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Have you ever heard the story of Orpheus?
His love for music earned him a reputation throughout his city. He played instruments and composed songs, pieces that sounded like they were fathered by the gods. Probably because they were— Apollo taught him everything he knew.
Music was almost everything to him, but not quite. He had a soft spot, and her name was Eurydice.
...She died. Everybody does, y‘know. Orpheus, the poor bastard, he did the only thing he knew how to. He followed her all the way down.
Well, Persephone and Hades and whoever else they let be in charge of the whole ordeal, they were so entranced by his singing and his sob story, they let him take her back under one condition. He had to trust that she was behind him the whole way. He couldn’t look back until they were out of the Underworld.
Orpheus couldn’t do it. The whole thing, the trials and the begging, all for nothing. She was stuck down there forever.
… The point?
Well, there are tons of different interpretations. Maybe it’s something about trusting the people around you to do what they need to. Maybe it’s about letting the past go.
But we’ve never been good at either of those, have we?
“Stop lying to me,” Tubbo says. It comes out harsher than he means for it to, and Tommy’s eyes widen for a split second in a familiar expression of surprise. His words weren’t supposed to sound angry, even though he is angry. Mostly, he’s just tired.
He doesn’t feel like himself, covered head to toe in netherite, a crowd of citizens watching as he faces off against his best friend. His best friend, who he’d exiled from L’Manburg, who had let him think he was dead, who had—
“I’m not lying to you,” Tommy says. The expression on his face is hardened; Tubbo can’t tell if he’s being honest. Not like this, not during such an absurd display of force. He doesn’t know where Tubbo starts and the President begins.
Tommy is still talking. “I didn’t destroy the community house. That was Dream, and you’re about to hand him that disc—”
Tubbo feels anger bubble up inside of him, acidic and familiar, the byproduct of being a puppet for so many people. He’s tired. He’s so, so tired of this. He wants Tommy to be honest with him, and he wants things to go back to the way they used to be, and he knows acutely there is no way for that to happen. "You've literally proven time and time again that you can't be trusted!"
“You were a shit friend to me,” Tommy says. The person in front of him now isn’t one that Tubbo recognizes. There’s something new in the clench of his jaw, the way his hand is resting on his weapon, the way he spits every word like it burns him. “You betrayed me—”
“I didn’t betray you—” Tubbo shouts. His left cheek throbs from a few minutes earlier, when Tommy swept him onto the wooden floor and punched him square in the face. He takes a faltering step forward.
“Tubbo—” Tommy shouts. They’re a sight to behold, hair matted to their faces with sweat. A walking tragedy: armor slightly too big that they’re waiting to grow into, swords they’re already too skilled at using. Their faces are too young for the wildness in their eyes. Tommy’s voice becomes a snarl. "Tubbo, the discs were worth more than you ever were!"
All the chatter echoing from above stops. Everything comes screeching to a halt. Tubbo feels like there isn’t enough air in his lungs, or in the room, or quite possibly in the world. Neither of them realized there was a line still to be crossed.
Tommy glares at him and does not break eye contact. A choked sob rises from somewhere deep in Tubbo’s chest, and as it breaks through his throat, he realizes he’s done.
He’s through being stepped on by other people. He’s through making decisions that he thinks are right, only to realize they’re a careful manipulation designed to help someone else. He’s done with ruling a country and losing everything he has because of it.
And most importantly, he is done with Tommy’s bullshit.
The silence shatters. He tackles Tommy to the ground, grabbing the other’s sword and tossing it into the ocean surrounding them. It sinks out of view, and Tubbo puts a hand on his own weapon.
“You left me,” Tubbo says. Distantly he realizes that he’s screaming, that the gathered crowd is shouting, that words are tumbling out of Tommy’s mouth. All that registers in his mind is a dull buzz. “This was supposed to be our country! You were supposed to be better than Wilbur! I’m sick of being so afraid all the time—” He wrenches off Tommy’s chestplate and kicks it to the side. “—and I’m sick of you pretending you know how I feel!”
When he’s finished, his breath comes in heaving gasps. He’s simply viewing the scene as an objective observer. There is a boy kneeling on the rough wooden panels of a stage, looking incredibly small. His grasp is shaky as he lets go of a sword plunged straight through the figure in his lap, his shirt darkening as something red streams across it.
Everything rushes back into focus, a stark picture of the truth. His hands are covered in rapidly spreading blood. There’s so much of it, all over Tommy and himself and running down into the sea.
“Tommy?” he tries to say. No sound comes from his lips. Tommy does not open his eyes.
