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“Tommy, it’s Tubbo or the discs, you can only choose one,” Dream declared, his axe still against Tubbo’s throat as they walked over to his weird as fuck altar.
“Dream, what the fuck? What the actual fuck are you? What the fuck is this place?” Tommy breathed, in a state beyond panic. His hands shook desperately, the phantom weapon in his hand slipping through his fingers as he looked up at Dream, the man who was to decide whether he lived or died.
And Dream looked into his eyes, the eyes of the man who would decide Tubbo’s fate.
Equals, Dream would say. But Tommy wasn’t Dream and even if he could begin to understand Dream’s sick mind, he would never, could never sympathise with it. They weren’t equals and never would be. Finally, he turned to Tubbo, his true equal. But was that even true now that Tommy decided whether his friend lived or died?
Tommy didn’t know. It was supposed to be him and Tubbo versus Dream, no story of hero versus villains but a tale that would end in the defeat of a villain nonetheless. This was supposed to make him closer to Tubbo but even with a few metres of distance, they were further apart than they’d been in months.
‘The discs were worth more than you ever were’ played on repeat in his mind. He had been wrong. Tubbo was worth his weight in gold yet even if his discs were silly and plastic, they were somehow so valuable at the same time. Did it matter what was more valuable, though? Even if Tubbo was more valuable than everything else in the world, it didn’t touch in the slightest the importance of his discs.
People had lived and died in the battles over these things: countries won, houses burnt and robbed and raided. The entire server revolved around that ‘silly plastic’ and even if he could admit that they truly were nothing, at the same time he couldn’t give them up to Dream again.
For the safety of the server.
“It’s fine, Tommy,” Tubbo declared, noting his hesitation,”All good things must come to an end eventually…” Tubbo’s face was calm, as though he’d predicted this. He couldn’t have, right? He was here for Tommy, to help him. He couldn’t have known the trade that Dream would make.
“What- What! What, no! No! How can you just accept this?” Tommy asked, a solitary tear dripping down his face. Thankfully, it was small enough that Tubbo didn’t notice and suitably angled that it was obscured from Dream’s view.
But Tubbo’s expression didn’t change. He wasn’t resentful, he wasn’t shocked, he wasn’t even upset. It was like he’d accepted his fate months ago even though the ultimatum had only been pitched seconds before.
Tommy turned to Dream once again, desperate eyes pointing at his ex-friend. Were they even friends? It had felt like it. Why did everything have to be so confusing? They could just fight, till Dream’s stupid body was on the floor and they could scoop up the discs from behind his bloody corpse. But Dream had to make everything so fucked up.
He’d have mourned Tubbo if he’d died in battle, by his side as he’d been since the beginning. This was different. It wasn’t supposed to be a trade or a choice he made. It was supposed to be someone’s mistake or Dream taking some opportunity if Tubbo even died at all. It wasn’t supposed to be intentional.
In that moment, where he should have seen a tearful teenager or the silly bee boy from years ago, all he could see was a President: regretful yet strong, perfectly poised to look the pinnacle of diplomacy even with an axe to his neck. While no longer in a stiff suit, Tubbo was undoubtedly a politician, someone so far beyond Tommy in growth as if he was the faulty flower Dream had picked off the stem while Tubbo was the brilliant sunflower, the head of the garden, looking over its kingdom with almost parental adoration.
Yet it was Tubbo that was to die today.
“Tommy,” Dream warned, his voice deepening as he reminded Tommy that time was passing at all.
“I know, I know, I- Fuck you, Dream. Fuck you. You can wait!” Tommy declared, defiant still despite all his thoughts that begged him to stop.
He and Tubbo laughed with each other, a laugh that Tommy had the horrible suspicion would be Tubbo’s final laugh, their last joke.
“Yeah, Dream,” Tubbo laughed, the presidential mask slipping for just a moment as Tubbo laughed so hard he cried, tears Tommy suspected were not born of humour.
The discs sat mere metres away, waiting patiently for Tommy’s keen hands.
“What- What do I do, Tubbo?” he asked, desperation seeping carelessly into his voice. Unlike Tubbo, President and businessman and Big Law, he felt like a child as he gave himself permission to act like one. He was so pathetic, even if he hated it. He saw the way everyone pitied him and no matter how he snapped and swore and yelled, it felt immature in a way he never quite knew how to escape.
After a few moments of hesitation, his ex-president gave him some advice:”Whatever you want, Tommy,”
Tommy paused, turning between him and Dream wordlessly.
There was no space for words in a place like this where humans were stripped to their oldest impulses, death on the bleeding horizon a hundred metres above ground.
