Chapter Text
Before Tubbo was twelve, he had committed a total of four different crimes several times and never got caught.
That’s what he had told Ranboo, anyway. Followed up with a tongue-in-cheek joke about them being bank robberies. Manslaughter. Arson. Grand theft auto. Kidnapping. He can’t quite remember. Ranboo didn’t push it, so Tubbo had shoved the lie out of his mind and figured that it wouldn’t bite him in the ass that bad, later, if Ranboo decided to retroactively press.
None of them were as big as that, though. Obviously. Tubbo isn’t exactly talking from a juvie cell, is he, even if he should probably be in one.
It was smaller shit. Underage drinking, for one, though that’s obvious enough and done enough that it hardly feels like a crime anymore. He figures he’s probably vandalized, too, though nothing all that major-- just some harmless fun when he was a kid. Kept him out of the house.
The first time he had trespassed, it had been an accident. Climbed over a fence and scraped his elbow, only realizing once he hit the other side that he was on private property and, well. There was only one way back-- the same way he came.
People were freaked out about him getting tetanus for a while, but after spending half a week searching for the paperwork, everyone breathed a sigh of relief to see he had gotten vaccinated for that when he was younger. It took a long time for him to recognize that it should have never been a concern in the first place.
He kept trespassing, after that first incident. On purpose. He had to figure out all the best spots in town one way or another.
And then finally came the stealing, of course. Not just shoplifting from Wilbur’s store now, but everything he did beforehand. Sometimes, he was told to do it. Sometimes, he just did it. He looked like a sweet enough kid that nobody suspected him. Or maybe they could just tell he was desperate-- be it for something to have, or something to do.
Boredom would have been the death of him, if nothing else got to him first. It’s half-miraculous that he’s survived this long.
It’s less of a miracle and more of a shock that in a house frequently occupied by aspiring law or law-adjacent majors (by God, Quackity’s trying), nobody ever told him that stealing a pack of skittles at the register wouldn’t be worth prison time. Tubbo figures it had been around the time Quackity was failing all his classes except Home Economics, though, and leaves it at that.
All of those crimes, though, stopped feeling bad after a while. Maybe that’s the worst part. Sure, he cried in his bedroom the night he hurt his elbow and he felt bad when he stole stuff at the start, but that went away after long. Left him with a numbness.
He could probably commit manslaughter and not bat an eye.
Wait. No. No, he couldn’t. No. Tubbo does not want to accidentally kill someone.
And he does. Have empathy. And a general morality. He just.
Tubbo could probably watch someone commit manslaughter and not bat an eye, especially if neither of the people involved were him, because he’s not really surprised by the existence of bad people, fatal mistakes, or dead bodies being his fault anymore.
Better.
Either way, the only crime that still wears on him is not really a crime at all.
Tubbo looks up from the plate of rice and sausage, half-eaten.
Wilbur and Tommy are beside him at the dinner table, making fun of each other over something and laughing loudly. Wilbur tries to reach over to ruffle Tommy’s hair, but the other swats his hand away and nearly falls off of his chair, precariously balanced on the back two legs. He says something about knocking over the food on the table, and Wilbur shakes his head before sitting back and giving Tommy the finger. Phil is occupied with eating his food and sighing purposefully loudly as a subtle way to tell his kids to knock it off without having to intercept whatever is ensuing at the dinner table, giving Tubbo a knowingly resigned look.
Tubbo breaks eye contact and swallows.
It’s this, this that feels like a crime .
Being here. Eating dinner with them. Watching them bicker and fight. Being in on the joke.
It feels like all the other crimes were just a prison sentence for being here. He makes the mistake of having a happy life with a family that isn’t his, and he pays by drinking on the rooftop and stealing things to put under his floorboard and trespassing for shortcuts to the places Tommy showed him and writing his initials in places he maybe shouldn’t.
Don’t forget me. Don’t forget me.
Or maybe do, actually.
It’s such a fucking crime.
Tubbo keeps his head down and takes another bite of food.
He’s seventeen, now, and he’s still waiting to be caught.