Dream’s voice comes in a cackle from behind him. He’s dragging a hand down the cracked porcelain of his mask. “What did you do?” Another crazed laugh bubbles out of him. “You… It wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”
“Dream—” Tubbo says in a very small voice. He’s not sure what he wants to say. Dream, fix this. Make him better. Tell me none of this is real. Tell me I didn’t—
“Dream? He has another life left. Doesn’t he? He wasn’t— He has another life left! He only died once—” He’s sobbing now, hands curled into the familiar red and white fabric of Tommy’s shirt. “He died with me, it was supposed to be— I wasn’t going to—”
“Tubbo,” Dream says, now right beside him. His voice is an even mixture of amusement and disbelief. “You idiot.”
“What the hell?” says someone from behind him. “I thought we were waiting to kill the kid!”
“We were,” says Dream, low and dangerous.
So many things click in Tubbo’s mind at once that he freezes. The floor is falling out from beneath his feet as he wraps his arms around Tommy, crying so hard he can barely breathe. You killed Tommy. It was only supposed to be his second life, a way of payback for all the times—
Dream is going to kill you. He knows this with a detached certainty. Tommy’s death is only a bonus, an unexpected help for a plan that was already well into motion. Tommy’s death. The world is condensed to just this one small space, to Tubbo’s chest burning and the way his hands are slick as they try to tuck Tommy’s hair out of his eyes.
Quackity was never on your side. All he ever wanted was power. After Schlatt was gone, once Tubbo had control, he thought things would be different. This subtle betrayal is a fact he’s known all along, and yet the realization stings. He desperately wanted someone to be in his corner, no matter how many meetings Quackity had with Dream in secret that he told Tubbo not to worry about. Later he would barge into Tubbo’s room with something homemade, and he would forget about the ache in his chest. It was easier to pretend Quackity cared about him. It was easier than acknowledging no one did.
It takes him much longer than it should to register the first explosion. The ground beneath him is shaking but it’s almost unnoticeable compared to the way he’s trembling, staring with glassy eyes at Tommy, still held tight in his arms. There’s a wave of heat that would be painful if his body would work with him, if it would register anything at all besides the crushing weight pinning down his entire body. There is nothing in his mind besides Tommy and the sword through his torso and the knowledge coursing through his veins that this is all his fault. He thinks inexplicably about Schlatt, with his fits of anger and insatiable need for power, and is confronted with the fact that he is no better.
Run.
His ears are ringing. Someone is pulling at his sleeve, telling him to come with them, to get to safety. He looks up numbly, watching dynamite come crashing from the sky. Red and orange explosions burst through the landscape around him, more destruction than he knew the world was capable of containing. The grip on his arm fades away; whoever it was decided he was a lost cause.
There isn’t any point, really. Tubbo is running on instinct and adrenaline and something beyond that, something selfish and rampant that shattered as soon as he realized his best friend wasn’t coming back. The disks were worth more than you ever were. He holds Tommy to his chest as another stack of explosives lands, close enough that Tubbo holds back a hiss of pain when he feels debris and scatter across his shoulders.
His mind keeps bouncing back to a story Schlatt used to tell him, because apparently the man can’t leave Tubbo alone even in death. Orpheus, fallen from the top of the world, staring helplessly down at the person who once meant the most to him.
Making his way to his feet unsteadily, he turns and runs away. His thoughts pound through his head while his feet land on stone and grass. His ears ring from the explosions— there are so many of them, and every time Tubbo thinks surely the whole thing must be over, the destruction continues.
There’s a burst of pain, scorching his back. He can’t feel his right arm. Everything is white noise as he scrambles to his feet, vision blurring, breath coming in shallow gasps. There’s nothing left for him here. There’s no one left for him, if there ever was.
Tubbo can’t stop himself from turning around. He has to know. He has to be certain.
L’Manberg is a gaping wound in the earth. It’s dizzying, years of effort and memories gone. You can’t be president of something that hasn’t ceased to exist as much as it has been systematically obliterated. He’s standing on the edge of a hole that goes straight down to bedrock, lava pouring out of the earth to guarantee that nothing is left recognizable. Dream stands on a grid of obsidian above it all, hands poised to ignite another block of TNT.
Tubbo stands, feet scrambling for purchase on the mixture of ash and mud coating the outskirts of what used to be his home, and runs for his life.
Tubbo is pretty sure he’s dying.
That’s the only explanation he can come up with as he stumbles through the snow, his leg almost giving out as he narrowly avoids falling into a small hole. It never hurt like this, the two times he died before.
Dream, for all his faults, was nothing if not practical. Always playing the long game, always one step ahead. He had no need for brutality because it took too much time. Tubbo’s death after the signing of L’manburg’s Declaration of Independence had been quick and effective. He hadn’t even seen it coming, just woken up in his bed and known something was different about it. And then later, when Schlatt—
Well. He’s pretty sure his final death will be the worst one yet.