“Okay,” Tommy announced finally,”I’m going to have to make a choice, aren’t I?” he croaked, clearly torn up by whatever decision he had made.
Both Dream and Tubbo tensed as they waited for Tommy’s answer, the answer that would change the fate of the server forever.
“I need the discs, Tubbo. And I know they seem so stupid - and trust me, Tubbo, I feel so stupid, too - but I need these discs - for the server. I’m so sorry, man, and you know I don’t apologise that often. I’m sorry,” Tommy managed, speaking like a dying soldier as he took a step back from Tubbo and Dream both. His breath turned shaky, fearful, even, as though retribution from a dying man was on the horizon.
Tubbo nodded, taking his fate in stride,”It’s okay…”
“And you’re sure, Tommy?” Dream asked,”You don’t care about Tubbo more than the discs?”
Tommy blew air from his nose like an enraged dragon,”I’m sure, Dream. Don’t try to fucking…tease me,” Tommy declared, for lack of a better word.
“Jeez, Tommy, It’s only- You’re so sensitive, you know?” Dream sighed,”I think I’ve overestimated you, Tommy.”
Tommy’s fists crumpled and whitened yet lay uselessly on his side like pinned wings. Red hot hatred overcame Tommy. How dare Dream do this? To his best friend? How dare Dream make him make such a hard choice?
But despite the rage bubbling inside of him, Tommy did nothing like a bull urged into docility.
“Tommy, Tommy, watch!” Dream ordered, pulling his gaze over to his best friend.
Tubbo eyed the portal as though waiting for someone but there was nothing. Nobody was coming for them.
Tommy knew what was happening yet complied, looking into Tubbo’s tearful eyes as though he’d never see them again.
Oh.
This was it, wasn’t it? This was the day that Tubbo would die, forever. The server would move on in his absence, twisting its schemes to omit him, a great leader and a greater friend. Inside of that man who had axe to throat lived millions of memories and stories and experiences they had shared, memories that would be lost to the foreverness of death.
“Any last words?” Dream offered, lazily swinging his axe around as though this moment meant nothing to him at all. As if Dream would go back to his evil base and sleep a dreamless sleep. Surely he cared more about Tubbo, right? Despite all he’d done, he had been his and Tubbo’s friend at one point. He cared, didn’t he?
“I’m sorry, Tommy-” Tubbo began, opening his mouth for the last time.
An axe forced itself into Tubbo’s throat with such brutal force that it came out the other side, separating head from neck in one single movement.
Tommy could scarcely breath as he watched Tubbo’s limp head twitch the ground, knowing eyes taking their last glances at the server. Tubbo’s mouth snapped shut in the fall though his eyes were unchanged, disgusted and sort of shocked in a way Tommy couldn’t describe. The eyes of a dead man were not for the living to understand, were they?
Blood was splattered around like it was a children’s art room. In the middle of the chaos lay Tubbo’s body which sprayed out blood as if its life depended on it, blood redder than the scars across his face.
He was seventeen, months off eighteen.
He-
Tommy fell to his knees, not for any higher power but because his legs were no longer capable of supporting him. Unbeknownst to him, Tommy’s own face turned to that very same dying shock, tears unshed locked in his eyelids.
Tubbo was dead.
Tubbo was dead and it was his fault.
Tubbo was dead and it was because he’d wanted those stupid discs.
Tubbo was dead and he wasn’t coming back.
Tommy threw up on the floor, mixing with the blood to create a pink splotch on the floor. The blood around it seemed artistic, intention. Well, Tommy supposed it was, in a way.
So this was how Tubbo died? Painless and swift yet so unnecessarily. Dead because Tommy thought there would be another war and another battle and another purpose for the discs?
How could he be that foolish? Not even his own life seemed to have purpose anymore. What was the point of it all if he didn’t have Tubbo? Who was he without Tubbo?
Nothing.
“Tommy, it’s okay, you can have your discs now,” Dream offered, throwing Mellohi at him first, like a frisbee.
The disc slapped his chest but Tommy didn’t rmove to pick it up. It bounced off him and into Tubbo’s bleeding neck, squishing into it with the sound of meat in liquid being moved.
Tubbo would never move again.
“Dream, you’re sick!” Tommy yelled, spell broken,”You’re sick! You didn’t have to call us here to do this. The server could have been peaceful! You- Why the fuck would you do this, Dream?” Tommy shouted, staring directly at Dream’s dotted eye-holes.
“See, Tommy, I called you here to prove that Tubbo was worth more than the discs. I exiled you for a reason, Tommy. You’re disruptive, you lash out. I wanted to help set you straight but I guess…” Dream trailed off.
