Chapter Text
Fundy was what people liked to call a very special, and unique child. Which was just adult speak for “Bloody hell, your child is weird. What is wrong with her?”
And of course, Fundy was the weirdest person in his family, but at least he could justify it because he had spent the second half of his childhood raising himself because Dad had just about had it with Technoblade raising Fundy.
Fundy had been excited at first, because he was finally big enough to spend actual time with his Dad, but that lasted all of three hours before he was homesick for the only person who gave him the time of day. Because Dad hadn’t dragged him away from that server because he finally wanted to spend time together.
Dad had dragged him away because he didn’t like that someone else was raising his child, and he didn’t like what Techno was teaching Fundy, and he wanted to get rid of some of Fundy’s weirdness by having him spend time around more normal people. (Fundy had tried that for a few short months, and came out scarred in more ways than one, but Dad hadn’t even seemed to notice.)
And Fundy wouldn’t admit it aloud, because he didn’t want anyone to be sad, but he would have been fine with being weird if Dad could love him in spite of it. (But apparently Dad couldn’t.)
He wanted to go home.
Fundy wasn’t sure what had been the final straw for Dad, but he guessed it was when he came home to find Fundy mumbling the tale of Icarus as he poured over the last of the books on redstone from the library, red powder and various metal parts scattered over the dining room table.
Or maybe it was when Dad and Techno were arguing in hushed whispers, and Techno insisted that if Dad sent Fundy back to the public school, he would be as bad as Techno’s old master (whatever that meant. Fundy didn’t understand), and promised that if Dad did send him back, Techno would take Fundy and make sure Dad would never see Fundy again.
(Fundy pretended that the thought of leaving Dad would hurt more than it actually did. More than the thought of losing Techno.)
Regardless of the reason, Dad announced the next morning that he was taking Fundy to the server where he and his friends were having their current adventure, where Tommy currently was. (That Fundy would never be allowed to return here was implied.)
So Fundy went to his room and packed everything he wanted to take. It wasn’t much, given how little could pass from one server to another.
He packed Techno’s filled speaking notebooks, a one sided conversation mostly to Fundy himself, the three diamonds Techno had given him after the incident that got him pulled from school, and Phil’s only book on redstone machines, far too advanced for Fundy’s current level of expertise but he’d get there eventually. And if Techno handed him his current speaking notebook, which had a few legal papers Fundy didn’t understand at the back, Dad didn’t notice.
(Fundy was more interested in the words on the last used page. It wasn’t much, because Techno wasn’t much for emotions, even written. But it meant so much more than it should when he ran his fingers over the page, reading the few lines written there.)
(‘To my favorite fox, I am proud of you.’ And of course it was written in Archaic Piglin underneath, Techno’s latest endeavor to give Fundy the best education despite his own limited knowledge. Except that the Archaic Piglin read ‘fox boy’, their own little secret.)
(There was more Archaic Piglin than Common Tongue, but Fundy would need to decipher it to understand what Techno had written.)
Fundy pulled on his binder, and shoved the ones Techno had bought in larger sizes for when Fundy inevitably outgrew his current one to the bottom of his backpack. He hadn’t gotten around to explaining the situation to his dad, not with the short visits Dad occasionally allowed that rarely lasted more than a day.
Nothing beyond the clothes on his back and stuff that was enchanted to pass from one server to another could come, so Fundy couldn’t bring any materials or his current projects to show Tommy or the weapons he still kept hidden under his bed.
As they walked to the server’s portal, where they would enter the Hub, Dad explained the concept and theories surrounding servers and the Hub. When they finally stepped through into the Hub, Fundy pretended to be surprised and awed by the place he had already visited several times now.
Dad didn’t know he’d been here before, and Fundy didn’t want to explain why. Not yet at least.
The Hub was awe inspiring, at least a little. Always packed with hurried travelers carrying untold adventures, Fundy sometimes wished he could just stay here and ask for their stories.
Though Techno had always kept his own adventures secret, insisting Fundy could know when he was grown up, but not until then, Phil loved telling him and Tommy his adventures in often excruciating detail.