His head is still spinning, the crunch of the snow beneath his feet dampened by the ringing in his ears. Black spots tint the corners of his vision, but he’d be hard pressed to tell you which neglected issue is the one causing it. His shirt is clinging to his back and arms with a combination of blood and mud. The skin on his palms is raw to the touch; he doesn’t want to know what happened to the parts of his body closer to an explosion.
His goal, stumbling foggy minded away from the wreckage of his life, had been to make it back to Snowchestershire. A place to regroup. A place he had built, a few days ago, to house both Tommy and himself after they reconciled. He’s too tired for the thought to sting. Five right turns have passed, and he’s nowhere near the landmarks he expected.
The sun starts to dip beneath the horizon. He can already feel the monsters perched atop trees, waiting for him to fall. It clicks into place with the finality of a key in a jail cell: there’s no point.
Everyone he loved is dead. Dream will stop at nothing to ensure that he is too. There’s no place for him now, nothing but a corpse and a crater and miles of snow ahead of him. His legs falter before giving out entirely, and he collapses face first into the snow. The numbness isn’t entirely unpleasant.
The tips of his fingers begin to turn blue. Light is quickly fading from the landscape; he can hear things scurrying in the dark. Maybe this won’t be so bad. Maybe he can just pretend it’s like falling asleep, here alone in the tundra, among the warmth and the grass and the—
...Warmth?
He forces his eyes to blink open, squinting against the light coming from in front of him. It’s a nether portal, though heaven knows where it came from, glowing enticingly. It’ll only take a few steps for him to gain entrance.
Tubbo grits his teeth so they stop chattering. It’s going to take effort, so much more than just lying in the snow until he doesn’t feel anything at all.
But it’s frigid out here— he can feel the intense heat of the portal from his position several feet away. His head is still spinning, all of his thoughts running together into the next, and the overwhelming need to get somewhere warm cancels out all possibility of rational thought.
Slowly, with the air of a man frustrated to be given a second chance at living, he starts towards the portal.
Tubbo never enjoyed being in the Nether.
The air smells like sulfur and gasoline, and he can hear rather than see the lava bubbling. Looking over the side of the small path he’s headed down causes his head to spin, so he focuses on putting one foot in front of the other until he feels certain no one would see him if they were to enter the portal. The ground is rough against his feet and then his entire body as he lays down and curls his knees to his chest.
If Tubbo was exhausted before, it’s nothing compared to the absolute numbness in all of his limbs now. They buzz with overexertion and ignored pain. His mind feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton. He swings both legs over the side of a small rock embankment a considerable distance from where he entered— the chances he’ll be able to find the exit again are slim and none— and watches the magma pop below him. The heat he could feel from out in the snow is almost unbearable on a normal day, but for now he rubs his hands together and embraces it. Tubbo runs his fingers over the chain around his neck out of habit, even though there’s not a compass hanging from it anymore. (Even though there’s no one for it to point to.)
He doesn’t hear the footsteps behind him, doesn’t register the subtle sounds of a crossbow raising or animalistic snorting. There’s just a moment when he’s sitting there, trying to get rid of the vice that’s firmly clamped around his lungs and refused to let up, and then there’s a moment of blinding pain where he finds himself sprawled across the dirt.
It’s a piglin, it must be. They’re one of the only things that can stand to live in the Nether, barren hellscape that it is, incredibly protective of their undisputed territory. Tubbo has no gold to barter with, no words to plead with, and he hits the ground hard as his attacker punches him in the jaw. He keeps himself from rolling over the edge and into the lava below, but it’s a useless victory. Blood drips down his face and into his eyes, so he gives up and lets them shut.
One final thought. One last prediction before he slips under.
I hope I can see Tommy again.
When Tubbo wakes up, nothing hurts.
It’s like waking up from a long nap, the first decent sleep he remembers getting in years. Everything he felt before is gone— the physical pain, the hopelessness, the confusion.
There’s only one problem with this, which sinks in slowly, on many different levels:
He’s supposed to be dead.
He remembers— he— they had— and the arrow, and the Nether, and Dream— L’Manberg blown to pieces, Tommy lying still on the wood paneling with a sword through his—
Tubbo sits upright in a jolt, half expecting the blinding pain from before to return now that he’s moving. It doesn’t, but he’s certainly still alive; several parts of his body twinge, and there’s a dull ache spreading outwards from his temples. He’s wearing the same tattered coat he passed out in. Tubbo briefly entertains the notion that he’s a ghost, but his hand remains stubbornly solid when it touches the ground.
He scrambles to his feet, looking around wildly. Surely his injuries should have been fatal. Maybe someone helped him, but if that’s true, no clues to their identity can be found in his surroundings.
