over and over and -

Tommy fell limp again, except the guard didn’t let go. They growled in frustration, squeezing tighter. When their hold finally let up, Tommy didn’t immediately return. Agonizing seconds passed. Time lived on and Tommy didn’t. 

For the first time when Tommy returned there was true panic in his ashen gaze. They whipped about the room as if taking inventory. Tubbo hadn’t realized how half hearted Tommy’s struggle had been until he actually began to fight. When the guard reached down for another choke hold, Tommy’s elbow met his windpipe. The guard gagged, and Tommy followed it with a throat chop, squirming out from beneath the man, aiming a kick that connected with the worker’s face. He stumbled to his feet, dancing away from the guard in the middle. His head whipped from side to side, he turned sharply, eyes darting, as he frantically searched the room for some quality. The movement made Tubbo dizzy, and they clung on tight to golden strands of hair. 

“Where is he?” Tommy muttered, words rasped out. “He’s supposed to show up, he’s-” From behind him, the middle guard rose, clutching their head. Tommy quickly spun to face him. “Where is he?” he demanded in a hoarse voice. “Why isn’t he-” Tommy broke into violent coughs. The guard advanced, reaching. Tommy darted away. The man growled, lunging for the boy, but he sidestepped, feet remembering the motion even as Tommy was clearly preoccupied with searching the room. The guard chased after him, but Tommy evaded capture as naturally as breathing. 

Eventually, the guard stilled, panting. “Stay still or someone puts a bullet through your skull,” he barked. When he made another grab, Tommy retreated away from it on instinct. A gunshot broke the air, but that was all it shattered. Tommy froze when he heard the sound, ridged, eyes wide and body petrified stone. Evasion was simple breathing to Tommy, but the Foundation knew exactly how to throttle him. “Warning shot,” the man growled. He went to make another swipe, but Tommy dodged yet again, more habit than resistance. Another shot fired into the ceiling, and Tommy went rigid again. 

The game of cat and mouse continued, until someone figured out to shoot right before the guard went to capture Tommy. The boy was still petrified from the sound of the gunshot and didn’t have the ability to escape. Thick gloved hands wormed into Tommy’s hair, and Tubbo had to dart out of the way of giant fingers. The guard pulled Tommy by the scalp into a sharp knee to the abdomen. Tommy crumpled to the ground, clutching his stomach. The cycle of strangulation resumed, now with an intense ferocity on the guard’s end. Tommy, for his part, weakly protested, but Tubbo now knew it to be more instinctive gesture than resistance. 

Choke, release. Choke, release. Never ceasing. Dark garnet bruises dotted his neck. Breathing, when he was allowed it, was fast and irregular, sucking down great quantities of air that never seemed to be enough. Violent coughs wracked his body, bucking beneath the weight of the guard. Choke, release. Choke, release.

After a time where nothing changed, save the ourborus torture, the guard threw up his hands in exasperation, getting off of Tommy and pacing. Tommy sat up slowly, cautiously, clutching his neck. He was fraying badly, but still held it together. How? How was he still composed? 

The guard squatted down in front of Tommy. “What are you playing at, Thaumiel,” he spat. “Dr. Blake said you're supposed to be Red head to toe.”

“He isn’t showing up. He doesn’t care,” Tommy rattled out, more air than word. The words were broken into little pieces and barely comprehensible. The guard backhanded him, and he flew from the force of it. Tommy keeled over, and lay wheezing on the padded white floors. His inhales hitched and stuttered as he gathered them, as if still restricted by a phantom grasp. 

“Summoning Experiment 480 yielded nothing. Let us out,” the guard growled into his radio. 

——

Most of Tubbo was still unconscious when Tommy got back to his cell. He was shaking, stood trembling in the center of the white and red room. The door slammed shut behind them, and he jolted with the sound. He launched into motion, racing over to the vent wall and scrambling upwards, bees trailing in his wake. Tommy’s pigmentless fingers were shaking as they undid the screws, flinging the gate down. He scurried through the vents, careless for the noise he caused. Tommy hurried through the twisting maze of shafts, coming to the gate of Tubbos’ cell and banging on it. 

No, Tubbo buzzed out desperately. The Pollinator was still mostly asleep, and the farmer was likely in the room. Images of chunks of Tommy strewn about in the dirt rows filtered through their collective thoughts. No, they pleaded to deaf ears. Tubbo slipped through the vent, fearing the farmer’s occupation of the cell. 

But no, it was just Rosalind, halfway through dragging Tubbos’ sleeping body into the main room. The visit had been cut short. She looked up sharply at Tommy’s banging, gently laying Tubbo on the floor before crossing over to the vent wall. From around the room, a sparse number of honey bees were able to shake off the lingering fatigue and rise clumsily into the air.

“Hold on, I’ll need to climb up there to undo the screws.” Up in the vent, Tommy hunched into himself, holding tightly as if he could physically stop himself from breaking. Down below, Rosalind tried to climb up, the handle of a hand trowel bit tightly to give her complete use of all her limbs. She got about a third of the way up, limbs shaking, and found it too much. Rosalind spat the trowel onto one hand and reached as high as she could, jabbing it into a crevice. From there, the small number of honey bees that had woken managed to lift it the rest of the way, gaining speed and accuracy as more shook off slumber and joined the effort. The gate and trowel fell to the ground. Tommy sped down, getting to the ground faster than Rosalind. He dropped the last yard or so, crumpling to the floor in a tuck, then launching from the ground into a stumbling sprint. 

“What’s wrong with your neck…?” Rosalind murmured after him. “Are you-”

“Fine,” Tommy spat at her, voice choked, dropping to his knees at Tubbos’ main body. His grey eyes stared at them unseeing. Tubbo pressed at the edge of awareness, but thick, toxic fog still lingered, cutting off large swaths of their existence. Something shifted in Tommy’s face, vulnerability bleeding through but swiftly crushed back down into unfeeling stone. For a long time, Tommy just looked at them, hands hovering over their prone form but not daring to make contact. When his voice finally broke through, it was scattered in bits and pieces, strained by the remembrance of large gloved hands. “...oh. I guess I killed them, too.” No! Tubbo screamed, voiceless. They repeated the code over and over, until it blurred into a long horrified drone. A number of consciousnesses awoke, but they were all the wrong ones. 

“Tommy, no, it’s just the smoke,” Rosalind soothed. She knelt beside him, reached out to touch him but he flinched back, pulse spiking. She jerkily tucked her hands into her lap. “They’re merely asleep. I just woke, Tubbo takes longer.” 

“But Tubbo is dead.”

Tubbo and Rosalind disavowed the idea simultaneously. "They're not. And even if they were, that wouldn’t be due to you.” Yes, Tubbo agreed. 

“I sat and did nothing for three days while you were starving to death.” It was the same toneless rationality of before, a voice of stone cracked through from the weathering it had endured. 

“Still not your fault. You're not the one doing that to us.” 

“But I’m supposed to be the one stopping it,” he rasped. 

“The blame still goes to the Foundation,” Rosalind insisted. 

“But-” Tubbo shot up the moment their body responded to input.  “Tubbo!” Tommy wheezed, relief filling his owl-ringed eyes. There still wasn’t enough yet to make a voice. Not a true one, and there was too much to say for clipped words. “Sorry for everything,” Tommy breathed.

No, Tubbo buzzed. They frowned. They wanted to speak, but words escaped them, coming out in broken, frustrated hums. Tubbo gestured to their throat. Tommy’s eyes narrowed. “It’s fine,” he hissed, reaching up and covering the sharp scarlet bruises ringing his neck. His hands were smaller than the man’s had been, failing to hide all of the damage. In the body’s insectoid eyes the wounds were brighter than the bee had seen, rivaling the fresh permanent stain that Red had. But no, that wasn’t that Tubbo meant at all. Frustration bubbled up inside them. 

And if words failed, then Tubbo only had one other way to communicate. 

Tubbo wrapped their friend in a tight embrace. Tommy was rigid, still pretending to be composed of marble. Frayed, hanging on by threads, but still whole. Tubbo pressed into their friend tightly, as if they would be able to make things better through will alone. Tommy didn’t return the hug. It dragged on, one sided, hindered by their missing hand, but Tubbo refused to let go, even as something crumpled inside them. Sharp pain splintered through their chest. More and more of them woke, until Tubbo thought they might have enough to speak properly. “Are you alright?” Tubbo hummed. It dragged at the edges, not quite completely human, but it was enough.

“Fine,” Tommy creaked. It was almost a question, closer to exhale than speech. 

“Tommy,” Tubbo murmured softly. 

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Tommy. We saw what happened.” Tommy froze. For a split second, Tubbo thought he’d pull away, a statue once more. Instead, he shattered. Tommy sunk into Tubbos’ embrace, pulling tight against them like a drowning man finding salvation. Shaking saturated hands dug into their back, curled just beneath their wings. Shudders wracked through his body as he sobbed into Tubbo, finally safe enough to break. Tommy’s breath rattled in their ears, rising in frequency.

“They couldn’t even do it right. He didn’t save me, Tubbo, why didn’t he save me, why didn’t-” Tommy’s sentence dissolved into air, spoken through shards of rock. He started gasping, sucking down air as quickly as he could, but unable to breathe through the broken pieces of his shell.

“Tommy, what’s wrong?” Tubbo demanded, but he couldn’t respond. His heart beat skyrocketed, pounding a tattoo against Tubbo. It reverberated through them. He gasped yet seemed unable to draw breath. It painfully echoed each gap between strangulation, the exact same, save for there being no gloved hands throttling Tommy. “Rosalind, what's happening to him?” Tubbo beseeched. 

She slid over to them on the floor. Rosalind snatched the pale, crimson-less hand of Tommy, pressing it to her sternum. “Breathe with me Tommy,” she ordered calmly. “In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. In, out. In, out.” She exaggerated her respiration, letting Tommy’s hand rise and fall with the motion. Slowly, his rapid breathing began to match hers. “Can you breathe now?” Tommy nodded into Tubbos’ chest. “What are five things you see?”

“W-what?” 

“Tell me what you see,” Rosalind commanded softly. 

“I…my hands?” His voice was raspy and crackled. His fingers twitched, bunching up the fabric of his hospital gown. Tubbo could see metacarpals rippling beneath pale skin. 

“Good. And?”

“And…my lap. And Tubbo.” 

“And?”

“You. And the ground, and the edge of a row.” With each word, the breathing slowed. His heartbeat stopped sounding so desperate. Tubbo didn’t know what Rosalind was doing, but it seemed to be working. 

“Better?” she asked. Tommy nodded into Tubbos’ chest again. “What happened to your throat?”

“They tried to summon The Blade,” Tommy rasped. 

“They tried to kill you.” Tubbo canted their head to the side. It didn’t exactly work, instead leaning into the top of Tommy’s curls. They decided that was fine. 

“They failed at both. He’s always there to stop me from dying, but not…he didn’t…” His breathing quickened again. 

“Tommy. Calm. It’s ok now, you’re safe,” Rosalind soothed. Pain filled her eyes. They weren’t. None of them were safe, trapped in Hell together. She glanced at Tubbo, who was still confused. “I…in his secondary file, the higher clearance one…when Tommy’s about to die, he summons an SCP they called The Blood God,” she explained faintly, staring at Tommy’s bruise-blotched throat. “I didn’t think about how they knew that.” Tubbo had no doubt that the Foundation could have easily killed Tommy in that room. They couldn’t imagine why they didn’t. 

“And he just…didn’t show up?”

“I can’t blame him,”  Tommy said hollowly. “He might as well abandon me, too.” The memory of Tommy forcing them to confirm they wanted him surfaced. Tommy had been desperate to make sure they still cared, which led Tubbo to thinking someone else…hadn’t. Tubbo fundamentally couldn’t understand that.

“…who else did?” Tubbo droned. 

“Oh, just Philza. He decided to UnCollect me. Didn’t know that was a thing but, hey, if you just loathe someone enough I’m sure you can find a way. Not like I blame him; I’d hate if I got stuck with a weak, needy, useless burden like myself.” His raspy words held the facsimile of indifference, like Tommy was desperately to pretend not to care despite the clear fact that he cared so much it hurt, tearing up his insides and causing him to stop functioning entirely. Even then, he was still pretending to be invulnerable stone. 

“Why would you say that about yourself?” Rosalind asked softly. “That’s terrible.”

Tears spilled over his face, intermingling with a wretched expression. Tommy kept his head down, buried in Tubbos’ embrace. They traced their hand down the arch of his shuddering spine. “It’s true though, innit? All I did was demand his help and never give anything in return. Show up and expect him to fix my problems, fix me. I forced the both of them to save me over and over again, makes sense they’d hate me for it.”

So that explained why he’d been so desperate to be useful. Except- “So that’s what we are? A burden?” Tubbo suggested.

“No!” Tommy recoiled, jerking away. His marengo eyes met Tubbos’, panicked and insistent. “That’s not what this is at all!”

“But we make you share your food and solve our problems and give nothing in return.”

“You’re not one,” Tommy swore in his hoarse voice. There was a strange insistence, like he couldn’t stand Tubbo to think that when he himself could. No. That wouldn’t do at all.

“Then you aren’t, either,” Tubbo hummed, completing the logic circle.

“That’s different.”

“How?”

“It...it just is, ok?” 

“We don’t think it is. Sounds exactly the same. So either we and Rosalind are burdens, or you aren’t. Which one is it, Tommy?” Tubbo knew Tommy would refuse to paint his friends in that light. So desperate for companionship, such a gregarious child. Tubbo recognized it in themselves from when they’d been the same age, back when they’d had the same hunger for people. Or, no, Tubbo knew that longing for others had never faded. The same instinct to gather people around, like moths to a bright light, would never allow Tommy to willingly cast people away. To do so would be to shut the light off entirely. To do so would be to no longer be Tommy. He’d tried so hard to hide it away, to turn to stone so opaque nothing would escape. But light bled through him, seeping from the cracks. Tommy couldn’t kill the driving want for love even at his lowest. Tubbo knew the need had been the force to bring Tommy to his knees, and was determined to use the very same aspect to pull him back up. 

“...I’m not…?” he said with little conviction. 

“Not what?” Rosalind prompted.

“I’m not a burden.” The words shook and broke, but held. Not belief, but not disbelief either. 

“If you don’t begrudge helping us, surely they don’t blame you for needing their help,” Rosalind reasoned.

“But why did Philza abandon me then?” 

“He’s an idiot?” Tubbo suggested. 

“Can’t be. He’s old and wise and powerful.” Well. That was one tall pedestal. Probably meant ad hominem wasn’t an option. M̵̥̔u̶͖̾f̸͙̾f̷͚͂i̵̹̎n̴̼̉. Tubbo wanted to trash talking that m̴̪͇͈͊̈́͊̿͒u̵̖̱̼̿̈́̍́f̶͕̬̯̭͈́͌̇f̴̩̘̻̣̮̠̎̒̅̑̎i̴͖̥̪̫̻̙̊̽͘n̴̨̼̦̾̿head after what he’d done to Tommy’s mental state. Maybe later. Definitely later, to Rosalind at the very least. Drag The Blade, too. Who left a kid to die? Thank God Tommy had Tubbo and Rosalind; his other ‘friends’ seemed like terrible people. Of course, Tubbo couldn’t really have ever expected Tommy to besmirch even his betrayers. Even Phil, even The Blade, after all they hadn’t done for him. Fine. Tubbo would just have to be angry enough for the both of them.

The way Tubbo saw it, Collection had little difference from The Hive. Tommy was still a separate being, obviously, but the principle was the same. And as far as Tubbo knew, there was no crime more heinous than to ask for someone’s soul only to discard it. To gather (to Collect) someone was to hold their heart, and instead of sheltering Tommy’s Phil had torn it asunder. Tubbo couldn’t imagine doing such a thing in a million years, and clutched their souls all the tighter, assured they’d never do such a thing. 

“Well. His loss,” Tubbo shrugged flippantly. He'd always preferred diversion, and they felt no qualms providing. “More Tommy for us.”

“That sounded really clingy,” Tommy rasped, an echo of his normal self. 

“Yep,” Tubbo agreed, leaning in for another hug. Rosalind joined, creating a dogpile centered on the teen. It wasn’t as if they’d ever had the ability to hold on to their friend before. Rosalind would’ve turned into a mindless belligerent, Tubbo literally dissolving, minds split apart, distant and filled with rage. Each of them held on tight to the teen, not knowing if they’d ever get to embrace him again. He shuddered under physical and mental weight, tears shed into Tubbos’ shoulder, warm and damp. Tension leaked from him until his breathing slowed, finally at what Tubbo presumed was a normal rate. It matched Rosalind’s at least. Above and below Tubbo the capture and release of air. Almost like they were breathing, too.

After a time, Tommy started to squirm out of the group embrace. He swiped at his eyes, blinking back tears, trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. His eyes were watery, but his irises were undoubtedly no longer grey. They weren’t cyan either. A color like a cloudy sky just after the rain. Tentative, but retreating. “Does that mean you guys like me? I mean, of course you do, I’m Tommy, but...you’re not going to leave me, right?” False confidence, but an attempt nonetheless to cover the vulnerability of the question.

“Nahhhh. You’re our best friend, Tommy.” Tubbo hummed the conviction of the Hive, a belief ringing from every mind they possessed. 

“Of course not. I’m always going to be here for you,” Rosalind promised. 

Tommy’s face broke into a soft smile. Along his fingertips, faint rose droplets began to appear. 

Chapter Text

“Come on, you have to see for yourself,” Tubbo explained, leading Tommy over to the potato rows. Tubbo was using Tommy as a prop far more than they probably should have been, pretending they were merely showing him where to go instead of putting almost all their weight on him. A third of a ration was better than nothing, but it was still pretty close to it. 

“If you try to give me another botany lesson I will push you over.” That had been incredibly boring, and Tommy had told Tubbo so repeatedly. Tubbo had ignored him, voice taking on a deeper pitch and odd cadence...or actually closer to a normal cadence. Tubbo talked really funny. Like their words looped up and down with the bees. Weird. 

“That wasn’t everyone’s idea,” Tubbo muttered. “But no! Very important!”

“Like how pistols and petals are important?” He was still skeptical. 

“Pistils,” Tubbo corrected immediately. “And no! Very relevant. Look!” Tubbo pointed to the earth. Or. Well, probably did, since they accidentally used the missing hand. 

Tommy squinted at the soil. “Mmmm. Yes. Dirt.”

“No, actually look,” Rosalind interjected. “We waited till you came.” She was as excited as Tubbo, and honestly both of them were way too chipper. It made him suspicious. Like he was walking into a prank. 

“Read it!” Tubbo commanded.

“If it says ‘gullible’, you don’t even want to know what I’ll do...to...wait. What?” Scrawled into the dirt (in what was probably Rosalind’s handwriting given the lack of honey residue and the perfect spelling) was a message. 

Starving. Eat please? 

And right beneath it, scrawled in thick, blocky handwriting, almost familiar...

Sure lol

The letters were far larger, deeper, and in strong lines unlike Rosalind’s curvier font. Like someone had used a hand shovel instead of their finger. “We can eat them?!”

“Yep!” Tubbo bounced. “And since potatoes provide practically all the vitamins that people need to-”

“Tubbo please just shut up about plants! We aren’t starving any more! Celebrate!”

“That’s what we were saying! Just-just differently.”

“Why do you even know that?”

Tubbo tapped the side of their head with a finger. “Rhodes. And anyway, it is important. We figure the base nutrients you need to live are in a bar, otherwise you’d be dead. So, we still split one in thirds, and get… five? Potatoes each? We can workshop the numbers. There’s twelve rows, and probably forty plants in each one, so-”

“Rosalind, you’re digging them out right? Because Tubbo and I would both leave evidence. We’re all drippy,” Tommy said over Tubbo. Overnight, his Red had returned. It was at about knuckle length, which was lower than typical, but he’d also just gotten a solid confirmation that they weren’t going to die from starvation. Which…if it was tied to fear, why had it disappeared? He’d been plenty scared, terrified of Rosalind and Tubbo leaving him as well, horrified at the idea Philza had never really loved him. He- no. No. He was better now. He didn’t want to think about that. They’d had a bonding moment or whatever and everything was fine. The Foundation had let up now that the scarlet was back, or at least hadn’t tried anything again. They could all just pretend nothing happened. It was fine. Better than fine, even. The whole starving thing was sorted out now. 

Except they weren’t eating yet. Ah, m̸̩̲̈́͆u̷̠͆̒͗f̷̧̫̊́͑f̶̨̰̫́i̸̞͝͝n̵̢̳̙̑. Tubbo was still talking and Tommy hadn’t been paying attention. “-and if we space out where we take from, the Foundation won’t notice! It’ll be like the harvest just didn’t yield as mu-”

You know what, he probably didn’t miss anything important. “You put way too much thought into this. Can we just eat?” 

“Oh. Um. Yeah. That’s what we did to distract ourselves. Plan it all out, tell ourselves we’d do it the next day, and then the next. Had it down to the exact order we’d pick them in. Not one of our better distractions, but it worked.” Rosalind dug up tubers with a trowel, careful to pick spots from various rows. The dirt parted easily beneath the steel blade, revealing precious clusters of nourishment. Each potato was carefully pared from the rest, then tossed into a watering can. She replanted them afterwards, smoothing the soil around to hide the evidence.

The spuds sunk to the bottom of the watering can. The water spilled over a bit, running down the flower-patterned sides. Rosalind plunged her hands in, cleaning the earth off the vegetables. Each of them took a potato, leaving the others. They could maybe hide the rest somewhere to spread out the meal over the day since they wouldn’t be able to eat it all in one sitting. Wouldn’t exactly work for Tommy, but they could figure it out.

They were small, ugly, and a little misshapen. Weird roots and offshoots came out of them at odd angles. 

Food. Tommy couldn’t remember the last time he’d had it. Would have been right before he was captured. He’d been visiting his friends, so he would’ve been bringing the vagabonds food. Probably his mum’s cooking, then. The exact meal escaped him. He told himself it was delicious, but he couldn’t actually remember enough to be sure. Tommy plucked off a branching root, trying to make it more presentable. Then, he raised it up in the air. 

“Cheers,” he grinned. Rosalind and Tommy bit down into the flesh of the root vegetable. Tubbo just shoved the whole thing in. Not like they needed to chew, after all. It tasted like dirt, Tommy decided after a while. Well. What he assumed soil was flavored like. He definitely had never eaten dirt that would be stupid. It crunched like an apple, which he had far more experience with, his teeth biting through the skin sharply. Or, at least he thought that was the way apples felt...It was dense, leaving a weird, gritty film in his mouth. Aside from tasting like dirt, it wasn’t bad, per say. Just a dirty, flavorless, starch apple. It wasn’t pleasant by any stretch, but it was food, and it wasn’t like they had any room to be picky. 

Rosalind finished first out of the two who could traditionally eat, raising a shaky thumbs up. “Just like Grandma used to make.”

Tommy swallowed his last mouthful. The gritty texture remained. “She obviously can’t have loved you if that’s what she fed you.”

“You know, I always wondered...Maybe the raw chicken should have been a bigger sign, in retrospect. The biggest tip off should have been the nightshade and blueberry mixture...I just thought half of them were overripe. All jokes aside though, her tamales were the greatest food on Earth.”

“Shut up. You’ve never had my mum’s waffles,” Tommy scoffed. 

“Here, we’ll start a debate. My grandma’s amazing tamales versus your mom’s tic tac toe pancakes. Tubbo, do you have someone to add?”

A dreamy look crossed their face, and they shivered out a sigh. “My wife’s chocolate cake.”

“Wife???” Tommy startled.

“My?????” Rosalind queried. 

“No shut up mine’s more important,” Tommy shouted over Rosalind. Tubbo was spasming again, wings twitching. “You never mentioned you’re a wife haver!”

“Huh? Oh. M̵̯̫̟̟͎̈̈́͜͝ȗ̸̬͉̞̟͎͗̅̑̚ḟ̶̘̜͌͌̚͘͝f̸̘̥̪͚̟̔̽̌̃̋í̷̡̀̌̋n̴̪͇͔͓͋̂̎͜͝ͅ Rhodes. We’ve talked about this. So like...kinda? We don’t know. Family always gets weird. Like, we married Martha, except we weren’t we yet. But...huh. Cause we did keep Jasmine’s parents as ours...well until they shot us, but does that mean the kids are ours as well…? And the grandkids?? M̸̧̤̤͕̙̔u̷̦̩͈̫̻͗͌̆̚f̵̹̤͍̀ͅf̴̩̆͠ͅi̶̛̱̙̫͖̯̍n̶̛̯̽̍͝͠, Tommy,” they groaned. “Stop asking complicated questions. We didn’t have time to get it sorted out before we got captured.”

Rosalind and Tommy just stared. Tubbo tilted their head, matching the pair’s confusion. “What? That’s definitely not the first time Rhodes had spoken up around you. We mean, it’s been a while, but still.” Tubbo caught their confused expressions and gained an annoyed disbelieving look, antenna and mouth flattening. “Did…you guys didn’t notice…? Seriously??”

Tommy had probably chalked it up to Tubbo just being weird, to be honest. But if Tubbo was speaking like some of their behavior in the past hadn’t been their own…the epiphany landed. “Ooooooh! I get it! So you name the voices in your head?” 

“No, they had names already, since they were their own people before they joined the Hive.”

“Ah. Does that mean you can tell them apart?”

“Yeah. It’s pretty obvious.”

“Wait,” Rosalind interjected. “Didn’t Dr. Blake mention Rhodes was a missing person? How does that-”

“They tell you to kill people too?” Tommy asked, cutting over the worker. 

“Wait, stop, what?!” Rosalind interjected. “You both hear voices? And they suggest homicide?!”

Tubbo and Tommy denied it simultaneously. “I don’t hear any at all,” Tommy declared. He patted his head, leaving a crimson handprint in his curls.

“And we’d never let someone like that into the Hive,” Tubbo buzzed out vehemently. “We’re selective about who we coll—about who we let join.” 

Tommy ignored the slight slip of the…not tongue, as Tubbo didn’t have one. “How am I only now finding out that you got other people rattling around in yo skull?”

“Because they aren’t. They’re not separate, they’re just part of Tubbo. It’s like…” Tubbo frowned at their hands or lack thereof. “Tommy, hold up your hands,” the Pollinator commanded. He complied, sending them an odd look. “Lace the fingers together. See? It’s all interlocked. It’s not two hands, it’s one thing. And sometimes they slide apart and are two things again, but usually they’re together. We’re not bees and body and humans, we’re just…Tubbo! All together and all at once!”

“So, one plus one…equals one.” Tubbo nodded at Rosalind’s summation. “Like a marriage.”

Tommy’s nose creased. “What?? Now they're double married?? Come on Tubs, share some for the rest of us.”

“Never. Anyway, we already said we’re a hive mind. Didn’t you listen?”

“Yah, but I thought they were all bees.” Tommy’s brow furrowed, digesting the new information. “I didn’t know voices used to be humans...wait, how did he get so many then…? He’s terrible at socializing...it’s probably different for The Bla-for- him, then. Means they aren’t actually people.” Tommy stumbled over his friend’s name in a way he didn’t like.

“Wait…” Tubbo began. Their dark eyes glittered as they narrowed. “The Blade was the one you were thinking about? With that line about homicidal whispers? The same guy who didn’t bother stopping the Foundation from trying to murder you also hears creepy voices that tell him to kill people?”

“He just can’t help himself around orphans. You know how it is.” He took in their horrified faces. “That was a joke,” he stressed, though a sudden doubt rose in him. It had always seemed like a joke, at least. “Oh ḿ̴̺ǘ̷̮f̴͉͐f̶͚̎i̵̛̝n̵̯̎ off. It’s not like that. That’s an awful assumption to make about him. It’s not like he listened to any of them.” 

...as far as he could tell. In the time before the Foundation, Tommy hadn’t been able to visit frequently, and he usually called in advance since dropping by without a warning wasn’t good for the nerves of the constantly vigilant and paranoid men on the run. But once, early on, he’d stopped by unannounced. Tommy hadn’t been sure about the dark sanguine splatters on his friend’s fur, or the strange gooey matter clinging to the tips of his tusks, and so he’d asked. The banter, already oddly strained, had died. All he could remember was the tension that fell upon the room, thick, almost a tangible quality to the air. The Red slowly crept up his arms as Wilbur suddenly glowered at The Blade. Philza had offered a strained, sharp smile, then led The Blade outside for a chat. The walls were thin. Tommy could hear Philza reprimand The Blade for not being diligent in cleaning up afterward, admonishing him for scaring Tommy. The thing was, he hadn’t been, just curious. Or, more accurately, he hadn’t been scared until Philza inadvertently revealed what it was. Unease had uncoiled in his guts as the rebuke continued, until Wilbur had the bright idea to let Tommy try to use his guitar. He’d never been allowed before, and so he’d happily plucked at the strings, fingers guided on the fretboard by dark hands. It had been pretty fun! Wilbur didn’t even complain all that much about how horrible it sounded. Philza had come in after a time, and said he had a real knack for it. A little while later, The Blade, thoroughly cleaned and chastised, had returned. Unfortunately, he refused to rap. The memory faded into an afternoon of music and feigned lightness. Tommy never again saw him dressed in blood until much later, slicing down Foundation workers. 

He knew that The Blade killed people. It was one of the first things he’d learned. But that was always in the context of being rescued. The Blade was saving the day, stopping the bad guys. That had to be a good thing, right?

But he didn’t know if The Blade butchered people who didn’t deserve it. Tommy never learned who the blood splatters had belonged to. After the first time, The Blade would always be spotless. Tommy didn’t know if that meant the voices had convinced him, or if he was merely fighting off a threat. The trio had been on the run, after all, and with good reason. Certainly the horror of the Foundation proved that. But were some of those deaths without good reason? Tommy just wasn’t sure, doubt filling him. 

Tubbo pounced on the hesitation. “Really now? We just think it’s funny.” Their voice, sharp and critical, suggested otherwise. 

“Could you like, not? He’s really nice, and I don’t want to hear you bad mouthing my fr— my…” Tommy wanted to hate The Blade for not saving him. It’d be easy. His throat still ached from being strangled, his words came out soft and raspy. He could have died. Should have died, but the guard hadn’t felt like it. Except he couldn’t blame The Blade. He’d saved Tommy too many times to count. Tommy had been the first to be captured, isolated from his friends for weeks and trapped with the doctors and observers and guards and workers. Then, The Blade had burst in, cutting down enemies, peeling Tommy off the dissection table and rejuvenating his hope. Time after time, The Blade had stood between him and death, and Tommy could not begrudge him for finally failing to step in. He could be forgiven for failing once after dozens of times. Hundreds? Was it hundreds? They all blurred together into a terrible writhing mess of fear. Tommy wasn’t sure he could even begin to narrow down the number. The thought was daunting. But if Tommy couldn’t even keep track, why should The Blade be expected to? That seemed unreasonable.

Really, he still couldn’t blame either of them. He didn’t blame himself, either, his friends had made sure of it, but Tommy couldn’t bring himself to think badly of his friends. Maybe that would be better, if he could just hate them and be done with it. But it was like the workers who pretended to be nice to him. Sure, he could loathe them for betraying him, but...really, what was the point? Fake kindness was still kindness. Sure, they’d lasted far longer than any of the others, but The Blade and Philza had discarded him just like all their predecessors.

Wait. He wrinkled his nose. That was the wrong order, wasn’t it? He’d had them long before the Foundation, and yet...the Foundation was there, twisting his thoughts all around. It wormed into everything, vile poison mixing him up. His thoughts spiraled in odd shapes, cause and effect slain by the non-existence of time. The forms of The Blade and Philza meshed with the blurred faces of various humans. Emotion burned in writhing tongues of fire in his chest, but he couldn’t put any names to the ugly mass other than confusion. It was a dangerous ambivalence.

“So!” Rosalind clapped the syllable, smile fixed. “After intense debate, several rounds of serious discourse, two recesses and five witnesses, the jury is in! Grandma’s tamales won by a landslide!” It was extremely forced, but some of the tension dissipated. “And the runner up is! Drum roll!” Tubbo and Tommy stared at her. Rosalind elbowed Tubbo sharply. “I said, drum roll please.”

“Why are we the drum roll?” 

“You’re literally not confined to the human vocal range.”

“Yeah, but why would we know the pitches for that? Do you understand how difficult even talking is?” 

Rosalind glared at them. “I said drum. Roll. Please.” Her smile was sharp and threatening. Seemed a silly goof to release tension was mandatory. 

Tubbo patted the soft white padded floor. The effect was lackluster. They transferred efforts to the side of a potato row, rippling their knuckles across the surface. Still pathetic, but again Tubbo was one handed and not particularly invested. “Drum roll noises...lots of them...very loud...almost a little too loud, but not enough that you want to leave…” they droned monotonously. 

“Chocolate cake!”

“Hmmm,” Tommy joined in. He didn’t want to be thinking about bad things. Better to ignore it. There wasn’t a point to feeling sad since it was all dealt with already. “I object.”

“On what grounds?” Rosalind demanded, voice taking on a pretentious air. 

“You did not cover all the evidence. You missed a witness. Why, here they come to the stand now.”

Tommy proceeded to flip her off. Or try to, at least. The fact that the very air blurred around it, staticky and pixelated, and the word “muffin” materialized in archaic, piceous writing where his finger should have been sort of ruined the effect. Rosalind snorted. “Oh, of course, pfff. How could I forget Mr. Muffin. In light of this new testimony, let us open a vote. Now that we’ve all tasted such excellent dishes, let us cast out ballots.”

“Our vote is for pancakes,” Tubbo offered. A sort of apology. 

“Waffles, idiot,” Tommy corrected. 

“Alright, one for Tamales, one for Waffles-”

“Two,” Tommy objected. 

“What? No, can’t be. You’re not old enough to vote.”

“To be fair, he doesn’t look like a kid, so he could probably just lie about his age on the ballot,” Tubbo suggested. “Voter fraud is always an option.” 

Rosalind nodded solemnly. “Can’t forget the corruption, or it isn’t a real election.”

Tommy gasped, far more concerned with the implications of Tubbos’ comment. “Really?? I look like an adult???” A pleased grin stretched across his face. A happy sort of warmth settled in his chest. 

“The main indicator you’re not is the fact you got so giddy about being called one.” 

“Oh shut up. But I’m close to being one. I’ve been here a while, I’ll probably be seventeen soon.”

“What date is it?” Rosalind asked. 

“April tenth.”

“It’s currently March, right?” 

“April, actually,” the employee corrected.

An odd feeling twisted through his insides. He wasn’t sure what to call it. Tommy counted out time on his fingers, disquiet sweeping the further he got. “I’ve been here…ten months,” he realized. The timeless period stretched in his memories, then compressed into nothing at all. It felt simultaneously like an unbearably long amount of time as well as not nearly seeming like it encompassed the vast sprawling nature of his experiences. “It was June, right? Because-because school was just about done and...it’s June right? When school gets out?” Tommy demanded, suddenly unsure. 

Tubbo shrugged. “We never went to school, or not in decades at the very least.” Rosalind was equally unhelpful, saying she didn’t know what it was in Britain. “Hey! That means you have a birthday soon! You’ll be seventeen,” Tubbo buzzed, a bit too enthusiastic to be completely genuine. But they were trying. Tommy could try, too. They could force things to be good again. “We can have birthday potatoes, and...wait! If you leave some paper and crayons with us, we can make you presents!”

Tommy offered a strained smile. “Sounds great!” He could see time stretch forward. Days and weeks and months morphing into years and then decades except not really because he’d never be able to tell the difference. His whole life lay before him, indistinguishable, unmarked entirely. An eternity of nothing, except-except was it really eternity if you couldn’t tell? Or wasn’t that the mark of infinity, that it didn’t matter how long it was because there was just so much of it, all smushed into a monotonous forever. 

His entire life, stuck in white walls, never to see anyone again, never to realize decades had passed because he had no way of even knowing when months were through. 

“Sounds great,” he reiterated softly, overcome with the vast nothing of his disquieting reality. 

——

“Happy birthday to you~”

“Tubbo, that's actually like really loud, can you not?” Every single bee took part. Which, while a nice gesture, really hurt.

“Happy birthday to you!”

“No for real, my eardrums.”

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR TOMMY!” Tommy clamped his hands over his head. They weren’t even in tune! And it was so loud he was sure his ears were bleeding. Rosalind was also covering her ears, but still joining in at the top of her lungs. “HAPPY BIRRRRRRRTH-”

“I’LL HIT YOU!” 

“-DAY TOOOO YOUUUUUU!” Tubbo finished with a broad grin, swerving to avoid Tommy’s halfhearted swing. They looked far too pleased with themselves. 

“Has anyone ever told you that you should be a singer?” Tommy asked.

Tubbo gasped, smile growing even wider, past the point a human mouth could manage. Mirth danced in their large black eyes. “Why no they haven’t!” Tubbo hummed happily.

“Good. Now you know no one ever lied to you to be polite,” Tommy explained. Tubbos’ expression dropped. Their shoulders slumped a bit. Oof. Now he felt a little bad. “But that just means (since you know I’m incredibly trustworthy) that you can believe me when I say that was rather good,” Tommy tried. Tubbos’ antenna lifted and their visage cleared. 

“Really?” they asked, excited. 

“Yep! And you know, they called my Tommy Trusty. Can you guess why?”

“Your candor nature?” Rosalind offered. 

“Nope!” Tommy exclaimed, popping the ‘p’. “I was just so good at lying they never caught me!”

“But you weren’t lying to us, right?” Tubbo demanded.

“Tubbo,” Tommy very seriously explained. “I would never lie to you, not in a million years, unless I really wanted to in which case I would yes.”

“Oh, Rosalind, you know what that sounded like? That sounds like he doesn’t want our birthday present.”

“That is very false and if you withhold gifts that violates the Geneva Convention and you will go to jail,” Tommy informed Tubbo crossly. 

“Really? Which part of the Geneva Convention?” Rosalind queried, brow raised and smile sharp.

“Oh. You know. All of it,” Tommy offered with a shrug. 

“Well, that’s funny,” Rosalind began. “Because I was there when it was written, so, I consider myself to be an expert seeing as I signed it. Don’t remember the birthday present section.”

“M̴͕̀̑͘u̸͔͓͔̕f̴̼̩̲͗̈f̸͉̺̺̓i̸̭̜̒͋̀n̶̛̥͍̜ off, it’s like at least thirty years old,” Tommy scoffed.

“So? I’m thirty eight.”

“No way! You’re so old! Almost as old as Ph-almost-ancient practically,” Tommy stumbled. “What’s the oldest thing you remember?”

“Signing the Geneva Convention. I was only eight at the time. A real prodigy in warfare regulation treaties, I was.”

Tommy was amazed. “Ok, but, that’s utter m̷̹͂͗̃ù̵̮͇̼ḟ̶͉f̴̢̢̼̔i̸͕̪͐ņ̶̗́̍ because the Geneva convention is like a century old at this point,” Tubbo argued.

“How would you know, you weren’t alive yet,” Tommy bickered. 

“Yes, Tubbo, mind your manners when speaking to me. I’m your elder after all.”

Tubbo tossed their head, twitching oddly. When they spoke, their voice was drier and far deeper than typical. “You knuckleheads! I’m 92! You respect your elders!” 

“You said you were like 20,” Tommy contested. 

“Tubbo said that,” Tubbo said. “I’m here because of your flagrant disrespect! Kids these days.”

“Ok boo-”

“Silent generation, kiddo.” Tubbo made a sharp swiping gesture at their temple as if to push up non-existent glasses, then twitched again, settling into their normal posture and cadence. “Really Tommy? That meme has been dead for ages,” Tubbo scoffed. 

“Your...Rhodes guy came out again,” Tommy explained. 

“Well, obviously. We know what’s going on, let him speak on purpose. It’s not a possession, Tommy,” Tubbo scoffed. “Just a person becoming singular again.”

“So, who was he? Before he was you?”

Tubbo took to a fond, reminiscent expression. “Sort of like our father. Or grandfather. The man who raised us, at the very least. Was a lawyer when he was younger, moved out to become an orchard farmer…met us when we were, oh, five, maybe? Taught us math, and reading, and right and wrong. And then, at the end of his life, he decided to be us. Said he wanted to watch us grow.” The words hummed and flowed.

“Got any other ages?” Rosalind asked. 

“Six.”

“You...you...what? I thought you said these people, like, joined your Hive. Why’d you take a six year old?” Rosalind looked perplexed.

Tubbo fidgeted uncomfortably. “Well, we were also six. At the time. Didn’t really know what we were doing, but we both thought it would be fun. It has been, too. Never regretted it. Her name’s Jasmine.” The discomfort faded into a warm smile. “Likes dinosaurs, having fun in general.” The smile twitched into a grimace. “There’s…not much more to her than that. Just a kid, and can’t really ever be more than just that on her own.”

“So they stopped aging?” Tommy asked. That felt weird. Trapped in limbo. It was a very familiar feeling. 

“Well, we age together, as Tubbo. But if you separate us back out...take out all the Tubbo parts...then she hasn’t, really. Like...like how you’re turning seventeen! If you take out all the parts between this year and the last, you’re still mentally in that frame of being sixteen!” Tubbo seemed satisfied with the metaphor. It made Tommy feel weird. The idea of time had been so easy to discard. But Tubbo and Rosalind were still holding on tight, and so it only made sense to re-adopt a cornerstone to their understanding of the world. It felt so...pointless, but at the same time it mattered so incredibly much to him in a way he couldn’t really fathom. Apathy and intense need swirled into an odd mess. He wanted so desperately to care, and yet...and yet why should he? Nothing was going to change, not really. 

And that was the problem. It felt like it should’ve been a huge celebration. It certainly would’ve been for the Tommy who existed before the Foundation. Pull back the year to sixteen, and he would’ve been so incredibly excited. But now it meant nothing. The dregs of the person he once was cooling into embers, trying to remember warmth. That’s all it was. There was no burning passion despite what he pretended. But he still wanted to care. He needed to care, if only to convince himself that he hadn’t changed. Still Tommy Simons, not the numbers they gave him, the ones that replaced his name, put a kill count on his hands, put a death timer over his head. The seconds were uncountable, certainly, but they were numbered. 

For the first time, he looked square into the face of the fact that he could actually die at the Foundation.

It wasn’t that he thought they wouldn’t kill him. He always knew they would. They’d tried so many times, far too many for him not to believe they could if they really wanted. But it was the first time he thought not about his death but the life that would have happened without it. 

Tommy had often thought about what his life would’ve been like if he’d never been found, or never developed Red at all. What he’d never pictured was the time he’d lose if they actually succeeded in killing him. Because as far as he could tell, it wouldn’t change. There wasn’t a life to lose because it’d just be the same timeless white walls. 

It wasn’t that he’d have some tragic importance or lost potential, because there would never be anything new. Time was meaningless, and for the first time the thought wasn’t a comfort. As he watched, the Red sharply jolted up his arms. M̴͕̀̑͘ u̸͔͓͔̕ f̴̼̩̲͗̈ f̸͉̺̺̓ i̸̭̜̒͋̀ n̶̛̥͍̜. Alright. Alright. That wasn’t good. Ok. Ok. “So, uhh. Any seventeen year olds?” he asked Tubbo carefully. 

“Nah. Just the three of us. Or like just three unique consciousnesses; we got like sooo many bees but they don’t really add much to the brain department. The other ages would be between now and about a month for us honey bees. So that’s our only ages. We did ask if you wanted to join. Not gonna press you on that! That’s your choice. But yeah.”

“You asked him to join you?” Rosalind asked, curious.

“Yeah,” Tubbo and Tommy confirmed simultaneously. 

“And you didn’t ask me?” she said, amused. 

“Well-well there wasn’t time was there!” Tubbo protested. “We’d only just met from your perspective!”

“Uh huh, Tubbo, we’d only just met from my perspective, too,” Tommy added.

“But Dr. Blake was there! And then she cut off our hand! We were a little preoccupied. But. Well. If you want to…” Tubbo offered Rosalind.

“No. No, I’m good. I got a world waiting for me outside, and you do too. I think they’d need us separately, and I think we have very different lives to lead.”

“Alright,” Tubbo agreed simply. They clapped their hands tog- oops. Tubbo converted the gesture to a slap to the leg. “Alright!” they repeated. “Cake time! We’ve gotten seriously sidetracked!” 

Rosalind rose, stepping over a raised row and picking something up off the ground. Tommy held out his hands, and she placed the birthday spud into his expectant palms. Carved into one side was a smiley face, and it had a divot for the nose. A thin, partially rolled cylinder of paper was shoved into it, diagonally striped by the broken red crayon and colored orange at the end. “Carefully with the candle,” Rosalind winked. “Very hot.” Tommy grinned, then tried to blow on it in order to make the paper birthday candle fall out. It didn’t work. He tried again, then again, getting slightly frustrated. Rosalind smiled apologetically. “It. Ah. Kept unraveling, so we kept making it deeper. The candle is in there pretty good. Here, try again,” Tubbo ordered. Tommy complied, and a small cluster of honey bees picked it up, tugging a bit to get the fake candle out, and flying away with it. Tubbo threw up their arms. “Yay! First try.”

“Oh boy, how did you know my favorite flavor was vanilla?” Tommy asked. “Mmmm. Just can’t get enough of it.”

“There was a carrot cake joke right there, Tommy,” Rosalind chided. “I’m disappointed in you.” She got up again, grabbing the other spuds for her and Tubbo. 

“Yeah whatever.” An idea struck him. He adopted a saccharine tone. “Tubbo…?” 

“...what?” Tubbo was already suspicious, which was honestly pretty smart of them. 

“How much do you love me?”

“Probably not enough for whatever you’re planning?”

Tommy pouted, not expecting them to be wise to his ways. “But it’s my birthday, Tubbo. You can’t say that on my birthday. I’m turning seventeen, you know how big that is.”

“No.”

“Pleeeease?”

“No.”

“Rosalind. Rosalind, they’re denying me on my birthday, Rosalind. That cannot be allowed, legally.” 

“Tubbo. Please. I don’t want you to go to jail,” she said solemnly. 

“We know what the laws are, we’re a lawyer. That’s definitely not a…” Tubbo caught sight of Tommy’s pleading expression. It was a look Tommy had carefully cultivated over the years, and his parents knew it to be practically lethal in potency. “Uhhhghgggg fine. What do you want?”

“Could I have icing for my cake? Please? Come on. What’s a little cannibalism between friends?” 

“Pfff. Sure. Whatever.”

“Really?” Tommy asked, honestly not expecting Tubbo to agree. 

“Well, since we aren’t starving anymore, it’s not...not really that vital, right? So sure. Now, this isn’t going to be common. But since it’s your birthday…”

Tommy froze a bit. “You don’t...mind?”

“Nah. It’s whatever.”

“So that meant...so you were just trying to stop me because...oh m̵̻̮̮̒̌̌ú̸͎̎͋f̶̨̼̮͛̌͒f̵̡͚̪̒i̶͙͝n̶͕̜̞̏̆͝ Tubbo I didn’t realize.” A sour taste filled his mouth. He’d taken some of Tubbos’ dwindling food supplies for a joke. Christ, how terrible was he? To not even realize it? And of course Tubbo had gone alone with it, they weren’t going to ruin the mood like that. 

“It was not even a teaspoon. Relax. Besides, we wanna know if we’re still your best tasting friend.” Tubbo took the birthday potato, held it in front of their mouth, and let a sheet of honey pour over it. They handed back the sticky mess to Tommy, who was not entirely pleased how similar to vomiting it looked. Honestly, very rude of Tubbo. He bit into the raw birthday potato. Still a weird, gritty, starch apple. But godlike honey overlayed the flavor. Half unpleasant half divine nectar. Made the whole experience even more strange. Whatever. At least the strange after taste (could it be called a taste? It wasn’t a flavor, just strange residue) was hidden by glorious honey. The three ate. 

“So,” Rosalind began while Tommy was licking his hands. “Is there like a ranking system for most delicious friend, or is it held by election, or some other way entirely?”

“Ranking,” Tommy replied immediately.

“Where do I fall?”

“Third, right after- um. Second. Cause I got. Got two friends. Three. Wilbur is still good, I just...it’s just been, well, ten months. Might’ve changed flavors, y’know? And I had other friends, human friends.” Other employees, at least for as long as they’d feigned it. “At school and stuff. But...but again. It’s been awhile.”

“...does that mean you know what I taste like??”

“Obviously, or I couldn’t rank you could I? So yeah, you’re second, and then Tubbo is best friend. Best tasting friend. The first one, too, just also the most delicious.”

“Ok, really sweet, but you aren’t going to distract me from the fact you know what I taste like,” Rosalind persisted. 

“Are you saying you don’t know what I taste like?”

“No, Tommy. Of course I wouldn’t. What would your flavor even be?”

“Red, obviously,” Tubbo and Tommy yelled simultaneously. They went in for a high five, but Tommy remembered how terrible an idea that would be and jerked his hand back right before it made contact. Right. Stupid. That was stupid. He sat on his hands. Are you trying to explode Tubbos’ only other hand? Make them kill parts of themselves? Attack Rosalind? What kinda m̴̻̥̱̦͐̈̍ư̴̤͇͕̗͎̬͑͂̀̆̑f̶̛̘̝̋f̶͓͔͘ͅi̸̮͔̰̳̅̑́̄͘n̵̗͍̱̮̼͉̏̐hole did that?

The hugs during the grey period made him remember how fiercely he wanted contact. And now with The Blade and Philza gone...he couldn’t touch any of his friends. A ravine separating them neatly. Small, incredibly deep, but he could probably just leap across...and cause them all to fall in. Selfish. That was just selfish. You can’t touch them, a little part of his brain whispered. The temptation almost overwhelmed him regardless. It had been so long since he’d last seen Philza, the desire for contact almost eating at him. That was just weird. Physical contact wasn’t a need or anything. That was just weird. He was weird. Tommy shut down the idea. He needed to focus. Rosalind was talking. “And I taste like...what?”

“Well, you know. Meat. Kinda salty. Little bit of cinnamon and strawberry. Potatoes.”

“What? Why cinnamon and strawberry?”

Tommy shrugged. “I dunno man. That’s something you’ll have to ask yourself.”

“And the potatoes?”

“You are what you eat, idiot. I thought that one was obvious.”

“Oh, of course, of course. Should’ve taken that into account with a cannibal’s perspective.”

“Yeah, you really should’ve. Rookie mistake there,” Tubbo chimed in. 

“I’m not the rookie here! I’m the second oldest person here.”

“Oh yeah!” Tommy turned to Tubbo, reminded of the fact they were technically at his birthday party. “Thanks for the birthday cake.”

“Of course. Now for the presents!” A weird giddy feeling rose in Tommy’s chest. He knew it wouldn’t be much, but still. It was only in the last few weeks when he’d gotten to have personal possessions at all, and now he was getting special ones from his friends. Last visit, Tommy had tossed down some paper and his least favorite crayons, deciding to let either Tubbo or gravity catch them. Tubbo had given him a buncha annoyed looks, but Tommy had been really only able to decipher the one on their humanoid face. Tubbo caught them, so what was the big deal?

Rosalind demanded he close his eyes, and Tommy complied. She also told him to cover them as well, but he argued that would just get Red in his eyes which was no bueno. Of course, it really only felt weird, but still. Rosalind let him get away with just shutting them, which was good, because Tommy was peeking already. A covey of bees rose, objects obscured in their midst. Well. It certainly wasn’t wrapping paper, but it hid the presents just the same. Ḿ̵̱̕ủ̴̢̙̣͗̊f̴͙͔̼̀̄f̶̙̗͑̋͂i̶̼͌ͅň̴̛̞. Oh well. 