Dad had not been so forthcoming, mostly because he was rarely around long enough for Fundy to work up the courage to ask, and when he did, Dad insisted that Fundy was still technically three years old, and shouldn’t know until later. As if Fundy couldn’t turn to Techno later and ask, and receive the stories in all of their glory, though most details were left on paper, or unknown because Techno forgot Fundy was still learning the less spoken dialect of Piglin used almost entirely for stories.
The walk through the Hub was long, but despite being taller than Techno, Dad had a slower pace. Fundy didn’t need to latch on to his hand to keep up, which was good. Fundy worried that he would accidentally claw Dad’s hand. Techno’s skin was much thicker, and he didn’t even notice if Fundy drew blood most of the time.
The server portal Dad eventually stopped in front of was called the Dream SMP. Dad didn’t explain the glowing neon green server details written in server code floating on the left of the portal, but he didn’t need to.
Techno had explained the basics when Fundy had asked on his first visit to the Hub, and when he didn’t know the answers to Fundy’s persistent questions, he’d picked up twenty books from the library on it.
The floating letters gave basic rules for the server, and its parameters. It allowed only three lives, did not allow flying in any form, had the End dimension closed, and people could only enter through a whitelist invite. A whitelist invite Fundy didn’t have, and then had to spend half an hour waiting outside the portal while he waited for Dad to track down the owner so Fundy could join.
Fundy had never been on a server with limited respawns before. Their home server had infinite respawns, which was why Phil had even settled there, to ensure the safety of his family. The Hub didn’t have any deaths, or weapons even, and the fighting server Techno had taken him to when Fundy insisted he was ready to fight a living opponent was modified so that no one could die permanently.
It was disconcerting, terrifying in a distant way, because it likely wouldn’t matter, since he would avoid dying at all costs, and likely wouldn’t need to. But he didn’t have that safety net anymore.
If he ever lost two of those lives, he would run no matter what Dad might think, and he would go back to his home server, and Technoblade. He wouldn’t let it get that bad.
He jumped when the invite appeared in front of his face in a burst of white sparkles. He accepted the invite, though his finger hesitated for a long moment. It seemed like he was taking a step into a new era, though that wouldn’t occur until Dad returned.
He waited for a few long moments for Dad to emerge from the portal, before he decided to enter on his own. It felt just like the one at home did. It felt like returning home, except when he opened his eyes, he wasn’t home.
Whatever he expected to find, it wasn’t quite what he found. He was standing in a clearing, a few buildings visible nearby, the server portal behind him, and someone in a green hoodie with a white mask with a smiley face covering their face.
They were rather odd, just standing there, probably staring at him. Dad was nowhere in sight, to Fundy’s disappointment.
Still, he knew how to be polite, something Techno insisted he do to everyone who wasn’t immediately labelled an enemy by the Piglin hybrid. Being polite could get him a long way, Techno had insisted. (It was the normal thing to do anyway.)
“Hello. I’m Fundy.” He said.
“Dream.” The other introduced themself, extending a hand for Fundy to shake, shifting the diamond axe to their other hand. Both hands were gloved in fingerless black leather gloves that showed only a portion of the back of their hand, and their fingers.
Fundy grasped it carefully, more mindful of his claws than he normally forced himself to be, and shook it. Dream had a strong grip, which Fundy refused to reciprocate. He didn’t want to hurt anyone.
“You’re Wilbur’s kid?” Dream asked, like they couldn’t be quite sure.
Fundy nodded, saying, “My mother was a salmon,” as if that explained how a human could have a fox hybrid for a kid. Dream snorted, but it seemed more amused than mocking, so Fundy said nothing.
“Do you know where he is?” Fundy asked when the silence stretched between them for an uncomfortably long time. Dream shrugged, but turned and walked away, waving for Fundy to follow.
Fundy did. Dream pointed out random buildings as they walked down a wooden path towards whatever L’manberg was, which was apparently where Dad likely was. Mostly, Dream just told him who lived where, giving no description of the other inhabitants beyond their names.
Fundy supposed it didn’t matter. He would meet them eventually, and then he would have a place, a face, and a name to match.
They eventually arrived at L’Manberg, and Fundy found himself staring at blackstone walls topped with black and yellow concrete. It seemed an odd place for Dad and Tommy to live. More like a prison than a house, if he were honest.
Dream stopped at the gate, so Fundy stopped as well.