He has to get out of here and back to the Overworld, that’s for sure, but he distinctly remembers getting as far away as possible from the place where he entered. Between the indeterminate amount of time he’s been unconscious and his current state of disorientation, he has no idea where to even begin making his way back home. (It’s not much of a home anymore, but he’s not going to dwell on that right now.)
Turn right, says some previously untapped part of his mind. Tubbo’s eyes narrow; directions had never been instinctual for him before, but he isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He obeys whatever impulse seems to be the loudest, a left then two more rights, and before he knows it he’s standing in front of what is presumably the portal he came through to begin with. Without thinking, he steps through it and feels the familiar drop of his stomach as he ends up somewhere else.
Tubbo manages to keep his footing, taking in his surroundings as soon as he’s out of the Nether. It’s nice— the smell and heat had been oppressive without him even realizing it— but it’s… definitely not the tundra. He’s surrounded by trees and newly sprung grasses. There are voices somewhere in the distance, so he ducks behind the nearest trunk and starts to take stock of his situation.
They probably think he’s dead. Tubbo has no idea how long he’s been gone, who he can trust, why he’s still here. Where here even is. It’s obvious he’s been given a second chance for a reason, but where to begin discovering that reason is so far beyond him that he sinks to the ground, bracing himself against the rough wood of the tree behind him.
His thoughts are so turbulent, racing through possibilities and finding each one lacking, that it takes him a moment to realize not every voice in his head is his .
You aren’t supposed to be here.
“What?” Tubbo says out loud. He looks around, hand clenched over his sword, but there’s no one near him.
This isn’t your place.
He almost jumps out of his skin this time, ripping his sword out and pointing it in whatever direction seems best. “Who said that?” he demands of the air.
Something is… off. He’s fought with this sword hundreds of times (done worse things with it) and he knows how it should feel in his hand. The weight of it, the way it lists slightly to the left when it swings. His body isn’t getting the memo this time, and he worries briefly that lying comatose above a pit of fire may not have been as healing as he originally thought. There’s something off about his hands, or maybe his left arm.
His gaze travels down his sleeve, the red fabric ripped and frayed at the cuff. His hand is oddly shiny, like it’s been burned, fingers a bit stiffer than usual. The reflection on his sword—
It’s not him.
It’s someone different, someone with a face that’s more like a snout, longer teeth and more scars and skin that’s almost pink. He sucks in a harsh breath and throws the sword as far away from him as possible. Tubbo does not miss the fear in his reflection’s eyes.
“What the hell,” Tubbo whispers hoarsely.
The voices are thrilled to give him an answer.
Why is he in the wrong—
You shouldn’t be—
Dead—
Timeline not for—
There’s a rustle in front of him, the sound of muted laughter, and then a figure breaks through the bushes to walk into the clearing. His heart stutters in his chest. Everything else goes silent.
Tommy, looking younger and more confident than Tubbo has seen him in a while, is strolling through the clearing. He’s headed away from Tubbo, so it’s unlikely that he’s even noticed another presence.
“Tommy,” he says, before any rational thoughts can be had about it. “It’s me! T—”
No.
The voice is so firm, so insistent that Tubbo chokes off in the middle of his sentence. “No?” he asks under his breath.
“Uh.” Tommy is staring at him as if he’s insane, which he’s not ruling out as a possibility. “...Do I know you, big man?”
Tubbo scrambles for an answer that the voices will deem acceptable. “Sorry, um. I’m T--ech… no?” He glances down at his sword, still discarded in the middle of the clearing. “Blade?”
Tommy continues to stare at him with a wary expression. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Blade.”
“It’s just the one word,” Tubbo says. Mentally, he kicks himself very, very hard.
“Right. Techno, then.” It’s so close to being real that Tubbo’s chest aches with the impact of it. Tommy eyes the potions, the weapons, the heavily stocked belt he has on, courtesy of being forced to carry all his worldly possessions out of the wreckage of his home. “I have a proposition for you.” He sticks out his hand, turning on a beaming smile that Tubbo has always been particularly weak for. “Would you like to join the fight for democracy?”
Tubbo has absolutely no idea what’s happening. He’s not supposed to be here— the voices in his head have made that much clear— and he obviously isn’t himself. He needs answers. He needs time to think. He needs to be alone.
But it’s Tommy, his Tommy, whole and alive and with no idea who he was. It’s a second chance at life, a second chance at everything he’s managed to mess up so terribly, and he’s been alone for too long already. He stands at the mouth of the underworld. He refuses to look over his shoulder.
Tubbo— Technoblade, now— smiles. If Tommy’s expression is anything to go by, it’s not entirely successful around the new and surprising amount of teeth that he has, but he manages. “I would love to.”