--
Through some act of God, Tubbo convinced Tommy to come with him to sit by Ranboo at lunch.
Now, he never exactly told Ranboo this plan. Nor was Tommy particularly enthusiastic about it at any point in time, muttering things about Ranboo being weird and cryptic and shit the entire walk down the hallway. But, Tubbo figures he can manage this with enough enthusiasm and faith. After all, Tubbo can tell that Tommy doesn’t really have any true dislike reserved for Ranboo (he hopes), and Ranboo definitely can hold a conversation with someone like Tommy, even if it just means he listens the whole time (he hopes). So, not much can go wrong, really. A margin of error equal to zero.
“What kinds of stuff does he eat?” Tommy asks, on the way there, in a whispered tone, clearly unable to shut up with his speculations for longer than thirty seconds.
Tubbo lets out a startled laugh. “What?”
“Does he eat like, weird shit?”
“I think he just eats sandwiches, or- why do you ask, actually? You’re so weird.”
Tommy gestures widely with his hands. “I need some context here, man. I don’t know what I’m getting into.”
“What you’re getting into is 20 minutes with me and someone who is, like, disproportionately harmless. All the time.”
“Okay.” Tommy drags out the ‘y’ and rolls his eyes. “If you say so.”
“Yup.” The two of them step into the cafeteria, already crowded with a long line of students waiting to get the school’s lunch. Tubbo is thankful every day for the fact that Phil bothers to keep the kitchen stocked with enough food that he can bring his own shit-- all Tubbo would have been able to pack back before he started staying with them was green apples and condiments, so he always had to grab a tray and get stuff there. At least Tommy would give him some stuff from his lunch, back then, after the two of them met but before Tubbo forced him to be his brother.
Ranboo was sitting by himself near the back corner of the cafeteria the last time he saw him here, Tubbo remembers. He starts searching the area, figuring it won’t take too long with Ranboo’s distinctive features standing starkly against a monochrome cafeteria and empty table. Proven correct, it doesn’t take any longer than a minute before he’s found the other and has started making a bee-line for the table, Tommy on his tail.
“Slow down, bitch boy,” Tommy huffs from behind him, which Tubbo ignores in favor of getting to Ranboo’s table and standing in front of him.
“Hi, Ranboo!” Tubbo greets energetically. Too energetically, apparently, judging by how Ranboo jumps at the sound before seeing who the speaker was and visibly relaxing. Tubbo laughs. “Did I scare you?”
He nods, fiddling with the fork in his hand. “Uh, yeah. But- hi. Uh. Hi to you and, uh, Tommy.”
Tommy’s eyes narrow, and instead of a reciprocated greeting, he asks, “Why is there no sauce on that pasta?”
“Oh.” Ranboo looks down at the tupperware he’s eating from. True to Tommy’s word, the pasta is entirely vacant of anything atop it. Ranboo looks back up at them (or, more truthfully, makes eye contact with a point right between them) and shrugs. “Uh. We ran out of, uh, pasta sauce. It tastes pretty, uh, okay though.”
“Jesus Christ,” Tommy mutters, but he sits down across from Ranboo, which Tubbo takes as a win.
Tubbo, happily, sits beside Tommy. He pulls out his lunch-- it's the same as Tommy, as they had packed it together-- and starts biting down on his sandwich. Beside him, Tommy starts biting into an apple whilst simultaneously trying to talk to Ranboo, which isn’t exactly the most effective maneuver but he’s nothing if not persistent.
“Ranboo,” he calls out, slightly muffled. “What’s up?”
“Oh, uh, nothing much. Just, you know, uh, eating my plain pasta. And everything.” Ranboo replies awkwardly.
Tommy pauses, then nods. “Okay!”
The conversation stops there, which Tubbo takes as him needing to interject a lot earlier than he was hoping for.
“So, Ranboo,” Tubbo starts, thinking on the spot of something he can say. The ideal situation would be trying to prompt Tommy into rambling about something or the other, so Tubbo can just listen and occasionally interject in peace. Knowing the few things he knows about Ranboo, he figures music is a decent start that could either go catastrophically or perfectly. Worth a shot. “Ever heard of, uh, Los Campesinos?”