Tubbo commanded him to open his eyes, and then to reach into the swarm and pull the presents out. Tommy gave them A Look. “What? It’s not like we can unwrap them for you. That just wouldn’t make sense.” Tommy huffed, and carefully dipped his hand into the cluster of honey bees. It felt a little terrifying, even if he knew Tubbo would never hurt him. The bees parted to avoid touching the Red, closing back around his arm so he couldn’t see. Tommy moved slowly. Really, more risk than it was worth, but whatever. His fingers came into contact with the smooth surface of paper, and he gingerly pulled it out, trying not to coat it too much in vermilion. He reached back in, retrieving a second piece, and then a strangely sharp paper. Tubbo declared that to be all the gifts, so Tommy sat the three before him, eyes caught on the creased page.

It was folded oddly, creating the rough shape of a swan out of origami. It was colored a soft pink, with blue tips to its wings and tail. Little black eyes dotted the side of its head, a gentle smile sketched into its beak. Tommy held it carefully in the palm of his hand, turning it to examine every side. He couldn’t help the grin rising on his face. “I’m gonna name it Geneva,” he whispered reverently. 

Rosalind wheezed. “Tommy I spent actual hours perfecting that and you’re naming it what??? ”

“Well it’s a goose, and those break the Geneva convention just by existing, so-”

“Swan! It’s a swan, Tommy!”

“Not like there’s a difference,” Tommy scoffed. 

Rosalind spluttered. “Of course there-there’s a massive-why would you-what even-Oh, whatever. Fine. See if I ever put effort into your gifts ever again.”

...but they wouldn’t know, would they? They’d have no idea when another year had passed. Something churned unpleasantly in Tommy’s stomach. Ignore it. “Ours next!” Tubbo insisted. 

“There aren’t any others, idiot,” Tommy reminded them.

“Well, that just means it’s the best for last, right?” Tommy flipped over one of the two sheets, careful to limit the ruby pigment to the corner. It was a drawing. Rosalind, Tubbo, and Tommy stood in a beautiful grassy field. Flowers covered the page, a sun nestled in the corner, and a giant oak tree framed one side. The friends stood together, smiling. It was better than Tommy could do, which was kinda rude of Tubbo.

“Ooh, are those flower crowns?” Rosalind asked, pointing to the heads of the paper people.

“Yep!” Tubbo confirmed. “You like them, Tommy?”

“Of course. Women love aesthetic men, Tubbo.”

“Well...Jasmine says she prefers dinosaurs to flowers, but the rest of us think she’s wrong.”

“Dinosaurs are also an aesthetic,” Tommy insisted. 

“What’s your style then?” 

Tommy held out his arms to the side to display his completely ruby hospital gown. “Are you dumb? Are you actually stupid? Brain damage? Do you have brain damage? All your bee thinkers got dropped on they heads as children? It’s Red, moron.”

“Ehhhh…sorta orangy red, but that’s just the bee eyes. Ultraviolet, you know. Anyways, we meant before. Like, we’d wear sweaters and overalls and things like that. Lots of Dino shirts, too, for Jasmine.” 

“I didn’t know you were a dweeb, big T.”

“No! No, it was cool!”

“I think it sounds cute,” Rosalind defended. 

“See! She just proved my point! Cute, not stylish or cool. That’s like your grandma saying you look dapper. Face it Tubbo, you weren’t fashionable.”

“I refuse to be considered the equivalent of a grandmother,” Rosalind interjected. 

“You’re like forty. It’s what you are. Honestly, Tubbo, the hospital gown is probably doing you more favors then that garbage you wore.”

“Fine then. What did you wear?”

“Uhhh let me think.” He had to actually stop and search his memories. Why didn’t-why couldn’t he remember immediately? “...you know those white shirts with the colored sleeves? Lots of red, too, even before the Red showed up.”

“So...like a cross between a baseball fan and an eight year old? You gave us all that m̷̛̞̣͑u̶͉̅̀̕f̶͎̘̑̀̆f̵̻̠̺̖̿̇͆i̴͎̋ņ̷̤́ and you wore that?”

“You clearly don’t understand style at all. Besides, you cannot bully me on my birthday it is very rude,” Tommy articulated carefully.

“Wait, so you still had a red theme even before?” Rosalind queried. “What if it had been, say, purple? Or brown?”

Tommy shrugged. He hadn't exactly factored that in, even though he'd had Red for about a year now. “Get a new wardrobe I guess. I don’t know. Whenever I was out in public, like school or whatever, I just wore gl-. I. Yeah. Just covered that up.” Back then, gloves had been a comfort, even. A way to pretend he was still human. His friends had asked, of course, but he’d insisted it was the next trend, and they’d gotten off his case. The gloves had made him feel like everything could still be the same. Nothing had to change just because he’d found out he wasn’t human. But it had. Violently and swiftly, everything had changed. The gloves had stayed, though, twisted from a source of comfort to anxiety. The Foundation ruined them. The tingle of fingertips dancing over his throat replayed even as he thought of it.

“Honestly, we can’t imagine it being any other color.”

“Yeah, it’d just feel wrong,” Rosalind agreed with Tubbo. 

“You know what else is wrong? The fact you haven’t looked at our second gift,” Tubbo awkwardly segway’d. Whatever. Tommy didn’t care as long as it meant he didn’t have to wait any longer. Tommy flipped over the other page. ‘Freind :)’ it read.

Something inside him crumpled. Distantly, he could hear Tubbo talking about how they wanted to fix it because the last one was torn, but it barely registered.

In all likelihood, the Foundation would manage to ruin the new affirmation as well. The drawing, too, and Geneva, and anything at all that they wanted to. Sure, they let him have it for now, but that couldn’t last long. The Foundation wouldn’t want him to have comfort however small. They’d let him have Philza, but begrudgingly, and now that was also gone. It was only as he was happy did he realize how thoroughly they’d taken his joy from him, tainting it even now. It was ephemeral, drowned out in the expanse of miserable nothing. Him and his friends were fine now, but they hadn’t been, and soon they wouldn’t be. It was guaranteed. 

In Tubbos’ picture they were all smiling. They were free. Unburdened by the Foundation in a way that would never be. There was no future of them all standing in a field with flower crowns. No Tommy in the middle, holding the hands of his friends. He’d never see the outside world again. It was impossible. Escape was impossible. They’d be stuck there, forever, chronology eventually dying for Rosalind and Tubbo as well, trapped in the loop of nothing, terrible, terrible nothing. 

Time was meaningless. 

He’d grow to eighteen and beyond and still be the same person with nothing ever changing. Trapped as himself.

“...and next time we can decorate! Maybe spell out things with the bees? We’ll probably be long out of paper by then, but maybe we'll make something with the gardening tools?” Tubbo was speaking, the drone of insects humming back into Tommy’s awareness. He clutched the ‘Freind :)’ paper tightly. It quivered. Thick droplets of water splashed down, smearing the message. The sight only made more, until Tommy couldn’t see at all, vision swirled into hot blurry liquid. “...What do you think, Tommy? Tommy? M̴̥͙̅u̶̧͇͂f̶͚̈́́f̸̦́̃̚ì̸̳̼̙̊̐n̶̛͈͊͝ what’s wrong? Tommy?”

“I-I—I don’t want an eighteenth birthday here.” No, that sounded so childish. But of course it did, he was just a stupid little kid throwing a tantrum. It didn’t make sense, things were good, why couldn’t he just accept that? Just let everyone be happy? “I don’t want to get older here. I don’t- I just want to leave, I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t- they’ve done so much. They’ve ruined everything, Tubbo. My friendships, my life, my- just everything! They’ve ruined me! Every last part!” 

“They haven’t,” Rosalind said gently. 

“We don’t have to celebrate it if you don’t want to. Not here. We can leave, Tommy. You don’t have to stay,” Tubbo softly buzzed.

“Escape is impossible and only...only...wait.” Tommy blinked, then used the collar of his hospital gown to rub at his eyes. The hot tears cooled. “Wait. M̷͉͒ǘ̴͔f̸̣̄f̶̠̽i̴̲̍ṅ̷̘. I can leave.” There wouldn’t be consequences. It wouldn’t be his fault. Philza wouldn’t descend as the dark shadow of death, quenching the living. 

Philza wouldn’t care at all. 

For the first time, the thought didn’t scorch out his insides, leaving him completely hollow. It came close to it, but just didn’t hold the same crushing weight in the altered context. For the first time, the thought was almost an assurance. “I can leave! There won’t be- no one would die! I can…” he looked up to his friends. “We can escape,” Tommy whispered, as if saying it too loud would kill the tentative hope. 

Rosalind and Tubbo shared an unreadable look. For a few seconds, no one said anything. Tubbo threw up their hand, cheering, “WOOOOOO!!!!”

“Christo FINALLY!” Rosalind shouted.

“We thought we’d have to knock you out and drag you along!”

“I thought it would take copious amounts of therapy!”

“Sweet holy m̸̪̾ū̶̮f̷̡̂f̷̮̈́i̴̛̫ṅ̵̯ we thought it would take months for you to get over that.”

“WAIT WAIT WAit were you guys planning on KIDNAPPING ME!???”

“Well, only if you didn’t change your mind in time,” Tubbo explained kindly. “Because if we waited too long, you’d be an adult, and then it’s not legally considered kid napping is it?” They paused, leaning their head, look crumpling and nose twitching in the way they’d taken from Tommy. “...oh. Legally, stealing an adult is still kidnapping...but that’s alright!” Tubbos’ visage brightened. “As long as we aren’t caught, it’s fine! Plus, we totally know how to defend ourselves in court if it comes down to it, so it’s no big deal.” 

Rosalind nodded enthusiastically. “I had it all planned out,” she added. “Details and everything.”

“You all are terrible,” Tommy frowned. “Do you even know what would've happened if you tried that earlier?”

“Tommy, that's the whole point! Nothing would’ve happened. It’s just some weird psychology-brainwashing-thingy the Foundation has done.”

Tommy scowled. “You really think they’d sacrifice hundreds of people just to prove a point to me? Why bother? Tubbo, don’t be stupid.”

His friends froze. “...hundreds?” Rosalind whispered, horrified. 

“We-we thought there wasn’t- what happened Tommy?”

“It’s not an issue anymore. Right? Ok. So, I still don’t think escape is possible, but it won’t make things too bad. The Foundation will get mad, but it won’t make things nearly as worse, so it wouldn’t hurt to try? ...Right?” Tommy rambled, trying to get them to stop. They were going to want to know, and Tommy wasn’t sure he could refuse them. He hadn’t had the time to build up his resistance after his… breakdown. His walls were painfully thin as it was, almost caving on their own, letting in thoughts he could usually ignore. “Do we have a plan? You can tell me it. I can help. I can be useful, I swear-”

“Why won’t there be consequences anymore? What happened the first time?” Rosalind pressed gently. The slightest touch, but he could feel spider webbing splinters cracking through old walls. Debris littered his chest, dust from the wreckage filling his lungs. The pain was still sharp from where he’d hidden it away.

“I...ḿ̵̤̤̗̈́͘ű̶̯̯̪́f̸̢̮̼̓̀f̶̭͇̕į̷͂̆̂n̵͇̏̉͝. Ok.” Tommy muttered quietly. They weren’t going to be distracted. And...and maybe he needed to tell someone. To get it out of his head just a little. The images had been stuck in there so long and he didn’t know if they’d ever leave. He looked up at the padded white ceiling so he wouldn't have to see their reactions. The bright fluorescent lights smeared into his retinas and he blinked it away. His eyes hurt, stinging, and wanted to blame it all on the glaring light. “So...so right when I first got captured, I tried to run. During transportation to visit Phil. And they shot at me, and brought me back, and that was that.” He wrapped his arms around himself, squeezing tight until it almost hurt. “And that should’ve been all. It wasn’t my first solo attempt. But...but it was my last. 

“They weren’t happy about it. They usually aren’t, but it was worse than usual. They…” he swallowed roughly. “They put on the gloves and left me in the dark. And...and I didn’t see anyone at all for so long.” Isolation was a terrible thing. It did all sorts of weird things to his brain. Made his insides hurt, twisted into tight contractions. 

“Tommy…” Tubbo hummed. “Tommy that’s awful-”

“No. No, that’s not the consequences. That was fine, it was fine, that wasn’t—that wasn’t the bad part.” That was a typical punishment. That was for things he deserved to get in trouble for. It wasn’t even the worst punishment, even excluding the things done to prepare for summonings. “Because…because Philza didn’t like not seeing me. So he broke into my cell so we could have our visit. Like normal. Except I’m usually the one who went to him, and he had to fight his way there and...and I don’t even know how he knew where I was, but he did, and we talked. Just like normal.” 

Tommy had pressed into his Collector’s side, desperate to find comfort even if it almost made him sick, blood and smoke pressed into his lungs until he almost couldn’t breathe. Burying his face into Philza’s chest to hide from the image of the hallway even if his Collector’s hospital gown was coated with gore. Desperate to find solace in danger, looking to a harbinger of destruction to find safety. He’d been so confused and scared, and as he always did when confused and scared he’d held tight to Philza even if the man was the source of it all. 

Surely Philza had loved him then, if he would do that for him. Tommy didn’t want the offering. A gesture of commitment cemented in the final breath of hundreds. The worst part was it had been reassuring. He’d never be left alone again. “And then he left. Just like normal. Except the door was broken, and I just stared at all the dead bodies. For hours. Just watching. I don’t know how many there were, but they must’ve led all the way back to his cell. There probably were only a couple dozen as far as I could see, really it wasn’t that many,” he babbled. “Hundreds is an exaggeration.” Probably. Possibly. There was a long and terrible distance between their cells. Grey stains marked the entire path. Tommy had tried to count them once, until he’d been too sick to continue. Not everyone even left a stain. 

He closed his eyes. The memory of the artificial light played on the back of his eyelids. Strange teal and maroon and colors that didn’t exist swirled. Faces (and lack thereof) danced behind his eyes. All the faceless ones, and throatless ones, and heartless ones, and limbless ones, and headless ones (or were they bodiless ones? Where were they kept? The head? The heart? Gone entirely to some afterlife? Or no. No there wasn’t one, was there? Tubbo had said it was just an eternity of nothing. Wasn't that what Tommy already had?) were images that pressed into his very being.

“S-so,” he began shakily. “So it’s not a problem anymore. Philza doesn’t care so he wouldn’t do that again.” He had to have cared then. Why would he have done it otherwise? Tommy didn’t know if that was really love, but it was the closest he could think of it like Philza would. There was always someone who’d want him, even if that took slicing down hundreds of people in between them. It was some kind of affection, not a human kind certainly, but it was there. So was there a point at which Phil decided he didn’t care anymore, or was it a gradual realization? He thought it had to be an epiphany, because Phil had given no indication prior to Tommy seeing the contract amendment. Or maybe Philza was just pretending the whole time and Tommy couldn’t understand the distinction between affection and chore, too wrapped up in himself to tell. Maybe he’d just mistaken it all for love.

“He did what?” Tubbo asked, outraged. 

“He fulfilled the contract terms. He was allowed a visit and they shouldn’t have stopped him. But I’m not Collected anymore so it’s not...it’s fine now. We can leave.” Or try to. He didn’t think it would work, but even failure had to be better than nothing at that point. He was so sick of nothing. He opened his eyes. The bright empty void greeted him. He squinted, getting used to the illumination, then sat up, pushing against the soft ground. Tommy used the momentum, getting to his feet and rising. He stretched. 

He didn’t want to be stuck in limbo. He wanted out. 

And maybe they had a chance. Probably they didn’t. But it would be something, and that was good enough for him. 

——

Rosalind’s replacement was a chatty young man, with spiky blond hair and a generous splattering of freckles across pale skin. He didn’t have the air of a new employee, and it made Tommy wonder why he was on caretaking duty for him. Maybe he’d gotten demoted or something. Lawrence was still there, quietly bitter as ever. He stared at the other researcher a bit too much, face unreadable. The replacement had taken interest in Tommy’s pictures, and the Instigator had happily shown them off, even if he felt a little awkward claiming that he’d made the birthday gifts. The new employee had asked about the people depicted, and Tommy had waved them away as old friends. He hadn’t quite managed to say that about the picture with Clementine and Philza on it. There was a difference between old and physically dead. 

There was also a difference between friend and what Phil had been, or what he now was. 

Tommy didn’t exactly know what the difference was either way, and preferred not to think about it, which was a little difficult since the man had been rather interested in Philza, which made sense as he was cool. Is. Was. Tommy had tried to steer the conversation back to easier things. Milo hadn’t made it easy. 

After confirming he wasn’t hungry (twice), Tommy had been transported by the two men to mild testing. Getting to and from anywhere in the Foundation was a tedious thing, due to the paranoid security measures. But only a mild and unassuming room met him, sporting a few cabinets and a handful of chairs. There was a notable lack of surgical slab, weapons, or D-class personnel, but he knew each of those could be easily brought in. Some Red samples were taken and compared to earlier samples. He figured he’d be forced to confirm its functionality soon. Maybe…maybe he’d talk to Tubbo first, make sure they didn’t come to that one. He could just say he felt like Tubbo being there for medical procedures was invasive or something, play it off all casual like. Yeah. That would work. A lie, since he really did feel better when he knew Tubbo was watching, but Tubbo would probably feel far safer if they never saw a Red test. That seemed a reasonable sacrifice, so Tubbo never witnessed Tommy killing loads of people. And if they came anyway, I could just make sure the level didn’t get too high. Yeah, sure. He knew full well the positive feedback loop set up in his own mind. Things always escalated. That was just his nature. 

Tommy was relieved once he was back in the cage when eventually the lights turned off. He’d been glad when they’d started back up again after the failed summoning, though had suspected they would. Sleep deprivation was usually reserved for prepping for a summoning, since everything was so much scarier while he was exhausted. He suspected they might try to summon The Blade soon, and he wasn’t sure what would happen when he refused again.  Regardless, the dark period made it much safer to go visit. 

When he got on the floor, Rosalind offered him two spuds. They’d all discovered that raw potatoes were very difficult to eat a large quantity of. Spacing them out was difficult for Tommy if not the others since his access was limited to visits. They had a few staches tucked away in the vents and a partially used bag of soil, which helped. Plus, if they ever got discovered…well. Add a few more days to that one to two months that it took to starve to death, hey? Not a problem yet. Tommy braced and took a bite of one. “Ros! Rossy! Guess what?” he asked Rosalind, valiantly not spitting out his mouthful of starch.

“Chew with your mouth closed.”

Tommy sputtered, which was the exact opposite of what the once employee wanted. “You never get onto Tubbo!” he protested.

“That’s cause we don’t chew,” Tubbo hummed smugly. What a stupid smug bug. Sbug. Bmug. 

“Fine. I just had something REALLY important, but whatever.” He made a point of exaggerating his chewing and eventual swallowing. “Anyway, what I was going to say before I was rudely interrupted-”

“More like reminded of basic manors. Decency, Tommy.”

“M̶̳̟̘̠̎̀́͠u̴̦̓̍f̷̠̪̫̘̀̀̑͘f̵͇̒̋̂̃i̷̢͉͇̐̊n̸̨̲̭͘̚ͅ off,” Tommy said incredibly politely. “Besides! You haven’t guessed what it is!”

“Is it the new guy?” Tubbo asked. Tommy scowled. 

“That wasn’t directed at you. You already knew so it wasn’t really a guess at all. But yeah! You got replaced." 

“Yeah!” Tubbo buzzed. “This guy named Miles-”

“Milo,” Tommy corrected. “No one would name their kid after an inferior measurement unit.”

“Actually people do get named that,” Rosalind interjected in the middle of his interjection, which was incredibly rude. “I have a friend who named their son Miles.”

“Well, his name is Milo, so it doesn’t matter. Anyway, he’s kinda nice. Used my name and everything.” Tommy had always found that was the best indicator of whether someone would be good or not. Whether or not someone thought you were a person very much dictated every interaction, in his experience.

“Does that make him an asset, then?” Rosalind inquired. Discussions from there on centered on escape plans. The planning session went well, at least Tommy thought it had. He didn’t really have that many ideas to offer, so it was mostly Tubbo and Rosalind coming up with plans and Tommy explaining which ones weren’t viable. He made it very clear he didn’t think any of it would work, but at least they trusted his criticism enough to be able to use it to weed out the impossible. It left only the implausible and unlikely, but it was better than nothing. 

He surprised himself with his own dearth of knowledge. Tubbo boasted a lot of utility, and Rosalind had a general employee’s understanding of the facility, but Tommy had far more experience than the both of them combined. 

Eventually they had most of their cover stories hammered out. Rosalind was determined to have all the details nailed down, and Tommy appreciated it. Something about figuring out prepared responses to various possibilities was calming. It made the plan feel more concrete and tangible. It made escape almost seem possible. There was a pretty large hurdle they were coming across. Once they got out of the room and were together, it would likely be a lot easier. That was the key word though: Once. 

Opportunities to get out were few, as was the design. Tommy had meal deliveries but the others didn’t. Sure, he could try to slip out, but what then? Tubbo could supposedly guide him to their room with their bee homing pigeon sense or whatever they’d said it was, but then he’d just have a locked door. Unaccompanied in the halls, Tommy wasn’t likely to go unnoticed. For a while they’d debated having Rosalind climb over with Tommy, although she still wouldn’t have a way into Tubbos’ cell. It was an idea quickly abandoned. Rosalind, in her own words, just wasn’t dexterous enough to get to the vent. Tommy had to admit quite a few turns were nearly impossible.

“Right, so Rosalind can’t get to your room. That only leaves us with when we’re unconscious,” Tubbo said.

“And I follow pretty quickly after. It doesn’t last as long though, maybe I could break out of the side room during the farmer’s visit? But even in the dark I could tell it only opens from the outside, just like any other cell.”

“Ideally it would be before we’re locked in then,” Tubbo decided. 

“Yes, but ideal doesn’t mean possible,” Rosalind replied. “He’s still going to chloroform me.”

“You can fight him,”  Tommy stated suddenly.

Rosalind went to her hair, as always. “Not really. I don’t know how, and he’s always overpowered me.”

“Just means he won’t expect it, then. Plus, he overpowered you when you weren’t getting food. Means he will really underestimate your strength. That’s pretty valuable, if we’re going for a surprise attack.” The others stared at him. “What?” Tommy demanded, feeling a bit defensive. “I can have ideas, too. I’m not just here to shoot down dumb plans.”

“No, it’s not that,” Rosalind offered sheepishly. “Just…that’s really valuable advice.”

“Of course it is, I said it,” Tommy scoffed, slightly disgruntled. His nose crinkled in offense.

Tubbo looked thoughtful. “Well, you did hold your own pretty good against Lawrence. He only got your eye, and you got like a buncha hits on his legs and stuff. Not much anywhere else, but still.” 

Tommy rolled his eyes. “One, Lawrence is a ḿ̴̼͔̱̐́u̸͈̿̒f̸͇̣̪̅̈͒͘͝f̵̝͖͖̦̣͕̓̈̆̓ḯ̶̻̪̔̾̈́̀n̵̪͎͌ faced nerd. Two, I was avoiding using Red as long as possible since the Foundation m̴̨̞̠͘ṳ̶̥̳̎̊̊͝f̵̧͕̜͛̽f̸̟̼̳͙̌͝ì̷͕̝̱̩̳̏̽̄͘n̶͕̆̒̐̊́ies like to punish that. And three, of course I went for the legs! Nothing vital to worry about breaking, and it slowed him down. You think Rosalind would have gotten away with as few injuries as she did if he wasn’t limping like mad?”

“We just didn’t think you put that much thought into it,” Tubbo admitted. 

The teen huffed. “It’s called strategy, moron.”

“You really were very slippery.”

He preened a bit. “Yep! I’m so incredibly slippery and slimy. Someone tries to hit me, and I just say 'no thank you' and slide away before they can even get me.”

“The slimiest!” Tubbo grinned. Bees crawled in and out of the expression. Tommy matched it. 

“So, mister—ah, master…slime. How do I wield these arts?” Rosalind inquired.

And thus, Tommy was roped into giving a crash course in combat. “I think your greatest asset,” he said after a while, “is that he just doesn’t know you. Right? Doesn’t know you got food now, and new skills. And that’s the thing: he won’t know how dangerous you are. You’ve been stuck for like a week with a ‘monster’, you're probably desperate, and just…he doesn’t know. I think that’s your best bet. He’ll start expecting a mild struggle, and when it doesn’t happen, he won’t know where to put his expectations. You got a chance to choose what he thinks will happen. Use it.”

Rosalind huffed from exertion. Tommy couldn’t exactly go hand to hand with her, and so Tubbo was serving. It gave both of them practice at least. A lesson both could use. Rosalind was kinda decent, while Tubbo made up for their missing hand by being quick. Tommy had banned Tubbo from flying or moving too inhuman since it wouldn’t make sense to practice for the wrong type of fight, but also figured that Tubbo would find their hovering way of life useful in a fight. Made their footwork a good distraction since it wasn’t necessary. And even if they forgot the lie, it still was one less tell for an experienced fighter to exploit. “And what do I want him to think?” she panted.

Tommy shrugged. “That you’re dangerous. That you’d kill him. Anything to win, I guess.”

“How?”

Tommy thought it over carefully before responding. “It’s all about intent, innit? That’s all it comes down to.” Except did it really? He’d never intended anyone to die, or never wanted them to at the very least. But that just meant it was a trait easily misinterpreted. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see it the other way around for a change? “He’s gotta think he’ll die, and you sorta got to as well. Just…lie. That’s all a fight is. Not a spoken one, though those help. It’s a lie with your movements, your posture, your eyes. You can’t just say you’re gonna kill someone, it isn’t convincing. It’s like pretending to tense for a fake lunge. The intent is there even if you aren’t really going to do it.” Worry creased her face. Slowly, she and Tubbo picked up their sparring once more, heavy determination set into each of them.

It was only later, once everyone’s energy had started to flag, that one of them bothered to ask how he’d learned to fight. He’d just grinned, swallowing the truth and pretending it wasn’t scraping his throat. He told them that it was inherent Tommy knowledge, just like knowing he was the greatest. It offered him a flimsy barrier, and when they inevitably pressed he shrugged and manufactured a cool relative or something who’d taught him. He didn’t say friend. They were likely to catch on better if he did. 

Talk returned to strategy, poking around for any last advantage they could think of. Tubbo suddenly buzzed as an idea struck them. “What about the Milo guy? Maybe we can use that. Like sneak in supplies? That’s what we were planning to do with Rosalind, back when there was an option, or when we thought there was. A man on the inside, for real, not just the illusion of one.”

“Another potential ally?” Rosalind suggested.

Tommy’s mouth quirked into a frown. “Well…if we’re wrong we’re pretty m̵̢̫̖̯̄̆ư̷̳͕͇͈̯̥̒̔f̴̰̹̤̂̓͐̌͘͠f̵̭̗̒̅̾̀͊̊̚̚͠i̶̢͈̓͛́̓̐̀̓͜n̵͉̝̒̓̃̊ed.” It wasn’t as if Milo had a reason to. He worked for the Foundation after all. Rosalind did as well, but she had a personal stake in it. Milio just…didn’t. Kindness was one thing. Trustworthiness was something else altogether. Just because Tommy was friends with someone didn't mean he didn't expect them to betray him given half an incentive to do so. 

“I’m acquainted with a few other workers,” Rosalind offered tentatively. “I don’t believe that they’d actually assist us in escape knowingly, but indirectly they might, if we tricked them.”

“Allies are probably not happening then,” Tubbo surmised. 

Rosalind looked apologetic. “Not from other humans, I think. Sorry.”

Tommy blinked. “Hold on, don’t we have two humans? Or like three ‘cause of Ros.” He nodded towards her offhandedly. Rosalind followed his gaze, which was set on Tubbo. The hivemind's mouth was parted in a little ‘o’ shape. 

“Probably wouldn’t help much. Rhodes and Jasmine are still just us.”

“They wouldn’t have different ideas?”

“Nah. We’re all working on it together already.”

“Oh,” Tommy said. “Can we still meet them? I think we’re done planning anyway.”

Tubbo looked uncomfortable. “We prefer to stay whole for the most part. Like with Jasmine, she’s been Tubbo so long that without her we’re just…it’s like taking away a cornerstone kinda. Rhodes is…well, we only added him a few days before we got kidnapped. He isn’t quite settled, which is why he interrupts so much. Too used to being an individual.”

“Why don’t you tell stories about them then?” Rosalind offered. 

“Yeah! Like with Clementine.” Tubbos’ face quite literally split into a smile. Tommy thought that their eyes glittered like the stars when they agreed, launching into tales of their childhood and friends.

Or. Well. What he imagined the stars looked like. He couldn’t quite remember. 

He planned to fix that. 

Chapter Text

Bees began to drop to the ground, but a faint hissing noise remained. Tubbo nodded at her, then saluted sharply. The Hive and human crossed over to the main door. “See you in an hour,” they droned. “Good luck.”

Rosalind grinned sharply. It had been about three days since Tommy’s birthday party. She gripped the garden tools tightly, determined. Rosalind stretched, prepping for action. She bounced on the balls of her feet a bit. “Don’t need it.”

“Really? That’s...that’s the one you’re going with? Laaaame…” a yawn split their sentence and face. 

Her mood chipped a bit. “What? Was I supposed to prepare a one liner as well? Sorry, that wasn’t mentioned in the plan.”

“It was...sorta implied…have you never seen an action movie? Just...ever?” Tubbo slurred. “Whatever. Be careful.”

“Careful is my middle name.”

“...that wasn’t…”

“Yeah, wasn’t. Uh. As cool as I’d thought it’d be. Could we redo that? Or maybe a different line would be preferable.”

“...nahhhh...too...too late…” Tubbos’ head dropped to their chest, then rolled to the side. Right. Showtime. 

Dang it! That might’ve been at least a little cool. Rosalind cleared her throat, the foul smelling gas settling into her lungs. She crossed to the side of the threshold, crouching down to avoid the worst of the fog swirling overhead. It stung her eyes, itched her throat, but the worker ignored it, mentally reviewing the plan over and over until it was carved into her mind. Any minute now…

It swung open, hiding her from the person who entered. She hooked a foot around the door, waiting for the coworker to pass. Rosalind chased the movement of the door swinging shut, slipping a thin rake between the heavy door and the frame to keep it ajar. The guard looked at the unconscious Tubbo, distracted, before surveying the room, shifting his head from side to side. It wasn’t an urgent motion. He glanced behind, venomous viridian eyes widening. He ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding the double-pronged dandelion puller jamming into his eye socket. The guard spun, jumping out of the way as she slashed out with a metal trowel. 

The Foundation employees paused, then began the fight as one. He punched at her face, the chloroform rag bunched into his fist. Rosalind danced to the left, stabbing the dandelion picker into his side, just beneath the bullet proof vest. The guard flinched back. She pressed forward, slicing the side of the trowel across his face.

A red line cupped his high cheekbone, blood collecting and seeping down a bit. Shallow, but far deeper than she ever intended. She made another slash at his throat, wild and swinging, telegraphing the move to give him time to dodge. Another slash. Another. He backed away from her, the door, and Tubbo. She let him retreat. The guard tensed, then dashed to the side, running towards Tubbo. She intersected, lurching with the dandelion puller to block the path, converting it into a wide swing to make more space. Rosalind snarled at the man.

Tommy had been a good instructor. She’d practiced doges and swerves. A good advantage, Tommy had assured her, would be the reach her tools got her. Hit from far away. They won’t be able to win if they can’t get you.

Rosalind honestly hadn’t thought Tommy would be much help at first, but the tips and practice seemed to have worked. The best advice had been on the lying. That’s all a battle was, after all, and Tommy knew intricately the difference between simple anger and wrath. He could detail the exact degree when violence turned to killing intent. The way fighting styles shifted to wild attacks, hard hitting blows, defense falling to the side in pure bloodlust. 

It wasn’t Rosalind’s real strategy, but it had to be convincing. Pretend to fight closer than she really was, pretend her blows were meant to be forceful and not distractions. That had been the real difference the training made. She swung both gardening tools down at his head. The guard leapt back, right into a raised potato row. His arms pinwheeled, almost falling, but he caught his balance. Shame that her boot slammed into his shin. The guard toppled. Not so easy to fight now that I’m not starving, am I? she thought savagely. Rosalind jammed the dandelion picker into the soft soil right next to his left ear. His sharp green eyes widened a bit, and he rolled to the side frantically, scrambling to the other side of the row. 

She yanked the tool from the earth, pushing up to stand on the dirt platform. She leapt off, swinging wildly at the guard, who retreated sharply into the wall. Perfect. Nowhere to go. The sacrifice’s smile sharpened in a way she hoped looked deranged, all teeth and aggression. He tried another punch with the chloroform rag, and Rosalind caught the blow with her forearm. It stung, and she tried not to show it. With the other hand, she hooked the dandelion puller into the soft fabric, attempting to yank it away. He grasped it tighter. Rosalind kicked at his already bruised shin, wrenching the cloth from his grip simultaneously. She loosened her own grip, letting the puller slide until all that was left in her hand was the chloroform rag.

She pressed it to his face, just as he had done to her so many times. In, two, three, four… His fist slammed into her gut, and she tried not to let her gasp be too audible as the breath escaped her lungs, pain blossoming inside her abdomen. Rosalind shoved the sharp, bloodied edge of the gardening shovel into his throat, pressing against his jaw. “Stop struggling or get your throat cut,” she hissed. It was the pivot point. The moment which dictated whether their plan had even a shot of success. Chloroform would work, but it took precious minutes to act. He had to believe she really would kill him. Rosalind glared into the venomous eyes of her coworker, baring her teeth in an edged smile more snarl than anything. It was all in the eyes, Tommy had said. Focused completely, blind to the world except for one single life and its end. Everything else, the aggression, the posture, the words, all that could be mistaken for anger or bluster. Eyes narrowed into the distilled truth of a fellow human’s destruction. Pure malice. 

Spring eyes glared back at her. Bright acid that burrowed in, trying to see if her threat was good. Suddenly they narrowed, and he jabbed at her side, blossoming pain in her internal organs. Rosalind jerked the blade sideways in retaliation. A quick cut, impromptu weapon looped to sit back where it once was. Shallow, across the thicker skin between jaw and the actual throat. Her last card. Blood spluttered from his neck, but it wasn’t cascading like Tommy said a cut jugular looked like. Far too much blood, but not a killing amount. Her guts twisted, but she grit her teeth, refusing to tremble, and pressed once more into his now blood soaked throat. 

“You wanna try that again?” she spat. He glowered at her defiantly, but did nothing. His venomous expression weakened, fading over the minutes. The tension leaked from him, until the guard slumped into the wall, slipping down to the padded floor. Rosalind scowled, shoving the fabric even closer. “You think I’m going to fall for that?” 

His eyes popped back open immediately. She knew exactly how long it took, having counted each time until her thoughts grew too loopy to remember. She estimated another two minutes before he was actually knocked unconscious. But he didn’t resist. Not again. He believed he only had one option. Her lie had worked.

Time passed. He relaxed fully. Blood pooled around his neck, trickling weakly from the cut, already slowing down and almost stopping completely. Right. Time to get to work. Rosalind started by stealing his uniform. Her own ripped up lab coat would not suffice as a disguise. The outfit on the whole was ill fitting; the shoulders were too broad, the pants too long, and the bullet proof vest was far too tight, but it would have to do. It was actually incredibly heavy in a way she hadn’t suspected. She felt around the pockets, finding a couple of neatly labeled key cards. Well, labeled with a long string of numbers, but someone had helpfully written their use on the back in black sharpie. A few checkpoint cards, as well as two that said ‘pig’ and ‘bee closet’. She clutched the latter, dragging the unconscious guard over to the familiar secondary room that she’d always woken in. There really was something poetic about karma. Rosalind shoved him into the cement-walled hellhole, and slammed the door shut. 

Well. Now to wait as sentry. She didn’t think more people would show up, but then again she was usually unconscious. The chloroform didn’t last that long, but the walls were soundproof, so it didn’t matter much. All she had to do was wait for Tubbo to wake up for the second part of the plan. 

Adrenaline twitched inside her. It wasn’t over yet, even if she had nothing to do. She’d just subdued a guard. She really just did that! Wow! Not that he probably had any real training for the job, same as her, but still! A grown man! Knocked down! Man that’d be such a story to tell to her friends. Screw the Foundation’s mask of secrecy, she was going to tell everyone. They couldn’t get away with everything. She was going to expose them for the vile people they were. Rosalind danced on the balls of her feet, a giddy smile stretching across her face. She threw up her hands, letting out a soft cheer. Elation ballooned inside her.

Then, she got back to business. Rosalind checked the door to find it was still propped open. Excellent. She snatched a few of the less suitable tools, the second choice weapons, shoving them into her newly acquired pants. A rake, spade, third and fourth trowel, and a small pair of clippers joined her arsenal. She added some stashed away potatoes, previously hidden in an extra soil bag. Projectiles, food source, whatever would be needed. She surveyed the other options. Nothing else of much use jumped out of her on the honey stained table. Briefly, the image of Tubbo kneeling down before it, recently de-handed, peeked into her mind. Alright. Enough of that. She was actively trying to remedy that, to even the sacrificial balance. Besides, it had regrown a bit. They had about half a palm already, all scored in hexagonal shapes and drippy, but a partial hand nonetheless. 

The plan was for Tommy to start moving through the vents, alerted by the remaining conscious Tubbos. It would take awhile, since he was incredibly far away, and was supposed to be moving extra stealthily for the special occasion. As long as it happened within the rough hour it took for Tubbo to wake up again it was probably fine. All that was left to do was wait and make sure nothing went wrong. She positioned next to the ajar door, squatted down to avoid the worst of the still lingering smog. Rosalind tried to ignore the bubbling stress about the responsibility that put on her. It’d be alright. They were going to make it. They just had to. 

A knock on the third door jolted her. It wasn’t the one the guard had come from (or even herself, what felt a lifetime ago), nor the closet he was in. Rosalind approached it cautiously. Oddly enough, the key reader was on her side of the door. That meant whatever was on the other side was the thing being contained. 

“Hallo? What’s ahhh...what’s the hold up?” The voice was deep and male, oddly gravelly, dampened by the door. Panic blanked her mind briefly. Right! The farmer was supposed to be coming, which meant a worker would notice! Things just couldn’t be easy could they? “Carson? You there?”

Rosalind glanced at the secondary room. The newly identified Carson likely wasn’t even awake yet. She didn’t have a lie prepared. None of them had thought about the repercussions of the farmer’s visit beyond it being their only opportunity to interact with the employees. The silence dragged on as she scrambled for some sort of solution. If they hadn’t seen this coming, what else had they failed to plan for? Suddenly she wasn’t sure their prospects were looking good. Doubt overshadowed the recent victory. “What’s going on?” the voice demanded. Rosalind scrambled together an excuse.

“...he’s sick today. Got some sort of stomach bug. I’m his...replacement. Here, I’ll get the door.” She fumbled for the only key card she didn’t recognize. It was far more advanced than any of the others she’d seen. On one side, it read ‘Access to room 16552’, the other simply saying ‘pig’. Odd. It had a marking dictating which direction to scan it. Rosalind purposely put it in upside down and backwards. To her delight, the scanner lit up a bright ruby and made a disapproving buzzing noise. “It doesn’t seem to be working,” she cheerfully informed the worker on the other side. 

“Bruuuuuuuuuh. Try again.”

Rosalind did so, keeping it the exact same way. The machine angrily denied the card with irate robot tones. She did it once more for good measure. “Oh well, guess we’ll have to reschedule. Shame. Maybe I was given the wrong card? Darn. One way doors. What can you do? Maybe tomorrow? When Carson’s feeling better?” She tried for sincere, but wasn’t sure she nailed it.

“You know…” the voice began, an odd note to it that made her feel unsettled, cutting through the air of casualness she’d been trying to project. “Contractually, you can’t really stop a visit. And if you wanna be the one to break the contract…” something dangerous lurked in the deep voice, partially hidden with shallow words. The person on the other side chuckled, a laugh that sent her gut rolling and her hairs standing on end. The killing intent she had grasped to emulate was a pale shade of murderous guarantee that mere voice evoked. Rosalind stepped back unconsciously. What the— That hadn’t been anywhere near a response that she’d expected. “...well, heh, I would get to break it, too. Not the contract, but you.”

A heavy moment passed where Rosalind froze completely. Her thoughts jumbled into confused screaming. What on Earth had she gotten into?? “...Er. Well technically the contract, too, but uhh. You know what I mean, right? Like, because you didn’t let me garden, I don’t have to let you live. Alright? Alright?” The gravitas disappeared entirely, the person on the other side rambling a bit. “So, I suggest,” the voice rumbled, like thunder, dipping back into speaking in a way that made her skin crawl. “You try again, because you don’t really want to be the one between me and my potatoes.” 

For a period, Rosalind stayed petrified, right until it clicked together. She released the breath she’d been holding, leaning against the door for support as her legs turned to jelly. “Oh thank GOD I thought you were a guard! Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the camel.”

“...hah??”

“You don’t know how relieved I am to find out you’re just the farmer.” Rosalind sunk into the side of the door, relief melting her. 

“JUST the far—? Wait, what are you? You don’t work for them?” Well. Well that was a very complicated question. She hadn’t exactly turned in a two weeks notice. But saying she was an employee seemed a good way to get killed. Actually, interaction in general with the farmer seemed like a terrible idea, but they needed any help they could garner. Saying she worked for them wasn’t the tactic to get on his good side, in all likelihood. Likewise, ‘prisoner’ didn’t exactly seem right either. It wasn’t wrong, but it had an implication she wasn’t human, and that would be misleading to the farmer. Rosalind thought about it, brow furrowed.

“I’m...a sacrifice.” It was the closest to truth she could understand. The Foundation, Dr. Blake, intended for her to die to find out more about Tubbo. It was the only term she could think of to encompass the nature of her role in the Foundation. Not a worker anymore, not initially a prisoner, just the byproduct of a deadly search for knowledge. She was the cat curiosity would slay to be appeased. She refused it to be real. She’d take that title down. But for now, it would serve to convey her status to the farmer. 

“Sweet! To who?” There was a sort of strange light earnestness to the person’s tone that she couldn’t help but laugh at, a wild sort of thing from all the stress bubbling over. She honestly couldn’t tell if it were joke or not, but she hoped it was. 

“Tubbo, who refused, of course, and so they trapped me here too. Dr. Blake said either Tubbo could kill me, or we’d stave to death. Picked the latter, but then we got the potatoes. It hasn’t been too terrible.” She slid down to a sitting position, carefully keeping an eye on the main exit. “I suppose that was you. Thanks, by the way. You really saved all of us.”

An odd shuffling noise occurred on the other side, then a loud thump. The voice level dropped to about the height of a typical human standing up. “Nahhhh don’t mention it. I just like the gardening, y’know? Gives me something to do. Gets boring, I can’t deal with it man. I’m just not built to.”

“Still. I wanted to thank you, mister…the farmer. What’s your name? We never introduced ourselves. I’m Rosalind.”

“...uhhhh. It uh. Yeah they call me...uhh...Protesilaus.”

She blinked. “Is that what it says on the birth certificate?”

“Pfff, you think I have one of those? I’m not a legal citizen anywhere. Government isn’t too fond of my existence. To be fair, I feel the same way regarding them.”

Rosalind stared off to the white walls. “Can’t imagine why.” 

“Tax evasion.” She couldn’t help the mixture of cough and laughter she produced. The lingering adrenaline made everything seem so intense. “So, uhh. I figure my gardening period got canceled? You don’t exactly sound like you’re working with the Foundation, Ms. Sacrifice,” the grumbly person said.

She looked down to the key card in her hand. Right. There was an option. She wanted to wait until her friends were there, to make sure they were on board with such a big change to the plan, however. “We’re sorta...escaping,” she explained.

“By sitting here talking to me? Kinda a weird method, but I’ll bite.”

“Well, I need to wait for one to wake up and the other to get here. There’s a gap in the action. They don’t...does anyone come check during your gardening period, or are we clear for an hour or so?”

“Nah, they keep it locked tight. Even if I kill everyone, there aren’t any keys to the outside. Probably means someone has to come and let Carson out.”

“Right. Thank you, every bit of information helps with the plan.” Always best to narrow down what was to be expected, to clear up any uncertainty. If she could plan it down to the second she would have.

“So, where is Carson?”

“There’s this small chamber they’d trap us in. It’s filled with the smoke, but it never affected me hazardously so it’s presumably safe for humans.” Could it be Protesilaus had befriended the guard? He seemed nice enough, and Tubbo and Tommy had befriended her so it wasn’t completely impossible.

“I was just wondering, because I don’t get that many people to talk to that don’t have guns trained on my every move. Course, all my comedy was wasted on him since he was the conversational equivalent of brick wall, except even those can be friendly every once in a while. I should know, I’ve talked to a lot of walls in my time here. It would suck a bit if he was dead cause then I’d have to build up my rapport with some other guy.”

“No! No, he’s not dead. Don’t worry, none of us would ever do that.”

“…I wasn’t worried about him,” he said evenly. “But I sorta am about your escape attempt now.”

“We’ll make it.”

The prisoner thought it over. “...you don’t seem all that experienced, so I’ll give you a tip if you want.”

“By all means proceed.” They needed all the help they could get. 

“Go without them. It’s easier to do it by yourself. Take it from me, escape is always easier alone.” There was a sort of weary weight to his message, a terrible seriousness that spoke magnitudes. For a horrible moment she could picture it. She was human, uniformed. She could walk right out and never look back. No one would bat an eye. 

“...no. No I can’t leave by myself. I couldn’t abandon them.”

“I suppose circumstances are different. Believe me, if I could manage to get my, uh, people out, I would in a heartbeat. But it’s easier without them, and if I can get out long enough to break a covenant…like I said, circumstances are different.”

She flipped the key card over again. Then another time. Tubbo had detailed to her, once, the scene they’d found after the farmer’s rampage, trying to get the image out of their head just a little. Describing all the shapes of organs, half covered in dirt. The prisoner, right behind her with only a single door to separate them, was incredibly dangerous. But Protesilaus seemed nice. That didn’t account for much, but it was something. He was overly nonchalant about murder, but seemed smart enough to capitalize on an opportunity. Whether he’d backstab someone wasn’t something she could tell yet. “...I have a key card,” she admitted.

“I figured. Had to have something the scanner could reject, right?” 

“Your key card, specifically. To that door. I...we probably need help. A lot of it. And...and I’d want to ask them first, and there’d be some definite ground rules, but...but you could join us.”

Protesilaus paused. Motion and sound died completely on the other side. “You know, I’ve been trying to lay off the escape attempts lately.” He almost said it the same way one would talk about cigarettes or chocolate. Almost. The words weren’t quite airy enough, a little too much weight behind them.

“They never work?”

“Oh, no, I’m great at escaping. Been doing so for years. It’s just staying free that’s the problem. It gets some...some pretty bad consequences for some people that…” their voice grew cagey, a little awkward and uncomfortable. “That, y’know, maybe I don’t really like getting...earning consequences for. Y’know?” 

“If you joined us, maybe that wouldn’t happen?”

“...it doesn’t really work like that. But it has been a couple of months, the voices in my head are getting antsy. I’m game.”

Rosalind pinched the bridge of her nose. Now, three out of the five inmates she knew of heard mental people. Was Tommy the statistical outlier then? Whatever. The farmer had agreed. Or at least to the idea, if not the specifics. “Ok, so, rule one would be not killing us.”

Protesilaus immediately groaned. “You know how difficult that is to promise? Like, I don’t see a reason to kill you, but also if you attack me I can’t be held responsible, alright? Self defense.”

“...we’re not going to attack you? It’s counterintuitive to hurt an ally. But if it helps, that can be one of our rules. Or just a mutual ‘don’t attack one another’.”

Thinking it over, Protesilaus agreed, albeit lamp-shading that if they broke the deal he wouldn’t be accountable for that. “Besides, promising not to stab someone in the back always works.” 

“The second rule would be not killing anyone else.”

Protesilaus spluttered. “Really!? What am I supposed to do then!?”

“It’s not that difficult,” Rosalind frowned. “I’ve actually gone my entire life without killing anybody.”

“My condolences.”

 “Just knock them out. I managed just fine.”

“Mmmm. You see, I don’t exactly have a choice? Like if one of them shoots me I can’t just let that slide.”

“We’re not going to be shot at.”

“You’ve clearly never fought your way out before. Pro tip? There will be a lot of shooting. A little, eh, inevitable byproduct, there.”

“No. We’re not fighting our way out. No way could we manage that. None of us are built for it. We’re going to...well, I’m dressed as a guard, so I’m going to escort them out. I got some security clearance, it could...it will work.” Protesilaus dug for information. “They're both security level two. Er. Well. One of them has files that are level three, which is why I have that level of clearance. Needed to get some documents for him. Euclid. Actually I think one is partially considered Thaumiel for specific circumstances, but with luck it wouldn’t be affected at all.”

“Thaumiels are the helpful capture guys I think. You gotta be careful, the Foundation is extra concerned with keeping them contained.” Great. More barriers to freedom. But now she knew to be careful. The farmer seemed to have a plethora of experience, and as far as she could tell there wouldn’t be a downside to him joining them. “Do they look non-threatening?” The inmate asked.

“Fairly. They’re just...they’re just so young. They don’t deserve this.”

He snorted. “You won’t hear me saying anyone does. We don’t try to escape for no reason, after all. Honestly, I’ve never had someone on the inside, but from what I can tell your plan seems decent.”

“Thanks, Protesilaus. You’ve been a great help.”

“Hey, if someone is busting out of here I’m not gonna not help. That’s just BM. Except…” Her gut dropped a bit at the shift in his tone. It seemed a bit heavier, more critical than it had been before. “Well, if I’m joining you guys...I’m not exactly non-threatening. And unless you’re equally scary looking (and I kinda doubt it, just saying), no one’s gonna buy that you’re transporting me. Unless you got, eh, about thirty close friends that you want to let in on the fake-guard plan.” She sorta didn't. Lawrence? That was laughable. There was a Mr. L she vaguely knew (clearly, as she couldn’t remember the name), and he’d been the one to help get her a promotion in order to get Tommy’s files. He seemed nice enough, and the helpful sort. Then again, he was pretty old, and it was unlikely he’d be willing to betray the Foundation so late in the game. There were few others she might consider acquaintances, but Rosalind wouldn’t trust them that far by any means, and definitely not to switch their loyalty. She didn’t know that many people at the Foundation, and none she’d expect to help. 

“I...I really don’t.”

“Oof. Well, here’s another option: you go one way, I go another. They’ll probably be a bit distracted, security might be looser. Pretty sure all the non-armed people clear out. You could claim they’re from a sector nearby, they likely wouldn’t send you back just in case I killed the anomalies."

Rosalind thought it over. It would probably be much safer for them, since it seemed Protesilaus was prepared for actual combat. And, if worse came to worse, the more heavily armed guards could possibly be drawn away to go after the farmer, meaning they’d be in a much better position if things went South. There wouldn’t even be an opportunity for the inmate to change his mind and kill them, or far less of one. Altogether, it seemed a better deal. “That sounds good. But only if my friends agree. It’s a collaboration.”

