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sculkdin · 1 year

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negative days nearer death

My @mcytblrholidayexchange gift for @bearandhoney-com! I really went for the "angst (or otherwise darker) content" part of your request here, and I hope it worked out well! Ngl, I actually spilled coffee on my laptop on the 11th, and was completely offline because of it for most of the exchange (i am SO sorry mods), so it was really up in the air if I'd be able to complete this, and I'm so happy that I did!

Characters: Tubbo, Schlatt, Wilbur, Quackity, Dream

Tags: Character Study, Unreliable Narrator, Canon Compliant, I think, Angst, Dramatic Irony, of a sort, Manipulation, Manberg | Manburg on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF)

Ao3 Link

Tubbo sometimes finds himself wondering if Schlatt can read minds.

He knows, logically, that he can't. Tubbo spends most of his time in Manburg after all, at the President's side— there's no way he'd be able to do that if Schlatt really was a mind reader. Still. Sometimes he wonders. Schlatt just seems to know things, seems to have an uncanny sense for detecting when Tubbo's not in Manburg, an uncanny sense for what buttons to press to set Big Q off and reel him back in, an uncanny sense for knowing exactly what to say when Fundy starts looking at the area where the walls used to be.

It's terrifying. More than that though, it's impressive. It's— and he stumbles over the thought even in the safety of his own brain, can't fathom putting it into words, but— quite honestly, it's cool.

When Schlatt is at his best— and that's getting rarer and rarer these days— but when Schlatt is at his best and he's got a metaphorical good hand of cards, being around him is a rush like one Tubbo has only ever felt around Wilbur. It's much more volatile then Wilbur ever was at his most charismatic, sure, and there's a wave of nausea that often comes with it, but as long as he pushes down his uneasiness, that doesn't detract from the sheer coolness of it all.

(Wilbur's not like that anymore, hasn't been since the election results. Being around him no longer comes with the rush of standing next to the man with the winning shot in his pocket— rather, standing by Wilbur is quite like standing next to an already ticking bomb.)

He adored L'Manburg. He's... probably happier in Manburg than he should be. It's not a good place, fuck no, and the absence of Tommy and Wilbur haunts his every step, but... the landmarks are familiar, and he's seen the land a hundred times before, and sometimes he does a damn good job at convincing himself that that's all he needs.

It's just a place, after all. Sure, his shoulders may instinctively tense up until he leaves the city limits, sure, he can't stand to look at Niki's bakery anymore, but it's just a place. Surely still liking a place isn't that bad. Surely he still likes his home. Surely—

No, he's thinking himself into corners again. He keeps finding himself doing that when he works on the archive— needs to stop doing that, because every time he's lost in his thoughts and he fails to reply to one of Schlatt's messages, he just looks more and more guilty.

(Despite his issues with Manburg, despite the way his stomach drops when he sees Schlatt with a bottle, despite the way an insidious, guilty relief crawls into his brain when it's Fundy or Big Q who's work Schaltt takes issue with— despite all that, sometimes Tubbo speaks with Wilbur, speaks with Tommy, speaks with the Blade, and finds himself thankful he wasn't ordered to move to Pogtopia.)

Sometimes Tubbo wants to pull both Tommy and Wilbur out of that ravine. It's a stupid wish though. Where would he pull them to? They're all stuck at the moment. Manburg wouldn't be helpful, it would be the opposite.

So everything's not... great, but it is manageable. It is workable. And that's the most he can ask for right now, isn't it?

-----

Things get— tenser, between the President and his Vice.

Quackity had been an impressive combination of moralistic and apathetic right after the election was won— confessing that the devil you didn't know sometimes was better than the devil you did when he got blackout drunk that night and Tubbo accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation with Fundy. Quackity was moralistic in that his reasons for running for President hasn't changed, his thoughts on how Wilbur was running the place hadn't changed, and apathetic in his almost-single minded focus on the joy over his victory while Wilbur and Tommy ran for their lives and Tubbo was tasked with hunting them down.

Immediately after the election, Quackity was apathetic in a way that Tubbo would figure out was actually uncharacteristic of him as he got to know him better.

