Chapter Text
The Next April
Winter had officially turned over into spring. Tubbo had spent most of the winter warmer than he’d been in years. There had been plenty of food and more than enough blankets for once. Tubbo had even been convinced to mess around in the snow a few times with the knowledge that he’d be able to easily warm up at any point he wanted. They had a fireplace in their living room for crying out loud.
Winter had been hot chocolate and classic movies that Tubbo and Tommy had never seen. It had been Technoblade coaching Tubbo and Tommy on how to play Mario Kart with the goal purely being to get one of them good enough to beat Wilbur. It was Wilbur teaching them every boardgame they had in their house and then getting fake angry every time Tommy won a game of chance and proceeded to mock him for hours. It was Phil teaching Tommy how to make seasonal cookies and making a small batch of every kind he knew of so they could taste test all of them and find their favorites. It was Tommy happy and… safe for the first time. At least as far as Tubbo could tell, he was safe.
They had been nothing but kind. They had never pushed past the boundaries in place. They never even yelled at them, unless you counted the way Wilbur would yell, but that was never real anger or punishment. He was just loud, and Tommy was loud, and sometimes they screamed at each other to hear themselves be loud. They had been screaming at each other about a hat not a minute ago. A hat that Tommy was now proudly wearing, stolen from Wilbur’s head. Tubbo secretly thought the smug look on Wilbur’s face probably meant he’d tricked Tommy into wearing a hat outside since there was still a bit of a chill to the air.
Tubbo was a bit worried about what would happen when it became too warm for hoodies. He slid a finger over the back of the little black remote in his pocket. The remote was not an easy thing to hide, and it would just be harder when he was expected to wear shorts and t-shirts. He did not trust leaving it alone in his room, and not, surprisingly, because he thought that one of the adults would go and search the room behind his back. No, they had never crossed that boundary after the issue with Ghostbur in the first week. The problem was Tommy. Phil, Techno, and Wilbur could be in the room with permission, of course, and Tommy was always giving them permission even though he knew they were stashing money in there. There were always reasons they were knocking on their door or asking one of them if they could go inside. Tommy routinely stole things from each of them even when Tubbo tried to get him to stop. They were mostly fine with it, but sometimes they needed things back and would ask for permission to look for it.
Tubbo had been so tired once when Wilbur wanted a specific sweater that had mysteriously gone missing from his closet, that he hadn’t noticed when the man had wandered near one of the three money stashes until he’d accidentally pulled out a wad of 20s. He’d politely put it back where it came from and it wasn’t like they couldn’t do the math to figure out how much money he and Tommy probably had, but it was still terrifying for a moment.
Phil had taken to giving them an allowance even though they didn’t do anything except occasionally help with the dishes or fold their own laundry. It wasn’t a mind-bending amount of cash. They couldn’t have afforded the apartment on it or food, but considering housing and food was provided for them, they were able to save more than they had at the Guild, and by that he meant, they were able to save anything at all. Wilbur and Phil often tried to gently suggest they spend it on things they wanted, and they did sometimes, but mostly the $25 a week each went into the caches in their room. They had enough at this point to put the down payment on an apartment and eat for a month if they had to bolt.
The frustrating thing was they knew that. No, they didn’t realize just how fast they could bolt, Ranboo one click away if an emergency came up, but they knew they had the means and they never tried to do anything about it. There were no unforeseen taxes to living with them. They didn’t get $5 taken out of their next payment because they left a window open or because they didn’t finish everything on their plates or because they just pissed them off. The most they did was gently suggesting they use it on something stupid like candy. In truth, Phil didn’t have to give them an allowance at all.
Tubbo had been trying lately as spring started to arrive, to test their boundaries. He’d started to ask for things, but stupid Phil would just smile anytime he actually requested something from him as though happy Tubbo was willing to do so. He didn’t even suggest he dip into the allowance to get the things he wanted, in which case, what was it for. Every request had been met so far from asking for a replacement sweater when he’d been the one to rip the one they’d already given him in the first place to requesting they buy a certain flavor coffee even though clearly Technoblade was the one who got to decide on coffee. After about a month of this, Tubbo had thought he’d finally come up with something Phil would never agree to. Which is why Tubbo was now standing in a little cleared out area outside his and Tommy’s window near a recently rebuilt garden shed.
Phil was holding out a bag filled with seed packets cheerfully and Tubbo took it numbly.
Tubbo hadn’t… actually wanted to grow a garden. It had been purely asked for because he’d thought Phil would finally deny him something. Why would you give someone like Tubbo control over so many seeds? He gave him seeds and a place with soil to grow them willingly. What would it take with this man?
“Wow,” Tommy said, peering into the bag from Tubbo’s side, “there’s all types of things in there.”
Tubbo rolled his eyes. “This is a bribe. He’s trying to bribe me into liking him, Tommy,” Tubbo said, glaring at Phil. Phil just gave him a half-smile back, irritatingly amused.
“You’re bribing people?” Tommy asked Phil. “No fair. I want a bribe!”