They fell into silence after that, Rosalind still acting as sentry and Protesilaus not filling in the silence. Time crept slowly. Tubbo seemed just as unconscious as ever. She got over to check, carefully stepping over a few fallen bees that lined the path. Rosalind crouched down beside the insectoid. The room was completely silent, and they didn’t seem likely to move soon. She went back to the partially ajar door, tool raised and alert to the possibility of anyone entering. Gas leaked out, wafting translucent plumes into the hall. She didn’t think anyone would notice unless they were very perceptive. The hissing had halted long ago, so at least no more was being introduced into the cell and could begin to dissipate. 

Had she not been highly alert and familiar with the noise, she might have missed the sound of Tommy’s arrival. Honestly, she was shocked how stealthily he managed it. The effect was ruined when he started banging on the vent cover. “Big R! My Tubbos fell asleep!”

Rosalind winced. They’d been careful to find the exact minimum of honey bees to maneuver the trowel and have them stay with Tommy. If they were down, it meant he didn’t have a way out of the vents. “What? How?”

“Why would I know? Hurry up and get me out. It m̵̲̱̈̈́u̴̝͛f̴͈͚͘͜͝f̶̳̻͑͘ì̸͖̪͗̑͜n̴̰̈́͑̚ing stinks in here. I’ve been trying not to cough for the last three hours.” Tubbo had always refused the vents as an option, but it seemed that had been more practical. The gas must have lingered, meaning Tubbo wasn’t up to fixing the problem. Rosalind looked up at the wall. The vent was roughly fifteen feet high. Ugh. She sat down her weapons, keeping only the shovel, and tried to mentally prepare herself. 

“It’s been less than an hour,” she retorted. “You’re so bad with time.”

“You can’t tell, because I am very high and tall, but I am flipping you off right now.”

“Ok, Rapunzel. Shut up and let down your hair.” Rosalind bit onto the end of the trowel, and began to scale the wall. The crevices between paneling was small, and she could barely get a good hold. The distance between them was vast, but at least it was uniform. 

“Hey! It isn’t my hair that glows,” Tommy protested. “It’s my charming personality. And also my eyes, sometimes.” Rosalind rolled her own, reaching for the next crack. She had to stretch, pushing up for it. Her hand missed, and her balance was hampered. Rosalind quickly held onto her current level. Wait. Try again. She got it the second time, and started to pull herself up. Repeat. Again and again. 

She got to the vent slowly, securing her spot. Well, secure as it could be. Still barely an inch for her hand and foot holds. She took hold of the trowel, reaching for the screw closest to her. “How...do you do this...everyday?” she panted. 

“Practice. It helps that I’m so incredibly tall.” Rosalind figured his youth was probably a larger factor, but she couldn’t deny the entire foot he had over her. She really just wasn’t built for it.

“My ancestors are...are laughing at me, I’m sure...of it.”

“They’re the idiots who gave you bad genes, not like they can really talk.” Rosalind concentrated on getting the screw out. It wasn’t done particularly tightly, but the angle was awkward. The muscles in her calves began to burn. Well, they had already been doing that, but it was much closer to the surface of the sun by that point. Then, her arms started cramping as well. No. No. Just a bit longer-

The first screw tumbled to the ground. She sagged with relief, which was honestly a pretty bad move, because it led to one of her feet slipping. Rosalind hastily grasped onto the vent. It cut into her fingers, but was enough to prevent her plummet. Unfortunately, there was a price for that, and the tool tumbled to the ground. Her legs and arms burned. She didn’t think she could make it down and back up again. She wasn’t even sure she could make it back down. “I...no. Can’t.”

“You better not leave me in here. My lungs are probably getting all damaged and m̷̞̝̱͛̉͊u̵̡̦̎̓̈́f̶̨̞̄̂͛f̸̪̊̀ḯ̶͓̟͆̂n̵̼̬͂̂͝.”

“If I fall...and snap neck...we can’t get out.” Carefully, she stretched down with one foot, searching tactilely for a divot. She suspected going down was going to be much worse, but it was better to go back when she had at least a little energy left. 

When she got back on the ground, she decided to let it take her entirely. Rosalind lay on her back, winded. “This is…karma. For never exercising since high school.” She made an oath to start doing so once she got out. Or…or maybe yoga. That seemed more obtainable. She was panting far too much.

Faintly above, she could hear muffled coughing. “Man, I can’t imagine what this is doing to Tubbo. They’re probably going to talk like a smoker by 25.”

“That’s...that’s not...how it works. They don’t have lungs. Or vocal...cords.”

“Wait! That means Tubbo can smoke? Cause my mum always said not to because it would mess up cho breathers, but if they don’t have any…?”

“Can’t...breathe it in, either. Won’t...do anything.” Well. Maybe? Not like they could inhale without lungs. She wasn’t sure, but felt like she had a moral obligation as an adult to stop Tommy, whatever his plans were. 

“But it would look cool. Except smoking isn’t cool and people shouldn’t do it,” he said, taking on a robotic air. “Good. Now we won’t be bad role models for the children.”

“Only kid here...is you, Tomás.”

She could practically feel the heat of his glare even from across the distance and metal bars between them. “Please do not EVER say that again you do not understand how terrible that was I swear if you call me that I will stab you so hard.” 

“Ok. Tom.” Rosalind rolled over to watch the door again. They still had time to kill before Tubbo awoke. She regulated her breathing. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. Dull pain reminded her of her earlier fight, stabbing into her abdomen. Her breathing felt constricted and weighed down.

He groaned. “No!”

“Tomathy.”

“Never ever speak to me please and thank you.”

“As you wish. But before I never speak, Thomas, I’ll leave you with a parting gift: we have a possible ally.”

Tommy made a confused noise. “What? What does that mean?” She didn’t respond, as per his request. “Rosie? Big R? Biggest R? What does that mean?” She glanced around, picking up her tools. Her respiration was almost normal again, even if all of her everything hurt. “Roooooooooseeeeeeelind. Rosalind. Who? Who are you talking about?”

Some of the bees were starting to twitch, fluttering into the air. A few danced over to Rosalind, hovering around and peppering her jaw, a favored place for Tubbo to sit. Tubbo said they liked the vertical oscillation of speech, and the way it rippled the world up and down. “Ah, you’re awake! Excellent. So, Tubbo, something has come up. Apparently, the farmer is one door away from us and I have the key card.”

“What?” Tommy called out. 

“I’m not talking to you, remember?!” Rosalind shouted up, grinning. “Anyway, Tubbo, he seems pretty nice, actually. His name is Protesilaus, and he’s promised not to hurt us. Even offered some assistance with our escape plan, in a pretty major way. He could cause enough panic that we’d be noticed even less.”

“Wait, the killer guy is named Protesilaus? Did his parents not love him?”

“I’m talking to Tubbo so if you could please let us finish the conversation that would be appreciated!”

“They can’t even talk to you,” Tommy grumbled.

“Well, neither can I. So Tubbo, I feel like we can trust him, at least partially. Apparently he’s escaped plenty of times before, and he had some useful tips. Of course, I think we should decide together.”

“I vote yes! Let him help!” Tommy shouted. 

“Not speaking to you but noted! What are you thinking Tubbo? I know the potato massacre was...yeah, but...but I don’t think he’d hurt us specifically. Plus, he gave us permission to eat once he knew we needed it. We’d be pretty bad off if not for Protesilaus.”

More bees rose, fairly quiet, as if contemplating. After a few minutes, the small forming covey bobbed, then hummed a single note. “They said yes!” Tommy shouted. “That’s the code for yes!”

“I know! It’s not that complicated! You pretend it’s incredibly esoteric, and it’s really not!” Rosalind yelled up, rolling her eyes and smiling slightly. Tommy grumbled. A swarm gathered, finally reaching the critical mass needed to wield the trowel. Tubbo began working to free Tommy. Rosalind crossed over to the inmate’s door. “Good news! You made the team Protesilaus.” 

“What’s your team name?”

“The, uhhh...the I-Don’t-Like-It-Here Initiative.”

“Do I get a jersey? I gotta warn you, there’ll need to be like 24 x’s in that extra large to fit me.” Rosalind dug through her borrowed pants, pulling out key cards. She glanced over when the gate cluttered to the ground. Tommy scaled down with a dexterity that made her slightly envious, scarlet stains erased by Tubbos’ well practiced clean up routine. They usually waited until after he left, but better safe than sorry. It wasn’t a typical visit after all. 

“Don’t worry, they’re custom made. Which is good, because I can't imagine trying to spell your name.” There. The right card. She shoved it in the correct way, and a pleased robotic sound played, the scanner flashing green. The metal door began to inch open.

“Yeah, it’s a curse. Who all is on the team?”

“You, me, Tubbo, and Tommy.” As she spoke, Tubbos’ main body started to twitch, and they sat up, stretching a bit. Tommy walked up to them, almost offering a hand up and then refraining. The insectoid flew into a standing position, settling their bare feet on the padded ground.

“Wait. Tommy?!??” Something like disbelief colored the farmer’s low voice. His shadow spilled out from the crack of the slowly rising door, filling the entire threshold. 

“Yeah?”

“Blond kid, looks like a guy that broke into a paint factory and clearly has a preference?” What an...apt description. Protesilaus certainly had a way with words. An odd way, to be sure, but a way.

“Wait, does every inmate know him?” First Tubbo, then Protesilaus. She was sensing a very strange pattern. (To be fair to the employee, many did. They knew him like one did a memorable nightmare. Just another tool the Foundation used to break them. Not a physical pain, no, there was a different sort of anguish produced when your morals shattered.)

“You’re escaping with Tommy? Good luck. You’ll need it.” Perplexion shrouded her face. What was that supposed to mean? So much implied history was packed into that one sentence, she didn’t know where to start. Had he worked with Tommy to escape before? But he said he’d escaped. Did that mean Tommy had gotten out before and was recaptured? Or...wait, Protesilaus had said that the Foundation was extra possessive of Thaumiels. Did that mean he knew why Tommy had that classification? Something else entirely? What did the farmer know?

“Protesilaus, why do we need lu-” The sound she’d been dreading rang out. In her periphery she could see Tommy drop to the floor, hiding behind the raised rows. Tubbo, too, lay down, closing their eyes. Bees slipped among the foliage. The exit cracked open, swinging wide. Rosalind hastily shoved the key cards into her pocket, subtly clutching her gardening tools and Chloroform rag. The other employee stepped fully into the room, letting the door swing shut behind him. A terrible stress dissipated in the pit of her stomach when she saw the rake still wedged between, keeping the escape open. Good. They weren’t doomed. 

They were dressed in guards clothing as well. He squinted at the room, confused. His features were sharp and hair was colored a calming lavender. “Why was the door propped open?”

“Was it? Odd,” Rosalind commented, trying to sound uninterested. 

“Where’s Carson?”

“Sick.”

“What? I saw him this morning.”

“Yeah, it developed pretty suddenly. I thought it was a migraine, but he was convinced it was a cold or something.” Rosalind began to walk towards him, unhurriedly and naturally. Hopefully. Her fingers twitched, but couldn’t go to her hair since she needed to be ready to pull out her defense at any moment.

The guard nodded. “He always jumps on any excuse to leave. Honestly, can’t blame him. I was on clean up for the last suckers stuck with a job in this room.” Rosalind made a sympathetic expression. Still too far away, it would take a few seconds to sprint over to him. “Man, can’t imagine what brute is behind that door,” he continued, jerking his head in the direction of the slowly raising barrier. There was maybe two feet of clearance. The doors in the Foundation always opened slowly, an effort to make any escape as slow as possible.

The guard’s eyes narrowed, and he parted his lavender bangs to see better. “Hey, wait a minute...is that door raising?”

“Is it? Odd,” Rosalind repeated nervously. For a terrible moment, everything was still. 

“Is that— m̷̘̒ȕ̷̞f̸̞̎f̶̈́͜ĩ̸̩n̷̯̒," he swore as he caught sight of Red oozing across the floor. "Is that blood!?”

“You know, it’s hard to say,” Rosalind said, voice hitched high. Then, a swarm descended down around the guard’s face, blocking their vision. Apparently, Tubbo had decided it wasn’t working. Rosalind pulled her arsenal out. The lavender haired man raced forward to escape the Hive, pulling out of it for a split second. His eyes locked onto the control panel. His arm raised, barrel of the gun glinting in the artificial light. Rosalind froze. His finger squeezed the trigger, the sound deafening her. The bees increased their density, taking away his sight once more. He blindly fired bullet after bullet at nothing. Rosalind glanced back. The card scanner burst into scrap metal, and shots littered the area around it. The door began to quickly fall, caught by two thick ivory...poles. 

Rosalind sighed in relief, turning back to face the guard. It had missed her. Of course it had. He wasn’t going to shoot a fellow worker. The employee rushed past her, still blindly racing forward. And, being blind, he inevitably tripped over a potato trough. Rosalind trailed after him and tried to pin him to the ground. He struggled beneath her, bucking, and getting her off quickly. Rosalind threw herself at his back, and he went down again. She stomped down on his arm, tearing the gun out of his grasp.

“Tubbo!” she called. They soared over, and she tossed them the Chloroform rag. “Tubbo is going to make you sleep. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll do it,” She poked the gun into the back of his lavender locks for emphasis. Hopefully all the threat she’d need, or at least good enough to convince him to comply. Tubbo took her place, covering the guard’s nose and mouth. She dropped the extra shovels beside them. “If it doesn’t take five minutes, he’s lying.”

Tubbo nodded. Rosalind dug through her pockets, tossing over the spade and clippers in Tommy’s general direction. “Tommy, guard the door.” His head popped up a few feet from where she’d guessed. Oh well. He seemed shaken, but picked up the gardening tools and did as instructed. Rosalind rushed over to Protesilaus Two wide, curving cream structures were holding the door up, if barely. As she watched, it slipped a few inches down. She got down on her knees, bracing, then set her hands beneath the sturdy metal door, trying to push upwards. Dull pain flared across her abdomen from her various skirmishes.

She poured all her strength and then some into it. The door slid down another inch. Rosalind could see, peeking beneath the doorway, what might have been a hand. It was larger than her head, with four large black claws, the middle two longer than her entire hand, the remaining talons smaller and splayed like thumbs. Or, no, that wasn’t right. The texture was closer to hooves than anything else. Soft white fur billowed around the hand (possibly a foot?) like the feathering of a draft horse. As she watched, cracks splintered in the floor from the pressure of the limb. It grew, if even possible, more forceful, bones rippling beneath shorter mahogany fur peeking from behind the white curls. Distinctly not human. Nothing else, either, or nothing she could comprehend. “I don’t—think—I’m help-ing much,” she admitted through fragmented phrases. 

“Nah, you’re doing-more than—half the work here,” he grunted. It was far louder now that he wasn’t muted by the door. A booming sort of voice.

The door slipped down almost half a foot. There was barely any room left. Rosalind mentally cursed whoever had designed the door to seal upon destruction of the control mechanism. Almost like they were intentionally trying to trap people. So inconsiderate. “I’m gonna—let go,” Protesilaus warned her. Rosalind jerked back her hands. The odd bone structure (tusks maybe? They reminded her of pictures of mammoths) slipped out from the door sharply, unhooking completely. “Darn. Ok. Promise me something,” he panted, almost whispering. 

It seemed that their collaboration was doomed. Guilt twinged in Rosalind’s gut, but she squashed it. He said he could escape on his own. He’d be fine. “What is it?”

“Get Tommy out of here. Take him and run. As long as you can. You only need to last a month, probably less than that by now. If you can make it, you’ll get backup. Promise me.” He seemed incredibly insistant. 

“Why a month-?”

“Contracts. You’re not his only allies, alright, but there’s rules we gotta work around. I may or may not be able to get out soon, but make it a month and you’ll have all the help you need. Until then you’re on your own. Promise me,” he commanded.

“I swear I’ll get him out.”

“Good. Alright. Alright. Got it. Good luck.” Some of the intensity drained from his voice. 

Rosalind pressed a hand to the metal door. “Thank you,” she murmured. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. She rose to her legs shakily. Alright. The lack of the farmer’s help was a definite blow to the plan, but it had been made without him and could survive. Tubbo was still holding the guard down, who was thankfully complying. She could see his eyes starting to droop. 

If Tubbo was awake, then Carson definitely was. They probably couldn’t put the second man in with the first. Possibly fifteen minutes before the lavender guard woke up. Probably less than ten, in actuality. They had to move. 

Tubbo rose, sliding the hair tie off their bandaged arm stump. They pulled out the rolled up section of Rosalind’s lab coat. The hand was partially formed, a small bridge crossing over and the base of a thumb emerging. Tubbo hesitated, then carefully slid the extra trowels into their arm. They shuddered, face looking repulsed, but it wasn’t like they’d be able to carry ‘weapons’ with them. Tubbo cast aside the lab coat fragment, instead using the chloroform cloth to close the hole off. “Does it hurt?” Tommy inquired.

“Oh yeah. Kinda hurts our brain to think about it, too.” Tubbo moved their arm in a few quick circles. “Oh! You can hear it rattle! Come over here, it sounds cool.” 

Tommy complied, leaning his ear to Tubbo. “You sound all rattly. Like a snake. Or! Tubbo, you're a robot!”

“M̵̈͜û̴͖̲͉̇f̷́̚͜f̸̝̉͘i̸̟͌́n̶͖͍̉ yeah! We’re robots! Let’s take over the Earth.” Tubbo grinned maniacally. 

“We can save world domination for when we’re not on a schedule,” Rosalind interjected. The others agreed, and Tommy dunked his gardening tools into a watering can. Rosalind retrieved them, shoving them into her pockets. She put the gun into a holster, refusing to think what it could mean. “Hands in the middle, guys. Team morale time.”

Tubbo placed the hand stump on top of her outstretched hand like the little twit they were. Tommy also joined in, crimson digits hovering a safe foot away. “Three, two, one…escape!” She pushed upwards, throwing her and Tubbos’ arms into the air. Tommy replicated the motion after slight lag. “This is going to work.”

“Yeah!” Tubbo shouted. Tommy didn’t respond, but she hadn’t expected him to. He was trying, at least. Hundreds of thousands of bees gathered around Tubbo, slipping into natural gaps. Thousands remained, unable to fit, but it was a sacrifice they’d have to make. A covey consisting of a couple hundred slipped out stealthily, covertly obscuring the camera in the hall just outside, just as planned. Tubbo nodded. Rosalind swung open the door, stepping out for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. 

Chapter Text

The hall was empty. She had suspected guards to swarm the moment they left. Just as well they didn’t. She turned back, barking an order to her charges. They followed. The door swung shut behind, trapping the lavender guard. They walked through long, stretching halls, a stealthy swarm heading in the opposite direction. Metallic doors lined the walls intermittently, with complex security systems. It seemed Tubbos’ was the most complicated, but in all likelihood that was because of Protesilaus. A corner, and the hallway came to an end. A stocky guard straightened to attention. Rosalind didn’t recognize him, and he looked like he probably wasn’t even out of college yet. Probably barely older than the inmates behind her. A large number was printed along the side of the metal door, and she dug in her pockets for the associated key card, sorting through for the right one unhurriedly. “Which ones are these?” he asked in a southern drawl.

Rosalind rattled off a string of digits, gesturing to Tommy, then hesitated a bit. She didn’t remember Tubbos’. Oh well. She repeated Tommy’s, changing the last few digits. If she couldn’t remember it, he likely wouldn’t either. The guard nodded slowly, then stopped. He squinted at Tommy. “Red hands,” he muttered.

“Pardon?”

“I think I...there were special instructions for that one, I remember that. Something about…” his brow wrinkled. Then it cleared, and he snapped. “Oh that’s right! Orders were that if it was escaping to run with it as far as possible and find a place to hide. Said there was some kinda terrifying brute that it would be with.” The guard glanced at Tubbo. “Probably not this one. They told me it was nightmare inducing.” 

“And no escape is happening,” Rosalind added. 

“Yeah,” he agreed absentmindedly. “Aight. Purpose?”

“Bringing them up for an experiment,” she responded monotonously. In the corner of her eye, she could witness Tommy and Tubbo flinch unconsciously, Tommy leaning back and Tubbos’ antenna flattening. What a lovely reminder of the things the Foundation had done to them.

“All by yourself?”

“They’re harmless practically.”

He snorted. “This is the I wing.”

“Yeah, but they’re kept here because of contract nonsense.”

He frowned. “But the red one had special orders.”

“To hide with him, not run screaming. Like I said, contract nonsense.” She rolled her eyes and huffed derisively for affect, then swiped the key card. It lit up a pleasant viridian hue. 

“Man, I don’t know why we even do those things...once they’re in here, what’s the difference, amiright? Huh…” The guard frowned at their clipboard, flipping through a few pages. “You aren’t scheduled?” 

Rosalind leaned over to look at the clipboard, curious. “What?” He flipped to show her. She scanned it quickly, relief filling her when she saw there weren't many people planned to be moving around for at least that section of the Foundation. The door was creeping upwards, about calf high. God, they were slow. 

“I think it was last minute, because of a breakthrough by one of the lab coats. But if they didn’t give a notice...ugh, what a waste of time. Why’d they send me to the I wing if they weren’t gonna let me back out? I don’t wanna be here.”

The guard scoffed. “Don’t even bother complaining. I’m the one on kill switch duty.” Meaning, if he died the Foundation would go onto high alert. Less guard, and more a first indicator that a containment breach was occurring. A dead man’s switch, ergo a dead man, or one marked for it at least. A different sacrifice than herself, but a sacrifice nonetheless. “At least I know whatever m̷͍̺͔̎̀̍ư̶͓͙̥͝͝f̴͉̦̓̊͜f̶̟̜̩̐͐͘i̶͉̒ṇ̸̯̗͒͠er does me in will get riddled with bullets. More than a lot of people can say.” He said it with a sort of half laugh, smile wide but a bit nervous. Still trying to convince himself he was ready to die. It hurt her heart to see the young man try to joke the burden of his sacrificial role away. She wasn’t the only one the Foundation marked for death. But she was on a mission. The door had gotten to thigh height. Insects discretely slipped beneath it, hurrying to cover the next set of cameras. 

“How do you manage that?” People always loved to complain. She wove her hands through her hair. It didn’t feel right when it was down. Like she wasn’t ready for action. The door inched upwards. She tried not to look stressed. Just a routine job. Everything was fine. Maybe she was a little annoyed, but it wasn’t an unusual amount. 

“It’s actually really dull. But, you know, always the possibility of one of these m̸͍̟͔̘̑̔͆̕͝ư̷̳̟͙̩͇̓͊̃f̶͔͛f̷͖̟̤͚̦̊̀̍̃͘i̵̜̱̝͔͛̆̕n̴̮̂͋s making a break for it and slaughtering me. Keep my will up to date, hope my soul won’t be m̸͇̱̤̉̏̃u̵͚̼̱̹͑̓̔̽ͅf̶̟͔͙͓̈͌͒̐͝f̶̡̢̖͇̝̆͜͝i̶̢͕̻̮̟̠̇ņ̴̮͉̎̽́̈ed once I kick the bucket.” Rosalind nodded understandingly. He continued on, the door reaching waist level. “I ain’t even bothering with life insurance any more. They don’t release mortality rates, but it’s gotta be bad, right? I’ve been here like three months, and can’t count all the people I know personally who beefed it even with my toes.”

“It’s really terrible,” Rosalind agreed wholeheartedly. “And the doors are so slow, and communication is horrendous.”

“Exactly! No way to update the schedule digitally because of that 404 m̷͍̻̺̱͛̇̋̋͘u̷̧̿f̸̡̭͇͉͚̍̅́́̚f̷̲͚͕͈̒͑͝i̴̺̱͊̅̒̕͝ͅn̴̢̞̝̏̃! I’ve seen it happen once, when I snuck in my phone. It was wild looking. All the green pixels blackened, and then it just brings you to a ‘not found’ page, except you can’t get it to stop. I thought they didn’t want us bringing them in for security purposes, but I think it’s just that one SCP. My phone was busted after that.”

“Did they pay to fix it?”

“Nah. Course not. Wasn’t supposed to have it in the first place, but I didn’t get in trouble for it. They did take it up for experiments though. Sucks. Just got the XX too.”

“What a shame. That monster really makes everything more diffi-Darn,” she began, as if she’d just thought of it instead of it being the source of a good portion of her current anxiety. “I’ll have to explain to everyone I come across. The lack of internet is terrible. Unless...could you maybe authorize a change to the schedule? Or at least help me find a way to speed it up.”

“I mean, I don’t have a high clearance, but I’ll see what I can do…” he flipped through his clipboard until finding a half empty page. He checked the back, found it blank, and scratched out a quick message in blue ink. He tore it off the clipboard in an uneven rip. 

“Thanks,” she glanced at the paper. “Markus.”

“No problem! Hope to see you around….”

“Isabella,” she supplied. “Hope you get off kill switch duty, in a good way.”

“Ha, I should start buying lottery tickets if I do.” The door was tall enough for her at that point, and she walked through, her friends ducking a bit. They’d only made it a few paces before the doors snapped close violently. 

Rosalind creased the torn edge of the slip of paper, folding it back and forth a few times before licking the edge. She began to carefully tear it into a neater rip. Hopefully that would look a bit more official. “Do you think if Tommy holds it they’ll be less inclined to check because of the Red, or would that just be sus that a prisoner has it?” Tubbo asked. 

“More suspicious. But there’s a lot of people, right? They aren’t likely to know Markus, might assume he’s more important. Tommy, what do you think?” 

She looked over to him. He was fidgeting oddly, ruby sliding up his forearms. “Why’d he let us through? That was too easy, shouldn’t something have happened?”

“We have key cards and a uniform. It’ll get you a lot farther than you’d imagine.” Plus, the assumption that anyone who was already so far in the building was supposed to be there. Security was more focused on stopping rampages, not questioning employees with non threatening accompaniments. 

“But will it get us far enough?”

“Well, statistically it’s worked at least once right?” Tubbo buzzed. “That’s something.”  They had a slim chance, but they had to take it. Anything to get out.

——

The floor was slightly slanted upward. The hall stretched on, silver doors gleaming in the artificial light. Odd discolorations lined the walls, faint patches of off white. They came in a variety of shapes, bursts and splotches and ellipses. Tubbo started calling out things they could be, like an ugly hat or a firework. Tommy’s eyes kept being caught by them as well, head following certain ones as they passed, but he didn’t join in with Tubbo. The insectoid suddenly fell silent completely, nodding at Tommy, who did the same.

A pair of heavily armed guards rounded a corner. Bees trailed after them, not daring to miss the opportunity to hide more cameras. Obfuscating their location could only be a good thing. Tubbo hummed three times. It was a code they’d added beyond simple confirmation or negation that roughly meant that the coast was clear, but was more vague than that. It really was closer in meaning to the word ‘safe’. In that way, it was sort of a lie. They weren’t safe by any means, there was no security or guarantee they’d be free. But to say something like that out loud would only hurt morale.

“Why’d you stop talking?” Rosalind queried once the coast was clear.

Tommy rolled his eyes. “I don’t plan on getting hit today, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, what kinda question is that?” Tubbo scoffed. “You don’t talk in the halls, that’s just stupid.” Tommy nodded sharply in agreement. Rosalind’s stomach sank a bit. How had she missed so many warning signs? It had taken her own harm before she truly understood how terrible the Foundation was. She’d been blinded by ideals, putting down Tommy’s hints as a teenager complaining. That had been foolish. The marked walls scrolled past them, Rosalind lost in memories that she should’ve paid closer attention to.

Tommy stopped completely at the corner of an intersection. A light gray stain spread out in a ‘v’ shape where the walls met. “M̴̹̙̘̮͂̽̌̌̆ǔ̴̦͚̥f̴̡͇͓̋f̴͔̲̦͔͓̰̃͑͋̀̋ĭ̴͇̪̺͎̖̒ņ̵̻̞̬̜̖́̃̾̈́̔. I remember this hall.”

“They’re identical,” Tubbo pointed out helpfully.

“No, I meant it.” His fingers spread out, not quite daring to touch the mark. “I recognize it.”

Tubbo examined the discoloration. “It kinda looks like an eye. See? The center is darker. Or maybe it’s a watch.”

“Bow tie,” Rosalind suggested. 

Tommy stared at it, then looked at her. “Which direction do we go?” Rosalind pointed straight ahead of them. Her memory was a little fuzzy, but she was fairly sure, and it also continued the faint slope upwards. The gate from Hell was always at the highest point, after all. Tommy walked forward, and after a beat, she followed. Tubbo stayed, looking at the splotch.

“What do you think it is Tommy?” Tubbo asked. 

“I think it’s where a bloke’s head got shoved into a corner. It split in half. He died pretty instantly.” Tommy didn’t glance back. His voice was monotonous, carefully nothing. The insectoid looked at the stain. They stepped forward once, then twice, still staring at the discoloration dead on. Their head swiveled to track it, until being unable to turn anymore. They walked on.

——

“Oh hey! Rosalind!” Something in her froze a bit. It felt like a bit of her distance was destroyed, the layers between the act and herself peeled back. Lies would have to be chosen more carefully to fit in with prior knowledge, limiting her options. She tried to continue a steady pace as she approached the next checkpoint, responding with a smile. She flashed the written note and key card. The guard nodded to her, graying hair shorn in a buzz cut. He had sharp eyes, underscored with sleep deprivation, a face weathered by time. It was uncommon to see old guards, so she was sure she recognized him, but his name had been washed away by the magnitude of all that had happened. 

“Hey Mr…” it was just on the tip of her tongue.

“Loiseau. Scan it.” She did so, relieved to not have to list numbers again. “It’s been awhile! Word was you’d...ah...never clocked out.” His smile was grim. She was familiar enough with the euphemisms of the workers. Some found it better to speak in gentle phrases, as if day job jargon could cover up the blood stains. Maybe if the Foundation had counted her dead officially the plan would have fallen apart then. But the obfuscation of the mortality rate was too important. All the low level workers suspected it to be astronomically high, but as long as there weren’t statistics they needn’t know the exact likelihood of their demise. Mr. Loiseau stood out for a reason; he was the only person above 65 that Rosalind knew there. 

It was the sheer turn over rate that was keeping their escape afloat at all. There were too many new faces to keep track of, nobody knew for sure when a worker had died, and it meant that Rosalind could slip through the cracks. Just another shade in the crowd. It meant lies were a lot easier to pass off. Too many prisoners, too many guards. The only verification they had was the word of humans and the security of technology. The vastness of the Foundation made the individual insignificant, but there was an advantageous safety to it. Just another flaw in the system. 

“No. No, I’m fine, just had a cold. But they moved me up an access level and made me a guard anyway.”

“Well that’s good to hear! That Lawrence fellow you were training alongside insisted you were just fine, but the rest of us hadn’t been so sure. I didn’t want to tell you this before, but most people who start with The Instigator don’t do too well. It’s too soft, hardly any actual preparation for most of the SCPs.” Tommy looked outraged at the dismissal of himself, but bit his tongue. “So what’s the order?” Mr. Loiseau jabbed a thumb at her charges. 

“Experiment.” The less information, the better.

“Oh? What do you need the Instigator for then? It’s been here longer than I’ve been, pretty sure we know everything about it by now.” Something in Rosalind soured with the pronoun choice regarding Tommy. The use made him seem less human...or, well, like less of a person. And Mr. Loiseau didn’t address him at all, like the teen wasn’t even there. 

“Yeah, but this one,” she gestured to Tubbo, “is new, and hasn’t attacked anything yet. Observers want that to change.” All true, in the correct context. Tommy had promised it was a lie that would work, although refused to explain why.

His eyebrows raised. “And they’re transporting them together? Course the Instigator doesn’t try anything anymore, but that seems foolish.”

Rosalind shrugged. “Not my decision, I’m just doing what I’m told, not that they even bothered to tell anyone else, but what can you do? Besides, I don’t think he’ll attack.” It felt terrible to talk like Tommy wasn’t even there, but she had to get it right. She was careful to not use names, she’d thought that would be enough.

But it wasn’t. Mr. Loiseau’s sharp eyes narrowed. “You don’t think it will attack,” he corrected. 

She froze. “Right. It. Of course.” 

He sighed. “Look. This is exactly what I meant about the Instigator being too soft. Lulled you into a false sense of security. Shame you got promoted too fast, they should’ve shown you a Red test first to cure that empathy. I’m going to give you some advice.” He laid a large, sturdy hand on her shoulder, words kind yet firm and making her stomach churn. “Stop thinking of the skips as people. It’s only gonna get you killed in the long run, and believe me I know about the long run. Some of them don’t mean harm, I get it. But that doesn’t mean they won’t cause it, most of them deliberately. They’re dangerous by their nature even if, on the off chance, it don’t mean to be. It’s why we do what we do. Protecting humanity. You can’t do that if you don’t recognize the threat.”

Rosalind offered him a shallow smile and nod, unable to audibly agree. She couldn’t imagine what the response would have been if she’d completely messed up and used one of their names. She’d have to watch her words even more carefully. If Mr. Loiseau hadn’t personally remembered her, the lack of credibility could have been game over. “I don’t think it will attack,” she restated. 

“Of course not, it knows better by now.” His gaze shifted onto Tubbo. “But the question is: will this one?”

Tubbo, who would rather their arm be chopped off than hurt her. The idea was laughable. “That’s what the experiment is about. No point in worrying if it’s resisted so far.” 

“What if it flies off?”

“Can’t, wings are too small,” she assured him. She could feel Tubbo giving her A Look, but it was for the sake of the cover story. 

“Well I’d bind them, just to be certain. You never know what these things are hiding, and the surprise will get you ‘retired’ half the time.”

“When I get the opportunity,” she promised. The conversation, like the door, trudged on slowly. Rosalind was a bit too on high alert to sit and chat with Mr. Loiseau about benign subjects. She thought Tubbo might have swapped grandchildren stories for a second, shifting oddly in the way they did whoever one of the Hive members had something unique to share, but Tommy gave them a pointed look and they refrained, spasming back to their typical posture quickly. Oh right. Punishment for even speaking. How were the employees ever to realize the mistake of torturing the prisoners if they weren’t even allowed to speak for themselves? It was rigged from the start.

He released them through the door with a good natured wave. Rosalind hesitated at the door, trying to give the honey bees a bit more time to escape. “Oh and Rosalind?”

“Yes?” she replied anxiously.

“They’re supposed to walk beside you, so they can’t run too far or attack from behind. You’ve only recently started, so I don’t blame you, but you need to be more careful. Maybe find someone to help you, if you can. I understand you’re nervous for your first time, but do be smart about it.” She nodded sharply, face pulled into the facsimile of a smile in a way she was sure wasn’t really convincing. The door slammed shut in front of her, cutting off the old guard and a dozen more of Tubbo.

——

The top of the door frame was a sharp crimson hue. Unmistakably Tommy’s. He froze, staring at it like a deer caught in headlights. A ruby hand reached out, ghosting over the metal and yet not leaving a mark. There were other marks, however. Deep stains like earlier, gouges in the walls, the outlines of humans burned into the hallway. Rosalind had seen them before, of course, but had never mentally connected the afterimage to the violence that had birthed it. Tommy clearly had though. 

“I really m̶̧̠̞̈u̵̹̇̈́̈̂̕̕f̸̨͙̝͛̋̓͒f̶̞̗̳̥̪̦̂̄̀̏͗ȉ̷͔͚̼̩͚́̿͝n̸̹̻̞̜͍̗̈̇͆ing hate this room,” he said. He surveyed the hall, viewing not the imprints of battle, but instead the memories of what had once been. It, of course, wasn’t the first time he’d been there, but it could be the last. “It won’t happen again. It can’t,” he told himself.

“Of course not. We’re going to get out of here,” Rosalind reaffirmed. He gave her a disbelieving stare. Fine. She didn’t need his faith that it would work. She’d just have to have enough for the both of them. Tommy looked away, eyes darting to catalog the damage. Soaking it in one last time. That probably wasn’t a good thing, when she thought about it. “We should hurry,” she said softly. Tommy nodded absently. The impressions of carnage trailed up, dotting the walls and cracking the floors. It was staggering, knowing each odd stain and scorched indent was a dead human. Horror swirled in her stomach, fingers twisted through her hair. Rosalind had come and gone through the hallway many times, but never had she realized what its disfigurement actually meant. The only battle scars the dead could claim.

Tommy’s room became distant, almost indistinguishable from all the other uniform doors save for the damage trailing towards it and the bright rose frame. Blood swiped over a threshold to ward off the angel of death. Or, a teenage boy who slapped the door frame when going in and out. She figured she knew the truth, but the picture was still stark and tangled in unintentional allegory.

At a junction, the marks led off lower down. For a second, Tommy paused, then turned. Careful, hesitant steps towards the depths of the Foundation, a trailing path of destruction that stretched farther into the Earth. “Tommy,” she called. He stopped, not looking back at her. “We can’t go there.”

“Why not?” he demanded. “I know you guys hate him, but I can’t. You don’t know him like I did. This wasn’t…” he waved at the destruction. “This isn’t all he is. You guys didn’t get to see any of the good parts, so it’s easy for you. I know he doesn’t…doesn't like me anymore or whatever but that doesn’t mean he’s just this. He’s not just the guy who killed loads of people and m̷̲̦͆̃̇u̶̥̗͓͛f̸̣̀̅f̷͎̭̍i̶͕͈̔̕͜͝ň̶̳̄̓ed up Tommy. I swear. Phil is not a bad guy.” His back was rigid, tense. His voice was insistent, desperate to convince his friends to see the silhouette of a person the same way he did.

Tubbo shifted uncomfortably, sharing a look with Rosalind behind Tommy’s back. A shadow was dropped over their face. It was really not the time to get in an argument about Tommy’s old...friend. Really, they shouldn’t have stopped at all, but it seemed like something Tommy needed to get off his chest. 

Tubbo had always been more vocal about their blatant dislike of Philza after finding out he was the culprit for Tommy’s breakdown. Rosalind herself wasn’t fond of the picture she got. A highly dangerous man who possessed a strange bond with Tommy? It seemed dubious from the get go. Even asking after him had been difficult, high clearance and cold workers trying to dissuade her from even learning anything about him. And then, to have his ‘Collecting’ revoked from the teen had sent him spiraling. The whole thing just felt...wrong. It didn’t make sense on too many levels. Why would such a dangerous and powerful being take interest in Tommy? She’d seen parts of the deal. Philza had signed away so much of his freedom just for his Collected. That implied several things to her, but a weakness of bond was not one of them. He seemed committed to the point of self sacrifice. And suddenly, a year later, he crushed the relationship, without warning as far as Tommy could tell. She knew now what the Foundation did, she could imagine the cost. It would make sense to try and get rid of it. But that didn’t line up with the man who’d take up the burden in the first place. Had he realized the weight of the contract? Why not earlier then? It just didn’t make sense.

The problem that Rosalind always came back to was she just didn’t know him. Philza was a nebulous concept, and she couldn’t be sure what motivation led to his actions. Or even actions at all. There was one mere signature on a document, and Tommy had crumbled. It was hard to imagine what penned it, so cold a gesture as to never know what led to it or the intent behind it. Fiery actions always left scorches, impressions to tell the truth. The walls were covered in it. A trail of devastation stilled as soon as he’d reached Tommy. No more, no less. It meant something, showed a strange and terrifying commitment, but it was something. It meant Philza was dedicated, either emotionally to Tommy or legally to the contract’s upholding, and that he was the sort to tend to either, even wading through corpses to do so. The carnage painted a picture of some sort of driving force behind the man, even if horrifying in nature. So far she had an action, the commitment to Tommy, and a lack thereof, in the shattering of their bond. Actions spoke louder than words, and the hallway was deafening compared to the single signed word.

But Philza had still done both. He was somehow supposed to be both and she didn’t know the man at all to even begin to understand if that was reasonable to expect him to do. Tommy clearly didn’t think so, which is why it hurt him so much. The hallway and the contract, both terrible and yet incompatible with one another, belonged to the same man. She had no way of knowing if that made sense or not.

She only had others' reactions, only knew it had left Tommy sad, Tubbo angry, herself confused, and that conversations about it really only produced the same results. She could see Tubbos’ righteous anger bubbling up on behalf of their friend. Rosalind sent them a quelling look. It wasn’t the time for an argument, however justified each side thought it to be. She understood Tubbo, knew how it clawed at them to see Tommy hurt. But they didn’t have time. 

Tubbo softened, anger leaking away. They tilted their head in concession. “...yeah, we suppose it wouldn’t really be so difficult if he was.” The rigidity in Tommy weakened as his expected battle didn’t come. He took another step into the hall leading down to the heart of the Foundation. Tubbo hovered over his shoulder and Tommy looked back, visage souring. “We can’t go get him,” Tubbo stated. “We can’t save him.”

“He could escape if he wanted,” Tommy insisted. Another of his convictions, so firm you almost believed it too. His once-Collector was on a pedestal that scraped the clouds, much to Tubbos’ chagrin. 

“Why hasn’t he then?” Tubbo genuinely asked, cocking their head to the side.

"Because the Foundation has his Collected, obviously. We're- they're hostages, so he has to obey the Foundation or they'll get hurt."

"The Foundation is already doing that. And if he's really so powerful, why not rescue you all?" Tommy blinked, halting entirely. A baffled expression consumed him. Mark another incongruity for Philza, then. He seemed a man dedicated to being hard to pin down. 

Regardless, they needed to be swift in their escape. “They’re right, Tommy. We can’t go get him.”

He bristled. “What? That’s for you to decide, then? So what’s the difference between us? Why do we get to be free and he doesn’t!?”

“U-um. No. I meant— I meant I don’t have the key cards to go there,” Rosalind fumbled awkwardly.

“...oh.” His ears turned red despite the steady sanguine levels hovering at his forearms. “M̷̡͍͇̣͇̬̠͓̈̈́̀͌̅u̸͎̱̬̣̍͠f̶͈̜͍͌f̸̡̡̘̞̭͍̂ͅͅḯ̶̤͎̺̟̪̫̿͊̒͑͌͌͝n̸̢̯͔̠͑̓͋̈́ Big R. Start with that next time, before I get all emotional and m̴̨̓͑ú̸͓f̴̧̳̿f̵̻̮̣̔i̸̭̤͋n̸͙̒̏̈́. I thought I could at least...well. Well we can’t, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Do you...wanna talk about it?” It clearly did matter. Tommy seemed to have a bad habit of belittling his own experiences as being unimportant. 

“Ḿ̸̨̙̋ư̸̜̇̀f̶̞̰̽̌̕f̶̛̛͎͕͔í̵͉̲̕͝n̷̲͉̫̏͘ off, man. Aren’t we supposed to be getting out of here as fast as possible?” At least Tommy recognized the urgency. She should capitalize on it. They all began towards the correct path, one unmarried by death’s indicators. Metal doors passed. They walked side by side as equals, or, as Mr. Loiseau put it, as that was the tactical choice. 

A troubled expression still lingered on the teen’s face. Rosalind and Tubbo shared one as well, privately. She reached up (he was quite a bit taller than her, after all) and carded her fingers through his curly hair. It was a little coarse, and a bit longer than men typically wore it, probably grown out from Tommy’s stay. Tommy froze. No. That was the wrong word. He stilled, but there was no rigidity to it. Quite the opposite, in fact. After a few seconds, he blinked as if realizing what was happening, cyan eyes shifting to look at her. 

“What do you m̴͕̯̈̀ṳ̶̗͛̀͘f̸̯͙̱̉̓̋f̷͓͋́í̷̻̦̈́͝n̴̡͒͝ think you’re doing?” he asked steadily. His face was unreadable. Rosalind winced. Ah. Probably not the right move then. 

“You looked stressed?” she offered as an explanation. It always made her feel better, but evidently wasn’t the same to Tommy. Tommy said nothing. Alright. Time to retreat. Of course, not before she quickly tousled his hair. He yelped, jerking away. Tubbo snickered. Rosalind smiled innocently at him, and he pouted back at her. He ran his own scarlet fingers through the golden hair, parting strands back to how he’d had it. It left odd ruby streaks. 

Once he’d gotten it back to his normal style (which took longer than likely necessary), Tommy scowled at her, but it lacked any real heat. “I’ve told you a thousand times to stop m̸̡͇̉u̵̯̹͍͒͆͝f̷͙̱͕̄f̵̞̪̭̌͋ḯ̸̳n̵̩͗ing with my hair,” he muttered. 

Rosalind raised an eyebrow. “No? You haven’t?” It was the first time she’d done it. His eyes widened a bit. Embarrassment twinged in his features, and he looked away.

“Who’d you think she was?” Tubbo asked curiously. Tommy made a pained noise. 

“Who’s messing with your hair?” Rosalind inquired bemusedly. He made another pained noise, an odd sort of wheeze and groan rolled into one. He glanced at his friend’s expectant faces, and gave a disgusted sigh. For an increment, Rosalind thought that would be an end to it. A handful of doors passed, and she’d thought he’d moved on.

But then Tommy slumped in defeat, and muttered, “...my mum.” Tubbo and Rosalind burst into laughter, albeit Tubbos’ was closer to cackling. “Hey!” Tommy protested. “She also would mess up my hair! It’s not my fault I’m surrounded with people with no respect for style!” 

“I think I’d like to meet her once we’re out,” Rosalind suggested. 

“And let the two of you run wild? No. My hair wouldn’t survive the encounter,” Tommy rejected drily. The laughter continued, and Tommy huffed. “At least Phil didn’t ruin it,” he grumbled. "He always fixed it afterwards, unlike some people.” For the first time, the name didn’t destroy the blossoming mirth.

——

His long, arching wings were bound by thick metal chains. They snaked around his thin torso, constricting his chest as well. The wings sagged on the floor with the weight, shifting occasionally within their hostile iron cage. Dull ebony feathers stuck out at odd angles. There were odd gaps in them, and they were almost frayed looking. 

The door was about ankle height, the two guards on duty speaking in low comfortable murmurs. One was tall and littered with scars, the other of bulky physique. The inmate towered over the two, regal and imposing. They were taller by far then a human could manage, and roughly proportioned to match. A long, ebony ear twitched in Rosalind and her charges’ direction, and the lanky demon turned. Glowing white eyes observed them, infinite sclera unmarred by iris or pupil. A piceous taloned hand slipped up to his chest, and the demon gave them a little friendly wave, action hidden from the guards. He offered them a cheery grin, face welcoming and teeth plenty. His tail, whip thin and barbed at the end, swished along the ground in a manner that reminded Rosalind of a pleased cat. 

In the corner of her eye, she could see Tommy looking slightly nervous, but Tubbo returned a bright smile. Rosalind did likewise, and a mild confusion burrowed into the demon’s visage. His grin stretched wider regardless. 

The kill switch and transportation guards seemed drawn into conversation, but paused as one waved at Rosalind to present her cards and document. She introduced herself as Isabella, and the door guard said they could just use the same pass without bothering to wait for the door again. He seemed more invested in his conversation, and resumed it without looking too much at Rosalind’s group. They seemed to be complaining about a coworker. At some point Rosalind was almost netted in, but she apologized for not knowing the person they were trash talking, and she was excused.

The door got to about calf level. A few bees streamed beneath it, and the demon watched, intrigued. The guards didn’t notice, not even needing Rosalind to distract them like all previous times. The demon looked up suddenly, catching Rosalind’s eye on the insects. She arranged her face into a soft sort of bland. Perplexion crossed the devil’s face, glowing gaze pinned on her. She found herself caught in them, eyes dead white and sightless as the eggs of spiders. Rosalind blinked, and a smile tugged at the edges of his face. It seemed a face prone to grins, but the current one had a victorious bend. Oh. She’d lost the staring contest. Oops. She stared about a minute longer. Did he even need to blink? Her eyes felt dry just looking at him. Oh, no, there he went. Seemed he did need to blink after all, just less than humans. Tommy looked deeply unsettled.

A pair of footsteps echoed from another part of the hall, just around the corner. One was oddly heavy. Crunching, almost. The expression on the demon froze, ears swiveled towards the sound. Almost trancelike, he took a step forward. His guard didn’t notice. The inmate’s smile slipped from his face, glossy eyes narrowed. 

The pair rounded the corner. One was a short, athletic guard. The other was a skeleton. Well. Sort of. They were roughly skeleton in shape, but the bones were composed of jagged, rippling gems. Cracks raced through parts of them, a spider web across their chest, arcing lighting shot through their azure jaw. Crystal pillars jutted off from their skull and shoulders, translucent obelisks angled and sparkling like ice.

The pair didn’t seem to be approaching, just passing a junction. Rosalind returned her focus to the front. The demon took another step forward, chained wings rattling on the floor. His luminous eyes were blown open wide, horror etched into his dark features. “Skeppy!” he howled. Both Tommy and Tubbos’ heads whipped around to look at the demon once he spoke, panic consuming their expressions. The scar-littered guard accompanying the demon casually reached up, slamming a fist into his charge’s gut as a reward for speaking. The inmate doubled over, wheezing, radiant eyes still locked on the diamond golem who stood paused in the intersection, face frozen in eternal smile. 

“Skeppy what have they done to you!?” the demon screeched, horror mixed in with lingering pain. The scarred soldier reached up to hit him again, but the devil’s thin tail coiled around his wrist, sharply turning his momentum into the wall. The bulky guard drew out a baton, but the demon head butted him, hooking long horns into the guard’s shirt. With a quick toss of his head, the foe went flying, slamming into the ground with a grunt. The one from the wall spun, pulling out a taser, but the demon whirled, slapping feathery wings across the guard. Wounds opened across the guard’s face from where metal bands scraped across it. The taser went flying, skidding across the floor.

Tommy sprinted, snatching it. She tracked his motion behind her, and found the gem golem’s guard was sprinting off for backup. The skeleton swiped their hand upwards, and giant pillars of jagged crystals grew, weaving to form an impenetrable wall. The adversary was trapped, and quickly wrestled into a chokehold. The fallen foe rose, gripping a baton, and then launched to the devil, landing a painful sounding blow to his side. He grunted, backing away. The two guards stood backed up against the wall, surrounded. The bulky worker glanced at his coworker and nodded. The scarred man nodded back, and then the two began to attack. The stronger looking of the pair went after the tall demon, slamming the metal rod against dark flesh, while the transport guard went after Tubbo, who quickly pulled out the chloroform rag and a garden tool.

While the demon struggled with the door worker, the insectoid lashed out with a pair of trowels, scoring shallow scrapes across the man’s arms. The battle marked guard retaliated by forcefully landing a blow to Tubbos’ side. Tubbo retreated to the air, using the mobility to get in more hits. Soon, various scrapes lined the worker, new injuries overlaying old. The guard got in another attack on Tubbos’ ankle, who yelped and shot out of range. “Don’t m̴͚̤͇̰̣̽͜u̸͖̫̞̙͊́͘f̸̨̫̥͇͆̐̕f̴̙͉̟̪̫̙̑̿̓̓͂î̸̧̥̟͉̝̭̇͆n̷̛̜̭̰̗͌̍ing move,” Tommy spat, training the taser on the soldier who’d hurt Tubbo. 

“Language!” the demon chimed, eyes (literally) flashing, earning a baton to the leg for inattentiveness. He retaliated by clawing at an arm, causing the man to drop the weapon. Tommy spluttered a bit, but kept the taser steady. Slowly, the transportation guard put his hands up, frozen. 

Rosalind was also frozen. She hadn’t expected another escape attempt to happen. That hadn’t been part of the plan, or even near one of its debated contingencies. Was she supposed to help? Or was she supposed to still be acting like a guard? Which gave them better odds of escaping? Cameras weren’t a factor, but they could remember her face. She’d always hated improv. 