“You can just go inside.” Dream motioned for him to enter. Fundy waited. It could be a trap. He couldn’t think of any other reason why someone would tell him to enter a place without first going through.
“Are you not going in?” Dream shrugged.
“I’m not allowed in.” At Fundy’s perplexed expression, they continued, evidently realizing that Fundy had no idea of anything that had occurred on this server. “L’Manberg is trying to get independence from my SMP. If I go in, they’ll try to kill me.” Fundy nodded to show that he understood, pretending that it hadn’t raised so many more questions.
How could a country get independence from a server? That just didn’t make sense, unless Dad was trying to split a piece of the server into a new server, but while possible, it was an incredibly dangerous task, usually requiring a whole team of experts to complete it successfully.
Fundy sat down outside the gate, pulling his backpack into his lap so he could lean against the blackstone wall comfortably. It was cool, the temperature chilling him despite the clothing and fur between the stone and his skin.
Eventually Dream joined him, sitting down on the grass, far enough that Fundy would not be able to touch them without a weapon. Fundy wasn’t sure what kind of threat he could pose, all fur and bones due to a recent growth spurt (as if his entire childhood wasn’t one long growth spurt), but he could appreciate someone who didn’t underestimate him.
“Are you… um...are you a boy?” Fundy finally asked, furry fingers twisting in knots nervously.
“Yeah.” Dream nodded. “You?” Fundy couldn’t have kept the grin from his face if he had tried, but he didn’t bother. Dream was surprisingly easy to talk to, for someone who was supposed to be his Dad’s enemy.
“Yeah.” Fundy told him. “But I haven’t told anyone but my uncle Techno, so please don’t tell anyone.” Dream nodded, and gave him a thumbs up.
When Dad did eventually arrive, he looked incredibly worried, running a hand through his brown curls and pulling.
“Dad? What’s wrong?” He asked, leaping to his feet.
“Fundy! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Dad sounded almost angry. Fundy reminded himself that he had just been worried, clearly.
“Sorry. I got the invitation, so I went through the portal, but you weren’t there, so Dream brought me to your house.” Fundy explained, both arms wrapped tightly around his backpack.
“Dream?” Dad said the name like it was poison. Fundy’s ears flattened.
“Don’t worry.” Dream drawled, now leaning against the walls like he didn’t have a care in the world, but his axe was in his hand again, instead of in his belt. He looked far different from the person Fundy had been speaking to mere moments before. He looked dangerous now. “I’m not going to hurt a harmless kid.” Fundy tried not to bristle, but his tail puffed up regardless. He wasn’t harmless. Techno had taught him to fight, after all, and he’d won his first, and only, duel in the fighting server.
“Stay away from her, Dream.” Dad snapped, and Fundy did his best not to flinch at the reminder of what he still needed to tell his Dad.
It wasn’t even a matter of whether or not Dad would accept him, because Dad had always been accepting of this kind of thing. It was more a matter of if Dad would take it as another step deviating from what Fundy was supposed to be. Another step towards being irreparably weird.
“It’s okay, Dad. I’m fine.” He resolutely didn’t pull the berries from his pocket, though he wanted to share them with Dad and his new friend. He wasn’t supposed to be able to touch sweet berries without being hurt; it was a nice perk for being a fox hybrid, a less than ideal quirk when he was trying to be normal. “Can you show me the house, though? I want to see it.”
Dad agreed, guiding him through the gate like he was a small child, still glaring at Dream, never looking away until they were safely away from the gates.
“You stay far away from him, okay? He’s dangerous, and I don’t want you to get hurt.” Dad looked so caring, crouched down to meet Fundy’s eyes. For a short moment, Fundy was convinced that his Dad had loved him all along, and he was sure he’d do just about anything to know that for another moment.
“Of course, Dad.” The moment faded, leaving Fundy somehow simultaneously hollow and warm. He resented it in a way he didn’t think he ever would.
But Dad did care after all. They would finally be on the same server for longer than a few days, and they would be able to spend so much time together. It would completely make up for all the time Dad had spent away.
Fundy was wrong. (And maybe that was the last time he would ever allow himself to hope. It didn’t mean he would stop trying though.)
The Dream SMP was not a horrible place to live, to grow up. It certainly could be better, given that Dad had apparently brought him into the middle of a revolution, while Dad was trying to split off a small piece of the server.