Phil laughed softly, turning his eyes to him. There was a softness in his gaze that made Tubbo look away. “What type of bribe would you like?”
Tommy’s eyes lit up. “I want… you to fly me up really high and drop me from above a cloud!”
“I think that can be arranged,” Phil replied easily.
“Really?” Tommy asked, still somehow surprised even after almost 6 months of this. They’d made it clear multiple times that they’d give him anything he asked for.
“Of course,” Phil said. “In a bit, though. I want to help Tubbo get his garden set up a bit more first.”
“That’s okay,” Tommy said. “Techno said he wanted to train with me a bit.” Tubbo was still surprised how freely happy about something like training Tommy could be after how Dream had ‘trained’ him, but Techno was… Techno was a lot different. The most he’d gotten hurt was from falling and Wilbur was always there to fuss for the next decade about it.
It was nice. It was.
Tubbo was waiting for the other shoe to drop because he knew it would. There was always something that could end the kindness and being surprised about it when it happened would always hurt worse.
He zoned out as Tommy and Phil talked a bit about what he and Techno were planning to do today, staring at the bag of seeds handed so easily to him.
He was not ready to make a garden here.
Later That Night
For once, Schlatt wasn’t startled by the ghost showing up. That had little to do with him being prepared for him to show up at this exact time and place (though he was aware of that beforehand) and more to do with the fact that the visage actually appeared walking down the street towards him instead of popping into existence at his side.
“Hello, Schlatt,” he said. He was different tonight, more solid looking that usual, though he was still dripping blue from his eyes, his hands, and the hole in his stomach. He also didn’t have as much of that echoey distance to his tone, but then again, apparently he was supposed to be awake right now. This was more an astral projection than a ghost today, though the lines always got blurry with him.
“Hey, Ghostbur,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “Ready to prove once and for all if you’re just a vivid hallucination that spawned from alcohol withdrawal.”
“You haven’t drunk in years, Schlatt,” Ghostbur pointed out with an eyeroll, an expression that was… honestly weird coming from him. He held out his hand and dropped something into Schlatt’s palm. It was a warm, glowing golden orb, that shined brightly except for the places it had been marred by blue fingertips.
“This?” Schlatt asked skeptically.
“It’s a modified suppression orb,” he explained. “It should suppress the influence of the mental barrier long enough for you to get out of the Nether.”
“And for the physical barrier?”
“I thought you were a drunk?” Ghostbur said. “Never play chicken with the barrier?”
Schlatt raised an eyebrow. “I was a drunk, not a fool,” he said. “What do you mean?”
“There’s a small hole in the physical barrier down the street. There’s a game where drunk people try to get as close as they can to it before being pushed back by the mental one. We’ve slowly made it a little bit bigger while we worked on the orb so you can get through easier. Follow me.”
And honestly, Schlatt’s world had been so weird since he’d first met this ghost more than half a decade ago. At this point, why wouldn’t he go following it around.
They went towards a slightly seeder area of the upper ring of the Pit. Ghostbur did not chatter on like he normally did, apparently in one of his rare serious moods. A shiver went down Schlatt’s spine at the memory of the last ‘serious mood,’ but the ghost wasn’t pissed this time at least.
Schlatt caught some of the drunks loitering around looking up at him strangely as he approached the barrier with a transparent man beside him, but he ignored them. They’d all just assume they were seeing things anyway. Even if they didn’t, who cared.
“Alright,” Ghostbur said. “I’ll meet you on the other side. Follow the blue line,” he pointed at Schlatt’s feet and Schlatt looked down to see a blue splattered line. When he looked back up, the ghost was gone. He wrapped his hand around the glowing orb and took a step into the boundaries of the mental barrier around the pit.
He could hear it instantly, like thousands of voices whispering around him that grew stronger as he took a few more steps along the blue marked path, but there was some distance between them and him, like there was a glass window separating them. He took another step forward along the draw out path and the world suddenly shifted, the light around the barrier bending and he could abruptly see the world on the other side of the barrier for the first time in his life. There was a hole there in the dark wispy wall that made up the physical barrier, and on the other side of it, just a step away stood two men. He recognized one of them even though he’d never seen him in the flesh.
The mental barrier tried one more time to shove him back, raging against whatever protection the orb gave him with angry hisses. It almost made him want to turn back despite there only being a step more to go. Yet, he did not. Instead, he took the one more step out of the Pit.
The orb glowing in his hand sputtered out the second he crossed the barrier for good. He probably couldn’t even go back if he tried.
“Hello Schlatt,” a voice said, recognizable but far too grounded to be familiar. A hand was offered to him, and with a blink Schlatt took it. “I’m Wilbur and this is Phil. How was the trip?”
“Weird,” Schlatt said squinting around at where they were. It was dark and they were surrounded by metal. “Is this the Overworld?” he asked, scrunching his nose.
Wilbur laughed. “This is a sewer,” he said. “It’s a lot nicer above ground. You’ll see.” He paused. “Also, do me a big favor. Don’t touch any soil that could possibly have a dead body buried in it until we’ve had a talk.”
“…What?”
“Long story.”