The choice was taken from her when a large sharp fist collided with the back of her head. Rosalind stumbled forward, pain screaming in her battered skull. The world was fuzzy at the edges.

“Hey!” Tommy shouted, head whipping around. “Don’t hurt her!” He swung the taser around to be trained on the crystal golem to make the point. The veteran worker took the opportunity, lunging for the taser. Tommy grunted in surprise, jerking away from the man, who gripped the teen’s arm, trying to wrestle the weapon away from him. Tommy panicked and punched him in the face, whipping his head around with the motion. The guard continued the pivot, turning away, abandoning Tommy completely in favor of charging at the gemstone skeleton. His visage was contorted in fury, the carmine impression of knuckles outlined on his lined jaw. He grappled with the crystal construct, slamming his fist against their form but not seeming to even crack their bejeweled body.

Tommy’s eyes were wide. The taser trembled in his grasp. Bright Red shot up to his elbows and the transportation guard grew more vicious in his attacks. The skin on his knuckles split, leaving pinkish stains on bright azure jems. The pair grappled, strength matched. Tubbo settled a swarm around the man, trying to blind him, but it didn’t seem to do much except allow the azure construct a few more hits that the adrenaline and Red laced human ignored.  

The door guard took the opportunity, head butting the demon in the stomach. He then raced over to Rosalind, back to her, just like earlier to the true transportation guard. Expecting backup. Rosalind blinked back the stars creeping at the edge of her vision. The man’s eyes took inventory of their foes. He looked back to her, nodding again, trying to get confirmation. Was there some sort of code the Foundation soldiers were supposed to know? 

Well, she wasn’t one. Rosalind did not return the gesture. Instead she shifted back a bit, pulling out the lavender guard’s gun and pointing it between his eyes. Her head pounded. Gun steady as she could manage, she walked backwards to get some space between them. Confusion crossed his face. When the gun remained firmly pointed at him, he lifted his hands in the air, visage souring to betrayal. Rosalind just stared at him down the barrel of a gun. She wasn’t actually entirely sure how to use it, but figured movies probably were close to authentic enough to mimic them. She made sure her grip on the trigger was light, unsure how much pressure would be enough to kill the man. It seemed too easy that a light squeeze could blast someone’s brains out. The possibility made her even more nervous.

“Traitor. You’re a traitor to humanity,” he hissed.

Everything hurt. Her abdomen ached and head pounded. And what. What was he trying to say? She was betraying humanity somehow? What? Through helping people? In what world was having empathy a sin? Was he implying that the Foundation served humanity then? That had certainly been what Rosalind had thought when she’d first joined. She’d thought they were supposed to keep the world secure. To contain evil. To protect humanity. But she had no idea how the things she witnessed served mankind in any way. Sacrifice and torture was not the way to protect anyone. Not only did it not serve humanity, it neglected human decency. 

Evil could not be the way to advance mankind. Rosalind refused for it to be. "You’re the one who’s forgotten your humanity,” she said coldly. 

“Oh hey! That was a decent one liner!” Tubbo hummed. Rosalind winced. They were supposed to be going for intimidation so the guard would buy her threats. Well, she consoled herself, at least Tubbo had thought it palpably threatening enough to comment on, even if doing so sorta ruined the tone she was going for. 

“Tubbo, I’m making a man choose between his life and his cooperation. Not really the time.”

The door guard stared down Rosalind from behind the barrel. “If you kill me, this whole place starts blaring alarms,” he said defiantly. Sure enough, she could see a mechanism integrated into the bullet proof vest, the dead man’s switch that every door guard had. The minute his heart stopped it was all over. She couldn’t threaten him like that. Either it would be an empty ultimatum, or it would destroy their chance of escape. Seconds marched on as she searched for a solution. 

The golem finally had the battle marked enemy contained, though the man still thrashed. Tommy, realizing the man couldn’t do anything, was beginning to calm, carmine coloration inching down slightly. “Tommy!” she called. His head shot up. His eyes were wide, but he offered a shaky grin. “Hold him hostage,” she ordered. The teen nodded, and trained the taser on the veteran. It was trembling, but would get the job done. Rosalind wasn’t entirely sure if the electricity of a taser would activate the kill switch, but it seemed less likely than a gun. Made the threat a bit better marginally at the very least. There. Problem solved. 

Tubbo began to sedate them. It would take a while. The door was almost completely open. She rubbed at the back of her skull where the crystal construct’s fist had hit it. The area was tender, and shot stabs of pain when she touched it. The demon looked awkwardly at Rosalind, then to Tubbo and Tommy. “What’s with her?” he asked.

“Ros- she’s a good guy,” Tommy explained shortly, tripping up and almost using her name. She’d been using a fake name for a reason. She figured the more mysterious she was, the harder time the Foundation would have realizing what had happened. 

“Kinda funny, actually, since you guys interrupted our escape attempt to have your own,” Tubbo added.

The dark devil made an apologetic expression, scratching behind a long pointed ear. “Oh sorry about that! I wasn’t really planning to do anything, but then I saw-” his pearl eyes snapped open. His head whipped around to look down the corridor. The demon and construct cautiously stepped towards one another, then the lanky devil burst into a sprint, the golem mimicking him. In the center of the hall they met. The scarred guard was still struggling in the stone skeleton’s grasp, and the two creatures stared at each other awkwardly, until the diamond construct wrestled the guard to the ground and stood on top of his back. Apparently he was deceptively heavy despite his thin skeletal shape, and the worker was pinned if still trying to fight. The inmates gathered each other into a hug. The demon had to bend down despite the extra height the diamond golem had from standing on a person, and he didn’t seem to mind the shards of precious jewels that were surely pressing into his piceous flesh.

They broke apart, held at arm's length, elongated black claws cupping crystal shoulders, diamond fingers latched tightly onto dark wrists. The bloodlust-consumed soldier was scratching at the ankles of the wispy demon, but he didn’t seem to pay attention. “What’s wrong with your wings?” the crystal creature asked. His mouth didn’t move, expression encased in unmoving rock. Transfixed in a goofy grin despite the clear concern in his voice.

“That’s not important! Tell me why you’re a skeleton now!” 

“Went on a diet.”

“Skeppy!” the demon protested fervently.

“If you really want to know, they kept chipping bits off me to sell, and, well. They just kept doing that for a while, and now I look like this. Don’t know why they went with a human skeleton but I think it looks pretty cool!” He caught the look on his friend’s face. “But! They won’t ever again, cause we’ll get outta here.”

“Ok but...in a bit, alright? I haven’t seen you in years.”

“Decades,” the golem corrected gently. “It’s been decades, Halo.”

Confusion gripped the demon. “What? No, I-what? No that can’t be-”

“Welcome to the 21st century, Halo. I can’t wait to show you everything.” Slowly, the dark devil beamed. Literally. Their smile cast radiant rays that scattered across the crystals of his friend, prisms distorting and casting snatches of rainbows in the white halls. Tubbo gasped at the colors, eyes wide. The bejeweled skeleton —Skeppy— smiled. They weren’t able to do anything else, but it seemed genuine now. Black shards made it large and gaping, save for a rippling row of rubies marking a caricaturish tongue. “Let’s get your wings free first, though.” He raised a sharp fist, but Rosalind stopped him.

“They’ll have keys for those,” she explained. Skeppy picked up the person he was standing on and dug through his pockets, pulling out a scattering of key cards, and then returning him to beneath the heavy golem’s feet. One was of a distinctly different mold from the others, labeled ‘devil’, so the construct promptly began using it to unchain his friend. It took a while due to multiple chains, but was markedly faster than the doors. Within minutes, Halo was free of them. 

He stretched out a long feathered wing. It was distinctly raggedy, ebony feathers dull and patchy. He shifted them, and couldn’t help wincing. “Oh, I haven’t gotten to move them in so long…”

A flinch played out on his swarthy complexion as he extended one completely. The feathers were patchy, gaps creating ragged absences. They didn’t look able to support flight at all. “They had you chained up the entire time!?” Skeppy shouted, outraged. 

“No, they let me out every once in a while, or they would have atrophied completely. But still…”

“Promise me. First volcano we find? You get the honors of throwing the chains in.”

“Actually, I think we might need them,” Rosalind piped up. “It would sell our story better. I don’t think anyone would believe I’m escorting all four of you, so splitting up may actually be the superior option if you are planning to fight.”

Halo glowered. “If you’re even thinking of putting these on a person-”

“Temporarily! And Tubbo doesn’t need wings to fly.” 

“Yeah, go for it,” Tubbo agreed as they chloroform'd a soldier. “Slight problem though, this guy still isn’t completely out and it’s been like seven minutes. We think it’s running out of sleep juice stuff.”

“Is one of your cells close? And do you think any observers monitor you frequently?”

“Mine is. They’re expecting me elsewhere, and there’s no use observing an empty room, so it might be good for a while. It’s just around the corner, we shouldn’t even have to pass any checkpoints.” Skeppy transferred the transportation guard from the floor to a grapple. His feet didn’t quite touch the floor, but he was still swinging. “I can just put him in a chokehold like the other one,” Skeppy offered. Sure enough, slumped down the hall was the short guard that had originally been escorting the crystal construct, but Rosalind thought he would rouse soon.

The Red contaminated man’s neck rested in the crook of a jagged bejeweled elbow. His fingers scratched at diamond flesh, bloodying finger pads. Tommy watched, frozen stone. Rosalind crossed over to him. “You don’t have to watch,” she whispered.

Tommy didn’t move, taser still trained on the man Tubbo had finally sedated. Rosalind moved in front, blocking the view of the second guard. A carmine hand snaked up, gently touching his throat. The bruises were darkening, now a deep wine color. From behind, she could hear the first sound of the struggle, breath audibly choking. Crimson shot down to his elbows. He could still see it from over her head. Curse her short stature.

She reached up, pulling his face down. “Look at me.” His eyes were still locked on the guard behind her, pupils dilated. She could feel faint tremors wracking his body. Tommy wasn’t breathing, his weight heavy as he sunk like stone in her palm. “Stop,” Rosalind commanded. “Stop, we’ll just...we’ll just walk him over. You seem to be able to carry him, it’ll be fine.”

The sounds of struggle ceased. Feet loudly dropped on the floor. Bees swarmed, checking for more weapons and finding none. Halo led the way, carrying the dead man’s switch guard over one shoulder and Skeppy’s on the other. The crystal creature dragged the resisting Red tainted man. Rosalind held out her gun and a covey relieved her of it, Tubbo taking the firearm and joining the progression.

There was a haunted sort of look in Tommy’s eyes. “In, out.” He complied, steadying his respiration. “Are you alright?” He nodded. “Really?” He gave her A Look. She shot one right back at him. Not the time for sassy teenagers. His expression gave a bit. Tommy took a deep breath.

“Fine.” It was a lie, but hopefully not too much of one. It wasn’t safe, but soon they could be. Once they got out, they’d have all the time in the world to fix things. The first step to healing was to be uprooted, however, and they couldn’t begin to make anything better until they were out. There was no chance for wounds to close in the Foundation; only to fester. Rosalind only hoped she could manage to quell the infection eventually, but that was a problem for the future. "And you shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have touched me. It's risky."

She hummed hummed at Tommy a little sadly, having not missed the way the child leaned in, chasing her fingers as the fluttered away. As someone familiar with starving, she recognized the look in his eyes. But again, the only salve was deliverance. She followed the group, Tommy trailing after her.

Tubbo was pulling out various items from the guards’ pockets, taking things like IDs and key cards. Halo was opening a door, and they shoved the various employees into it. A wave, and a room of crystals closed around them. The doors slammed shut, locking them in completely. “I don’t know how long till someone finds them…” Halo worried. 

“Nah, we put bees on the camera. It’s worked decently so far,” Tubbo explained. “We’ll send some with you, too, to try and help out.”

“Still. Neither of us will show up to the experiments, so the doctors are bound to notice,” 

“Bound to notice us running through the halls, too,” Skeppy said as he helped Tubbo into the thick chains, Halo averting his gaze. His wings twitched in solidarity. Tubbo handed the security paraphernalia to the diamond skeleton. “You’ll probably still have to fight, but it’ll be a bit easier.”

“Use the smaller numbers, those usually lead to the surface,” Rosalind added. After sorting through his various key cards, the golem nodded, and turned to the demon.

“Ready?”

For a moment, Halo was frozen, uncertainty twitching his features. But then he steeled himself, smile blinding. Tommy winced. “Let’s do this!” The pair raced off, honey bees trailing after. There was only one other route, given the wall of crystal blocking one end of the hall. Suspicious, definitely. Nothing to be done for it though, it appeared. 

Rosalind, Tubbo, and Tommy walked through the unguarded gate. It didn’t shut. The insectoid went back inside, examining the security mechanism. They shook their head, then joined the rest outside. The door remained open. Worry swirled in Rosalind’s stomach. “Did we make the right choice there? What if they kill people?” Escapes were always deadly, or at least that’s what the training video had said what felt like a lifetime ago. Of course, Rosalind knew her group wouldn’t, but that didn’t guarantee the pair would refrain. 

“Nah. They won’t,” Tommy explained.

“How can you be sure?”

He looked a little uncomfortable. “Well. Well, whenever someone doesn’t wanna, y’know, kill people, they’d drag me in to fix that. The observers want to know what all everyone can do, so they know how to stop it. Or, they just like seeing people die, I don’t know. But uh. I saw that demon guy. Lethal as m̴̙̟̦͗̈́͜͠ṳ̷̾̍͛̓̓̕f̴̼̗̖͇̗͍̪͚͛̈́͂̚f̸̛̰͎̤̘̮͕̒̀̎̀͘i̷͈̲̓ņ̵̞̓́͌͠ͅ. Would slit peoples throats with that tail of his. Once ripped someone’s jugular out with his teeth. Pretty...pretty awful stuff.”

Distant disgust filled Rosalind. “What—Tommy, how is that proof they aren’t going to go on a killing spree!?”

“No, that’s the point. I saw him, what, a dozen times? Most people who I had to...convince only had to do so like once or twice before they complied, but the demon guy just kept refusing.” She thought about it. It was almost reassuring, in an odd sort of way. Whatever. The most assurance she’d get. “Huh,” Tommy said, realization coloring his features. It wasn’t a happy epiphany. “I guess...well, Tubbo, if you kept not killing Rosalind for long enough, they might’ve brought me in. But I would’ve just exploded you, and then they’d study that instead I guess.” 

“Hey, you’re right! So even if the vents didn’t work out, we’d still have gotten to meet fully!” Tubbo hummed.

“Yeah...but under the context of me bursting you.”

“Well you would’ve stopped once you realized.”

“Tubbo, they wouldn’t’ve let me stop,” Tommy pressed. “Even if I did resist, they’d just get a sample and punish the both of us anyway. Make Rosalind apply it herself or something, I dunno. They prefer you do it yourself, but that’s not...they’ll get what they want eventually.”

“But they haven’t gotten it yet, and they never will,” Rosalind interjected. An odd sort of look passed Tommy’s face, a quiet realization. They were escaping. The Foundation couldn’t make them do anything ever again.

“Oh. Oh yeah.”

——

A worry made itself known. “Those guards know what I look like. They’ll know I’m not working with the Foundation.”

“They know what Tommy and us look like, too, and we’d say we’re a lot more noticeable,” Tubbo offered. 

“Still I—well, actually, I don’t think there’s much we can do to disguise ourselves anyways. Nothing that would actually slow down capture for more than a few seconds.”

“We could ‘dye’ your hair Red,” Tommy joked awkwardly. “Plus, they wouldn’t recognize you if you shot them first. Tubbo could probably survive like eight rounds of bullets, right?”

“At least nine,” Tubbo sniffed. “We’re not that weak.”

“If it helps, I’m sure my aim would be terrible,” she offered. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think Red is my color.”

“Red is everyone’s color,” Tommy insisted. 

“Shhh,” Tubbo ordered, and they all fell silent.

A singular guard raced pass. Tubbo gave the thee buzz clearance, but then immediately revoked it. The guard came back, stopping next to them. He squinted at Rosalind’s charges, eyes catching on Tubbo and narrowing. Their wings fluttered nervously, rattling the chains fastened around them. The guard looked to her. “Is this the SCP that’s been impairing the cameras with insects?”

Rosalind frowned, looking at Tubbo. “I wasn’t aware it could.”

“I checked the halls. No escapees, and this one looks to be the best candidate.” No. That wasn’t— that was supposed to last far longer. And they’d be hurting the chances of Halo and Skeppy’s escape as well. She thought they’d— no matter. They’d planned for the eventuality, and as long as she even half a scheme she could do it. The guard was still looming over her, she needed to react like an employee would. Already she’d hesitated too long. It was either stop protecting the other two or draw suspicion down on their own heads. It wasn’t a choice she liked, but there was a plan she had to follow.

Rosalind smiled at Tubbo. “Well,” she said slowly, channeling Dr. Blake. “I’m sure the doctors will be incredibly interested to know about this ability.” Tubbo leaned back from her, just as they’d discussed. Their face wasn’t quite passable as fearful, but was good enough. Bees streamed towards them, ducking back inside. The guard pressed for details, and Rosalind offered the cover story. He threatened to write up to superiors and (subsequently) dock her pay, but Rosalind sufficiently cowered so he said he’d switch it to a minor incident report. Rosalind supplied a fake name, and they went their separate ways. 

Tubbo nodded, and Rosalind’s knees turned to jelly. But she’d held it together long enough, and that was all that mattered.

——

The door guard squinted at the paper, snatching it. She held it up to her one icy eye, the other missing entirely. There wasn’t a visible wound; more it simply didn’t exist. Rosalind avoided looking at it, both for politeness and also because something about beholding it made her head hurt. “Must be a fun one if someone can't wait for clearance. Go ahead.” The soldier handed back the fake slip, smiling. “Nice to meet you. Name’s Maria Moore.”

“Isabella. Pleasure.” Rosalind swiped the associated card while the guard looked over Rosalind’s charges. Recognition lit in her pale iris, a smile creeping along her visage. Something about it put Rosalind on edge. 

“Hey, I remember this one!” Maria’s eyes were locked on Tubbo, who was carefully keeping a bland expression. “I was on duty for testing it a while back. Asphyxiation experiment. Turns out it doesn’t need to breathe! Pretty fun, right? Just needs enough bees left to lift the limbs up.” Rosalind froze her features, trying not to let horror bleed through. Tommy looked livid, Tubbo themselves still carefully empty. Maria didn’t seem to notice either reaction. Her attention was caught by Tubbos’ missing hand, eye lighting up in a terrible sort of fascination. She grabbed it, examine the wounded wrist end. With a thumb, she crunched in a section of the edge. It splintered into hexagons. Tubbo bit off a half formed noise, somewhere between a scream and a whimper. Their eyes squeezed shut, and they shuddered. Tommy looked like he was about to lunge. “Ooh! That’s new! What was that testing?”

The door was at calf level. Not nearly enough to escape the conversation. “Regeneration,” Rosalind offered shortly, trying not to let horror infect her words at the casual torture.

“Ah, cut off its hand? Excellent! Were you there? Did you get to see it?” An odd kind of intensity filled her words. 

“Yes. I…” keep calm. She couldn’t blow this for everyone. The one-eyed guard had to have her opinions echoed. To argue was to disrupt her life. To disrupt her life was to be memorable. To be memorable was to jeopardize their escape. It would be so easy for Maria to topple their plans. It was a scheme that would only work once. “...helped.” The word tasted vile, and she tried not to gag on it. 

“Wait, was that the hand Dr. Blake had in a canister? Let me tell you, woman after my own heart right there. You’re so lucky to have been there.” Tommy was bristling. There was nothing to be done for it. “So what’s the experiment? Has to be good if it’s so sudden.” Rosalind rattled off the prepared lie. To her consternation, the guard began to frown. No. That was supposed to be lulling her into a sense of security. Details were the meat of a lie, weren’t they? Why did Maria look angrier? Rosalind furiously ran strands of hair between shaking fingers. “Refuses to attack? What kinda...nah. That can’t be right.”

Rosalind frowned. That was the one truth she had. “Well, it wouldn’t,” she said shortly.

“And they’re transporting together?”

“It has to be exposed to high temperatures to work?” Rosalind tried. Not like Maria would know the details. “So there’s no danger.”

“No. No, that’s not how these monsters work. There’s always danger. They won’t even hesitate. They don’t care one bit about human lives, and you mean to tell me this one refused?” Maria spat. 

“They’re just like people, they’re all different. Some, er, most might, but not this one,” Rosalind tried. Reach a middle ground, don’t contest her completely and don’t undermine the lie. A fire lit in Maria’s singular pale eye. 

“It’s a trick then. It’s luring you into a false sense of security. It’s a monster, Isabella. The only thing they want is to hurt us.” No. Rosalind knew for a fact that wasn’t true. 

But maybe the guard didn’t. Maybe she’d never met an inmate who was like Tubbo or Tommy or Halo or Skeppy. Maybe she’d met someone like Protesilaus, who didn’t seem to care much about the carnage he caused, or maybe someone worse. Rosalind knew full well that the people they imprisoned were dangerous and knew they’d wield it against the humans keeping them captive. The woman standing before her was missing an eye entirely as if it was expunged from existence. Faint scars lined her neck. The other guards showed other such signs of damage, all of them sporting various old wounds. She’d seen the imprint of what Philza had done, and Tommy insisted he was a good person. Rosalind knew for a fact that the captives were deadly. She knew why Maria would insist on her perspective, even if Rosalind knew it to be dead wrong, even if it was a world view that offered no empathy for an entire subset of people. 

She could understand the guard even if she knew better.

Except...what if she didn’t? What if Rosalind hadn’t been introduced to Tommy and Tubbo first? What if she’d encountered a far more malicious inmate? Would she still find the same desperate desire to help them? She suspected the answer was no, and she wasn’t sure what that meant about her character. Her mission at the start of it all was to help humans, and it had evolved, but what if it hadn’t? If she’d found the inmates to be a threat to the first tenet and so it never expanded to include them?

Rosalind found herself in front of a cracked mirror and wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean.

It would have been so easy for Rosalind to turn out like Maria had. All the other guards had come to the same conclusion. It seemed a system designed to produce the same result. Any prisoner that might’ve changed their minds were coerced into hurting humans by the Foundation. The guards were used to being hurt, and so they treated the inmates poorly, leading to festering hatred of each party. The captives weren’t even allowed to speak in the halls, further shutting down any chance of anything contesting the implemented atmosphere. They broke down any chance of communication, shutting the conversation down with violence. Progress couldn’t foster in such an environment. An inescapable cycle.

No. No, that wasn’t right, because they were escaping, and were going to expose what the Foundation was doing. They were going to break the cycle. 

Suddenly it became a lot more important that they succeed. Beyond their own well being there was a real chance they could manage to help the other prisoners, the guards, just…everyone.

But first she had to deal with Maria.

The silence had stretched on with her hesitation. Rosalind let an uncertain look cross her face. She looked to Tubbo, letting suspicion grow on her features. She leaned a bit away from her friends, thinking for the right words. “...oh. I didn’t realize they…knew enough to trick us.” There. Us, to group them together. The same side. A casual hint at an insult, an implication they weren’t even sentient enough to be people. An admission to a lack of her own experience, giving Maria a sense of superiority that would hopefully overshadow any of Rosalind’s mistakes and make them appear to just be inexperience. People loved to be the expert in any given situation after all. 

“Barely, but just enough for them to be devious,” Maria frowned. Tubbos’ wings were rattling their chain confines, and their antenna were fidgeting, but they still had the bland look of someone who wanted to be literally anywhere else than the place they occupied. Tommy’s face darkened when Rosalind relented, a furious look sharpening his features. “You really should have two guards, or another person at the very least. You never know when one might fly into a bloodlust. They just can’t help it, you know.”

The door was almost at chest level. Rosalind made nervous agreeing noises. Just a little further...but outrage scrawled across Tommy's features as he gnashed his teeth, ire flashing in his eyes. “M̷̨̏̊̿̒̾̏u̸̻͊̈́́͐f̵̭̥̠̓̑͊f̸̨̻̝̰̤͒̎̄̐ͅǐ̸̘̤̭̫͠n̵̮̼͕͎͔͊̉̀͊̚͝ you,” he hissed. A light over the door lit up, an angry crimson color that flashed. Footsteps were pounding in the hall, sharp against the floor. They all ignored this. 

Maria’s expression twitched and let fly a slap aimed at Tommy. He ducked out of the way, jerking back. She followed it up with a quick jab to his stomach. Tommy doubled over, coughing. She didn’t follow up the attack, satisfied that the point had been made. “Tommy!” Tubbo and Rosalind shouted at the same time, horrified. 

(Closer now, pattering in frantic strides, a multitude that suggested many people racing towards them.)

Bewilderment, disbelief, disgust, and a plethora of other emotions quickly filtered through Maria’s visage. She settled on rage. “Did you just call it a name!?” Rosalind froze, caught in a malicious pale eye’s gaze. She felt pinned on the spot, could see their entire plan teetering on an edge but was unable to move, unsure if she’d be even able to stop it from collapsing entirely or if she’d only succeed in pushing it to its demise. Her eyes darted away from the guard’s, catching on her friends. Tubbo was checking to see if Tommy was alright, careful to keep from touching him but clearly wanting to. Tommy’s coughing was slowing. She glanced down. Her hands were intertwined in her hair, it was pulling almost painfully on her scalp but she couldn’t stop, didn’t even know she had started. The footsteps were drawing close. Rosalind looked back to the hateful eye. 

“I-I…I just-” she began to try and stutter out an explanation but her mind was completely blank, having not planned for this in the slightest. 

The gaze was broken when a head ducked beneath the door. The soldier sped up, containing a steady sprint. Then, the next head popped up from under, then the next. Guard after guard came through the still slowly rising door, each heavily armed and a few out of breath. About a dozen raced through. The last one, a curly haired man, panted a bit, catching his breath. “Containment breach, level two so far,” he barked, addressing the door guard. Maria nodded, preoccupied by more important things immediately, racing off to join the others, clutching her weapon. The exhausted guard took a breath and jogged after, coveys covertly tagging along for the ride. The diversion would have to do, but they wouldn’t have time. Fleeing a dangerous situation was as good an excuse to pick up the pace as anything. The escapees began to walk a bit faster through the halls, excitement and anxiety quickening their steps. 

Bees streamed off Tubbo, slipping through the halls the farthest reaches of the Foundation available to them. The plan had been for them to create a distraction, and they still would, but to not capitalize on an opportunity would be foolish. “M̶̨̛̻̯̬͔͊̏͋ǘ̷̡̟͑̾̒f̶̨̡͎͇́f̴͉̤͆̉͛̈͘į̴̘̘̃͂̐͝n̵̰̦͒̏̃,” Tubbo suddenly hissed. “They’re after Skeppy and Halo. They’re running, but we don’t think— no.” Tubbo looked at them, uncertainty and worry clouding their features. “Do we go to blackout so soon?”

Rosalind could feel her insides crystallizing. To do so too soon could mean they were found out far earlier than intended, arousing suspicion in a dangerous fashion. To not could doom the other escapees. Her thoughts spiraled into each other, refusing to come to a conclusion. “Do it. If we don’t and they’re captured it’ll be because of us. We at least need to try,” Tommy decided. The choice was made without her. Probably for the best, really. Tubbo shut their eyes, mouth twitched into a concentrated frown. Before they’d been told off, Tubbo had really only covered the cameras of the area they were directly in. One or two cameras among millions could be easily looked over. What couldn’t be so easily ignored was all of them being blinded by small swarms of honey bees. Not all the cameras, no, but Tubbo had been tracing different branching roots as far as they could manage for their entire trek. It may not completely destroy the Foundation’s surveillance system completely, but, well, it was certainly a decent chunk. With a containment breach occurring, most guards could presumably be occupied searching for the exact whereabouts of any number of imagined prisoners. Everyone would be on alert, but without the cameras they couldn’t exactly be sure of what they were to be alert to.

A spiraling stairway led them up to another identical hallway. A red light dotted the exit from the stairwell, filling up the room and dancing over their features as they left it. Rosalind wasn’t sure how many more layers there could possibly be. No sense of familiarity could foster in a landscape so uniform. But there. A wedge right before the ceiling. A window. Sturdy metal bars lined it, and she couldn’t think that even a child could squirm their way through. 

But it was something. Just a small rectangle of dusk light, but it meant they were almost there, just one more flight of stairs and they’d be on the ground floor. Almost free. A spark of warm hope flickered in Rosalind’s chest, the tight restricting vice of stress loosening slightly. She hadn’t realized how far they’d made it. One level up and they’d be at ground level. Almost there. 

The three of them were briefly transfixed by the sliver of the outside world. “I forgot how… big it was. Just going on forever,” Tommy whispered. “There’s a bird. Tubbo, look at it!” A small dark silhouette cut a crescent through bright ocher.

Tubbo nodded in appreciation. “Too far up to tell what it is,” they hummed. They continued forward, hope boosting their speed. Rosalind began to examine the doors they came across. Not prisoner doors, but things closer to offices and workspaces. “I bet it was a hawk,” Tommy asserted, voice kept low but excitement lacing his words.

“Nah. Wrong shape,” Tubbo dismissed.

“Then an eagle! Or something like that, one of the cool ones that dive bomb people.”

“Pigeon,” Tubbo decided sarcastically. “The most dangerous of birds.”

“Oh yeah! Very majestic!” Tommy chirped. It was…genuine.

Rosalind and Tubbo shared a look. Rosalind broke first, snorting a bit. “A pigeon is majestic?”

Tommy froze a bit. “M̷̼͚̆̌̓͜u̴̢̢̨̮͎̦͖͂̓̚ḟ̶̻̂̽̀͜f̵̝͇͚̗͖̃͑̃̇̎̀́í̶̡̢̎̇͘ͅn̴̜͚̻̠̈́̽̽̆. Did I get it mixed up with something else? You guys can’t do this to me, I get confused too easily. It's like bullying a senior citizen.”

“You’ve been here ten months and almost forgot what a pigeon was?” Tubbo raised an eyebrow and their chin in a lopsided manner. 

“It was a very stressful ten months,” Tommy said delicately. “And I haven’t had to think about birds for a long time.”

“Which one did you get it mixed up with?” Rosalind asked bemusedly.

“Falcons.”

“That’s not even close,” Tubbo butted in. 

“The ending is the same! I bet if you were here as long as I’ve-” Tubbo shhh’d them. The group fell silent. A pair of humans passed, one in a guard uniform, and the other in an orange uniform labeled ‘D-class’. No one had ever explained to Rosalind what D-class personnel did, but the jumpsuit reminded her of prison clothing for some reason. Tubbo produced the triple hum for safe once they’d been gone a while.

“-if you were here as long as I’ve been, I bet you’d forget all sorts of useless things li-” Tommy began again, before being interrupted again by Tubbo. Sure enough, a group of general employees, this time a harried looking trio, one of which was chugging what smelled like the terrible attempt at coffee the small cafeteria provided at a truly alarming rate while half jogging. Tubbo never nodded, because by then another group was passing, a pair of low level observers who gave them not even a passing glance as they raced off to some sort of safety. Tommy didn’t even have time to complain as they turned a hallway into a large chamber that was heavily populated. Rosalind swiftly turned about, shepherding them away from the crowd of humans riled up like a stamped on ant hill.

The higher levels, reserved for workers and completely devoid of SCPs, would not allow them to avoid attention for very long. Uncontained prisoners, whether they were actually escaping or not, would be far too noticeable. While there wouldn’t be any more security checks unless they tried to access things of higher security classifications, the actual entrances were highly monitored and likely wouldn’t let them through without actual planned authorization. A spark lit Tommy’s eye, and he wordlessly pointed to a set of bathrooms. Tubbo nodded to signal a clear hall, and Tommy rushed towards the men’s. He halfway opened the door, and a bee slipped through. Tubbo triple hummed, and Tommy stepped in, pausing. 

“Wait, can you even come in here?” he asked his friends, uncertain.

“Doesn’t matter, that’s the wrong one anyway,” Rosalind reminded him. “Not as many women work here, so it’s the safer one to hide in.” Tommy made a face, repeated the search with the other bathroom, and they all entered. They picked a stall in the middle.

“I hoped you’d forget about that part,” Tommy muttered. “Whatever. Small price to pay to get out of this m̴͖̋̋u̶̯͕͗̃̈́f̶̖͌̀͛f̴͙̊ī̴̝͎̰̏̎n̴̯̯̓̀ hole.”

Rosalind checked the locked stall from the outside. “One of you needs to pick up your feet. Both if you can manage. Would the lack of shoes be too big a give away…?” Chains rattled, and Tubbos’ feet disappeared. “Don’t raise your antenna too high, it’s visible over the top. Is there any way to dim some of the buzzing?”

“Some of us always need to fly or the body just slumps over.”

“Alright, try your best. Hopefully it won’t be too long, and, with the Containment Breech going on, no one will risk going to the bathroom.” Bees tangled in her hair as she exited the restroom, walking with conviction. 

——

The problem with the main exit was that it boasted a far greater level of security than the checkpoints did. Once you were in the Foundation, it was assumed you were supposed to be there. Leaving, from her experience, had been a tedious checking of verification. Leaving with inmates, she figured, would be a whole other challenge. They still would be on Foundation property, of course, but still outside, which was much less secure than anyone really preferred. The exit was far more regulated, probably the highest she personally had encountered. Waving key cards around and donning a uniform wouldn’t cut it; she needed actual authoritative permission. So, maximizing on the confusion in the wake of a containment breach, Rosalind planned on obtaining just that.

The problem with opening Dr. Blake’s door (the highest ranking person she knew, and thus most likely to be accepted) wasn’t that Dr. Blake herself was inside her office. Of course not, there was danger occurring and she was far too important. All the significantly powerful people had special safe rooms for times of crisis. Tubbo had also given a hesitant ‘no’ when she’d asked if the doctor had been inside. Her mistake, really, since it had been too specific a question.

It was a nice enough room, a comfortable chair behind a neat desk with a sleek row of monitors. Filing cabinets lined all of the walls in a way that was a little concerning. There seemed to be a noticeable lack of personal flare, but at least there wasn’t some poor prisoner’s head mounted on the wall or something equally ghastly. It was almost disappointingly lacking in any air of malice, which was a tad surprising given its owner.

It was, however, very occupied, which became immediately clear to her when a ginger head whipped around to stare at her. The man took off his glasses, cleaned them off on his lab coat, and redonned them. “Rosalind?” Lawrence asked, bewildered. “What are you doing here?” 

“Needed documentation,” she said. It was slightly a question due to her inflection. She frantically revised her plan. Right. Act like you know what you’re doing. She crossed over to the work side of the desk. She moved the mouse around a bit and the screen lit up, thankfully logged in. Likely Dr. Blake didn’t have time to sign out when rushing to the high level employee safe rooms. Rosalind started pulling up various files, trying to find some sort of form she could work off of. 

“Where have you been!? Mr. Loiseau suggested you’d died, and it’s been over a week since I saw you last. Word was you were given Keter duty for asking questions about Tommy's Collector.” There was an odd sort of genuine concern in his voice. Better than suspicion, she supposed, but still a level of interest that wasn’t ideal for someone trying to avoid it. Rosalind clicked through a few folders, pulling up one that looked promising. A blank Experiment Report, complete with transportation authorization permits. Excellent. She began filling out every single box she could think of. 

“Got promoted.” She jabbed a thumb at the bullet proof vest. 

“Which meant nobody saw you at all?”

“Had a more…full time work hours sort of thing go on. Honestly I’ve barely had time to come up for air. Think it’s over now, I should be almost done.” The lies were getting easier the more she used them, providing themselves quicker and falling from her lips more smoothly. She skimmed through, typing as fast as she could, trying to come up with a more official sounding spin to their already vague cover story. Rosalind found she needed specific information on the captives she was transporting, and began scanning through long numbered lists of inmates sorted by recent. None of them sounded like Tubbo. No, wait, there. The Pollinator. She pulled up the previous window, copying over the required information. It seemed like far more time consuming a task than was really ideal given the situation, but the alarms were still blaring so she at least had some time. The pulsing red light was really annoying, she decided, if reassuring.

“To be honest, I thought you were avoiding me,” Lawrence admitted. “Not that I’d blame you if that was the case, since we didn’t really know each other and then I went and attacked you because of that blasted monster.” Ugh, she didn’t have time for this. Her eyes briefly caught on the time. A little after eight. Probably meant people were about to switch shifts, the night crew taking over. She needed to hurry, not deal with such unimportant things. Whatever. Smooth it over. 

“No of course not!” she reassured, sparing a second of eye contact to try and make it seem sincere. “That’s not it at all. I was asked to oversee a newly captured prisoner because of the time with Tommy. That’s what I’m getting the docs for, there’s an experiment with both of them.” There, sprinkle in the cover story. Rosalind could almost consider herself to be getting halfway decent with upholding the planned deception. 

Lawrence frowned. “Was that how they got his hands normal? I guess it didn’t work since they went back to producing the stuff, but I was so relieved when it was gone. Almost thought we could neutralize the threat entirely. I hope they can figure a way to make it permanent, you wouldn’t believe how terrible it was to mindlessly attack someone.” Oh, of course. She was the one who’d actually been hit, and it was terrible for him. And it made so much sense for Tommy’s complete mental shutdown to be a good thing. She was surprised at her own bitterness. Maybe Lawrence was right and she did actually resent him for that. Something about him just invited spite to fester. No. No. It didn’t matter, there were much more important things for her to be doing, she was just stressed with the distractions and all that had happened. They were so close. 

Rosalind made vague agreement noises, frowning at the machine. It demanded a signature from the doctor planning to perform the experiment. Her brain wrestled with the problem while she switched tabs, pulling up Tommy’s files to cross reference. A glaring 404 message popped up. Page not found, the screen proudly informed her. She tried to reload. No luck. She flipped back to her other problem, pulling open various draws and rifling through files. Ah, something with Dr. Blake’s signature. Some sort of recent experiment on a person she didn’t recognize the number of. She glanced around the room, finding a copying machine. She scanned the paper, racing back to the computer to start messing around in an editing software. Why did everything have to be so difficult? At least the programs required to forge a signature were there. She wasn’t sure what she’d have done otherwise.

“To be honest, I’m only really here because of you. Nobody had seen you, so I was going to check with Dr. Blake to see if you’d quit or something,” Lawrence prattled on, almost like he was trying to convince himself of his own ramblings. “I wouldn’t have been too worried, except something Tommy said stuck with me. He said we’re disposable, can you believe it? I know it was just the words of a monster trying to get me to distrust the Foundation, but they still stuck with me. I mean, obviously they aren’t true, you’re clearly fine. We’re humans after all, we have value. Not expendable in the slightest.” Oh how wrong he was. It almost made her want to laugh. She didn’t, but it was a close thing. Sort of nice that he seemed to care about his fellow employees, but the casual loathing of the inmates wasn’t exactly inviting any real possibility of true friendship. All of the employees she’d met had that same quality, the vast majority kind, trying to be helpful, even if half their words clashed fundamentally with her understanding of the world. Like a cult, almost. Rosalind plastered the signature over her falsified documents. Lawrence stood up, holding onto the back of his guest chair but clearly planning to leave. “I suppose since you’re alright I’ve no reason to talk to Dr. Blake. I can stay if you want company, or get out of your hair.”

Rosalind had too many things to get done. A lovely idea popped into her head. It didn’t quite fit in with the plan, but, remembering when Lawrence had been attacking her, she figured they could outrun him when the time came. Delegating. Now, there was a thought. “I could use some help, actually,” she said, flashing him a stressed smile. “The information for Tommy isn't showing up. I think it’s in the case files, can you check?” Lawrence complied, thankfully. Rosalind ducked out of the room to the hall, finding the bathrooms once more. Tommy and Tubbo met her at the entrance, Tubbo having seen she was coming. She explained a bit of her idea to them, and seemed to think it a decent alteration to the plan.

Lawrence was awkwardly holding a pair of manilla folders when they got back, frowning when he saw her entourage. She hand waved his concerns, snatching the file and adding the pertinent information to her mock experiment report. The printer slowly chugged out the documents. Rosalind carded fingers through her hair quickly, jittering a bit. The containment breach lights stopped flashing and panic struck a dagger into her stomach. Great. Halo and Skeppy had likely been caught, movement wouldn’t be entirely unobserved due to the witnesses, and Dr. Blake could be back at any time, since she seemed to have been planning an appointment with Lawrence. 

Tommy and Lawrence were scowling at each other, and to be honest Tubbo didn’t look too fond of the bespectacled man either. Always angry on their friend’s behalf. At least Tommy and Tubbo found someone to collectively dislike on the behalf of the teen. The paper was still warm when she snatched it from the tray, and the group absconded from the office. “Do you have anything pressing to do?” Rosalind chatted. “I’d honestly love the company since I haven’t really seen anyone in awhile.”

Lawrence thought it over. “Technically, I’m supposed to be feeding this one soon,” he said, jabbing a thumb at Tommy. “But I suppose since he’s due for an experiment that can’t be right. Or maybe it’s a short one?” He looked over at her.

“Pretty brief,” she confirmed, leading them over to the checkout stations. Tall dividers parted them to funnel people into a choke point and further control all exits. Protesilaus’s and Loiseau’s words were sticking with her, about the number of guards surrounding any given prisoner. Lawrence wouldn’t exactly be armed (to their advantage) but he certainly would be another human face, and she hoped it would be a reassurance. Power in numbers and all that. A higher level of scrutiny would be expected for actually going outside, regardless of threat level. Only one employee probably wasn’t feasible like Maria had suggested, and it wasn’t like she had many options. Might as well use Lawrence as a prop. Any scrap of credibility she could seize should be. 

People were beginning to mill about, released back into routine after the overhanging possibility of death. Hard to go back to filing reports after being told a dangerous individual was ripping their way through the work place, but the employees managed. Rosalind handed over her quickly forged documents, and the threshold guard sat them down on a cluttered desk. Well, mostly cluttered. There was a safe ring of free space around a short row of buttons. The large yellow panic button stood out. They began to leaf through the documentation, checking that things were in order. 

“Going to the C wing low level research facility?” he asked. His voice was deep and had an accent she couldn’t quite place. Rosalind confirmed their destination, and rattled off the numbers when the man asked. It was mostly a mixture of what she’d been telling the other guards, but a bit more details. Lawrence became a full fledged researcher, not merely a trainee. He frowned a bit at the misinformation, but Rosalind just flashed him a smile, handing over her key cards to the guard, since those were given and taken while entering and exiting in order to keep tighter security. Didn’t do much when you started from the inside, but oh well. The man went to put them away into their respective slots.

“Since when am I helping conduct the experiment?” Lawrence pressed, ginger eyebrows furrowed. 

“Well. you agreed to assist me.”

“That’s not what he was asking though.”

“My mistake then. It probably doesn’t matter much though.” Lawrence gave her an uneasy look but fell silent. Time dragged on a bit too long for her preference. 

A pair was arguing on the other side of the funnel wall. One of the voices was far too familiar for Rosalind’s liking. “I swear, there were more than just the two of them! I’ve transported that devil dozens of times and it’s never gotten the drop on me!”

A deep voice sighed. “Listen, the cameras are all m̸̻̾ú̷̞f̸̰͝f̷͕̔i̷̗̅ñ̶̮ed right now, but we caught everyone. There was only the Golem and the Demon, nothing else. I was there when they blew up that last crystal room the Golem threw up, it was just the two of them.”

“No! There were at least three more, I know it. You can ask Thamis and Jones, they were there.”

“Still out cold. Just you, Orwell. It sounds to me like you’re wanting to inflate enemy forces so you sound outnumbered. Listen, I get it man, you’re probably going to get demoted, but at least you’re still alive!”

“I’m not lying! There was this bug freak! And a blood guy! Plus they had a guard with them, too, named Isabelle or something like that!”

The other man scoffed. “A traitor? That’s too unbelievable. Find a more plausible story. Dog ate your taser or something.” 

The argument grew softer and more muffled as they moved forward in line, likely having higher priority. Lawrence was frowning. “What did you say the experiment was again?” She hadn’t, but rattled off the cover story regardless. “But…wouldn’t they transport them separately, then?”

“It has to be exposed to high temperatures to work,” Rosalind supplied. It had sort of worked for Maria. But Lawrence wasn’t appeased, looking at Tommy’s hands. 

“No it doesn’t.”

“No, Tubbo. The, eh, Pollinator,” she stumbled to repair it. 

Lawrence looked at Tubbo, who gave them an awkward smile. “Why would a bug…?”

Rosalind shrugged. “You know how peculiarly specific some of them are.”

“I don’t, actually.” Right. He was too inexperienced to have much exposure.

“Well, just trust me. It’s fine,” she soothed. Frost crept over her chest, but it was manageable. He adjusted his glasses, frowning, but not saying anything. The exit guard came back, returning their forged documents and bestowing upon them a collection of key cards for the non subterranean wings. Rosalind accepted them with a smile. The guard went off to assist a different group. A large heavy door began to slide upwards, the soft scent of outside creeping in and pushing away chemical air. Tommy inhaled greedily. 

“You’re a guard now, right?” Lawrence asked suddenly.

“Yep?”

“So why were you the one putting together the Experiment Report?”

“It’s just desk work, really, not that big a deal.”

“But during a containment breach? Shouldn’t you, as a guard, be helping?”

She gave him a flat look. “I’ve been a guard for a week. Thanks for the confidence in my abilities, but it’s misplaced.”

She’d thought the mild barb might have made him embarrassed and back off, but it didn’t. Oh, to have the confidence of a mediocre white man. “I guess, but coming up to do paperwork? That’s dangerous. Not something to risk your life over, surely, unless…unless… oh.” Lawrence’s expression finally cleared. A dull sort of epiphany, the kind that leaves you breathless as you finally realize what all the puzzle pieces correctly arranged depicted. “Unless it wouldn’t have risked your life at all.”

“Pardon?” she tried, feeling like the situation was starting to teeter. That was a lie. It had been dancing on the edge the whole time, what she was really feeling was it slip and begin to plummet.

“Bug freak,” Lawrence muttered, pointing a finger at Tubbo, right between their large compound eyes. He swung it to Tommy’s hands. “Blood guy….” Finally, the index finger rested on Rosalind. He seemed almost reluctant to finish the thought. “Traitor.”

“No. It’s not what it looks like.”

“What is it then?”

“I’m just new at this,” she tried, ice creeping at the edges of her mind. “It’s all just inexperience.”

“Wouldn’t that just mean there’d be a more experienced employee walking you through it? Get trained before you try to do a job? I know they threw us into general staff without much, but a transportation guard is more important.” Rosalind found herself fixed in a smile, she had another lie to try but her tongue was frozen solid. She hadn't planned for this to happen. “You’re helping them escape, aren’t you?” Lawrence said softly. 

No. They were helping each other escape. Rosalind had been trapped just as much as they were. Lawrence had figured out what, but not why. There was still a chance to escape, he hadn’t done anything to stop them yet. And he could even truly help if only he understood her motives. “You’ve seen what the Foundation does to people,” she reasoned. 

Lawrence’s expression hardened. No. No, that was supposed to invoke empathy, not kill it. “I’ve seen what monsters do to us as well,” he said harshly. Still not above a mutter, still hope. Lawrence hadn’t ruined anything, not yet. Lawrence looked at all of them. Tommy had a worn expression, tired from his year of captivity, hope just the whisper of a memory. He was closest to the door and was entranced by a glimpse of the outside world, the door creeping steadily upwards, maybe at chest height. He seemed to already be mentally storing the image, as if already certain it was the last he’d see.

“Please,” Tubbo murmured, voice barely audible. It was too ingrained in both inmates that to speak out loud outside their cages was to be punished. They couldn’t even plead for their lives. Lawrence looked at her. Rosalind tried to let the weight of her sacrificial nature dip into her gaze. They were just so, so close.

“You’re going to get them killed,” she pleaded. He glanced between her and the panic button on the threshold guard’s desk. It almost glowed a poisonous yellow. Lawrence looked back at her, and adjusted his glasses. 

“Won’t be the first time,” he said. He lunged for the desk, slamming his fist onto the wasp hued button. Red lights started to blare, and the escapees raced for the door. It was in free fall, and Tommy slid under it, scrambling out to freedom, door slamming shut with a heavy thud. Tubbo ran into the silver metal, banging on it fruitlessly. Rosalind rushed to join them, flipping to have her back against the door. Already she could see guards ascending, weapons drawn and searching for the threat. “I won’t tell them,” Lawrence said wearily. “Come on. You may have thrown lots with the enemy but no one has to know.”

Rosalind just shot him a disgusted expression, turning to Tubbo. “Are we fighting?” she murmured.

Tubbo took stock of as much of the Foundation as their millions of eyes could manage. “We won’t win, but m̸̩̩̬̖͛́̂ͅu̶̢̬̔͐̽f̵͓̣͈͎̎̔͋͝͝ḟ̴̪͙̜̋̎̎i̵̧͔͝n̴̙͉̔̔̀ it we’ll go down swinging.”

“Alright,” she agreed simply. Lawrence was shouting, drawing the guards down onto them. Rosalind lifted her gun, greeting the first person to round the corner with a silver barrel. More peppered the funnel entrance, and she swung the firearm to meet each one. A sea of people swelled, closing off the only exit. They were outnumbered. The employees were, to clarify. Small legions, but a bug battalion nonetheless. The room legitimately grew dim as insects streamed into the chamber, desperate to protect the Hive, clustering to block out the artificial lights. The ceiling blackened and pulsed with the writhing sea of insects overhead. The noise was almost deafening.

“Fun fact,” the room sang in the voice of hundreds of thousands. “There are 70 of you and it only takes 1,000 bee stings to die. Whatever choice you make, we’ll still be standing at the end of it. We can’t say the same for you.” Tubbo gripped a trowel tightly in one hand, smile wide and dark plumes of honey bees streaming out from the threatening grin, spiraling into the air. “Let us go or we’ll make you,” Tubbo droned. Their last plan. She’d hoped it would never have to be used, but they only had one trick left. An empty threat. Mostly empty. People did funny things when cornered, except the Foundation wouldn’t even call them that. If they wanted to paint them monsters, they’d have to deal with the reputation that brought.

You called me a dog before you had a cause. But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

The crowd pressed forward a bit, but didn’t draw close. A standstill. Venom was a terrible way to go. Tubbos’ smile (or lack thereof) was a dangerous sort. Tommy had said the killing intent had to be clear as day, and with Tubbo it sort of was, but not in any sort of way that was obvious. Their face was alien and unreadable. Unpredictable. Danger was to be found in the unknown and that empty smile. Rosalind might’ve believed it herself, should she not have known the person beside her so thoroughly in the way one could only when you’d seen Hell together. Survival left little room for masks, and she suspected she’d always know when Tubbos’ face wasn’t truthful. If it came down to it, Tubbo was fully prepared to attack. Not kill, but that wouldn’t exactly be in their control at that point. 

It was a lie. Barely. But a lie still.

She tightened the grip on her gun, but not the trigger. Bees pulsed along the ceiling, swarms darting closer and closer to the people. The guards shifted, weapons aimed steady and focus unwaning. Low murmurs drifted in snatches through the troops, and the world stood still. The bright burning fire of a plan burned in her chest. A wild fire, barely controlled, unpredictable. Barely a plan at all, but a course of action to follow nonetheless. But the decision was out of their hands by that point. For once it was not Rosalind standing paralyzed, but the Foundation. She reveled in the feeling of having the upper hand for once. 

