Chapter Text
mm. 1
Sometimes, there are things that happen with no warning. Things like flash floods, heart attacks, the crash on the interstate that makes you late for your meeting; like J. Schlatt standing on a stage that isn’t his and yelling.
Sometimes, there are things that happen slowly. Things like death by poison, inflation, climate change, and like Wilbur Soot taking a shaking Tommy by the shoulders and laughing.
mm. 2
Technoblade is asleep.
The potato farm is empty, save the trickle of the irrigation system and the occasional bug buzzing by. The small, carved-out hollow that serves as Techno’s rocky excuse for a bedroom echoes with his heavy breathing. His sword is strapped to his wrist. He’s almost smiling, lips twitching around his tusks.
Wilbur leans against the cave wall, arms crossed, watching Techno’s chest rise and fall. His brother - not in blood, but with an affinity for the stuff - stirs, like he can tell Wilbur’s eyes have focused on the victor’s crown he keeps by his bedside.
Wilbur lost his long ago. He couldn’t care less.
Participating in those championships was at least good for one thing, Wilbur supposes. Phil may have left them long ago, Techno may be a heartbeat away from turning that sword on Wilbur’s neck, he may only have Tommy left, clinging to his leg while the world turns to quicksand - but thanks to the championships bringing them together, he really got the chance to know them.
He’s always known them, it seems, though that’s not true by a long shot. But when Wilbur counts the symmetrical seconds in between Techno’s exhales and the torch casts a shadow on his trembling eyelids, Wilbur knows he’s not asleep. When he calls for Phil in the middle of the night, desperately, everything he’s fought for burning in his memory, he knows there will not be an answer. When Tommy’s hands begin to shake and his expression falls flat, Wilbur knows - well. Tommy was always the most transparent out of them all.
When there is nothing behind Tommy’s eyes, Wilbur knows he’s afraid.
Techno moves again, dragging one leg against the wall with a gravelly crunch. Wilbur exhales a soft sniff, pushes off the wall, and decides it’s time for a walk.
Techno’s ice-blue stare follows him until he’s out of sight.
mm. 10
Over the comm, Quackity almost sounds inhuman.
“Good morning, Wilbur.” Wilbur can practically hear his lackadaisical grin through the airwaves.
“Why are you calling me?” Wilbur grits out. His footsteps fall to an even tempo, pacing from the portal to the farm entrance and up the stairs and back, one hand clenched tight around his communicator.
“Why’d you pick up?”
“What do you want?”
“Wilbur, honey, I know you’re all business, but sometimes I just miss your voice -“
“Don’t waste my time,” Wilbur says, balancing his way across a wood bridge.
Quackity laughs. Giggles, more like; it grates into Wilbur’s ears and he stumbles over a loose board. “Just wondered how you were doing.”
“Doing fine, Quackity,” Wilbur says. “Get to it.”
“I, on this lovely morning, am educating myself on the layout of my country.”
If only Quackity were standing in front of him. Wilbur turns his bristling sights onto the portal instead. “So late in your term?”
“Well, you see, there’s a whole series of underground tunnels I had no idea about. I’m standing in one of them now.”
Wilbur is well aware of them. A select pathway even runs from Manberg to their ravine.
The reason for Quackity’s call begins to set in.
From the other end of the ravine, Tubbo snaps his head around and bolts for the exit like a meerkat with a caffeine addiction.
Tubbo_: have a contingency. Follow
Hesitantly, Wilbur does.
“I’m also thinking,” Quackity purrs, “Schlatt and I have been a little distant, lately. We should take a walk, reconnect, ya know? And these tunnels are just lovely, this time of year.”
“Schlatt? Distant from you? What a surprise,” Wilbur chuckles into the comm, pouncing on the chink in the Vice President’s armor. Tubbo scampers down a wooden path laid down through the cave tunnel, Wilbur close behind.
There is a moment’s pause where Quackity tries to ignore him. “I think he’d be just as curious as I am to find out where -“
“He’s not one for bonding,” Wilbur says, smooth. Ahead of him, Tubbo ducks around a corner. “Or maybe he’s allergic to your sunny disposition.”
Tubbo motions to a caved-in section of the wall with one hand, typing furiously into his communicator with the other. The path shatters a few inches before the rockslide.
Tubbo_: built a dead end on the other side
Tubbo_: opening down here you can still get home
Wilbur nods at Tubbo pointing underneath the path. ‘Home?’ Is that what he’s calling Manberg, now?
“You’re jealous,” Quackity finally snaps through the phone, dripping capsaicin honey off the shaking edge of a blade. “You’re just jealous I’m the one -“
“I don’t care enough about you to be jealous,” Wilbur laughs, like he hasn’t a worry in the world. “Enjoy your getaway in Manberg’s sewers. Maybe Schlatt will even let you walk beside him.”
“See you soon,” Quackity says, almost a threat. He’s getting better at hiding the way his sentences stumble.