Despite being almost as old as Tommy (minor technicalities aside), Fundy was left entirely to his own devices.
It was fine. He was used to being alone, as much as he hated it. He could stay holed up in a room for days as long as he had enough iron and redstone to play around with. He could. It didn’t make it any less lonely though, because when he’d done it at home, Techno was there to make sure he ate, and to drag him outside to spar or help with the potatoes every day, and to generally remind him that he wasn’t alone.
Techno hadn’t minded all that much when a much younger Fundy insistently batted at his tail, and was content to throw a ball back and forth for hours without ever looking up from the book he held too close to his face.
Sometimes Dad or Eret might be bothered to come around and check, but the former rarely stayed long enough to make sure Fundy was even alive, and the latter usually just sat awkwardly inside the door.
Fund found great entertainment in pulling harmless pranks. Not the kind that would hurt others, but the kind that everyone would laugh at despite whatever cleanup they needed to do afterwards. Like turning around every bed he could find, so that the foot of the bed was against the wall.
Everyone was exasperated, because beds with respawn magic were heavy, but if Fundy could manage to turn them around, it wouldn’t be that hard to put them back. Even Dad, who was buried in countless papers every minute of every day, had taken enough time to look up and laugh at the comical expressions on everyone’s faces.
Fundy could count that as a win.
Sure, he spent many nights unable to sleep, knowing that he had two options, remove the binder and risk clawing himself until he bled at the sight or sleep in his binder, and risk hurting himself with the binder.
Despite every promise he had made to Techno before he left, he found himself curled up on the bathroom floor in the dead of night, reading over the enchanted pages of Techno’s speaking books, knowing better than to sleep with his binder on, but not daring to remove it.
Then he would turn out the lights with Techno’s words ingrained in his vision and pull it over his head.
‘You’re a boy.’
‘My favorite fox boy.’
At some point, he found the time to struggle through the Archaic Piglin written on the page.
‘Trust no human.’ Techno had written. ‘Not even those who you are sure you can trust. If you ever need it, you will always have a home with me.’
Fundy was thirteen, but four, and he took everything Techno wrote to him to heart, because Techno was smart, and he had lived a lifetime in this world as a hybrid. And as much as Dad seemed to think that it just made Fundy weird (and a furry, something Fundy was fast learning was supposed to be teasing but usually felt much more like malicious mockery), Techno knew better.
So Fundy would privately cherish whatever advice Techno gave him, while pretending that he followed Dad’s advice more.
He managed to find enough time to explain that he wasn’t a girl, though it hadn’t happened the way he’d wanted to.
After two weeks of agonizing over it, and finally finding the courage to tell his Dad, he found that Dad didn’t really have time for him. Every attempt, every “Dad we really need to talk, it’s important” was quickly shut down without even a glance.
“Not now, Fundy. I’m a bit busy. Maybe later.” Later wasn’t a concept that existed in L’manberg, Fundy found.
So his coming out ended up being him throwing open the door of the Camarvan and shouting, “I’m a boy!” in a tone he’d spent over two hours crafting to make sure it was attention-grabbing without sounding angry, eventually just sneaking out to track down Dream to help. Dream had to be a master with words, after all, if he always hid his face.
It wasn’t what he had wanted, and he ended up coming out to all of L’manberg, except Niki in that one moment because they had all been gathered for a war meeting. But it turned out alright.
Everyone switched pronouns as quickly as they could, putting in the effort without making a big deal out of it, and no one ever mentioned it. He wished they had. He wished Dad had.
Eret had eventually approached him saying that he was very proud of Fundy for coming out, and that she thought Fundy was very brave for doing it. He’d take affection where he could get it, he decided. (It should have been Dad.)
It didn’t really end the way he wanted to either, because Dad had looked so completely frazzled, looking up from the maps and papers to stare at Fundy unseeing for a moment before he registered what Fundy had said, that he’d basically turned tail and fled.
He should have waited for a more convenient time.
Dad never mentioned it. He never poked fun at that part of Fundy’s weirdness, and while Fundy was glad because he didn’t think he could bear having that part of him mocked again, he wished Dad would acknowledge it.
He wished that Dad would recognize that Fundy was different and say that he loved him anyway. That was what parents were supposed to say, right? That’s what the book at the library had said. But Dad didn’t acknowledge it at all, and Fundy pretended it didn’t ache.