It doesn't come out as care, not at first— just a casual disdain for doing something in a way that Big Q thinks is wrong. It elevates to genuine irritation pretty quickly though— when Big Q is all for Schlatt's plans, he's all in, but when he thinks they're dumb, he somehow manages to make them sound like the dumbest thing on the planet.

(Schlatt doesn’t like that. But Schlatt doesn’t like a lot of things.)

Big Q's care, the actual passion and anger underneath it all, uncurl as months pass, as Schlatt gets more drunk and more stubborn and somehow more rude, as the President starts taking the smallest disagreements as personal attacks, as Tubbo, Fundy, and Quackity somehow find themselves trapped in a weird almost-competition for Schlatt's favor. The care uncurls, and Big Q starts yelling louder, stops portraying his anger as some sort of logical disdain for stupidity, starts putting more time and effort into keeping Schlatt somewhat stable and baiting him into a blind rage— at this point, the two feel like they are practically synonyms. At least when Schlatt’s angry, he’s predictable, and predictable is the closest any of them get to stability these days.

It’s… nice, almost, how Big Q cares. It’s nice to see that there’s more to him than that glee at Tommy and Wilbur getting kicked out, that he’s truly sticking to his reasons for running for president.

But as the apathy seeps from Big Q, Tubbo finds himself taking more and more of it on.

Balancing Schlatt and Wilbur is a sport he's gotten quite good at now— he's proud of it, almost, in the detached way anyone can feel pride these days. His concern was overwhelming at first, crushing him during any moment of downtime he had, but now it’s faded. Muted. Background noise, at most.

And that’s not to say that he doesn’t care about anything, because he does! Truly! He cares that Niki is furious, he cares that Schlatt seems to be doing worse. (It’s just that Niki's been furious for a long time now. It’s just that as he spends more time under Schlatt, he finds himself paying the price for caring more and more. It’s just that if he focused on all his emotions, he think he might explode, so instead he’s focusing on the few bright spots he has, and ignoring the rest.)

So maybe that’s why it's funny when Tommy gets stuck in between the pistons. Maybe that’s why it's funny that Wilbur rages after Tubbo gets him a backdoor the White House comms and hears the bullshit Tubbo's been hearing all day long. Wilbur couldn't manage both himself and Schlatt as well as Tubbo is managing them— Wilbur can't stand to hear even a day of it without publicly lashing out.

Tubbo almost can laugh when he imagines Wilbur in his shoes.

-----

One day, when Tubbo is leaving Pogtopia, he sees Dream.

The apathy that has held him suddenly deserts him so quickly it nearly gives him whiplash. It's dread that clutches his heart first, then fear, then apprehension. Dream isn’t exactly an enemy at the moment, technically, probably, but… he’s not a friend either. He’s not someone who should know that Tubbo is playing both sides.

He finds himself frozen in place as Dream tilts his head to the side, stares at him. The mask is worse when it's at a 90 degree angle, when it's trained solely on you and there's no one around, no one to save you.

Then, in an instant, his head is back straight up, and his body is slouched, like they're two friends meeting at a bar, like he's not holding Tubbo's life in his hands.

"Secretary," Dream says, and it's light, breezy. Tubbo swears he can hear his own heartbeat ricocheting in his brain. "You're a long way from Manberg."

"I mean, it's not that long," Tubbo defends, and the words feel awkward in his mouth, awkward on his tongue. "There's, uh, there's like this tunnel system here? That we go on walks in sometimes?"

It's a partial lie— Schlatt and Quackity take those walks, not Tubbo. Still, Dream nods along.

"Sure," he says, crossing one arm over his chest, leaving the other one free to gesture. "Of course. Walks."

"Yeah," Tubbo says, doubling down on it. "Walks.”

“And you take walks with your paperwork?” Dream asks, sounding amused.

“I mean, it can get kind of stifling in the white house, you know,” Tubbo replies, “I like to uh, get some air. It makes the signatures go by faster.”