Tubbo is still standing under the path, looking up at Wilbur expectantly. What does he want? A pay raise? There are practically horns growing out of his head already.
Wilbur hangs up on Quackity with a click of his comm. “Make sure they don’t find us,” he says to Tubbo, and turns his back on him.
mm. 32
Tubbo likes to think he’s a hard worker.
He spends hours building and even more on planning. He weaves lies in his head and makes paths with no end. He farms resources until he’s so tired he can barely move, and tops it all off with more paperwork than should be possible at his desk job in the White House.
Tiring as scurrying from Pogtopia to Manberg at the beck and call of Wilbur and Schlatt is, Tubbo doesn’t mind. It’s worth it, he thinks. He’s grateful for this opportunity. Why wouldn’t he be? Schlatt hasn’t hurt him too badly, and Tommy still trusts him with his life, his home. Tubbo’s kept his job and his friends.
It is more than he can say for so many of the others.
The times grate on everyone. Niki is stormy, Fundy is frustratingly happy, Eret’s shoulders hunch over and Tubbo never saw him slouch before Schlatt stood at the mic. Quackity is bright and acidic. Schlatt is humidly suffocating. George - well, Dream’s right hand man hasn’t been seen anymore than the big man himself has.
Technoblade both works and drives himself into the ground, tilling soil, carving eyes off of potatoes, rigging water to fall from the ceiling. He’s an imposing figure. Tubbo steers clear of his sweeping cape and gleaming sword.
Wilbur looks tired, these days, a far cry from the man Tubbo had first met. The circles under his eyes are smears of charcoal. His eyes get darker with every day spent in the caves. His trigger finger twitches when he thinks no one is looking, greasy hair casting his face into shadow. And Tommy’s starting to worry Tubbo, if he’s being honest, with the way his face hardens at Schlatt’s name, how his hands always hold a weapon, how he spits on the cave floor and yells about how much he wants to fight.
It’s not that Tubbo doesn’t want to fight. He does, which is why he’s risking life and limb and soul running the resistance under Schlatt’s nose. It’s just that Tommy speaks loud and recklessly, gripes about things Tubbo can’t relate to anymore, and he’ll never say it out loud but he wishes Tommy would stop bringing it up. It’s exhausting. All his speeches do is add to the weight crushing Tubbo’s shoes into the mud where his home used to be.
Home. He’s tired of trying to figure out what that word means to him.
He’s tired.
And he never, ever stops.
mm. 36
The problem with Mellohi is that it’s broken.
The record itself is damaged from months of passing from hand to violent hand, and as a result the melody warps and howls quarter tones over minor seconds, a sad waltz amplified by their stone cage.
It means so much to Tommy. Wilbur doesn’t see the appeal. It’s out of tune. It’s out of time. It’s broken.
If this were a normal place, Wilbur could pretend that like any teenager, Tommy likes playing music too loud.
If theirs was a normal life, Wilbur could imagine that like any older brother, it’s his job to roll his eyes and yell for him to turn it down.
Tommy never does.
And Wilbur is getting tired of yelling.
mm. 41
“It’s like this,” Quackity says. “I just think as your second in command, we should be on the same page.”
As they walk down the path, Schlatt notes his companion’s footfalls. Quackity trips on the unfamiliar terrain and steps down hard on a hollow board. Behind him, Tubbo doesn’t make a sound.
“Yeah?” Schlatt says. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I mean I think it would be nice if you made your plans more, uh, transparent to the cabinet, y’know?”
“More transparent?” Schlatt enunciates, cocking an eyebrow at his Vice President.
“All I’m saying is that in our time here, our Administration’s time, we haven’t done very much,” Quackity says, hands held out.
“Oh, is that what you think?” Schlatt asks, pitching it low. His own chuckle bounces back at him.
“Not to say,” Quackity is quick to add, “that we haven’t done anything. It’s just that we could be doing more.”
“Well,” Schlatt says, clasping his hands behind his back. “I woke up this morning planning to give a speech, but thanks to someone’s insistence, my important plans for doing more have been delayed by...” he trails off. “Why are we in the sewers, anyway?”
“I have reason to suspect these tunnels could lead us to Pogtopia,” Quackity says, puffing up defensively.
Funny. Really funny. He chuckles, flashes a look at Tubbo, whose face is neutrally interested. “Really?”
“Yeah, I -”
“And you checked this out earlier.”
“I did.”
“And you found them. Solid proof. You stepped into their base. Did you take a picture of Wilbur for me? You know I collect them.”
Quackity’s momentary bravado splinters. Schlatt would laugh if it wasn’t so sad. “No.”
“No?”
“I thought - you’d like to be there,” Quackity says, shoulders tight under his suit jacket.
“Mr. President,” Tubbo pipes up from behind. “This tunnel’s a dead end. Look.”
Sure enough, the cave ends abruptly several feet ahead of them. Quackity splutters something unintelligible.
To their left, something rustles. Schlatt snaps his attention toward it, only to be met by a rockslide and a broken segment of path. Tubbo’s blinking one too many times a second.