He was thirteen, just like Tommy, and even if every other part of him was almost the opposite of Tommy, he was old enough to partake in the war.
He could fight. He’d been trained by Technoblade of all people, and even if L’manberg outlawed armor, a stupid decision but no one had bothered to consult Fundy’s opinion, he could still fight. Well, even.
But no one asked, and Dad ignored him.
Losing his first permanent life was far more terrifying than his first respawn.
Not because it felt any different from any other respawn, but because it held more weight. Fundy could feel it settling in his gut, holding him to the firm mattress.
Not just because it was permanent, he still had another two lives to fall back on, but more so because of the betrayal.
Trust no human.
But Eret hadn’t been human. Fundy was bad at picking other hybrids out of a crowd, but no one had ever seen Eret’s eyes, and Fundy wasn’t stupid. Clearly a hybrid of some kind, and yet Eret had still betrayed them.
The sword through his chest had burned, but the stinging in his eyes as he lay on the mattress hurt more, or at least it felt like it. He had liked Eret. Eret had been kind, and gentle, and accepting, and everything that Fundy wanted Dad to be, though Dad never had enough time.
Not enough time to spend a moment with weird little fox boy Fundy.
Worse, maybe, than the betrayal, was that while Fundy sobbed for the loss of a friend, the others were just angry. They ranted for hours at a time of how angry they were at the betrayal, and while they woke screaming, Fundy woke crying, missing a friend.
They even wrote it into the anthem, a line Dad preferred Fundy didn’t utter because of the swear word, as if Fundy hadn’t heard much worse, often from Dad himself.
The others didn’t understand, and Fundy didn’t expect them to, but mostly they just stared, because his tears were not as important as their own screams. Dad didn’t even try to let him fight, and Fundy didn’t bother arguing. He didn’t really want to waste anymore of Dad’s precious time.
They won the war, eventually.
Tommy duelled Dream for their independence (why the hell couldn’t Fundy even participate in the war if Tommy could do that), and lost spectacularly, but he’d still managed to acquire it somehow.
L’manberg had peace.
Dad would have more time now that he wasn’t leading a war. Maybe Fundy would finally be able to spend more than the few seconds it took to be dismissed and sent out with him.
Except, apparently, running a country was as time consuming as fighting for one. Nothing changed, not really, except that maybe Fundy stopped flattening his bitterness with a heavy hammer every time it rose.
Techno had managed to make time. Out of all the people in his family, Techno had been the one to make the effort.
Not Dad, the one who’s Fundy literally was. Not Phil, who had managed to raise Wilbur, and mostly Tommy without too much trouble.
Instead, it was Techno.
Techno, who Fundy was sure hadn’t even had his own childhood, who barely knew a shred of the most common human customs.
It was Techno, the man who had days where he couldn’t even speak Piglin let alone English, the man who left at least once a week to Hypixel and always returned covered in blood and smelling like a rotting corpse, the man who sometimes shouted all his words to hear himself over whatever cacophony was in his brain, the man who held books far closer to his face than Fundy ever needed to.
Of all the people one would expect to make time for a weird little fox boy, even limited to their family, Techno would always be the last guess. Ironically, the first guess would be Dad.
But it was Techno who sat him down when he was too young to remember, and taught him to speak Common Tongue, and Villager, and Common Piglin.
It was Techno, and not Dad, who had pulled out the heavy volumes and taught him to read, only realizing much later that Fundy had learned to read English in Piglin, because it was what Techno spoke when he taught, a mistake not easily corrected but Techno had tried his best.
Techno had been the one to position his clawed fingers around the pencil and carefully help him write his name for the first time. Techno had been the one who dragged in an entire crate of thicker pencils because Fundy’s hands were not made to hold them, but the larger ones were easier.
Techno was the one who showed him what the turning clock hands meant, and would hand him a clock periodically throughout the day and ask for the time.
It had been Techno who found him curled on the bathroom floor, blood running down his chest and drying under his claws, able to only mutter “I’m a boy”, and carried him to the Hub to find a solution.
It hadn’t been Dad who would hand Fundy a handful of coins, ask him to count their value and split them into two even groups, letting him keep one if he got it correct, even though Fundy had no use for the shiny metal.