Dream laughs, not quite his signature wheeze, but something a little to the left of it. “Fair!” he says, “that’s– that’s really fair, Mr. Secretary. Let me tell you, I, I do not envy your paperwork.”

Tubbo tries for a smile. He comes up a little short. “What are you doing here, Dream?”

“Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that,” Dream says with a lighthearted wave of his hand. “Just getting the lay of the land, you know, seeing what’s up.”

Slowly, Tubbo nods. He starts to inch his way around Dream, and seamlessly, Dream shifts to keep Tubbo straight in front of him. “I heard there was a festival coming up,” Dream says suddenly, and Tubbo stiffens.

“Uh, yeah,” he says after a moment of silence. “Yeah, Schlatt wants to celebrate Manberg. President Schlatt, I mean.”

Dream nods along. “Good to keep up the citizens morale, I’d assume,” he says lightly. “Well, good luck. I hope it goes off with a bang.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo replies, and he’s opening his mouth to say something, anything when suddenly he blinks, and– Dream disappears. “Dream?”

No response. Tubbo looks around, scans the treetops. Nothing. He calls out again, gets no reply. The only evidence he was even here at all are the broken twigs in front of him, right where Dream was standing.

It’s warm out. Tubbo finds himself shivering anyway.

-----

When Wilbur tells Tubbo that he wants to blow up the festival, Dream’s words finally make sense.

He’s not bitter that Dream knew about this beforehand. Really, he’s not. The thought of it might hurt a bit, but it’s easy enough to bury that hurt in another layer of apathy, to instead focus on the task at hand.

Wilbur wants to blow up the festival, wants to blow up Manberg, but he’s leaving the final choice to Tubbo. Huh. That’s– kind of unexpected.

He’s flattered, almost. Impressed, maybe. Surprised, definitely.

It all comes together at the festival itself, when Wilbur says that he’s just a yes-man.

He's not just a yes-man, Tommy yells in response, and Tubbo almost wants to laugh, almost wants to choke.

Because Prime Tommy, the sentiment is appreciated, but— Wilbur's right, finally, and it makes something in Tubbo's heart settle to know that Wilbur recognizes this, that Wilbur isn't quite so far gone as Schlatt is. The old Wilbur was sharp as an axe, would've noticed and called Tubbo out for managing him the moment Tubbo started doing so months ago. If Wilbur is calling him out now, well... maybe he's not as far gone as Tubbo feared.

A yes-man for Schlatt, for Wilbur. That's all Tubbo feels he has been since the election went haywire. He’s just been saying yes and then doing otherwise, again and again, trying to keep both sides of this mess from imploding.

But now it's time to make a choice. Time to stop playing both sides.

He looks at Wilbur. He looks at Schlatt.

He thinks of Big Q yelling at Schlatt, telling him not to be a goddamn idiot. He thinks of Tommy yelling at Wilbur, saying the same exact thing. He thinks of a man who fiercely guards his power from even his closest aides, and a man who wanted to know the truth about Manburg despite the fact it might undermine him, a man who then all but literally handed over the button to all those stacks of tnt. Wilbur made this Tubbo's call. He can't remember a time Schlatt made something his call without doubling the pressure and throwing in some horrifying catch-22.

He thinks of the power that lies in his hands right now. He's the right hand man to the President, and he's looking the President dead in the eye while he stands on a stage in front of an entire nation; while his left hand is holding both the mic and the fate of his country.

Schlatt can't be a mind reader, because if he was, he'd know how monumental of a moment just passed. Schlatt can't be in his mind, because if he was, he'd know the treason that Tubbo is considering, know that Tubbo is highly considering turning his back on this country forever— literally and metaphorically— when he runs away as it goes up in flames.

So he betrays Manburg. Truly, firmly, in a way he'll never be able to come back from. After all, his cover isn't the only thing in a hundred block radius that's about to be blown to shreds when Wilbur gets to the bomb.

“Let the festival begin!”

#tubbo #schlatt #wilbur soot #quackity #dreamwastaken #c!tubbo #c!schlatt #c!wilbur #c!quackity #c!dream #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp fanfic

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