Tommy, expectedly, perks up. “Los Campesinos fucks. ”
Ranboo tilts his head a bit, swallowing before saying, “I don’t think I’ve, uh, heard any of their songs?”
“You uncultured fuck,” Tommy says, minimal malice behind his words, thank God. “Wilbur plays ‘em a lot, he’s really into their shit. Romance is Boring is like, really fucking good, it’s all-” Tommy makes an entirely incomprehensible noise to punctuate his point, which Tubbo nods along to while Ranboo looks slightly nervous, “-and shit, though I’ve heard There Are Listed Buildings enough times that I can’t listen to it, but like, it’s real good.”
“I see.” There is a small smile on Ranboo’s face, and he pulls out his phone. “How do you, ah, spell their name?”
“Like, how it sounds? I’m not your dad.” Tommy offers unhelpfully.
Ranboo looks concerned. “I didn’t think you were?”
“L-0, no- L-O-S-SPACE-C-A-M-P-I-” Tubbo attempts, even more unhelpfully but in a more justifiable way.
Tommy wheezes loudly. “No, dipshit, that’s not how you spell, fuckin’, Los Campe -”
“It’s okay, I, uh, found it.” Ranboo interrupts quietly. “They have a lot of albums.”
“Yeah, it’s cool.” Tommy spins the apple core around on the table, and Tubbo bites back a comment about how that’s kind of just getting his spit everywhere. After a pause, Tommy says, “Y’know, Wil does music, too.”
“What, uh, genre?” Ranboo asks.
“Like, guitar shit. Indie-ish, I think? He’s super good, though. He’s going to make it big, I think. Bigger than the big’uns. ” Tommy grins. “It’s really cool, Ranboob. You should hear ‘im.”
“It’s Ranboo,” he corrects under his breath. “And, that sounds… really cool. Music is cool.”
“Damn right.” Tommy pulls out a bag of chips and opens it with a loud crackling sound before handing a chip to Tubbo and starting to eat his own. “Say, Ranboo, what kind of stuff do you listen to?”
“Oh! Uh, I like a lot of… uh. Indie stuff, and… alternative? Some rock, some pop… uh, yeah. Most things.” Ranboo’s eyes stay fixed on the top of the apple core, shoulders tense as he stumbles his way through what he’s trying to say. He’s maybe the least confident person Tubbo has ever seen admit to liking pop music.
Tommy gives an approving nod, which Ranboo likely misses, and says, “Well, I approve, Ranboob.”
“... Ranboo.”
“Ranboob,” Tommy says insistently, and Ranboo appears to give in with a small sigh. “You pass the test. Tubbo, though, he just listens to fuckin’, sad love songs half the time-”
“I do not,” Tubbo protests.
“You do! You listen to fuckin’, Ed Sheeran.”
“I literally don’t.”
“You literally do.”
“Sad love songs are- are okay, I think?” Ranboo interjects.
Tommy rolls his eyes. “This is why neither of you are going to get women.”
“You are severely in denial.” Tubbo takes a bite, forcing himself not to smirk as Tommy scowls and shoves his arm.
“Fuck you!” Tommy looks back at Ranboo. “I get so many girls, Ranboob.”
“... Really?” His eyes flicker to Tubbo’s, and Tubbo actually does grin, this time. “I feel like- like that’s a little, uh, doubtful, just off of context, here-”
“Oh, fuck you too. I have the most ideal traits any man could have.”
“Go on, share.” Tubbo prompts.
Tommy takes the bait, and soon the rest of lunch time is filled with him telling stories, arguing with Tubbo, and laughing loud enough to get several looks. Ranboo, too, clearly seems to loosen up as the time progresses, which leaves Tubbo with this small, soft feeling in his chest. This sort of… fondness, that his brother is getting along with his new friend. That everything feels right, just in this moment.
When lunch is over, the three of them walk back to classes together, and Tommy leans over and whispers into his ear between you and me, Ranboo isn’t that bad, and the chronic feeling of being five steps out of place fades away in Tubbo, just for a second.