“Mr. Vice President,” Schlatt smiles, dragging his flask from his side and taking a long drink to hide it. “What did I tell you about wasting my time?”
mm. 51
Tubbo is something of an archivist.
Wilbur admires him for it. His library is well hidden, the few books he owns displayed proudly on lecterns. It’s tangible history, and Tubbo guards it with his life.
Wilbur smiles down at him and hands over a few pieces of parchment. Glue and leather and ink - what use does he have for that?
The problem with history is that it traps you. Wilbur drops his past into Tubbo’s arms and feels dangerously free.
Later, Tommy raises his crossbow, eyes narrowed in rage at the election podium below. Schlatt is shitfaced at the mic, a disgrace to his office, to his country, to himself. His slurred words blur through the microphone.
Wilbur leans on the railing with one arm pushing down Tommy’s crossbow. His eyes drift to a pocket of disturbed land leftover from the revolution. He thought they’d filled in all those craters.
.
.
.
When the idea finally hits him, he places the call right there and there.
mm. 55
“Of course I’ll do it!” Tubbo chirps. “I love decorating.”
“It’s not too much to ask?”
“No, Mr. President.” Yes. Prime, yes it is, Tubbo is so tired. He doesn’t think he’s written a speech before in his life, but he doesn’t think anything he wants to say could ever leave his mouth, anymore. And Schlatt is easy to lie to, if you look him in the eyes for long enough.
Schlatt steps closer, expression a cross between pity and wonder. His breath is hot and heavy with the stench of alcohol. It takes Tubbo’s whole being not to flinch.
Slowly, the President cups Tubbo’s face in his too-large palms, staring down and down at him, broad shoulders blocking out the sun. His fingers clumsily interlock at the back of Tubbo’s head, pulling at his hair.
“I’m proud of you,” he mutters like he’s discovered electricity. He laughs, disproportionately loud. “I’m proud of you, Tubbo.”
Tubbo, the key on the string of the kite, shudders through his innocent smile. “Thank you, Schlatt.”
There are seven flecks of gold in each of Schlatt’s eyes.
mm. 63
The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie.
Fundy thinks it’s his birthright. Schlatt thinks it’s his dues. Dream thinks it never left his possession. It’s every man’s land; they fight and quarrel over it endlessly, the coin is thrown up in the air and it never comes down. First Dream, then Wilbur, then Schlatt, it doesn’t matter - who next, Eret? Niki? Technoblade?
Tommy?
Wilbur has fifty-one sticks of dynamite. Dream hands them over with a laugh louder than fate and wishes Wilbur good luck on blowing the ground out from under his own feet.
The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie.
Wilbur’s going to set that straight.
mm. 70
Things fall into place, as they always do.
Sunrise, sunset. Tubbo writes his speech, and Eret helps him hang pink and blue streamers from the podium. Fundy and Niki bake until their storerooms run dry. Quackity and Schlatt oversee it all.
Sunrise, sunset. Tommy sharpens a sword. Technoblade farms potatoes.
Sunrise, sunset. Redstone dust cakes like blood under Wilbur’s fingernails.
Sunrise, sunset, seven times over; there is yellow concrete powder coated over Schlatt’s hands.
mm. 77
Sometime during the week, Tommy is struck with the wild, burning realization that all of this really is his fault.
Schlatt’s arrival and subsequent takeover, as Wilbur had made very clear, certainly weighs on his shoulders and his shoulders alone. But he’s known that for quite a while. No, no, the explosion of a thought that tears into his stomach and leaves his eyes watering and his lungs frozen is that maybe, this is all his fault for - for bringing on Wilbur.
He dreams of the end, most nights, and it is always the same.
Once the shockwave is past, Wilbur shouts, cheering to the heavens. Dirt rains down. Rubble scatters at their feet.
“Yes!” Wilbur screams, and grabs Tommy by the shoulders, cackling. “Tommy! Yes!”
Tommy can only watch the air clear on nothing. And then he can’t even do that - Wilbur pulls him into a tight hug, suffocating him in his musty trench coat. His hands dig like claws into Tommy’s back.
Tommy closes his eyes and tries to push away. Wilbur either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
When Tommy thinks about how Dream had destroyed his home, he remembers running under flaming trees, remembers someone screaming loudly. When he thinks about how Dream had destroyed his home, it cements itself in his memory as the worst feeling in the world.
There is no burning treeline. there is no treeline.
There is no one screaming. there is no one.
Somehow, this hurts more than anything he’s ever known. He wakes up and falls back asleep and dreads the day it won’t all reset when he opens his eyes.
mm. 82
The sun sets.
The problem with history is that it traps you. The problem with no man’s land is that the name is a lie. The problem with Mellohi is that it’s broken.
The problem is that there is no double bar line. A broken melody is all that’s left. Names mean nothing to the march of time.
Wilbur and Schlatt live another day. Pas de deux - a dance for two.
History repeats itself.
Everybody says this.