Fundy didn’t understand why Dad couldn’t put in a few minutes here and there, or even just let Fundy follow him around and learn on his own. It wouldn’t even have been hard.
While Techno hadn’t let Fundy watch his own tournaments, they had watched others together when Fundy got older and Fundy had watched Techno slaughter mobs from the window in the attic where he would be safe long before he was ever allowed near Hypixel.
But Dad barely ever gave Fundy the chance to ask, and even his promises that he would be careful and he would be armed and he wouldn’t get in anyone’s way or mess everything up, all those promises were for naught, because Dad always said no, before turning to Tommy and calling him to help with something.
The first time Fundy let himself release anger in any way that wasn’t entirely productive, he completely destroyed two trees before settling on screaming at the sky.
The second time, he burned nearly a dozen trees, not the big kind but still trees, and killed a sheep. He felt guilty afterwards, sobbing into the bloodstained wool for hours before he eventually buried the animal. He comforted himself with the thought that it had, at least, been a quick death. His teeth had sunk through wool and skin and muscle, severing the spinal cord in a single, quick, if not exactly clean, movement. He vowed not to let it happen again.
Mostly, he got rid of his emotions by spending hours, if not days, on redstone projects until he felt better, until his rebellious teenager phase finally kicked in and he spent a week strip mining, torn for the last five days on whether to return, in case someone got worried. He always kept going.
Worse than the guilt plaguing his heart, because how could he make his busy Dad worry so just because Fundy was angry, was the hurt at realizing that no one had even noticed. He ran back into his tunnel, burst into tears and sobbed for who knew how long before he picked himself up and resolved to return only when someone messaged him asking where he was.
Two weeks later, he gave up, dragging all of his wonderful resources home by himself. Tommy asked what he was working on when he saw the blond next, because he hadn’t seen him in a while, and Fundy shrugged, said it was a secret, and gave the other boy a diamond sword, for which he was hugged and thanked profusely.
It wasn’t quite what Fundy had wanted, what Fundy had hoped for, but he would make it be enough.
He spent the night wondering if Eret would have noticed his absence, letting himself wish, with not quite the guilt he should have felt at such a thought, that Eret had taken Fundy with them when he left for the Greater SMP.
Dad held an election, after a few people complained that he was basically a dictator. Fundy ran against him.
He could never quite explain why.
Maybe he wanted to know if the President’s job was really as time consuming as Dad said.
Maybe he knew it was an action that would finally, finally, get Dad to notice him. Hard to ignore the people standing on the stage next to you, after all.
Maybe he wanted to pull votes from his Dad, so that someone else, anyone else, would win, leaving Dad with a lot more time to spend with him.
Whatever the motive, it was selfish, and Fundy couldn’t bring himself to care. Not even when Dad glared and fumed, and Fundy could see that Dad was blaming Techno’s influence, as if Techno would ever support any government.
Fundy didn’t win, and knew he wouldn’t. It didn’t come as a shock. But Dad did lose, to both Quackity and Schlatt, who had pooled their votes to defeat him, and maybe Fundy was a bit relieved, at least until they were exiled.
Maybe it was only his bitterness, his jealousy talking, but Fundy knew that he would not miss Dad. He would not miss Wilbur.
Truly, it would be like he had never left, or like he had always been gone.
Fundy couldn’t bring himself to care.
Nothing really changed around Fundy. Not in the really important ways. A few things had changed names, or at least what they would be called, but Fundy’s life as a citizen of this stupid and horrid country wasn’t really expected to change.
He was old enough to look after himself, just as he had apparently been at thirteen when Wilbur had enough of Technoblade’s teaching, though he didn’t know his exact age anymore. Only Techno had really been able to keep track of that, but Fundy could guess.
Eighteen he answered, when people asked. Wilbur wasn’t around to correct them and say some number under eight that was technically true but not really at all.
Schlatt was a surprisingly kind man, if you squinted so hard you could barely see and put on Manifold’s oddly colored glasses, but he, allegedly, had the country’s best interests at heart, or something like that, if you asked Quackity.
Wilbur didn’t seem any better, if Fundy thought about it, though he tried not to. It never failed to make rage bubble up within him.