Something was squirming in the crowd, pressing closer. Rosalind followed the motion with the barrel of her firearm. Tubbo glanced at her, smile slipping. They were fidgeting in the way they did when stressed, toes slipping off the floor into the air. Firearms traced the movement upwards. 

When she finally pushed away from the mob, standing tall and separate, Rosalind realized why. Her own confidence drained as well. 

“Was that a threat?” Dr. Blake bemusedly inquired. Sly satisfaction dropped from her every syllable, grin sharp even viewed from behind the barrel of Rosalind’s gun. “Is this all it took for you to kill someone? To finally do as you’re told?”

Tubbo scrambled for their once sturdy bravado. It was slipping badly. “You leave us no choice,” they buzzed.

“Actually, that’s on you. Gave us an ultimatum, did you? So really it’s our decision. How…interesting. Reminds me of, well, me. Though maybe that's conceited. The Foundation at large, then. We’re rubbing off on you. That didn’t take long at all.” Tubbo suppressed a flinch at the comparison. Rosalind was left with the distinct feeling that their odds were steadily decreasing, that a rug had been pulled out beneath them. She suspected they’d never regain their footing. There simply wasn’t time. The sacrifice and Pollinator looked to each other uneasily. Dr. Blake let them squirm a moment, before leaning forward, grin sharp and voice soft with faux helpfulness. “Slaughtering us won’t save you, you know. I can tell you that much. You’d still be trapped here. Reinforcements would arrive, replacing us all. Replace me. Shame I wouldn’t be the one to extract all that fascinating data from you, but I suppose one shouldn’t be selfish. Even if I’d be so honored to have the pleasure of finding out everything about you... Ah well. Regardless, killing everyone in this room wouldn’t get you what you want.” She took a step forward. Rosalind trailed her gun to follow the motion. The bees hung in the air, a dark uncertain cloud. “I suspect you knew that, though. Tip: if you’re going to give an option, both scenarios should benefit you.”

“That just makes that choice useless, then. Lose-lose scenario,” Rosalind spat. 

“It’s not useless. The illusion of choice is never useless. If you leave the decisions to the enemy, you best well know which choice they’ll make or you ensure both benefit you. You’ve done neither, thus you lose.

“Kill us,” Dr. Blake confidently decided with a smile. A manic breed of intensity burned like fire in her eyes. The Foundation employees behind her shifted. Mistrust shone on various features, but they prepared for an onslaught nonetheless.

It never came. Tubbo looked at the sacrifice, pain coloring their features. “Ḿ̴͎̻̔͘͘ŭ̸̢̬͗̒̿f̸͈͑f̴̠̝͎̪̫̥̐͋̍̈́̈́͌i̴͍̹̠̮̺͆̓͘n̸̛̝͎̽̎͗. Didn’t think they’d call it.”

Her heart was sinking, frost creeping into its place as their last plan lay in shambles at their feet. “Don’t worry. I thought it’d work too. We’ll just have to try harder next time.” They shared a look. Neither believed there’d be a next time.

“Tommy made it, at least,” Tubbo hummed. That was something. A comfort. She'd fulfilled her promise to Protesilaus.

“Go on, then,” Dr. Blake called out tauntingly. “You wanted an ultimatum. I made a choice. Act on it. Kill me. You said you would, said you’d kill all of us.” The escapees nodded at each other. They weren’t going to win. It wasn’t even a distant possibility. They were going to go down but by God they wouldn’t do so quietly. “Was it a lie then? Disappointing.”

“M̸͉̦̝̿̚ṳ̴̳͍̰̹͛̆̉̈́̍f̵̰̳̘̥́̊̆̒f̸̣̰͉̳̪̊͒i̵̬̦̲̘̇̍̽̅̈́n̴̥͓͎͕̔̃͊̾̕ off,” Tubbo said flatly. And the pestilence of bees descended, blotting out the vision of the opposing humans. A few screamed, but far more surged forward blindly, racing down the dead end. Rosalind danced to the side of the wall, weaving into the mob, indistinguishable from the rest of them save for the fact she could see. She inched against the tide of people, creeping upstream to the control window. 

Having reached the end of the hall, the employees were sweeping weapons out, occasionally accidentally felling their own. But Tubbo had lifted into the sky, wings rattling instinctually against iron, but having no need for them in order to lift their hollow body into the air. Pressed against the wall and supporting a few new bruises, Rosalind hopped over the window into the control booth, eyes darting frantically for any labeling that could help her. Aside from the yellow panic button, little else suggested much help. 

She could hear Dr. Blake shouting out instructions, her familiarity with Tubbos’ weaknesses offering her greater command than normally she’d deserve. Instructions were being called for specific gas canisters, and Tubbos’ frown deepened, sending greater swarms to further impair those rushing off to follow her orders. Besides limiting visions and occasional battering that didn’t do much, Tubbo couldn’t exactly stop them. More guards were coming, albeit slowly, hands touching the walls and eyes covered by writhing insects. Tubbo hovered at the ceiling, compound eyes shut tight and concentration lining their features.

Switching random levers and pressing random buttons (while unlikely to work) was better than nothing, she decided, shaking off indecision. Not much seemed to have a noticeable effect, however. A row of four buttons next to the panic one stood out to her, and she chose the third on the left. The alarm suddenly got somehow more frantic, lights flashing twice as fast as they previously had and pitch increasing. The shouts of the employees (now beginning to spread out, trying to figure out where they’d gone) increased, shouts breaking out and order struggling to keep up. Higher authority possessing personnel called out orders, and guns started to be drawn out whereas previous weaponry had been closer to capture gear. 

Whoops. Not a very good choice. Distantly, she recognized it as the Keter alarm. Rosalind backtracked, hitting the one next to it. The alarm resumed to the previous level. She pressed the first one, and it went off completely. 

“It’s messing with the controls!” some soldier shouted. Rosalind was paralyzed as she watched a well armed guard climb through the window. One of their boots crunched through the control booth, unable to avoid the destruction due to their sightless nature. Gloved hands reached for her. Run. No point operating a destroyed machine. She stumbled away, kicking back the chair and darting through a small room lined with various checkpoint windows. A few people poured in through the window, one of them accidentally slamming blindly into a cabinet and tipping it over, millions of keycards spilling across the floor. She ducked between grasping hands, soldiers racing after her as she wove through various workplace paraphernalia that was disheveled by the people behind her. The door at the end of the chamber opened, more visionless workers filling in and trapping her between the groups rushing towards her every sound. 

A hand grasping her elbow, then a shoulder. “I got it!” Someone called. They swarmed, dogpiling upon the voice, collapsing Rosalind beneath the mob. Sharp pain exploded from various elbows and knees jamming into her, the weight of far too many pressing her into the floor and crushing her.

“I got it!” the guard shouted again. “I got the monster!”

“I'm not!” Rosalind wheezed. “Get off, I was trying to close the doors and couldn’t see the right buttons because of the bees!” The dogpile began to weaken, people sliding off and untangling from it. Only a few more people on top her, waiting to have the room to move. 

“I recognize that voice! That’s Isabella, she’s working with them! That’s the traitor, don’t let her get away!” a woman called. The anger in her words was familiar… 

Maria Moore was the first to follow her own command, tripping back into the cluster of guards to hold everyone left down. Rosalind, despite her protests, was eventually hauled up, arms gripped by a tad too many people eager to say they helped capture the traitor. Progress getting out was slow, since she was the only one who could see, and they wouldn’t listen to her input at all for some reason. Once they got out of the control booth, someone called over Dr. Blake who, while not the highest authority by any means, was certainly personally familiar with the situation, or at least more so than anyone else was. 

Rosalind couldn’t exactly see Dr. Blake’s face, given the thick swarm enveloping her head, but she could figure there was some sort of villainous smile gracing her features. She hoped a few honey bees would fly in her mouth, but that had a good chance of resulting in stings and thus deaths, which Tubbo would never do. Stinging something was a very painful way to go, and since the experience was shared, it really wasn’t an ideal situation. Rosalind imagined already that plenty of Tubbo was being smashed and bludgeoned to death as it was. Though…if it meant Dr. Blake couldn’t talk anymore…

As it was, she was using her unfortunately functional tongue to call out Tubbos’ SCP number over and over again. From what Rosalind could see, the Pollinator was fumbling the previously chloroform-ladened rag out of their hand stump, shimming a garden tool from it. Carefully, they unscrewed the cover of a vent, a covey slowly setting it on the floor. They didn’t exactly fly over to Rosalind silently, but the sound was certainly indistinguishable from the entirety of Tubbo. They hovered a few feet overhead, putting an index finger to their gaping pit of a mouth to ask for her silence. 

Dr. Blake frowned when she didn’t get a response. A person in neutral worker’s clothing caught up to her, whispering to her about the supplies they’d retrieved. Several black cylinders were clutched in their arms. At Tubbos’ worried expression, Rosalind was sure they recognized them. “You’ve a choice here, you know. You can choose to escape. It will be temporary, we’ll find you, of course. But certainly it is an option. And while you’re off running for as long as you can manage, your D-class friend here will go about her other duties. Namely, testing other monsters that aren’t so picky about their prey.” Dr. Blake let her words fall heavy and final, before continuing with a lighter, more persuasive tone. “Or, you can come quietly. You both will return to your cell, and face the exact same circumstances. I can’t say there won’t be punishments, but certainly they’ll be less than the consequences of a successful escape. We’ll have you either way, but there are benefits to compliance.”

Tubbo scowled, but when they spoke their voice was almost fragile, hollow compared to their normal tone. It was also halfway across the room and twenty feet up in the air. Sly Tubbo, she thought appreciatively. “How can we be sure?”

The doctor’s grin sharpened, and she whispered instructions to the employee armed with mysterious gadgets. “Haven’t I always upheld my promises? I’m not you. I will go through with them.”

“You also use tricky language half the time,” Tubbo buzzed shortly, holding out their hand to signal Rosalind to wait. She nodded shortly to comply. A covey slipped into her pocket, pulling out every last gardening tool and the spuds.

“I assure you I’m not misleading you, only offering up your courses of action as I see it. Well. Not see. None of us can because of you. Quite clever, there. Regardless, if you want I can sweeten the deal. I’ll change the nature of one of my past offers, and resume the nutrient schedule.”

Tubbo appeared utterly unconvinced and distrustful of the deal, but their voice seemed enticed. “Promise?” 

“Of course,” Dr. Blake purred. “Just come with us quietly.”

“…alright,” Tubbo said quietly, drifting their words closer to the ground. “Clear out the area beneath us, and approach slowly when we land…” The guards below the faux Tubbo complied. Once the voice was almost to the ground, rambling out sentences, the nameless employee acted, fiddling with one canister until a sharp cloud of smoke billowed from it. Tubbos’ words died.

“Great! Now that its body is dealt with-” Dr. Blake began, unaware that she was cut off by Tubbos’ sharp nod. The swarms rose and slammed into the guards containing Rosalind, battering them with the honed gardening tools and tossing potatoes at them. She aimed a kick at one, twisting to break free. Tubbo pulled at her, lifting with all their strength to free her into the air. 

It almost worked. They might’ve made it out into the air, escaping through the vents, meeting up with Tommy and running for the rest of their lives. They might’ve revealed all the Foundation’s sins, freed the countless others surely trapped. 

But it didn’t work.

Rosalind kicked at the thick hand grasped around her ankle, one last chain to the earth. It began to drag her down, and then more hands were grasping her, and the pair wrapped around her chest and trying desperately to fly could not compare. In a last ditch effort, the whole of the Hive swarmed over to the struggle, hundreds of thousands trying to succeed.

They did not. The honey arms wrapped around Rosalind released her to her fate. Amidst the center of the thick black cloud, she couldn’t see Tubbo taking into the air and fleeing, but she was sure that’s what happened. 

But then the plumes grew darker, the dark fumes of a canister being released filling the air. The humans began to cough. More and more were released, gas filling the entire room. The bees began to droop, the cloud streaming off the body falling in numbers. Tubbos’ frantic flight became slower and slower, and they crashed into the wall a bit too low. A single hand grasped at the frame of the vent, struggling to pull themselves up. 

Tubbos’ fingers slipped away, and they plummeted to the floor in a crumpled heap.

——

Returning to the white walls of Tubbos’ cage was almost painful. She and Tubbo were dumped unceremoniously in between two rows. A dozen or so guards lined the inside, weapons at the ready. Carson was one of them, anger sharp on his face. Rosalind sat next to the unconscious steaming husk of Tubbo. Wisps of smoke trailed out of them at various places, slipping through their mouth and nose and various holes in their flesh. She glared up at Dr. Blake, who watched with a bored expression, waiting for Tubbo to stir. Somewhere along the way she’d been given a bone saw and a worryingly large glass container. She did not deign to explain either of them. Rosalind was really just a pawn to use against Tubbo, no need to discuss anything with her. Not that she wanted to hear any of the vile words that fell from the woman’s lips anyways.

Over the next half hour or so, more and more bees were carted in from various sources, dumping the insects into large piles. They were on the sixth one so far. Whenever the door briefly opened, the hallway reeked of the chemical concoction. Probably they had to gas the entire Foundation to get all of them, and even then she suspected chunks of Tubbo would remain. They wouldn’t be able to accomplish much, likely, given their small numbers, but it was still some sort of victory. 

Time dragged on, more and more of Tubbo being added to the room. It was a little ridiculous, actually, the number of trips being taken to accomplish it. Rosalind was still sure that they were nowhere close to having recaptured all of the Hive. Eventually Tubbo began to shift. They groaned, picking themself up into a sitting position, clutching their head. They made a sort of coughing motion, expelling the lingering gas from inside them. Wisps of smoke twisted out from natural gaps. 

The room continued to wait as Tubbo refused to respond, waiting to be fully functioning before hissing out words, interrupting Dr. Blake’s monologue. She seemed to be genuinely impressed with some of Tubbos’ abilities, and kept using the word ‘interesting’ in a way that sent dread racing in Rosalind’s guts. “Well that might’ve gone better,” Tubbo addressed Rosalind. She nodded. 

“You seem to have a pattern of not upholding your own word, but-” Dr. Blake began again. 

“Really? Can’t imagine why that is.” Tubbo tilted their head to the side, eyes wide, sarcastic wonder infecting their tone. 

One of Dr. Blake’s eyes twitched at the obvious sarcasm. “-but I’ll keep my end of the bargain. I’ll change the nature of one of my past offers, and resume the nutrient schedule.”

“Those are two separate things, aren’t they?” Rosalind asked. “A list.”

“Yeah, has to be. Part of her misleading language thing,” Tubbo decided. 

Dr. Blake frowned, feeling her authority was undermined. “As I was saying, you no longer have to kill the D-class in exchange for food.”

“But?” Tubbo asked drily.

“No buts,” the annoyed doctor said firmly. Maybe annoying the person holding a bone saw wasn’t exactly a great idea. But failure tasted sour. What did it matter, their words wouldn’t change the situation. “As I said, I will be changing a past deal. If you’ll remember, you’d been given the option between her life and your limb-”

“Actually we weren’t since you were tricking us there as well,” Tubbo interjected. 

“-and so this option would change. The choice would now be between killing her and-”

“What? Lose a second hand? Chop off the whole arm? Maybe both, so we can’t even pick up the nutrition blocks?” The coveys were picking up, beginning to swirl around the room. The guards rustled uneasily. Tubbo was getting agitated, despite their words that fell just short of taunting and were far closer to genuine questions. They knew a sacrifice was coming, and knew there was little they could do to stop it. Rosalind’s life would have a cost.

Dr. Blake cleared her throat, no longer peeved. No, the idea had lit an ugly passion in her features. Maybe it would be vengeance, or punishment, but Rosalind suspected that Dr. Blake had really just been waiting to offer the choice should attrition have failed. The large glass bannister certainly suggested that. “Her life or your head,” she breathed. 

Tubbo stilled completely, or their body did at least. Around the room, the swarms picked up speed. “…what?” they hummed softly. 

“Her life or your head. Really, you’ve proven today you aren’t that stupid. What did you say? Only a thousand stings to end someone’s life?” 

Tubbo began to quiver. “What? No. We can’t—We’d die. We’d— no, that would kill us.”

“Hmmm. Well. That would be your choice then,” Dr. Blake hummed non-commentally. 

“No. No!” Tubbo shouted, picking up into the air. A dozen guns followed the motion. Their head jerked, staring down dark barrels. They were shaking uncontrollably, fear gripping features that mere moments before had been confident.

The cost was simply too much.

The coveys flew into a frenzy, circling the room. A whirlwind with Tubbo and Rosalind and Dr. Blake in the center. The guards turned to shades in the blur of honey bees. The Pollinator turned to her, obsidian eyes wide and fearful. One hand was clasped around their throat, the other unable to replicate the tight grip. The weird thing was how silent it was. It was as if every sound had dissipated into nothing, vibrations stilled. Her vision swam with the swarms until that, too, left. Her brain simply stopped processing images, stopped understanding what was happening entirely. It was as if a fog had descended, clouding her ears, eyes, and thoughts. There was a voice. Or the approximation of one. It was desperate and terror stricken and it was saying something, she knew it had to be, but the words just weren’t connecting to meaning. 

“——— —— Rosalind? — ——- —— — —-!”

Oh. She knew that one. That was her. The fog lapsed, retreating as the ancient connection to oneself was called upon. The blurs arranged themselves into picture, the drones into sound. It was so loud, a cacophony rolling like thunder, a tornado whipped around the room. Her brain sluggishly picked itself up, stumbling back into motion. “Rosalind we can’t—we can’t do it, we don’t-” Words were darting through the room, shouting. Tubbo took a step closer to her. “Please—we can’t do it. We can’t sacrifice any more.”

She stared at them emptily, not quite recognizing the world around her or the person before her. The memories were there, she logically knew what was happening, but trying to form a single thought was impossible. There was a choice Tubbo had to make. There were two sacrifices asked of them, and Tubbo could not bear the weight of one. She was going to —-.

She couldn’t think at all. She couldn’t move. She wasn’t even sure she could breathe.

“We can’t-please. Pleassssz just…trust us. Please just truzt us. You won’t die. You won’t die, not really, just please Rozzalind. It’ll be ok,” Tubbo buzzed, voice looping around the room, overlaying words and speaking over themselves. Phrases repeated and fragments shoved over each other, barely even comprehensible. A hand clasped her shoulder. Rosalind couldn’t feel it, only saw the action. Tubbos’ lips were trembling even though they didn’t need a mouth to speak at all. It shuddered into a copy of a smile even as tears poured over it, shining and golden.

“Wwould you like to join the Hive?” Tubbo asked. The voice centered around her head, honey bees circled like a halo as they sang out in human tongue. 

Rosalind was frozen. 

Tubbo struggled to keep smiling. She wasn’t sure why they bothered, or even why they did so at all. “Pleazzze,” Tubbo begged. “It’z the only way. Juzzt sszay yezs. It’ll be ok—you don’t have to die, not really, it’sz ok. Pleasse Rozalind it’ll be ok if you truzt us.” Some deep instinct told her to run but she found no capability within herself to do so. It was as if she were rooted to the spot. Some part of her wanted to say yes, and she couldn't comprehend it. Some alien suggestion planted in her, a siren calling her to break upon jagged rocks. She recoiled at the lure, feeling sick as they tried to compel her. Tubbo grasped her arm tighter, pleading. Rosalind struggled to surface from the fog, to find some control over herself. She didn’t want to die. “Juzt sszay yez.”

Her tongue felt heavy, filling her mouth and refusing to move any more. Her jaw was tight, teeth almost aching with the pressure. “No,” she managed to whisper. 

Tubbo jolted, almost recoiling. True panic set in then, anything before it having apparently been a pale shade of real terror. Tubbo twitched into the air. Dozens of guns were raised to track the motion. The inmate jerked terribly, wracked with odd shudders and spasms, wings rattling uselessly against chains. Their fingernails dug into her shoulder painfully. “No. No, no, that’zz not-no, you didn’t h-ear ussz. You need to sszay y—ez, Rozzalind, that'z the only way. We’ll try again. Woul-d you like to join the Hive?”

Words were too much for the both of them. For Tubbo they scattered around the room, overlapping with one another and howled in fragments just barely able to be put together. For Rosalind they refused to be called into existence at all. She shook her head mutely. Tubbo fell apart a bit more, visibly dissolved and incoherent. The guards shifted uneasily in the infested room. Dr. Blake had a dangerous fascination lighting her features, and had set down the bone saw in order to take notes on the proceedings. 

Tubbo finally let go of Rosalind, clutching at their chest and retreating fully into the caged sky. Their eyes caught on Dr. Blake’s glass canister. Rosalind followed the insectoid’s gaze. She could imagine their head inside it, dull and lifeless, wide blank eyes and neutral expression, wiped completely of the life Tubbo worked so hard to imbue their alien features with. 

The room fell silent, this time for real. The insects set down, coating the walls and ceilings and potato rows. It was almost eerie from the earlier thunderous panic of the bugs. Tubbo looked at her, antenna flattened and deep harrowing guilt etched into their features.

“…we’re szzzzorry,” Tubbo said shakily. 

No. No, they couldn’t, there had to be another option. They’d had a plan, they’d had hope, but when she looked at Tubbo she couldn’t even see a drop of the once vast ocean. It had evaporated the moment Dr. Blake had given her newest ultimatum.

“We’re zzzorry, we’re zzzzzzorry, we’re szzo, zzzo szo—rry.” The words repeated over and over as Tubbo flew back down to the ground. They stumbled the landing, shakily approaching her. 

“Please-” she managed, a broken plea to stop. She couldn’t even run.

The bees as one screamed. Every single aspect of Tubbo sang out in a cacophonous, discordant note. The sound grew and grew until she was sure her ears would burst. It served enough catalyst to spur Rosalind to motion and she clapped her hands over her ears, but the sound only grew worse, echoing oddly in her skull. An unearthly song unfurled in her mind and she tried to block it out. Her entire body trembled with vibrations and fear, legs threatening to give out beneath her.

A pressure grew in her chest, a vice constricting her until she could barely breathe. And then it weakened, feeling somehow as if her chest was fuller than normal, some slight tranquility, a feeling of warmth and hospitality and welcome, soothing (or maybe just smothering) her pain. The buzzing dimmed and there was almost peace.

Suddenly it felt like something sharp was pulled from the center of her chest. A terrible cold spread across her, threading icy frost in a network along her veins. Dull pain throbbed in her core, as if her heart had been snatched from between her ribs. A bitter glacier took its place, freezing her blood from within her veins and thoughts from within her skull. For once, she was frozen in a horrifically literal way. 

“We’re sorry,” Tubbo whispered one last time. Bees sat upon her, covering parts of her entirely. Rosalind petrified, unable to move as swarms covered her flesh. She expected pain. That’s what hundreds of stings should’ve felt like. Excruciating agony, probably stilling her heart from the venom. If Tubbo was merciful it wouldn’t be painless, not by any means, but it could be fast. It was all she could ask, that it be fast. Starving had been slow. If she had a choice, Rosalind hoped it would be quick. Or maybe she didn’t, maybe she was just telling herself this was preferable. She wasn’t ready either way.

Her hand was frozen mere inches from her face, previously clutching at her ears. Rosalind watched as it disappeared beneath a swarm of insects. They crawled over her hand and yet she didn’t move at all even as they writhed across her skin, filling her with dread and revulsion. She kept waiting for the pain, but it didn’t happen. The covey on her hand ascended, leaving her entirely.

Her hand wasn’t there anymore. 

And it should have hurt, the honey bees somehow stole away her flesh and muscles and bone and even the very blood that should have spilled across the floor was taken. But they’d taken the nerves and pain receptors too, and she was left with a terrible nothing where her hand had been. Streams of bright sanguine rolled down her arm, pooling quickly across the white floor. Insects chased the falling blood, covering the liquid and rising once more, stains gone entirely. 

Technically, it was fair. A hand for a hand. Equivalent in every sense. It might have been called justice, if Tubbo had stopped there. But they didn’t, wouldn’t stop no matter how she pleaded for mercy.

Rosalind was screaming. It was all she could do. Blood gushed from the stump of her hand and then she couldn’t see it anymore as honey bees shielded the sight, crawling over and into the wound and dissolving it. Insects squirmed beneath her skin, burrowing into the wound. She didn’t have a hand, and then she didn’t have a forearm, and then any arm at all and the bees spread across her chest and she was frozen, petrified, screaming as her body was destroyed around her. The numbness spread, starting on her other hand and her legs. Rosalind stumbled towards Tubbo. The torpidity ate through her knee and suddenly she lurched, the weight of her body pressing down and crunching into the lower part of the leg, leaving one far shorter than the other and swinging her stride. Then it was too much, her leg bisected, and she crashed to the floor. She crawled forward, leaving the chunk of her calf behind. The bugs covered her dismembered leg and it was no more. Blood trailed to the part where it had disconnected from the rest of her from where she’d managed to pull herself forward, and then that, too, was gone. Not even a trail to mark her progress. Insects crawled into the stump of her knee, and then the other leg dissolved and she couldn’t even crawl closer to the weeping insectoid still stuttering out thousands of apologies. She clawed her nails into the padded flooring, desperate to drag herself even closer. Rosalind managed a few feet before she could feel the bees dancing between her fingers. Still she reached out to Tubbo with her only hand left. Maybe she’d have begged them to stop, pleaded with them, but she just couldn’t stop screaming. Then the hand disintegrated into honey bees, caught in the act of reach for any sort of solace or savior. Insects crawled through her hair, stealing it in wisps and long locks of chestnut curls. She had no limbs and her chest, some last cold and empty fortress, some sole bastion against the assault, dissolved as well. Her face was pressed into the floor but there was nothing she could do to remedy it since that was all she had left. Even her tears were stolen away. 

And then Rosalind couldn’t even scream because she didn’t have a throat to do it with. Bees threaded her windpipe, crawling through what was left of her larynx. Soon she didn’t even have eyes to watch her own demise. Insects wormed through her skull and then that, too, was gone.

She was nothing, except somehow she still existed even though no molecule of her did. Her thoughts were frozen and sluggish but they still were. The hum of hundreds of thousands of wings remained but nothing else did, she couldn’t feel, she couldn’t see, nothing was real except the chatter of insects.

But then she could see, and she saw everything. Millions of eyes in a violet yellow world, duplicates of every perspective. It was too much, nearly drowning her sense of self in the plethora of minds. Humans were never meant to be omniscient. It was like a hall of mirrors, the world repeated an infinite number of times, shifted and distorted in each iteration. Fractals of a fact, perspectives creating countless lies of the same intrinsic truth. Everything unfolded before her, she knew every detail of the room, every vein on vibrant leaves, every hair on the humans, and even beyond, dark vents and looping halls, a map of the Foundation unfolding, drowning her in a sea of sight. She found something almost normal, a vision almost full, and struggled towards the shard of normality in the sea of unworldly gazes. She tried to shut them out, but they kept sneaking into her brain, threading like vines trying to wrap through her thoughts, vile weeds encroaching and blocking out her consciousness.

She could scream again, though it sounded strange to her, distorted and hissing through shivering wings. But it was all she could do because the world was alien and strange around her and her own body not her own.

Her chest had no temperature, neither cold nor hot. Just an emptiness that was terrifying. A pleasant warmth spread across it, chasing away the hollowness and replacing it with life. The echoes of a heartbeat ingrained in her essence. Rosalind felt peace, a sense of fullness wash over her, driving away the edge of all consuming terror. She nearly stopped screaming in the wake of warm calm, a wave rushing over and drowning out her panic, till she realized it was just another fake emotion designed to stop prey from struggling. 

It grew in temperature, greater and greater until her chest was burning, fire coursing and scorching her heart. The multifaceted world blurred to amber nothing, tears stinging and hot. Her body bent without her control, huddling into itself. She clutched at her head, threading fingers into her hair so tight it pulled at her scalp— except she only had five fingers total and her hair wasn’t wavy and something sticklike twitched and bucked under her hand, throwing off her grip. Sensation trailed up further than it should have, sensitive and sharp to vibration originating from over her head and she could move it somehow in a way completely alien to her. Information on gravity and pheromones and vibrations and millions of sensations her humanity was never meant to contend with poured into her awareness, trying to drown her just as everything else was. The world was data, determined to kill her with the complexity of reality.

Rosalind could see everything, which meant she could see that she wasn’t there. Her body was gone entirely, not even the clothes were left. Rosalind looked up, staring at the place she’d been. There wasn’t even a splatter of blood. Tubbo had taken everything there was to her.

And, because she could see everything in a way that was overwhelming and incomprehensible and terrifying, Rosalind saw it wasn’t her non-existent head that turned to behold the nothing she was.

It was Tubbos’.

She was screaming, but she wasn’t the only one doing so. All of them were. All of Rosalind, all of Tubbo, all of them because they were many and they were in agony. 

Fire burnt an inferno in her hollow center. She dropped to her knees, clutching her burning chest. It was as if a star had burst into existence inside her core. 

Their core.

She was dead, was alive, was nothing and everything all strung together with threads of lava that burned through her very beings, trapping her in half states and scorching her soul as she struggled against the bindings.

And Tubbo —for that’s what she was— screamed.

Chapter Text

The Foundation exit fell with a heavy thud, cutting off the blaring interior alarms and his friends. Tommy froze in the outdoors. The sky was enormous, engulfing him. The vast cloudless void pressed at him just like the darkness of his cell during punishments. He felt trapped for all the freedom it meant.

It was on fire. Millions of impossible shades and colors he could only have dreamed of streaked across it. Bright roses and ambers and golds somehow fading to turquoise and navy. The world was so big, too. Trees stretching upward, tall dark obelisks dotted between them, a chain link fence snaking some sort of perimeter. Just to his side, it seemed the ocean stretched around, the sounds of soft waves collapsing onto the ground, a mixture of reeds and overgrown vegetation hiding the exact moment the water began. Except, no, it wasn’t the ocean. He could see trees dotting a shore on the other side. A lake, then. It burned to look at, the sun resting upon water, stabbing white scatterings of light thrown across the waves. It was as if Heaven had crashed down to Earth. A gravel path stretched before him, filtering into asphalt, trailing off into the trees until he couldn’t see anything. Gravel bit into his feet, slicing uncalloused flesh. The sky consumed him like his cell, the trees extending until they towered over him like giants, the lake swallowing the mostly subterranean building he’d come from.

Tommy felt so small. The world stretched vast around him, dwarfing him utterly. His breathing hissed between his teeth, the air crisp and overwhelming with scents he didn’t understand. He felt like his chest was squeezing shut, his heart shrinking along with the rest of him as he beheld the world in all its splendor. 

Klaxons were blaring an alarm from the tall piceous towers. He could hear distant footsteps and shouts. Tommy lurched into action, scrambling across sparse grass to the shelter of the trees. The ground hurt his feet, for they lacked calluses after his time at the Foundation. Tommy scampered into a bush, pausing to let his heart beat still. Leaves nestled him in a temporary cocoon, pressing uncomfortably at his skin. He suppressed shudders at the sensation. It was like when the bees crawled on him, except worse, because those at least he knew for certain were on his side. He could only hope the shrubbery was protecting him. Guards raced down the street, and he watched as droves of them were summoned by blaring alarms and flashing lights. The once familiar thunder of vehicles streaked past his hiding place, unloading even more of them. 

Their numbers only grew, and then a party drew close to the tree line, breaching it for some kind of search. Tommy skittered further into the underbrush, ignoring the leaves and branches scratching at his exposed flesh, opening gashes across him as he panicked and fled. He couldn’t hear anyone behind him, but then again the only thing he heard with any real clarity was his heart beating like a jack rabbits’. For a minute, he swore the alarms hiccuped before increasing in intensity briefly. He recognized it suddenly as the alarm for an escaped Keter. Ruby jumped at the sound, curling up his limbs. The trees blocked out the dying sun, plunging him into darkness and long streaking shadows broken only by slim sheets of orange dusk. 

The fence bordering the Foundation seemed almost tame. Civilian, not something designed with capture in mind. Most of the assurance was inside the actual facility, it seemed. Tommy wiped his dripping hands on the hospital gown before beginning the climb. It sagged with his weight, and was loud, but held. At the very top, he could hear shouts around the area he’d entered the woods. Tommy looked down. Horror increased in his heart as he saw the Red trailing down the fence, marking his path in splotches and handprints pressed against tree bark. Caution abandoned, Tommy scrambled down the other side, dropping the last meter or so. An ugly sharp stab of pain raced up his ankles. He bit back a yelp, launching into a dead sprint, letting adrenaline rush over and soothe the pain. 

Had he been able to manage any thoughts other than the atavistic instinct to flee, Tommy might have realized it was the first time he’d ever escaped the Foundation’s property. But his brain offered very little, reduced to the mindset of prey. Tommy ran. He could hear shouts, louder, closer, almost comprehensible. That meant they could hear him, too. Tommy jolted into a different direction, changing course. There was no real goal other than away from the Foundation, so the destination mattered little to him. He’d run for years if that’s what it took. He fled into what was swiftly becoming the night. 

A burning sensation singed the ends of his lungs and he ignored it. The jolts of lightning racing though his foot with every step wasn’t so easy to disregard. The sounds of humans increased, fanning out behind him. Beams of burning light shone from various torches, offering him an idea of where his enemies were. The shouts spread from strictly behind him to the sides, creeping further up. He crashed through the underbrush, the terrain reduced to the next obstacle, just enough understanding to get past and on to the next thing. There was barely enough light to even know what things were, the world dissolved into greys and twilight. Jump over those roots. Dodge beneath that low branch. Rocks scraped across his feet. Pain met his every other step, and his breathing was ragged and gasping. Sharp aches wracked through his muscles, unused to such intense use after so long in a small cell. A louder call to his left, a light almost catching him in its beam, and he veered, dragging a hand along a tree to make his turn sharp. The bark tore up the skin of his palm, a large crimson mark smeared across the maple’s surface. Tommy ran. 

The footsteps were getting closer, getting further up. People were running ahead of him, and the thought pressed him on. His vision was beginning to tunnel, the world blurring at the edges, the only thing he needed to see was the next step ahead of him and no further. 

A glimpse of a human between the trees, bright light surrounding them. A guard. Tommy’s breathing was ragged and each inhale burned with inadequacy. He bolted away, but there was another ray there as well. All he could do was go forward.

But then there was a person there too. His head swiveled, spotting more and more closing in. He skidded to a stop, darting back the way he came, but sure enough there was someone there as well. Tommy switched directions, racing off only to find another, spinning to find another, and another, and so on, all encircling him. Dozens of torches illuminated him. Tommy whirled, frantically trying to find any sort of escape. He was completely encircled, more and more guards in various states of exhaustion joining in, weaving between the trees. Dark silhouettes barely comprehendible as people, but threats either way. Did it matter if they were humans? Maybe he’d be safer in the hands of shadows. The lights burned his gaze, made himself feel exposed. 

They gave him a decent berth, maybe a few meters radius. A handful of trees peppered the inside, limiting his vision. He darted for the wall of people, thinking maybe they’d give, but the employees stood firm. Tommy jolted back to the center, still turning to make sure none of them were getting any closer. Various capture based weapons were gripped determinedly, tasers and batons and m̵̬͐̔̏̃͑u̵̹͔̙̲͑͊f̶̖̀̽͗̕͝f̸͔̎ḯ̶̛͙̜̳̣n̵̤̆̂̅̌ing nets like he was some kind of feral animal. It wasn’t too far from the truth in all actuality. The world was vast and he was surrounded completely and all Tommy could do was tense and frantically search for some impossible chance of escape. He held his hands out, dripping in sanguine and fear, a threat against coming any closer. A human pressed forward. They wore both body armor and authority with ease. Tommy put an arm between the man and himself. If he attacked, Tommy could redirect the assault to the other humans.

If Tommy really wanted, he could mark every single human around him for death. It would be a bloodbath. 

He backed away from the leader, head still jerking from side to side to keep the circle in check. Tommy wasn’t really sure whether he’d kill them all or not. He couldn’t really think at all, tumultuous fear overwhelming any sort of plan or logic. All he knew was he was surrounded. Escape was impossible. The air tasted funny as he sucked it in through ragged breaths. Unclean, almost, but in a good way. Imperfect in a manor the pristine chemical oxygen of the Foundation couldn’t match and beautiful for it. It smelled of mulch and petrichor and growth and decay and life and Tommy couldn’t even begin to understand any of it, the ability having withered in the Foundation. 

The man was saying something. Come quietly and don’t hurt anyone and stay still and put your hands down. It meant nothing to Tommy, eyes caught up in hands tightly gripping a weapon, in a mouth drawn tight and words wound sharp, in deep shadows cast upon a sharp and dangerous face, in a single foot step closer to him. The man’s center of mass was kept low, his boots shifting in the dirt and old leaves as he slowly crept closer to Tommy. A step closer, crunching dry vegetation beneath it. Tommy matched it, stepping back. Another. His back hit a tree. Another. The boy pressed into the maple, bark digging into his skin. Another. He had nowhere left to go. His eyes tallied the people around him. The circle was incomplete, more there but blocked in his vision by the trees and shadows. The white glowing eyes of too many torches surrounded him, all seeing. There wasn’t a way out. 

There was a way up though. One more step, and Tommy flipped, scrambling up the tree. There were far more handholds than the walls of the Foundation, but they hurt, digging beneath his nails and tearing up his skin. He didn’t dare put too much weight on one foot, fearing it would betray him. Shouts birthed in the wake of his movements, humans scrambling down beneath him, nets spread out. Lights belatedly tracked his movement.

He’d almost made it to the lowest branches when twin needles sunk into his flesh, one jabbing into a shoulder blade, the other a bit lower, closer to his spine. That on its own might’ve hurt, but far more excruciating was the electricity dancing along his nerves, short circuiting his brain and contracting his muscles. His screams overwhelmed the clicking noise of the currents the taser delivered to his body. When the agony ended, Tommy realized he was plummeting towards the ground. A net almost completely broke his fall, sharp rope slicing a shallow cross hair pattern across his skin. He still landed painfully, dirt flying up from the impact and even more pain exploding through his body, though nowhere near as bad as the electricity had been. Tommy struggled frantically, but the nets were drawn closed around him, and resisting only resulted in his arms and legs trapped at odd angles against the rest of his body. He writhed against containment, but it was no use.

A handful of guards carried him back to the Foundation, still entwined in netting. Something terrible rose in his chest, his mouth tasted bitter with ugly defeat, unable to do anything but stare into the unending sky and know it was probably his last time to ever see it. He tried to burn the memory of millions of stars into his mind. 

The heavens were beautiful. Powerful. Good. Free.

He was not.

——

They’d rolled a modified surgery table into his room. A team had untangled him and pressed him face first into the platform, binding his wrists and his ankles. He knew from experience they weren’t escapable. The metal pressed uncomfortably against his skin, cold and familiar. The world felt so…saturated juxtaposed to the millions of colors of the outside. No crisp viridian and forest green leaves, no dark pulsing grey water with shining scatterings of steel blues, no all encompassing brilliant dusk sky. Only bone white and trapping irons and the sharp scarlet of his fear. 

A doctor came in. They pulled out the taser needles, running a stinging disinfectant across the wounds before slapping a bandage over it. After some prodding, they’d had to call in a guard to unlock one of the manacles, quickly wrapping adhesive bandages around his ankle. They didn’t care to leave Tommy with any more advanced equipment than cloth. He was ordered to take a pair of mismatched pills, and complied. While likely to be pain medication, he wasn’t sure, and assumed it could be something worse on principle. Poison was never out of the question, though they’d never given enough to kill him. Well. Obviously. They’d yet to do anything ever enough to kill him. He wasn’t sure what that was a testament to; their failure to doom him or his desperate cling to life. 

The doctor left soon, having thankfully decided to do nothing else. Doctors could never be fully trusted. They took the mobile surgery table, the last of the guards slipped out, and Tommy was left alone.

Well.

Not completely. 

A pair of gloves were set out for them.

The whole of him ached, tensed in a way he thought lingered from lightning coursing through his veins but might’ve just been simple fear. He limped as he walked towards them, adrenaline no longer enough to hide the worst of the pain. Tommy checked the windows. Still covered. Good. It was safe. He could break. He allowed himself a breath before accepting his punishment. The air almost burned as he sucked it in. Tommy couldn’t understand how he’d managed to breathe the toxic flavor for so long. For a moment the memory of the scent of woods and grasses and freedom whispered through his mind. It died as he inhaled the poisoned recycled Foundation air. Right.

Tiny jabs of pain in his fingertips caused him to flinch back. He couldn’t see the source of the injuries buried beneath dripping carmine. Splinters, maybe. Or torn up flesh like that on his feet from climbing. Not a major injury by any means. 

Ignoring minor twinges and the trembling of his hands, Tommy slipped them on.

He was almost ok. He tried to count out his breaths like Rosalind had told him to. He tried to attach himself to the things he could see, limited though it was to snow and scarlet. It wasn’t working, he could feel fingers lacing over his throat, pressing on bruises. He turned to memories instead. He held off the panic for some time, replacing it with images of the outside world. It hurt almost just as much, but he had nothing else to protect himself with. Longing tore at his insides, but it was manageable in a way the gloves weren't. A Hell of his own creation, but it was undeniably his and that handful of control stabilized him just enough to remain intact.

This, of course, only lasted until the lights went off. The void could not be filled, only consume whatever he tried to put into it. He tried to imagine the sun slipping away, leaving radiant fire in its wake. He was left with only the night, but there were no stars to fill it this time. They’d all been destroyed. Something hissed in his ears and he imagined it to be poisoned gas, filling his lungs, each breath only assuring his destruction. Maybe it was a good thing he couldn’t breathe, then.

(There were no bees left to save him that time.)

——

A light shot through the room, blinding. A mere crack, widening into an entire door frame. A silhouette stood outlined in the door, shadow long and almost reaching where Tommy was huddled on the floor. He tried to squint up at the figure, trying to make out what was happening. The light was burning in its radiance, but he drank it in regardless, knowing it could be the only thing he’d see for hours. The figure made a motion, and something skidded across the floor towards him. The Instigator didn’t move. The form turned, the bright light eclipsed as the door began to shut. But they paused, silhouette wavering.

“You said we were disposable,” Lawrence sibilated acerbically. The door slammed shut. Cautiously, Tommy crawled forward, covered hands patting around in the dark. His movements were stiff, uncertain, pained. Eventually he found the nutrition bar. He needed to go give it to Tubbo and Rosalind. That would be ok, right? He’d leave just long enough for them to get it and he’d come back. And…and he’d have to take off his gloves for a bit, just because he needed them off in order to undo the screws. 

You m̵̢̧̛̘͕̫͚̱̥̮̣͊̐u̶͉͓̘̭̍̋̈́͝f̸̩͓̈̚͝f̴͇̼͙̼̀̅̃̾̅̌̈́ĭ̴͉̰͔͙̥͍̩͎͓͍̄̎̄́n̶̡̘͎͈͇͔̻͚̬͇̒̈́̈̀̐̇̚ing idiot, a part of him screamed. You don’t get to escape the consequences of your actions. He wasn’t! It wasn’t selfish or cowardly, he was doing it to help. His friends needed him. That meant it was ok, right? I’ll put them on just as soon as I get back, he told the sensible part of himself. The Foundation wouldn’t need to even know. He’d be quick. Of course they’d know! They know everything! They didn’t know I was visiting Tubbo. 

He couldn’t come up with something to discredit the notion. A victory, then, and one he desperately needed. Tommy knew for a fact the gloves were only going to be the start of it. He’d tried to escape, after all, and escape was impossible and only made things worse. 

Except…it wasn’t completely impossible. He’d come close, so incredibly close. He’d seen the stars. The farthest he’d ever made it, and he knew the punishment for that had to be far worse than just the gloves, knew that was just the beginning. Tommy couldn’t remember exactly what had happened the last time, the exact events blended with time, but it had to be far more extreme. Maybe escape wasn’t impossible, not entirely, but certainly it would make everything far, far worse. And yet…

He could still just barely remember the taste of fresh air dancing across his tongue. 

He clenched the block of nutrients in the dark. It would get far worse for Tubbo and Rosalind, too. Tommy had to be the one to make sure it wasn’t too much. True as it was, that wasn’t his sole reason. He told himself it wasn’t just to hold a brief respite against the gloves, and it wasn’t, because he wasn’t trying to get relief from what had already occurred. No, Tommy was trying to build up resolve to weather the trials to come. He could foresee the future, a gift of prophecy that was useless. Avoiding the inevitable always ended badly in stories, anyways. An endless void, save for visits from Lawrence and Milo and doctors. Maybe it would stretch on days. Maybe weeks to match what he’d done. He had gloves for now, but they might decide that wasn’t enough. Tommy needed his friends. He wasn’t sure he’d survive otherwise. He had in the past, but then again he’d never done something so bad, and he’d had Philza. Tommy needed his friends so much it hurt. 

Slowly, he peeled the gloves off. Temporary relief, temporary solace, but it was necessary. They wouldn’t know. They knew he knew better than to remove them, and normally they’d be right. Tommy shivered at the possibility of what would happen if they discovered his rebellion. They’d always been explicit that betraying their trust in that manor would result in the restraint mitts being used again. In the dark he made his way over to the vent wall. He needed to help his friends. He needed his friends to help him. Neither of them would make it without the others. It was as simple as that. 

And beyond all that…Tommy wanted to try to escape again.

——

Tommy had shattered into pieces before. Many times, even. In the past he’d had Philza to make him whole, and then he’d had Tubbo and Rosalind to do it. There’d been times he’d only had an empty room to burst apart at the seams in, and there was a certain terror in trying to put yourself back together when shards of you cut your own cracked palms and fingers. It was possible, though. Even worse was if you broke in front of an enemy, since they’d only take the opportunity to further smash the pieces, making it harder to heal and easier to break the next time. Tommy knew from experience then that you had to wait until it was safe to destruct, otherwise things could easily grow worse. It wasn’t always something you could control, and sometimes trying to hold the tiny pieces together long enough to keep the bastion serviceable was almost just as bad.

So it was safe to say Tommy wasn’t surprised Tubbo immediately fell apart as soon as he got to their cell. It was a sign of trust, in Tommy’s world. It was Tubbos’ first containment breach, after all, the Foundation would definitely find a suitable punishment. Tommy knew Tubbo was likely to shatter, and was ready to help, to return the favor. 

Tommy, however, could not honestly say he expected Tubbo to literally break into pieces. 

He had heard the screams far before he’d gotten to Tubbo. They’d been chaotic and confusing, echoing in the tight space and hurting his ears with the raucous sound. Tommy had doubled his speed, dread evolving into full panic once he confirmed it was coming from the Pollinator’s cell. Banging at the vents garnered help, if belated. The covey trying to open the vent fumbled with it, dropping the tool several times. The sound of insect screeching only grew worse with the removal of the gate, droning and infinite as Tubbo had no need to pause for breath. It was high pitched and sent daggers of ice through Tommy’s heart. It echoed every single dying wail he’d ever witnessed. He scrambled down the wall, racing over to Tubbo. Potato leaves shook, swarms chaotically swirling about the room in a hurricane centered around his friend. 

Large shimmering eyes latched onto his. Tubbo was shaking, vibrating apart at the seams. They almost made a step towards him before they collapsed. Tubbo crouched over themselves, arms wrapped tight in a way that did little to quell the shakes wracking their body. Bees coursed around him tightly, tiny collisions peppering his limbs. Tubbo usually had more control, wouldn’t let such incidents occur. Tommy dropped to his knees, hands reached out but unable to touch them. He wanted to hold them tight and promise them it would be ok, just like Philza would have. Contact was the only comfort he knew, the only salve he’d ever needed. It was useless to him now.

He couldn’t stop them from screaming.

It was a howling shriek, almost human save for dragging static at the ends of it. It wasn’t quite the same as the countless death wails Tommy had heard, close, but off slightly in a way he wasn’t sure he could ever explain. It was the length. That was it. A last scream was a sound cut short, a silence that spoke magnitudes more as the echoes of a final breath spent by terror faded. Whatever drove the current screech clearly hadn’t ended at all. 

Well. M̵̼͋̈́͂͒u̶̡͉̐f̵̣̍̇͝f̷̧̤͓̑́͛̕i̷̳͉̔ñ̷̤̉͛. That couldn’t be good. 

It wasn’t just a howl though. It pulsed, crawling and overlapped with snatches of words he couldn’t make out, like people shouting over each other. It scraped at his ears and his soul. 

“TUBBO!” he shouted, voice scratching with the volume of it. The rolling thunder of insects swallowed him completely. The voices swirled into barrages, gusts of screeches and sentences pelting him. Words burbled beneath the surface, indecipherable and desperate. It was a pulsing sound, alive, like a beating heart, like the beating of thousands of hearts overlapped into one cacophony. He tried to grasp at pieces and pull out individuals but it was too nebulous, dancing out of the way of his fingertips in flurries of insects.

“TUBBO!” he called again, trying to be heard. The writhing screams twitched and skittered, coalescing into clumps. He could pick out fragments of sentences, still mere shouts in a mob but almost understandable. He grasped onto them, ear straining for understanding. 

-on’t wanna be here!

I expected you to-                                -bbo let me out!

Asked one thing of y-                  -aised you better than th-

                           -dare you take her ch-

-oice was nev-                                      -hurts it hurts it hurts it h-

                 -ared I don’t want to-                                     -Tommy please-

-eed to make her stop-

Help.

A single word. It was all he needed. 

“How?” he called. The voices almost paused before crashing into turmoil again. As Tubbo started to shout unintelligible fragments at him, themselves, and the world, he realized it was the wrong question entirely. If Tubbo knew how they’d have done it themselves. The real thing he needed to know was what was wrong (besides absolutely everything). 

It wasn’t an answer they could supply either, he suspected. “Rosalind, what’s wrong with them?” he demanded. Shouldn’t she have fixed this? She was an adult, she was supposed to know how to fix things. If she hadn’t figured it out already, what chance did he have? He had to try anyway. “Come on Ros, we need to—

“…Ros?

“…Rosalind?” It was almost a whisper, barely audible even to his own ears. He needed help. But she wasn’t there to respond. Tommy leapt to the top of a row, scanning over fanning leaves. There wasn’t any sign of the woman. She wouldn’t abandon us, would she?

…Tommy wasn’t sure. He’d never been any good at telling. Shouldn’t he be able to by now? He didn’t think she’d ever, but he could say that about anyone. If Phil and The Blade could, why not anybody at all? Why not every single person in his life? No. He didn’t want to believe it. Find a better answer. Any at all as long as it meant he hadn’t been betrayed again. Anything would be better than that.  

She was a human. She’d helped him and Tubbo, of course they’d move her away from them. The Foundation didn’t know to prevent Tommy interacting, but of course they wouldn’t let Rosalind stay. There. That was reasonable. He could ask Lawrence since he knew her, or maybe Milo since he was nicer. They could get back in contact loosely, it would be ok. It wasn’t a problem for right now. Fix Tubbo, find a way to contact Rosalind, escape for real. He stepped down from the potato row, drawing close to the huddled form of Tubbos’ body. He’d almost tucked the conundrum away completely to turn his attention fully to the insectoid, but a fragment of a memory presented itself.

You said we were disposable, Lawrence had reminded him. He blinked as the truth pressed at him, refusing to be ignored or denied.

Oh.

