Chapter Text
The good news was that Tubbo had seen Tommy again.
The bad news was of the situation they were in. Technoblade was standing right behind him. There was no sword to his friends back, either. Tommy had joined the Blood God voluntarily.
This was troubling, to say the least. Of course, Tubbo deserved having his best friend side with his killer at the festival, the reason he had joined the Butchers, the man who had blown up their country, after everything he had done to Tommy. But that didn't make it hurt any less.
Nevertheless, Tubbo stayed strong. He was doing well despite it all. He was determined to last as long as possible without... coping in unhealthy ways. He tried using professional talk on himself, for his condition . It made it easier to deal with. It was better than no professional help at all.
He was doing great without Tommy, anyway. He had become friends with Ranboo, that weird, enderman guy that had shown up after the war. Although he wasn't reeling from it like almost everyone else, Tubbo could tell that he had his own set of issues. He didn't mention it, though.
It was nice, really. Being two fucked up kids in a world of pain and suffering and misery, they had each other. Tubbo had the adults to talk to, sure, but it was different. Ranboo knew some of what Tubbo was going through.
~~~
"Sooo,” Ranboo stressed. “I heard that your country started with a drug empire?"
"Yeah."
He laughed. "What's the most that you've done?"
Kids talked about stupid shit they had done. It was fun to break the rules. Ranboo understood that. The rules included drug usage, staying up late, and generally defying authority. Tubbo had done a LOT of that, lately although no one knew it.
"I took a few painkillers at like, midnight or something." Tubbo laughed. "It was kind of an accident, I didn't mean to take too much." That was a lie, but it was believable. He could get some stuff off of his chest this way. Slightly lying. Only a bit.
"...Wow."
"Yeah." quietly he added "It was kind of scary actually. I'm not gonna do it again."
"That seems for the best."
~~~
Tubbo had gotten comfortable with Ranboo. Maybe too much, but it was nice to have a friend. Especially since...
"I'm sorry about the whole Tommy thing." Yes, he knew about that, too. Practically the whole SMP had heard of it, so why did it feel so good to talk about it with Ranboo? Sure, he was also friends with Tommy (having visited him the majority of exile, and still in touch now) but Ranboo was part of the Butchers, too. Obviously he would go against the Blade. "He's been sort of a jerk lately. I told him it wasn't a good ide-"
"It's not your problem to apologize for." It really wasn't. Tubbo wasn't to blame for it, either (for once). No one was, except for Tommy and Technoblade.
"You're a really good friend, you know that?" Ranboo said.
Yeah, I'm the best, especially since I just talked your ear off for the past hour.
"Yeah, I know." In these situations, false confidence was key. "You’re a great friend, too."
It was nice having a friend again.
They were sitting on the bench. Tommy's bench. It was about time he'd get replaced.
~~~
"What the fuck?"
Tubbo was staring at a mirror, half naked. A reflection he didn't recognize stared back at him. He didn't like how it looked, either.
That's why this whole thing started, wasn't it? To escape the reflection? If he couldn't recognize himself, he'd rather be at least looking at something better than... this.
He pinched his arm, and uh oh, at least 2cm of fat was in his hand now. Even more with his stomach, back, and legs. He was disgusting. There was no hiding it.
He didn't expect anything different. He'd been eating all week, more, in fact. Overeating, he was sure. Tubbo basically chomped on anything he could get his hands on.
That meant good things. He was slowly crawling out of the pit, away from the incessant voices. It should have been good.
Why was he still feeling so terrible? His brain felt full and fuzzy and on edge and his body felt spring loaded and heavy and fat.
God, why are you such a failure? There's a reason you started starving yourself in the first place.
It was too much. The pit was getting harder and harder to climb out of, and Tubbo couldn't see the top of it.
It was only a matter of time before he fell back in again.
~~~
Ranboo pinched him on the shoulder. "Look, your muscle definition’s worse than mine!"
They were just messing around, a harmless joke. Quackity was there, so was Fundy. It was a Butcher reunion! Wasn't that nice?
Of course, Tubbo immediately flinched and pulled away, being that it caught him off guard. He didn't know why his reaction was so strong, he'd never had a problem with it before. That didn't make it any less embarrassing.
He found a letter at his doorstep the next day. It was a page of torn up notebook paper.
I'm sorry for touching you like that, I was just trying to make a joke and didn't think you'd react like that. It won't happen again.
Bless this enderman's soul for putting up with him. He told him (In person, mind you, he wasn't a total wimp) that it was no big deal. “Really, you’d just caught me off guard.” Apology accepted, things returned to normal.
But it made Tubbo think, a dangerous thing nowadays.
Ranboo hasn't seen me before the war, before Tommy's exile, before any of this. He doesn't know the 'right' me. He thinks I've always been as messed up as… he doesn't know me at all. I'm so much different than before. I was better before, I'm getting better now. What will he think when I change? Will he not like me anymore, I don't want to lose anyone else. Is he going to like the real me?
If Ranboo didn't know the real him, who did? Who was there to trust? Who was there left?
Was there even any 'real him’ left?
"The discs were worth more than you ever were." Tommy looked so pitiful with everyone surrounding him. He was switching sides, against that terrible pig, to come fight with him instead. Tubbo would feel sorry, accept him with open arms, steal the discs right back from Dream, please can't things just be normal again, but he had to go and say... that.
"When I said you could sit this one out, I didn't mean for you to switch sides!" Technoblade yelled. It made Tubbo's head twitch violently, but no one seemed to notice. Please don't yell at him, at me, at anyone, he pleaded in his head .
"You are an absolute idiot. You have no power, and you are the worst president to be elected because you're no president at all!" He knew it, he knew it, Dream was confirming what everyone was thinking, Tubbo was just a fraud, a pathetic little excuse for a leader. An absolute waste of space. He fell silent and trembled like a baby.
They were coming back tomorrow, guns blazing and TNT lit. Technoblade, Dream, and Philza.
It was worse than he expected. Of course the TNT was bad enough. But the thing that did it...
Tommy. God bless him, he acted like they were best friends again. Ranboo was nowhere to be found, so Tubbo clung onto Tommy during the hellish explosions. God, the sound made him want to go deaf just to make it stop, it was too much like the firework blasts. It was the sound of war.
But Tommy...
"COME BACK HERE AND FIGHT LIKE A REAL MAN!" He yelled, as always. Tubbo was sure this was how it'd always been, but now Tommy's loudness was more like the fireworks than fireworks.
Everyone's voice grated his ears like sandpaper now. Any fucking noise or touch made Tubbo want to claw his eyes out and curl up and die. He wasn't sure if that was just a response to constant stress or he was just turning even more insane, insane enough to blow up a country, burn a house down, betray his friends and-
He was exactly like Wilbur, wasn't he? That's the last thing he wanted to be.
He saw how Philza had looked at his son that day. As a failure. He'd sided with Technoblade and Dream because they weren't failures. Tubbo was just going to be another person cast aside by Philza, another failure, another disappointment, another embarrassment.
"ALRIGHT THEN, RUN AWAY YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Tommy raged on. Tubbo fucking wimpered a 'Please be quieter' that was lost with the explosions.
Stop stop stop stop stop stop make it stop.
He ran off after the explosions were over. They didn't stop replaying in his ears, along with the yelling and screaming and it's too much make it stop make it stop please please
He went home and made it stop.
He was back in the pit.
He wasn't gonna embarrass himself trying to climb out of it.