It can’t last forever, for him. He hardly anticipates it will stay away for an hour.
But it’s a moment in time that’s distinctly okay. And it’s one of the best things he can really ask for.
--
Tubbo gets the text message when he’s walking out of school, Tommy at his side, and nearly stops in his tracks if not for the crowds of students trying to escape the building around him.
Tommy gives him a funny look, gesturing with his hand and asking, “What’s wrong, man?” in a way that is both light-hearted and serious. As if the world hadn’t stopped spinning on its axis, just briefly, to cloud Tubbo’s vision over with grey-scale and make every neuron in his body scream their way to apoptosis.
There are a lot of things that could shock Tubbo at any given moment, even just on his phone alone-- news updates for specific technology advancements he’s stupidly been anticipating for months, a Youtube notification with a strange title, something vaguely incoherent Wilbur sent him-- anything.
There’s only one thing, though, that can prompt the response, “I can’t come over today, sorry.”
Tommy’s expression immediately falls, and Tubbo feels like an asshole for something he can neither control nor explain. His heart is in his throat, buried in his phone, and lost all at once, and there’s nothing to say for a phrase so big.
“At all?” Tommy pushes. “Like, maybe in a few hours, you could stay the night, or?”
“Nah.” Tubbo shakes his head. “I’ll be able to tomorrow, though. Just gotta swing by the old place for a night. Y’know.”
He doesn’t, actually. Because when Tubbo appeared at Tommy’s house and just started… staying there, all those years ago, he never gave Tommy a proper explanation. Not even before, when Tommy would ask if he could come over and work on an assignment, and Tubbo would cover up his wrist with his other hand and shake his head solemnly, he still never explained. Never explained what he was trying to get away from, or the state of his family life-- he never told the other anything. But Tommy, being Tommy, being compassionate and kind and stupidly compassionate and kind, let Tubbo stay, and never asked. The others tried asking, but Tubbo never gave in, and eventually they gave up.
Tubbo wonders, sometimes, what would have happened if they didn’t. If they had kept pushing, if Tubbo had finally caved, age 14 and never learning how to explain the actions of someone else. He barely knew who he was, just knew that there was a distinct thing he didn’t want to become, and he took the first chance he got to pass off that burden to someone else and be with his best friend. Where he thought things would fix themselves.
But, they didn’t. Of course they didn’t. It’s impossible for Tubbo to outrun everything he comes from, and it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the family finds out. Wilbur’s already come close to it, himself, but even he doesn’t know everything. And once he does-
-well. Tubbo has a stash of items and the location of the nearest train station memorized. Just in case.
Tommy just sighs, placing a hand on Tubbo’s shoulder. “Fine. You better come over tomorrow, though.”
“I will.” And he probably will. “Promise.”
Tommy moves his hand back down to briefly intertwine his pinky with Tubbo’s, before he sets off. “I’m gonna head home, then. Go wherever you need to. See you.”
“Bye.”
Tubbo watches as the other starts making the trek to walk home. It’s sunny today, and it makes his blonde hair look a lot brighter. It makes Tommy appear bold, even as the other slumps down on himself once he’s mostly alone. He didn’t used to do that.
Tubbo waits until the other is gone from view before he steps outside too and makes his way to one of the busses. The bus monitor knows him decently well-- he’s one of the only kids who gets on this one and stays until the very last stop, one of the only kids who lives in the area he’s heading. She gives him a small nod and he hops on, picking a seat in the back by himself and putting in his earbuds. It’ll take him a bit under an hour to get home with all the detours, max, which is fine. He has enough songs downloaded to make it.
As he opens up his phone to go to his playlist, he notices a new notification on his phone. In conjunction with the message he had gotten before, and the fact that Quackity only texts him in times like these, it tells him everything he needs to know.
Quackity: he’s not going to be up for very long, bastard’s barely slept. you know you can always call me if it gets bad.
and
J: It’s been a while, hasn’t it
--
The house looks worse than it did last time.