Better than Wilbur, Schlatt was able to look at more than one person at once. Most people were, given the right placement, but what Fundy meant was, when Fundy was trailing behind Niki or Quackity, or Jack, or anyone really, and they happened to engage in conversation with Schlatt, the goat hybrid noticed Fundy standing there, the picture of pure, unadulterated, awkwardness.
It had been mind-blowing, the first time it happened. Fundy had grown used to being basically invisible despite his odd appearance. It had only taken so long before Wilbur’s behavior had started affecting those around him. But Schlatt noticed.
Even better, he didn’t just glance at him and then away, he greeted him, said a few words before moving back to his conversation.
It took three one-sided conversations before Fundy was able to form proper words to reply rather than an awkward squeak, and despite being three words, “Hello, President Schlatt,” Fundy was immediately given a position in the cabinet.
For the first time since Fundy had left his home server, someone deemed him something other than a child.
Fundy was standing next to Schlatt, a few meters away from Niki who was blatantly watching them with suspicion in her eyes, when Schlatt asked the question.
It wasn’t a particularly deep question, or it shouldn’t have been. Niki had made a passing comment about Wilbur being Fundy’s father, and Schlatt was merely inquiring after the truth of the matter, right from the available source. Asking Wilbur was a bit out of the question, after all.
Fundy had his answer, had had his answer from the moment he signed up to be the other half of Coconut2020, even if he hadn’t admitted it until now.
“There’s nothing left between us.” He answered, after a short pause. “He was the president of the country I lived in, and that is all.”
It didn’t hurt to say it. It didn’t make him nauseous that he could deny any relationship to his father so easily. He almost didn’t feel anything.
It did, however, hurt that it didn’t hurt. It hurt that he could say something so cruel and not feel like he was tearing himself apart. The people in his books, those that were either cowardly or brave enough to betray their friends and family, it hurt them, tore them apart inside, and made them feel sick to utter such words. Fundy didn’t feel anything.
That caused more pain than anything, because it should hurt, it was supposed to hurt, but it didn’t. Sure, it was basically true, but shouldn’t it hurt regardless? (Whose fault was it that he felt nothing? Was it his own, an ungrateful weird fox boy, or was it Wilbur’s?)
Niki was standing there, looking for all the world like she felt all the pain he should feel but didn’t. She glared, but her eyes were gleaming with unshed tears. Her cheeks were colored red, but her bottom lip trembled too. He hadn’t meant to hurt Niki. That much he could admit, and his chest dared to ache a little at that.
“Fundy, how could you say that?!” Niki cried out, hands tightening into fists around the handle of her wicker basket full of bread loaves. “Wilbur is your father.”
That hurt. Not the way it should have, and not the way he expected. Instead, it was a burning in his eyes and an ache in his heart, because that wasn’t really true, was it? Not anymore, if it had ever been.
“He is not my father.” He answered flatly to her outburst.
“How can you say that?!” She repeated. “He raised you.”
“He would have needed to actually be around if he was going to raise me. I raised me. Wilbur never even bothered to try.” It felt like he should sound angry, like he should be screaming and shouting, but all he could really feel in that moment was apathy. Finally, he was accepting that Wilbur had never truly been his father. Not at all.
In a book or movie or fairytale, Fundy would have stormed away, throat sore, eyes burning, and fists clenched. But this wasn’t a book, or movie, or fairytale. It was merely Fundy and his wonderfully real life.
So while he would hold nothing against those fictional characters, he kept his cool until he could channel that anger into something more productive, and move on like he felt nothing. Because he didn’t. Not yet.
Instead, he carried on the conversation, as if Niki hadn’t revealed more information than Fundy was originally planning on telling, and they kept walking. And Fundy pretended that Niki didn’t run away close to tears, and that Wilbur wouldn’t soon know exactly what Fundy thought of his parenting and parenthood.
The more productive thing, as it turned out, was a bit of legal arson and then a whole lot of sewing, which was as easy for his clawed fingers as writing, and so, took much longer than it should have. But Schlatt didn’t know that, and Niki wasn’t exactly going to tell him when she could hardly bear the sight of him, so no one ever found out.
Maybe he’d one day develop an aptitude for small, detailed arts despite his own handicap, or maybe not. He’d just work around it, reading official papers with longer words aloud for Tubbo, while the boy would write Fundy’s papers in exchange. Or something like that.