Of course Tommy had been right. The truth burned. His heart sank, piecing together what must have happened. That’s all he could afford the epiphany, that sad, weary oh. He’d expected it, to be honest. Tommy was impressed Tubbo had held out so long, but, really, it had been inevitable. For a single moment he’d thought maybe he’d been wrong. Right after his first breath outside, right before the door slammed closed behind him. It was brief, but for that split second he’d believed they might all have been safe. But no. He’d known the Foundation too well. They’d picked a sacrifice, after all, it had just taken some time to play out. Rosalind was dead. He knew it was a fact that would be true eventually, but it hurt all the more for that brief moment where it might have been avoided, a prophecy never to be fulfilled. Well. There was no help for it, nothing to be done for her now. He could only do his best for Tubbo. Grief could come later. 

For now, Tubbo was breaking. There wasn’t time for him to as well. Besides, he already had, just earlier. Tommy had to keep it together in order to collect Tubbo back into functionality. So why was it so hard to breathe? His lungs were burning. He chided himself for not expecting it. Shame on him for getting his hopes up. He should’ve known better by now.

“I don’t blame you,” he called out, hoping somehow that Tubbo could even understand him. But of course it was a lie. How could it not be? There was no one but Tubbo to blame. He wished it were anything but the truth, that somehow he could take the weight of her death off their shoulders and make the burden all his own just so they would never have to even imagine the weight of it. But he couldn’t. 

It worked, though. Tubbos’ head jerked up, almost indistinguishable from the other spasms except for the fact their eyes stayed locked in his. He knelt down next to them, and when Tubbo reached out he couldn’t bring himself to stop them. Fingers wound into his hospital gown, jolting and tugging the fabric into a bundle above his heart. They were mouthing something, and he couldn’t figure out what it was other than not Tubbo. Tubbo didn’t mouth words, that wasn’t a Tubbo thing to do. Maybe it was just his imagination, but the thundering roar of Tubbo seemed to give slightly, the number of voices decreasing maybe. 

It was a start, then. What was next? His convictions would work, likely. It’s what he always told himself whenever he’d gotten more people killed. “You didn’t choose this,” he tried. A feral sort of desperation lit Tubbos' eyes. They gripped ever tighter to him. Tommy held himself frozen so he couldn’t reciprocate.

But of course it had been, he chided himself. It had always been Tommy’s choice, too. The greatest trick the Foundation pulled was to always make it your choice. Whatever you did, you meant to. Barely a choice at all, but it was still yours. Try another, then.

“They deserved to-” die. No she m̶̖̠̠̂̿̐̇̕u̷̡̱̩̼̎f̵̼̄̒͒̿f̵̨̫̲͓̎̔́͘͠i̵̡̭͎͋̾̂̈̚ͅn̷̰͌̂̚ing didn’t. Tommy couldn’t even try to breathe the lie. They’d almost escaped because of her. He’d seen the sun for the first time in years, a golden coin waiting for him to grasp it. Ultimately it was an opportunity he’d failed to seize, but never would that be because of her. He swore to try again, both escape and affirmation to Tubbo. “It’s n-” ot your fault.

Oh, come now, his thoughts hissed. You believe none of these. What use are they to Tubbo if they mean nothing to you? 

Fine. What was something he believed, then? “It was only a matter of time,” he told them gently. He tried to press every ounce of sincerity into the words he could. It was almost drowned out in the squall of bees. Tubbo looked to him, antenna quivering and wings rattling against chains they’d never meant to be real. “You held out for so long, but it’s ok to have broken. Believe me, I’m amazed you made it so far. You’re amazing, Tubbo.” He tried to press every ounce of sincerity he could, because it was the only truth he had. “Really and truly. So don’t feel bad, ok? You did the best you could, held out as long as possible. But it was inevitable, believe me it was. Only a matter of time, that’s all this is.”

The first thing he noticed was the screaming had stopped. Completely and utterly. It was like the world had been lifted off his shoulders. Like suddenly getting a breath of freedom after ages of stale imprisonment. Bees plummeted from the air, the dark cloud dropping at once. Insects spilled over the ground, almost silent. The hand gripping him released, letting him go entirely. Tubbos’ face narrowed, sharpening to a look he’d never seen on them. Vehemence, he decided, didn’t belong on their features. 

“No. It shouldn’t have been. I raised them God ḿ̸͕̳̮̩̙͜u̶̢̪̐f̸̘̯̖͎̜́̐̋̈́̑͜͝f̴̠͈̥̥͒̌͐̋̑̚i̴̞̜̬͍͔̗͗̾̏͜n̴̢̧̫͍̺͖̟͊͗͘ better than this. I know time, I’ve had far more of it than you, boy.” Tommy blinked, both at the sudden harsh anger and at the coherence of Tubbos’ words. No. Not Tubbo. The voice was raspy and ancient, their anger glimmering with the same righteousness Tubbo seemed to project when talking about Philza or The Blade. Except that had merely been a distilled version of the fury that took hold of their body. No, it wasn’t Tubbo at all, merely a piece of them. “This wasn’t inevitable by any means,” Rhodes Bannister sibilated, rising. His mouth moved with the words in a way Tubbos’ rarely did. Tommy gathered his argument, not entirely sure what to do but knowing he needed to defend Tubbo even if it was from themselves. 

“It was,” Tommy insisted. “That’s the whole point! The Foundation would’ve gotten to them eventually. I know, I saw it coming. I’ve seen it hundreds of times because I’ve always been the last resort. Time and time again I was the one breaking resolves. I make people become the worst versions of themselves, and I hate it, but that’s the truth. The Foundation makes people become the worst possible versions of themselves. They were always going to break Tubbo, one way or another.”

Tubbo scowled, an unpleasant look on their face. Tommy didn’t like it. “Don’t tell me of the wretched, boy, I’ve seen the worst of humanity. I’ve seen people at their most desperate and despicable and I’ve defended them. But this I cannot abide by. Not in my child. Not in myself. Not in Tubbo.”

“You—they—Tubbo didn’t have a choice.” It was a lie, and tasted bitter on his tongue. He tried not to gag on his own words. 

“There was a choice! That’s the whole point! There was a choice and it was never theirs’ to make.”

“It was between their life or hers! You can’t blame them for that.” Of course you could, of course he did. What was he even saying? 

Anything that would bring Tubbo back, was the answer. He didn’t care what lies had to fall from his lips if only it made his friend whole again. Tommy steeled himself. Whatever it took. Whatever the price was on his soul he’d pay it tenfold if it had even the barest chance of saving Tubbo. He stood up, rising to his full stature. He laid his disapproval bare on his features. "Would you denounce Rosalind if she’d lived? Saying it was her fault Tubbo died?” 

Rhodes looked up at Tommy with scorn. “How little you understand this. You think we killed her? Of course not! The choice was centered on Rosalind joining the Hive.” He blinked. Tommy felt his mind bending. The realization landed and it snapped beneath the flood of wholly unexpected euphoria and relief. She was alive. Alive, alive, alive! He didn’t know what to do with that. He’d thought her death so inevitable, and yet here he was. Mistaken in the most brilliant and breath taking of ways. He felt a small smile twitch at his lips, but suppressed it. Of course Tubbo had found a better way. The third option. He couldn’t tell if it was genius or just plain stubbornness, but either way they’d crafted a victory from seeming loss. Well. Maybe not a victory, seeing the fallout. Tommy couldn’t see triumph in it, aside from its sheer defiance. Well. Sometimes you can't win, only spit in someone’s face and have to find satisfaction in that. He thought his heart might burst from the sheer elation and impossibility of it all. Alive. What a concept. 

“But she refused! It was her choice, she refused, but Tubbo didn’t accept that. So now I’m making my choice. I couldn’t stop them, but I can make the same decision as her and this time Tubbo has to take no for an answer.”

“They would’ve killed Tubbo,” Tommy tried, scrambling to find his argument when all his thoughts were boiled down to little exclamation marks. “They would’ve killed you.”

“Then I should have died! I’ve had my time, more than I ever deserved. I only became Tubbo because I wanted to see what they’d become.” The wrath flickered. “I wanted to see the person they’d become, the light they could bring to the world. When I was a younger man I thought I knew everything, and what a fool I was for that. I believed joining Tubbo would let me see the world anew.” His face hardened, anger returning. But it was the quiet sort, the flames simmering. They were still bright with intensity, still scorching, but only with the inferno reigned in did Tommy see the real heart of the pyre: disappointment. Rhodes had expected Tubbo to be better. Tommy couldn’t see how they could’ve been. Tubbo had resisted to the last, a stubborn determination that Tommy didn’t think he’d ever matched. What more could Rhodes have asked of them? “And I did. I got to see them change, a front row seat even, every filthy second of it. And I want none of it. This is not the person I hoped they would be, and maybe that’s on me for failing them somehow. But I refuse for this to be who I am. I refuse to be a person who steals a human soul. I refuse to be Tubbo.”

The room was silent. It was a terrifying sound for a place so accustomed to constant hums. Something clicked in Tommy’s mind. 

Was this what Philza felt?

… about what? He couldn’t possibly imagine what he’d have done to earn the same scorn. Tommy stood quiet a minute, trying to sort things into coherent thought. The situation was different. Vastly so. Parallelism to be sure, but on both sides. It wasn’t clear cut by any means, but Tommy still had a handful of experience. Maybe it would help. Maybe, this time, he could stop it. Tommy needed to put Tubbo back together, and to do that Tubbos’ pieces needed to be returned. Tubbo had said a member gaining control of the Hive was like a person pulling themselves back into singularity, but surely that meant whatever was pushed aside to allow it was incomplete. Tubbo wouldn’t be Tubbo unless whole. He needed to somehow appease Rhodes in order to get Tubbo back. He needed Tubbo back. 

But more than that, he couldn’t let Tubbo lose their Philza. He rolled the question on his tongue before daring to utter it. What if Rhodes said no? Tommy wasn’t sure what he’d do then. Maybe there would be nothing that he could do. But he had to try. “Do you love Tubbo?” Tommy slowly asked, words careful and precise. 

Tubbos’ alien eyes stared at him, pain creasing their mouth to a thin line. “Don’t ask me that,” Rhodes murmured. The underlying accusation clearly hurt, but was it because the answer was positive or negative? Affronted, or guilted?

“Because,” Tommy continued, stumbling along awkwardly. “I think you do. A lot. It’s the only reason you’d be this angry and sad and—and hurt, because you care so much.” He felt himself choking up and swallowed roughly. Ugh. Emotional maturity m̷̨̖̞̐̃u̸̠͓̔̃̂ḟ̶͈̲̪̒͛̄ͅf̷̞͉͔̭̈̄́̉i̷̯̒́n̸̦̼̖̳͊ing sucked. “That’s why it hurts so much, because you care about Tubbo and want a better life for them.” His features hardened. “But this is the life we got. We aren’t going to get anything better ever and you’ll just have to deal with that. You said you wanted to see who Tubbo would be, so watch. This is just as much part of that as everything else. Watch all of it, because you can’t really love them if you mistake their m̷̧̠͔̖̆̎̍̈́̾u̸̝̳̟͖̭̺͂̓f̶͚̭̫͇̝̻̽͂̈́f̸̢̡̛̼̼̲̒̎̾i̶̧͔̭̖̭̔̎͂ṅ̵͚̼̓͑̒̐ing worst with their best.”

Rhodes gestured as if to push up glasses. “Of course I love Tubbo. I walked them through every single day of their life. I taught them everything I knew, I fed them, clothed them, loved them. How could I not?”

Relief blossomed in Tommy’s chest. An expected relief, but no less potent for that. “Good. Because I love them, too. I know it’s different, family isn’t the same as friend, but I care, which is why I can’t let you do this. Right now you’re hurting them a lot, and I have to put an end to that.”

“They promised me,” Rhodes almost growled. It felt like a dagger was slipping between his ribs, and he tried not to let it show. “Promised me the very day I was gathered that they’d never take someone against their will. The one thing I asked of them.”

Right. Tommy knew something of broken promises. What had Philza said? That he’d always love him? That he wanted to watch Tommy grow? It wasn’t the time to confront his own problems, but they echoed painfully close to what Rhodes was saying. He breathed carefully, setting the issue aside. “That’s still Tubbo. That mistake is part of them. You’re a part of them. You don’t get to pick and choose from them, say you want to see them grow but abandon them just because it wasn’t how you liked it. That’s not how love is supposed to work.” M̶̠͔̞̭͆̏̏ủ̶̻̺f̵̭̭̭̂̑f̷͖͋͝i̷̛ͅņ̵̣͔͆̔. What was he even saying? Tommy was just putting out words, hoping somehow that something would work. He had no clue whether any of it even meant anything, only that he had no better idea. Doubt swirled in his stomach, sour bile creeping up. He didn’t know what he’d do if he failed, since it seemed Tubbo was the only thing he had. "Just...you said you wanted to watch them grow, but you abandon them when they need guidance. Is that really going to help anyone?" 

Rhodes stood quiet. It was odd to see in Tubbos’ body. There was usually a constant motion to them, and energy inherent to Tubbo. But Rhodes now possessed a severe stillness that put Tommy on edge. Rhodes sighed deeply. “I think you’re right. I’m of no help doing this. I’m only hurting Tubbo, which is the last thing I want.” Their face broke into a strained ironic smile. “I think I was right, too. But here I was, old and believing to know everything again. Hmph. A fool was I, to think I’d learned at all.” The old man gave Tommy a deep respectful nod. It felt almost reverent. The weight of the man’s years seemed to press at Tommy, but he nodded back with the same gravitas. For a split second, they were equals. “Thank you for the lesson, kiddo.”

Tubbo stumbled suddenly, spasming violently in shudders that shook the whole of them, ripples spreading through the dark clouds of insects as they rose back into the air. They squeezed their eyes shut, and when they opened again they did not bear the burden of age. Light scattered across the dark surface, pixelized. They blinked, attention locking onto the Instigator. “T—ommy?”

“Tubbo?” Tommy startled. “Are you back? Are you ok?” 

“Tchammy, th-ey all left usszzz. The Hive’sszz all m̸͉̜̦̉̐̌͘u̵̡̾͌́́f̵̗̞̲́͜f̷͓̰͊͑—i̷͉͑̅̓͝n̴̬̲̹͎͝ed. We need—” the words fizzled out and couldn’t seem to find the effort to return. But it was probably the most Tubbo he’d gotten, words almost complete. Did that mean whatever he’d done had worked?

“Don’t worry, Tubbo. You’re safe. I’ll fix it, just hold on.” To his consternation, Tubbos’ eyes glossed over with tears. They took a step towards him, starting to shiver. 

“H-help-” they managed, before doubling over and spasming. Tears were streaming down their face, and Tommy reached for their trembling form, concerned. Around him bees tumbled back down as their wings failed. 

Before he even remembered to stop himself, Tubbo stumbled away from him. M̵̮͛ú̸̡͎̝f̸̤͙̓͆̒͘f̷̧͓͍̊i̶̜̽̕͠n̷̐͒͂ͅ. “Tubbo?”

“No! I don’t want to be Tubbo!” they shouted. It was a shrill voice choked by its own sobs. Not Tubbo, then. He tried to ignore the sting of them flinching from him. It didn’t work. 

“Then who are you?” he tried.

Tubbo glared at him through golden tears. “I’m not telling you. You’re a sstranger.” 

He tried not to wince. M̴͎͗ͅų̸̲̥̪͊f̶͉̳̯͉̉͌͘f̵̩̠̲͙̔i̶̡̛̲̋̀̒ñ̶̙̌. That hurt. What is it you said? a part of him mused. Only hurts because you care? And how’s that going for you? Oh m̶̢̺͓̆ȗ̶̳̣̊̔f̶̡̖͉̫̤̿̚f̶̳͙̭̀͑̋i̷̤͂͝ņ̷̘̟̎̏̅ off, he thought, annoyed. Now that he thought about it, he wasn’t even sure Rhodes knew his name. But he clearly did remember some things as Tubbo, since he was angry about having done something together. Tommy really had no idea, actually. It made his head hurt. He couldn’t even imagine what Tubbos’ skull had to feel like. 

One problem at a time. Focus. He examined Tubbos’ reply. Wasn’t that sort of…a kid thing to say? Their voice was much higher, too. His eyes widened. “M̴̢͗̉̈́ŭ̸͕̭̬͜f̶̧̹̪̱̉́f̶͇͘i̶̢͈̜̍ņ̷̡̩̘̳̉, are you Jasmine?”

“How do you know that!?” she demanded. It shivered with panic. Oh m̶̩͉̜͛ù̴̡͔̹̰̞f̸̟͚̙̬͋͐̏̃͜f̸̢͓̩̮̙̄̇ͅi̵͙̹͗͘n̸̟̱̓͑͗̈́̈́ Tommy was screwed. What was he supposed to do with a six year old girl?? With Rhodes he’d managed to spout some sort of bs that seemed to work, but what would he even say? He’d say he felt out of his depths, but that had been the case since the beginning. 

“M̵̗̄͋͜ǔ̷̙̥͂f̵̨̟̑̀—I mean. Shoot.” Could he swear??? Like. That was a kid, right? Would Tubbo be mad if he cussed in front of Jasmine? Was that even a thing? It was censored anyway, but still…He felt like, as a very-nearly-an-adult, he should have some obligation to set a good example. Wait, what???? What was with his brain today? Must be his recent birthday. He was feeling very old and wise and responsible and it was terrible.

“Ok. Um. Jasmine. Right now, Tubbo is sorta…broken. And I need your help to fix them, can you do that?” He tried to make it as soothing and reasonable as possible. Maybe if he could just get her to stop crying…it made him feel all stressed, but then again it was a very high strung day. It was only a few hours since their botched escape. (Well, maybe a day? That seemed long, but, then again, Tommy couldn’t be sure.)

But despite his effort, her face only pinched and her voice only raised. “I don’t WANT to be Tubbo! I don’t want to, I don’t WANT TO, I don’t WANT TO!!!” she screamed, a ear bursting sound, alien and demented in the shrill sound of the insects. “You can’t make me!” And Tubbo proceeded to throw a tantrum. Or, Jasmine did, using their body. It was disturbing, to say the least. The bees would gather into a shrill shriek, the scream tapering off as if running out of air. A brief pause, and it would start again. There was no reason to pause at all. Tubbo didn’t need breath to imbue into their words. It was the mark of a human to be sure. He tried in vain to quiet her down, but any efforts just seemed to make it louder as she drowned him out effortlessly. He wasn’t sure what to do other than wait. Either for her to stop, or for him to figure out what he should do. 

There was a quality to it different from the screaming from before. The same thread of fear ran through it. Tommy was familiar enough with terror to know that. But what Jasmine was doing now seemed almost…hollow, compared to the other. The difference between terror and mortal terror was vast to experienced ears. Simple fear was far easier to soothe. It was comforting, almost. No matter how badly he handled it, Tubbo wasn’t likely to die. So why were they screaming like they were earlier? He didn’t have an answer. Yet. That wasn’t the problem at hand, as much as the thought pressed at him. He had to deal with each fear separately. Tommy began by slowly shifting to the ground. He felt too big next to Jasmine. Of course he was, he was huge, and knew he was taller than Tubbo to begin with, but when thinking about it from Jasmine’s point of view…

Well, he was a stranger. Large and maybe intimidating and while normally he liked that it just felt bad in the current situation. So Tommy sat down. He thought waiting might work. It wasn’t a great option, but it wasn’t like he could try and dissuade her while she was actively drowning out his attempts at pacifying the situation. It made talking counterproductive, as she just screamed louder. He’d felt caught off guard and out of his depth when Rhodes had started a diatribe with him, but Tommy was starting to think that had been preferable. Jasmine seemed inclined to continue wailing. Tommy idly ran a thumb against the white floor leaving a sharp scarlet streak. He added a cross over it, turning it into a rough star shape. The howl continued. He smeared another, and then another. 

A dozen stars in, the screaming seemed to be tapering off. Must’ve been pretty boring. Eventually it dissolved into various sniffles. Tommy didn’t look up, still working on his constellations. He wasn’t exactly sure if sudden movements were a bad idea, but, well. He decided he wasn’t going to make the first move. Better to respond. “What are you doing?” Jasmine finally demanded. Tommy finished the star he was working on before replying.  

“Finger painting.”

“I can ssee that! I’m not a baby.”

“Well. It’s just like you said: I can’t make you do anything. I’m not going to try.”

“Oh.” He glanced up at her. Tubbos’ face wore its startlement plain as day. Then again, Tubbo usually had a very open expression. Tommy was starting to think that was because of Jasmine. To his relief, the screaming seemed to have ended, and he didn’t think it would return. His own lips twitched in a slight grin. Ah. Must’ve been the right approach. Plan B was to try and scream even louder, and he wasn’t sure his lungs would be up to it. He certainly wouldn’t be able to match her pitch. God, but he thought the shrill screech was going to give him ear damage. The insectoid’s shadow loomed over him. Tommy added another scarlet star. “I like your flowerss,” she said after a bit, once Tommy was sure all the honey tears were dried. It was a soft hum, almost afraid to speak at all. 

“That’s-” obviously stars, he started hotly. Whatever. It didn’t matter much. Just a poor attempt to capture the feeling of his one glimpse of freedom in who knew how long. “-because I’m incredibly good at drawing,” he converted the sentence into. 

“Nuh uh. I’m better.”

Tommy gave her a direct look. Jasmine’s large compound eyes were dark and glossy. “Oh?” She nodded sharply, antenna jolting with the motion. It was weird. Not exactly animated, more like clothing dragged along with human movement. It had been the same with Rhodes. Tubbos’ wings lay draped over their back inanimate, their typically naturally twitching antenna stiff. It was not a body designed for humans. Tubbo was not a creature made to be singular. The petrified bodies of insects spilled over the floor was a testament to that. It was weird to see a child in the body of an adult. A brain that didn’t match its housing. 

Jasmine reached into her gaping pit of a mouth, sliding an index finger on the inside of her cheek. She then smeared the gathered honey on the ground in a rough plant shape. Tommy carefully examined her picture, comparing it to his own. To his dismay, they were roughly of the same quality. He tried to put a bit more effort into the next one, but the results were about the same. Slowly, the night sky around him turned into a bright field of amber and ruby blossoms. There was a tranquillity to the task. A brief respite from the chaos the day had held. 

His chest still felt tight, a feeling that went on the longer he ignored it. It was a warm, almost feverish sensation. It grew worse the longer he didn’t do anything. He was supposed to be fixing Tubbo, not drawing. But the peace felt dangerous to break. He still wasn’t sure how to proceed, leaving him in an uncomfortable stasis. Jasmine sat back, examining their work. “It lookss like our home,” she hummed.

“Our?”

“Tubboss’.”

“Do you miss it?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yess! There's thiss really big field! And it has sso many colors. And we had a buncha toys, and Rhodess would give uss sweets. But here…there issn’t any of that.” Her smile slipped into distress. “There’s nothin’ but white and hurt. And it hurts sso much. We don’t like it here. I wanna go home.” Blatant longing filled her words. Her face was scrunching up again. Tommy made shushing noises.

“Hey hey hey. Tubbo and I are going to try again, alright? We did it before, we can do it again.” If only he could be optimistic, it wouldn’t have even the barest trace of falsehood. He wasn’t, but could imagine it just for the briefest second needed to spit the sentence out. The lie burned his mouth, words muttered through ash. What chance did they have? He wanted it to be true, but they’d only made it so far because of Rosalind. It just wasn’t an option anymore. But they’d try, and maybe by that metric it wasn’t just a pretense. Tommy swore he wasn’t going to be left with handfuls of stars. He was going to grab the sky whole, and all the freedom that entailed. He swallowed embers, refusing it to be a lie. Hope was a wavering thing, cruel typically, but it wasn’t an inherent lie. 

“But to get back home I need Tubbo back. Can you do that? Can you help me fix Tubbo?” She sent him a frightened look. Tubbo was shivering again, but it wasn’t the same as when their psyche rearranged. Terror was far more primal and universal than that. He felt frustration bubble up inside him. Nothing he did seemed to be working at all. But she wasn’t crying anymore. She wasn’t flinching away from him. That was progress surely. It wasn’t good that Jasmine seemed terrified of being Tubbo, but he’d been able to convince Rhodes to return to the Hive. He could do it again. 

And for Jasmine, that meant giving her space, it seemed. Tommy twisted a bit to get to a blank canvas, adding more blossoms. Slowly she calmed down again. “So why do you want to be Jasmine?” Rhodes had left as a sort of punishment or absolution of guilt. He suspected Jasmine’s reason wasn’t the same. Intense moral dilemmas weren’t exactly the mark of children. Well…they shouldn’t be. He was only a child, afterall. Just two children trying to stop each other from breaking. Just two children that had to know how to. His throat hurt. 

She watched him, face considering the question. It grew more pinched as time drew on. “I don’t,” she admitted. It was on the border of upset, but not quite enough for Tommy to back off. “I don’t really want to be Jassmine. I’m not ussually me. All my Tubbo mem’ories are far away, and Jassmine doesn’t have that many of her own.” Her compound eyes were pained, her face screwed in a tight expression. He decided it was too much naked pain for a little kid. No. Too much for anyone.

Tommy suddenly realized he had been wrong. Jasmine was not six at all, rather, she was twenty one. The same age as Tubbo, except not really. A girl who’d happily spent the majority of her life not herself. To ask why she wanted to be herself would always have been the wrong question. “Why don’t you want to be Tubbo, then?”

The face cleared of confliction, leaving only sharp fear. “It’s sscary.”

 “How?”

“It hurtss so much! Like touching birthday candles, or being shot, or ant bites. Our chest hurts ‘cause she doessn’t want to be there. She’s thrashin’ around inside, wants to break out but she can’t. Sso she broke us instead. It didn’t and won’t ever work. Sshe can’t ever ever ever get out.”

“Rosalind did this?” How? And more importantly, why? Why would she do this to Tubbo?

“She burnss. That’s why I left. And I think…” her brow furrowed in concentration. Jasmine twitched. “Mr. Rhodess was REALLY angry about it, but I don’t know why. And Rossalin’…she doesn’t want to be Tubbo at all.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know!” she cried out in frustration. “I don’t know why anyone would ever not want to be Tubbo! Or…or normally I don’t. It’ss bad to be Tubbo right now. It’s sscary and hurts and…and can I have a hug?” she suddenly asked. Tommy jerked, a sharp line jolting out from the flower he was drawing. His heart thumped painfully in his chest. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four.

“No. I can’t give you one.” The words were almost level. His Red certainly wasn’t though, tendrils creeping up at the suggestion like ugly vermilion vines. Tommy carefully started adding leaves to his startle-induced stem to cover up the mistake.

“But I want one and you want one.”

“No I don’t?”

“But you look like when…” she squeezed insect eyes shut tight in concentration, searching for a memory just out of her reach. The expression cleared suddenly. “Like when—-when that baddie hurt your neck, and we hugged it all better!”

“You remember that? How? That was Tubbo.”

“They’re my mem’riess, too, just harder to get. Like you’re…your name iss…Tommy! Tommy, my best friend.”

Tommy grinned. “Yah. That’s me.” So he wasn’t entirely erased. So intrinsic to Tubbo that even a fragment of them could remember him eventually. 

“But stop diss-tracting’ me! Why can’t I have a hug?”

“The wronguns haven’t done anything.”

“Yess she has! Rosalin’ makes uss hurt.”

“She’s not a bad guy.” She couldn’t be. “She probably doesn’t mean any of it. She’s just doing it because she’s scared.”

“What do you do when you’re scared?”

“Find-” Philza. “-someone to make it go away.”

“But that’s what I’m trying and you ssaid no.”

“That’s because it makes you explode, idiot.” Wait, m̷͕̤̈́̚u̴̢͚͕͑̃f̶̺̜̦̻̏̌̅̊f̴̧͈̻̩̾͋̐i̸͕̙̤̍́̚͜n̷̰̭͋̏̆̇, that’s something he would’ve responded to Tubbo with. Not the kid. “Besides,” he hastily continued. “That doesn’t really solve the problem. Putting a bandaid on a bullet wound doesn’t fix anything.”

Her face fell. “Yeah. It didn’t work at all when we tried…”

Tommy’s words stumbled over that idea. “Right. Ok. So. We need to work together to fix Tubbo. And to do that, I need you to go back to the Hive.”

Her lips started quivering. “But it hur-”

“I know. I need you to be brave. I’m trying to help it stop hurting, but before that can happen, you need to be Tubbo again. If you go back it’ll help me fix it.”

Jasmine considered it. “Pinky promise?” She extended a honey tinted finger. Tommy’s own carmine digits froze.

“That’s a bad idea.”

“Oh. Then how can I trust you?”

Trust. What a concept. As if Tommy would ever know the answer to her question. “I…I guess you’ll just have to.”

For some reason it satisfied her. Tommy couldn’t understand it at all. “Ok,” she hummed simply. “I’ll do it.” She hesitated. “Iss…is it ok if I’m not ready yet?”

“Sure. Whenever you’re ready.” They had all the time in the world, really. The rest of their lives to find an escape. What were minutes on a time scale of decades?

“Can you draw a dino?” Tommy blinked and complied. He sat a hand down in the field of flowers, finger spread. Then with a swipe he transposed a long snaking smear over the flora. A sort of mouth formed in the space between thumb and pointer at the head of it, and Tommy clawed Red fingertips inside of it for teeth.

“So what do you like about being Tubbo?” he asked, adding a pair of arms with long clawed hands. A reminder of what she was fighting for seemed like a good idea. 

“We can fly!” Jasmine chirped, hovering into the air for emphasis. Her wings fluttered a bit, like an afterthought. She frowned at the chains thrown over her chest, confused. It cleared quickly. “And ssee so much! Everything iss a LOT more purple though. But that’s ok ‘cause purple is my second fav’rite color.”

Tommy added a pair of long horns on the back of its head. He hesitated, before adding a long mane. He had few delusions as to who he was depicting. “What’s your first?” 

“Yellow, like Tubbo. Which is good, ‘cause the new colors are kinda like yellow too. Like purple and yellow at the same time? It’s very silly. And third is…” her face scrunched in concentration, searching for thoughts not entirely her own. “Our third favorite color is red. Like you!”

Tommy grinned. Of course it was. Red was the best color after all. He used it to add a pair of wings to his drawing. They were sorta jaggedy and not all that good looking. Whatever. It didn’t have to be good, since that wasn’t the point of it. “So that’s why you joined Tubbo? So you could fly?”

“Well. That part’s nicce, but not really. ‘Fore I met them, the foresst was all scary. But Tubbo was nice and shared their toys and held my hand and made me feel all brave. But now…I think I’m ready to be brave for Tubbo, all on my own.”

“Yeah? You’re sure?” Her determination wavered for a split second but held firm. She offered confirmation only in the form of action, as without a word the insectoid went into convulsions once more. Tommy looked down to his drawing, to the beast surrounded by constellation turned flowers. The sum of their longings. Without a second glance, he swiped a line over the painted face, letting Red pool and overtake it while he stared at Tubbo. He needed to be focused on what really mattered. The flowers and stars remained, stretching far enough to escape the sea of scarlet that drowned the dragon.

Tubbo blinked. The swarms took to the air. Their mouth stretched into a grimace as they gingerly pressed a hand to their sternum. “M̶̲̯͚̟̀ǘ̶̦̫͋̾͗̚͠f̴̻̟̳̏f̵̡̲͎̪̞̥͋͑̏̓͊͠ḯ̷͓̳͓̮͎͖̍̈̓́͠n̴̲͇̂̒͂ that hurtzz. Wait. We’re back, we’re—” their eyes locked in Tommy, melting into relief. “You…you got them back,” Tubbo buzzed, amazed. 

After a moment to realize yes, Tubbo was there in their entirety, Tommy’s lips curled into a smile. “‘Course I did. Easy.”

Their focus pressed inward briefly. “…that’s absolutely not true in the slightest.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s over now.”

Tubbo offered him a pained slip of a smile. “Itsz really not.”

“But that’s all of them. That’s all the Hive, innit?”

“Once. Yesterday. But there’s an—” the sentence was cut off as their eyes flew open. They clutched their chest, hunching over. A few curse words stuttered out of Tubbo. “—we’re runnings out of—ow, god ḿ̴̪͍͕̾̀̽͗û̶̯f̷͍͓̈͋͑̕f̸̪̱͓̄̚i̶̜̥̺͇͕̦͛n̶̲̈̃̾ it that hurts. She’s struggling again. Tommy, listen. Rosalind has to stop fighting. The only way for the pain to cease is for her to fully be Tubbo. She’s trying to resist and it’s only—M̸̛̯̭͇̣̓͋̄U̵̲̹̣̖̼͋̓̈́̔͠F̵̩̤̃̇̌͛F̸̧̹̮͓̱͓̊͆͂̄̏Ì̵̬̖͕͙͇͓͇̮̜͑̔̆N̷̨̘͔̞͚̮̔̅̈́͜!” The screaming started again, different from before. Barely a scream at all, more the jagged note of tormented insects. The difference between Tubbos’ and Rosalind’s agony. Then again, could it really be so different from the shared experience? The cloud of insects fluctuated, the howls gaining weight as they became human terror once more. 

At once it all ceased. The bees plummeted once more. Tommy was starting to get concerned from the number of falls they were experiencing. The screaming cut off abruptly as Tubbos’ body crumpled into a heap like a rag doll. Tommy hesitatingly drew closer, peering at them. Their fingers twitched oddly, shoulders rolling, until, as if drawn up by a string attached to their chest, Tubbo pulled into a sitting position, head lulling back until that was straightened out, rolling roughly upright. He’d thought the normal Tubbo was bad enough for occasionally not using joints quite right, or forgetting to use the floor and mimicking walking a few centimeters in the air, but you know what? Tubbo did a fine job being humanoid compared to whatever was piloting the body. They stared at their hand, rolling the fingers, before clasping it over their mouth. Based on the movement, he suspected it was someone who’d never been Tubbo before and didn’t have shared memories to fall back on. It left only one possibility.

“…Rosalind?” he tried. Her head jerked up sharply to him, but overshot and had to be carefully leveled to look at him. She lowered her hands, mouthing words at him, but the only thing that came out was a garbled collection of notes. Frustration lined her borrowed features as she tried to find the ability to speak. 

“Rosalind, if you can understand me, you need to stop fighting. Tubbo says it’s the only way to fix things.” Her response was unintelligible, but her expression was not. Never, features not her own hissed. He could almost pick out the word in the squall. “Please, Ros. I don’t know how much you can see, but it’s tearing them apart.” The agonized scream pulsed at the edge of the swarm but he pushed on. “I barely managed to get them back together, but it’s not gonna get any better unless you stop this. There’ll only be peace if you allow there to be.” 

For a while, the only thing he could make out was a garbled arrangement of pitches, but slowly it pulled itself into speech, hard to make out, barely comprehensible, but speech nonetheless. It was clumsy, but got better as time went on. One thing was for certain, though: Rosalind definitely wasn’t planning to forfeit anytime soon. “—ou zzzee, tchommy? I f-inally zzz got control! I have to zzzzztc keep it. I don’t thi-ink I can do it again, if I zzzzlip up even onccssze they ssszwallow me.” Her voice was trying to be convincing, but was undermined by the foundation of hysteria it was built on. 

“Listen, it’ll all be fixed if you just be Tubbo, alright?” He tried to be soothing and certain despite not knowing if it were true. He liked to think he was beginning to be good at that.

“Szzzure. Wazz that your idea or theirsz?”

“What does it matter? They know more about this than I or you. Don’t you trust Tubbo?”

“I truzted the Found-ation, Tommy. That doesn’t mean anything at all.” 

“But that’s different. You know Tubbo wouldn’t do anything bad.”

“I thought the exzactt same about the Foundation. That’sss the exact thought that helped me deny any misfortune that befell you, since the Foundation waz supposed to be this…this amazing place where real good, virtuous work was done. My trust never meant anything,” she ended quietly. Bitterly. He understood it, familiar with the taste of betrayal, how stupid and awful you felt after. “I don’t see why I should give them it now, after what they’ve done to me.”

“But this has to be better!” Surely survival by its very definition had to be preferable to its anathema. Maybe. “It was either you die or they did, and Tubbo found the third option. You both made it out, and maybe it isn’t great but it’s better than nothing! There wasn’t some magic perfect solution. If this hadn’t happened, you know what would’ve? Tubbo would be dead, because you know they’d never have hurt you. Would that have been better?” She didn’t respond. “Rosalind. Answer that,” he pressed. He didn’t like her silence.

She looked away. Shame colored Tubbos’ features. “I never claimed to be perfect,” she whispered in a shaky voice. “God, I tried so hard to be, but I never was. Is it my fault then that I didn’t want to die? That I was selfish?”

“If it had been my choice…” he began, voice low. He swallowed roughly as she flinched. He knew full well what his answer would’ve been. It was barely a question at all, and he loathed that. It was a self hatred strong enough to color his words. “…you’re just lucky enough that it wasn’t, and that Tubbo is a smarter and kinder person than I’ve ever been, because you would’ve died,” he hissed. 

“I did! I did, Tommy,” she burst out. “You weren’t there, I watched my own body collapse while I was still captive inside it. Most people are lucky enough to be gone by the time their chest stops existing, but not me, Tommy. They ripped me apart. Piece by piece by piece by—” tears were spilling over, tracing over Tubbos’ cheeks in a familiar arc. It was an ugly sort of weeping, the mourning reserved for death. And maybe it was. Not many people got to cry over their own demise, but Rosalind was unfortunately one of them. Tommy suddenly remembered the perishing wail he’d heard at the very start. Of course it had sounded wrong, it was prolonged. A final breath spent in a scream couldn’t ever be fully spent if one didn’t breathe anymore. Death wasn’t supposed to be one's state of existence. “And you know what? They didn’t stop there. They ran out of body to tear asunder, and now they’re trying to shatter my mind. I can’t let them steal that too, it’s all I have left. The moment I relent it’ll happen all over again. You want to help so much? Then help me. I can’t sacrifice any more.”

“Look at your hands. You can’t say Tubbo never gave anything up for you.”

Her stare slowly turned down from him to the limb she was using. She stared at their hands, gaze shifting from full hand to half. She curled what fingers she had, attention caught and head bowed. “I’ve nothing except for my mind. You can’t ask me to sacrifice that too. Not for Tubbo.” 

“I’m not asking you to,” Tommy finally managed to murmur after a time. Rosalind looked up.

“Yes you are. You want me to stop resisting, and the moment I do my soul will be chiseled away until there’s nothing left. I’ll be split across them all. I have to constantly…scorch the assaults or I’ll be overrun. It’s agony, but it’s the only way to live.”

“What do you win? So you hold them at bay, what now? Are you really going to keep fighting for the rest of your life?” It sounded exhausting.

“Yes. I can’t stop being an individual. I’m a person, I have a life, friends, family. I can’t have that all taken from me.” Oh. Tommy knew that one, didn’t he? Stripped of humanity and name and control. Ṃ̶̔u̴̡̨̥̰̞̍̈́͐̚͜f̸̲̲̬̹̳̔͐͋̉̐f̵̡͎̝̊͊ḭ̶̪̲̗̳̿̒͝n̷̦͒̍͛, why did he have to understand every one of Tubbos’ destroyers? His brain was in knots, tangling more the further he got.

But it didn’t matter. He had one goal and could ignore everything else. “I’m not asking you to choose between yourself and Tubbo. That’s not an option anymore. You can’t ever be separate again.” He didn’t think so at least, else wouldn’t Tubbo have done it already? She didn’t have a body anymore. Where else could she even go? There was no place for a displaced soul. “What you’re doing isn’t helping you, either. It’ll only hurt the both of you, because that’s what you are now. You aren’t ever going to be an individual, and I’m sorry Ros, but you need to understand that in order to save yourselves.” 

“But I want to be me. I want to…I want to do good.”

“And Tubbo can’t do that?”

“It won’t be me,” she said bitterly. 

“Yes, it would.” The idea was almost absurd. “I’ve met the other Hive members, they’re not gone. They’re not destroyed by Tubbo, they become them. Every call for justice, every ounce of terror, every adage from a person wiser than their years, or passion from one too young for their body, or lesson about plants or chirp about dinosaurs…that’s all Tubbo, but it’s also them. I’ve spoken to these people, Rosalind, and they’re anything but dead. This isn’t how you died because Tubbo refused to let you.”

“I…I…” several expressions crossed their face (her face, for what other one did she possess?). Sentences stopped before they’d even begun. She fell completely still. It was almost terrifying in Tubbo. Motion was such an inherent thing to them. 

“Hey. Deep breaths, remember?”

A sort of strangled laugh scattered across the room. “I don’t have lungs Tommy.” But she was moving again, if slightly.

“Not even gonna follow your own advice? Hypocrite.” 

“I…yes. I…Tommy, I’ve no idea what I’m doing.” He’d never related to something so much in his entire lifespan. “This is so far outside of any plans I ever had for how things would turn out. You’re right, I won’t ever be only me ever again, and that means every…goal, ambition, I don’t know. Everything I ever thought to do is just. Impossible.”

“Sounds like a midlife crisis.”

“I’m not that old.”

“Sounds like a crisis, then. But that was kinda a given.”

“Hmm,” she agreed. “It certainly is. It’s just I don’t…what am I supposed to do with myself?”

“Well, that’s the wrong question, innit? It’s actually ‘what are we supposed to do with ourselves’. Or that’s what it could be. This very much isn’t a thing you have to do by yourself. In fact, I don’t think you should.”

“Oh.” She blinked. 

“The way I see it, you can spend the rest of your life fighting off Tubbo. Probably constantly. You’d be stuck in stasis forever, locked in combat. Or you can not. Work together, make new plans, do good. You don’t have to be frozen like this.”

“I don’t want to be. But… m̷͕̘̹̠̍̇̅̓ǘ̸̧̩̭̰̍f̴͎̈̚f̷̭̙̣̍̽͠͠ĭ̸͕̱̔̌̈́n̷̙͙̍͋̓͝, Tommy. I’m too young to die.”

“You’re not dying,” he reminded her.

“This version of me is. Or I think it already has, and I’m just clinging onto my last moments. My heart has already stopped, I’ve taken my last breath…I’m still not ready.”

“You don’t have to be.” Jasmine had taught him that. “It’s…I can’t promise it’ll be great because I don't know that. Becoming someone else…I got no clue what that’s like. You can take your time.”

“Oh, I was always going to become a different person, that’s how time works. I just didn’t think it would be so fast and literal. Resisting won’t help me, not really. There’s no reason to wait now, that would only prolong this pain I’m causing to us. I suppose I should say farewell, then.”

“No point in lying to me.”

A soft smile gradually grew on her. “I suppose there isn’t.” Her chest rose as if taking in a breath before slowly and hesitantly releasing it. At the same time, Rosalind allowed herself to be truly vulnerable. The agonizing burning in her chest faded to pleasant warmth as the insects’ song swelled in the room. Alien thoughts slipped into her head, her own leaking out to the Hive. The information almost overwhelmed her, but now there were hundreds of thousands right there, processing it. The world clicked into place. It made sense, somehow, the omniscience. It was hellish by herself, but together…together it was beautiful. Slowly the warmth faded to nothing. She didn’t mourn it. Their chest wasn’t hollow, had never been anything of the sort. Thousands buzzed beneath it, creating a comforting, vibrating warmth. 

He’d met Rhodes, met Tubbos’ sense of justice, a roaring fire pledged to rules and bent to kindness. He’d met Jasmine, met Tubbos’ sense of fear, a quivering child governed by terror and raised by gentleness. He’d known Rosalind, knew Tubbos’…yes. Yes, she was Tubbo now. There was no going back from that. And now she had joined, what was there left to find but Tubbo, all together and all at once? 

Tubbo blinked their eyes open, latching onto Tommy immediately. Hesitant steps forward, until they slumped, resting their forehead into Tommy’s shoulder. The weight pressed at him like he was the only thing keeping Tubbo standing. Honey bees rose into the air to the places they were supposed to be, swarms lazily driving through the air. The room buzzed peacefully, alive and tranquil once more. “Thanks,” Tubbo hummed. 

“Yeah,” Tommy said, carefully still and acutely aware of his breathing shifting Tubbo. “No problem.”

Tubbo offered a weak laugh, pouring weight into Tommy’s shoulder like a half hearted head butt. “Liar.” Tubbos’ weary joke accusation was far more accurate than they knew. Tommy hummed, unable to respond. Something vile twisted in his stomach. He ignored it, focusing instead on the warm pressure against him, the subtle vibrations of the Hive that caused his skin to buzz, the brush of antennae as they twitched against his back. 

“You’re gonna be alright, yeah?” Tommy murmured. “It’s only a matter of time.”

——

Tommy sat at the edge of the vent, feet dangling in the dark. It was a little uncomfortable since there wasn’t space to sit upright, leading to his elbows digging into his thighs as he rested his chin in his hands and thought. Tommy wasn’t one for introspection, but figured it was long overdue. 

His conversation with Tubbo had left him feeling odd. He had a jumble of emotions, the primary being what he thought was relief, but there was a large lump of guilt in there because there always was. He’d lied a lot to Tubbo, from blatant falsehoods to half truths to technicalities. And that felt pretty terrible, but it had worked, and that couldn’t be bad at all. Next time he wanted to have no conflict at all, wanted to solve things with the truth. Tommy really needed to stop saying things he didn’t believe. 

Well, sure. But what do I believe?  It was a much harder question than he ever suspected it would be. No answer was immediately apparent, a jumble of partial ideas and wisps of tenants. For the first time, Tommy looked at the tangled knot of his own conflicting morals and hypocrisy. Huh. Well m̷̢̼̹͘u̸̥̭͈̬̽́f̷̹̂́f̴̲̈͋i̴̛̦͑̓͑n̸̲͊̆͒̕. When had that happened? 

He wasn’t sure how it had gotten to be that way. He balked at the idea of trying to sort it all out. But hadn’t he always done that? Taken truths in and pretended they were all cohesive inside his skull? Never stopping to consider the contention? Ignoring the glaring problems? He blamed the Foundation. He blamed himself. He wanted to be free. He’d refused to escape. It was only a matter of time, except how is that true if time isn’t real? On and on, ideal and antithesis each matched up and equal. It made his head pound. He could already imagine the sort of work it would take to get it all sorted out, and trying to imagine it all was terrifying. Tommy wanted to go back to ignoring it all. 

So where do I start? The answer came to him after a pause. Take one end of the string and examine it. He didn’t necessarily have to unravel the whole thing, not now, not immediately. But maybe he could start trying to understand it. A phrase supplied itself. 

They deserve to die.

He…wasn’t sure if he believed it. Sure, he said it often enough, when he was panicked and terrified, curled up and trying to drown out his guilt and the sound of people dying. But did he believe it? Tommy wasn’t entirely sure. Rosalind didn’t, but she didn’t die. Everyone else…could he really say every single one deserved it? That seemed too final a statement. He just didn’t know whether or not he could believe it. Tommy grew frustrated, since it seemed nothing had been solved. This was pointless. What am I supposed to do now? You do it again. The voice was almost familiar.

You didn’t choose this.

Did he believe that? No. He was surprised how certain the answer was. No, he had been given a choice. The Foundation made him pick between his survival and others, and he’d chosen himself every time. It was his nature. A soon as death loomed over him, he’d rip the very fabric of space just to ensure his own protection. He refused to die, and the universe obliged. Should he have chosen differently, then? Save even one person’s life at the cost of his own? What about two people? Ten? A hundred? He’d chosen himself every time, but what if he hadn’t? It would certainly hurt less. Thoughts from the Redless period resurfaced, but he pushed them down. They couldn’t even do it right. That they’d failed to summon The Blade…hadn’t been why he had been angry.

No, he definitely wanted to live. Genuinely and truly he did. He’d been given the choice to save himself and took it. To give up was to undermine every time he chose not to. If he was going to choose death, he should’ve done it the first time. It was unfair to those he’d slaughtered if they’d died for nothing. To die was to lose. To live was…not victory, certainly. Defiance. Maybe that’s what it was. 

So deeply and completely did he want to live. But not like this. This is the life we got, he’d said. His only life. It wasn’t how he wanted to spend it. Tommy wasn’t entirely sure how to change that, only knew that he wanted to. Determination lit a fire in his heart. It felt like progress. What next, then? Again. It sounded like Rosalind.

It’s not your fault. 

No. 

No, I don’t believe that at all. He smiled bitterly into the dark. It was as simple as that. Tommy did not for one second think the blame fell anywhere but onto himself.

Three convictions. Woven so deeply into him that they were the first thing to think of. The mantra he chanted to calm his panic during tests and punishments, the tenets he preached to Tubbo, and he believed not a single word. He could see the thick roots that composed each one, threading into the whole of him. Rotten wood, but deeply ingrained. What then? Could he untangle them, or would that just unravel him completely? Should he try to revive them? He felt like trying to just purge himself of the false beliefs was betraying something. He wanted to believe them even if he now knew he didn’t. Tommy didn’t know how he’d gotten the phrases, but he wanted to keep them. They were lies, but reassuring ones to tell himself. 

Or be told to him. 

Oh. He blinked with the realization. They weren’t his at all, not really, just a gift of sorts. A bandage that only allowed the wound to fester beneath, unnoticed. The assurances belonged to Philza. He wasn’t sure what to do with the realization. Did that mean it was bad he didn’t believe them, because it was Philza, or good, by the very same metric? They were old phrases, from the very beginning of his capture. Philza had loved him then, right…? The first use of the words had been soft, pressed to the top of his head. Warm ashy breath shifted his hair. His tears had been shed into the man’s hospital gown. Taloned hands gently rubbing circles on his back as they tried to sooth his ugly sobs. He didn’t think they’d been lies to Philza. Maybe they were now. Maybe nobody believed it at all, and it was just the vestiges that had yet to wither. 

But it was a different Philza who’d said it. Tommy wanted to believe them for that fact alone. Rosalind has talked about becoming new people, said it was natural given time. But no, it wasn’t a different Philza at all. A slightly younger one, but the same man regardless. She’d been wrong there, though he supposed he couldn’t blame her for that. She’d been dealing with a very physical rebirth, after all, but that didn’t mean it applied to normal situations. Tommy couldn’t pick and choose which parts were the real Philza, because each action was to be laid at his feet equally. Weigh the entirety of his soul if you’re going to, or don’t do it at all.

It didn’t really matter if they were Philza’s lies, really. Tommy had fixed Tubbo with lies. It didn’t matter if anyone else believed them, only if Tommy did. He wanted to. He didn’t, and wasn’t sure how to change that.

"They’re very, very, very true,” he announced to the darkness. For some reason it didn’t work. Whatever. He twisted out of the vent, slipping his toes into the grooves. After loosely refastening the cover to its spot, he climbed down. Once his feet were on the ground he began to slowly sweep them across the floor, reluctantly trying to find the gloves in the pitch. The cool plastic brushed against his toes and he curled them reflexively before picking them up. He didn’t put them on. He wasn’t ready for his punishment for seeing the stars. But of course he deserved it. Containment breaches led to punishment, that was just common sense. It only leads to something worse. His brain caught on the idea. Finally, a mantra all his own. One he’d taught himself. 

Escape is impossible and only leads to worse things.

Tommy frowned. It wasn’t impossible at all. He’d gotten out, gotten close. Implausible, certainly, and it would be harder the next time, but it wasn’t hopeless. 