Tubbo should have known. It’s not like he could ever forget it: the grass that has dried all yellow and patchy, the sound of the door creaking with just a light pressure to open it, the spilled out trash on the floor coupled with the overflowing sink, all the bottles sitting on the kitchen island. That’s not even to account for the rest of the house he has yet to see; he can envision the stained carpet of the bedrooms and the thick stench it carries. The bloodstain on the bathroom’s peeling wallpaper. How what was once his room would be freezing by mid-July.
No place for a cradle, Quackity had said, once.
It’s nothing like Tommy’s household. It’s nothing like Jack Manifold’s, either, or Ranboo’s, or any other place he’s ever been in. It’s more akin to some cursed house with a particularly horrid ghost. It would be fitting for the haunt it has caused Tubbo, anyway.
Any rational person would turn away the second they see the sorry state of the kitchen and the living room, but Tubbo keeps pushing through, because no sign of life has been seen yet, and there’s a sick sort of atonement he finds in coming here. Some sort of redemption that he has to go through, to become better in a house that only raises villains.
(It’s that very thought that reminds him that nobody who has ever lived here has, in fact, been anything other than a criminal. Himself included. Even if it only took four petty crimes. It’s completely hilarious in all the ways it shouldn’t be.)
In the end, he follows the scent. Takes the path up the stairs that shake underneath him, the entire house echoing with his presence more than it already was. A long time ago, he was good at sneaking around and making sure not a single floorboard would creak. Right now, he’s given up. He knows what’s waiting for him.
Tubbo eventually makes his way to the master’s bedroom, which has since been reworked into… something. It’s more of an office, if anything, some dangerous vessel of obsessions with a bed hastily shoved in the corner. Not a single room has been untainted by these… hobbies, and the bottles that trail after them. It’s a small place, sure, but not a single room is free. The best bet is the couch, only because Tubbo grew sick of sleeping on floors a long time ago.
When he pushes the door open, he finds who he’s looking for. A bottle in hand, the other smeared with alcohol from where it wiped at a doused mouth and scratchy beard. A tight suit with the collar loosened, tie half-off and slung around his neck, legs crossed. Around him, there are protein bars and shakes, as well as fitness posters. A single photo frame sits on the desk, cracked straight in the center but not destroyed enough to entirely obscure the figures in it. Three people: a scowling barely-adult with a slight twinkle in his eye, a teenager with a bright grin, and a child heaved onto the former’s scrawny shoulders.
God, Quackity was seventeen in that photo, wasn’t he? The same age Tubbo is now.
Without the photo, he’d never know that the other could smile like that.
Tubbo tears his eyes away from the frame, looking back into the eyes of the man in front of him. The man grins, tipping the drink back for another swig. Tubbo’s ashamed at the fact that he recognizes exactly what’s in it without looking too hard (bourbon, today). The eye contact isn’t broken.
It’s meant to scare Tubbo. And it does. Of course it does.
He thought Quackity was going to be here. But maybe the text was a sign he took refuge somewhere else. That Tubbo was facing this alone.
It would be selfish to resent Quackity for that, when he’s suffered far worse for Tubbo’s sake.
The agonizing silence continues for a little longer, Tubbo fighting the urge to run out of the house (he knows he wouldn’t make it halfway down the staircase before he’d end up in a chokehold) or twitch (he doesn’t want to get called a pussy again, not when it’s from someone who means it) or call the police (what have the police ever done for him, exactly?)
Then, the man laughs. Something from the gut, loud and low and lingering. It filters through the floorboards, and Tubbo suddenly feels like he has something terrible to hide.
“C’mon, now,” the words come amidst the laughter, clearly affected by the hard alcohol and slurring layers upon layers under each syllable. The free hand makes a beckoning gesture, and Tubbo stumbles forward. Canines grin, and the next command comes in a neutral statement, “It’s been a while since we’ve had a nice long drink together, Tubbo.”
Tubbo hates the taste left in his throat from the other saying his name. It’s never sounded right. It’s never been right. The other has always been sick, even when there was the possibility of a time that he was better, before Tubbo ever met him and in the first year of knowing Quackity.