Tommy’s eyes widened in disbelief,”No you fucking didn’t, no you fucking didn’t!” Tommy screamed, eyes frenzied and focused and ready to do something impulsive.
“Then why would I ask you to change your mind so many times? Face it, Tommy, Tubbo died because you care too much about the discs. That’s what I wanted to fix in exile and I’m going to fix now,” Dream decided, thumping Tommy round the head with his axe before Tommy could even react.
Hours later, Tommy and Tubbo still hadn’t returned. Sapnap assumed that they were fine, clearly with the battle going on longer than expected. But apparently some people on the server were really worried about them.
And okay- Maybe Dream wasn’t as nice as he had been a few years ago but it wasn’t like he was some horrible evil everyone had to team up and fight. His asshole ex-friend was just that: an asshole. And a terrorist but that was pretty average for the Dream SMP.
Still, he followed the crowd through the portal, arms covering his chest as a precaution. It was not fun to end up inside someone’s chest and better his hand than his stomach, really.
But his journey through the portal was a success, leading him to…
Well, he couldn’t see much through the sea of people. He heard Punz say something or other but he was more focused on the strange room he’d ended up inside.
It was taller than a building was supposed to be, if that even made sense. Every inch was made of obsidian besides the weird golden stand they were on. If Sapnap really looked through the sea of feet, he could just about see two empty item frames.
So someone had the discs. Unsurprising considering how long the battle had taken.
Then, people started to surge forward as if it was life and death. Why did everyone care so much about Tommy and Tubbo? Tubbo Sapnap understood: he had been a president only a few weeks prior. But Tommy? He switched teams so often Sapnap was curious how he even had friends.
“What is it?” Sapnap called out, though he knew half the room still had no idea what was going on anyway.
He breathed out a breath of fire to warm his hands. This place was clearly underground because his fingers were hating this.
“It’s Tubbo…” Punz breathed, the mercenary clearly taken aback.
Fresh words were just on his tongue when the crowd thinned out and he was able to finally see the great exhibit.
On the ground, bloated and smelly and sick-marinated, was the corpse of Tubbo Underscore.
Sapnap breathed out a long column of fire as he took in the sight. Tubbo’s head was a good few metres from the rest of him, cut in such a straight line it was like an axe had gone clean through it.
Oh.
Tubbo’s green shirt was dyed a bright red in huge areas as his own blood drowned him, nose coated in the stuff.
If he stared into the lost liquid, he could see his own face staring back at himself as if Tubbo was wearing sunglasses.
The ground murmured, cried out in shock and every other possible reaction.
Nobody cried. Not many did after hundreds of lives had been taken in front of them.
From the splatted remains of someone’s dinner, Sapnap figured that Tommy hadn’t taken it the best.
Wait.
“Where’s Tommy?”
Seconds went by like millenia: an unpleasant amount of time to remain alive. If he looked at his sun-deficient, deprived arms, he could tell that he’d not eaten or gone anywhere for too long. The issue was that Tommy did want to go and be with Tubbo, if he even deserved that.
“Dream, let me go,” Tommy declared weakly, more a doll reciting its pre-coded, pre-recorded lines for the millionth time, redstone worn down and its body battered.
“What do you mean ‘let me go’? We’re equals here,” Dream protested, sighing as if Tommy was the world’s biggest inconvenience.
He knew Dream didn’t find him so for a million reasons, the most obvious being that if he wasn’t useful, he was dead. Out of power, out of office, out of weapons, Tommy held no value politically. Dream wanted him for some fucking reason and even if Tubbo was dead and he was physically in Dream’s possession, he swore to all the Primes and Tubbo too, that he would never allow himself to become Dream’s mentally.
It was the easy way out, really. Dream would hit him and scream at him and hurt him whether he complied or not, he’d learned that much from exile. So really, there was no point in complying, no point in pretending that Dream was anything but the man who tried to take Tubbo away from him.
Tubbo appeared for him, sometimes, dead but not gone. Dream had tried to banish Tubbo to the afterlife but Tubbo wasn’t staying, perfectly able to dance the line between alive and dead.
Ever-loyal, he appeared for Tommy another time.
“Hey, Tommy!” he beamed, a childlike innocence over his adult face. Like Ghostbur, he cheered, dancing and celebrating his own death. Some days, the lingering guilt consumed him but with Tubbo right in front of him, Tommy could feel it drift away.
“Hey, Tubbo,” Tommy replied under his breath, not eager in the slightest to allow Dream to hear a word of their conversation.
For a moment, he could pretend to be on the bench once more, gazing out at the horizon as he waited for the next day and with it, the next adventure.
Tubbo, long-dead, could not do the same.