It had made things worse though. Philza hadn’t done anything, but that didn’t mean the Foundation wouldn’t. The gloves gripped tightly in his dripping hands were proof of that. But the Foundation could’ve done it at any time. Nothing ever prevented them from getting what they desired, Rosalind was proof of that. It was punishment, sure, but…but they were already trying to get Tubbo to kill someone. The Foundation had complete control the whole time. If they wanted they never had to feed Tubbo again, never turn on Tommy’s lights. They didn’t have to use gloves, they could use restraint mitts. Cut off his hands if they really wanted to, just like with Tubbo. Sure it was his fault it got worse, but not always. Failure would always mean consequences, but if he managed just once to really and truly escape, to have the stars forever…they’d never be able to touch him again. Freedom, whatever it entailed, had to better just for the simple fact there’d be no power over him.

He wanted to never again taste fear.

He wanted out of his bland white room.

Unfortunately, it was at that moment somebody else wanted into his bland white room. The door swung open and bright light flooded the room. It burned his eyes, so he cast his vision down, squinting to the barest sliver he could manage. It was still too much, so he threw his hands up to block out the light. A second too late, he realized his gloves were still clutched in his grasp instead of being worn. 

“Ṃ̶̔-Ṃ̶̔u̴̡̨̥̰̞̍̈́͐̚͜f̸̲̲̬̹̳̔͐͋̉̐f̵̡͎̝̊͊ḭ̶̪̲̗̳̿̒͝n̷̦͒̍͛, sorry. I was just taking a break, I wasn’t…I swear, it was only a few minutes,” he shakily defended, scrambling to don them on. Carmine pigments slithered up his arms, curling on his ribs. He was struck with a vision of what might’ve happened if they’d caught him not in the room at all. He’d never thought himself a lucky man, till that moment. Still, he was utterly doomed. It was just a survivable sort. “See? All better. It’s the first time I’ve done it, I swear. And I’ll never ever do it again. Please don’t hurt me.”

He backed away, hitting the wall far sooner than he’d have liked. The light was excruciating, like some divine retribution for his mistake searing into his mind. “Hey, hey,” the voice soothed. The torch lowered, and he squinted through the darkness and the blobs of fire smeared across his retinas. “Chill, dude. You can take them back off.”

Tommy blinked the impossible colors from his eyes. “You’re not going to report this…?” It was an inquiry half way between begging and suspicion. 

“Nah.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not supposed to be here. Technically, I was sneaking in to tell you to get them off, but I guess you beat me to it. No one will know, between the dark and the fact they only record audio when they think there’s something worth listening to.” Without hesitation, Tommy tore them off, casting them to the floor. He could hear soft footsteps padding towards him, and he stupidly looked up into the beam again. 

“What’s that for?” Besides making Tommy go prematurely blind. 

“Oh. Well, it’s cause they locked you up in the dark, which is pretty m̵̫̣̫̈́͌̅̊ṵ̸̧̩͑͐͊̾f̴̞̲̲̾̇ḟ̶̣̯̳̰̱͌̑̕̕ͅȉ̵͎̻̭́̈́̕n̶̳̂̆̂ͅed up. I figure if it were me I’d want something so I could see.” He’d have given his left kidney for a light once. Now…maybe he still would, but he’d complain about it. He wasn’t eternally trapped in the dark since he could visit Tubbo, but it still was terrifying. Gratitude bubbled up inside him.

“Thanks…” he squinted through the shifting light at the freckled mug of the human. “Milo.”

“No problem. I don’t…I didn’t really think of a plan after I got here. But I had to do something, right? So I guess I can just…stay here, make sure you got some light. If you want.”

Tommy offered him a slight smile. “That would be great.” Isolation had never been good. Even a stranger was better than nothing. After a spot of hesitation, he sat on the ground. The worker copied him. The dark pressed around them, held at bay by a radiant sphere. It crept at the edges, sneaking up behind him, nothingness crawling on his back. But light danced along his skin, too. There couldn’t be true void. Cross hatching created troughs of shadows along the seams of the padded floor. Splatters of ruby gleamed along the floor, across his forearms, sinking down. It seeped away, his pale flesh emerging from beneath. Before him a man, freckles like the stars he yearned for. He wasn’t alone, and that was all he needed. 

“So is this just what you do all day? Sit in silence and look at the walls?”

Tommy shrugged. “Mostly.” When the lights were on at least. 

“Huh. Sounds boring.” Tommy agreed, resting his chin on a knee. The shadows shifted from where they streamed out behind him, rays reaching further. “What have you been doing? To pass the time?”

“I’ve been…working things out. In my head.”

Milo’s eyes sharpened as his interest was drawn. “Like what?”

“Just. Stuff. It isn’t interesting.” 

“Come on. Not like you got anyone else to talk to.”

“Well…Rosalind.” Sort of. Not like he was supposed to be talking to Tubbo at all in the first place. “Though probably not anymore since she helped us escape. They wouldn’t let her,” he added as an afterthought. Yep, Tommy was a good little prisoner who didn’t know anything he wasn’t supposed to.

Milo blinked before a slightly horrified look arranged itself on his speckled face. “I…didn’t you know?”

Tommy frowned, worry worming itself in his guts. He wasn’t sure what more he could handle being piled in his lap. “Know what?” 

Milo ran a hand through his spiky blond hair, collecting his thoughts. A sort of awkward pity developed slowly. “She’s…oh. Don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I guess there isn’t anyone else to tell you. She’s never going to visit you again, even if she was allowed to. It’s impossible, now that she’s…dead.” A deeply grave weight pressed his words into something just shy of a whisper. Typically such news was received with grief, but Tommy honestly just felt a lot of relief. Nothing new for him to deal with, at least. Milo took in his blank expression, and continued on as if trying to impress upon him the reality of the situation, albeit one he didn’t actually understand. “That other inmate you escaped with attacked her. I heard it from Oakley, a…guard friend of mine. She got torn to pieces, some pretty brutal stuff.”

“…oh.” The silence grew uncomfortable. The light seemed to grow dim, a meager battle against the void creeping at the edges of the room. Almost monochrome, save for the forms of the two and, of course, the Red. The shadows danced strangely over Milo’s shifting expression. Tommy found he couldn’t quite decipher it, and also that he didn’t quite care to. If Milo expected a larger display, Tommy couldn’t offer one. Maybe that made him look callous, and maybe he was, but he just didn’t have the emotional energy left to grieve a person who wasn’t dead. She possibly was not exactly alive, and he figured there was still turmoil lingering, but it had been dealt with. Tommy was so, so tired. 

“You can talk about it, you know, I’m pretty sure it’s an intrinsic need, to help process things or whatever. To have someone to lean on.”

Of course he knew that. Tommy thought he might laugh, since it was better than crying. He did neither, feeling frayed. “What have you been doing?” he asked, parroting the human. 

Milo’s expression caught. “Huh?”

“Why are you doing this,” Tommy rephrased. “Letting me not wear the gloves, giving me light. Wanting to talk.”

“I thought we could be friends,” he said, relaxing. “You seem chill. And friends are supposed to be there for each other, yeah? They don’t let each other hurt.” Tommy elected to not think about the last sentence. It didn’t quite work in his brain at the moment. 

“What are you going to do?” he said instead. 

“Come back tomorrow. Y’know. If you want.”

“Yeah. I do.” Obviously. 

“What are you going to do?” Milo asked, flipping the question on him. 

“…Escape,” he said after a time. Who cared if it was an employee, Rosalind had been one too. Besides, he’d just tried hadn’t he? That shouldn’t be surprising. “Not like I have any other option.” 

“I dunno man, seems kinda dangerous. It wouldn’t work, and things would just go downhill.” Things could always be worse, but if there was even the slimmest chance it could get better he needed to grasp on to the opportunity and never let go. It might be worse to do nothing. All that time, that was what he’d been trying and it hadn’t ever worked. Hurt didn’t go away on its own, the Foundation was never going to stop. He had to end the pain himself.  

“I…I can’t do this anymore.” He’d known that for awhile, ever since his Grey Period had started. Then, it had only inspired inaction. But Tommy found, having gluttoned himself on despair, that he didn’t like the taste. Now, it spawned determination. 

“You managed before. What changed?”

“…no. No, I really didn’t. I didn’t handle it at all, and it just made everything worse. I can’t do nothing anymore, not if I want it to get better. Sure it might make everything worse, but if there’s even a chance otherwise I gotta take it.” His heart twinged as he finally looked the truth dead in the eyes. He’d been trying so hard to ignore it, but….

It only hurts if I love him. He’d said that to Tubbo, or something along the lines. He tested its weight, and found it held true. Another thing he believed, then. He hated that he did so much his chest ached, but the fact remained that he was doing this to himself. 

I think…no. I don’t think I can love Philza. It’s only making things worse for me. I kept waiting for it to stop, and it’s gotten less painful, but it hasn’t gone away, and if I don’t do something it always will. Love doesn’t look like abandonment. He clearly doesn’t care, so this can’t be hurting him. I have to do that too. He proved it works, so I have a chance.

Will it hurt, he wondered, when I tear out my own heart?

Tommy suspected the answer was yes, terribly so, and the thought frightened him. 

But so what? I wouldn’t ever have to feel it again, after that. 

Chapter Text

Tommy startled awake to the familiar sound of the mechanisms in the door whirring. He blinked rapidly to clear the sleep from his eyes, blurrily and panickedly searching for the gloves. He’d fallen asleep with the light of Milo’s torch to keep him safe, and as such had forgotten to redon them. Crimson raced up his limbs as he managed to shove his fingers through the right holes on the second try, and his chest felt tight, but that was ok. He glanced at the door. He’d done it in time. That’s all that mattered. He bit down a yawn as it swung open. Upon seeing his visitor, his shoulders slumped in relief. It was just Milo. He tugged at the fingers, started to pull them back off.

“Don’t,” Milo called out. He crossed over to the observation window, leaning his back against it. Pausing, Tommy slowed in his escape, hope suddenly smashed into ugly blobs. “I think Lawrence will be here soon. There’s a test today, I just snuck over here sooner to check up on you.” Reluctantly, Tommy kept them on. At least there was still light. He could see, he could hear. It’d be ok. Tommy rose, walking over to Milo, hoping the conversation would keep his fear at bay. If Tubbo had managed the same with hunger, he could do it. Besides, his punishment wasn’t anything at all as bad as what Tubbo went through. Even if he felt all fragile. Even if sanguine curled along his arms, twitching at the edges like a snake ready to strike upwards at any provocation. Even if- no. Conversation was the solution. Pay attention. You’re fine, idiot. “Need anything?” Milo asked. A simple question, accompanied by a quirked smile and brow.

“Out.”

Milo offered an apologetic grin. “Don’t—ah, don’t think that one’s in my capability, buddy. I can probably only bring objects I can justify getting in the building, like things for work.”

“Yeah, figured. Is more paper an option? It’d be nice to have.” He was starting to run out. Carmine finger pads drummed a tattoo into his thighs. He raced them over and over, focusing on the soft rustle of fabric, the pressure of the rippling motion. 

“Writing a diary are you?”

Tommy crinkled his nose. “No? Sounds stupid.”

“Hey, it’s a valid tactic. Loads of people find journaling therapeutic.”

“Suuuure. What, am I just going to write down: ‘dear diary, I saw a cute girl at school today and she spat at me and called me ugly and I just cried and cried.’ Like. I’m in a tiny little cell, sitting and staring at the walls like a good little prison boy, there isn’t anything happening in my life.”

“Aside from the escape attempt.”

“Yeah. Well. It failed.” The sentence was clipped by the uncomfortable edge in his voice.

“And you don’t have any thoughts about it?”

Tommy shifted uncomfortably, the pattern disrupted, becoming twitcher. He needed to divert the conversation quickly. “Nope. None at all. No thoughts, head empty. Anyway, I was thinking maybe I could use the pile of sheets to hide the torch, that way I could keep it with me. Oh, maybe get me like a pack of batteries? For when it runs out. I could probably tuck those in between the floor pads.”

“You get contraband often?”

“Nah. Just the paper, crayons, and clipboard.”

“You count the clipboard?”

“You clearly have never been trapped in a room without a firm flat surface.” Or a room where the only escape was to use said clipboard against the vent screws, but that wasn’t something he felt like sharing. That clipboard had saved his life in a way that was a lot more literal than he wanted to admit to himself. “Of course I count the clipboard. Also counted the sheets. There’s seventy one and a half of them, in case you were wondering. Started as a pack of a hundred, but….well. Cleaning crew got rude. There’s also twenty three crayons, but that’s really only ‘cause I snapped all of them in half except for the white one. One tooth bush, one razor, one little blue cup.”

“Why are you keeping track?”

Tommy flashed a strained smile. “All I got, innit? I only used to have the last three till recently. I’m practically rich now. The one percent, that’s me.”

“Right, so papers, flashlight, batteries. Quite the shopping list. I’ll throw in a pencil. Anything else?” Tommy wracked his brains for his heart’s desire. That was an object, he corrected himself. That he could have, he thought crossly. He couldn’t think of anything really useful for escape. Tommy was actually at a loss completely for how they were supposed to get out with Rosalind not able to be human for them anymore. Ah. Well. They’d figure it out eventually. Tubbo was bound to have some ideas, and Tommy could always ask later. 

“Candy?” He could share it with Tubbo. It wouldn’t do anything, but it’d be nice. 

“Huh? Why that?”

“Why not?” Tommy asked a little defensively. “I haven’t had anything good to eat in ages. Well…well there was that juice box awhile back. It was awful. The honey was good though.”

“Honey? When’d you get that?”

“From Tubbo. The. Er, the inmate I breached containment with.” 

An intrigued expression grew on Milo’s face. “The one who off’d Rosalind? How did you even meet?” A frown twitched in Tommy’s creased mouth, not liking the casual tone to regard Rosalind. His toes were tapping as well, a subtle reminder of how badly he needed the conversation. Whatever. It didn’t matter, not really. Besides, it was a lie, and Tommy needed to maintain it. Cultivate it like all the others, then.

“Met while escaping. The door swung open, there was Rosalind and this real weird looking pile of bugs. I tried to bite them. It was a thing.” The employee looked fairly taken aback, face dropping to bafflement. “Don’t look at me like that, it was a reasonable response. Besides, they tasted good.”

“…sure. Ok. Alright. Anything else for me to get?”

“Is…” he hesitated. The employees were strict about keeping outside information banned. But they were even more controlling of items, so Milo clearly didn’t count. “Can I get information, too?”

Milo’s expression was still unreadable, still lacking his typical chill air. Probably still caught up on the sorta cannibalism. How small minded of him. “Like…?”

“Is…is the Queen still alive?” Whatever Milo had expected, it certainly wasn’t that. “It’s just, they don’t like us knowing about what’s happening and. Well. I mean…I dunno. Just something I’ve wondered. Plus it’s not like you’d know anything about my personal life, my parents or mates. Figured I’d ask something you’d know the answer to, even if you are American.”

“I could look them up. On social media or something.”

“Wait. Really? You’d do that?” A soft smile grew on his face. 

“I can’t say I’d find them, but I could try. Just need their names. Maybe a few details, so I can make sure they’re the right guys.” Tommy burst into a bright grin that almost glowed. Across the heading of a blank sheet, ‘Freinds’ got scrawled. He smirked a bit at the inside joke. He started with his parents, then his best friends, and then anyone at all he could think of, babbling off names and any scrap of information he thought would help. Milo had to slow him down, until they decided it would be better to have him write it all down in a grey crayon (as the black was barely a fingernail long). Both sides were filled with every person Tommy could remember. He wanted to know everything he could. Did his parents miss him? Were they doing ok? Were his dogs alive? How were his friends? What colleges had they gone to? 

The Foundation offered plenty of reasons to run; Tommy wanted to know what he’d be running to. He’d take Tubbo and flee. They’d make it back to his home, they’d make it to safety and everything would be ok again. The Foundation would be nothing at all to him, fading like a nightmare. They’d never look back, not even once. “That everyone?” Tommy nodded enthusiastically. “You sure? This is all your friends?”

“Yep. Every one of them.”

“I just wanna be certain you didn’t forget anyone.” It was too late for that. Tommy knew dead certain people had slipped through the gaps of his mind. His recollections were far too faulty. But hopefully it’d be enough. He offered Milo a sharp nod. “So this here is it? Everyone you care about?” Tommy wasn’t going to mention Tubbo or Ros— he wasn’t going to mention Tubbo. 

“…Wilbur? I didn’t write him down, but he isn’t outside. It wouldn’t do any good.” Wilbur. It had been so, so long since he’d last seen the man. He felt a sudden stab of guilt for his previous escapist fantasy. Tommy had no idea where Wilbur was, had no ability to help him out even if Tommy managed it for himself and Tubbo. It didn’t feel fair to him. Not to any of his old inhuman friends, since Tommy was pretty much the reason they’d been caught, but particularly Wilbur. He’d never done anything. 

“Might as well jot that down. I could try to find its handlers. Get at least an update.”

Tommy frowned at the page. “I think he’s called Soot? I dunno his number. He’s the half face bloke who’s tall.”

“That’ll probably be enough. Anyone else?”

“…no.” The word felt heavy. It felt like a lie. But no, he’d decided it wasn’t. He had to commit to that if he ever wanted to feel better.

“No?” There was an expectant look on Milo’s face Tommy didn’t understand. Why would he care so much unless…?

“Oh! M̴̲̭͙̹̀̀̕͝u̵̧̻͖̭̔͛f̷̙̋́f̴̜͕͔̟̂̈̑͌ì̴̛͈̓n̴̨͖̦̿͌́ I forgot about you.”

“I’m literally talking to you right now!” Milo’s head threw back, slamming into the observation window. It rebounded forcefully with a pound ‘bonk’ sound. “Oof, that hurt more than I thought it would.” He rubbed at the back of his skull, roughing up his blond hair. A mild glower met Tommy’s snickers, but it lacked any true heat. It was a laugh cut short, as Tommy’s head whipped around to the door, completely alert. His chest tightened a bit at the sound of it moving once more. Swinging open, it revealed a scowling Lawrence. Mild confusion furrowed his brow as he took in the pair. At a pace a tad too sudden to be casual, Milo removed himself from Tommy’s side, meeting his coworker at the door. 

“What are you doing here early…?” Lawrence asked. Blatant suspicion laced his words, the same as he’d regarded Rosalind with right before he’d realized the truth. Of course he’d be perceptive to the slightest hint of betrayal. Hmm. M̸̻̒͋̔̋̕ù̷͜f̵̗̉f̴͈̮̈́̀i̶͙̹̽̅̃̅͝ń̶̰͎̘̌̓͂͠. That would make things harder.

“Just explaining the experiment,” Milo fibbed blandly. Tommy was actually fairly impressed with him. It was sorta like a switch had been flipped, his casual aura shut down completely for clinical disinterest. His posture straightened, face completely erased of the once easy grin plastered on it. Maybe he didn’t have anything to worry about; it seemed Milo wouldn’t be one to be quickly sussed out. Good. The longer the game lasted, the better for him and Tubbo. He didn’t think it’d last forever, but maybe they’d get a few months if they were extremely lucky. 

“I thought it was a standard Red test, or at least that’s what they told me. Why bother? Sounded routine.”

“Usually…” Milo glanced back at him, hiding a wink where Lawrence couldn’t see. Tommy didn’t let himself react, since his position had no such protection from the ginger’s bespectacled gaze. “…but after the Redless state, they need to check that it still functions.” Tommy frowned. Milo hadn’t mentioned anything of the sort. Then again, it was a cover story, and had enough exposition that Tommy could pretend that’s really what had happened. Nice of Milo to make it easier for him. The frown deepened as he thought through the meat of the sentence. Checking the functionality? That wasn’t…

M̶̳̹͒̽͊̾̈́ͅù̸̀̊ͅf̴̻̄͆̃͒́f̷͍͊̒͛̒i̷̳̠̹̱̠͌͑͛̇̀͜n̸̢̬͉̪͒͌̏͛.

Ohhhhhh he was absolutely m̷̲̤̫͇̮͐̂͘͜u̴̪̼̹̗̣̞͑̓̽͗̓̽f̷̼̥͉̣͖̤̔̓̄͐͠f̷͚̲͙́̈̈́̎̑̆̌i̴̩̦͈͂͗̏̄͑͝ͅn̸͍̩̠̼̭̮̂ͅed. 

Red jumped up his arms. M̶̛̹͈̮͝ǔ̸̪̰͜f̵̜̦́͊͘f̵̨̢̛͓̬͉̍̑̍̇̕͜i̵̛̬͓̮͗̈̆̀͆̍ǹ̶̪̩̟͙͖̥͗ ̴͚̠͔̫͚̕m̴̼̬͎̤̖͋̈͘͝ͅų̷͚͓͔́̚f̸̭̦̯̊̔͛͠f̵̛̹̜̫̈͐́̆͘į̸̨͍̩͓̻̓̐͝n̶͚̳̲̋̂̋͘͠ ̶̤̈̾̈́m̵̭̣̹̝̝͛̋ͅu̸̳̜̼̙͕̞͊͋̚f̴̯͈̲̒̚f̸̥͛ỉ̴͉̺͈̀̓̉̚͜͝͝ñ̶͓̠͚̄̍̋̈́̏͝. Of course they needed to check it after the Grey Period. And it lined up just in time to be used for punishment for escaping. How wonderfully convenient that must be for the Foundation, to kill two birds with one stone. Slaughter was a more apt verb. 

“I’m going to check with the higher ups,” Lawrence said, voice too sharp with distrust to be considered cordial. 

“Be my guest,” Milo replied blandly. “I’m doing my duty.”

“Just make sure that commitment is to us. They’re not humans,” Lawrence pressed. “They’re not. They can’t be.”

“I know.” With one more squint, Lawrence tucked through the door. Milo stared after him, nonplused, before turning to Tommy. A blink, and he dropped the façade, life twitching back into him. The tension in his shoulders released, the coldness of his features defrosting. “That’s not great, but I don’t think he’ll really get anyone to follow his suspicions,” he assured Tommy. “No one important, anyway. Ready?” 

Tommy nodded mutely, and Milo turned to the door. An unwanted and useless guard buzzed down to him, landing sloppily on the back of his head and crawling to the line of his jaw. Tommy scooped the honey bee away, carefully separating Tubbo from him in what he hoped resembled attending to an itch. Tubbo doggedly returned, fumbling over his gloved fingers and buzzing slight annoyance. Right, Tommy had never gotten around to telling them to stop attending visits, a fact that was going to blow up in his face. The fuse was incredibly short in a way that was utterly terrifying. With more urgency, Tommy swatted at the insect. “Leave,” he hissed. If Tubbo didn’t…

Well. Tommy didn’t exactly want to explore a worst case scenario. It wasn’t an option, Tubbo could not be allowed to see what would transpire. Crimson was slipping even higher, and yet the bee dodged out of the way, landing back on his cheek. 

“What did you say? I couldn’t make it out,” Milo called from the entrance, door held open. 

“Do I really have to leave?” God, he sounded so whiny, even to his own ears. A sympathetic expression crossed Milo’s visage as he shook his head. Tommy dragged his feet, mind racing for anyway to stop it. Nothing productive came to him, just useless fear. Before he knew it, the threshold had been crossed, Milo ushering him out along with the unwanted passenger. His breathing was getting harsh. He needed to do something, to make sure Tubbo never found out. Lawrence joined them, looking soothed. A guard came, too, bored expression portrayed mostly in her wandering eyes and permanent scowl. After an unnecessary shove, Tommy was walked down a hallway stained with memories and old remnants of people. It was a familiar path to a loathed destination. 

“You alright?” Milo muttered. Tommy glanced involuntarily to the transport officer and bit his tongue. Jerkily, Tommy marginally nodded his head, staring at the floor as aimless desperation overwhelmed him. Tubbo was going to watch, and then they were going to hate him, and then they would leave him too and he’d have no one and it'd just be him alone in the void forever. He was probably the furthest thing from alright, and unfortunately it was a state he found himself occupying frequently. 

But then the idea struck. It was a terrible one, dark and sinister, and he recoiled at first. But something even uglier was growing in his guts and up his arms, writhing and coiling into loops that tightened with his fear of the future. A bad idea, but even some sins were almost salvation in the face of others. Tubbo would hate him, sure, but they would either way, and it would be a survivable kind of fury. The better option. Maybe Tubbo would despise him for a while, even, but at least they’d still be there to hate him. Eventually they’d get over it. Tommy wouldn’t, he’d carry the guilt with him, but he never forgave himself for anything, so why should this be any different? 

A hand chopped off versus a head. Some things were just inherently more survivable. 

Tommy didn’t do it right away, putting it off until the very last minute, the pain in his stomach and heart growing to match each other, wrestling for control of him. But then he turned the corner and caught sight of the testing door and his resistance broke. Slowly, casually, Tommy reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. It was almost the same as all the other nervous tics, but he let it linger, sliding down, fingers caught just on the edge before being released, hand cupped. The gloved fingers formed a tempting cover. Tubbo, foolishly trusting, crawled beneath the cave into the dark. A soft, sweet, reassuring hum rose from it. The misplaced comfort almost shattered his resolve. But the door loomed close, his destruction lying just behind it. Oh, what was he saying, he knew where it really lay, curled around his arms and shoulders, fanning across his back. Tommy had always been the source of his own doom. 

It was easy to hide. His hands were trembling, twitching, spasming. Tubbo really couldn’t have expected for the fingers to suddenly snap close around them, but then there was a snap decision made, and a crushed insect in Tommy’s hand, and it was still writhing, screaming the only way it could. Jittering terrified buzzes spluttered from his palm. Panicked, Tommy tightened the fist, squeezing as tight as he could around his squirming dying friend. His pulse was hammering, willing it to die, why couldn’t it just die, oh god why hadn’t it been quick, he thought it’d be quick, but they were still thrashing, and—

And it was done. The entrance swung open, and on the way through, Tommy smeared a glob of bee guts and limbs from his glove onto the door. There. Now Tubbo had no way of knowing.

It was better this way. 

——

With a click, the door shut behind him and he was alone, though he knew that was temporary. The observation windows were far larger than in his cell, spanning the length of two walls, dark and glittering in the fluorescent light. The floor was firm, cold concrete chilling his bare feet. It soothed some of the sores and wounds from where he’d torn them up running through the forest. In the middle sat a folding table, cheaply made and mundane. Atop it, the light glinted off a simple gun. That was almost a relief. Guns were quick. Hopefully he’d be done soon. With luck, he might not even get any nightmares out of the test. No new ones, anyways. It seemed standard enough, so Tommy thought the chance of it was good. 

With a short burst of static, an intercom flared up, the voice on the other side distorted and monotonous. As instructed, Tommy peeled off the gloves. For a second his eyes caught on the splattered remains of Tubbo on the fabric, but he firmly set them on the table palms down so he couldn’t see it. It’s better this way. Another command, and the Instigator picked up the gun. Instinctively, his fingers curled around the grip, slipping between the ridges. The weapon shook in his grasp. He could shoot the windows. It wouldn’t do anything, they were bullet proof, but he could do something. Anything.  Another instruction called out, and Tommy dutifully put the gun back on the table. It clicked as he set it down, ruby dripping off the grip and pooling around it. 

On his right an entrance opened, and two humans entered, glancing around nervously and looking back as the door closed behind them. As per the orders of the droning intercom observer, they walked to the table across from Tommy. One cheerfully elbowed the other in the ribs, flashing a relieved smirk. “Toldja it was nothing, Acey,” he said. He was a broad shouldered man, with a tattooed mixture of flowers, bones, and words in a language Tommy didn’t recognize running up his neck and down into the collar of his orange jumpsuit. Across the breast, a serial number identified him, with a ‘D’ and a dash as prefix. 

“You were m̷͔͙̱̅̋u̴͎̟̳̗͐f̶̣̀̓̿͊f̷͙̫̪̼͑̽́i̴̖̫̽͒ṋ̵̘͋͊͝ing yourself just as much as I was,” the other man grumbled, dressed similarly. He was shorter, with unkempt hair and the shadow of a beard. To the employees, they were D-classes, but to Tommy they were sacrifices. 

“Nah. I knew everyone else had to be pullin’ our legs. See? It’s just a kid, not some horror movie.”

I’m not a kid. But he was too tired to argue. Instead all he said was “sorry.” It was really just mumbled, but he said it every time just in case it worked for once. An old and useless spell. 

“Eh?” the tattooed man spoke. “Speak up.” Tommy didn’t bother, simply bearing examination. 

“Maybe he’s shy, Brutus, ever think of that?”

“It’s possible. Hey don’t sweat it, we’re just your friendly neighborhood criminals, here. Holy m̴̧̳̈́̓͒͑͝͝u̶̧̦̦̤̐̅f̶̘͖̏͗͊͌̀f̶̗̭̈̊̈́ͅi̴̪̲̽͌͂̑ń̴̨͛̈́̑ you see that? The stuff on his arms moved up, I swear. That’s uh…what is that? That ain’t blood. And uhh. What’s the gun for?” The silence was awkward, the man glancing to his peer, who shrugged.

A blare of fritzing static, and the observer broke the quiet. “The gun is for the test. The instructions are simple: one of you needs to pick it up and use it against the SCP.”

The pair blanched. “Uh, hey man? Not cool. Like, I get it, we’re hardened criminals, but I’ll pass.”

“Yeah, homie looks like my nephew,” Acey piped up. 

“Hey kid, can you drink yet?” Tommy blinked at the sudden address, then hesitated before offering a minute head shake. “See? I always say: if they ain’t old enough for shots, they ain’t old enough for shots! Up top, Acey!” The high-five was not reciprocated, though the tattooed man seemed unfazed by the fact. “‘Sides, I prefer knives,” he continued.

“Yeah you do,” Acey smirked. “Why’d you think we call you Brutus?”

“Cause I don’t look like a Larry? Anyway, if we’re doing requests, can I have a Katana?” He got a friendly shove and a mutter of ‘weeb’. “Hey, it’d be cool to have!”

“You coulda ask’d for a flamethrower!” 

“That can be your request then, you little arsonist.” A short annoyed denial buzzed from the intercom. “That’s no fun,” the tattooed man jokingly whined. “Whatever, I’ll still take the gun.” He reached for it, and Tommy tensed, knowing the outcome. The man frowned. “I’m not gonna shoot you,” Brutus assured him. 

“I know,” Tommy replied truthfully. In fact, he wouldn’t be even physically capable of trying to shoot Tommy, even if he wanted to. 

“Then don’t worry ‘bout it, yeah?” The moment his fingers brushed the grip, the easy demeanor dropped like a stone. Red curled around Tommy’s shoulder blades, lacing together to form a cage over his heart and then cover it completely. It was far too late to try and curb the homicidal results. Swiftly, the D-class seized the weapon, pivoting, raising the shining barrel to his peer. Shock didn’t even have time to filter on their expression before a bullet tore through him. He fell like a sack of bricks, thrown back with the force. There was an ugly gaping hole off center of his torso, dark and pouring blood. There was far too much of the stuff, splattered across the enthralled Brutus, some odd drops stretching across the table and peppering Tommy. It was indistinguishable from the rest of the scarlet covering him. The wound was making a terrible hissing sound, and Tommy had just enough time to think oh god he’s still alive before he was suddenly very wrong. Another loud blast, and a second fountain of blood burst into existence. The body jerked with the force of it, but there was no purpose in the movement, the soul gone. 

The Instigator closed his eyes, sinking down and hiding beneath the table. Another gunshot and he flinched violently, spasming as if the lead had ripped through his own guts, muscles tensed and frozen in the aftermath. Another shot. Again and again, a useless barrage against a man long dead. Tommy’s ears were ringing, but he couldn’t even move, curled tight and afraid if he even dared breath the shooter would know he was there. He jolted with each shot as if bracing would do anything. A stupid irrational fear, but it still gripped him in monstrous jaws, chewing him alive. Tommy didn’t have his mantras to save him (not that they ever had). He had nothing except the back of his eyelids and the sound of bullets and frantic pulses. 

Bang. Tommy’s arms jerked painfully into his rib cage. Red curled around his lungs, but that was far as it would go. He knew he wouldn’t die, even if it didn’t feel like it. For all intents and purposes, Tommy was probably as safe as he’d ever be. He hated the price of his survival. There’d been no danger, it wasn’t even necessary, and yet he doomed another human being. It’s only one person, at least.

Bang.

Just one person, with all their hopes and aspirations and potential turned into a messy pile staining the floor.

Bang.

He probably deserved it, right? The shooter had said they were crimi- you m̶͍̪̟̖̠̫̃͊̄͊̕̚û̴̘̀f̶̢͍͚̰͘f̴͍̣͕̔i̶̗͇̮̬͍̙͋͛ǹ̵̠̲ed up little m̶̖̮̫̅̀ù̵͇̰̚f̵̜͈̱̿̀̀͘f̵̜̀i̷̙̟̊̈́̕n̶͍̙͍͉͂rag you don’t get to justify this.

Bang.

Tommy was so, so tired of it all. 

Click. 

The gun was empty. Finally. There was an odd sound, simultaneously a horrid squelching noise as well as a sharp clink as metal hit bone. Tommy wasn’t entirely sure he believed in God. Oh, he believed in gods in general, knew them, even, but he put no trust in them. They wouldn’t care about him nor even understand the very foundation of his plea. And yet, he found himself praying, or perhaps just casting his hopes into the universe and begging it to listen. Please let that have been enough.

Miraculously, it was. The tattooed killer stopped their assault, instead starting to pace the room, hungry for another victim. It was a relief to hear the circling of frantic bloodthirsty steps. Sometimes, the Red humans would keep tearing into the bodies, ripping out chunks with bare hands and teeth. Using the entire clip of bullets was excessive, but at least Tommy wouldn’t have to hear limbs being torn off, the rip of muscles and ligaments and the snap of bones.

The footsteps slowed, then stopped. The Red was drying. Dread gurgled up in Tommy’s guts. Would he be the kind to cry? To scream? To puke? Or worse, what if he was the kind to laugh? Tommy hated those the most, the way shock would turn to uncontrolled laughter, seeping through with realization until they were choking on it, falling into hysterical weeping. Sometimes the laughter didn’t deteriorate at all, ringing pure with the joy of slaughter, echoes of The Blood God’s mania. “…Acey? Acey get up. Right now.”

Tommy, much to his misfortune, opened his eyes. What was once Acey was now a pile of carnage. His chest was blown open completely, his innards turned to mincemeat. Shards of what once were his rib cage and spine splintered the entire mixture. The murder weapon had been hurled, lodged firmly in what might have been a lung. Sanguine covered all of it now, not that there was any important distinction between Acey’s and Tommy’s. 

“Stop pullin’ my leg, here, it’s not funny,” the killer ordered, kneeling down next to the corpse. God, Tommy hated denial. He turned to the Instigator, fury lining his features. That wasn’t good. If Tommy had to try and stop an attack, the man would just fly into another bloodlust. Sure, he’d be fine for then, but whatever punishment came for doing so would only make his current predicament worse. Maybe take away his sleep privileges? That seemed likely. 

“What did you do!?” he demanded. “What the m̷̖̋́̈́̕ṷ̵̧͖̩̽̀͗f̷̱͓̞̬͈͍̄̑̈́͌͊̒̓f̶̨̹̲͍͒̀͊̏̒̈́͘į̵̡͈̱̜̺̞̩́̋̽̎͐n̸̨͚̭̜̭̊̽͌̆͜ did you do!!?” The voice faltered. “What did— what did I do? Acey? What did I do to you?” Tommy didn’t know which question was the right one. The answer was the same either way. Milo and Lawrence guided him out of the room, Lawrence blanching at the sight. Quietly, the trio left the surplus sacrifice to kneel next to his peer, shock freezing him as he hollowly stared at a mangled corpse.

——

Milo lingered some, promising to get Tommy’s information and items. He found that he cared a bit less than he had earlier, tiredly waving the employee away. The lights stayed on, fortunately. Tommy wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle everything if they hadn’t. Angered buzzes pulled at the corner of the room, grating at the edge of his hearing. Right, he had to deal with that soon. 

The cell had been cleaned again, but it looked like all his things were still there. Small mercies. He thought about repainting the observation window, but found he didn’t have the energy. A mistake, he’d later find. For the Tommy of then, the future confrontation with Tubbo loomed over him, and as much as he wanted to put it off, it needed to be dealt with. Tommy felt wrung out, exhaustion burrowed deep in his bones. His mind kept trying to drag him back to the test room, but that was normal. A deep breath, and he peeled off the gloves and went to Tubbo, hoping they’d eventually find mercy for him. 

“What the m̵̡̲͒̎̒͑̈u̵̹̺͎̠͆͗̀͋͗̚f̴̨̲͈̮̙̰̂f̴̢̢̲̲̰̞̩̼͜͝ȋ̸̳̪̀͘n̷͖̦̄̌̈͆̈́̆̄͝͠ͅ, Tommy!?” Tubbo shouted the moment he got to the floor. “You just killed-”

“You,” he said, cutting off the tirade and hoping his lowered tone would mean Tubbo would stop yelling at him. Tommy wasn’t exactly emotionally prepared for being shouted at in that moment, least of all from Tubbo. “I’m sorry, I know I just…you didn’t need to see that, Tubbo. Trust me, alright? It’s better this way. It really is.” Because if Tubbo knew what had transpired…Tommy would have no one left. He’d accept every burn from Tubbos’ outrage if it meant he still had them by the end of the day. 

“What do you imagine death feels like, Tommy??” He scarcely had to, the memory of it pressed into every pulse he had because every one of his heartbeats was paid tenfold in blood. “Because we’ll tell you right now, it’s never the best option. You could’ve chosen anything better.” 

“You wouldn't leave me alone!” he snapped. “You’re too clingy. You never would’ve left otherwise.”

Tubbo spluttered out staticky buzzes as their argument was diverted. “That’s not— Tommy that isn’t called being clingy that’s called protecting you!”

“How!? How, Tubbo!? You can’t do m̷̥͇̣͙̯͆̐̈́͋̕u̴̩̽̓̓͊̐f̷̹͂f̸̭̫͋́͋͆ȉ̸̞͉̈̐̄̊ṇ̸̓̽̕ing anything. What, you think you could save me? Don’t be stupid,” he scowled. 

“At least you weren’t by yourself. You can’t honestly say you’d rather have been alone.”

“Y-” -es, I would have. But it was too big a lie for even his tongue to spit out. Isolation had always been the greatest torture the Foundation held for him. “-ye—of cour—m̸̛̩͂̊̇̂͛ǘ̶̹̑f̸̢̘̺͓̱̖͌̐̽̅͆͘f̷̝̉͗́͘͠i̶̪͈͐̐̓͆̽ň̸̼̣̇. I…m̵̝̻̝͇̒u̸̡̞̗̺͌f̸̩͔̥̙͐̄͘͜f̵̨͈͇̈͊̿į̸͙̤̬̪̒́̈́n̷̳͕̥̥̎̏̈́̚.” He didn’t look Tubbo in the eyes, mouth twisting sourly at his loss. “But it wasn’t about me,” he finally managed. “It would’ve hurt you more, didn’t matter what happened to me. It’s…it’s like I said. You couldn’t have done anything. Helplessly watching wouldn’t…wouldn’t have been good for you. They were…trying to get The Blade again.” He mumbled the last part softly, pretending he was ashamed to say it, fingers ghosting over the bruises on his neck. Of course he’d have tried to hide it from Tubbo, it involved his once friend. 

Would saying how make it more convincing? He didn’t want to worry Tubbo, but it was already too late. He needed a solid reason to have hurt them. The probed bruises protested a little, but didn’t hurt too much. They likely didn’t look recently agitated. Drowning…? No, his hair was clearly dry. Poison would probably worry them way too much. Deoxygenating the room…probably not enough, since it wasn’t like Tubbo really understood things like lungs. No obvious wounds, either, which was inconvenient, and took most of his excuses. 

Tommy slid a finger across his throat, leaving a sharp bloody line. “Held a knife to me, said they’d…they’d…” he said softly. “Y’know. If I didn’t do what they wanted. He didn’t come, they stopped threatening me. It was just…you didn’t need to see that.” The idea of a threat as simple as that working on him was laughable. Oh, sure, maybe the first few weeks at the Foundation it would’ve, but Tommy wasn’t that weak any more. He wasn’t the same person either, unrecognizable from the kid he’d been. Regardless, Tubbo wouldn’t know, so the lie was serviceable. 

“Bull m̷̢̦̠͉̘̗̟͂̋͐̊̕͝u̶͉̱̠̭̥̪̠͗̾̑̑̒̅̚͠͝f̷̢̬̾͗̃̊̅̍͠f̷̡̜̼̹͓̣͈͊̏̀̽̃͌̽͊̓ì̵̝̪͕̦̤̝̀́̌͒̿̉n̴͉̟͇̘̙̝̗̂.” Tommy blinked, slowly looking up at Tubbo. There was a disgusted look on their face, mouth curled and scorn clear. 

“…what?” 

“We said you’re full of m̴͉̺̰͎̻̄̾ͅu̴̺̍̔̂̚f̵̛͍̼̲͍̙̽͜f̷̡̹̝͉̗͔͕͍̘̲͆͑̐į̷̨̨̲̰̥̺͔̫̉͊͘͜͝͝ͅn̵̺̮͆̈͊͆̇͝!” A covey fled from their mouth with the shout, swerving around the teen in tight curves. “What do you think happened the moment you killed us, Tommy? Just think for one second! We’re not one bee in your room. We’re not just Clementine anymore! Except apparently we have to hide now or you’ll crush us to death.”

His heart dropped. Red raced up his limbs to weave across his shaking chest. Horror washed over him like a tsunami crashing down his thoughts until only little piles of terror shards remained. “You— you saw what happened?” he choked out in a small voice. 

“Of course we did, Tommy! So don’t you dare lie to us. You can’t murder a human being and then try to turn around and be the victim here!”

“I didn’t—ṃ̵̡̖͍͍͝u̸͓̙̺͗f̷̛̞̤̆̔͠f̷̙̋̀͊̋̕i̷̧̫͝n̸̖͉̲͐, you weren’t supposed to—I’m sorry—” the words were getting harder. Tommy was shaking uncontrollably. His failing lungs, his harshly pounding heart, his blurring vision; all of it burned as his nightmare became real. He’d never understood hellfire till that moment, as the truth scorched him. 

Tubbo knew.

“Why would you apologize to us!? We’re not the ones dead because of you! They didn’t even have to threaten you, you just did it! No hesitation or resistance. They didn’t force you to do anything at all.” Dark spots were blotting out patches of the room, and only most of them were composed of bees. The silhouette of Tubbo was rising into the air, a blur of colors as Tommy’s eyes burned with hot tears. His head felt light, distant and clouded and impossible to reach. Fear tangled in an ugly clump in his throat, constricting tighter and tighter, growing to consume his chest and crush his wildly palpitating heart. 

“In fact, you knew you would beforehand. You killed us to cover up what you were about to do-” -and they were right, and the room was getting smaller- “You murdered so many people, slaughtered them, even-” -lambs to the slaughter, except their lips pulled back sharp and blood coated herbivore teeth- “-and you had the audacity to stand there and lie to us about it Tommy!” -how was he lying when he could even speak, he couldn’t even scream, why couldn’t he scream, that’s what you’re supposed to do with your heart was being shot over and over and- “You— m̶͍͑̇͋̏́͘ú̶̧̥̻̝̪̪̆́̚f̵̗̥̣͐͊͋͆͘f̶̡͍͊̇ì̵͚͎̺͊̄̅̑̐̚n̶̛̰͑̌̌̿̍͆, Tommy breathe, you need to— M̶̢͍͙͇͓̯͎̲̠̓̋̍u̵̧̯̰̯̼͋̊̚͜f̶̼̼̹̉̌͊͌̓͗͂̈́̕f̷̞͚͓̥̬̟̺͓͒̽͗i̷̲̬̪͕͛͗͠n̶̢̨̝̙̗̦̓̄́̌̄̃͜͝ͅ. Tommy! TOMMY!” Tubbo reached for him, looking to place a hand on his shoulder and fortify him. Instinctively, Tommy retreated, trying to protect them even in a blind panic. He jolted back, stumbling back into a garden row that stole his balance. It didn’t really hurt that much when Tommy dropped, gravity pulling him to sit among the forbidden plants. He was too numb to the outside world by that point. Leaves billowed around him, hedging his periphery. Red spilled over the dark soil, hands stinging from where they’d caught his fall, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. He hid from Tubbos’ near omniscient gaze, tucking his head into his knees and pretending it meant they couldn’t see him in turn. Air hissed uselessly between his teeth, and then even that refused to work. Fire danced in his chest, scorching him out until he was hollow of everything except pain. His heart was charred, his lungs mere ash, and he needed to inhale, to swallow down air and blow out the blaze in his chest but his useless lungs were reduced to dust and embers. Smoke clouded out his vision, creeping, filling into the corners and fanning out in feathery blots of nothing, and Tommy couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t-

Warm fingers tangled in his hair, soft and buzzing with internal frenzy. Entwined around his curls, gentle pressure against his scalp as he was stroked in a soft pacifying manor. Air tasted sweet on his tongue, strong with the scent of honey. It soothed his starving lungs, who greedily demanded more. The second took off some of the urgency of the pain. The third erased the clouds from his eyes. By the tenth, his chest didn’t hurt so much. Even the tangled knot of fear loosened a bit at the edges.

Tommy couldn’t bring himself to pull away. He knew that was selfish on his part, risking mutilation and death for mere comfort, but Tommy already knew full well he was an innately selfish being. The day's events proved that adequately, so there was no point in pretending otherwise. Carefully, his hair was parted back to its normal state, a courtesy he neither expected nor deserved. And then he only had the warmth of the memory of contact. He still couldn’t bring himself to look at Tubbo. 

“Please don’t leave me,” he softly pleaded. It was pathetic, but it made sense given who voiced it. He couldn’t even look up, ashamed to find himself a supplicant but unable to do anything else but beg. 

“We don’t…this isn’t…why, Tommy?” They sounded so lost. Deflated, the anger gone, but hurt inflected the droned words. And it only hurts because…ah m̶̹͍͈͈̘̒̆̃̈́͒̈́u̶̧̘͓͕͙̜̜̓͛f̶̠͖̎̓̚f̵̭̩͛̆̈́̈́͗̎i̸̡̞̦̫̩̤̫͛̾͜ń̵̛̠̰̥̮̘̤̑̌́̀͐͝.

“I didn’t want you to see that. Didn’t want you to see the real me.” He felt raw and exposed, but gave the truth away anyway. He didn’t want it. 

“This isn’t…you told us not to mix up one's worst and best.” It was a reluctant reply. Yeah, and he’d just said that to make Tubbo stop being all broken. “This…this is really m̶̧̙̹͈̙͝ū̸̧̙̳̲͂̌̑͠f̸͔̰̑f̴̢͙͛̑̈́̄̈́ĩ̴͓̳͓͛̏́̒n̵̛̺̎̅ed up, but it isn’t only the real you. That makes it sound like everything else was fake.” 

“I also told you not to pick and choose from me. Please don’t…as much as I wished you’d never seen it, please don’t pretend this didn’t happen. I’d rather be discarded than have you care for a me that isn’t really me.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Yeah. Yeah it is.” He'd rather live a lie than live alone. “But I still don’t want you to. With…with Phil I tried to do that. To separate the Phil that did the hallway and hated me from the one that I wanted him to be. You saw how that went. I can’t do that to you, too.”

“You won’t. Trust us, Tommy, we know about aspects. You’re still Tommy, all together and all at once, just…just there’s a part of you that can do…that.” They sounded so tired. “We wish you hadn’t done that.”

“I wish I didn’t have to.”

“You didn’t. You could’ve resisted, they didn’t even threaten you.”

“Just cause they didn’t say it out loud doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. Think, Tubbo. I’ve been here for a year. They didn’t have to say it because I know what rebellion nets. They want to test Red. I don’t comply, they try to kill me, and The Blade shows up, except he isn’t The Blade anymore, he’s The Blood God, and he slaughters them all. That’s just more people dead, Tubbo, but now it’s worse for everyone. For them, for me, for…yeah, for The Blade, too, because now he has to save my sorry m̷̦̍u̴̹̜̳̞͋͛f̸̧̮̥̱̺̪̉̒̉̐f̵͔́͊͛̾͘ỉ̵͙̩̥͈̟͓́̚n̵̟̗̬̻̺̗̿͆, and I know he doesn’t want to, the last time proved it.” Tommy hesitated, epiphany striking. Hey, it’d all work out, still only one corpse by the end of the day. “Well. Actually, I guess that wouldn’t have happened this time. He wouldn’t come. I’d just…die. Huh. Problem solved, I guess.”

Tubbo looked guilty. “Survival is about where we draw the line, too. Guess we really can’t blame you for doing the same thing we would’ve. Did, sorta.”

“You can. And you should blame me. You should leave.” It made sense. That’s what Tubbo should be doing. Tommy was just…manipulating them. Tricking them into feeling pity and sympathy when he didn’t deserve it. He’d managed to make himself the victim even when it was all his fault from start to finish. 

“We won’t.” 

Tommy looked up, face set. “You should leave,” he said forcefully. Tubbo needed to understand that, or else they weren’t ever going to get free of him. 

“No,” Tubbo insisted with almost childish stubbornness, frowning. They were pinned in the air, hovering in a simulacrum of a sitting position save for there being nothing to catch their weight. They pulled a leg up, resting chin on knee in a mirror image of Tommy, mimicking his cross expression. Tommy didn’t understand them. Tubbo knew nearly everything now about him, shouldn’t they hate him? 

“Why?” he asked in genuine bafflement.

“You’re all we got,” they hummed simply, echoing his own thoughts about them. “Survival just isn’t going to happen without you.”

Oh. That made sense. It was practical. “So you’ll stay cause you have to. Because you’ve no other choice.” That was…more mercy than he expected. They’d both survive that way. Maybe not live, but they’d still be. That was all Tommy could ask for. More than it, even. 

“Oh, there’s always more choices than you think you have. And no, it’s…if you’d asked us before all this we’d leave no matter how much harder it made enduring everything. No question. But…we’re not the person we used to be, not even all the same people we once were. We could abandon you. Or, we could work together to escape. That’s going to get a lot less people hurt in the long run. We can’t do this without you. 

“…don’t want to, either. You’re our friend, and we need you, but— but god m̷͎̥͛͂͘͜u̶̝̝͙͓̾f̵̖̲͎̓̽f̶̨̕ì̶̦̠̪̈́͒͐̀͜ń̴̡̛̛͙͛͘ it Tommy do you know how terrifying that was?”

“…yeah,” he admitted shamefully. Pieces of the hallway in his mind. It was the most carnage he’d seen…then. But when he thought about it now, he’d killed just as much. Many more, even. It had taken time, but still. He remembered that sense of danger, unease and instinct telling him to run even when there wasn’t any real threat to him. Bloody hands caressing him. Yes, Tommy knew exactly Tubbos’ terror, and it curled his stomach in tight painful knots to know he caused it. 

“You…you killed them. Or you made them kill each other.”

“It doesn’t work on you, remember? Not really. It…I wouldn’t make you kill anyone,” he said gently. Guilt pressed into their multifaceted eyes. Yeah. Yeah, Tommy had met all of Tubbos’ fears, of course he knew that would be something Tubbo was terrified of. There was little Tommy could do to assuage their fears, not when they had evidence laid plain for exactly how awful he was, but at least he could remind them of that. 

“You’re dangerous.”