Quackity had changed him, had made him better, but there’s only so many ways to fix an alcoholic when he’s been abandoned by everything except his boyfriend and a child. There are only so many ways to hold an alcoholic when he loses his scholarship and can’t pay off the bills anymore. There’s only so much Quackity could have done for an alcoholic with nowhere to put his anger, except take it out on a teenager with a bright grin and the boy who took everything from them.
And Quackity could have never fixed what was wrong before. Before he had ever stepped foot in this house, and when Tubbo was so, so much younger. When he scraped his elbow on a fence, and the alcoholic-before-he-was-an-alcoholic, mean but sober, was sorting through vaccination papers for him instead of studying for tests he could have passed that could have gotten him out of here, and
stop stop stop stop stop stop stop stop STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP
It was Tubbo’s fault. Being here always makes him remember that. But he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to think about the things he’s done, the non-criminal things that should have been crimes, the way that this house would have been the same without him back then and is the same without him now. The way his fucking room was boarded up while he was out running through meadows with Tommy.
He needs a palette cleanser. From this. From everything. To stop feeling so sick. He hates it here, he hates it, and nothing takes the memories away, nothing can fix the pain, nothing can take him out of here and fix the fact that he was ever born, nothing can change the fact that it all took him here but being born was still worth it to him and nobody else, nothing can change that, nothing can change that, he wants to stop thinking-
And so he accepts the half-drank bottle from the other and tips it back. His eyes burn and his stomach recoils, but he composes himself and hands it to the other again. As the other drinks his next round, Tubbo forces his voice to be anything, anything other than scared.
“It has been a long time,” he agrees.
Too quiet. Too quiet. Too quiet.
Schlatt sets the bottle down with a loud thud and grins anyway.
--
At least Tubbo gets a mattress, this time.
It’s one that’s hastily shoved onto the floor, and it hurts his back like he’s getting growing pains all over again, and it smells like cologne worth more than his entire life, but it’s something. It’s better than the thin tile of the bathroom, where he used to pass out when he was more of a lightweight. It’s better than the grass outside, when he really pissed the other off. And it’s better than the couch, where the worst things Tubbo’s never seen always happened.
He lets out a quiet groan into the crook of his elbow, careful to be quiet as he rolls over some more. He has no blankets-- which is fine, he’s not sure there are any in this house, anyway-- and the pillow is flat and lacking a pillowcase, but it’s fine. The cold side of the bed, which is the entire bed at the moment, is good for the headache he has, he would like to think.
Tubbo is already quite acquainted with migraines, so it would be idiotic to assume that he would force himself into brutal hangovers on top of it. Which is exactly why none of his loved ones have yet to figure this out. Or, this part of everything, anyway.
He rolls over to shove his face into the mattress, tucking his short legs to his chest and letting out another pained mumble of gibberish again. Fuck. Fuck.
He’s seventeen, and he feels sicker than he has in a long time, and he wants to throw up all the alcohol and all the bad parts of himself, and his head hurts, and he’s tearing up because he doesn’t want to sob despite how heavy of a sleeper Schlatt is but he can’t handle this right now, and he needs to tell Tommy that he’s going to be late coming over tomorrow but he can’t move his fingers from where they stay all clamped up and uncomfortable, and every inch of his 5’5 body feels violated by dark liquor and eyes and urges. The physical misery is meant to take away his emotions, but that’s always been a marketable lie, and he can’t stop thinking about how he looked in that photograph and how rare those good days were. And the scarcity only makes him miss them more.
God. How did he mess up this badly?
His screen lights up, and he spares it a glance. His entire head lights up with pain, and he swipes past the notification saying he got a D on his last English assignment. He wishes he ever had the chance to really care about that.
He can so easily picture Tommy cursing himself out for it, eventually letting it go but not without the underneath swell of I could have done better. Wilbur, having his loose standards for his academics instilled into him by his scholarly father that hold true if he cares enough about a class. Techno, never even getting close to failing an assignment in English in the first place. Ranboo, even, who would be tearing his hair out if he didn’t get an A on something, probably. Even Schlatt, fucking Schlatt, who rarely cried at anything but sobbed like a baby over rejected college applications.