Fundy didn’t mind sewing, despite his disadvantage. It could be therapeutic, if he focused, and he did, sewing until it was completed, before he showed it to Schlatt.
Despite his most recent betrayal, (it didn’t feel like a betrayal), he couldn’t stop grinning for two days. Schlatt had been pleased. So pleased that he told Fundy that he was proud of him, and happy to have him in his cabinet.
Fundy knew better than to trust anyone, hybrid or human, but he could let himself trust the man who noticed his existence. Just a little. Even if he could never be truly loyal to the man.
(And when Tommy burned it, Fundy twisted obsidian into his thread and sewed again. He didn’t care what Tommy did, not really.)
Schlatt was kind some days, but Fundy still found himself avoiding the man, like everyone else seemed to do. When Quackity lied, Fundy did not correct him. Instead, he nodded, because surely, if Quackity needed to lie, then something was wrong.
Quackity was loyal to Schlatt. Nothing else could be closer to the truth, and given the way he sometimes stared at the man, Fundy would guess that he was in love, or at least what Fundy guessed love looked like. The two didn’t openly show anything, but the way their hands sometimes brushed together when they stood too close to each other let him guess. It looked like a fairytale at first.
It clearly wasn’t, when Quackity barely let Tubbo get close, and stared at Fundy with pleading eyes until the fox hybrid sighed and dragged away the boy who should have been older, should have been smarter.
Fundy didn’t nitpick, and he didn’t stare, but he wasn’t stupid. He noticed some things without trying, because he couldn’t afford to be oblivious even if he didn’t need to be perceptive. For some reason, Tubbo needed to stay far away from Schlatt, so in some ways, Fundy helped.
He didn’t fight the lame excuses, and he didn’t always tell the truth. Instead, he buried himself in the work he was finally old enough to be allowed to do, if not under the regime he might have originally chosen, and told himself he was happy.
The Festival started out amazing. Fundy didn’t really have a hand in its planning, most dumped on Tubbo to keep him away from the President, but he enjoyed the games.
Fundy thought he was eighteen, though he lost track of the days, and couldn’t quite remember his birthday to check.
Standing by the dunk tank, staring at the one person he knew he could always trust but didn’t think he would ever see again, he didn’t feel eighteen. He felt six, maybe.
Or thirteen.
He felt like a small child all over again, clutching a journal that didn’t belong to him, pretending that he was finally following his only family, instead of abandoning it. Techno acknowledged him with a nod and a slight upward twitch in his lips, and Fundy grinned back.
When he asked “how old am I?” it only took a moment for Techno to answer, “eighteen.” It was the answer Wilbur had never known, and couldn’t give.
He followed the hybrid who knew him everywhere, playing the games, trying to drown the man he knew wouldn’t drown, until the whole Festival blew up in everyone’s faces, with sparkling explosions and familiar words Fundy usually heard muttered under Techno’s breath now a sharp warcry.
“Blood for the Blood God!!”
Again, Fundy couldn’t care. He didn’t care that Wilbur could be seen scrambling down a building and running towards the river.
He didn’t care that Wilbur was likely the reason Techno was even on this server.
He didn’t care that three death messages rang on his, and everyone else’s, communicator, Tubbo, Schlatt, and Quackity.
He didn’t care that he was standing in a crowd of people who refused to care for him, and saw him only as a traitor, all panicking, all angry, as if Tubbo was not a traitor too. (Except Fundy looked like he held far more years than Tubbo, and no one had ever really liked Fundy.)
He didn’t care that red, white, and blue fireworks were fired into the crowd, leaving no deaths but enough burns.
Or maybe he did care. Maybe he didn’t. He didn’t know.
He walked away, or maybe he ran, and he went home. And rather than contemplate his loyalties, worry for Tubbo, and complain about the regime that allowed the execution of a sixteen year old boy, he revelled in the moments he had finally gotten.
Today hadn’t been perfect, and most would call it horrible, a nightmare. But Fundy had been seen, acknowledged, and accepted. He had been someone in that crowd of guests, and no one had told him that he didn’t belong, or that he was too young and too weak to play.
It had not been a great day, or even a good one, but it had been what Fundy needed. A drink of water to keep him moving forward in the great deserted expanse that had been his life since thirteen.