“Not to you. I’d never hurt you.” Tubbo just looked at him, expression firm. Tommy withered under it. A poor lie, when he’d just exhibited exactly how and under what circumstances he’d do exactly that. Every single time he’d ever been met with a choice between Tubbos’ happiness and the truth there’d been no hesitation. It…it wasn’t good. It clearly hadn’t worked. This time, a part of him whispered. All the others were fine weren't they? No. Because he’d still deceived them. That was about as far from fine as he could manage. “I’m sorry. I keep lying to you. Just. Constantly.”

“Yeah, and you should definitely stop because we call you out every time, but saying it’s constant’s an exaggeration-”

“It’s really not. I lied about not hurting you, and the experiment, just lied through all of today. Yesterday, too, and it worked but it was absolute bull m̷̭͉̜̀͗̏̒û̵̢̱͙̻̀̌͝f̷̨̪̗͈̲̆͛̉̓̕͝f̶̦̏̂͂̆͆̇ị̴̫̅̾n̴͔̦͕̻͉̎̃̽. I rebuilt you with lies, Tubbo, and that was only the ones I could choke out, I couldn’t even manage to tell you my mantras. I’ve been doing this since the beginning, telling you it gets better, and the nightmares go away, and I said I’d save you Tubbo, can you believe it? When we first met? What a disappointment that must’ve been, to find out the truth.”

Tubbo just stared at him. “Really? Really Tommy? Where are we even supposed to start? Hmmm, dunno, the part where we were starving to death? Who fixed that?”

“You did,” Tommy answered crossly. “Once you wrote to the farmer.”

“Tommy we wouldn’t even touch the dirt without being terrified of another massacre. That was you who showed us with Clementine’s burial. And what about the time before then? You were the one feeding us.”

“I could’ve showed up sooner.”

“You showed up at all. No one else did, Tommy. You were the one that saved us and no one else. But fine. Remember when we had a literal identity crisis? Like yesterday? And you were the one who put us back together.”

“You would’ve gotten there on your own without me.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, but we don’t think we would’ve. If you were gone entirely, it’d be even worse, since Rosalind would’ve been a complete stranger. We’d be just a splatter of fractured consciousness if it weren’t for you. So just stop being an angsty teenager for five seconds and think. What do these ‘lies’ have in common, Tommy?”

“I say them without thinking? Before I can realize how wrong it is?”

“That’s not realization, Tommy. That’s doubt. All of these things you call deceit just sound like hope to us.”

“Just because I want something to be true doesn’t mean it is,” Tommy snapped. 

“They’re convictions Tommy. By their nature they’re whatever you want them to be. So if you won’t believe in yourself, we’ll just have to do it for you.”

“Then you’re stupid,” Tommy scowled, head buzzing. 

“Yea.”

“You’re stupid and weird and you should just leave. I’m only a liar, Tubbo, you’re the one making me out to be something I’m not.” He couldn't understand how they failed to see it. Couldn't they see the world from all angles? 

“You are, too.”

“You’re picking out all the good parts.”

“You’re only picking the bad. Here, we’ll compromise, ok? We’ll think about the good, and you the bad, and we’ll put it together and have the real Tommy.”

“That cancels out, idiot.”

Tubbo smiled. “You’re outnumbered. We’d say it looks like four hundred thousand to one.”

“The bees don’t count,” Tommy scoffed. That just wasn’t fair at all.

“Four to one, then. Still like our odds.”

“One plus one equals one. You can’t have it both ways when it’s convenient.”

“Ah, you caught us. We’ve been rigging votes for years like that.” Their crooked grin drooped oddly. He didn't understand what they were trying to do. 

“Well, I’m just too smart for tricks like that.” 

“But not enough to realize we aren’t going anywhere,” they said sadly. “Why do you want us to leave so badly?” 

“You’re not smart enough to do it on your own.” Surely they had to. Rhodes at the very least must detest him, Rosalind would be horrified. Everything he knew about Tubbo must send them recoiling. 

“Wow, not only do you not wanna be our friend, now you’re insulting us?” A mock pain filled their features. “Few more cutting remarks like that and it might even work.” The idea, while not appealing, was tempting. He didn’t really want to, but if that’s what it took…Tubbo frowned at him. “That was a joke,” they droned shortly. “We’re not leaving for anything.”

“You really should. That was just one person. I’ve killed hundreds. I can’t remember them at all, their faces or anything. There’s just this blur of all the ways people died. Any weapon you can think of, Tubbo, or even none at all, they just rip each other apart because of me.” He hurled the words at them, wanting them to hurt. He wanted to to be made out of thorns, an impenetrable, bristling briar. Why should they be so steadfast? They should just leave him, too.  

They blanched, but held fast. “Nope. Still not enough. And that didn’t answer us. That’s why you think we should, not why you want us to.”

“Because…” Tommy hesitated, trying to sort it out in his own head. He found he didn’t have a clear reason, just the feeling that he needed to convince them. “Because once I leave you can hate me like you should.”

“We’re not going to do that, Tommy. You already get enough from yourself, we don’t need to add any more.”

“But if I can stop you from caring I can’t hurt you anymore. I can stop you from being stupid like I was.”

“Was?” Almost hopeful. 

“Was.” Tommy made sure the finality was sure as stone. “I…I think I hate him, Tubbo,” he admitted painfully. “And I don’t know what to do with that, and it scares me, but it’s true. I hate Philza. I hate him for hurting people, for hurting me. And I can’t do that to you. I just want to protect you.” 

“Funny way of showing it. Are you abandoning uz then?”

“No. Never.” He tried to press every ounce of sincerity he had, gaze caught on theirs’, fortified by the intensity of his desperation. 

“Then truzt that we’d feel the same,” Tubbo hummed gently. They touched down to the ground, settling on padded flooring and looking up at him. “Iss it really so hard…to believe we care about you?”

He opened his mouth immediately to answer, but then stopped himself from the instinctive deceit. His head felt fogged and strange. “Yes.” Almost an afterthought, he chased the affirmation with a “sorry.”

“Eh. Not really the ansswer we wanted…but we’ll work on changing it.” They cocked their head to the side, offering Tommy a bug filled smirk. “Don’t have to fix it all in one day, you know.”

“We didn’t fix anything. I’ve still murdered people. And I’ll have to do it again.”

“Not onccce we get outta here. You’ll never have to do anything you don’t want to again. Jusst hold on, we’ll get it nexsst…time…m̶͉̳̩̦͑̃͛̐͗͘ű̷͚̾͐͒́̅f̵̢̧̨̠̰̺̾͑f̶̨̛̤͇̅͛í̷̢̧͇͈̤̠n̸̘̓̌̽͘.” Tubbo straightened up, using their hand to prop up and trying to rise. It was an endeavor that failed in a rattle of chains. A frown creased itself into their countenance, a tad too wide for a human. “You need…to…run…” Tubbo managed before slumping. Bees spilled from various gaps, sluggish movement dwindling to motionless nothing. 

Tommy, too, was still. The motionless Tubbo echoed painfully close to certain nightmares he’d had. He closed his eyes. His throat felt scratchy. It was just the weird sleeping gas. You know that. Mist swirled at the top like frenzied ghosts too restless to find peace. Calm down. Besides, they just didn’t have enough to pilot the insectoid body. His peripheral vision caught the faint movement of stragglers quickly fading until Tubbo was completely still.  

With effort, he turned away, preparing to leave. He recovered a scarlet handprint at the crevice of a paneling, renewing the print, when he realized the problem. Tubbo wasn’t awake enough to cover his tracks. He flipped back around, racing for one of the watering cans. It proved heavy when he snatched it, water sloshing over onto him. If he could climb to the top, he could pour it down after him. But—m̸̢͑ủ̶̢̦͠f̸̛̞̝̙͗f̶̝̃̒i̴̻̾̈́͂ń̶̦̯͝ the vent cover. Two trips then. He’d managed the barred metal sheet once; he just wasn’t so sure about the water. Best to start with something he knew he could do. It was difficult, but a familiar challenge, and he managed to lug the vent cover up. The fear-tinged adrenaline definitely helped. Choking smoke was pouring from it, stinging his eyes and burning his throat in cold chemical cruelty. He slid the cover in next to an odd machine chugging toxins into the room, a mechanism just like the one in his own vent and a scarce few others. His already wounded ankle rolled funny when he dropped the last meter down, but he ignored it, reaching for the watering can. What was far more difficult to brush off was the outside door swinging open. His eyes met those of a guard and his heart caught. 

“Actually, I don’t think you’ll be leaving anytime soon.”

A doctor, standing just behind the armored man, words traveling faster than her feet. Her eyes were dark and focused upon the wall where his hand prints trailed up, marking an incriminating story. Tommy held himself still when her gaze dropped to his own. He didn’t like her scimitar smile. He suspected it would cause him to bleed. Footsteps echoed closer.  The door opened wider to allow a stream of heavily armed guards to file into the room. They fanned out, guns and other worrying weapons all trained on him. Their number expanded as more came, spreading to his peripheral vision until he had to turn his head to see them. His heart caught in his throat, thrashing wildly. He glanced around, looking for any chance of escape or delivery from out of the hands of evil, but there was none to be found. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, adrenaline shooting up in his veins until he was running, darting forward as he made an instinctive beeline for Tubbo. Shouts and raised weapons reacted to his darting movement, threats called out to him with an intensity that nearly froze his blood in his veins, but he'd done all he needed to. Tommy stood protectively over the slumped body of Tubbo, arms raised defensively. Red was racing down them, sinking into his sleeves already. Tendrils of carmine wrapped around his arms. He wasn’t sure how it would play out, but instinct demanded he try to guard his friend. He carefully stepped over them, placing himself firmly between the insectoid and the danger looming at the threshold. 

Several guards demanded that Tommy freeze. Tommy of course complied, seeing as that's all he could think to do. Well, he sorta wanted to curl up into a little ball and curse himself until his throat was sore, but that didn’t exactly coexist with the orders. He was fairly certain the world was crashing down around him and he found he had no way to stop it. 

Well. 

M̸̞̃͝u̸̠͑f̴̢̋͠f̶̪̪̈͊̕i̶͚̮͆ṇ̷͕̜̆̾͝.

Guess it’s all over.

They’d been caught. At once he could see the future. It was a bleak thing. Tommy hated how certain it felt, but then again it was the exact same as his past. Except he had no one this time. No Tubbo, no Philza regardless of whether Tommy even knew if he wanted him or not. Just himself and the white walls.

The doctor was repeatedly calling his hated numeral moniker. Tommy didn’t respond, and she rattled it off again, confidence seeping in the digits. “Ah, do you prefer the Instigator, then?” He preferred his m̶͚̖̓̅͊u̸̧̇̓͑̏f̷̬͍̈́̂̚f̶̜̠̳͗̓͂͜ī̵̢̱̮̖̥́͋̚n̴̢̖̺̙̙̈́ing name. “Well then. Seems we’ve discovered how you were colluding. Theory was they’d broken you out while the cameras were covered. It’s pleasant to find out security succeeded there, although it appears the vents for objects needing vaporal conditioning should have higher security in the future. Thank you for informing us. Care to enlighten me even more? It took a long time for you to use them, after all. What changed?”

Red began to slither across his chest, creeping to his heart. He tried to regulate his breathing like Rosalind would’ve told him to. His lip quivered on the exhale. Trying to stay calm was futile as it was a line he’d crossed early on, but maybe he could avoid panic. He closed his eyes, forcing his next inhale to fill his lungs completely. The Red didn't retreat, but it slowed in its rush to conquer his flesh. “I don’t want to talk to you, m̸̞͑̀̀̈͆ú̴̗̱̩̔͂̍f̸̭̟̮̰̏̿̄͘ͅf̴͓̘͙̘́̍̿͝ĩ̵͓̈́̾̈́ṅ̸̨̫̔face.” The words felt small, half caught in his throat. He tried to clear it, but realized he didn’t have anything else to say.

“You can refer to me as Dr. Blake, actually.” Tommy’s head jerked down to stare at Tubbos’ missing hand. It lay in close proximity to his foot. Really, he stared at Tubbo themselves, since apparently she also was the one responsible for forcing Rosalind join the Hive. They were curled on their side, limbs limply thrown in awkward angles. Their antennas were scrunched, eyes wide and vacant. Light glistened off their still chained wings. He swallowed roughly, then glanced back at her. Her teeth were the sharpest he’d ever seen on a human. Almost a comfort, save for who it belonged to. “Admiring my work? You’d be amazed how much we learned alre-”

“Actually,” Tommy bit out, mimicking her roughly. “I think m̷̫̙̟̺͛̈́͝ũ̴͚͍͖̞̝̦̚̕͝f̵̡̗̗͚͔̳̏́f̵̦͆̈͐̊̿͜i̴̫̘̳̭̩͎͔̔̊́n̵͉̉face works just fine.” He could feel the Red curling around his ribs. His breaths hissed sort of funny. But he was still breathing, at least. He was okay, for now. He could hold the terror at bay. 

“Hmm. I suppose. Now, would you like to explain what you’re doing here? The how is obvious, I’d love to hear the why.”

His tongue felt like lead as he looked at Tubbo. He’d failed them utterly. “Just. Just visiting them.”

“I see! To replace the loss of your Collector.” Tommy looked up sharply. Liquid slithered down his belly, ice freezing his guts together from the inside. How did she know that? Why did she know that? “Can't say I'm involved, given I've long since moved onto greater objects than you. Frankly, you're dull by my current standards, albeit useful. But after your involvement with my latest assignment's first breach, I decided to brush up on your files. Your collusion couldn't be better timed, I was starting to suspect it needed a little encouragement from the Instigator." He tried to work his jaw open. Even if the only thing he could manage was visceral screaming, at least he’d have done something. But he didn’t, frozen uselessly, a rabbit caught in the eyes of headlights. It was almost hypnotizing to see his death rushing towards him and know he couldn’t even step out of the way even if he wanted to. “It was suspected you’d come running for comfort after a Red test. Predictable, are you? How dull. Although, it is quite interesting to see how quickly you moved on to another host. I’ll pass this on to your handlers, I’m sure they’ll be glad to know. They’ll probably be relieved to understand why your mental state survived the…hmm. Yes. Oh! And I can pass a note through Webb, he’s the one who works with your Collector. I’m sure the Zilant would be pleased to find you replaced it already.”

“That’s not— Tubbo was before anything happened,” Tommy scraped out. 

“I’ll pass it along regardless. Not as if I’d ever be corrected.” The pressure in his mouth grew too much, his teeth gnashing against one another almost painfully. Purposely he let go of the tension and found when free his teeth were chattering. He bit back down, preferring the first problem. He had no delusions that the situation was in his power to shape, but at least he could pretend he had control over himself. “Your options, as I see them,” Dr. Blake continued, a twisted version of considerate assistance playing an unconvincing mask on her face, “are as follows: you go back to your cell and never return. You can fight or not, makes little difference. The Pollinator is asleep, we can let it believe you got back just in the nick of time. It would never know the difference. But I do wonder what it would believe when you never came back, don’t you? One happy visit…or was it? We were listening, of course. Your relationship survived, but barely. You wanted to leave so badly, we’re just helping you. It wouldn't even know why you changed your mind, abandoned with no reason why.” 

“No, they—they wouldn’t believe that.”

“Really? It hasn't been here that long, not like it could really know you. Wasn’t that half your conversation? Besides, the cycle of neglect exists for a reason. Probably only a matter of time before you abandoned it, we’re just speeding it up for convenience.” She paused a beat, letting the horror of it seep into Tommy. She smiled as he began to visibly shake. No, he needed to have more control than that. He tried to stamp down the fear, but it was a rolling dark ocean beneath his feet, too large, too wild to be fully contained. No, he wasn’t going to lose to it. Teeth bared in a snarl, Tommy willed himself to be still and won. Dr. Blake’s smile faltered slightly, disappointed, then renewed in potency as she laid down the second half of her ultimatum. “Or we can wait for it to wake up. See, the audio from yesterday was rather interesting. Seems I only believed I got to watch it kill your little traitor friend. I do hate disobedience, and you've always been the perfect solution to that. Of course, we’d get it to do more eventually (both this ever-so-interesting collection process and the killing) but it’ll take time. All you’d have to do is speed it up a little. We’d just crack the door open to let the gas dissipate, call in maybe a dozen or so D-class, and the pair of you could slaughter them. I’d get data. It's a win-win scenario.” 

“No, it's not.” It sounded like an absolute nightmare, but then again this entire situation was one already. Maybe he'd been right and he should have died during that failed summoning in the Grey Period. Hell couldn’t be any worse than this. Could it? 

A brief pause, and then she dealt the final blow, voice dripping with poisoned persuasiveness. “But you’d have a chance to say goodbye,” she purred, smirking at the rattling choked breath he drew as she finally revealed the tantalizing reward he suspected he couldn’t refuse. M̷̯͛̆̋u̶̞͒̓̓f̷̼͂ḟ̸̛͖ỉ̷͍̈́̄n̴̯̽ it, how did she know him this much to play him so well? His chest felt tight. Some ugly tangle of emotion crept up his throat, bile stinging his esophagus. He was trembling and almost certain he’d be sick if he had the time for it. “Come on, which is it? Abandon it or have your farewell, it's not a hard choice.”

“I need some time to think. Please.” He could barely choke out the last word, but if it came to it he'd get on his knees in supplication and beg. 

“I suppose. I don’t mind giving you a few more minutes with it, not that it’d do much in this state.” There was an ungodly condescending assurance in her voice, almost unmistakable as sincere if not for the triumphant note. Fine. Whatever. Let it amuse her pride, he didn’t care as long as it gave him time. 

Thinking, of course, was a stretch of the imagination, since most of his thoughts seemed to boil down to frantic cursing and overwhelming flavors of fear. Red slithered down his legs. Stop. M̵̦̺̘͆̐͆u̴̪̰̎̊͐̀f̸͕̎͑̏̂f̵̫̣̙͊ḭ̸̧̘̠͒̉n̶̹̉. He needed to make a choice. He probably didn't have much time, though no matter what he picked it was extremely limited, mere minutes compared to the lifetime he’d expected. 

Except if he chose the experiment...it wouldn't really be the last time. Red didn’t work on Tubbo properly. Sure, Dr. Blake would get her deaths, but she’d be interested in why it affected the Hive differently. Tommy knew the doctors, any sort of anomaly would need to be thoroughly studied. He could imagine at least a dozen ways they’d need to test it out, each instance offering even more precious time with the insectoid. Tommy would spin it out, find any way he could to prolong it. It wasn’t permanent, wouldn’t last, but it didn’t have to be now. Tubbo was all he had left. He could scarcely imagine how he’d survive, but Tommy could push that looming deadline back for maybe months.

That was, if Tubbo didn’t hate him for it.

Would you be the one to make Tubbo do it? To really and truly massacre people? To ruin them completely, body and soul? They might not forgive him for that. Tommy certainly wouldn’t, not that he ever did. He could leave without a last word, it’d be easier than that disaster would be. He could abandon Tubbo. I did it once already. They survived three days without me, what’s an eternity, really? What if he’d been given the choice with Philza? To have a support beam vanish without a trace. Was there some calamity worse than this? Why was this the better option?

Could he really do that to Tubbo? Could he really do that to them? Somehow each was the worst possible outcome. Either way it fell, whatever his choice, it’d still be his fault. Guards lined the walls, staring him down. Hunger rested in the doctor’s dark eyes, teeth bared and ready to eat him alive if offered the chance. Tommy, stupidly, had given it to her, handed on a silver platter. Everything had been a mistake. He never should've come today, or ever, even. It was only ever going to end in disaster. Tommy knew the Foundation ruined everything, had been stupid to pretend this would be different. 

I didn’t choose this, he tried to tell himself preemptively. It did little good. He knew he didn’t believe in it. Tubbo called it hope, but all it really was was meaningless consolation. What did it really matter, Dr. Blake had her way from the start. She clearly already believed to know his decision, and he was scared she was right. He was stuck choosing her way. 

At once, the truth struck him, breath catching with the realization and stilling him completely. No, both of the options were her way, because at the end of the day both of them were designed to benefit her. It was a trap, purposefully crafted to blind him until he could only see those two choices. She was subtly choosing his course of action, preventing him from coming up with a better solution. Too caught up in deciding to even think of another. Every single time he'd been stuck between a rock and a hard place, but in reality the Foundation had been the one to put both there in the first place. Use Red or be trapped in the void. Stay in your cell or wear gloves. Keep the gloves on or get the restraint mitts. Shut up or get hit. Beg for your life or lose it. Kill these people or no food, or light, or sleep, or love. At every instance there should've been other possibilities, but so long without control and Tommy could barely even remember that it should've been his choice and not theirs. They made it feel like he’d meant to. He had to mean it to survive, or so he’d thought. 

In reality, it had never been his choice, only the one force fed to him. With a hard shove, Tommy pushed down his panic. “No,” he growled. 

“What? I can’t hear you. Speak up.” The look on her face, though, suggested she definitely had. 

“I said m̸̤̬̞̯̞̏̎̋̂̍ǘ̶̥̬̞̊͌f̴̡̝͕̙̤̆͗͂͛f̴̝̋̔͑̈̊i̸̪̊̅n̵̲̾͠ off, m̷͈̔ų̵̙͔͎̉̔f̶̛͙͈͉̱̫̦̮̼̹̈́́̓̈́f̸͓̹̦̺̅̆̈́ì̴̡̺̪̥͗̔̚n̴̡̪̱͔̾͋̆͋͝face. I’m not leaving.”

“Excellent!” Her joy was far too sincere. “I can’t wait to see.” She addressed her underlings. “One of you alert the Instigator’s handlers, they’ll want to watch. Ask them for a suggested D-class quantity, though I want at least ten so we can have a solid experiment unit. Repetition is the key to establishing cause and effect, after all. And leave the door open on the way out, we need to let the sg-706 dissipate.” 

“I didn’t agree to that,” Tommy warned. 

“Well, that's the choice that results in you staying, so unless-”

“One of your choices, maybe. Not one of mine.”

Her face dropped. Vexation took hold of her features. “M̴̗̉͠ṵ̸͋f̶̖̅f̸͚͌͌í̴̝n̵̡̓̕. Didn’t think you had the intelligence to realize that. You know this changes nothing, yes? Logically, your options are limited. Seize free will all you want but it’ll get you nothing. Technically, you have infinite choices, but most of them lead to the same thing. We can’t allow you to keep breaking out of your room and cavorting with another SCP. At the end of the day, this is the last escape you get. I’m only offering you more options.”

“You’re only offering different kinds of defeat.”

“What? You think you’re going to win?” As one, the weapons raised once more, leaving Tommy to stare down a quick death. He could just picture the way his body jerked and spasmed under a barrage of bullets. Oh, he’d be dead by the first shot, but why not fill his guts with lead? No real reason to not be cautious. Sure, a few would rip through the Pollinator, but who cared? Kill them both and be done with the whole thing. Red started to pool at his feet, and subconsciously he stumbled forward, far enough to prevent it from getting anywhere close to Tubbo. The guns tracked the motion. Tommy didn’t stop the fear that burbled up in his stomach, feverish and curling in tumultuous waves. 

“No,” he said simply. It was quiet and honest, and Tommy had always been bad at both. He hated to break in front of enemies, but he would. 

“Then what’s your point? Realistically, you can’t do anything else. I offered you actual benefits, the only ones I could find. You don’t have many rewards for this but I was willing to manufacture them.”

“I don’t have to win.” The words shook and trembled just like the rest of him. Cracked and broken through, barely held together but not for much longer. Crimson slipped between his toes. 

“Just take us down with you? A sore loser then? It wouldn’t even work. We planned this out completely, no one here is vulnerable to you. You’re just needlessly bluffing to waste time. It won’t even work; your friend isn’t even aware of any of this.” Red crawled up in alien tendrils, slithering along the back of his neck. It curled on his jaw, arcing up and then pressing itself into twisted vines flattened against his cheeks. Horrified realization dawned in the doctor’s dark eyes. “We’re not going to kill you, you stupid little anomaly, it’s just an experiment! It barely even affects you at all!”

He didn’t think he’d die, not for this, not really.

Surely he’d still be breathing. You’d be stupid to call it living even if by all definitions he was, because Tommy couldn’t imagine a life worth anything without Tubbo. They were all he had left.

A guard stepped in, barking orders. A sharp jagged alarm began to blare, grating and panicked as the entire Foundation was alerted to the looming threat of a Keter. It intermingled with old memories of panic and running and danger, swirling Tommy’s fear even higher as he let the mortal terror take him. When he realized he was hyperventilating he didn’t stop. Couldn’t, but that wasn’t the point. Blood roared in his ears, he could feel Red weaving between the strands of his hair, until he was completely covered. It pooled around him, liquid stretching and expanding, until it wasn’t quite believable that the movement was merely the natural collection of it. The perfect circle expanded, spiraling out to encompass Tommy completely. Unearthly runes spilled along the inside, painting impossible glyphs in blood. A true name sprawled out in the language of violence. The humans were shouting, Dr. Blake was fleeing, slipping out of the room. Orders echoed down the hall. 

Tommy was trembling, arms clutched tight around himself as the Red slithered into his eyes, infecting his vision. Crimson ate through cobalt, swirling into his irises, glowing omens of conflict. Sanguine light shot up around him, basking the room in a dangerous glow and forming a radiant barrier between himself and the humans that burned to behold. The beams stretched to the ceiling, increasing in intensity until even closing his eyes couldn’t black out the ruby world. All he was left with in the bloody summoning circle was his choice and something not quite a prayer. 

I’ll never ask anything of you ever again. Please. Just one last time.

Tommy’s choice, as it had always been, was to survive at all costs. And maybe The Blood God wouldn’t deign to answer his plea, but at least for once in his life he’d have chosen for himself. 

Chapter Text

I’ll never ask anything of you ever again. Please. Just one last time.

The Blade wrinkled his snout. How dramatic, he grumbled. Whenever Tommy’s thoughts were in his head, they always tended to be desperate, though. Lots of begging for his life or whatever. Edged with hysterical terror that filled The Blade with dread for whatever he’d find, child screams drowning out the entire ocean of mental voices. They were more coherent than normal, and that made him concerned. Was Tommy adjusting to the torture that much? That wasn’t, y’know, really great. Helped him out, sure, but definitely created far more danger for the kid. Up the difficulty, and it narrowed the window between close to death and actual demise. The Foundation was good, but…he didn’t know the exact precision they had. The plan had always been to get everyone out before that happened. The peculiarity of the plea caused concern to begin to fill his guts. 

What was equally odd was the timing. The Blade was very much right in his cell where he was supposed to be, being a good little prisoner who was not escaping or even killing all that many people. An absolute exemplar of incarceration, he was. A lot of that recent behavior was mostly due to the Agrarian Agreement he’d recently signed. Oh he wasn’t stupid like Philza; The Blade didn’t really think himself to be bound by a promise, but he’d take advantage of the benefits, chiefly being that of it being the only chance of not going out of his mind with boredom that he had. In fact, that was what made the current summoning so odd. The Blade was actively on his way to his garden. Why would they schedule a summoning during that? It was just rude. Besides, there wasn’t a point to it. The Blade was very much in his cage, and it wasn’t like there was anything new to discover about Tommy, since his abilities were pretty simple. Instigate increasing intensity of conflict and, failing that, summon the embodiment of battle. What more was there to figure out after all this time? 

It didn’t matter much. Gardening offered some excitement; a summoning offered far more. He rolled his shoulders, stretching the muscles in preparation. In his vast periphery, he could see the transporting guard racing down the tunnel that solely connected his room to that of the crops. He shouted into a communicator, not that it mattered much this late in the game. Around the inmate, a circle stretched, viscous fluid pouring from nowhere, unnatural in its movement. Crimson light began to seep from the curved band, a solid beam rising, a veil parting him from the world. It stretched to the ceiling, pooling, streaks racing up its length and curling in unearthly ways. The Blade shifted from hoof to hoof, readying for action. 

The universe aligned itself to meet the needs of a child, and The Blade vanished from the room, leaving only a fading carmine circle. It, too, disappeared.

——

Upon quick examination, Tommy didn’t have any external injuries. Some bruises on his neck, but they were days old. A story, certainly, but an older one. Strangulation by the looks of it, but while certainly bad it wasn’t the reason he was here. Something that might’ve been a black eye once. A minor favoring of one foot over the other. Nothing major. Nothing internal, either, as far as he could tell. He couldn’t smell anything weird, either, though that might’ve been the awful smoke billowing about the room, sweeping out of a still ajar door. Bingo. He could just see the back of a woman in researcher clothing fleeing, and he dropped to all fours, lunging towards the escape. He caught the edge of it, throwing it open. With a sharp slam down on the top of the door, the hinges dropped their suspension, and the thing broke, falling inward. Ah, the magic of swinging doors. They only ever expected sideways force. Once open, it was a snap to force them to stay that way. Keyword being ‘once’ since The Blade had never seen that door open before. Keywords being ‘that door’ since The Blade had definitely attempted to break it in the past. He surveyed the room, taking in the rows of potatoes and guns pointed at him. Tommy stood near the back wall, shuddering and not meeting his eyes. 

Hah? Haaaaaah????

“Tommy, you summoned me like ten feet! You could’ve waited literally one minute and I’d have been here on my own!!” So Tommy was why the transfer had been a little delayed. Again. Whose bright idea had it been to let him in The Blade’s garden?? He’d probably trample all the stalks! The guards stood tensed, ready. The Blade scowled at them. For all the lack of physical evidence, he loathed them for whatever they’d done to Tommy. Whatever they’d done to achieve mortal terror in the kid needed to be paid for. The Blade was here, and wasn’t that enough proof in and of itself of their sin? He lined them up in his vision. Only ten of them, eight guns, two tasers. Judging on design, probably minimum eighty bullets. Could be less, depending on if they’d shot at Tommy already, but probably not since he’d likely have heard from the proximity. Tasers were a pain (quite literally) but manageable. Pretty boring, to be honest. He was severely outnumbered, though that was always a given. He’d win, of course, but then again he always did. 

The Blade hadn’t ever killed anyone. He’d never been given the option to. There wasn’t some noble moral obligation, some ideal, some lack of dedication to survival. It was simply that it wasn’t him at that point.

The Blood God had. The Blood God had reaped many souls, but then again he was many souls. The Blood God had no motive other than death, no cause greater than destruction, no goal other than blood staining the world, seeping into the soil, never to be washed out. 

But The Blade was a person. He had a life, he had ambitions…well. Not many. He was sorta lazy and didn’t always have that much motivation, but he was more than just simple bloodlust. He had his own share of it, things like justice and honor and vengeance and what have you to drive it. But the difference between him and what was also him but not at all, really, was motivation. And The Blood God at the end of the day had no real reason to kill anyone other than liking it. And The Blade supposed that was fine in moderation, killing was fun after all, or at least he was pretty sure it was. He was always left with feelings of giddy (if mad, for surely it was madness) joy once he was able to be himself alone again. The crux of the conflict came from the fact that The Blade had very little motivation to kill people, and saw no reason to forfeit control of his own body. The Blood God, of course, did not appreciate that, and the voices spent an awful lot of time trying to convince him otherwise. As most of their suggestions were scattered and contradictory half the time, it was manageable. But, so often denied freedom, The Blood God constantly tried to slip in any way he could, which the Foundation readily exploited. 

Usually, the difference in preferences led to a constant mental war between them. His fortitudes were great, his bastion impenetrable aside from a few walls too broken down and battered to ever bar the enemy. Challenges, orphans, the like. But sometimes…oh, sometimes The Blade wished deeply to cull another’s life. It wasn’t a longing he encountered too often, and he had no qualms with The Blood God’s kills, but sometimes he wanted a death for himself. And when his motivations combined with The Blood God…oh, together they were magnificent. Their bloodlust was one, the universe bent and groaned under the weight of his ambition until it broke and gave way to his demands. It was something he’d always loved about Tommy’s summonings. It wasn’t that The Blood God had pulled him down into the sea of voices; rather, that The Blade had pulled him up. To kill people in order to save the kid…well, The Blade didn’t mind. 

Relished it, really.

That’s what being a good friend was about, wasn’t it?

The voices began to grow louder again, and he let them. They scratched at mental barriers, clawing at sturdy walls and bastions, demanding blood. He welcomed the writhing cesspit of battle mongers in as old familiar guests, suppressing a shudder as they crowded him out of his own skull. A sacrifice The Blade willingly made, sinking far from control. Usually he hated it, being ripped away from his own body without a say in the matter. But if it were for Tommy…

The Blood God sunk into a battle stance, tensed and ready to lunge at the slightest motion or threat. Technically, every single enemy in that room was a threat, a question mark, a chance for him to taste defeat for the very first time. None of them moved, or, none of them moved much. There, by the corner, a finger danced on a trigger. There, a heartbeat accelerating, fear distinguished from excitement only by the stench of it. There, a slumped foe, still and biding its time. There, the shift of weight as someone prepared to dash, muscles shivering with the effort of holding themselves back. 

He bared his teeth, a wide display that split his maw. It might’ve been mistaken for a snarl, save for the genuine passion imbued in it. He let the weight of his intentions settle in the room, an aura so tangible some of the humans choked on it more than the actual smoke that lingered as a haze above the chamber. A laugh gurgled up freely in his throat as he watched eyes widen in horrid epiphany, shared fearful glances and scarcely hidden tremors plaguing the humans as one by one they realized a simple truth: not one of them would survive to see the next sunrise.

The win condition was this: Tommy was saved.

“So,” The Blood God growled, a low, rumbling snarl of spring-coiled menace, the sort of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in someone else's. He let murderous fury thread his words as he goaded them to challenge him. He towered over them, their necks and guns craning to match his stature at double any of their height. “Who dares challenge me first?" 

The answer wasn’t a specific person, not really. It could be said the first had been the one closest to him, the man who’d only had time for two shots before he didn’t have enough head left to see where to aim, but really that’d be a disservice to the mixture of foolhardiness and bravery that had the entire room open fire simultaneously. The Blood God preferred that, actually, since it was at least a little more interesting that way. Bullets pound into him, and he grunted as they burrowed into his skin like embers. Judging on precision, accuracy, and the firing speed, the more advanced shooters were on the left. Quick pivot, and he jerked down to avoid a bullet that would’ve pierced his eye once it flew. There wasn’t time for the guard to readjust their trajectory, and when they fired it was wasted into a wall. His partner tried to cover, landing a shot on the beast’s shoulder though he’d aimed for the heart. Much of the already marginal effectiveness was dampened by the thick fur there. The inmate slashed a sharped hooved hand through the first’s throat, hooking tusks around the second and pausing a second to ensure the timing before tossing him overhead. One of the bullets meant for the swine slammed into the tumbling guard. Expert ears caught the hitching of breath as the enemy slammed into the ground, a clean snap of fragile bones and lack of shifting as they didn’t move immediately. The thunder of an unwelcome heartbeat. Stunned, not dead. A problem quickly solved by a passing foot through the chest as he ran to deal with the next foe. It crunched through the cavity, barely leaving the man time to scream before his lungs were exposed to chemically laced air. Bullet proof vests were very little defense against brute force, not the magnitude he boasted anyways. With experience, The Blood God yanked his next stride to avoid the corpse hindering his movement.

Strange buzzing, distant and small, hung at the edge of his hearing. Likely not a threat, but he could hope. What?? He was bored. 

He only stopped laughing when his teeth sunk into the jugular of the next doomed challenger. Hot blood surged over his tongue, spilling over his teeth. A familiar flavor, but not unwelcome for that. The best guests were always the frequent ones, in his opinion. Better than those terrible nutrition bricks, The Blade grumbled from the depths of the voices. A brief pause, then The Blood God jerked the corpse up, letting it catch the next barrage of bullets. They were becoming fewer and fewer as time went on, which was disappointing. Hadn’t they been expecting him? Possibly not, as proven by the fact people had still been fleeing when he’d arrived. Still. Could’ve at least tried to be a little more fun. By his calculations, there was a scant quantity of ammunition left. Magazines were a possibility, not that he’d give anyone time to reload.

And there. Just as he expected: the click of a dry fire. A quick suck in of breath, surprise edged by fear. The pad of racing footprints, and he whirred to meet them. Skidding, retreat. The taser wielder wisely postponed their assault. The Blood God carefully kept his eyes on the runner, the only hint of his true focus displayed in swiveling ears. 

Shuddering breath, the slithering of liquid. He frowned. Usually the objective would be whispering, mantras slipping from its tongue, reassurances against guilt. No matter. It still breathed, and thus he was still victorious. As long as the objective survived, he won. 

And he always, always won. 

Enemy breaths were turning ragged as they raced out of his way. So far the antagonists stuck to the walls, sliding around the parameter to maximize their distance. Smart, he supposed, but boring. Close range fighting was his first choice, but if they wanted to be difficult…deftly, he snatched a gun from a slain guard. It was tiny in his palm. Perfect. He feigned at a lap, causing the people to scatter back along the room’s circlet just as he knew they would. Eventually, one found the proximity too close and cut through the cage’s middle, racing through the foliage and trampling the crops. He frowned. Rude. The Blood God raised the gun, took careful aim to follow the serpentining pattern of the foe, then threw the firearm as hard as he could. It slammed into the human’s skull with a satisfying noise. Wheeling from the blow caused the guard to stumble, falling into a row and crushing the vegetation. The Blood God bounded towards him, carefully timing strides as to not hurt the harvest.

They nearly had drawn enough sense to flee, beginning to scramble up. A swift blow, and another enemy was conquered. Blood splattered up, thick and viscous, covering the potatoes and seeping into dark soil. Oh no, The Blade moaned. His poor plants! They didn’t deserve such a mess. He was going to have to clean that all up, but then what if that overwatered them and the root systems drowned? The entire section might be ruined. The Blade lifted the mangled corpse, mournfully trying to straighten the crushed stems and leaves. Foliage trembled under his tender touch, slippery with blood on his palms. Some of them were crumpled, and he delicately tried to smooth the creases, though nothing could be done for the tears. 

The voices were screaming a lot, an odd combination of cries for vengeance and pruning tips. Actually, they were incredibly loud, screeching and wailing like vengeful spirits. There was something important. What had it been? Really important, the voices were saying, but they thought everything was vital so it wasn’t exactly a good metric. Something about Tommy, he gathered. The Blade glanced over to where the boy was. He was crouched down, arms bright crimson and thrown over his head for protection. Avoiding bullets, which was good. He looked fine, though, so why would he need saving? Maybe could use some comfort, but that wasn’t something the voices really cared about, so The Blade didn’t know why they would be so insistent. S̷a̶v̸e̶ ̴i̶t̸, it the ocean demanded, rising up around him, a squall beginning in his own mind. Ś̸͔ḁ̸͘v̸̦͝e̴̛͉ ̵̦͒i̶̢͊t̷̹̎ ̶̘͠s̸̞̕a̸̛̮v̸̲̗̔e̸͍̽͘ ̴̱͎̱͒́͘í̴͇̐͑t̸̰̤͙́̆̚ ̶̻̃̃s̴͎͒̉̋a̸̡̗̯͊̌̍v̵̬̙̪̹͛e̶͙̩͑̀ ̶͙̺̈́͆̚͝i̶̤̻͎̳̥̇͐͂̾̓ͅt̸͎̻̦̯̺́̂. 

Inattention had a price. Pain shot through his muscles as they spasmed under waves of voltage, an involuntary grunt tore from his throat. The Blood God pushed passed convulsing muscles, reaching out and snatching the taser wielder by the leg. Electric current spread to them and they screeched with the pain. With a grunt of effort, he snapped their leg, as he didn’t quite have the position for a kill but didn’t want them escaping. It caused the foe to collapse in agony, offering an easy target of their fleshy important organs. The Blood God tried to struggle upward, but aftershocks danced along his body, ache filling the crevices of his existence. The voices snarled their displeasure, a rolling mass of wrath and bloodlust. His visage soured as he noticed the other taser wielder sneaking up behind him. It was a laughable stealth attempt, the shift of weight and scuff of boots easily noticed by sensitive ears. They weren’t even in the blind spot behind him, although perhaps if he’d had human eyes they might have been. Shaking off the lingering electricity, he whipped around to face the blur of colors, knocking the weapon aside with a flick of a tusk. A slice through paper thin cloth and tender skin, and the human’s guts spilled out onto a row of crops. Oh, not again. 

But before the swine could get distracted once more, he noticed something. Or, more accurately, a lack of something, as though coals peppered his body, jagged arcs of fire tracing the path of bullets as they’d plunged into him, those were old in the life of a battle. There was an unsettling lack of gunfire in his fight.

He hadn’t won yet, danger still loomed, threatening to steal his triumph. 

Steal was the correct verb. He wheeled at the slightest hint of noise, finding a duo of belligerents were dragging the objective and some other rag doll being away to a side door. A control panel lit, and it slid up. The Blood God knew The Blade had never managed to open it, though it hummed with some nebulous creature behind a taunting silver door. If the foes managed to escape with the win condition, he’d lose, unable to protect it from the other side. Gone, to who knew where. It’d be easy to off it, certainly there’d be at least one bullet left. Even if not, a twist of a contusion covered neck, enough slams of a head against the floor; it wouldn’t be hard to destroy his victory. His birthright. 

The Blood God snarled, racing on all fours towards them, refusing to succumb to defeat. In leaps and bounds he ate the ground between him and failure. The objective was screaming, thrashing in the grasp of the guard, until the other dropped her body, aiding in the capture of victory. The Red limbed being was dragged into the darkness, hidden from view but not from hearing, still struggling. Fear wafted from it, sharp and bitter. One of the belligerents returned, dragging the slumped figure in as well. 

He might’ve made it. Would have easily, reaching into the dark after them, slaughtering those who’d dared to oppose his triumph. 

But then a bullet grazed his hock. Barely skimming, a comet who only trailed mild fire in its wake. But an attack, a declaration of contest nonetheless. He couldn’t turn up a battle, even if he wanted to. On instinct, he reared up, pivoting and thundering towards the challenger. The third remaining gunmen stood on the other side of the room, becoming a fine red paste on the wall. A cheer, wild and savage, cried out in the throats of thousands as victory was claimed. 

No! The Blade hissed. It was a trick. The sea quieted, realization sweeping a wave over them all. Then they began to howl, outraged and seething in pulses of shouts. The Blood God tore towards the objective, dark monstrous eyes flashing with fury. They were gone into the shadowed room, just the barest glimpse of a silhouette illuminated at a control panel, cutting off the ability for him to win. He would fail.

No.

He would not lose. It wasn’t possible. The win condition had been for Tommy to be safe. He slaughtered almost everyone to ensure it, and yet in mere seconds it would all be in vain. His muscles burned with strain as he pushed them, a sanguine splattered arrow flying straight for the bullseye every time. But it wouldn’t be enough, he could see his own trajectory and it would fall far too short. His exhales huffed through his snout, hot and quick. Some last desperation fueled the flat sprint, but that, too, had been part of the calculations. There were no corners to cut, no quicker path. There was nothing The Blood God could do but lose.

Every single voice screamed, boiling up and overpowering every other noise, hiding the sound of his heavy pants, his hooves upon the white padded floor, the determination of his great heart, the incessant drowsy drones. Rage billowed from him, intent almost tangible in its intensity. A small green flash lit up the dark. No. Mechanisms whirred, and the guard began to slip into the room where they’d be sealed in with the key. No. As The Blood God watched, the door took to free fall. No. 

He would not lose. Could not, but to win was impossible. There was too much distance, not enough time. Reality just wouldn’t allow it. The voices pressed at the constraints, the weight of his determination straining at the edges of the possible. He had to win. That was a guarantee, a fact of life stitched into the world just as tight as every other law that governed existence. If that door shut, he couldn’t save it, couldn’t win. He refused. The weight of The Blood God’s intentions settled on reality. Finally, the world buckled, bent beneath the certainty of his victory. 

The Blood God wanted to win.

And the universe obliged.

The door was falling, an antagonist slipping beneath it to the closet beyond. For second, it hiccuped, gears catching its plummet. Beneath it, the man paused, fearfully glancing up, then to the rapidly approaching monster mere yards away. It began to fall again, of course, though the guard did not realize in time. And so, the door was unable to close due to the half crushed carcass between it and the floor. It was enough. Ivory tusks slid beneath it, forcefully imposing an entrance. It was far smaller than the door that barred The Blade’s tunnel, mechanisms already frayed from previous misfortune. He quickly lifted it to the top, and (with a quick crack of bones and tearing of flesh and muscle and sinew) jammed it into place with a spare limb the Foundation worker hadn’t needed. 

Try as he might, he couldn’t actually get into the room due to his size, and the final foe wasn’t kind enough to offer him a direct challenge. It stood between him and the objective, jeopardizing his victory. But a quick hand darting into the closet closed around their arm. Just like shooting fish in a barrel. Bones crumbled beneath his phalanxes as he yanked the doomed creature forward. A headbutt, a plunge, and all those who’d attacked or challenged his victory were slain. 

The objective was secured, the bloodlust satiated. Appeased, the voices quieted and The Blood God took his rest. Slowly, The Blade crawled out, pushing down the voices and stealing back control. Tommy was probably going to be scared from the attempt on his life, and The Blade needed to help with that. He liked to think he’d gotten pretty good at calming down the kid over time. A few awkward back pats and mumbled words and it was mostly fixed. No injuries to contend with as far as he could tell, not that he was ever much use there. Tommy was still huddled in the closet, and he reached in to pull him out into the light. 

But his hand froze. He’d forgotten the other figure, as it hadn’t attacked him or Tommy. Panic jolted his heart as he realized it was a child, no older than Tommy was.

No. Oh gods no.  

Desperately he tried to shut down the voices, to pull up any defense he could. The sea rose, tumultuous and roaring in his skull. He might’ve won against the bloodlust, usually would’ve, but his barriers weren’t back up, the last battle too recent to have recovered his distance from the others. The Blade jerked away, but his muscles were growing distant as he was dragged back into the writhing sea. Unlike last time, he struggled, trying to claw his way back into possession of himself. The Blade screamed as millions of hands wrapped around him, pulling him down into the masses.

They twitched, drowsy. A lazy hum began to unfurl in the air. Muzzily, their head lifted, eyes  drooped and barely cracked open. It was a young visage, rounded and soft. “…tommmmmy?” the child hummed. 

“Not quite,” The Blood God rumbled. A wild laugh escaped him. He had never been able to resist orphans. So vulnerable, unprotected by anything. Really, they weren’t going to survive anyway. Something so useless was practically asking to be destroyed, and he could never resist a challenge.

Dark eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the light. The Blood God shifted, shadow streaming through the door and sprawling over a minute form. Shining obsidian eyes widened, far too large for a human skull. Fear shimmered over them, mouth parting in a jagged line stretching across their jaw. The buzzing noise was growing, panicked frenzy whipping about the rooms. The target looked up to their destroyer, shrinking in the face of death.

No, The Blade shouted, but there were far more screams for blood.

——

It was hideous. That was all Tubbo knew. There wasn’t a single fact that led to that conclusion, but it was the only one that could come of the beast before them. It filled the doorway, shadow cast over the entire room, haloed in light that burned the edges of its silhouette. Piercing its head was a skeletal crown, bones jutting out, slender and faintly curved towards the center. Blood coated the tips, tracing down the strange antlers and dripping down its boarish face. The tusks, too, were splattered in sanguine and gore at the end. They were composed of thick ivory, longer than their arms and drawn to wicked points. More sanguine oozed from its mouth, matted and dried across its snout and the fine pink fur around its muzzle. Its lips pulled back, revealing blood coated teeth. Laughter tumbled from the swine's throat like rolling thunder heralding a dire omen, and Tubbos’ antenna flattened at the sound. Its shoulders shook with it, shivering the white mane that stretched across its chest and ruffled down its back. Aside from a shock of pale blue hospital gown, shorter mahogany fur covered the rest of the creature, mingled with blood splatters and streaks, pockmarked with bullet wounds, each testament to its and others’ pain worn like medals. Its eyes were dark and animalistic in its brutalism, filled with a murderous intent that had every one of their instincts screaming for Tubbo to flee, though they could barely even move, sleep gripping too many of them and fear gripping far more.

It looked like some hellish swine demon. It looked like a nightmare come to life. It looked, in short, like death, and it loomed over Tubbo, teeth pulled in what was simultaneously a smile and snarl. They couldn’t move. 

A hooved had reached for them, surrounded by blood matted white fur that sprouted at the forearms. It was the size of their head, and it struck like a snake, a vice around their arm as they were dragged into the light. They nearly thought the limb would be pulled off completely. 

And Tubbo couldn’t move, just stared up at the behemoth. It was like a dream, everything numb and distant no matter how closely the specter of death loomed. All they could think was that they’d die, and they were right. Fists, powerful and deadly, and they were-

——

-raising up, prepared to strike. The Blade scrambled upwards, fighting for control, not able to stop it but at least managing to pull back, to manufacture hesitation, and the kid was finally scrambling away but it wouldn’t be enough. Rude of it, to try and escape. Best to punish such notions. The Blood God adjusted for it, snarling as he drowned The Blade. At least I tried, The Blade consoled himself as he was pulled away from the surface and control.

The fists swung down. Dark terror filled eyes watched their doom approach. They cracked, split open in a crunching noise that was completely alien from the shatter of bone he expected. Viscous amber liquid flew up in a golden spray, dark clouds pouring from them in furious swarms. They were screeching, a cacophonous sound that rivaled the voices, a discordant thing made of chattering insects. But it wasn’t just agony, it wasn't just fear. No, it was a word, and they were pouring every inch of desperation into it, calling for deliverance. Calling-

——

-his name. Hoarse and terrified, mangled by bees, but clearly his name. Tommy’s head shot up. A ghastly scene painted itself before him, though he knew it would be. That’s why he’d been cowering, he knew whatever he saw would be haunting his nightmares. But he’d never thought he’d find The Blood God standing over a shattered Tubbo. No wonder they screamed like the world was ending: they were right, after all. Tommy scrambled, grasping crimson fingers around fabric and quickly dragging Tubbo away to the closet, clutching them in the dark. The Blood God strained at the threshold, hand lashing as he tried to reach his prey. Tommy’s back hit the wall as he pulled Tubbo as far from him as possible. They were oddly light. Tommy already knew they were. Tubbo was hollow after all. Plus, adrenaline was probably supercharging his strength. And while both those things were true, they weren’t the real reason.

Because Tommy had only gotten half of Tubbo into the room. 

Bees swarmed, darkening the air until he thought he’d choke on them. Honey stained their clothing, warm and oozing over Tommy. It’s not the same as blood, he reminded himself. And it wasn’t, not really, but it still meant something was horribly wrong. It still gushed out of his friend, hot and pooling around the pair. It still streaked along the path carved from where Tommy had heaved them away from danger, demarcating a clear trail from the hem of Tubbos’ gown to where The Blood God stood, shadow pooling over the pieces of what once were their legs. 

Now, though, they were mostly chunks. A few of them were more recognizable, a pale calf there, what might’ve been a knee. They were more intact further down, jagged cracks running through shins that turned to fine lines near the ankles, crumbling sections caving inwards. Horror shot up in his insides, twisting his guts. His mouth tasted sour as bile crept up it. 

“Oh summoner of mine,” The Blood God rumbled, voice pitched low and persuasive yet still carrying over the screech of the Hive. “Stop being an obstacle and give me back my kill, weakling. I adore a challenge, but this is just tiresome.” His bloody smile was distorted by the hundred of thousands of bees. Tommy glanced back to find dark terrified eyes, thick with golden tears. Their face was slack, shock freezing them. Tommy carefully placed himself between the insectoid and the tusked titan, holding his gaze to homicidal eyes. No matter what happened, Tommy would do anything and everything in his power to protect them.