And then him. And, and what the fuck is he doing to himself? He’s seventeen, and he’s 5’5 and gets his best friend’s father to cook him dinner, and he wears the same tennis shoes he’s always worn since he was a kid and he watches videos of rocket ships because he never grew out of wanting to become an astronaut. He never grew , and yet he’s here, with a skinny body sick from alcohol and marked by old scars that never healed, running back to his old house just because of a text.
A text! It was just a text-- what could Schlatt have done, really, if he ignored him? Jump him after school? Figure out where he lives miraculously and shoot him dead? Schlatt is a crazy bastard, and Tubbo knows that, but he cares about the law at least somewhat, if those stacks of textbooks from classes he used to take mean anything at all.
Nothing could happen, because Schlatt doesn’t need Tubbo but Tubbo needs Schlatt.
Schlatt could drink with anyone, could call Quackity over or one of his other friends, though Tubbo’s not sure those exist, could just say fuck it and find someone to invite over for the night. There’s nothing about Tubbo that matters to Schlatt, because Tubbo is just Tubbo, and he’s- he’s just him.
But to Tubbo? To Tubbo, Schlatt is the last thing he has of himself aside from himself, and he wishes he could burn the house down, let the liquor catch on fire and take both of their lives. He’s sick of looking at Schlatt and seeing the slight similarities, the same sort of things he sees between him and Wilbur, the dark hair and the twisted sense of humor and the constant need to have something in his hand.
Except, Wilbur has kind eyes, where Schlatt has sharp ones.
For Tommy and Tubbo, that sort of not-heredity is the only way to differentiate theirs.
Not that Tommy knows who Schlatt is. Not that anybody could carry Schlatt in them, aside from Tubbo. Even Quackity, who would argue the contrary, doesn’t really have it in him. Both of them stare themselves down in the mirror, but one of them comes away with a chance to change their way, and the other comes out forever a failure.
Tubbo can’t save himself from this. Can’t find any redemption aside the slight flicker of hope at the bottom of a bottle when he’s weary, when he’s tipsy. Tubbo will never be able to be anything other than the boy he is when he’s around Schlatt, and no matter how hard he hides that, he knows the truth. And so does Schlatt, and so does Quackity, because they see it, they see the truth, they see the little boy in the photograph and they see the alcoholic and they see a smaller version of Schlatt.
Because Tubbo can’t erase the little boy in him that craves the validation of his real family, no matter what he tries.
It’s such a loveless place. It’s the last kind of place Tubbo should try to find love.
But he tries, anyway. He tells Tommy he’s going to get back to his house late, and he shuts the phone again, and he tries to find love, somewhere, anywhere.
And J. Schlatt sleeps like the dead, as he’s always seen him do, ever since Tubbo blinked his eyes open in that hospital and saw his older cousin for the first time, knocked out during his birth with a water bottle in his hand.
--
Quackity: I should have been there. was crashing at karl’s place instead, but that didn’t go well either so I might as well come back.
Quackity: i’ll stay the next while, and I won’t let him do this shit again. I hope it wasn’t that bad. there’s no excuse for me making you go back there, but he was going to hit a breaking point and it was going to make the next time worse.
Quackity: it won’t happen again.
Tubbo: okay
--
Tommy: you promised
Tubbo: i know. Sorry
Tommy: it’s ok
Tommy: watch movie with me?
Tubbo: set it up, ill be three soon!
Tommy: pog
Tommy: get here by 2
Tommy: or i’ll Kill
Tommy: no its just cuz wil is getting pizza
Tommy: and you’ve been asleep for 1y4833497n hours
Tommy: sometimes when u sleep its like ur dead dude
Tubbo: zzzzz
Tommy: ok actually kys
Tubbo: :)
Tubbo: ur my favorite freind :)
Tommy: yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever just come here
--
J: BITIITCH. LittleBITCH,whoo taught you thatl?
J: DONT COME BACK.